"Good God!" I exclaimed, running up, "they have made a mistake, Louise! Dear Louise, your father will not come, and to take you back would cost my life and that of every one with me."
"Then you shall not go, Henry," she said, instantly recognising me, and holding out her arms towards me; "You will take care of me, you will protect me, till I can go back to my father in safety."
"But you are not fitly clothed, dear child, for such a night as this," I cried. "Where is my horse? Give me the cloak from the saddlebow."
And, throwing it over her shoulders, I was clasping it around her neck, when Moric Endem shook me violently by the arm, exclaiming, "Mount, mount, Seigneur de Cerons, and begone! They are already in the saddle and after us!"
I sprang upon my horse's back in a moment, snatched my spear from one of the boys, and, turning to Andriot, exclaimed, "Do you know the way back to the village?"
"Every step, sir," he answered, boldly.
"Away, then!" I cried, "away, on before! You, Moric, and the rest, accompany the lady and protect her. I will soon make these pursuers turn upon their steps."
"I stay with you, sir," replied Moric. "Arlivault and the rest, on with the lady and the boy!"
Andriot, who was a capital horseman, dashed over the side of the hill, crossed the little stream, and away across the lea, while I, with Moric, galloped down to the arquebusiers by the osier bank, and the body of lancers that I had left at the corner. We had scarcely reached them when the horses of the pursuers stopped upon the brow of the hill; and, though we could not see them, we could hear them shouting as they turned towards the camp, "Torches! bring torches! They must be down here! They cannot escape. There are many on foot, for we saw them!"
A minute after, a glare of light, as of a number of links and torches, appeared coming up from the camp, and we could see the figures of some fifteen or twenty men on horseback shining out upon the red back ground of the mingled mist and torchlight.