But it was uncertain and awkward progress at best. Goddard had a pike and an arquebus, while De Brésac and I had each a poniard and a rapier. Twice I fell prone to the ground over the tree trunks and bushes, and once had overrun Goddard in the dark and we two had fallen, rolling over in a monstrous tangle. The sound of the pursuit was growing louder every minute; De Brésac paused, impatient at our awkwardness. He could have got well away had he wished, but he only stood there as we stumbled to our feet, the sound of men crashing through the bushes showing how near were the more fleet-footed of these Spaniards. It was desperate work for heavy men. Off we started once more, De Brésac seizing the arquebus to lighten the burden of Goddard, who was swearing and trying to rub his shin, which he had bruised most severely, with his pike-handle.
We came to an open space two hundred yards or so in width in which the Indians had planted a field of maize. But the crop had been garnered and only the short stalks remained. The moon had come out and it seemed hardly possible that we could get across this open and escape discovery. Could we but reach the other side where the deeper forest began there would seem to be less chance of immediate capture. Goddard was well-nigh done, but managed to struggle on over the rough loam toward an opening in the bush beyond. De Brésac had passed him and entered the wood, and I had come to his side, when behind us there was a loud shouting and two soldiers, stripped of their armor, emerged from the forest and came toward us at the top of their speed.
De Brésac stopped and dropped down upon one knee, and I knew what he meant to do. Goddard fell almost exhausted beside him and I crouched behind a bush a little to the rear, awaiting the coming of our adversaries. We were all breathing very hard, but De Brésac, full of vitality, was crouched like a cat ready to spring.
“The one in front,” said he to me in a whisper, “I will account for the other.”
On the Spaniards came, leaping from one hillock to another, their naked weapons gleaming fitfully in the moonlight. The fellow in advance was but a boy; his hair was fair and he was comely to see. My heart misgave me as he came nearer, rushing onward fearlessly. But it was his life or mine,—my life and Mademoiselle’s, perhaps—and so I did not hesitate, rising just as he came into the shadow of the trees and running him through with such force that the basket hilt of the weapon struck against him and as he fell the blade broke short off against the ground. The other man, seeing the fate of his comrade, paused for a moment; but De Brésac was upon him like a flash and sent his sword a-flying. After all, these lives in the heat of action were few enough against those of all our friends who had been murdered in cold blood before.
Then De Brésac, who was a man of ingenuity, drew the bodies under some bushes and we started off along in the shadow of the woods at the edge of the clearing toward the left—doubling in a way upon our own track to throw our pursuers the more surely off in another direction.
We saw two, and then six more, of them go flying across the clearing, following the track of our boots in the soft earth; but they did not pause, going crashing through and shouting to one another until the sounds were lost in the many voices of the night. We were free—at least for the present.
We looked around the one to the other, and long breaths burst at the same moment from the three of us.
“Phew! Master Sydney,” said Goddard, pulling his beard, which had been glued to his cheeks, “’tis little I thought I’d ever get up in this dis-guise, sir. Odds bobs, but I’m done! I’ve been feedin’ up this night, to last a week, sir,—an’ me stommick—is somethin’ feeble—since—this—smoke—suckin’.” He fell to the ground, breathing like a bellows, and vowed he would move no more.