“Avengers of your Lord,” exclaimed the stout yeoman—“strike deep, every man into the flanks of his steed!”
“The curse,” shrieked a hollow voice, “The Curse of Aldarin!”
“Strike,—I say—strike!”
The daggers sunk into the flanks of the horses, buried to the hilts; the Moors leaped back; the maddened steeds sprang forward, with one wild bound, straining every sinew in the effort to free themselves from their accursed burden.
It was in vain.
They sank back, with a maddening howl, each steed upon his haunches, the accursed fratricide uttered a yell of intense and overwhelming agony—it died on his lips!
With eyes of fire with streaming manes, their nostrils extended, and all their vigour gathered for the effort, the steeds again leaped forward, springing madly from each other, and darting into the air, with one terrible impulse—
The scene swam for an instant before the vision of the spectators.
They looked again. A limbless trunk lay in the dust of the highway, spouting streams of blood—along the green meadow careered two black steeds—through the dense forest thundered the others.
One of the men-at-arms, approaching the carcass, gazed for a moment at the dread face. His eye glanced over expressions of the features, convulsed by the throes of the parting soul; the eye yet fired with hate, the lip curved with scorn; the sunken jaw oozing blood from every pore; the quivering flesh and changing hues of the visage. All the ghastliness and fear of this countenance, met his vision at a glance; he uttered a howl of horror, and fell stiffened upon the earth, as the last spark of life fled from the remains of the fratricide. When the soldier awoke, his eye was vacant, and his reason gone. He was a maniac! He had received the last words of the Doomed, and the Curse was on him forever.