"Then die!" shouted Napier; and raised his shortened sword which he grasped by the blade; but endued with new energy at the prospect of instant death, Walter by a vigorous effort of strength, with one hand flung his adversary from him and pinning him to the earth in turn, unsheathed his long dagger, and while labouring under a storm of wrath and fury, drove it twice through the joints of his shining gorget, but unable to withdraw it after the second blow, sank upon his enemy, and they lay weltering together in blood.
"My bitter and my heavy curse be on thee, Walter Fenton!" hissed the dying Napier through his chattering teeth; "and if thou gettest her, may the curse of Heaven, and the curse that fell on Jeroboam be thine! mayest thou die childless, and be the last as thou art the first of thy race!" He fell back and expired.
CHAPTER XXII.
THE SWART RÜYTERS!
With burnished brand and musketoon,
So gallantly you come;
I read you for a bold dragoon,
That lists the tuck of drum.
ROKEBY.
When Walter Fenton recovered, he found himself on horseback, and his comrades on the march, beyond Crowland, and the setting sun was about to dip below the far-off horizon. A throng of thoughts chased each other through his mind, but sorrow was the prevailing one. The rage he had felt against Napier for his taunts, the hatred for his rivalry, and animosity for his politics had all passed away; he felt now the keenest sorrow for his fate, and remorse that he had fallen by his hand.
The thought did flash upon him, that by the fatal issue of the encounter, Lilian was indisputably heiress of Bruntisfield and the Wrytes, but shrinking from contemplation of it, he dismissed it from his mind, as unworthy to be dwelt upon. By him, the warm congratulations of his friends were unheeded and unheard; his whole mind was absorbed in the idea that he had slain the only kinsman of his beloved Lilian, and destroyed the last of a long and gallant race, and already in anticipation he beheld her tears, and heard the sorrowful reproaches of the proud Lady Grisel.
The appearance of the advanced party of Langstone's troopers, whom the earl knew belonged to Sir John Lanier's brigade of English horse, had considerably increased the dread of the retreating regiment. There was now every prospect of being enclosed and cut off, for independent of infantry pouring from twenty different roads upon their route, there were 6000 horse following them on the spur from the eastern and western counties. Actuated by loyalty, by dread of capture and consequent disarmment, decimation, captivity, or dispersion, they marched with great rapidity, and to cheer them on, the earl and his officers constantly encouraged them by enthusiastic addresses and encomiums, to which the brave Royals responded by shouts and cheers.
Shrill blew the fifes, and the braced drums rang briskly, as they entered upon a dreary wold to the northward of Crowland, a grassy and heathy waste, or down, over which the fading light of the setting sun shone in all its saffron splendour. On debouching from the road over which the tall poles with the slender stems of the hops twining and clambering, though leafless and faded, formed an archway through the thick and dense hop gardens that bordered each side of the way, the advanced guard uttered a shout of surprise and defiance, and halted till the main body came up.
Goring his horse, Dunbarton dashed to the front, and beheld a dense column of darkly-armed cavalry formed in line across the moor, about a gunshot distant. They were motionless as statues, and the setting sun shone full upon their serried files and glittering weapons; they were soldierlike in aspect; their helmets and corslets were of unpolished iron, as black as their long jackboots; their yellow coats, heavily cuffed, and with looped skirts, proclaimed them Dutch, Their horses were large, heavily jointed, and as phlegmatic in aspect as their riders, for the whole brigade stood motionless and still as a line of bronze statues. Even their blue standards, with, the white fess, hung pendant and unmoven.