"Ho! ho! ho!" the leader replied. "Very well, very well. 'Tis as I thought. That man is English; he is denounced this night. As for you, the accursed English have many possessions wherein our tongue is spoken. We understand."
And he gave, as I supposed, some order, since all advanced their animals a few paces nearer, while, as they did so, Juan whispered to me in the French: "Be ready, but do nothing yet."
"You will return to Chantada with us," the spokesman said, sitting his horse quietly enough, yet with the blade of his drawn sword glistening in the moonbeams as it lay across the creature's neck--as, I observed, did the blades of all the others. "That finishes our affair. For the rest you will answer to the Regidór."
"We shall not return. Our way lies on."
"So be it. Then we must take you," and, as he spoke, I saw a movement of his knee--of all their knees--that told me they meant to seize us.
And I knew that the time had come.
"At them!" cried Juan at the same moment. "Advance, Mervan!"
A touch to the curb, and my beast fell back--'twas a good animal, that! had, I believe, been a charger in its day, so well it seemed to know its work--then a free rein and another touch of the heel, and I was amongst them, my sword darting like lightning around. Also, at my rear, came the jennet's head; near me there flashed the steel of Juan's lighter weapon; and in a moment we had crashed through them--they fell away on either side of us like waves from a ship's forefoot!--fell away for a moment, though closing again in an instant.
"Return and charge!" I cried to Juan, still in French. "At them again! See, one has got his quietus already!" As, indeed, he had, for the great fellow was hanging over his horse's neck, in a limp and listless fashion, which showed that he was done for. But now those four closed together as we went at them, Juan stirrup to stirrup with me in this second charge, and our tactics had to be changed. We could no longer burst through them, so that it was a hand-to-hand fight now; they had pistols in their holsters, but no chance to use them; they could not spare a hand to find those holsters--could not risk our swords through their unguarded breasts; wherefore we set to work, blade to blade.
We should have won, I do believe. Already I had thrust through and through one man's arm--as luck would have it, 'twas not the sword arm--already they backed before our rain of blows and cuts and thrusts, when, by untoward fate, my horse stumbled on the frosty road and came down; came down upon his haunches, slipping me from the saddle over the cantle and so to the earth; then regained its hind legs once more and dashed out from the fray.