But he heard something; the sound of the wading horses, that made by his own now ceased from their being at a stand.
And soon he saw the moving ones; the clouds, by like caprice, having quickly drawn off their screen, letting full moonlight down upon the water. Saw them with alarm; for a dark mass was that in motion, too dark and too large for the score or so of files that had been detached as a guard.
“Gott, Colonel!” he exclaimed, “there are more men there than we left with Trevor. And why should he be coming on contrary to orders? It cannot be he?”
“Very strange if it be, Prince,” rejoined Lunsford, the colonel spoken to; “and stranger still if not.”
“Could a party have slipped past without the guard seeing them?”
“Hardly possible, your Highness; unless by some swimming, and a long roundabout way. These seem to come direct from it.”
The two talked hurriedly, and with dismay upon their faces. For the dark mysterious thing, still drawing nigher and nearer, seemed some unearthly monster—a hydra approaching to destroy them.
There was no time for further conjecturing. Friend or enemy, it must be met face to face; and Rupert, commanding the “about,” put spur to his horse and started towards the rear of the line.
Time elapsed ere he could reach it. The deep water, with the men wheeling in file, impeded him; and, before he was half-way rearward, there were shots, shouts, and the clashing of steel—all the sounds of a conflict. The monster had closed up, and declared its character, as could be told by the hostile war words “King?” and “Parliament?” fiercely commingling.
Never shone moon on a stranger affair in the way of fight. Two long strings of horsemen confronting one another on a narrow causeway, where less than half a score of each could come to blows; no engaging in line, no turning, or flank attack, possible. And all up to the saddle flaps in water; up to the horses’ hips where the fighting was hand to hand.