“He’s down!” said Bevis. “They’ve got him.”
He could see Mark Antony, who had risen out of the hollow; thus caught between two forces, Scipio pushing in front, the Pompeians broke and scattered to the right in a straggling line.
“Hurrah! But where’s Ted? Hurrah!”
Bevis was so absorbed in the spectacle that, though the fight was only a short distance from him, the impulse to join it did not move him. He was lost in the sight.
“They’re running!”
“I’ve got you!”
Ted Pompey pounced on him from behind the sycamore-tree; Bevis involuntarily started forward, just escaping his clutch, struck, parried, and struck again.
Pompey, while driven backwards step by step by Scipio, had suddenly caught sight of Bevis standing alone by the sycamore. He slipped from Scipio, and ran round just as Bevis looked up at the cracking bough, and Mark sprang out of the hollow. Scipio’s soldiers shouted, seeing Pompey as they thought running away. Mark for a moment could not understand what had become of him, the next he was occupied in driving the Pompeians as they yielded ground. Pompey running swiftly got round behind the tree and darted on Caesar, whose strategy had left him alone, intending to grasp him and seize him by main force.
Caesar Bevis slipped from him by the breadth of half an inch.
Pompey hit hard, twice, thrice; crash, clatter. His arm was strong, and the sword fell heavy; rattle, crash. He hit his hardest, fearing help would come to Bevis. Swish! slash!