“Good friend!” he said, and the next moment we were free.
“Gallop! Gallop!” It was Jean’s voice at my bridle-rein, but we needed no word to urge us as we dashed forward, Ponthieu at my right hand and Badehorn, who had cunningly got clear at the beginning of things, a good quarter-mile ahead.
Ah! But it was with a glad heart that I rode on. I had felt Ponthieu’s fate to be like a mill-stone round my neck, and now he was free, and it was my sword that had helped to free him! It was to me an omen of the future, and for very lightness of soul I could have turned back for yet another pass with de Rabutin’s men, who came pressing behind, cursing as they fired their pistols after us in vain.
We all but gave them the slip in the forest of Amboise. Here, while we galloped through the withered, but wet and dripping underwood, tearing our faces and hands with the thorns and overhanging branches, the gray tree trunks flitted by like shadows, and the white snow-covered glades seemed to open and shut like fans as we sped past them. Beneath us we could hear the breathing of the horses, and behind came shout and halloo, answered by a hundred echoes, until the dim forest seemed to ring again with the voices of those who sought our death. But our horses went fast, and we rode hard, for safety lay in front and there was no mercy behind, and at last cry and echo died away, and there was a silence. We had distanced them, as we thought, and we pulled up for a moment to breathe the nags.
“We must take to the open Sologne if we wish to reach Nanteuil,” said Marcilly, loosening a holster flap, and, turning sharply to our right, we trotted out of the cover of the trees into the rough moorland.
It was a necessary but unfortunate thing, for as we rode out we were spied once more by the troopers, and with a yell they came on. It was perhaps well for us that there were not more than about a half-dozen of them. As I turned in my saddle to glance back, I noticed that there was but this number at our heels, and could we but reach the Beuvron there was every chance of safety among the yoke elms and chestnuts of Russy. For ourselves, I felt this was possible, but as I looked at Ponthieu, and saw the heaving flanks of his horse, I began to fear for the issue of our ride. It would, of course, be impossible to desert him now; at any hazard we must stand or fall together. The Gascon caught my eye as I looked up from his horse and laughed at me.
“There is a half-mile or so in him yet, Vibrac,” and he swung his sword, and hallooed the horses on.
We had a good start, but our beasts were already nearly blown, and we began to feel that the end could not be far.
“We must fight at the Masse,” said Marcilly, as he brought his nag with an effort alongside mine.
“Now, if you like,” I answered; but he shook his head, and pointed before him to the low line of willows that showed where the Masse crept. How we rode for those few hundred yards! How the very horses seemed to know the danger behind! And somehow we managed it, all four of us, though, as we splashed out of the stream and up the opposite bank, our pursuers were not more than a hundred paces away. As we gained the bank, Ponthieu sprang from his saddle, pistol in hand.