"Come!" cried my lady imperatively, as she turned in her saddle with a gesture of defiance. "Come! It is all right."
Come, indeed! I wanted nothing better, for I was beside myself with passion. But, flog as I might, I could not get Anne's brute to take the plunge. The girl herself could give me no aid; clinging to her saddle, pale and half-fainting, she could only beg me to leave her, crying out again and again in a terrified voice that she would be drowned. With her cry there suddenly mingled another, the hail of our pursuers as they sighted us. I could hear them drawing nearer, and I grew desperate. Luckily they could not make any speed in water so deep, and time was given me for one last furious effort. It succeeded. My horse literally fell into the stream; it dragged Anne's after it. How we kept our seats, how they their footing, I never understood; but, somehow, splashing and stumbling and blinded by the water dashed in our faces, we came out on the other side, where the Duchess and her husband, too faithful to us to save themselves, had watched the struggle in an agony of suspense. I did but fling the girl's rein to Master Bertie; and then I wheeled my horse to the stream again. I had made up my mind what I must do. "Go on," I cried, waving my hand with a gesture of farewell. "Go on! I can keep them here for a while."
"Nonsense!" I heard the Duchess cry, her voice high and shrill. "It is----"
"Go on!" I cried. "Go on! Do not lose a moment, or it will be useless."
Master Bertie hesitated. But he too saw that this was the only chance. The Spaniards were on the brink of the stream now, and must, if they passed it, overtake us easily. He hesitated, I have said, for a moment. Then he seized his wife's rein and drew her on, and I heard the three horses go splashing away through the flood. I threw a glance at them over my shoulder, bethinking me that I had not told the Duchess my story, and that Sir Anthony and Petronilla would never--but, pish! What was I thinking of? That was a thought for a woman. I had only to harden my heart now, and set my teeth together. My task was very simple indeed. I had just to keep these men--there were four--here as long as I could, and if possible to stop Clarence's pursuit altogether.
For I had made no mistake. The first man to come up was Clarence--Clarence himself. He let fall a savage word as his horse stopped suddenly with its fore feet spread out on the edge of the stream, and his dark face grew darker as he saw the swirling eddies, and me standing fronting him in the moonlight with my sword out. He discerned at once, I think, the strength of my position. Where I stood the water was scarcely over my horse's fetlocks. Where he stood it was over his horse's knees. And between us it flowed nearly four feet deep.
He held a hasty parley with his companions. And then he hailed me. "Will you surrender?" he cried in English. "We will give you quarter."
"Surrender? To whom?" I said. "And why--why should I surrender? Are you robbers and cutpurses?"
"Surrender in the name of the Emperor, you fool!" he answered sternly and roughly.
"I know nothing about the Emperor!" I retorted. "What Emperor?"