They came in sight of the fugitives at the town of Osweicin, where some of the gentlemen had dismounted to rest and refresh themselves for an hour. But when they caught sight of the Tartar troops they did not tarry long, you may be sure, but put spurs to their horses, and fled as fast as they could.
Then there followed a royal chase, in which the King was the hunted instead of the hunter—the King and his cavaliers urging their tired horses to their utmost speed in front; following fast behind, Karnkowski, in his coach and six, the wild troop of Tartar bowmen, and the disorderly mob bringing up the rear.
Henry and his gentlemen rode fast and well. They crossed the Vistula on a bridge of planks, which the cavaliers destroyed just as their pursuers came up; and as they rode on they left their Tartar enemies howling with rage and gnashing their teeth, as they saw the river rolling between them and the fugitives, and knew they must go six miles around in order to come up with them.
The danger was over now. They did not overtake Henry until after he had passed the frontier town of Plesse, and they dared not capture him on Austrian territory.
Count Teuczin therefore approached the King, accompanied only by five Tartars, and delivered his message from the Senate to entreat him to return, and offering his own fealty to the King. Henry refused to return, but he sent back fair words to the Senate, and they parted amicably, Henry to pursue his journey to Vienna, where he arrived without further adventures, the Count to return sadly to Cracow to announce the escape of their King to the magnates of Poland.
But in my opinion if they had had Henry to rule over them four years instead of four months, far from grieving over his loss, they would have considered themselves well rid of him; for lazy, selfish, cowardly, false, and cruel as he was, they might have sought the wide world over without finding a worse King than Henry III. of Valois.
[THE NEW SCHOLAR.]
BY EMILY H. LELAND.
Elbert Collins had never been marked absent or tardy since his first going to school in September, and it was his ambition to finish the whole year without a "mark," partly because he really liked to be prompt, and partly because he thought it would be so nice to see his name in the paper at the end of the school year.