was happening except just in front, and to avoid the blows levelled at
him was all that Raymond was able to think of for many long minutes --
minutes that seemed more like hours.

When the press became a little less thick about him, Raymond looked
round for his brother, but could not see him. A body of riders, moving
in a compact wedge, had forced themselves in between himself and Gaston.
He saw the white plume in his brother's helmet waving at some distance
away to the left, but when he tried to rein in his horse and reach him,
he still found himself surrounded by the same phalanx of mounted
soldiers, who kept pressing him by sheer weight on and on away to the
right, though the tide of battle was most distinctly rolling to the
left. The French were flying promiscuously back to their lines, and the
English soldiers were in hot pursuit.

Raymond was no longer amid foes. He had long since ceased to have to use
his sword either for attack or defence, but he could not check the
headlong pace of his mettlesome little barb, nor could he by any
exertion of strength turn the creature's head in any other direction. As
he was in the midst of those he looked upon as friends, he had no
uneasiness as to his own position, even though entirely separated from
Gaston and Roger, who generally kept close at his side. He was so little
used of late to the manoeuvres of war, that he fancied this headlong
gallop, in which he was taking an involuntary part, might be the result
of military tactics, and that he should see its use presently.

But as he and his comrades flew over the ground, and the din of the
battle died away in his ears, and the last of the evening sunlight faded
from the sky, a strange sense of coming ill fell upon Raymond's spirit.
Again he made a most resolute and determined effort to check the fiery
little creature he rode, who seemed as if his feet were furnished with
wings, so fast he spurned the ground beneath his hoofs.

Then for the first time the youth found that this mad pace was caused by
regular goading from the silent riders who surrounded him. Turning in
his saddle he saw that these men were one and all engaged in pricking
and spurring on the impetuous little steed; and as he cast a keen and
searching look at these strange riders, he saw that they all wore in
their steel caps the black tuft of the followers of the Black Visor and
his sable-coated companion, and that these two leaders rode themselves a
little