ree horses were fully in sight some fifty yards away,
just as the man sat up again and began to urge them on from their walk,
when he suddenly caught sight of Denis in the act of drawing his sword
in the middle of the lane to bar his way.

The effect was to make him pull up short, and then with a cry to the
horses he swung them round and set off back at a canter, to disappear
round the bend directly after, with Denis running far in his rear.

"Now," panted the lad, "if Saint Simon has only done his work we have
him between us." And he tried to utter a prolonged whistle, which he
hoped might reach his charger's ear; but he had not breath to give more
than the faintest call.

"Oh, if I could only run ten times as fast!" he groaned. "I know what
he'll do. He will get them into a gallop, and ride my poor comrade
down. If I were only at his side! And I seem to crawl!"

But he was running pretty fast, though to his misery he heard the dull
_thud, thud_ of the cantering horses grow fainter and fainter till it
seemed to die right away.

"Sim's let them pass him," he groaned piteously. "_No_! No! No!" he
literally yelled. "They are coming back! Saint Simon's turned them,
and it will be my chance after all."

For still invisible, after the thudding of the hoofs had quite died out,
the sounds came again; then louder, louder, and louder still, coming
nearer and nearer, till all at once the noble animals swept into sight
again round the curving lane, galloping excited and snorting, Saint
Simon's horse right in the centre being urged forward by the rider,
while the other two hung away right and left to the full extent of their
reins. While perfectly unconscious of his peril, thinking of nothing
but checking the headlong gallop, the lad stood with extended blade
right in the middle of the lane.

It seemed an act of madness. Certainly he was a well-built youth,
accustomed to athletic exercises, but as a barrier to three fine
chargers urged by the rider of the centre one forward at a hand gallop,
and armed only with a long thin Andrea Ferrara blade, he seemed but a
fragile reed to stem the charge. But the unexpected happens more often
than the reverse, and it was so here. One minute the horses were
tearing along as far apart as the reins would allow; the next they
seemed to have passed over the brave youth, and went galloping down the
lane at increasing speed, leaving Denis flat upon his back in the middle
of the r