throwing off all
disguise, "Men to the front!" he shouted. "And you, Madame, to the rear
quickly, and the women with you! Now, men, forward, and draw! Steady!
Steady! They are coming!"

There was an instant of confusion, disorder, panic; horses jostling one
another, women screaming and clutching at men, men shaking them off and
forcing their way to the van. Fortunately the enemy did not fall on at
once, as Badelon expected, but after showing themselves in the mouth of
the valley, at a distance of three hundred paces, hung for some reason
irresolute. This gave Badelon time to array his seven swords in front;
but real resistance was out of the question, as he knew. And to none
seemed less in question than to Tignonville.

When the truth, and what he had done, broke on the young man, he sat a
moment motionless with horror. It was only when Badelon had twice
summoned him with opprobrious words that he awoke to the relief of
action. Even after that he hung an instant trying to meet the Countess's
eyes, despair in his own; but it was not to be. She had turned her head,
and was looking back, as if thence only and not from him could help come.
It was not to him she turned; and he saw it, and the justice of it. And
silent, grim, more formidable even than old Badelon, the veteran fighter,
who knew all the tricks and shifts of the _melee_, he spurred to the
flank of the line.

"Now, steady!" Badelon cried again, seeing that the enemy were beginning
to move. "Steady! Ha! Thank God, my lord! My lord is coming! Stand!
Stand!" The distant sound of galloping hoofs had reached his ear in the
nick of time. He stood in his stirrups and looked back. Yes, Count
Hannibal was coming, riding a dozen paces in front of his men. The odds
were still desperate--for he brought but six--the enemy were still three
to one. But the thunder of his hoofs as he came up checked for a moment
the enemy's onset; and before Montsoreau's people got started again Count
Hannibal had ridden up abreast of the women, and the Countess, looking at
him, knew that, desperate as was their strait, she had not looked behind
in vain. The glow of battle, the stress of the moment, had displaced the
cloud from his face; the joy of the born fighter lightened in his eye.
His voice rang clear and loud above the press.

"Badelon! wait you and two with Madame!" he cried. "Follow at fifty
paces' distance, and, when we have broken them, ride through! The ot