s,
but time and again we flung them back, and at last, with one superb
effort, hurled their front rank into ruin.

"The day goes well," cried Felix exultingly, as we galloped back to our
lines. "Anjou will remember Montcontour!"

In every part of the field the fight now raged fiercely, and, wherever
the stress was greatest, there, as if by magic, appeared Coligny. His
escort steadily decreased in numbers; one died here, while supporting a
body of infantry, another dropped during some wild charge; but our
general himself, though fighting like a common trooper, appeared
invulnerable.

Wherever he was, there victory followed our arms; but the odds against
us were too heavy. Our men stood in their places and fought to the
death; but their limbs grew tired, their arms ached with the strain;
they needed rest. All our troops, however, were in the fighting-line,
and the royalist attacks never ceased.

Anjou fed his lines constantly; fresh troops took the places of the
fallen; we might slay and slay, but the number of our enemies never
seemed to lessen. And in the midst of the terrible uproar a cry arose
that our centre was wavering. For an hour or more a battle of giants had
been taking place there. In front of our infantry the dead lay piled in
a heap, but for every royalist who died Anjou sent another.

The strain was too great to be borne. Our men were beginning to give
way, and once more we galloped with the Admiral at headlong speed toward
the point of danger. We were too late; we should perhaps have been too
late in any case. The royalist foot-soldiers opened out, and from behind
them poured impetuously a body of horsemen.

They struck us full, rode us down, leaped at the infantry, forced a
passage here and there, cut and slashed without mercy, yelling like
tigers, "Death to the Huguenots!"

Coligny was wounded, his face bled; I thought he would have fallen from
his saddle; but, recovering himself, he called on us to follow him and
dashed at the victorious horsemen. Our numbers were few and no help
could reach us. We called on our men to stand firm, to fight for the
Admiral, to remember their wives and children--it was all in vain.

We were borne along in one struggling, confused mass, horse and foot,
royalists and Huguenots all mingled together.

"Anjou! Anjou!" shouted the victors in wild exultation, while the cries
of "For the Admiral! For the Faith!" became weaker and weaker. In that
part of the field the b