eyond. A shout went up from
those who stood watching. The next moment the prostrate figure rose and
staggered blindly to the side of the bridge, and stood leaning against
the stone wall.

At the further end of the bridge Baron Henry had wheeled his horse. Once
again he couched lance, and again he drove down upon his bruised and
wounded enemy. This time the lance struck full and fair, and those who
watched saw the steel point pierce the iron breast-plate and then snap
short, leaving the barbed point within the wound.

Baron Conrad sunk to his knees and the Roderburg, looming upon his horse
above him, unsheathed his sword to finish the work he had begun.

Then those who stood looking on saw a wondrous thing happen: the wounded
man rose suddenly to his feet, and before his enemy could strike he
leaped, with a great and bitter cry of agony and despair, upon him as he
sat in the saddle above.

Henry of Trutz-Drachen grasped at his horse's mane, but the attack
was so fierce, so sudden, and so unexpected that before he could save
himself he was dragged to one side and fell crashing in his armor upon
the stone roadway of the bridge.

"The dragon! the dragon!" roared Baron Conrad, in a voice of thunder,
and with the energy of despair he dragged his prostrate foe toward the
open side of the bridge.

"Forward!" cried the chief of the Trutz-Drachen men, and down they rode
upon the struggling knights to the rescue of their master in this new
danger. But they were too late.

There was a pause at the edge of the bridge, for Baron Henry had gained
his feet and, stunned and bewildered as he was by the suddenness of his
fall, he was now struggling fiercely, desperately. For a moment they
stood swaying backward and forward, clasped in one another's arms, the
blood from the wounded man's breast staining the armor of both. The
moment passed and then, with a shower of stones and mortar from beneath
their iron-shod heels, they toppled and fell; there was a thunderous
splash in the water below, and as the men-at-arms came hurrying up and
peered with awe-struck faces over the parapet of the bridge, they saw
the whirling eddies sweep down with the current of the stream, a few
bubbles rise to the surface of the water, and then--nothing; for the
smooth river flowed onward as silently as ever.

Presently a loud voice burst through the awed hush that followed. It
came from William of Roderburg, Baron Henry's kinsman.

"Forward!" he cried.