recision at his adventurous enemy. The rider shrieked and fell, and
rose no more: the mare, relieved from her burthen, exerted all her
failing energies, and succeeded in gaining the opposite bank. There,
rolling herself in the welcome pasture, and neighing with a note of
triumph, she revelled in her hard escape.

"Cut down the Giaour!" exclaimed one of the horsemen, and he dashed
at the bridge. His fragile blade shivered into a thousand pieces as it
crossed the scimitar of Iskander, and in a moment his bleeding head fell
over the parapet.

Instantly the whole band, each emulous of revenging his comrades, rushed
without thought at Iskander, and endeavoured to overpower him by their
irresistible charge. His scimitar flashed like lightning. The two
foremost of his enemies fell, but the impulse of the numbers prevailed,
and each instant, although dealing destruction with every blow, he felt
himself losing ground. At length he was on the centre of the centre
arch, an eminent position, which allowed him for a moment to keep
them at bay, and gave him breathing time. Suddenly he made a desperate
charge, clove the head of the leader of the band in two, and beat them
back several yards; then swiftly returning to his former position, he
summoned all his supernatural strength, and stamping on the mighty, but
mouldering keystone, he forced it from its form, and broke the masonry
of a thousand years. Amid a loud and awful shriek, horses and horsemen,
and the dissolving fragments of the scene for a moment mingled as it
were in airy chaos, and then plunged with a horrible plash into the
fatal depths below. Some fell, and, stunned by the massy fragments, rose
no more; others struggled again into light, and gained with difficulty
their old shore. Amid them, Iskander, unhurt, swam like a river god, and
stabbed to the heart the only strong swimmer that was making his way
in the direction of Epirus. Drenched and exhausted, Iskander at length
stood upon the opposite margin, and wrung his garments, while he watched
the scene of strange destruction.

Three or four exhausted wretches were lying bruised and breathless on
the opposite bank: one drowned horse was stranded near them, caught by
the rushes. Of all that brave company the rest had vanished, and the
broad, and blue, and sunny waters rushed without a shadow beneath the
two remaining arches.

"Iduna! thou art safe," exclaimed Iskander. "Now for Epirus!" So
saying, he seized the black