ld's breathing was
horrible to hear when they stooped and lifted him; Alixe was
crying. They laid him on the blood-soaked straw; Alixe crept in
beside him and took his head on her knees.

"To Morteyn?" whispered Jack. "Perhaps we can find a surgeon
nearer--"

"Oh, hurry!" she sobbed; and he climbed heavily to the seat and
started back towards the road.

The road was empty where he turned in out of the fields, but,
just above, he heard cannon thundering in the mist. As he drew in
the reins, undecided, the cannonade suddenly redoubled in fury;
the infantry fire blazed out with a new violence; above the
terrific blast he heard trumpets sounding, and beneath it he felt
the vibration of the earth; horses were neighing out beyond the
smoke; a thousand voices rose in a far, hoarse shout:

"Hurrah! Preussen!"

The Prussian cavalry were charging the cannon.

Suddenly he heard them close at hand; they loomed everywhere in
the smoke, they were among the infantry, among the cannoneers; a
tall rider in silver helmet and armour plunged out into the road
behind them, his horse staggered, trembled, then man and beast
collapsed in a shower of bullets. Others were coming, too,
galloping in through the grain stubble and thickets, shaking
their long, straight sabres, but the infantry chased them, and
fell upon them, clubbing, shooting, stabbing, pulling horses and
men to earth. The cannon, which had ceased, began again; the
infantry were cheering; trumpets blew persistently, faintly and
more faintly. In the road a big, bearded man was crawling on his
hands and knees away from a dead horse. His helmet fell off in
the dust.

Jack gathered the reins and called to the horse. As the heavy
cart moved off, the ground began to tremble again with the shock
of on-coming horses, and again, through the swelling tumult, he
caught the cry--

"Hurrah! Preussen!"

The Prussian cuirassiers were coming back.

"Is Sir Thorald dying?" he asked of Alixe; "can he live if I lash
the horse?"

"Look at him, Jack," she muttered.

"I see; he cannot live. I shall drive slowly. You--you are
wounded, are you? there--on the neck--"

"It is his blood on my breast."

XXI

THE WHITE CROSS

At ten o'clock that night Jack stepped from the ballroom to the
terrace of the Chateau Morteyn and listened to the distant murmur
of the river Lisse, below the meadow. The day of horror had ended
with a dozen dropping shots from the outposts, now lining