d
they had need to haste, for it was easy to foresee that as soon as the
cry of victory behind their backs had changed into a cry of fury, it
would be a sign that Fatia Negra's band was rushing after them.

And, indeed, scarce a quarter of an hour had elapsed, when they could
perceive clouds of dust whirling up behind them which proved that the
audacious adventurers, after discovering the fraud, were actually in
pursuit.

What unheard of audacity! In broad daylight, on the King's highway,
within the borders of a highly civilized, well-organized state, a troop
of adventurers dares to attack an equal number of trained soldiers. Gold
must have turned the heads of the men who had the audacity to do such a
thing! Yet they did it.

The soldiers saw the cloud of dust behind their backs gradually draw
nearer, the neutral ground between gradually diminished, the fellows
were capitally mounted, there could be no doubt of that.

The lieutenant ordered his men to halt and face the foolhardy bandits.
He arranged them two deep and spread them out so that they extended
right across the road. He himself stood in the centre a little in
advance of the rest; the civilians were in the rear.

Presently single shapes were discernible through the approaching cloud
of dust. The robbers were galloping along in no regular order with
intervals of from ten to twenty yards between each one of them.

More than a thousand yards in front of his comrades galloped Fatia
Negra. His splendid English thoroughbred, as if it would outstrip the
blast which whirled the dust aloft, flew along with him and seemed to
share the blind fury of his master who waved his flashing sword above
his horse's head and bellowed at his opponents from afar like a wild
beast.

"We'll seize the fellow before his companions come up," said the
lieutenant to his men. "Cut him down from his horse and capture him
alive."

"Hurrah!" roared the lonely horseman, now only a yard off.
"Hurrah!"--the next moment he was in the midst of them.

And now began a contest which, had it been recorded in the chronicles of
the Crusades, would have been regarded as an act of heroism that only
awaited immortality from a poet great enough to sing it. Fatia Negra,
alone and surrounded, fought single-handed in the midst of the hostile
band. His light sword flashing in his hand like lightning, never stayed
to parry but attacked incessantly. Handless swords and headless shakos
flew around him in