“Charge!” Half mad with excitement, I took my place with them, behind De Courcy, who rode several lengths in advance.  From a trot to a canter, from a canter to a gallop, and then with one mighty rush we swept down on the foe.  A body of horse dashed across our path; we brushed them aside like a handful of chaff, and never slackened pace.

“The Admiral!  The Admiral!  For the Cause!  Remember Jarnac!” we shouted hoarsely, as our straining animals flew over the intervening space.

Faster and faster grew the mad gallop, until, like a living whirlwind, we flung ourselves on a line of bristling pikes.

“For the Admiral!” cried our leader joyously.

“Anjou!  Anjou!” came back the defiant answer, and then we were in the midst of them.  We had made a gap, but at terrible expense.

Hotter and hotter waxed the strife; swords flashed, pikes ran red, shouts of triumph mingled with groans of despair; men went down and were trampled underfoot in the horrible press; we were tossed and buffeted from side to side, but we fought on with savage desperation, and the cry, “For the Admiral!” still rose in triumph.  Truly it could not be said that we grudged our lives that day!

And presently an answering cry of “For the Admiral!” sounded on our ears.  Our charge had not been made in vain!  Back went the enemy, slowly and stubbornly at first, fighting every inch of the ground, but still retreating.

“They give way!” cried De Courcy, who was bare-headed and wounded, “they give way!  Charge, my brave lads!”

The words decided the fortunes of the day.  With a rush and a roar we swept forward, and Anjou’s stubborn troops scattered in flight.  Forward we went in hot pursuit, but suddenly everything became dark to me; the stricken field with its mob of flying men vanished from sight, and I sank forward helplessly across my horse’s neck.

CHAPTER X

I Rejoin the Advance

“Do you know me, monsieur?  It is I—­Jacques.”

“Jacques?” I repeated dreamily.  “Where are we?  What are we doing here?  My head aches; I feel stiff all over.  Where is the letter?  Ah, I remember now.  We won the battle, Jacques?”

“Yes, monsieur.  It was a great victory.  Monseigneur’s troops were completely routed.”

I closed my eyes and lay thinking.  By degrees it all came back to me; the Admiral’s message, De Courcy’s wild charge, the terrible conflict, the flight of the royalists, and then—!  I had a strange half-consciousness of having been raised from the ground and carried some distance, but of what had really happened I had no definite knowledge.

But how came Jacques into the picture?  Surely he was not at Roche Abeille!  I opened my eyes and saw him bending over me and looking eagerly into my face.

“Jacques,” I said, “what are you doing here?”

“Nursing you, monsieur,” he answered cheerfully.  “I got to Rochelle just after you had started, and followed the army; but the battle was over when I reached Roche Abeille.”