“A plague on the wizards! who would have imagined they had divined us so craftily!” muttered Martino; “we must not abide these odds;” and the hand he had first raised for advance, now gave the signal of retreat.

Serried breast to breast and in complete order, the horsemen of Martino turned to fly; the foot rabble who had come for spoil remained but for slaughter.  They endeavoured to imitate their leaders; but how could they all elude the rushing chargers and sharp lances of their antagonists, whose blood was heated by the affray, and who regarded the lives at their mercy as a boy regards the wasp’s nest he destroys.  The crowd dispersing in all directions,—­some, indeed, escaped up the hills, where the footing was impracticable to the horses; some plunged into the river and swam across to the opposite bank—­those less cool or experienced, who fled right onwards, served, by clogging the way of their enemy, to facilitate the flight of their leaders, but fell themselves, corpse upon corpse, butchered in the unrelenting and unresisted pursuit.

“No quarter to the ruffians—­every Orsini slain is a robber the less—­strike for God, the Emperor, and the Colonna!” such were the shouts which rung the knell of the dismayed and falling fugitives.  Among those who fled onward, in the very path most accessible to the cavalry, was the young brother of Cola, so innocently mixed with the affray.  Fast he fled, dizzy with terror—­poor boy, scarce before ever parted from his parents’ or his brother’s side!—­the trees glided past him—­the banks receded:—­on he sped, and fast behind came the tramp of the hoofs—­the shouts—­the curses—­the fierce laughter of the foe, as they bounded over the dead and the dying in their path.  He was now at the spot in which his brother had left him; hastily he glanced behind, and saw the couched lance and horrent crest of the horseman close at his rear; despairingly he looked up, and behold! his brother bursting through the tangled brakes that clothed the mountain, and bounding to his succour.

“Save me! save me, brother!” he shrieked aloud, and the shriek reached Cola’s ear;—­the snort of the fiery charger breathed hot upon him;—­a moment more, and with one wild shrill cry of “Mercy, mercy” he fell to the ground—­a corpse:  the lance of the pursuer passing through and through him, from back to breast, and nailing him on the very sod where he had sate, full of young life and careless hope, not an hour ago.

The horseman plucked forth his spear, and passed on in pursuit of new victims; his comrades following.  Cola had descended,—­was on the spot,—­kneeling by his murdered brother.  Presently, to the sound of horn and trumpet, came by a nobler company than most of those hitherto engaged; who had been, indeed, but the advanced-guard of the Colonna.  At their head rode a man in years, whose long white hair escaped from his plumed cap and mingled with his venerable beard.  “How is this?” said the chief, reining in his steed, “young Rienzi!”