Francesco made a
wild attempt to save the roan that had served him so gallantly, but he
was too late. It came down to impale itself upon that waiting partisan.
With a hideous scream the horse sank upon its slayer, crushing him
beneath its mighty weight, and hurling its rider forward on to the
ground. In an instant he was up and had turned, for all that he was
half-stunned by his fall and weakened by the loss of blood from a pike-
thrust in the shoulder--of which he had hitherto remained unconscious in
the heat of battle. Two mercenaries were bearing down upon him--the same
two that had been the last to fall back before him. He braced himself to
meet them, thinking that his last hour was indeed come, when Fanfulla
degli Arcipreti, who had followed him closely through the press, now
descended upon his assailants from behind, and rode them down. Beside
the Count he reined up, and stretched down his hand.
"Mount behind me, Excellency," he urged him.
"There is not time," answered Francesco, who discerned a half-dozen
figures hurrying towards them. "I will cling to your stirrup-leather,
thus. Now spur!" And without waiting for Fanfulla to obey him, he caught
the horse a blow with the flat of his sword across the hams, which sent
it bounding forward. Thus they continued now that perilous descent,
Fanfulla riding, and the Count half-running, half-swinging from his
stirrup. At last, when they had covered a half-mile in this fashion, and
the going had grown easier, they halted that the Count might mount behind
his companion, and as they now rode along at an easier pace Francesco
realised that he and Fanfulla were the only two that had come through
that ugly place.
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