No Quarter! Part 59

CHAPTER SIXTY EIGHT.

A FIGHT IN A FLOOD.

Still but half-way across the inundated tract, and up to their saddle-girths in water, Rupert and his escort were floundering on. As already said, they marched "by twos"--this necessitated by the narrowness of the causeway--and so were lengthened in line. Two hundred horse in file formation take up a long stretch of road, however close the order.

They had not yet sighted the enemy behind, nor had any intimation that one was there. For the snapping up of the guard had been done with little noise, the few shouts uttered being inaudible to them amid the continuous splas.h.i.+ng and plunging of their own horses.

It was only after the pursuing party was well out into the flood, clear of the tree-shadowed sh.o.r.e, that some of the hindmost, chancing to look back, saw what they took to be their rear-guard in the water and riding after them. Saw it with surprise, as the signal for its advance had not been given; no note of bugle sounded. Neither could it be in retreat, driven in. There had been no firing, not a shot; and, by the Prince's orders, there should have been a prolonged fusilade Guard of his, rear or van, retiring from its post without execution of his commands, had better have stayed and delivered itself up to the enemy.

Well knowing this, they who first sighted the pursuers, thinking them of their own, were enough astonished to give way to e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns. Which ran along the line quick as lightning.

"What is it?" demanded he at the head, on hearing them.

"The rear-guard, your Highness," answered one away at the back.

"They're coming on after us."

"Halt!" shouted the Prince, in a voice of thunder, half-wheeling his horse, spurring out to the utmost edge of firm footing, and, with craned neck, looking back land-ward.

For a time to see nothing much beyond the tail end of his escort. Only the grey glimmer of water, with here and there the top of a pollard willow. For the capricious clouds had once more m.u.f.fled the moon.

But he heard something; the sound of the wading horses, that made by his own now ceased from their being at a stand.

And soon he saw the moving ones; the clouds, by like caprice, having quickly drawn off their screen, letting full moonlight down upon the water. Saw them with alarm; for a dark ma.s.s was that in motion, too dark and too large for the score or so of files that had been detached as a guard.

"_Gott_, Colonel!" he exclaimed, "there are more men there than we left with Trevor. And why should he be coming on contrary to orders? It cannot be he?"

"Very strange if it be, Prince," rejoined Lunsford, the colonel spoken to; "and stranger still if not."

"Could a party have slipped past without the guard seeing them?"

"Hardly possible, your Highness; unless by some swimming, and a long roundabout way. These seem to come direct from it."

The two talked hurriedly, and with dismay upon their faces. For the dark mysterious thing, still drawing nigher and nearer, seemed some unearthly monster--a hydra approaching to destroy them.

There was no time for further conjecturing. Friend or enemy, it must be met face to face; and Rupert, commanding the "about," put spur to his horse and started towards the rear of the line.

Time elapsed ere he could reach it. The deep water, with the men wheeling in file, impeded him; and, before he was half-way rearward, there were shots, shouts, and the clas.h.i.+ng of steel--all the sounds of a conflict. The monster had closed up, and declared its character, as could be told by the hostile war words "King?" and "Parliament?"

fiercely commingling.

Never shone moon on a stranger affair in the way of fight. Two long strings of hors.e.m.e.n confronting one another on a narrow causeway, where less than half a score of each could come to blows; no engaging in line, no turning, or flank attack, possible. And all up to the saddle flaps in water; up to the horses' hips where the fighting was hand to hand.

Nor for long did it last. Little more than a minute after coming to close quarters the Royalists found themselves overmatched, and began to give way. File after file went down before their impetuous a.s.sailants, sabred, or shot out of their saddles, till at length they doubled back on their line in retreat towards its former front. Some, in panic, forsook the causeway altogether, plunging into the flood on either side, in the hope to escape by swimming afar off.

Sword in hand, with curses on his lips, Rupert met the rout, bursting his way through the broken ranks, slas.h.i.+ng right and left in an endeavour to stem the retreat. More than one of his own men fell before his desperate fury. But on reaching the rear, he had to cross blades with a man who was his master at sword-play, and all the skill appertaining. Which he knew, soon as coming to the "engage," and in his antagonist recognising Sir Richard Walwyn.

It was quick work between them; at the very first lunge from guard, the Prince's sword getting whipped out of his hand, and sent whirling off into the water! The old trick by which Sir Richard had disarmed the ex-gentleman-usher.

With a fierce oath Rupert drew a pistol from his holster, and was about to fire at his adroit adversary, when another face presented itself before him, that of a man he had better reason to shoot down.

"Dog! Traitor! Turncoat!" he shouted, in tone of vengeful anger.

"'Tis to you we owe this! I give you death in payment!" And the shot sped, tumbling Reginald Trevor out of the saddle.

But there was still a Trevor on horseback to confront the Prince, with sword already fleshed and blade dripping blood. A touch of his spur brought him face to face with Rupert, and alone. For, just as the latter, Sir Richard had caught sight of another man he more wished to have dealings with--Lunsford--and dashed straight towards him.

But not to attain close quarters. In the cowardly ex-lieutenant of the Tower there was neither fight nor stand. The sight of Colonel Walwyn was of itself enough to palsy his hands; alone the bridle one obeying him. And with it, wrenching his horse round, he made ignominious retreat.

No more did the other pair get engaged. Rupert had but his second pistol, which, being discharged at Eustace Trevor, fortunately without effect, left him weaponless; and, seeing all his escort in retreat, he turned tail too, soon disappearing amid the ruck.

The route now complete, with the scarlet coats it was _sauve qui peut_; with the green ones only a question of cutting down the panic-stricken fugitives, or making prisoner those who cried "Quarter!" And most cried that--shouted it to the utmost strength of their lungs.

On went the victorious Foresters along the flooded way, alternately sabreing and capturing--the big sergeant and Hubert doing their full share of both--on till they came to a party of captives they had not taken. Nor guarded these; their late guards having been too glad to get away, leaving them to themselves.

"Sabrina!" "Richard?"--"Vaga!" "Eustace?"

Four names, p.r.o.nounced in joyous exclamation amid the din, and by four distinct voices; all with the epithet "dear" conjoined.

Not another word then, not another moment there; for the pursuit must be continued. The capture of Prince Rupert would be a thing of consequence, independent of all private feelings; and Sir Richard longed to settle scores with Lunsford. So on went he, and his, in chase of the now scattered escort.

But not again to come up with the pair of profligates. The stoppage, short as it was, had given them time to make Framilode Ferry; where, leaping from their horses, and into a light boat, they were out of sword's reach, and range of bullet, before the pursuers could close upon them.

Still within earshot of angry speech, however, hurled after them by the triumphant Foresters, with many a taunt, many the vile epithet bestowed.

A degradation deserved; and other men than they would have felt its sting and shame. But not this scion of Royalty, toast, type, and model of Cavalierism. Happy at having escaped with a whole skin, he but laughed back, rejoicing in the life still left him for future crimes to be committed.

And many the one was he afterwards guilty of; though short from that time was his rule in the city of Bristol. Once again, and soon, was it enfiladed by an armed force, not for siege or leaguer, but instant a.s.sault. For the man who commanded was he who, later on, gave laws to all England, gave her the only glimpse of real liberty she has ever enjoyed--the only gleam of true glory. When Cromwell stood before Bristol's gates, and said "Surrender!" it was in no tone of doubting requisition, but stern demand. The son of Elector Palatinate, hearing it hastened to comply, but too glad to get terms for his life.

Which he got, with his liberty, and more--far too much being conceded by his generous conqueror--permitted to march out, bag and baggage, with a long retinue of bullies, sycophants, and strumpets, leaving behind a longer list of victims, among them the ill-starred Clarisse Lalande. As he pa.s.sed away from the place he had made a "place of bawdry," it was amid jeers and bitter curses.

A scene pleasanter to describe--one more congenial to honest pen-- occurred shortly after in the sister city of Gloucester, within its ancient Cathedral, at whose altar simultaneously stood four couples in the act of being made man and wife.

Wedded they were, and their names entered in the big book of marriage registry; from which the writer does not deem it necessary to copy them _verbatim_. Enough to give them as already known to the reader; the brides being Sabrina and Vaga Powell, Winifred, and Gwenthian; their respective bridegrooms Colonel Sir Richard Walwyn, Captain Eustace Trevor, Sergeant Wilde, and Trumpeter Hubert.

While being made happy, amid the many joyous faces around, one alone wore a cast of sadness, yet with resignation--that of Reginald Trevor, still living. For the shot which struck him out of his saddle on the flooded causeway of Framilode had but wounded him, and he was well again. In body, not spirit; for within his heart was a wound that might never be well. He had suffered bitterly, was still suffering; but with soul now purified and subdued was better able to bear it, and bore it manfully. Generously too; for just as, when meeting his cousin outside Hollymead gate he had offered him his sword to avenge defeat, now honoured he him by his presence at a ceremony which was as the sacrifice of himself.

Still another incident calls for record: of date some six years later, and some months preceding that event which again brought England's liberty to its lowest ebb, her glory to greatest shame--the so-called Restoration. Before this curse of curses came, Ambrose Powell, predicting it--foreseeing evil to him and his--gathered up his household G.o.ds, and took s.h.i.+p with them to the colonies across the Atlantic, accompanied by all the personages who had appeared at that marriage ceremony in the cathedral of Gloucester, and by many more--Cadger Jack among them.

Reginald Trevor, too, was of the colonising band; long become accustomed to bearing the broken heart, which "brokenly lives on," with but little pain, growing ever less. For he could now look upon Vaga Powell as his cousin's wife; to himself as a kind sister--almost without thought of the unhappy past.

Well was it for all of them they went away, to become part of that people, the freest, most powerful, and most prosperous on earth. Had they stayed, it would have been to suffer persecution; the fate of all who then fought for England's freedom, save the false ones and cravens, who cried "Quarter!"--on their knees, basely begged it from that loathsome monster of iniquity--the "Merry Monarch."

And Rupert, Prince of Cavaliers, what became of him? He too returned with the Restoration--another of its curses--fresh from a long career of piracy in the West Indian seas, to be made Lord High Admiral of England, with no end of other honours and emoluments heaped upon him! To live for years after a life of luxurious ease, die "in the purple," and be buried with all pomp and ceremony. For though a pirate, he was still a Prince of the Blood Royal!