At last it was our turn to attack.
On we moved, over the piled-up masses of dead and dying, and were approaching the stream, when suddenly I perceived an extraordinary sight. Galloping wildly towards us, his arms tightly clasped around his horse’s neck, against which his blanched cheek was tightly pressed, was a man arrayed in the full costume of a Zu-Vendi general, but in whom, as he came nearer, I recognized none other than our lost Alphonse. It was impossible even then to mistake those curling mustachios. In a minute he was tearing through our ranks and narrowly escaped being cut down, till at last somebody caught his horse’s bridle, and he was brought to me just as a momentary halt occurred in our advance to allow what remained of our shattered squares to form into line.
‘Ah, monsieur,’ he gasped out in a voice that was nearly inarticulate with fright, ‘grace to the sky, it is you! Ah, what I have endured! But you win, monsieur, you win; they fly, the laches. But listen, monsieur — I forget, it is no good; the Queen is to be murdered tomorrow at the first light in the palace of Milosis; her guards will leave their posts, and the priests are going to kill her. Ah yes! they little thought it, but I was ensconced beneath a banner, and I heard it all.’
‘What?’ I said, horror-struck; ‘what do you mean?’
‘What I say, monsieur; that devil of a Nasta he went last night to settle the affair with the Archbishop [Agon]. The guard will leave open the little gate leading from the great stair and go away, and Nasta and Agon’s priests will come in and kill her. Themselves they would not kill her.’
‘Come with me,’ I said, and, shouting to the staff-officer next to me to take over the command, I snatched his bridle and galloped as hard as I could for the spot, between a quarter and half a mile off, where I saw the royal pennon flying, and where I knew that I should find Curtis if he were still alive. On we tore, our horses clearing heaps of dead and dying men, and splashing through pools of blood, on past the long broken lines of spearmen to where, mounted on the white stallion Nasta had sent to him as a parting gift, I saw Sir Henry’s form towering above the generals who surrounded him.
Just as we reached him the advance began again. A bloody cloth was bound around his head, but I saw that his eye was as bright and keen as ever. Beside him was old Umslopogaas, his axe red with blood, but looking quite fresh and uninjured.
‘What’s wrong, Quatermain?’ he shouted.
‘Everything. There is a plot to murder the Queen tomorrow at dawn. Alphonse here, who has just escaped from Sorais, has overheard it all,’ and I rapidly repeated to him what the Frenchman had told me.
Curtis’ face turned deadly pale and his jaw dropped.
‘At dawn,’ he gasped, ‘and it is now sunset; it dawns before four and we are nearly a hundred miles off — nine hours at the outside. What is to be done?’
An idea entered into my head. ‘Is that horse of yours fresh?’ I said.
‘Yes, I have only just got on to him — when my last was killed, and he has been fed.’
‘So is mine. Get off him, and let Umslopogaas mount; he can ride well. We will be at Milosis before dawn, or if we are not — well, we cannot help it. No, no; it is impossible for you to leave now. You would be seen, and it would turn the fate of the battle. It is not half won yet. The soldiers would think you were making a bolt of it. Quick now.’
In a moment he was down, and at my bidding Umslopogaas sprang into the empty saddle.
‘Now farewell,’ I said. ‘Send a thousand horsemen with remounts after us in an hour if possible. Stay, despatch a general to the left wing to take over the command and explain my absence.’
‘You will do your best to save her, Quatermain?’ he said in a broken voice.