“Thank you,” said Hornblower. “I shall remember that in time to come, Fermiac, my friend. But we must ride, and ride hard. Four of us and six horses gives us the best chance. Go back to your wife, Fermiac, and try not to beat her on Saturday nights.”
He even got a laugh by that, at this moment of all moments. It helped to keep the parting on a sane level, the level he was aiming at with an eye to the future. Yet he knew there was no future; he knew it in his soul, in his bones, even while he gave the order for the pack-horses to be stripped of their loads, even while he forced Brown in a bitter argument to leave Annette behind and make her life safe. He was going to die; probably Brown was going to die. And Marie, dear Marie — while his spirit tossed on wave after wave of emotion, of remorse and self-condemnation, of fear and regret, uncertainty and despair, his love for her endured and increased, so that her name was in his mind as a constant accompaniment to his thoughts, so that her image was in his mind’s eye whatever else he was picturing. Dear Marie, sweet, beloved Marie.
She was leading a spare horse, and Brown was leading the other; the four of them were mounted on the best of the six. The animals slipped and plunged over the rough surface at the water’s edge until they reached the path above the river. They walked dispiritedly through the darkness. Hornblower could hardly sit in his saddle with his weariness; he felt giddy and sick, so that he had to hold on to the pommel of the saddle in front of him. He closed his eyes for a moment and instantly seemed to be swept over some vast smooth declivity, like the boat going over the cataract of the Loire four years before; he was almost out of his saddle before he recovered himself, jerking himself upright and clinging to the pommel like a drowning man. Yet at the foot of the declivity he had known that Marie was waiting for him with the brooding love in her eyes.
He shook off delirium. He had to make plans, to think how they could escape. He called up before his mind’s eye the map of the country, and marked on it what he knew of the situation of Clausen’s flying columns. They constituted a semicircular cordon, whose diameter was the river, and at whose centre he found himself at present. So far he had buoyed himself up in this danger with the hope of passing the river by Marie’s ford. Hard on their heels, he knew, was marching a half-battalion of the 14th Leger, which had apparently been given the duty of direct pursuit while the other columns headed him off. At nightfall that half-battalion was presumably six or seven miles behind, unless — as might easily be the case — its commanding officer forced his men to march on in the darkness. Should he try to pierce the cordon or try to pass the river?
The Count’s horse in front of him fell with a crash and a clatter, and his own nearly threw him as it plunged to avoid treading on it.
“Are you hurt, sir?” came Brown’s voice in the darkness; he must have slipped down instantly from the saddle despite the handicap of a led horse.
“No,” said the Count quietly. “But I’m afraid the horse is.”
There was a chink of bridles as Brown and the Count felt about in the dark.
“Yes. He’s slipped his shoulder, sir,” reported Brown at length. “I’ll change saddles to the other horse.”
“Are you sure you are not hurt, Father?” asked Marie, using the intimate form of address which was by no means the rule between them.
“Not in the least, dear,” answered the Count, in just the same tone as he would use in a drawing-room.
“If we turn this horse loose they’ll find it when they come along, my lord,” said Brown.
‘They’ meant the pursuing troops, of course.
“Yes,” said Hornblower.
“I’ll take him away from the path and shoot him, my lord.”