The youngster scrambled to his feet and attacked his new enemy; but the bandit pushed on to join his leader, and I followed with Count Beula.

We two were the last to leave the press, and the Austrians were hot on our heels.

Von Theyer led the van, though he had been badly wounded, and his face was covered with blood.

Now that the brunt of the fight was over, my companion seemed again to fall under the spell of his strange fear, being blind to everything except escaping.

He spurred his horse cruelly, until the animal, maddened by pain, darted ahead, and I was left alone.

Von Theyer, yards in advance of his hussars, galloped on; and I heard him shouting, but could not distinguish the words.

Fortunately, my pistols were still loaded, and, drawing one from the holster, I turned in my saddle and fired.

Von Theyer was not hit; but his gallant horse, staggering forward a dozen paces, reeled and fell.

The hussars stayed to extricate their leader, and the delay gave me a little breathing s.p.a.ce.

Once again I wheeled and rode on in pursuit of Count Beula, while a shot from a carbine whistled past my head.

Two others followed in quick succession, doing no harm--at least, that was my impression.

Rather strangely though, it appeared to me that the count was slackening speed, and soon I became certain of it.

The distance between us decreased. I was catching him up hand over hand; the thing was amazing.

I hoped at first his manhood had come back to him, and that he waited purposely for me; but soon I recognized the truth.

One of the shots intended for me had struck his horse in the haunches, and the poor animal, losing blood at every stride, was growing feebler each succeeding moment.

The bandits--at least those who survived--were a little ahead of us; the pursuers were closing up again; my companion was doomed.

He knew it too. His face had become ashy grey, his eyes were wild and staring; the Count Beula of the breach and the battlefield had disappeared.

"They will hang me, Botskay," he wailed--"hang me like a common thief on the roadside."

The terror of the hempen noose, about which Batori had chaffed him, had affected his brain--upset his balance, so to speak. I can give no other explanation of his strange behaviour or of what happened immediately afterwards.

Batori, looking back, waved his arm to bid us ride faster; but Beula's horse was totally exhausted, and with one last ineffectual stagger forward it rolled over, entangling its rider in the reins.

A shout from the Austrians greeted this downfall, and the count's white face looked up appealingly.

"They will hang me, Botskay!" he cried, and I regarded the cry as one for help.

The Austrians were close upon us. There was barely time even to set him free; and what then?

Was I to die because the man I hated asked an impossible thing?

It was monstrous; it was out of all reason. I would push on and save my own life. Count Beula had no claim on me.

The struggle was keen and full of bitter anguish, but it was over in a second; the next I had slipped to the ground and was tugging at the fallen man.

CHAPTER XXIV.

_THE END OF COUNT BEULA._

You who have read my story know that from the very beginning I disliked this Count Beula; and the death of my gallant brother, which rightly or wrongly I laid at his door, changed my dislike into downright hatred.

Yet throughout this narrative I have, I trust, never shown myself unfair to him. I have told freely how Bern, himself the most reckless of fighters, had praised his courage, and in my account of the storming of Buda I made no attempt to hide his gallantry. Even in this last fight I have mentioned how bravely he rode at the Austrian hussars, and how the glow of health had returned to his cheeks as he bared his weapon for the fray.

No, I am fully persuaded in my own mind that Count Beula did not fear death, but only the manner of it.

Leading or repelling a desperate charge, cheering his men to the deadly breach, or hurling the enemy from the ramparts of an a.s.saulted town, he would have met death cheerfully and without flinching.

Here, on this lonely road, he was not even a soldier. The Austrians regarded him merely as a plotter, an accomplice of the conspirators in Vienna, an instigator of Count Latour's murder, the boon companion of a brigand whose life was forfeit even to Hungarian laws.

Thus the fiat had gone forth that Count Beula, the representative of a n.o.ble family, the head of a house celebrated long before the days of Arpad, was to be taken and hanged straightway like the vilest malefactor in the land.

The very thought of this terrible disgrace had, as he admitted, unnerved him; its imminent approach drove him crazy. This, I am fully convinced, was the real reason for his astounding conduct.

The robbers were by this time too far off to render any aid, though several glanced over their shoulders to see what was happening. The hussars had got very close to us.

My horse quivered with excitement, but did not move while I, after several attempts, set the count free.

Exactly what was to be done I had not determined, though it occurred to me that my animal must carry double, or that while Beula rode I must hang on by the stirrups.

In either case, no doubt, I should have been killed or taken prisoner; but the count solved the difficulty in his own way. He looked a strange object as he sprang to his feet. Blood from a wound in the head trickled down his ashy-grey cheeks; his blue eyes stared wildly; he seemed like a man possessed, as I really believe he was.

He glanced at the approaching Austrians and shuddered; then, without a word of warning, he leaped into my saddle and was gone.

It all happened so suddenly that I stood dumfounded. That one of my race and nation could be guilty of such black treachery had never entered my head.

Wild, unreasoning anger succeeded stupor, and I shook my sword at the retreating figure; then anger yielded to pity.

Poor fellow! When the cloud had pa.s.sed from his mind, what would life be worth to him, even if the story of his cowardice were never made known?

What misery each recurring day would bring, as he thought of the terrible price he had paid for his life--manhood, honour, chivalry, all irretrievably lost in that one mad moment!

For the count's own sake I almost wished that a shot from the enemy would bring him down.

Had I been able to look into the future, the half-wish would have changed into a whole-hearted prayer.

But apparently luck was with the count. My horse, having recovered his wind, bore him gallantly, gaining at every stride upon the last of the robbers.