The Keepers of the People

1386As the remnant of them reached it, a rocket rose from a mile on the right of the Russian camp. For a moment the Varandal fire hushed, and a mighty shout of “Varandaleel!” rang from thousands of throats. The infantry fired another volley and charged the front of the Russians with the bayonet, and there came the thunder of two thousand galloping horses as the Varandal cavalry dashed down on the right of the camp.

1387A veritable scream of terror rose from the Russians: “The Whitecoats! The Whitecoats! We are fighting the English!” they screamed, as the white Varandal lines came into their sight; and in one panic they turned for the road to the pass. But the first of them were scarcely outside the camp, when on their right, coming from the middle of the plain, a white wall rose out of the darkness, rushing swiftly, and aglint with the flash of swords.

1388Another yell broke from the Russians; and the first shock of the Varandal horse drove them half across the camp. In two or three minutes they were rushed, by mere weight, clear of it, into the open ground at the foot of the ascent to the palace. The firing ceased suddenly; the clamour was wholly human — cheers, shrieks, yells and groans. The infantry of the Varandal right fell on the flank of the Russian throng, and drove them clear of the palace front. There was only to be seen a wedged mass, surging slowly past the palace away to the left; and over it played an incessant, faint flicker of sword-flashes. The Varandal horses were trampling a pavement of dead men; and dead men, held up by the crowd, moved with it hither and thither.

1389From the edge of the crowd the Russians broke away by scores; and ran round the foot of the spur on which the palace stood, into the thick darkness of the gorge formed by its cliff. From the woods round the highway to the pass came bursts of firing, as fugitives from the camp reached them. The Varandals who had been worsted the day before had marched down them, and held them. The Varandal horse drove the crowd quicker as it thinned; swept it round the corner into the gorge. In the gorge it wedged again, and the earlier Russian fugitives opened a galling fire, on friend and foe alike, from the boulders at the end of it. Then Althea heard from the tower, above the dull din out of their sight, the quick urgent blasts of Prince Ralph’s horn sounding the retreat. The Varandal buglers took up the call; the Varandals gave back; and there was almost a hush.