Hypatia — or New Foes with an Old Face, Charles Kingsley [thriller novels to read TXT] 📗

silence brought them to the edge of the hill, where Synesius halted, peered down a moment, and then turned to Raphael, his face and limbs quivering with delight, as he held up two fingers, to denote the number of the birds.

‘Out of arrow-range! Slip the dogs, Syphax!’

And in another minute Raphael found himself galloping headlong down the hill, while two magnificent ostriches, their outspread plumes waving in the bright breeze, their necks stooped almost to the ground, and their long legs flashing out behind them, were sweeping away before the greyhounds at a pace which no mortal horse could have held for ten minutes.

‘Baby that I am still!’ cried Synesius, tears of excitement glittering in his eyes;.... while Raphael gave himself up to the joy, and forgot even Victoria, in the breathless rush over rock and bush, sandhill and watercourse.

‘Take care of that dry torrent-bed! Hold up, old horse! This will not last two minutes more. They cannot hold their pace against this breeze.... Well tried, good dog, though you did miss him! Ah, that my boy were here! There—they double. Spread right and left, my children, and ride at them as they pass!’

And the ostriches, unable, as Synesius said, to keep their pace against the breeze, turned sharp on their pursuers, and beating the air with outspread wings, came down the wind again, at a rate even more wonderful than before.

‘Ride at him, Raphael—ride at him, and turn him into those bushes!’ cried Synesius, fitting an arrow to his bow.

Raphael obeyed, and the bird swerved into the low scrub; the well-trained horse leapt at him like a cat; and Raphael, who dare not trust his skill in archery, struck with his whip at the long neck as it struggled past him, and felled the noble quarry to the ground. He was in the act of springing down to secure his prize, when a shout from Synesius stopped him.

‘Are you mad? He will kick out your heart! Let the dogs hold him!’

‘Where is the other?’ asked Raphael, panting.

‘Where he ought to be. I have not missed a running shot for many a month.’

‘Really, you rival the Emperor Commodus himself.’

‘Ah! I tried his fancy of crescent-headed arrows once, and decapitated an ostrich or two tolerably: but they are only fit for the amphitheatre: they will not lie safely in the quiver on horseback, I find. But what is that?’ And he pointed to a cloud of white dust, about a mile down the valley. ‘A herd of antelopes? If so, God is indeed gracious to us! Come down—whatsoever they are, we have no time to lose.’

And collecting his scattered forces, Synesius pushed on rapidly towards the object which had attracted his attention.

‘Antelopes!’ cried one.

‘Wild horses!’ cried another.

‘Tame ones, rather!’ cried Synesius, with a gesture of wrath. ‘I saw the flash of arms!’

‘The Ausurians!’ And a yell of rage rang from the whole troop.

‘Will you follow me, children?’

‘To death!’ shouted they.

‘I know it. Oh that I had seven hundred of you, as Abraham had! We would see then whether these scoundrels did not share, within a week, the fate of Chedorlaomer’s.’

‘Happy man, who can actually trust your own slaves!’ said Raphael, as the party galloped on, tightening their girdles and getting ready their weapons.

‘Slaves? If the law gives me the power of selling one or two of them who are not yet wise enough to be trusted to take care of themselves, it is a fact which both I and they have long forgotten. Their fathers grew gray at my father’s table, and God grant that they may grow gray at mine! We eat together, work together, hunt together, fight together, jest together, and weep together. God help us all! for we have but one common weal. Now—do you make out the enemy, boys?’

‘Ausurians, your Holiness. The same party who tried Myrsinitis last week. I know them by the helmets which they took from the Markmen.’

‘And with whom are they fighting?’

No one could see. Fighting they certainly were: but their victims were beyond them, and the party galloped on.

‘That was a smart business at Myrsinitis. The Ausurians appeared while the people were at morning prayers. The soldiers, of course, ran for their lives, and hid in the caverns, leaving the matter to the priests.’

‘If they were of your presbytery, I doubt not they proved themselves worthy of their diocesan.’

‘Ah, if all my priests were but like them! or my people either!’ said Synesius, chatting quietly in full gallop, like a true son of the saddle. ‘They offered up prayers for victory, sallied out at the head of the peasants, and met the Moors in a narrow pass. There their hearts failed them a little. Faustus, the deacon, makes them a speech; charges the leader of the robbers, like young David, with a stone, beats his brains out therewith, strips him in true Homeric fashion, and routs the Ausurians with their leader’s sword; returns and erects a trophy in due classic form, and saves the whole valley.’

‘You should make him archdeacon.’

‘I would send him and his townsfolk round the province, if I could, crowned with laurel, and proclaim before them at every market-place, “These are men of God.” With whom can those Ausurians be dealing? Peasants would have been all killed long ago, and soldiers would have run away long ago. It is truly a portent in this country to see a fight last ten minutes. Who can they be? I see them now, and hewing away like men too. They are all on foot but two; and we have not a cohort of infantry left for many a mile round.’

‘I know who they are!’ cried Raphael, suddenly striking spurs into his horse. ‘I will swear to that armour among a thousand. And there is a litter in the midst of them. On! and fight, men, if you ever fought in your lives!’

‘Softly!’ cried Synesius. ‘Trust an old soldier, and perhaps—alas! that he should have to say it—the best left in this wretched country. Round by the hollow, and take the barbarians suddenly in flank. They will not see us then till we are within twenty paces of them. Aha! you have a thing or two to learn yet, Aben-Ezra.’

And chuckling at the prospect of action, the gallant bishop wheeled his little troop and in five minutes more dashed out of the copse with a shout and a flight of arrows, and rushed into the thickest of the fight.

One cavalry skirmish must be very like another. A crash of horses, a flashing of sword-blades, five minutes of blind confusion, and then those who have not been knocked out of their saddles by their neighbours’ knees, and have not cut off their own horses’ heads instead of their enemies’, find themselves, they know not how, either running