Again his charger reared, snorting, and pawing the air like a cat, and two of the three knaves before him fled incontinently aside.

But the third, who was of braver stuff, dropped on one knee and presented his pike at the horse's belly.

Francesco made a wild attempt to save the roan that had served him so gallantly, but he was too late.

It came down to impale itself upon that waiting partisan.
With a hideous scream the horse sank upon its slayer, crushing him beneath its mighty weight, and hurling its rider forward on to the ground.

In an instant he was up and had turned, for all that he was half-stunned by his fall and weakened by the loss of blood from a pike-thrust in the shoulder--of which he had hitherto remained unconscious in the heat of battle.