Then, with a snort of terror and a desperate bound, he topped it, and gained the level, trembling and snorting.
Seventy paces away on the road lay one of my men.

He had fallen, horse and man, and lay still.

Near him, with his back against a bank, stood his fellow, on foot, pressed by four horsemen, and shouting.

As my eye lighted on the scene he let fly with a carbine, and dropped one.
I clutched a pistol from my holster and seized my horse by the head.
I might save the man yet, I shouted to him to encourage him, and was driving in my spurs to second my voice, when a sudden vicious blow, swift and unexpected, struck the pistol from my hand.
I made a snatch at it as it fell, but missed it, and before I could recover myself, Mademoiselle thrust her horse furiously against mine, and with her riding-whip lashed the sorrel across the ears.

As the horse reared up madly, I had a glimpse of her eyes flashing hate through her mask; of her hand again uplifted; the next moment, I was down in the road, ingloriously unhorsed, the sorrel was galloping away, and her horse, scared in its turn, was plunging unmanageably a score of paces from me.
But for that I think that she would have trampled on me.