A few moments brought in view a numerous train of horse at full speed,
with the banners of the Colonna waving gallantly in the front.

"A plague on the wizards! who would have imagined they had divined us
so craftily!" muttered Martino; "we must not abide these odds;" and the
hand he had first raised for advance, now gave the signal of retreat.

Serried breast to breast and in complete order, the horsemen of Martino
turned to fly; the foot rabble who had come for spoil remained but for
slaughter. They endeavoured to imitate their leaders; but how could they
all elude the rushing chargers and sharp lances of their antagonists,
whose blood was heated by the affray, and who regarded the lives at
their mercy as a boy regards the wasp's nest he destroys. The crowd
dispersing in all directions,--some, indeed, escaped up the hills, where
the footing was impracticable to the horses; some plunged into the river
and swam across to the opposite bank--those less cool or experienced,
who fled right onwards, served, by clogging the way of their enemy, to
facilitate the flight of their leaders, but fell themselves, corpse upon
corpse, butchered in the unrelenting and unresisted pursuit.

"No quarter to the ruffians--every Orsini slain is a robber the
less--strike for God, the Emperor, and the Colonna!" such were the
shouts which rung the knell of the dismayed and falling fugitives. Among
those who fled onward, in the very path most accessible to the cavalry,
was the young brother of Cola, so innocently mixed with the affray. Fast
he fled, dizzy with terror--poor boy, scarce before ever parted from his
parents' or his brother's side!--the trees glided past him--the banks
receded:--on he sped, and fast behind came the tramp of the hoofs--the
shouts--the curses--the fierce laughter of the foe, as they bounded over
the dead and the dying in their path. He was now at the spot in which