Looking up from his
victim, the great yellow horse saw this other enemy approach, and
spurning the prostrate, but still writhing body with its heels,
dashed at the newcomer.
But this time there was no hasty flight, no rapturous pursuit to
the wall. The little man braced himself straight, flung up his
metal-headed whip, and met the horse with a crashing blow upon the
head, repeated again and again with every attack. In vain the
horse reared and tried to overthrow its enemy with swooping
shoulders and pawing hoofs. Cool, swift and alert, the man sprang
swiftly aside from under the very shadow of death, and then again
came the swish and thud of the unerring blow from the heavy
handle.
The horse drew off, glared with wonder and fury at this masterful
man, and then trotted round in a circle, with mane bristling, tail
streaming and ears on end, snorting in its rage and pain. The
man, hardly deigning to glance at his fell neighbor, passed on to
the wounded forester, raised him in his arms with a strength which
could not have been expected in so slight a body, and carried him,
groaning, to the wall, where a dozen hands were outstretched to
help him over. Then, at his leisure, the young man also climbed
the wall, smiling back with cool contempt at the yellow horse,
which had come raging after him once more.
As he sprang down, a dozen monks surrounded him to thank him or to
praise him; but he would have turned sullenly away without a word
had he not been stopped by Abbot John in person.
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