Ivanhoe spurred on his horse Bavieca madly up the chestnut avenue.  The castle was before him; the western tower was in flames; the besiegers were pressing at the southern gate; Athelstane’s banner, the bull rampant, was still on the northern bartizan.  “An Ivanhoe, an Ivanhoe!” he bellowed out, with a shout that overcame all the din of battle:  “Nostre Dame a la rescousse!” And to hurl his lance through the midriff of Reginald de Bracy, who was commanding the assault—­who fell howling with anguish—­to wave his battle-axe over his own head, and cut off those of thirteen men-at-arms, was the work of an instant.  “An Ivanhoe, an Ivanhoe!” he still shouted, and down went a man as sure as he said “hoe!”

“Ivanhoe!  Ivanhoe!” a shrill voice cried from the top of the northern bartizan.  Ivanhoe knew it.

“Rowena my love, I come!” he roared on his part.  “Villains! touch but a hair of her head, and I . . .”

Here, with a sudden plunge and a squeal of agony, Bavieca sprang forward wildly, and fell as wildly on her back, rolling over and over upon the knight.  All was dark before him; his brain reeled; it whizzed; something came crashing down on his forehead.  St. Waltheof and all the saints of the Saxon calendar protect the knight! . . .

When he came to himself, Wamba and the lieutenant of his lances were leaning over him with a bottle of the hermit’s elixir.  “We arrived here the day after the battle,” said the fool; “marry, I have a knack of that.”

“Your worship rode so deucedly quick, there was no keeping up with your worship,” said the lieutenant.

“The day—­after—­the bat—­” groaned Ivanhoe.  “Where is the Lady Rowena?”

“The castle has been taken and sacked,” the lieutenant said, and pointed to what once was Rotherwood, but was now only a heap of smoking ruins.  Not a tower was left, not a roof, not a floor, not a single human being!  Everything was flame and ruin, smash and murther!

Of course Ivanhoe fell back fainting again among the ninety-seven men-at-arms whom he had slain; and it was not until Wamba had applied a second, and uncommonly strong dose of the elixir that he came to life again.  The good knight was, however, from long practice, so accustomed to the severest wounds, that he bore them far more easily than common folk, and thus was enabled to reach York upon a litter, which his men constructed for him, with tolerable ease.

Rumor had as usual advanced before him; and he heard at the hotel where he stopped, what had been the issue of the affair at Rotherwood.  A minute or two after his horse was stabbed, and Ivanhoe knocked down, the western bartizan was taken by the storming-party which invested it, and every soul slain, except Rowena and her boy; who were tied upon horses and carried away, under a secure guard, to one of the King’s castles—­nobody knew whither:  and Ivanhoe was recommended by the hotel-keeper (whose house he had used in former times) to reassume his wig and spectacles, and not call himself by his own name any more, lest some of the King’s people should lay hands on him.  However, as he had killed everybody round about him, there was but little danger of his discovery; and the Knight of the Spectacles, as he was called, went about York quite unmolested, and at liberty to attend to his own affairs.