The pursuers now amounted to about three hundred horsemen, the very men who had made the first attack on the blues in the streets of Laval, and Henri knew that so soon after their complete and signal success nothing could daunt them, and that, in all probability, no effort of the beaten republicans could turn them back.

“Come,” said he, speaking to those who were nearest to him, “only a few yards farther, and we shall be far enough.  It shall never be said that the vanquished slept in the town while their conquerors lay in the fields”; and again he put spurs to his horse, and with a yell of triumph, his men followed him over the bridge.

It would be difficult to say who was first, for Henri, Adolphe, and nearly a dozen others, galloped across the bridge together, and the whole troop followed them pell-mell into the town.  The two cannons were soon taken; the irresolute blues, who, with only half a heart, had attempted to defend themselves, were driven from their positions, and Henri at once found himself master of the place.

A few of his gallant followers had fallen on the bridge.  It could not be expected but what. this should be the case, for they made their attack in the face of two field-pieces and a discharge of musketry, from a body of men quite as numerous as their own; but Henri had not perceived till he reached the square in the middle of the town, that Adolphe Denot was no longer by his side.

“Did you see M. Denot?” said he to a soldier, who was now standing on the ground at his horse’s head.

“You mean the gentleman who was riding with you all the day, General—­he who had lost his cap?”

“Yes, yes, did you see him? he passed over the bridge with me.”

“General,” said the man, “he never passed the bridge.  He fell on the very centre of it.  I saw him fall, and his horse galloped into the town without a rider.”

Arthur Mondyon soon brought him confirmation of the news.  He had been struck by a musket ball on the breast, while they were crossing the bridge, and the whole troop of horsemen, who were behind, had passed over his body.  He had, however, been taken up, and brought into the town; whether or no his life was extinct, Arthur could not say, but he had been told that the wound would certainly prove mortal.

Henri’s first duty, even before attending to his friend, was to endeavour to save the lives of such of the blues as were yet in the town, and, if possible, to get the person of Lechelle.  It was well known that he had entered the place with the fugitives, and it was believed that he had not since escaped from it.  Some few of the republican soldiers had made their way out of the town, on the road towards Segre, but there was every reason to believe that the General had not been among them.  The inhabitants of Chateau-Gonthier were very favourable to the Vendean cause; Henri received every information which the people could give him, and at last succeeded in tracing Lechelle