Half the distance had been covered, when the two horsemen saw on their
left a great body of troops tearing along towards them in furious
haste. "The French!" George exclaimed; "there's no mistake about
them!" On the two flew towards their friends, for the men towards whom
they were speeding had by this time discovered their mistake and had
ceased firing. It was a neck and neck race, and a very near thing. As
the horsemen cleared the open space and dashed safe into the arms of
their friends, a huge rabble of demoralized French swept across the
path they had just been following. No narrower escape had the two
young fellows yet had.
The truth was at once evident. The Dutchman's division, having driven
the enemy from the high ground, had wheeled, and was thus meeting the
Prince's wing, which in its turn had advanced along a curving line.
Each body in the growing darkness had mistaken the other for the
enemy. The plucky dash made by the two young fellows, though happily
not in the end needed, nevertheless received high praise from their
brother officers, and especially from the colonel himself.
For the next half-hour the fleeing French poured headlong through the
gap across which the lieutenants had galloped, between the Dutchman's
division and the Prince's.
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