"I had nothing but a muzzle-loading gun, monsieur. I gave it up on the advice of the burgomaster. They've killed him."
"Very well. Remain here on guard. I'll go and fetch a rifle and bayonet. Nothing will happen to the women till these brutes have eaten, and have more wine in them. Don't you understand? The younger men have made a hellish compact with their senior. You heard that, didn't you?"
"Yes, yes, monsieur. Who could fail to know what they meant? Surely the good God sent you to Visé to-day!"
"Promise, now! No interference till I return, even though the women are frightened. You'll only lose your life to no purpose. I'll not be long away."
"I promise. But, monsieur, _pour l'amour de Dieu_, let me stick that fat Busch!"
Dalroy was in such a fume to secure a reliable arm that he rather neglected the precautions of a soldier moving through the enemy's country. It was still possible to see clearly for some distance ahead. Although the right bank of the Meuse that night was overrun with the Kaiser's troops along a front of nearly twenty miles, the ravine, with its gurgling rivulet, was one of those peaceful oases which will occur in the centre of the most congested battlefield. Now that the crash of the guns had passed sullenly to a distance, white-tailed rabbits scurried across the path; some stray sheep, driven from the uplands by the day's tumult, gathered in a group and looked inquiringly at the intruder; a weasel, stalking a selected rabbit as is his piratical way, elected to abandon the chase and leap for a tree.
These very signs showed that none other had breasted the slope recently, so Dalroy strode out somewhat carelessly. Nevertheless, he was endowed with no small measure of that sixth sense which every _shikari_ must possess who would hunt either his fellowmen or the beasts of the jungle. He was passing a dense clump of brambles and briars when a man sprang at him. He had trained himself to act promptly in such circumstances, and had decided long ago that to remain on the same ground, or even try to retreat, was courting disaster. His plan was to jump sideways, and, if practicable, a little nearer an assailant. The sabots rendered him less nimble than usual, but the dodge quite disconcerted an awkward opponent. The vicious downward sweep of a heavy cudgel just missed his left shoulder, and he got home with the right in a half-arm jab which sent the recipient sprawling and nearly into the stream.