"Great God!" cried Brunow, with a savage impatience in his tone.
"Why didn't we cross by the bridge? We could have made four times the
distance by the road!"

"It was a mistake as things have turned out," I answered; "but we both
thought it best when we talked things over the night before last."

"I never thought it best!" cried Brunow, fuming. "Hark! What the devil's
that?"

There was no need to call our attention to the sound, for everybody
heard it. There was no need to ask what it was, for it was impossible to
mistake it. It was the sound of a cannon from the fortress. We stared at
each other in the uncertain light.

"That's my fault, gentlemen," said Hinge, calmly. "They've found the
stable sentry, and he's told 'em what has happened. He came up, sir,"
addressing himself to me, "just as the count was climbing out o' window.
I knocked him on the 'ead of course, but they go the rounds at midnight,
and they've come across him. Not a doubt about it."

Just as he finished speaking another gun sounded. We were between three
and four miles away, but in the stillness of the night it seemed much
nearer.

"And with a good road under us we might by this time have been within
half a dozen miles of the frontier and safe."

"Safe?" said Hinge. "Quite so, sir. Safe to run into the ground at the
toll-gate, sir. We're a lot better off where we are. I know Captain
Fyffe's plan, sir, and it's the best whatever happens."

"Gentlemen," said the count, "let us dismount and rest our horses. We
may have need of all that they can do for us."

A third gun banged from the distant battery. The river was raging before
us. The clouds parted, and the full moon shone down with a light almost
as clear as that of day.

CHAPTER VI

Pursuit was afoot, and what should be done to avoid it no man among
us could guess. The foaming river ran in such volume that only madness
would have attempted to ford it. Flight was cut off, and of course
resistance was hopeless. The first place our pursuers would make for
would be the bridge and the ford, since they were the only roads by
which we could hope to reach the frontier. To take to the mountains
would have been a purposeless folly. We could look for nothing but
starvation and ultimate surrender there.

Happily for myself I was in my element again. We were forced into
inaction once more, but it was a form of inaction which differed
from that weary waiting which had so torn my nerves for