e recoiled as though he had received a blow between
the eyes.
There they sat, little glistening schapskas rakishly tilted over
one ear, black-and-white pennons drooping from the lance-points,
schabraques edged with yellow--aye, and tunics also, yellow and
blue--those were the colours--the colours of the 11th Uhlans.
Then, for the first time, he fully realized his position and what
it might mean. Death was the penalty for what he had done--death
even though the man he had shot were not dead--death though he
had not even hit him. That was not all; it meant death in its
most awful form--hanging! For this was the penalty: any civilian,
foreigner, franc-soldier, or other unrecognized combatant, firing
upon German troops, giving aid to French troops while within the
sphere of German influence, by aiding, abetting, signalling,
informing, or otherwise, was hung--sometimes with a drum-head
court-martial, sometimes without.
Every bit of blood and strength seemed to leave his limbs; he
leaned back against the table, cold with fear.
This was the young man who had sat sketching at Sadowa where the
needle-guns sent a shower of lead over his rocky observatory;
the same who had risked death by fearful mutilation in Oran when
he rode back and flung a half-dead Spahi over his own saddle, in
the face of a charging, howling hurricane of Kabyle horsemen.
Sabre and lance and bullets were things he understood, but he did
not understand ropes.
He could not tell whether the Uhlans had seen him or not; there
were lace curtains in the room, but the breeze blew them back
from the open window. Had they seen him?
All at once the horses jerked their heads, reared, and wheeled
like cattle shying at a passing train, and away went the Uhlans,
plunging out into the road. There was a flutter of pennants, a
fling or two of horses' heels, a glimmer of yellow, and they were
gone.
Utterly unnerved, Jack sank into the arm-chair. What should he
do? If he stayed at Morteyn he stood a good chance of hanging. He
could not leave his aunt and uncle, nor could he tell them, for
the two old people would fall sick with the anxiety. And yet, if
he stayed at Morteyn, and the Germans came, it might compromise
the whole household and bring destruction to Chateau and park. He
had not thought of that before, but now he remembered also
another German rule, inflexible, unvarying. It was this, that in
a town or village where the inhabitants resisted by force
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