, though the
veil of the temple would be rent in twain, and the earth would quake,
and the graves be opened, and the bodies of the saints arise and be seen
by many!

A harsh command silenced the singing. An officer had reined in his
horse, and was demanding the nature of the errand which brought a squad
of men from Vise.

"Sergeant Karl Schwartz, _Herr Hauptmann_," reported the leader of the
party. "An Englishman, assisted by a miller named Joos and his man,
Maertz, has killed three of our officers. He also wounded Herr Leutnant
von Huntzel, of the 7th Westphalian regiment, who has recovered
sufficiently to say what happened. The general-major has ordered a
strict search. I, being acquainted with the district, am bringing these
men to a wood where the rascals may be hiding."

"Killed three, you say? The fiend take all such _schwein-hunds_ and
their helpers! Good luck to you.--_Vorwaerts!_"

The column moved on. Schwartz, the treacherous barber of Vise, led his
men into the lane. There were eleven, all told--hopeless odds--because
this gang of hunters was ready for a fight and itching to capture a
_verdammt Englaender_. And Joos's "safe retreat" had been guessed by the
spy who knew what every inhabitant of Vise did, who had watched and
noted even such a harmless occupation as Leontine's bilberry-picking,
who was acquainted with each footpath for miles around, from whose
crafty eyes not a cow-byre on any remote farm in the whole countryside
was concealed.

This misfortune marked the end, Dalroy thought. But there was a chance
of escape, if only for the few remaining hours of the night, and he took
it with the same high courage he displayed in going back to the rescue
of Irene Beresford in the railway station at Aix. He had a rifle with
five rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. At the worst, he
might be able to add another couple of casualties to the formidable
total already piled up during the German advance on Liege.

The sabots offered a serious handicap to rapid and silent movement, but
he dared not dispense with them, and made shift to follow Schwartz and
the others as quietly as might be. He was helped, of course, by the din
of the guns and the rustling of the leaves; but there was an open space
in the narrow road before it merged in the wood which he could not cross
until the Germans were among the trees, and precisely in that locality
Schwartz halted his men to explain his project. Try as he might,