She insisted:

"Still you know that Miss Bakefield is running the same danger as
myself. By remaining with me, you sacrifice her."

"Hush!" he repeated, angrily. "I am doing my duty in not leaving you;
and Miss Bakefield herself would never forgive me if I did otherwise!"

The girl irritated him. He suspected that she regarded herself as
having triumphed over Isabel and that she had been trying to confirm
her victory by proving to Simon that he ought to have left her.

"No, no," he said to himself, "it's not for her sake that I'm staying
with her. I'm staying because it's my duty. A man does not leave a
woman under such conditions. But is she capable of understanding
that?"

They had to leave their refuge in the middle of the night, for it was
stealthily invaded by the river, and to lie down higher up the beach.

No further incident disturbed their sleep. But in the morning, when
the darkness was not yet wholly dispersed, they were awakened by
quick, hollow barks. A dog came leaping towards them at such a speed
that Simon had no time to do more than pull out his revolver.

"Don't fire!" cried Dolores, knife in hand.

It was too late. The brute turned a somersault, made a few convulsive
moments and lay motionless. Dolores stooped over it and said,
positively:

"I recognize him, he's the tramps' dog. They are on our track. The dog
had run ahead of them."

"But our track's impossible to follow. There's hardly any light."

"Forsetta and Mazzani have their torches, just as you have. Besides,
the firing would have told them."

"Then let's be off as quickly as possible," Simon proposed.

"They will catch us up . . . at least, unless you abandon your search
of Rolleston."

Simon seized his rifle:

"That's true. So the only thing is to wait for them here and kill them
one by one."

"That's so," she said. "Unfortunately. . . ."

"Well?"

"Yesterday, after firing at the tramps, you did not reload your
rifle."

"No, but my cartridge-belt is on the sand, at the place where I
slept."

"So is mine; and both are covered by the rising water. Therefore there
are only the six cartridges of your Browning left."

CHAPTER IV

THE BATTLE

All things considered, their best chance of safety would have been to
plunge into the river and escape by the left bank. But this plan,
which would have cut them off from Rolleston and which Simon did not
wish to adopt except in the last extremity, must have been fores