ordered them to take up
arms. When quiet was restored he turned his eyes from one end of the
road to the other, listened with anxious attention as though he hoped
to detect some stifled sound, some echo of weapons, or steps which might
give warning of the expected attack. His black eye seemed to pierce the
woods to an extraordinary depth. Perceiving no indications of danger, he
next consulted, like a savage, the ground at his feet, to discover, if
possible, the trail of the invisible enemies whose daring was well known
to him. Desperate at seeing and hearing nothing to justify his fears, he
turned aside from the road and ascended, not without difficulty, one or
two hillocks. The other officers and the soldiers, observing the anxiety
of a leader in whom they trusted and whose worth was known to them,
knew that his extreme watchfulness meant danger; but not suspecting its
imminence, they merely stood still and held their breaths by instinct.
Like dogs endeavoring to guess the intentions of a huntsman, whose
orders are incomprehensible to them though they faithfully obey him, the
soldiers gazed in turn at the valley, at the woods by the roadside, at
the stern face of their leader, endeavoring to read their fate. They
questioned each other with their eyes, and more than one smile ran from
lip to lip.

When Hulot returned to his men with an anxious look, Beau-Pied, a young
sergeant who passed for the wit of his company, remarked in a low voice:
"Where the deuce have we poked ourselves that an old trooper like Hulot
should pull such a gloomy face? He's as solemn as a council of war."

Hulot gave the speaker a stern look, silence being ordered in the ranks.
In the hush that ensued, the lagging steps of the conscripts on the
creaking sand of the road produced a recurrent sound which added a sort
of vague emotion to the general excitement. This indefinable feeling
can be understood only by those who have felt their hearts beat in
the silence of the night from a painful expectation heightened by some
noise, the monotonous recurrence of which seems to distil terror into
their minds, drop by drop.

The thought of the commandant, as he returned to his men, was: "Can I
be mistaken?" He glanced, with a concentrated anger which flashed like
lightning from his eyes, at the stolid, immovable Chouan; a look of
savage irony which he fancied he detected in the man's eyes, warned him
not to relax in his precautions. Just then Captain Merl