"True; but when the soldiers miss us won't they suspect the trick?"
"Of course, if they do miss us; but I intend they sha'n't."
"Go on."
"They don't know how many we are. We will put Mademoiselle Bertha and the wounded man in safety, and then, as if we had made a mistake and found our way blocked by the pond, you and I and Trigaud will land, and show them by a few shots where we are. After that, being free of incumbrance, we can easily get into the woods of Gineston, and return to the island after dark."
"But these poor children will be left without food!"
"Pooh!" said Courte-Joie, "it won't kill them to go twenty-four hours without eating."
"So be it." Then, with a sort of sad contempt for his want of intelligence, "Last night," he continued, "must have addled my brain, or I should have thought of all this myself."
"Don't expose yourselves uselessly," said Bertha, half joyous at the thought of the tête-à-tête which these strange circumstances were giving her with the man she loved.
"Don't trouble about that," replied Jean Oullier.
Trigaud took Michel in his arms, without unhorsing Courte-Joie (which would have made him lose time) and entered the pond. He walked thus till the water was up to his middle; then he hoisted Michel to his head in case the water mounted higher. It stopped, however, at the level of the giant's breast. He crossed the pond to a sort of island about twelve feet square, which seemed in the midst of that stagnant water to be nothing more than a vast duck's-nest. It was covered with a forest of reeds.