“No, no; do you not see for you is the danger, for me not so much?”
“I see only that I will go, and that I cannot let you run the risk for my mother, who ill used thee.”
“No matter, no matter. She has come to seek us. It is too horrible to see them coming nearer, nearer. Do you not see that for me is only possible danger, and that for you it is sure death? If you go, I will surely follow.”
“Then we go together.”
She would have pushed him from her as she tried to escape from the place, but he held her hand firmly. “We die together,” he groaned. Still hand in hand they crept from the fort. “Quick, run to your mother, while I distract their attention; it is the only safe way for either of us,” Alaine whispered.
But at this moment Jeanne, on her way from the spring, spied the figure approaching. With head bent low, she dropped her bucket and ran swiftly toward the path at the end of which awaited such danger for the unconscious rider.
Lendert, taken off his guard for a second, gazed after her half dazed, and in this moment Alaine sprang from him and ran, but in an opposite direction from that which Jeanne was taking. She reached a little mound and stood there in plain view of the enemy. “I am here, I, Alaine Hervieu!” she called out in her native French. “I am here, François Dupont!” At the first instant of her appearance a dozen bullets whizzed through the air, but none touched her, then from the group parleying there at the edge of the wood rushed two figures.
Not daring to turn her gaze from them lest their attention be drawn to Madam De Vries, Alaine stood with face to foe. “She is of us! She is French!” passed from one to another. “She is perhaps an escaped prisoner,” and they awaited results.
Meanwhile, Lendert, in an agony of mind over the safety of his mother and of Alaine, stood, gun in hand, ready to defend either or both. Madam De Vries had reined in her horse at Jeanne’s approach, had gathered her little body-guard around her, and as yet was not seen by the attacking party.
Alaine waited quietly till the two men came up. “You have been prisoner here?” cried Ricard. “How happens this? She is of us!” he shouted. “Not a hair of her head must be touched. It is Alaine in petticoats. You remember, Henri, you, Robert, M. Bisset and his companion? Well, then, here is one of them,” he called to his comrades.