"Off with you into cover, you young rogue," said he; "never mind any more bullets."
And, handing a few of them to a comrade who stood close by, he said, with a choke in his voice, "These will hit the mark, surely, considering how they have been brought!"
That night Speckbacher and his companions drove the Bavarians out of Volders. At daybreak they were at the gates of Halle.
CHAPTER VI.
THE FIRST SUCCESS.
THE warm spring sun is shining on a valley watered by more than one winding river, and with green pastures dotted with cows and sheep peacefully feeding. It is closed in by hills green to their summits, with only a few patches of snow in their hollows. Behind these soar craggy and fearful rocks, above which wheel one or two vultures, and high overhead the kingly eagle; who perhaps discerns some human quarry in the depths below. Dead bodies must certainly be lying here and there in the gorges; for now and then carrion crows, sated with their impure repast, rise slowly on their flapping wings, and fly heavily away.
In the sunniest and prettiest part of the valley is a little village of some dozen whitewashed huts, that look clean and comfortable at a distance. The village is surely deserted! not a creature seems in it except an old purblind woman, sitting outside her door on a stone; and she is straining her cracked voice in vain efforts to make herself heard.