Resenting my tone, he looked at me more sharply than before, and then laughed.
“I know you. You must be the man who rescued our prisoner yesterday and shot Drago. You’ll answer for that, I promise you; but I don’t want any trouble. Your other men are on our side, you know.”
“The man I shot lies in the tent there with a broken leg. The prisoner you seek is in the cottage.”
“That’s better,” he cried, with a sneering laugh. “You know when you’re beaten, I see.”
I shrugged my shoulders as if indifferent.
“We’re only two here, and Karasch has a broken arm. So you’re not likely to have much trouble.”
“Where are the others?” he asked, suspiciously, as if half fearing an ambush. “There were five of you.”
“One, Andreas, lies out on the hills somewhere, hurt riding after your comrade in the night. Petrov and Gartski have gone to Lalwor, the hill village yonder, seeking help to take the prisoner.”
“You’ll have to come with us.”
“That’s as it may be. But—we’ve no horses. Your fool of a man killed ours last night, so that we shouldn’t get away until you returned. But he didn’t expect you so soon.”