Martin yielded a sullen assent.
“Do then as you see me do,” said Gerard; and drawing his huge knife, he cut at every step a hazel shoot or two close by the ground, and turning round twisted them breast-high behind him among the standing shoots. Martin did the same, but with a dogged hopeless air. When they had thus painfully travelled through the greater part of the coppice, the bloodhound's deep bay came nearer and nearer, less and less musical, louder and sterner.
Margaret trembled.
Martin went down on his stomach and listened.
“I hear a horse's feet.”
“No,” said Gerard; “I doubt it is a mule's. That cursed Ghysbrecht is still alive: none other would follow me up so bitterly.”
“Never strike your enemy but to slay him,” said Martin gloomily.
“I'll hit harder this time, if Heaven gives me the chance,” said Gerard.
At last they worked through the coppice, and there was an open wood. The trees were large, but far apart, and no escape possible that way.
And now with the hound's bay mingled a score of voices hooping and hallooing.