Chester’s face lighted up.
“By Jove!” he exclaimed. “It is good to see you. We have wished several times in the last hour that you were with us. We needed you badly. However, you arrived just in time.”
Alexis blushed like a schoolboy, for he was not used to hearing others praise his prowess.
“Yes, I did arrive in the nick of time,” he said awkwardly. “But come, we must get away from here.”
“Have you learned the strength of the enemy in the mountains?” asked Hal a few minutes later, as they rode along down the pass.
“I learned enough to make sure that, without infantry and artillery support, the cavalry will probably be annihilated,” replied Alexis briefly. “By a dash, we might be able to reach the plains of Hungary, but without support we should end our days there. I shall counsel retreat.”
“But I thought you would never counsel retreat?” said Hal, smiling.
“For myself, never!” replied the giant. “But there are more lives than mine depending upon this. Therefore I say retreat.”
Alexis was as good as his word. Upon their return to the main column, Alexis was called into consultation with the commanding officer. He recounted what he had learned, and urged that the retreat be begun at once.
“There are half a million men in these hills,” he informed his commander, “and they are trying to draw us on. We will be allowed to go so far, and then they will close in on us. One hundred or two hundred thousand, I don’t mind. We could whip them with ease; but half a million are too many for sixty thousand. If we had not outdistanced our infantry and artillery, we might do it, but without them, no.”