He took her up in his arms and stepped off the doorstep into a deep white drift.
Far over toward the highroad, the Captain’s grey horse was tied to a branch of the hedge. In the silence Clotilde could hear him pawing the snow and, a moment later, raise his voice in a clear, shrill whinny.
“What can ail him?” the Captain wondered aloud, but Clotilde, raising her head from the folds of the muffling cloak, guessed the reason at once.
“He hears horses in the lane above,” she said. “Hark! can you not hear them coming? Oh, put me down, put me down, you are not safe here, that scarlet coat of yours can be seen a mile away!”
Without his cloak, the officer was indeed a distinct and unmistakable mark against the white snow, but that fact did not seem to disconcert him.
“I will carry you to the gap in the hedge, the way from there is easier for you to walk,” he said, and strode forward up the buried path.
Clotilde was in an agony of anxiety long before he set her down. As they reached the hedge she looked up through the garden and saw the white gate swing open and five men in buff and blue dismount and come running in. At the sight of her companion, they gave a shout and advanced down the hill, stumbling and floundering in the deep snow.
“I yield you into the hands of your friends,” said the Captain gravely but she could only wring her hands in an agony of terror and cry:
“Oh, run, run!”
He was hardly a dozen feet from her when two shots rang out in rapid succession and he stopped, staggered for a second and then stumbled on.