Major Dashwood and the Brigadier, stumbling forward along the German communication, met three men carrying something between them, and the third man had the fingers of his left hand twined in a tight clutch on the collar of one of the bearers.
"What is all this, Dennis?" demanded the Brigadier, who had been an indignant witness of that strange chase, without in the least understanding what it meant.
"Little Wetherby dead, pater, and Von Dussel very much alive, and none the worse for a cold bath," came the answer; "the court martial that sits on his wife to-morrow will be able to kill two birds with one stone."
"My wife!" exclaimed the spy. "Ottilie in your hands!"
"Yes, you brute, we've bagged the pair of you," said Dennis, with a grim laugh; "it's been Von Dussel versus Dashwood for a long time, but the Dashwoods have 'won out' in the end."
"I do not understand," faltered Von Dussel in a choking voice, and then instantly recovering his true Prussian bluster: "I demand the right treatment accorded to every officer who has the misfortune to be taken prisoner. I have high connections in my country, and I am willing to give you my parole."
"Parole for a cowardly murderer!" interrupted Dennis hotly. "You are talking through the back of your neck, and you know it. Besides, apart from all that, there is only one end for spies."
Then all the bluster went out of the cur, and he shivered like a man with ague as they took him away under escort into a safe place.
In the rear of that formidable trench, which they had taken with such gallantry, the Reedshires buried their dead. There were not many of them, considering the fury of the fight, but the little row of white wood crosses told of good comrades gone for ever, and had a grim significance all its own.