"Right!" cried Geoffrey; and in a few moments they reached, under the peddler's direction, the place of temporary safety.
They had not long to wait. In two or three minutes a band of from twenty to thirty schwartzreiters came thundering on.
"How did they know of our journey?" whispered Ralph.
"Remember the drunken camp follower ere we left the camp?" replied Geoffrey. "I knew he was a spy."
They had not been perceived in the thick shades of the trees—but what now? It was equally dangerous to advance or retire.
It was at this dread and critical moment that a wonderful intervention came. There arose in the stillness of the night a great sound like the shock of battle or the fall of an avalanche.
"Oh, God! it is the barricade!" cried the peddler; "I passed it half-an-hour ago."
"What barricade?" said Geoffrey eagerly.
"The 'gueux' have filled the road with huge stones, gathered from the quarry hard by, it is their favourite trap to catch night travellers, and the reiters have fallen into it."
"And a moment more we should have fallen into it," cried Geoffrey.