While Walter stands there breathless, he all at once feels himself seized by the arm, and drawn away. "Fly!" whispered a voice in his ear; "they must not suspect there are only two of us."
He followed mechanically; in a few moments they were in the secure shadow of the cliff and the fir boughs. The rescued man leaned against the trunk of the tree, pale, bleeding, half unconscious, and his rescuer stood near him, grim and silent, but breathing heavily, as if freed from an oppressive burden.
For the present they were safe; from here they could remark every approach of the enemy. They had really had to do with only a few patrols; the Frenchmen did not think of returning; no further trace of them appeared.
"Mr. Alison--is it you!"
"Are you wounded?" asked Alison curtly.
Walter passed his hand to his forehead. "It is of no account!" he said. "One of the first balls must have grazed my forehead. It is nothing!"
Instead of answering, Alison drew forth his handkerchief and reached it to him. He looked on silently while Fernow bound it around his forehead whence the blood trickled down drop by drop; but he did not make the slightest effort to help him.
With his own handkerchief, Walter wiped the blood from his face, then he approached his rescuer, and silently offered him his hand. Alison drew back.
"Mr. Alison," said Walter in a voice thrilled by the deepest emotion, "they did you bitter wrong this evening, and it was your own countryman that calumniated you. I had more confidence in you than he."
Morosely and coldly, Alison repelled the proffered hand. "Be on your guard with your confidences, Lieutenant Fernow!" he said roughly. "You came within a hair's-breadth of being deceived."