[CHAPTER V]
Prisoners
If ever a band of prisoners could be described as jovial it was the little band with whom Tom Clifford was travelling. For the confinement at sea made a trip ashore most enchanting; then the quick and unaccustomed movement, the efforts more than one of them were forced to make continually to keep in their saddles, provoked an amount of amusement which even infected their escort.
"I was as near off as anything that time," shouted the irrepressible Jack, when his horse had shied at a rock and nearly thrown him. "Wish one of these fellows would rope me to the saddle instead of leading me as if I were a child."
"What does he say, monsieur?" asked the trooper riding near our hero, and at once Tom explained.
"That would not be good for him," laughed the man. "If we have to gallop at any time, and the horse fell, he would be left to be butchered. I tell you, monsieur, these peasants are terrible. I do not say that they are not justified, for our men have behaved cruelly to them. But the peasants care nothing whether it be horse soldiers or foot. If a man of ours falls into their hands he is butchered; that would be your fate also if you were to lag behind."
Every now and again, as the small party made for the hills, groups of men were seen hovering in the distance. And once, when the squadron was riding through a narrow defile, rocks descended from above.
"Gallop!" commanded the officer, and striking their heels into the flanks of the horses the soldiers soon passed through. When the dusk of evening began to fall, shots rang out in the distance, and one of the troopers was wounded.
"I see men gathering in front of us," suddenly exclaimed one of the sergeants. "They fill the gap through which we must pass to gain the road for the hill."
"Halt!" came from the commander. "Place the prisoners in the centre. We will ride forward steadily till within shot of them, and then we will charge. There is nothing else to be done. To retreat would be to have the whole population of the country about us to-morrow; monsieur," he said, as if by an afterthought; "you and your comrades realize the danger?"
Tom nodded at once. "We see the position, Monsieur le Capitaine," he said. "You are a detached party away from the army."