Aylmer nodded. Slowly they turned their horses' heads forestwards again. Perinaud looked at the line of trees abstractedly and then back again at the receding column.
"France does not desert her children if she remembers," he remarked quietly. "It is well that we met these men and their major. He is a man who will see to it that we are not forgotten, if chance wills that we do not soon return. The task of seeking us would be one after his own heart, and his Tirailleurs would think with him." He smiled confidently. "So we may go forward with an easy mind, mon Capitaine. We are pioneers, as the major said. To pioneers should come adventures, if they are worthy of their name."
He touched his stallion's flank with the spur. The little band of horsemen cantered up and into the shadow of the cork trees. And there was an air of arrogance and recklessness about the riders. All trace of discomfiture of an hour back was gone. It was as if the Tirailleurs had breathed an infection of valor around them—a bacillus of intrepidity which their major had cultivated with the point of his untiring sword.
CHAPTER XIII
THE TRAP
"That our friends have left is obvious," said Daoud. "The question is how long ago and whither."
The litter of a recently disturbed encampment cumbered the ground. Rags, the feathers of lately plucked chickens, the ashes of recently extinguished fires abounded. But whether the camp had been struck days or only hours before it was impossible to determine. Night as well as day had been rainless, and the dry dust left no trail perceptible to European eyes. Daoud, however, examined the soil carefully.
"They have gone south," he declared at last. "They have struck out of the forest and back towards the plain. This grows interesting."
Perinaud gave a sniff.