The peasant paid no attention to him; but stooped down to examine, carefully, whether the Germans were both dead.
"Two more," he said, with a grim smile. "That makes fifteen. Three apiece."
Then he picked up the officer's revolver, took the cartridge belonging to it from the pouch and, with a wave of the hand to Ralph, strode back into the wood.
Ralph removed the holsters from the saddle of his own horse--which had fallen dead--placed them on the horse of the German officer and then, mounting it, rode off at full speed, to inform General Cambriels of the results of his investigation.
"Hallo, Barclay!" one of his fellow officers said, as he rode up to the headquarters, "what have you been up to? Doing a little barter, with a German hussar? You seem to have got the best of him, too; for your own horse was a good one, but this is a good deal better, unless I am mistaken.
"How has it come about?"
Quite a crowd of idlers had collected round, while the officer was speaking; struck, like him, with the singularity of the sight of a French staff officer upon a horse with German trappings. Ralph did not wish to enter into explanations, there; so merely replied, in the same jesting strain, that it had been a fair exchange--the small difference in the value of the horses being paid for, with a small piece of lead. Then, throwing his reins to his orderly--who came running up--he went in to report, to the general, the evident forward movements of the Germans.
"Are they as strong as we have heard?" the general asked.
"Fully, I should say, sir. I had no means of judging the infantry, but they seemed in large force. They were certainly strong in cavalry, and I saw some eight or ten batteries of artillery."
"Let the next for duty ride, with all speed, to Tempe; and tell him to hold the upper end of this valley. Send Herve's battery forward to assist him. Have the general assembly sounded."