His words were not out of his lips, when a tremendous volley rang out all round them; and half the franc tireurs fell.
"Now!" Ralph said, leaping up, "make a rush for a house.
"To the houses, all of you," he shouted, loudly. "It is our only chance. We shall be shot down, here, like sheep."
The officer of the franc tireurs had already atoned for his carelessness, by his life; and the men obeyed Ralph's call and, amidst a heavy fire, rushed across the fifty yards of open space to the houses. The door was burst in, with the rush.
Ralph had not stopped at the first house but, followed by his brother and Tim Doyle, had run farther on; and entered the last house in the village.
"Why did you not go in with the others, Ralph? We have no chance of defending ourselves, here. We have only our revolvers."
"We have no chance of defending ourselves anywhere, Percy," Ralph said. "There must be a couple of hundred of them, at least; and not above fifteen or twenty, at most, of the franc tireurs gained the houses. Resistance is utterly useless; and yet, had I been with those poor fellows, I could not have told them to surrender, when they would probably be shot, five minutes afterwards. We should be simply throwing away our lives, without doing the least good."
There was a heavy firing now heard and, a moment after, half a dozen shots were fired through the window. Then there was a rush of soldiers towards the door, which Ralph had purposely left open.
"We surrender," Ralph shouted, in German, coming forward to meet them. "We are French officers."
"Don't fire," a voice said, and then a young officer came forward.