“Why, Serge! Can this be you?”
Chapter Thirteen.
Turning the Tables.
“Marcus, boy!” came back the next instant, as the old soldier dashed down his shield and his sword upon it with a clattering noise, before catching his deliverer in his arms and holding him to his breast.
“Well done!” he cried. “Well done, boy! Well done! Hah! Hurrah! Think of it! Six on ’em! And you set ’em running. Hah!” he panted, breathlessly, as he freed the boy, took a couple of steps backward, planted his great fists upon his hips, gazed at him proudly, and then gave a sweeping look round as if addressing a circle of lookers-on instead of blocks of stone and trees; “Hah!” he exclaimed. “I taught him to fight like that!”
“Yes, Serge, you did—you did!” cried Marcus. “But you are covered with blood, and you are badly hurt. Those wretches must have stabbed you with their knives.”
“Eh?” growled the old soldier, beginning to feel himself all over. “Yes, how nasty! All over my breast. It’s a long time since I have been in a mess like this. I felt a dig in the front, and another in my back, and another—” Serge ceased speaking as his hands were busy feeling for his wounds, and then he exclaimed: “Yes, it’s blood, sure enough, but ’tain’t mine, boy. Their knives didn’t go through. I am all right, only out of breath. But you? Did you get touched?”
“Oh no,” cried Marcus. “I escaped.”