A minute later the dark group of trees broke into intermittent flame and the sharp, short “Hurrah!” of the Cossacks, like an angry bark, came sweeping across the plain on the morning breeze.
“Not yet,” whispered Barlasch, with a gay chuckle of enjoyment. “Not yet—not yet. Listen, the bullets are not coming here, but are going past to the right of us. When you go, keep to the left. Slowly at first—keep a little breath till the end. Now, up! Mademoiselle, run; name of thunder, let us run!”
Desiree did not understand which were the French lines and which the line of Russian attack. But there was a clear way to the three trees which stood above the rest, and she went towards them. She knew she could not run so far, so she walked. Then the bullets, instead of passing to the right, seemed to play round her—like bees in a garden on a summer day—and she ran until she was tired.
The trees were quite close now, and the sky was light behind them. Then she saw Louis coming towards her, and she ran into his arms. The sound of the humming bullets was still in her dazed brain, and she touched him all over with her gloved hand as she clung to him, as a mother touches her child when it has fallen, to see whether it be hurt.
“How was I to know?” she whispered breathlessly. “How was I to know that you were to come into my life?”
The bullets did not matter, it seemed, nor the roar of the firing to the right of them. Nothing mattered—except that Louis must know that she had never loved Charles.
He held her and said nothing. And she wanted him to say nothing. Then she remembered Barlasch, and looked back over her shoulder.
“Where is Barlasch?” she asked, with a sudden sinking at her heart.
“He is coming slowly,” replied Louis. “He came slowly behind you all the time, so as to draw the fire away from you.”
They turned and waited for Barlasch, who seemed to be going in the wrong direction with an odd vagueness in his movements. Louis ran towards him with Desiree at his heels.