"About ten miles."
"So they may be here within an hour?"
"If they ride on at once, but they will probably stop to plunder."
"Can they be checked?"
"Alas, Mynheer! there is no force near at hand."
"Surely they will raise the country?"
"But they are mounted, and the country people cannot cope with them. Even if the news is carried to Helmund there are none but burghers there, and they are useless against cavalry, except behind their own walls."
"And how many do the raiders number?"
"More than a hundred, as I judge, Mynheer."
Madame de Vaudrey stood in agitated silence while this rapid colloquy was in progress. Adèle was still bathing the wounded man's temples; no one present had sufficient knowledge to attempt more than the roughest of means to bind the wound. In a few minutes the general opened his eyes.