'What is the matter, fellow?'
'The spy we took last night has escaped from the turret, leaving in his place M. le Commandant, robbed and half murdered.'
'Mordieu! then this is our man. I must have been blind or mad not to recognise him even in this tatterdemalion dress, and with that visage of his, so artfully blackened!'
'Shoot him!' cried a petardier, drawing a pistolette from his girdle. 'Tête Dieu! an ounce of lead, my boy, will pay your passage to the other world, and here it is.'
'Cut him down!' suggested another, drawing his sword.
'Nay, take him back, and let M. le Comte deal with him, in person,' said the messenger.
'No, no,' added a fourth; 'diable! don't trouble us with prisoners, M. Schreckhorn; they do nothing but eat up the rations.'
They proceeded, however, to drag me towards the tower of Phalsbourg, and then I shuddered when contemplating all I might suffer there, and at the idea of confronting De Bitche when flushed by pain and vengeance. But aware that to resist seven well-armed men would be an act of folly, I could only glance hopelessly at the horsemen, who were now galloping along the valley, obviously with a view to cut off Schreckhorn and his six stragglers.
'Here come those ten cavaliers of the enemy's horse,' said a petardier; 'and this fellow grows heavier at every step.'
'Unless we shoot him and run, we shall be cut off, M. le Capitaine,' urged a second.