"But think of us, will you?" the fat scout urged. "We're neutrals only, and it's a shame to make us stand for that foolish shot some sniping boy may have fired. Hadn't we better make our way downstairs, Rob, and throw ourselves on the mercy of the Uhlans?"
"I'm in favor of sticking it out just as long as we can," said Merritt desperately; for only too well did he know that once they fell into the hands of the Germans, all chances of carrying out his well laid plans would be lost.
"Oh! so am I, when it comes to that," affirmed Tubby; "and I hope that neither of you think I'd be the one to scream before I'm hurt. But I do smell smoke, and that looks bad, as the plight of Bluebeard's wife."
There could be no questioning that what Tubby said was so, for little spirals of penetrating smoke had commenced to come under the door, so that they could already feel their eyes begin to smart.
Rob went back to the open window to watch. He knew that the thing calculated to help them most of all would be the flitting of the Uhlan troop. If the raiders would only gallop away from town there would be an opportunity for the three Boy Scouts to make their way from the garret of the doomed inn.
"Are they showing any signs of going yet?" asked Tubby, rubbing one hand continually over the other; and then he burst out into a half hysterical fit of laughter as he went on to add: "D'ye know, when I said that it made me think of Bluebeard, don't you remember where the wife was waiting to be called down to lose her head, and expected her brothers to come to the rescue, she had her sister watching out of the window for a cloud of dust on the road? And all the while she keeps on asking: 'Sister Ann, Sister Ann, do you see anyone coming?'"
"I guess you're not as badly rattled as you make out, Tubby," suggested Merritt, "when you can joke like that with the house on fire. In this case you're wanting to know whether there's anybody going. Well, they're here yet, I'm sorry to tell you."
"But I think they are getting together to ride away," Rob added.
"Did they shoot down many of the poor villagers on account of that sniper?" asked the fat scout anxiously.
"No, I couldn't see anything like that," Rob hastened to assure him. "There was some firing, but it looked to me as if it might be done for effect, just like cowpunchers ride into town, yelling, and shooting their guns in the air. But at the same time I think they must have got the person who did the sniping."