"That was their chief attack. The Sénéchal was shot at Eperquerie. George Hamon is in charge at Dixcart. We had better see how they have fared."
He left four of his comrades to guard the prisoners, and the rest of us set off by the way I had already passed twice that night, and came down over Hog's Back into Dixcart.
They heard us coming, and George Hamon's quick order to his men to stand by told me all was well, and a shout from myself set his mind at rest.
"Mon Dieu! Phil, my boy, but I'm glad to see you safe and sound. You've been on my mind since ever you left. Who are—Why—Krok—and Henri Tourtel? Nom d'Gyu! Where do you come from?"
"From Herm last. We came across after those black devils. Old Carré said they would take a bite at you as they passed. We landed on the other side, and scrambled up a deuce of a cliff, and got to the tunnel there just in the nick of time. Young Carré here was fighting a dozen of them and a carronade single-handed."
"Bon Gyu, Phil! We're well through with it. I oughtn't to have let you go alone, but you were gone before I knew, and we had all we could manage here. There are ten of them dead, and the rest are in our hands—about twenty, I think—and every man of them damaged. They fought like devils."
"Many of ours hurt?" I asked.
"We've not come out whole, but there's no one killed. Where's your grandfather?"
"Wounded on Herm, but not seriously, M. Tourtel says."