"We'll wait here, Sir John of the Fleet Foot," he said. "Our friends who are frolicking in this thorny Forest of Arden were to come if they heard the sound of firing, and we must not go far away lest we miss them. Truly that was a fine and timely shot of yours, Sir John of the Bold Escape, and I judged by the look of your face that you had no love for the man at whom you fired."
"I did not," replied John. "He beat me, when I was in chains."
The other man uttered a low whistle.
"That was a nasty thing to do, but you are even. If he's still alive he'll have a face that will scare a dog.
"Whate'er you do
Unto another,
Some day that other
Will do unto you.
"Bear that in mind, young sir. In the hour of triumph do not rejoice too much in the fall of the man who has failed, because when he achieves his triumph and you have failed, which is likely to come to pass some time or other, he may make some moments exceedingly bitter unto thee. And now I shall dress myself, as I think I hear the footsteps of visitors."
John remembered that he, too, was clad lightly, and hastily put on his upper garments, while his friend did likewise. He now heard the steps, also, and they were rapidly coming nearer.
"Shouldn't we move?" he whispered. "Those must be Mexicans."
"No, we shouldn't move, because those are not the footsteps of Mexicans. Those sounds are made by the hardy feet of just two persons. One of them is a large brave German man, whose tread I would know a mile away, and the other, the lighter tread of whom is drowned in the volume of sound made by his comrade, is a boy, a strong, healthy boy who comes from a little town in Kentucky, which has the same name as a big town in France."
John began to tremble all over. He knew what these words meant. His friend uttered a low whistle, and quickly a low whistle in reply came from a point not twenty feet away. There was a moment of silence, then the approaching footsteps were resumed, the bushes were parted, and, as the lightning flared once more across the sky, John Bedford and Philip Bedford looked into the faces of each other.