"Allons! En route!" cried Jack, cheerily, snapping his ribbon-decked whip.
At the same instant a horseless cavalryman, gray with dust and dripping with blood and sweat, staggered out on the road from among the trees. He turned a deathly face to theirs, stopped, tottered, and called out—"Jack!"
"Georges!" cried Jack, amazed.
"Give me a horse, for God's sake!" he gasped. "I've just killed mine. I—I must get to Metz by midnight—"
CHAPTER XIII
AIDE-DE-CAMP
Lorraine and Jack sprang to the road from opposite sides of the vehicle; Georges' drawn face was stretched into an attempt at a smile which was ghastly, for the stiff, black blood that had caked in a dripping ridge from his forehead to his chin cracked and grew moist and scarlet, and his hollow cheeks whitened under the coat of dust. But he drew himself up by an effort and saluted Lorraine with a punctilious deference that still had a touch of jauntiness to it—the jauntiness of a youthful cavalry officer in the presence of a pretty woman.
Old Pierre, who had witnessed the episode from the butler's window, came limping down the path, holding a glass and a carafe of brandy.
"You are right, Pierre," said Jack. "Georges, drink it up, old fellow. There, now you can stand on those pins of yours. What's that—a sabre cut?"
"No, a scratch from an Uhlan's lance-tip. Cut like a razor, didn't it? I've just killed my horse, trying to get over a ditch. Can you give me a mount, Jack?"