For a minute they stared at each other, making no movement, no sound.
"Sir Thorald!"—faltered Jack.
But Sir Thorald Hesketh could not speak, for he had a bullet through his lungs.
As Jack sprang into the brier tangle towards him, a slim figure in the black garments of the Sisters of Mercy rose from Sir Thorald's side. He saw the white cross on her breast, he saw the white face above it and the whiter lips.
It was Alixe von Elster.
At the same instant the road in front was filled with French infantry, running.
Alixe caught his arm, her head turned towards the road where the infantry were crowding past at double-quick, enveloped in a whirling torrent of red dust.
"There is a cart there," she said. "Oh, Jack, find it quickly! The driver is on the seat—and I can't leave Sir Thorald."
In his amazement he stood hesitating, looking from the girl to Sir Thorald; but she drew him to the edge of the thicket and pointed to the road, crying, "Go! go!" and he stumbled down the pasture slope to the edge of the road.
Past him plodded the red-legged infantry; he saw, through the whirlwind of dust, the vague outlines of a tumbril and horse standing below in the ditch, and he ran along the grassy depression towards the vehicle. And now he saw the driver, kneeling in the cart, his blue blouse a mass of blood, his discoloured face staring out at the passing troops.