"A COUPLE OF PISTOL-SHOTS RANG OUT LOUDLY"
"But then I could not watch for the coming of your enemies, my captain," she said, as if that settled the matter.
And when Wat repeated his request, Marie looked so unhappy that they had perforce to allow her to stand on guard equally with themselves.
And indeed, as it proved, it was the Little Marie whose sharp eyes first saw their opponents tracking stealthily along the sandy bottoms between them and the forest. The pursuers seemed to be ten or twelve in number, and they came scouting cautiously here and there through the hollows, running briskly to the tops of the higher dunes, and looking eagerly all about them for the footprints of men or horses in the looser sand.
Before Scarlett or Wat could stop her—indeed, before either of them so much as suspected her intention, the Little Marie had climbed over the wall on the side farthest from the enemy but nearest to the sea. In a moment she had run deftly down among the ruts and hiding-places of the dells. With wonderful skill she threaded her way towards the approaching miscreants, without letting them catch a single glimpse of her. Indeed, even from their watch-tower on the top of the dune, it was as much as Wat and Scarlett could do to keep her in sight through the wavering glimmer of the heated air.
Presently, as they lay behind their defences, each in his own rude shelter, Wat and Scarlett could see her crouch low in a little cuplike depression upon the height of a dune overlooking the track by which the enemy must come. The girl lay motionless, with her body flat to the ground, like a cat which makes ready for the pounce; and they could see the sun of the afternoon wink on the steel barrels of her pistols as on dewy holly leaves.
Soon the vanguard of Haxo's little army came scouting and scenting along. The men kept signalling and crying, keeping touch with one another and making believe to search the wilderness of sand and bent with marvellous exactitude and care.
The foremost of them had just passed the hillock on the top of which Marie lay when "Crack! crack!" a couple of pistol-shots rang out loudly on the slumberous air. One man pitched heavily forward on his face, while another and younger man spun round like a rabbit, bent himself double, clawed convulsively at the sand, and then slowly collapsed across the path.
The scattered trackers here and there about the mounds and hollows stood rooted to the ground with vague alarm at the sight. Some of them, indeed, put their heads down and ran up the hill of sand from which the shots had come. But when they reached the summit all they saw was the reek of burned powder lazily dispersing in the hot haze of the afternoon, while upon the dune's extremest edge were the marks of a pair of elbows in the sand, where Marie had reclined as she took aim.
But of their dangerous assailant they found no further trace. For immediately upon firing Marie had snatched her pistols and descended into the winding lane of sand at the back of the dune. Then, being perfectly acquainted with her line of communication, and mindful ever to keep upon the shady side, she glided from shelter to shelter with the silence and skill of one bred to such guerilla warfare.