'We are still waiting,' he answered, closing his book with a smile. 'But,' he continued, a moment later, 'I think I hear something now. Keep back a little, if you please, Countess.'
We all stood up among the trees, listening, and presently, though the murmuring of the river in the pass prevented us hearing duller sounds, a sharp noise, often repeated, came to our ears. It resembled the snapping of sticks under foot.
'Whips!' General Tzerclas muttered. 'Stand back, if you please.'
The words were scarcely out of his mouth before a handful of horsemen appeared on a sudden in the road below us. They came on like tired men, some with their feet dangling, some sitting sideways on their horses. Many had kerchiefs wound round their heads, and carried their steel caps at the saddle-bow; others nodded in their seats, as if asleep. They were abreast of our pikemen when we first saw them, and we watched them advance, until a couple of hundred yards brought them into line with the musketmen. These, too, they passed without suspicion, and so went jolting and clinking down the valley, every man with a bundle at his crupper, and strange odds and ends banging and swinging against his horse's sides.
Two hundred paces behind them the first waggon appeared, dragged slowly on by four labouring horses, and guarded by a dozen foot soldiers--heavy-browed fellows, lounging along beside the wheels, with their hands in their breeches pockets. Their long, trailing weapons they had tied at the tail of the waggon. Close on their heels came another waggon creaking and groaning, and another, and another, with a drowsy, stumbling train of teamsters and horse-boys, and here and there an officer or a knot of men-at-arms. But the foot soldiers had mostly climbed up into the waggons, and lay sprawling on the loads, with arms thrown wide, and heads rolling from side to side with each movement of the straining team.
We watched eighty of these waggons go by; the first must have been a mile and more in front of the last. After them followed a disorderly band of stragglers, among whom were some women. Then a thick, solid cloud of dust, far exceeding all that had gone before, came down the pass. It advanced by fits and starts, now plunging forward, now halting, while the heart of it gave forth a dull roaring sound that rose above the murmur of the river.
'Cattle!' General Tzerclas muttered. 'Five hundred head, I should say. There can be nothing behind that dust. Be ready, trumpeter.'
The man he addressed stood a few paces behind us; and at intervals along the ridge others lay hidden, ready to pass the signal to an officer stationed on the farthest knob, who as soon as he heard the call would spring up, and with a flag pass the order to the cavalry below him.
The suspense of the moment was such, it seemed an age before the general gave the word. He stood and appeared to calculate, now looking keenly towards the head of the convoy, which was fast disappearing in a haze of dust, now gazing down at the bellowing, struggling, wavering mass below us. At length, when the cattle had all but cleared the pass, he raised his hand and cried sharply--
'Now!'