'Stop that folly!' I said. 'What is in front there? Cannot some one speak?'
'The Waldgrave thinks that he hears horsemen before us,' Fraulein Max answered.
In another moment the Waldgrave's figure loomed out of the darkness. 'Martin,' he said--I noticed that his voice shook--'go forward. They are in front. Man alive, be quick!' he continued fiercely. 'Do you want to have them into us?'
I left my girl's rein, and pushing past the women and Fraulein, joined Steve, who was standing by my lady's rein. 'What is it?' I said.
'Nothing, I think,' he answered in an uncertain tone.
I stood a moment listening, but I too could hear nothing. I began to argue with him. 'Who heard it?' I asked impatiently.
'The Waldgrave,' he answered.
I did not like to say before my lady what I thought--that the Waldgrave was not quite himself, nor to be depended upon; and instead I proposed to go forward on foot and learn if anything was amiss. The road ran straight down the hill, and the party could scarcely pass me, even in the gloom. If I found all well, I would whistle, and they could come on.
My lady agreed, and, leaving them halted, I started cautiously down the hill. The darkness was not extreme; the cloud drift was broken here and there, and showed light patches of sky between; I could make out the shapes of things, and more than once took a clump of bushes for a lurking ambush. But halfway down, a line of poplars began to shadow the road on our side, and from that point I might have walked into a regiment and never seen a man. This, the being suddenly alone, and the constant rustling of the leaves overhead, which moved with the slightest air, shook my nerves, and I went very warily, with my heart in my mouth and a cry trembling on my lips.
Still I had reached the hillfoot before anything happened. Then I stopped abruptly, hearing quite distinctly in front of me the sound of footsteps. It was impossible that this could be the sound that the Waldgrave had heard, for only one man seemed to be stirring, and he moved stealthily; but I crouched down and listened, and in a moment I was rewarded. A dark figure came out of the densest of the shadow and stood in the middle of the road. I sank lower, noiselessly. The man seemed to be listening.