A distant barking reached her. She began to whistle like a huntsman, and almost immediately two immense dogs loomed through the shadows and jumped upon her with signs of joy. She held them by the neck, to keep them from running away, and called with all her might: "Halloa, father!"
A voice, still very distant, answered: "Halloa, Berthine!"
She waited some moments, then called again: "Halloa, father!"
The voice repeated, nearer: "Halloa, Berthine!"
The keeper's wife returned: "Don't pass in front of the grating. There are Prussians in the cellar."
All at once the black outline of the man showed on the left, where he had paused between two tree-trunks. He asked, uneasily: "Prussians in the cellar! What are they doing there?"
The young woman began to laugh.
"It is those that came yesterday. They got lost in the forest ever since the morning; I put them in the cellar to keep cool."
And she related the whole adventure; how she had frightened them with shots of the revolver, and shut them up in the cellar.
The old man, still grave, asked: "What do you expect me to do with them at this time of night?"