Jack watched the cannonade, lying on his stomach, chin supported by both hands. He was perfectly cool now; he neither feared the Uhlans nor the franc-tireurs. For a while he vainly tried to comprehend the reason of the cannonade; the shells shot out across the valley in tall curves, dropping into a distant bit of hazy blue woodland, or exploded above the trees; the column of infantry below plodded doggedly southward; the infantry in the flax-field lay supine. Clearly something was interfering with the retreat of the troops--something that threatened them from those distant woods. And now he could see cavalry moving about the crest of the nearer hills, but, without his glass, it was not possible to tell what they were. Often he looked at the nearer forest that hid the Château de Nesville. Somewhere within those sombre woods lay the dead marquis.
With a sigh he rose to his knees, shivered in the sunshine, passed one hand over his forehead, and finally stood up. Hunger had made him faint; his head grew dizzy.
"It must be noon, at least," he muttered, and started down the hill and across the fields towards the woods of Morteyn. As he walked he pulled the bearded wheat from ripening stems and chewed it to dull his hunger. The raw place on his neck, where the rope had chafed, stung when the perspiration started. He moved quickly but warily, keeping a sharp lookout on every side. Once he passed a miniature vineyard, heavy with white-wine grapes; and, as he threaded a silent path among the vines, he ate his fill and slaked his thirst with the cool amber fruit. He had reached the edge of the little vineyard, and was about to cross a tangle of briers and stubble, when something caught his eye in the thicket; it was a man's face--and he stopped.
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."