I should not have feared to ride by the road through the wood, for I have learned in Spain that the safest time to pass through a guerilla country is after an outrage, and that the moment of danger is when all is peaceful.  When I came to look upon my map, however, I saw that Hof lay further to the south of me, and that I might reach it more directly by keeping to the moors.  Off I set, therefore, and had not gone fifty yards before two carbine shots rang out of the brushwood and a bullet hummed past me like a bee.  It was clear that the night-riders were bolder in their ways than the brigands of Spain, and that my mission would have ended where it had begun if I had kept to the road.

It was a mad ride, that—­a ride with a loose rein, girth-deep in heather and in gorse, plunging through bushes, flying down hill-sides, with my neck at the mercy of my dear little Violette.  But she—­she never slipped, she never faltered, as swift and as surefooted as if she knew that her rider carried the fate of all Germany beneath the buttons of his pelisse.  And I—­I had long borne the name of being the best horseman in the six brigades of light cavalry, but I never rode as I rode then.  My friend the Bart had told me of how they hunt the fox in England, but the swiftest fox would have been captured by me that day.  The wild pigeons which flew overhead did not take a straighter course than Violette and I below.  As an officer, I have always been ready to sacrifice myself for my men, though the Emperor would not have thanked me for it, for he had many men, but only one—­well, cavalry leaders of the first class are rare.

But here I had an object which was indeed worth a sacrifice, and I thought no more of my life than of the clods of earth that flew from my darling’s heels.

We struck the road once more as the light was failing, and galloped into the little village of Lobenstein.  But we had hardly got upon the cobblestones when off came one of the mare’s shoes, and I had to lead her to the village smithy.  His fire was low, and his day’s work done, so that it would be an hour at the least before I could hope to push on to Hof.  Cursing at the delay, I strode into the village inn and ordered a cold chicken and some wine to be served for my dinner.  It was but a few miles to Hof, and I had every hope that I might deliver my papers to the Prince on that very night, and be on my way for France next morning with despatches for the Emperor in my bosom.  I will tell you now what befell me in the inn of Lobenstein.

The chicken had been served and the wine drawn, and I had turned upon both as a man may who has ridden such a ride, when I was aware of a murmur and a scuffling in the hall outside my door.  At first I thought that it was some brawl between peasants in their cups, and I left them to settle their own affairs.  But of a sudden there broke from among the low, sullen growl of the voices such a sound as would send Etienne Gerard leaping from his death-bed.  It was the whimpering cry of a woman in pain.  Down clattered my knife and my fork, and in an instant I was in the thick of the crowd which had gathered outside my door.