“All right!” returned the signor.  Then he selected thirty of his companions, who also dismounted, and they started at once to obey the orders of their leader.

The “peasant woman with a red kerchief over her head,” who was standing on the soda-factory hill, called in a low, clear tone to Ludwig: 

“De Fervlans is coming with his troop.”

“Then we must prepare a greeting for him,” responded Vavel.  He ordered his men into their saddles, then sallied forth with them to meet the enemy.

The two bodies of soldiers moving toward each other were very nearly alike in numbers.  Neither seemed to be in a particular hurry to begin an assault.  Suddenly a column of smoke rose from the thicket near the bridge—­it was the signal De Fervlans was waiting for.  He gave orders to halt.  The next instant there was a rattling salute from the demons’ carbines.  The “peasant woman” on the hill covered her face with both hands and shivered.  The messengers of death flew about the head of her lover, but left him unharmed.

Vavel now moved nearer to the attacking foe, and himself made straight for the leader.  One of De Fervlans’s lieutenants, however, a thick-set, sun-browned Sicilian, met the count’s assault.  There was a little sword-play, then Vavel struck his adversary’s blade from his hand with a force that sent it whizzing through the air, and with his left hand thrust the Sicilian, who was reaching for his pistols, from the saddle.

Nor had Vavel’s companions been idle the while.  The first assault was a success for the count’s troop.  De Fervlans now ordered a retreat.  The death-heads looked upon this as a victory, and eagerly pursued the retreating foe.  But the woman on the hill had already perceived that the retreat was but a feint.  She saw the demons crouching among the reeds in the thicket, and guessed their intention.

“Vavel!” she shouted at the top of her voice, “Vavel, take care!  Look to your rear!”

She imagined that her lover would hear her amid the tumult of the fight.

But Vavel had ears and eyes only for what was in front of him.  Nearer and nearer he approached to the trap De Fervlans had laid for him.  He was in it!  The trench was behind him now, and the demons in ambush were preparing to spring upon their prey.

Katharina could look no longer.  She ran down the hill, sprang on her mule, and galloped after her lover.

De Fervlans’s retreat was conducted in proper order, step by step, from earth-clod to earth-clod.

Suddenly Katharina discovered that a mule was an obstinate beast.  The one she was riding stopped abruptly, and would not advance another step.  In vain she urged and coaxed.  At last she sprang from the saddle, and on foot made her way toward the scene of the fray.

At this moment the demons creeping steathily along the trench sprang from their concealment, their bayonets ready for action.  They were on the point of firing a volley into the black backs of the Volons, when a rattling fire in their own rear brought down half of them dead and wounded.  The uninjured on turning found themselves confronted by Satan Laczi and his comrades, who, black and slimy from their passage through the morass, sprang like tigers upon the foe.