"Hush, Tim!" Ralph said to the Irishman, who had crawled
noiselessly along, and had lain down by his side.

"Percy, are you awake?"

"Yes, I woke at Tim's whisper. Listen."

They did listen; and distinctly, above the sighing of the wind,
they could hear a rustling, cracking noise. Day was just breaking,
but the light was not sufficiently strong to show objects with any
distinctness, among the trees.

"By Jove, we are surrounded!" Percy said; and was just going to
alarm the camp when the sentry, startled into wakefulness,
challenged and fired.

The franc tireurs woke, and leaped to their feet. Percy and Tim
were about to do the same, when Ralph held them down.

"Lie still," he said, "for your lives."

His words were not out of his lips, when a tremendous volley rang
out all round them; and half the franc tireurs fell.

"Now!" Ralph said, leaping up, "make a rush for a house.

"To the houses, all of you," he shouted, loudly. "It is our only
chance. We shall be shot down, here, like sheep."

The officer of the franc tireurs had already atoned for his
carelessness, by his life; and the men obeyed Ralph's call and,
amidst a heavy fire, rushed across the fifty yards of open space to
the houses. The door was burst in, with the rush.

Ralph had not stopped at the first house but, followed by his
brother and Tim Doyle, had run farther on; and entered the last
house in the village.

"Why did you not go in with the others, Ralph? We have no chance of
defending ourselves, here. We have only our revolvers."

"We have no chance of defending ourselves anywhere, Percy," Ralph
said. "There must be a couple of hundred of them, at least; and not
above fifteen or twenty, at most, of the franc tireurs gained the
houses. Resistance is utterly useless; and yet, had I been with
those poor fellows, I could not have told them to surrender, when
they would probably be shot, five minutes afterwards. We should be
simply throwing away our lives, without doing the least good."

There was a heavy firing now heard and, a moment after, half a
dozen shots were fired through the window. Then there was a rush of
soldiers towards the door, which Ralph had purposely left open.

"We surrender," Ralph shouted, in German, coming forward to meet
them. "We are French officers."

"Don't fire," a voice said, and then a young officer came forward.

"You are not franc tireurs?" he asked, for the light was still
insufficient to enable him to di