other Uhlans came racing
and tearing uphill, hallooing like Cossacks, and he vaulted into
his saddle and again set spurs to his horse.

Now it was a ride for life; he understood that thoroughly, and
settled down to it, bending low in the saddle, bridle in one
hand, revolver in the other. And as he rode his sobered thoughts
dwelt now on Lorraine, now on the great lank Uhlan, lying
stricken in the red dust of the highway. He seemed to see him
yet, blond, dusty, the sweat in beads on his blanched cheeks, the
crimson furrow in his colourless scalp. He had seen, too, the
padded yellow shoulder-knots bearing the regimental number "11,"
and he knew that he had shot a trooper of the 11th Uhlans, and
that the 11th Uhlan Regiment was Rickerl's regiment. He set his
teeth and stared fearfully over his shoulder. The pursuit had
ceased; the Uhlans, dismounted, were gathered about the tree
under which their comrade lay gasping. Jack brought his horse to
a gallop, to a canter, and finally to a trot. The horse was not
winded, but it trembled and reeked with sweat and lather.

Beyond him lay the forest of La Bruine, red in the slanting rays
of the setting sun. Beyond this the road swung into the Morteyn
road, that lay cool and moist along the willows that bordered the
river Lisse.

The sun glided behind the woods as he reached the bridge that
crosses the Lisse, and the evening glow on feathery willow and
dusty alder turned stem and leaf to shimmering rose.

It was seven o'clock, and he knew that he could keep his word to
Lorraine. And now, too, he began to feel the fatigue of the day
and the strain of the last two hours. In his excitement he had
not noticed that two bullets had passed through his jacket, one
close to the pocket, one ripping the gun-pads at the collar. The
horse, too, was bleeding from the shoulder where a long raw
streak traced the flight of a grazing ball.

His face was pale and serious when, at evening, he rode into the
porte-cochere of the Chateau de Nesville and dismounted, stiffly.
He was sore, fatigued, and covered with dust from cap to spur;
his eyes, heavily ringed but bright, roamed restlessly from
window to porch.

"I've kept my faith," he muttered to himself--"I've kept my
faith, anyway." But now he began to understand what might follow
if he, a foreigner and a non-combatant, was ever caught by the
11th regiment of Uhlans. It sickened him when he thought of what
he had done; he could find no excuse f