Dalroy,
crouched behind a pollard oak, could not overhear the spy's words. But
he smiled when the party went on in Indian file, Schwartz leading,
because the enemy was acting just as he hoped the enemy would act.

He did not press close on their heels now, but remained deliberately at
the foot of the hill and on the edge of the quarry. Standing erect, with
the rifle at the ready, he waited. He could hear nothing, but judged
time and distance by counting fifty slow steps. He was right to a fifth
of a second. A shot rang out, and was followed instantly by a yell of
agony. He saw the flash, and, taking aim somewhat below it, fired six
rounds rapidly. A fusillade broke out in the wood, the Germans, like
himself, firing at the one flash above and the six beneath. A bullet cut
through his blouse on the left shoulder and scorched his skin; but when
the magazine was empty he ran straight on for a few yards, turned to the
right, stepping with great caution, and threw himself flat behind a
rock. As he ran, he had refilled the magazine, but now meant using the
rifle as a last resource only.

In effect, matters had fallen out exactly as he calculated. Schwartz had
blundered into the man-trap set on the path half-way up the cliff, and
was shot. The others, lacking a leader, and stupefied by the firing and
the darkness, bolted like so many rabbits to the open road and the
moonlight as soon as the seeming attack from the rear ceased.

Uncommon grit was needed to press on through a strange wood at night,
up a difficult path bordering a precipice when each tree might vomit the
flame of a gunshot. And these fellows were not cast in heroic mould.
Their one thought was to get back the way they came. They were received
warmly, too. The passing regiment, hearing the hubbub and seeing the
flashes, very reasonably supposed they were being taken in flank by a
Belgian force, and blazed away merrily at the first moving objects in
sight in that direction.

Dalroy does not know to this day exactly how the battle ended in rear,
nor did he care then. He had routed the enemy in his own neighbourhood,
and that must suffice. Regaining the path, he sped upward, pausing only
to retrieve the pistol which had proved so efficient a sentinel. Judging
by the groans and the stertorous breathing which came from among the
undergrowth close to the path, Karl Schwartz's services as a spy and
guide were lost to the great cause of _Kultur_. Dalroy did not bother