lleys descending the valley; while just opposite
to them trunk after trunk was crashing down the hill, the line of the
steel cable gleaming now and then in a fitful sunshine which had begun
to slip out below a roof of purple cloud. Only one prisoner was left to
look after the slide. The others had just gone down the hill, at a
summons from below. Suddenly Ellesborough sprang to his feet.

"Good Heavens! what's that?" For a loud cry had rung out, accompanied by
what sounded like a report. The man who had been standing among the dead
brushwood on the other side of the descending timber, about a hundred
yards away, had disappeared; and the huge beech just launched from above
had ceased to move.

Another cry for help.

"The cable's broken!" said Ellesborough, starting at full speed for the
slide. Rachel rushed after him, and presently caught him up where he
knelt beside a man lying on the ground, and writhing in great pain. The
prisoner's cap had fallen off, and revealed a young German lad of
nineteen or twenty, hardly conscious, and groaning pitifully at
intervals. As he lay crouched on his face, the red patches on his back,
intended to guide the aim of an armed guard in case of any attempt to
escape, showed with a sinister plainness.

"The cable snapped, and has caught him round the body," Ellesborough
explained. "Give him this brandy, please, while I try and make out--"

With skilled and gentle fingers he began to explore the injury.

"A rib broken, I think." He looked with anxiety at some blood that had
begun to appear on the lips. "I must go down and get some men and a
stretcher. They won't know what to do without me. My second in command is
off duty for the day. Can you look after him while I go? Awfully sorry
to--"

He gave her a swift, investigating glance.

She interrupted him.

"Tell me what to do, and I'll do it."

He loosened the boy's collar and very gently tried to ease his position.

"Mamma!" murmured the boy, with the accent of a miserable child in a bad
dream. Ellesborough's face softened. He bent over him and said something
in German. Rachel did not understand it--only the compassionate look in
the man's blue eyes.

"Give him more brandy if you can, and try and keep him still," said
Ellesborough as he rose to his feet. "I shall be back directly."

Her glance answered. By this time there was commotion below, the engine
had stopped working and men were running up the hill. Ellesborough went
b