himself feared that he had sent them to their deaths, and an
involuntary shudder seized him as he saw the last of them. Officers and
soldiers listened to the gradually lessening sound of their footsteps,
with feelings all the more acute because they were carefully hidden.
There are occasions when the risk of four lives causes more excitement
and alarm than all the slain at Jemmapes. The faces of those trained to
war have such various and fugitive expressions that a painter who has to
describe them is forced to appeal to the recollections of soldiers and
to leave civilians to imagine these dramatic figures; for scenes so rich
in detail cannot be rendered in writing, except at interminable length.

Just as the bayonets of the four men were finally lost to sight, Captain
Merle returned, having executed the commandant's orders with rapidity.
Hulot, with two or three sharp commands, put his troop in line of battle
and ordered it to return to the summit of La Pelerine where his little
advanced-guard were stationed; walking last himself and looking backward
to note any changes that might occur in a scene which Nature had made
so lovely, and man so terrible. As he reached the spot where he had left
the Chouan, Marche-a-Terre, who had seen with apparent indifference
the various movements of the commander, but who was now watching with
extraordinary intelligence the two soldiers in the woods to the
right, suddenly gave the shrill and piercing cry of the _chouette_, or
screech-owl. The three famous smugglers already mentioned were in the
habit of using the various intonations of this cry to warn each other
of danger or of any event that might concern them. From this came the
nickname of "Chuin" which means _chouette_ or owl in the dialect of that
region. This corrupted word came finally to mean the whole body of those
who, in the first uprising, imitated the tactics and the signals of the
smugglers.

When Hulot heard that suspicious sound he stopped short and examined the
man intently; then he feigned to be taken in by his stupid air, wishing
to keep him by him as a barometer which might indicate the movements of
the enemy. He therefore checked Gerard, whose hand was on his sword to
despatch him; but he placed two soldiers beside the man he now felt to
be a spy, and ordered them in a loud, clear voice to shoot him at the
next sound he made. In spite of his imminent danger Marche-a-Terre
showed not the slightest emotion. The comman