"Write for me that my daughter and the Comte d'Yvoir shall be accorded transportation as far as we control. You will take them to Trois Fontaines in my automobile; you will make personal requisition of the chef-de-gar for the privacy of a compartment. You will affix to the outside of the compartment a notice that the persons in possession are travelling on my business and under my personal protection, and that they are not to be detained or interfered with in any way.... Write it separately to be affixed." His voice was weak but perfectly distinct.
The hussar wrote steadily in his tablets, finished, and waited.
"Hold them while I sign," whispered von Reiter. He signed both orders.
"Take them now. I shall not need the car. I shall be here a long time--a--long--time. I am ill. So inform headquarters by telegraph."
Von Reiter closed his eyes: "Say to the Comte d'Yvoir that it was--bad luck--very bad luck.... But not--his fault.... Tell him I am--contented--that a Gueldres is to marry my--daughter."
The aide saluted. But the sick man said nothing more.
Von Reiter was still unconscious when Guild returned from the forest.
Karen met him on the steps; he drew her aside:
"Dear," he whispered, "there has been more violence during my absence. The Lesse men caught a traitor--a wretched charcoal burner from Moresnet--prowling about their camp.
"They hung him with his own belt. I saw him hanging to a beech-tree.
"Darrel was greatly worried when I told him that the Courlands had been forced to continue on to Luxembourg City. He has gone to the hamlet of Croix to hire a peasant to drive him after them and try to overtake them.
"As for the others, they will not come to Antwerp with me now. They have seen 'red' again; and in spite of all I could do they have started back toward Lesse to 'drive' Uhlans as they saw the wild game driven."
Guild made a hopeless gesture: "It means the death of every man among them. The Uhlans will do the hunting and the driving, not the poor, half-crazed peasants.... It means the end of Lesse and of every man who had ever called it home."
The hussar appeared at the door. Guild looked up, returned the precise salute, and his careworn features softened as he listened to the instructions and the parting message from the now unconscious officer above.