"Pardon. Will Monsieur come up to the terrace? I am watching the wall beyond the pool."
They ascended the stone steps; Karen moving lightly beside him. In the shadow of the clipped yews a dark form stirred.
"Pardon. I did not recognize Monsieur Guild nor Mademoiselle. There is trouble."
It was Schultz the herdsman; his rifle was in his hand and he wore two cartridge-belts crossed over his smock en bandoulière.
He touched his hat to Karen, but turned immediately toward the star-lit sky-line where the dark coping of the wall cut it.
"What is the trouble?" asked Guild with a sinking heart.
"God knows how it happened, Monsieur Guild--but there was bad blood tonight and hot heads full of it. Then, very far in the forest, a shot was fired."
"Listen, Monsieur! The Moresnet man and the boy, Jean Pascal, put their heads together. I don't know how it was, but even after what you said to us, and after Michaud told us to remain prudent and calm, somehow after we heard that shot we all, one by one, took down our guns; and after a little while we found ourselves together in the carrefour.
"And from there we went, without saying a word, to the Calvary on the hill pasture road. It was as though each of us understood without telling each other--without even hinting at a plan.
"And by and by we went down by the rivulet at the foot of the hill pastures, and there, as we expected, were two of the Yslemont refugees. They had their guns. And one of them had a _spiked helmet_."
"Go on," said Guild, compressing his lips.
"He had taken it near Trois Fontaines, not below the hill. We all examined it. We saw red, Monsieur. Then a calf which had escaped the Grey Wolves moved in the bushes near us. The Moresnet man caught it, and he and the shepherd, little Jean Pascal, took the dumb beast and tied it to a sapling near the road. On _our_ side of the boundary! But we all knew what might happen."
There was a silence; then Schultz said in a low, hoarse voice: "It was fated to be. We took both sides of the road in the long grasses of the ditches. And the calf bawled for company.
"The company came after a while--two Grey Wolves. First we heard the clink-clink of their horses' feet; then we saw their lances against the sky.