The women had given the Uhlans a bottle each. The good wife had a second in reserve. Turning their backs upon the prisoners, the guard broke the necks of the bottles, and drank with great gulps. Unnoticed, the wagoner slipped round behind them, cut the cords that bound the nearest prisoner, handed him the knife, and edged towards the Uhlans, still taking pulls at his bottle. Five of the prisoners had been released by their companion before one of the guards, half-turning, noticed a commotion within the pens, and at a second glance saw with amazement what was happening. Dropping his bottle with a furious oath, he seized his rifle, but before it reached his shoulder the wagoner swung his uncorked bottle with all his force and broke it on the Uhlan’s head, stretching him on the ground in a crimson pool of wine. He caught the man’s rifle as it fell, and bayoneted the second German, who had turned at his comrade’s cry. The third, evading a blow aimed at him with her bottle by the sturdy housewife, shouted for help, and was lifting his rifle when it was wrenched from his hands by the villager who had been first released, and he fell beside the others, stunned by a blow from the butt end. Kenneth and Pariset, who had followed every movement with breathless anxiety, felt that the party outside would give no trouble for a time, at any rate. They turned sharply round on hearing a commotion from the inner room, where the guzzling Uhlans had heard, through their own noise, the shout from the farmyard. Jumping to their feet, they crowded towards the rifles in the corner, and had just discovered that the weapons would not go round, when the door was thrown open, and they saw standing in the doorway two German officers. "Achtung!" cried Kenneth, in the short sharp tone he had many a time heard in a German drill yard. The men sprang to attention, clicked their heels, and saluted. They had no time to think; they acted with mechanical obedience. Standing thus rigid they were amazed to see the officers cover them with their rifles, and to hear a peremptory summons to surrender. Fuddled, astounded, they threw up their hands. At this moment the door of the parlour was flung open, and the sergeant, red with wine and rage, before he had taken in the scene, demanded what the noise was about. His voice dropped at the end of the sentence, when he saw, as he thought, a captain and a lieutenant before him. A sound of rushing feet behind him caused him to swing round hastily. With a startled cry he raised his revolver, and fired; but he was immediately hurled backward to the floor by a dozen sturdy peasants, the foremost of whom held a knife. There was a great silence in the farm. CHAPTER XVI--THE CARETAKER "We shall have to clear everybody out of this double quick," said Pariset. "If the regiment comes up every soul will be massacred." "You mean that we must all trek?" said Kenneth.