"If I may venture my advice, gentlemen, you will neither fight nor fly, at least until you know who these men are. A hundred yards ahead there is a deep dell overhung with trees. Under their shelter you may let this band of cavalry pass on, after you have seen them you may take better counsel as to your action." "Right!" cried Geoffrey; and in a few moments they reached, under the peddler's direction, the place of temporary safety. They had not long to wait. In two or three minutes a band of from twenty to thirty schwartzreiters came thundering on. "How did they know of our journey?" whispered Ralph. "Remember the drunken camp follower ere we left the camp?" replied Geoffrey. "I knew he was a spy." They had not been perceived in the thick shades of the trees—but what now? It was equally dangerous to advance or retire. It was at this dread and critical moment that a wonderful intervention came. There arose in the stillness of the night a great sound like the shock of battle or the fall of an avalanche. "Oh, God! it is the barricade!" cried the peddler; "I passed it half-an- hour ago." "What barricade?" said Geoffrey eagerly. "The 'gueux' have filled the road with huge stones, gathered from the quarry hard by, it is their favourite trap to catch night travellers, and the reiters have fallen into it." "And a moment more _we_ should have fallen into it," cried Geoffrey. "No," said the peddler, "for I was about to tell you of it. But, hark! the 'gueux' are attacking the fallen reiters." "Come," cried Geoffrey, "we must see what is passing; keep close together, make no noise. If any reiter escapes from the mêlée cut him down with your swords, or we shall be discovered." The "gueux" possessed guns and fowling-pieces, and now they were pouring in a desultory fire upon the confused mass of fallen men around the barricade. There seemed to be hundreds of wild figures gathering to the scene of conflict, and fresh bodies of them were pouring from the woods. Then a hand-to-hand fight ensued, so fierce in character that it was a combat of fiends rather than of men. No quarter was asked or given, it was a fight to the death. Soon it was evident that the reiters were being overpowered, notwithstanding their superiority in equipment and discipline. Their foes were twenty to one, and many of the Germans were lying in a helpless mass of men and horses amid the great quarry stones. Their battle-cries grew feebler and feebler; Geoffrey saw that the end would soon come. "But what then?" thought Geoffrey anxiously. The "gueux" would be as dangerous to them as to the reiters, they would make no distinction between English and Germans, all fought alike for their detested enemy King Philip. Once again the peddler intervened, as he sat behind Geoffrey. "My lord, my lord," he said in an agitated voice, "we must be gone, or we shall likewise perish."