"How near by did you see him?" asked Wat. "He was within twenty paces of me as I lay behind a bush of broom," she said, "and had it not been for the men who were with him, and the fear that they might have marked me down as I ran, I had given him as good as I gave his master." And with the utmost calmness the Little Marie unslung the dags or horse-pistols from her side, and took out the long keen dagger with which she had wounded Barra as he mounted at his own door to ride after his prisoner. So, perched on this shadeless shelter they waited hour after hour, while the sun beat pitilessly down on them. The heat grew sullenly oppressive. A dizzy, glimmering haze quivered over the sand-hills, and made it difficult to see clearly more than a few hundred yards in any direction. Wat and Scarlett desired the girl to rest a while under the shadow of the rude hut in the corner. [Illustration: "A COUPLE OF PISTOL-SHOTS RANG OUT LOUDLY"] "But then I could not watch for the coming of your enemies, my captain," she said, as if that settled the matter. And when Wat repeated his request, Marie looked so unhappy that they had perforce to allow her to stand on guard equally with themselves. And indeed, as it proved, it was the Little Marie whose sharp eyes first saw their opponents tracking stealthily along the sandy bottoms between them and the forest. The pursuers seemed to be ten or twelve in number, and they came scouting cautiously here and there through the hollows, running briskly to the tops of the higher dunes, and looking eagerly all about them for the footprints of men or horses in the looser sand. Before Scarlett or Wat could stop her--indeed, before either of them so much as suspected her intention, the Little Marie had climbed over the wall on the side farthest from the enemy but nearest to the sea. In a moment she had run deftly down among the ruts and hiding-places of the dells. With wonderful skill she threaded her way towards the approaching miscreants, without letting them catch a single glimpse of her. Indeed, even from their watch-tower on the top of the dune, it was as much as Wat and Scarlett could do to keep her in sight through the wavering glimmer of the heated air. Presently, as they lay behind their defences, each in his own rude shelter, Wat and Scarlett could see her crouch low in a little cuplike depression upon the height of a dune overlooking the track by which the enemy must come. The girl lay motionless, with her body flat to the ground, like a cat which makes ready for the pounce; and they could see the sun of the afternoon wink on the steel barrels of her pistols as on dewy holly leaves. Soon the vanguard of Haxo's little army came scouting and scenting along. The men kept signalling and crying, keeping touch with one another and making believe to search the wilderness of sand and bent with marvellous exactitude and care.