"It is our scout," replied the Vendéen chief; "he is asking in his own fashion if the way is clear. Listen, and you will hear the reply." At these words, he stretched out his hand, and put it on M. Berryer's arm to make him pull his horse up. A second cry then went up, coming from a greater distance off; it seemed like the echo of the first, so like was it. "We can go forward, the road is free," replied the chief, putting his horse to the spur. "Then we are preceded by a scout?" "Yes, we have one man two hundred yards ahead of us and another the same distance behind." "But who are the people who answer?" "The peasants whose cottages lie along the road. Pay attention when you pass by one of them, and you will see a little dormer-window open and a man's head slip out, stay motionless for an instant as if he were a stone, and only disappear when we are out of sight. If we were soldiers from some neighbouring cantonment, the man who will only look at us as we pass would immediately come out by a back door; then, if there were any gathering in the district, he would soon warn it of the approach of the column which believed it was about to take it by surprise." At this moment, the Vendéen chief interrupted himself. "Listen," he whispered, stopping his horse. "What is it?" said M. Berryer. "I only heard the usual cry of our scout." "Yes, but no other cry has replied to it; there are soldiers in the neighbourhood." He put his horse into a trot upon these words, and M. Berryer did the same; almost at the same instant, the man who formed the rear-guard caught them up at a gallop. They found their guide motionless and undecided at the forking of the two roads. The path desected and, as no one had answered his cry from either side, he did not know which of the footpaths he must take; both would lead the travellers to their destination. After a minute's deliberation in low tones between the chief and the guide, the latter plunged out of sight into the dark alley to the right; five minutes afterwards, M. Berryer and the chief started at a walk along the same path, leaving their fourth companion motionless at the place they left, and five minutes later he also followed them. Three hundred yards further on, M. Berryer and the chief found that their scout had stopped; he signed to them to command silence, and said in a whisper--"A patrol!" They could, indeed, hear the regular step of a troop on the march; it was a moving column which was making its nightly round. The noise soon came nearer to them, and they saw against the sky the outline of the soldiers' bayonets, who, in order to avoid the water which collected in the deep paths, had followed neither of the two roads, the bifurcation of which had caused the guide a momentary hesitation, but had climbed the slope, and were walking between the two hedges, on the ground which overlooked the two sunk footpaths by which it was enclosed. Had a single one of the