The twelve young men under Gudin soon reached the base of the rocks of Saint-Sulpice. Here Gudin himself left the road with six of them, jumping the stiff hedge into the first field of gorse that he came to, while the other six by his orders did the same on the other side of the road. Gudin advanced to an apple-tree which happened to be in the middle of the field. Hearing the rustle of this movement through the gorse, seven or eight men, at the head of whom was Beau-Pied, hastily hid behind some chestnut-trees which topped the bank of this particular field. Gudin’s men did not see them, in spite of the white reflections of the hoar-frost and their own practised sight. “Hush! here they are,” said Beau-Pied, cautiously putting out his head. “The brigands have more men than we, but we have ‘em at the muzzles of our guns, and we mustn’t miss them, or, by the Lord, we are not fit to be soldiers of the pope.” By this time Gudin’s keen eyes had discovered a few muzzles pointing through the branches at his little squad. Just then eight voices cried in derision, “Qui vive?” and eight shots followed. The balls whistled round Gudin and his men. One fell, another was shot in the arm. The five others who were safe and sound replied with a volley and the cry, “Friends!” Then they marched rapidly on their assailants so as to reach them before they had time to reload. “We did not know how true we spoke,” cried Gudin, as he recognized the uniforms and the battered hats of his own brigade. “Well, we behaved like Bretons, and fought before explaining.” The other men were stupefied on recognizing the little company. “Who the devil would have known them in those goatskins?” cried Beau-Pied, dismally. “It is a misfortune,” said Gudin, “but we are all innocent if you were not informed of the sortie. What are you doing here?” he asked. “A dozen of those Chouans are amusing themselves by picking us off, and we are getting away as best we can, like poisoned rats; but by dint of scrambling over these hedges and rocks--may the lightning blast ‘em!--our compasses have got so rusty we are forced to take a rest. I think those brigands are now somewhere near the old hovel where you see that smoke.” “Good!” cried Gudin. “You,” he added to Beau-Pied and his men, “fall back towards the rocks through the fields, and join the line of sentinels you’ll find there. You can’t go with us, because you are in uniform. We mean to make an end of those curs now; the Gars is with them. I can’t stop to tell you more. To the right, march! and don’t administer any more shots to our own goatskins; you’ll know ours by their cravats, which they twist round their necks and don’t tie.” Gudin left his two wounded men under the apple-tree, and marched towards Galope-Chopine’s cottage, which Beau-Pied had pointed out to him, the smoke from the chimney serving as a guide.