Dalroy does not know to this day exactly how the battle ended in rear, nor did he care then. He had routed the enemy in his own neighbourhood, and that must suffice. Regaining the path, he sped upward, pausing only to retrieve the pistol which had proved so efficient a sentinel. Judging by the groans and the stertorous breathing which came from among the undergrowth close to the path, Karl Schwartz's services as a spy and guide were lost to the great cause of _Kultur_. Dalroy did not bother about the wretch. He pressed on, and reached the plateau above the quarry. The clearing was now flooded with moonlight, and the doorway of the hut was plainly visible. Jan Maertz was not at his post, but this was not surprising, as he would surely have joined old Joos and the terrified women at the first sounds of the firing. "Liège!" said Dalroy, speaking loudly enough for any one in the hut to hear. There was no answer. "Liège!" he cried again, with a certain foreboding that things had gone awry, and dreading lest the precious respite he had secured might be wasted irretrievably. But the hut was empty, and he realised that he might grope like a blind man for hours in the depths of the wood. The one-sided battle which had broken out in the front of the calvary had died down. He guessed what had happened, the blunder, the frenzied explanations, and their sequel in a quick decision to detach a company and surround the wood. In his exasperation he forgot the silent figure surveying the scene at the cross-roads, and swore like a very natural man, for he was now utterly at a loss what to do or where to go. CHAPTER VIII A RESPITE Never before in the course of a somewhat varied life had Dalroy felt so irresolute, so helplessly the victim of circumstances. Bereft of the local knowledge possessed by Joos and the other Belgians, any scheme he adopted must depend wholly on blind chance. The miller had described the wood as occupying a promontory in a bend of the Meuse, with steep cliffs forming the southern bank of the river. There was a tow-path; possibly, a series of narrow ravines or clefts gave precarious access from the plateau to this lower level. Probably, too, in the first shock of fright, the people in the hut had made for one of these cuttings, taking Irene with them. They believed, no doubt, that the Englishman had been shot or captured, and after that spurt of musketry so alarmingly near at hand the lower part of the wood would seem alive with enemies.