"Hush!" he repeated, angrily. "I am doing my duty in not leaving you; and Miss Bakefield herself would never forgive me if I did otherwise!" The girl irritated him. He suspected that she regarded herself as having triumphed over Isabel and that she had been trying to confirm her victory by proving to Simon that he ought to have left her. "No, no," he said to himself, "it's not for her sake that I'm staying with her. I'm staying because it's my duty. A man does not leave a woman under such conditions. But is she capable of understanding that?" They had to leave their refuge in the middle of the night, for it was stealthily invaded by the river, and to lie down higher up the beach. No further incident disturbed their sleep. But in the morning, when the darkness was not yet wholly dispersed, they were awakened by quick, hollow barks. A dog came leaping towards them at such a speed that Simon had no time to do more than pull out his revolver. "Don't fire!" cried Dolores, knife in hand. It was too late. The brute turned a somersault, made a few convulsive moments and lay motionless. Dolores stooped over it and said, positively: "I recognize him, he's the tramps' dog. They are on our track. The dog had run ahead of them." "But our track's impossible to follow. There's hardly any light." "Forsetta and Mazzani have their torches, just as you have. Besides, the firing would have told them." "Then let's be off as quickly as possible," Simon proposed. "They will catch us up . . . at least, unless you abandon your search of Rolleston." Simon seized his rifle: "That's true. So the only thing is to wait for them here and kill them one by one." "That's so," she said. "Unfortunately. . . ." "Well?" "Yesterday, after firing at the tramps, you did not reload your rifle." "No, but my cartridge-belt is on the sand, at the place where I slept." "So is mine; and both are covered by the rising water. Therefore there are only the six cartridges of your Browning left." CHAPTER IV THE BATTLE All things considered, their best chance of safety would have been to plunge into the river and escape by the left bank. But this plan, which would have cut them off from Rolleston and which Simon did not wish to adopt except in the last extremity, must have been foreseen by Forsetta, for, as soon as light was clear enough, they saw two tramps going up the Somme on the opposite bank. Under these conditions, how were they to land? Shortly afterwards, they saw that their retreat was discovered and that the enemy was profiting by their hesitation. On the same bank as themselves, some five hundred yards down-stream, appeared the barrel of a rifle. Up-stream an identical menace confronted them. "Forsetta and Mazzani," declared Dolores. "We are cut off right and left." "But there's nobody in front of us." "Yes, the rest of the tramps." "I don't see them." "They are there, believe me, in hiding and well sheltered." "Let's rush at them and get by!"