As the little shepherd ran, the soldiers stood and fired at him, aiming carefully. They broke his leg as he passed the carrefour. The lad raised himself from the ground to a sitting position and was sobbing bitterly, when they shot him again. That time he fell over on his side, his hands still covering his dead and tear-wet face. His dogs trotted around him, nuzzling him and licking his hands. An officer shot them both. Schultz broke cover in a few moments, his rifle at his cheek; and, dropping to one knee in the ride, he coolly opened fire on the officers by the shrine. But he had time only for a single shot which jerked a spiked helmet from a cavalry major's clipped head. Then they knocked him flat. As the herdsman lay gasping in the roadway with a bullet in his stomach, looking with dull and glazing eyes at the rifle flashes, three men from Yslemont--blackened, haggard, ragged creatures--burst out, fighting like wildcats with the beaters behind them. Two were bayoneted and clubbed to death in the briers; the last man ran like a crazed hare, doubling, dodging, twisting among the trees where the rifle hail filled the air with twigs and splinters and tattered leaves. After him lumbered a dozen foot-soldiers, clumping along in their hob-nailed ammunition boots. Then, high above on The Pulpit, Guild spoke sharply to Michaud, who gave a jerk to his white head and made a little gesture to the others behind him. "Now," added Guild in a low voice. "Fire," said Michaud calmly. The rocky glen roared with the volley. The foot-soldiers below halted in astonishment and looked up. One fell sideways against a tree; another dropped to his knees and remained motionless, the spike of his helmet buried deep in the soft earth. They were shouting down by the carrefour now; clear, mellow whistle signals sounded persistently. Horses were coming, too; the ride reverberated with their galloping. And all the while The Pulpit resounded with the rifle-fire of its little garrison, and soldiers were dropping along the carrefour and the ride. [Illustration: "The Pulpit resounded with the rifle-fire of its little garrison"] "Pigs of Prussians!" shouted the old garde-de-chasse; "does a Belgian game-drive suit you now! Ah, scoundrels, bandits, sound the _Mort_ on your imbecile whistles. For the swine of the North are dying fast!" "Be silent," said Michaud coldly. "You tarnish your own courage!" Guild and Darrel had taken rifles; they stood firing down at the carrefour where the horses of the Uhlan advanced guard were plunging about in disorder under a confusion of lances and fluttering pennons. But the confusion lasted only a few moments; horsemen whirled their mounts and cleared out at full speed; the carrefour was empty of officers now; not a German was visible in the early sunshine, only the steady clatter of their rifle-fire continued to pelt the heights where bullets cracked and smacked on the rocks.