Claude Laval, terribly weak from loss of blood, but with an odd, defiant smile on his face, was sitting upright in the carved chair, the sleeve of his wounded arm slit from shoulder to wrist, revealing the drenched blue-grey of his own French uniform beneath it. In front of him, his white moustache bristling with fury, and murder in every line of his wolf-like face, the old forester lifted a hatchet in both hands, while his wife, no longer the trembling servile old peasant of half an hour before, was tightening the knots of the rope she had thrown round Laval's body, binding him tightly to the chair! * * * * * In the little village three leagues from Bar-le-Duc a powerful car drew up in a cloud of dust in front of the restaurant where our friends had dined the night before, and General Joffre stepped from it on to the pavement. "Ah, what? You do not know where he is? No one has seen him--the young English lieutenant who was to meet me here?" said the General, knitting his white eyebrows. "That is strange; but never mind"--and he drew out his watch--"it still wants four minutes to eight." Leaning his elbow on the side of the automobile with one foot planted on the step, the great Frenchman waited, talking meanwhile with a Divisional General who had something to report. "Yes, yes," said the Generalissimo, and then he looked at his watch again. The minute hand pointed to the hour, but Sir Douglas Haig's messenger had not come! CHAPTER XIII A Mad Gamble for Liberty When Dennis Dashwood saw that terrible tableau through the window of Von Rudolfstein's hunting-lodge, his first thought was that he had arrived too late to save his friend; and, drawing his revolver from beneath Blumberger's flying coat, he raced for the front entrance. "Scoundrel and pig! I will split your skull even as I ground that cross of yours beneath my heel!" Dennis heard the old man bellow. "I will be bound you know more about the destruction of that fine Zeppelin than you will admit. Come, have you not finished yet, thou clumsy old fool?" "Clumsy old fool, indeed!" screamed the woman. "Who was it discovered that he was a Frenchman, I'd like to know? You will be taking the whole credit to yourself, worthless one!" "No, I want some of the credit myself," said a stern young voice from the doorway. "Shame on you both to treat a wounded man thus!" And he fired at one of the huge hands that held the woodcutter's axe. The formidable weapon fell with a clang on to the floor, and the forester gave a howl like a wounded beast. "Quick, Gretchen, ring the alarm bell! They will hear it at the village!" The old woman, who had sent up a piercing shriek, ran towards another door; but Dennis was too quick for her, and, putting out his foot, she pitched headlong on to the stone floor and lay quite still.