But Maurice laughed quietly as he answered: 

“That is silly talk!”

He took his friend’s arm and helped him along, for neither of them had any desire to linger there.  When, laboriously and by dint of heroic effort, they had advanced some half-dozen paces further, they halted again with renewed alarm at beholding before them a house, standing at the margin of the wood, apparently a sort of farmhouse.  Not a light was visible at any of the windows, the open courtyard gate yawned upon the dark and deserted dwelling.  And when they plucked up their courage a little and ventured to enter the courtyard, great was their surprise to find a horse standing there with a saddle on his back, with nothing to indicate the why or wherefore of his being there.  Perhaps it was the owner’s intention to return, perhaps he was lying behind a bush with a bullet in his brain.  They never learned how it was.

But Maurice had conceived a new scheme, which appeared to afford him great satisfaction.

“See here, the frontier is too far away; we should never succeed in reaching it without a guide.  What do you say to changing our plan and going to Uncle Fouchard’s, at Remilly?  I am so well acquainted with every inch of the road that I’m sure I could take you there with my eyes bandaged.  Don’t you think it’s a good idea, eh?  I’ll put you on this horse, and I suppose Uncle Fouchard will grumble, but he’ll take us in.”

Before starting he wished to take a look at the injured leg.  There were two orifices; the ball appeared to have entered the limb and passed out, fracturing the tibia in its course.  The flow of blood had not been great; he did nothing more than bandage the upper part of the calf tightly with his handkerchief.

“Do you fly, and leave me here,” Jean said again.

“Hold your tongue; you are silly!”

When Jean was seated firmly in the saddle Maurice took the bridle and they made a start.  It was somewhere about eleven o’clock, and he hoped to make the journey in three hours, even if they should be unable to proceed faster than a walk.  A difficulty that he had not thought of until then, however, presented itself to his mind and for a moment filled him with consternation:  how were they to cross the Meuse in order to get to the left bank?  The bridge at Mouzon would certainly be guarded.  At last he remembered that there was a ferry lower down the stream, at Villers, and trusting to luck to befriend him, he shaped his course for that village, striking across the meadows and tilled fields of the right bank.  All went well enough at first; they had only to dodge a cavalry patrol which forced them to hide in the shadow of a wall and remain there half an hour.  Then the rain began to come down in earnest and his progress became more laborious, compelled as he was to tramp through the sodden fields beside the horse, which fortunately showed itself to be a fine specimen of the equine race, and perfectly gentle.  On reaching Villers he found that his trust in the blind goddess, Fortune, had not been misplaced; the ferryman, who, at that late hour, had just returned from setting a Bavarian officer across the river, took them at once and landed them on the other shore without delay or accident.