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D'ri was making a moose-horn of birch-bark as he smoked thoughtfully. When he had finished, he raised it to his lips and moved the flaring end in a wide circle as he blew a blast that rang miles away in the far forest.
"Tank's connected with the reservoir o' the lead-works on the hill up there. Big wooden pipe comes in the gable-end." "Turn 'er on," said D'ri, quickly, "an' let me hev thet air hose." The landlord ran up a ladder. D'ri stuck the hose out of the window. The stream shot away with a loud hiss. I stood by and saw the jet of water leap forth as big as a pikestaff.
"Wait here, and be silent," I said, and ran "like a madwoman," as they told me long after, for the flickering lights. There a squad of cavalry was shut in by the pikes. Two troopers had broken through the near line. One had fallen, badly hurt; the other was sabre to sabre with the man D'ri. They were close up and striving fiercely, as if with broadswords.
I had been thinking of D'ri in that quick descent. I wondered if he was the man who had got away and gone down the slide. I was not the less amazed, however, to feel his strong hand upon me as I came up. I knew nothing for a time. D'ri has told me often how he bore me up in rapid water until he came into an eddy where he could touch bottom.
In a jiffy I had run my sword through the cat's belly and made an end of him. "Knew 'f he got them hind hooks on thet air dog he 'd rake his ribs right off," said D'ri, as he lifted his hat to scratch his head. "Would n't 'a' left nothin' but the backbone, nut a thing, an' thet would n't 'a' been a real fust-class one, nuther."
Soon after two o'clock we turned in at the chateau. We were a merry company at luncheon, the doctor drinking our health and happiness with sublime resignation. But I had to hurry back that was the worst of it all. Louise walked with me to the big gate, where were D'ri and the horses. We stopped a moment on the way. "Again?" she whispered, her sweet face on my shoulder.
"My dear sir," the other interrupted, in the same weary and lethargic manner, "I can get more reliable knowledge from other sources. Let the fellow go back." "That will do," said the general to the guard, who then covered my eyes and led me back to prison. Lying there in the dark, I told D'ri all I knew of my mysterious journey. My account of the young man roused him to the soul.
I lay awhile thinking of all the blood and horror in that black night like a dream of evil that leads through dim regions of silence into the shadow of death. I thought of the hinted peril of the slide that was to be the punishment of poor courage. D'ri had a plausible theory of the slide.
I felt the man I bore struggle and then go limp in my arms; I felt my knees getting warm and wet. The smoke rose; the tall, herculean back of D'ri was just ahead of me. His sleeve had been ripped away from shoulder to elbow, and a spray of blood from his upper arm was flying back upon me.
A thought stung me as D'ri and I entered this black hole and sat upon a heap of straw. Was this to be the end of our fighting and of us? "You can have a candle a day," said a guard as he blew out the one he carried, laying it, with a tinder-box, on a shelf in the wall of rock beside me. Then they filed out, and the narrow door shut with a loud bang.
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