Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us; and to the hills, Cover us.—St. Luke.
In the days of her not far distant childhood Dorothea had never loved any game like hide-and-seek; she flung herself into her present escapade with much the same zest and little more discretion. Her plan, so far as she had one, was to lie up in the fir wood till a search-party appeared, then show herself and give them a lead away from the farm. The rest she left to chance, na?vely confident that the luck which had sent Denis to her would let her save him. She had had enough hard knocks, one might have thought, to convince her that Fate does not necessarily favor the young and hopeful; but that was a lesson Dorothea never had learned, and never would.
Ten minutes after she had settled herself among the bracken a mounted patrol rode over the brow of the opposite hill and began slowly to descend towards the farm. Dorothea scrambled to her feet and came to the edge of the wood; she began to crawl along under the hedge, stooping, furtive, a fugitive in every line. She expected every minute to hear the shout of discovery. None came, and presently she erected herself and peeped over the bracken to see if they were stealing upon her unawares. The officer in command was just riding through the orchard gate, on his way to the farm.
This was a contingency she had not foreseen—that they wouldn't notice her. Dorothea stamped. "Oh, you idiots!" she apostrophized the soldiers of the Fatherland. She ventured herself clear of the wood. Still her pursuers[Pg 273] went tranquilly the wrong way; they were half down the orchard—in another minute they would be knocking at the back door of the farm. Dorothea, in a fright now, ran right out into the middle of the field. Ah, at last! Some one shouted; the troop gathered itself together, swept past the farm, galloped down the hill.
Dorothea turned and ran like a hare. She felt like one, too. They were firing at her. They wanted to bring her down before she could take cover. It wasn't believable. She couldn't be hit! But she was; it fell like a lash on her shoulder, rolling her over with the sudden shock. She was up in a minute and ran on again, crying as she went, poor little Dorothea, with the unexpected sharp pain, mortally terrified of the bullets flying past her and of the thundering hoofs behind, beginning to feel she had undertaken more than she could carry through. This wasn't a bit what she had expected—it wasn't any fun at all!
But the wood received her, and she knew its alleys better than they did; and presently she was tumbling head first into a tiny dell, under a low cliff veiled in ivy and drooping ferns. You might search the wood from end to end without finding the way into the dell; and if you found the dell, you would never guess that under the creepers there was a hole, the entrance of the Grotte des Fées. Dorothea had once tried to explore it: she got as far as a first chamber of exquisite white veils and icicles of stalactite, and then dropped her candle. She never tried again, because Madame Hasquin assured her the roof was unsafe. She was rather glad of the excuse; underground adventures were not to her taste. She crept inside now, but not far, not beyond the green light of the entrance.
For some time she lay panting like a dog, thought foundered in panic; but she gradually calmed down. She had a drink from the stream trickling down the cave, and by and by, feeling a good deal ashamed of herself, she made an effort, opened her coat and examined her wound. It was neither wide nor deep; the bullet had gone clean through her arm without touching the bone. But it had bled a good deal,[Pg 274] and it hurt, it hurt dreadfully. She made shift to tie it up, feeling more ashamed than ever because she couldn't help whimpering with the pain. Oh, she was a horrid little coward! She had come down with a bump from her vainglory. But when it was done she took heart. She looked down on her stained sleeve; how splendid to see her blood mingling with Denis's! After all, she was a real casualty now; she had been really properly wounded, like a real proper soldier. That was a sustaining thought.
It was while she lay there, listening to the cool drip of the water, breathing in the cool mossy scent, that her active little brain got to work on the position. She had gone into it headlong, without thinking; she now saw many things she had ignored. First and foremost and at any cost, she must not allow herself to be caught. She was tall for a woman, and Denis slight for a man, and she had put on his leather coat and leggings over all her own things, but even so there was a good deal more of them, both lengthways and breadthways, than she could fill out. "Gracious! why, my wig alone would give the show away!" reflected Dorothea, with a dismaying vision of hidden dangers passed. "Besides, they would recognize me—Major von Marwitz would, I think, and Lieutenant Müller would, I know. And then, of course, they'd go straight and search the farm, and Denis without his kit, they'd shoot him as a spy, and Lettice too for hiding him—oh!" She had a moment of panic. "But I'm not going to be caught," she wound up firmly.
A plan suggested itself. She would stay here till dusk, then get away through the woods towards Vresse, say, show herself there, double back to the cave, leave Denis's things under the rocks, and emerge as her proper self once more. She had everything but her skirt, and it wouldn't be the first time Dot O'Connor had run about in knickerbockers. This was a beautiful scheme, and it would let her go back to the farm—she did want to go back to the farm. A dimple came in her brown cheek; her color rose; at that moment Dorothea did not look much like an escaped airman.... Dreaming such nonsense! She lifted the creepers [Pg 275]resolutely and peeped out. Yes, it was already pretty dark, she might start now—and suddenly she discovered that she didn't, no, she didn't want to leave the safe shelter of the cave and adventure herself in a world where bullets were flying and men hunting for her life—"Oh, Dot O'Connor, you miserable little worm!" said Dorothea. "It's just what people always say—women are no good when it comes to the point. But I will be some good!" She marched out of the cave.
They were still beating the wood; there were soldiers everywhere. But Dorothea had been a Red Indian many times in the shrubbery at home. She lay in the brake not ten yards from Lieutenant Müller (yes, it was he in person), and laughed to hear him issuing his curt, disappointed orders. It was dark, and the men were bored, and not very numerous; she slipped between the cordon like a weasel, and had reached the next hill when by accidental good luck she showed herself against the sky-line. A sentry gave the alarm, and again she had the whole patrol streaming in pursuit. This suited her to a T, for she was drawing them away from the farm, and she was not in the least afraid of being caught. It was black as a wolf's mouth, and she knew the woods between here and Vresse like the palm of her hand. She had her second wind of courage now.
Somewhere about two in the morning she found herself—not at Vresse, but at Mogimont, in a totally different direction. It didn't matter, for it was miles away from Rochehaut, which was all she cared about; but in her ignorance of her whereabouts she nearly blundered into the tiny station, where a melancholy middle-aged German was brewing himself coffee. Beating a hasty retreat, she found a haystack in a corner of a meadow, and climbed into its warm depths to wait for the dawn. Imprimis, she had not yet showed herself at Mogimont, and she must; secundis, after her recent performance she wouldn't trust herself in the dark to find the way back to the farm. She was extremely tired (Dorothea liked a good eleven hours in her bed), and she fell fast asleep. The sun was high when she was aroused[Pg 276] by the shaking of her couch. She opened drowsy eyes, to see the top of a ladder pushing itself up against the sky; a moment later she was gazing into the round astonished eyes and open mouth of the Landsturm sentry, who had come to fetch a truss of hay.
Dorothea had meant to show herself, but not at such close quarters. She hurled herself upon him and tipped his ladder over. He fell off, she slipped down the other side of the stack and made for the woods. Luckily she had only a few yards to cover. She was plunging through the hedge as her adversary turned the corner of the stack. He fired, and missed; out of the station rushed his comrades at the shot; down the hill through the woods fled Dorothea, laughing—yes—laughing; his expression had been so funny!
It was a close shave, nevertheless. She was up an o............