But the forfeit there was a carved fan, or a box of bonbons, and here it was death.
Ten minutes passed and there was no sign of any living thing behind them.
"They are over in yonder thicket," whispered Du Lhut, nodding his head towards a dense clump of brushwood, two hundred paces away.
"Have you seen them ?" "No." "How do you know, then ?" "I saw a squirrel come from his hole in the great white beech-tree yonder.

He scuttled back again as if something had scared him.
From his hole he can see down into that brushwood." "Do you think that they know that we are here ?" "They cannot see us.

But they are suspicious.

They fear a trap." "Shall we rush for the brushwood ?" "They would pick two of us off, and be gone like shadows through the woods.

No, we had best go on our way." "But they will follow us." "I hardly think that they will.