She stepped behind Gerard, and furtively drew the knife across her arm, and made it bleed freely; then stooping, smeared her hose and shoes; and still as the blood trickled she smeared them; but so adroitly that neither Gerard nor Martin saw.

Then she seized the soldier's arm.
"Come, be a man!" she said, "and let this end.

Take us to some thick place, where numbers will not avail our foes." "I am going," said Martin sulkily.

"Hurry avails not; we cannot shun the hound, and the place is hard by;" then turning to the left, he led the way, as men go to execution.
He soon brought them to a thick hazel coppice, like the one that had favoured their escape in the morning.
"There," said he, "this is but a furlong broad, but it will serve our turn." "What are we to do ?" "Get through this, and wait on the other side; then as they come straggling through, shoot three, knock two on the head, and the rest will kill us." "Is that all you can think of ?" said Gerard.
"That is all." "Then, Martin Wittenhaagen, I take the lead, for you have lost your head.

Come, can you obey so young a man as I am ?" "Oh, yes, Martin," cried Margaret, "do not gainsay Gerard! He is wiser than his years." Martin yielded a sullen assent.
"Do then as you see me do," said Gerard; and drawing his huge knife, he cut at every step a hazel shoot or two close by the ground, and turning round twisted them breast-high behind him among the standing shoots.
Martin did the same, but with a dogged hopeless air.