SOPHY OF KRAVONIA
Prince wore, nor the one the witch decked herself out in—but you could smell a common fellow's sheepskin twenty yards off—ay, against the wind, unless the wind was mighty strong.
'"Sheepskins it is!' said the Colonel with a sniff. 'Volsenians, by gad! It's Mistress Sophia, Rastatz, or some of her friends, anyhow.' Then he swore worthily: ' Stenovics must have put them up to this! And where the devil are they, Rastatz?' He raised his head as he spoke, and got his answer. A bullet came singing along and went right through his shako; it came from the line of the ditch. He lay down again, laughed a little, and took a puff at his cigarette before he threw it awry. Just then one of our sentries bellowed from the first barge: 'In the ditch! In the ditch!' 'I wish you'd spoken a bit sooner, 1 says the Colonel, laughing again."
While this was passing on Stafnitz's side, Sophy and her party were working quietly and cautiously down the course of the ditch. Under the shelter of its bank they had been able to hold a brief and hurried consultation. What they feared was that Stafnitz would make a dash for the barges. Their fire might drop half his men, but the survivors, when once on board—and the barges were drawn up to the edge of the stream—would still be as numerous as themselves, and would command the course of the ditch, which was at present their great resource and protection. But if they could get on board before the enemy, they believed they could hold their own; the decks were covered with impedimenta of one sort or another which would afford them cover, while any party which tried to board must expose itself to fire to a serious and probably fatal extent.
So they worked down the ditch—except two of
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