CHAPTER X. IN PERIL.
"Halt! and declare yourselves!" cried a hoarse voice speaking in
the French tongue.
"Now for it, Tom," said Lord Claud quietly, speaking between his
shut teeth. "Remember what I have told you. Be wary, be ready. We
shall get through all right. There are but two or three score, and
none of them mounted."
The travellers were passing now through the narrow territory of the
Margrave of Baden, with the Rhine upon their right, the only
protection from the frontier of France with all its hostile hosts.
The slow and inactive policy of the Margrave of Baden naturally
encouraged the enemy to send small parties of soldiers across to
harry his country; and already Tom and his master had had to dodge
and hide, or go out of their way, to avoid meeting with these bands
of inimical marauders. They were not the class of opponents whom
Lord Claud most dreaded, still they might well fall upon and make
prisoner the two English travellers; and if despatches were found
upon the person of either, they would almost certainly be shot as
spies. Indeed, so bitter was the feeling on the part of the French
after their defeat at Blenheim, that any travellers belonging to
the hated English nation went in danger of their lives.
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