bably weighed a
stone more. Leontine trudged when she walked, Irene moved with a grace
which not even a pair of clumsy sabots could hide. Luckily they were
alike in one important particular. Their faces and hands were soiled,
their hair untidy, and the passage through the wood had scratched
foreheads and cheeks until the skin was broken, and little patches of
congealed blood disfigured them.

"I may look more dejected than I feel," Dalroy reassured her. "I'm
playing a part, remember. I've kept my head down and my knees bent until
my joints ache."

"Oh, is that it?" she cooed, with a relieved air. How could he know then
that the sabots were chafing her ankles until the pain had become
well-nigh unbearable. If she could have gratified her own wishes she
would have crept to the nearest hedge and flung herself down in utter
weariness.

Joos, having pondered the Englishman's views on Andenne as an
unattainable refuge, scratched his head perplexedly. "I think we had
better go toward Herve," he said at last. "This is the road," and he
pointed to the left. "On the way we can branch off to a farm I know of,
if it happens to be clear of soldiers."

Any goal was preferable to none. They entered the eastward-bound road,
but had not advanced twenty yards along it before the way was blocked by
a mass of commissariat wagons and scores of Uhlans standing by their
horses.

Two officers, heedless who heard, were wrangling loudly.

"There is nothing else for it, _Herr Hauptmann_," said one. "It doesn't
matter who is actually to blame. You have taken the wrong road, and must
turn back. Every yard farther in this direction puts you deeper in the
mire."

"But I was misdirected as far away as Bleyberg," protested the other.
"Some never-to-be-forgotten hound of hell told me that this was the
Verviers road. _Gott in himmel!_ and I _must_ be there by dawn!"

Dalroy was gazing at the wagons. They seemed oddly familiar. The painted
legend on the tarpaulins placed the matter beyond doubt. These were the
very vehicles he had seen in the station-yard at Aix-la-Chapelle!

At this crisis Jan Maertz's sluggish brain evolved a really clever
notion. The Germans wanted a guide, and who so well qualified for the
post as a carter to whom each turn and twist in every road in the
province was familiar? Without consulting any one, he pushed forward.
"Pardon, _Herr General_," he said in his offhand way. "Give me and my
friends a lift, and I'll have y