hey heard him address a question
to the sentry when the wagon stopped again. "Why won't your officer let
us go to Vise?" he growled.

"Sheep's-head! do as you're told, or it will be bad for you," was the
reply.

The words were hardly out of the soldier's mouth before a string of
motor lorries, heavy vehicles with very powerful engines, thundered up
from the rear. The leaders passed without difficulty, as there was
plenty of room. But their broad flat tires sucked up clouds of dust, and
the moon had sunk behind a wooded height. One of the hindermost
transports, taking too wide a bend, crashed into the wagon. The startled
horses plunged, pulled Maertz off his perch, and dragged the wagon into
a deep ditch. It fell on its side, and Dalroy and his companion were
thrown into a field amid a swirl of laden sacks, some of which burst.

Dalroy was unhurt, and he could only hope that the girl also had escaped
injury. Ere he rose he clasped her around the neck and clapped a hand
over her mouth lest she should scream. "Not a word!" he breathed into
her ear. "Can you manage to crawl on all-fours straight on by the side
of the hedge? Never mind thorns or nettles. It's our only chance."

In a few seconds they were free of the hubbub which sprang up around the
overturned wagon and the transport, the latter having shattered a wheel.
Soon they were able to rise, crouching behind the hedge as they ran.
They turned at an angle, and struck off into the country, following the
line of another hedge which trended slightly uphill. At a gateway they
turned again, moving, as Dalroy calculated, on the general line of the
Vise road. A low-roofed shanty loomed up suddenly against the sky. It
was just the place to house an outpost, and Dalroy was minded to avoid
it when the lowing of a cow in pain revealed to his trained intelligence
the practical certainty that the animal had been left there unattended,
and needed milking. Still, he took no unnecessary risks.

"Remain here," he murmured. "I'll go ahead and investigate, and return
in a minute or so."

He did not notice that the girl sank beneath the hedge with a suspicious
alacrity. He was a man, a fighter, with the hot breath of war in his
nostrils. Not yet had he sensed the cruel strain which war places on
women. Moreover, his faculties were centred in the task of the moment.
The soldier is warned not to take his eyes off the enemy while reloading
his rifle lest the target be lost; similarly,