inst the background of the woods that had been spared,
a lurid glare threw everything into relief. Great arc lights had been
strung, so that a space of ground was as bright as day, and in the
light hundreds of men were working. In one place a great furnace was
blazing, and the ruddy glow from that cast a crimson light against the
cold, white radiance of the electric lamps. Steam cranes were at work;
huge cannon were being moved into place on the pedestals that had been
prepared for them in advance.

"We were right!" said Paul, exultingly. "That is to be a great
battery. They must be very powerful guns, too, or else they would have
been ready with the rest, and in action by this time. Ah! I'm glad I
thought of the telephone!"

"How fast they are working!" said Arthur. That was what caught his eye
in the strange, weird scene. There was no confusion, despite the
extraordinary efforts that were obviously being made to hasten the
work. Every man, as they could see, even at that distance, knew
exactly what he was to do. It seemed that the whole operation must
have been planned far in advance, even rehearsed. Such perfect team
work could not be the result of chance, nor even of unusually good
discipline. No, somewhere in Germany just such scenes must have been
enacted in time of peace, that when the grim, harsh test of real war
came there might be no delay, no lost motions, no trifling, unforeseen
hitch to render useless all the elaborate plan that had been made.
This might be war, but it was a grim, cold business, too.

"It's like going to see the steel works at Seraing at night," said
Paul. "Except that there's less glare from the blast furnaces, of
course."

"A good many of those men aren't in uniform," said Arthur, his keen
eyes taking in details as he grew more accustomed to the strange and
awe inspiring grandeur of the scene as a whole.

"They're probably workmen from Essen," said Paul. He had a pair of
binoculars out now, and was looking closely at every detail of the
scene.

"But why should they be there? This is a time for soldiers."

"Not altogether, Arthur. I know--don't you remember what Uncle Henri
told us?--that a lot of the workmen from Seraing would have to be along
with some of the new field artillery pieces, because the secrets of
some things are kept even from the soldiers. Those are probably some
of the men from the Krupp works, brought here just to handle these big
guns."

"Well