r
and the lightning had ceased, though not the far rumble of artillery.
John knew that the sport of kings was still going on under the
searchlights, and all his intense horror of the murderous monarchies
returned. He was not sleepy yet, and he listened a long time. The sound
seemed to come from both sides of him, and he felt that the abandoned
cottage among the trees was merely a little oasis in the sea of war.

The rain ceased and he concluded to scout about the house to see if any
one was near, or if any farm animals besides the horse had been left.
But Marne was alone. There was not even a fowl of any kind. He concluded
that the horse had probably wandered away before the peasant left, as so
valuable an animal would not have been abandoned otherwise.

His scouting--he was learning to be very cautious--took him some
distance from the house and he came to a narrow road, but smooth and
hard, a road which troops were almost sure to use, while such great
movements were going on. He waited behind a hedge a little while, and
then he heard the hum of motors.

He had grown familiar with the throbbing, grinding sound made by many
military automobiles on the march, but he waited calmly, merely
loosening his automatic for the sake of precaution. He felt sure that
while he stood behind a hedge he would never be seen on a dark night by
men traveling in haste. The automobiles came quickly into view and in
those in front he saw elderly men in uniforms of high rank. Nearly all
the German generals seemed to him to be old men who for forty or fifty
years had studied nothing but how to conquer, men too old and hardened
to think much of the rights of others or ever to give way to generous
emotions.

He also saw sitting erect in one of the motors the man for whom he had
felt at first sight an invincible repulsion. Prince Karl of Auersperg.
Young von Arnheim had represented the good prince to him, but here was
the medieval type, the believer in divine right, and in his own
superiority, decreed even before birth. John noted in the moonlight his
air of ownership, his insolent eyes and his heavy, arrogant face. He
hoped that the present war would sweep away all such as Auersperg.

He watched nearly an hour while the automobiles, cyclists, a column of
infantry, and then several batteries of heavy guns drawn by motors,
passed. He judged that the Germans were executing a change of front
somewhere, and that the Franco-British forces were sti