ch
things as did so as bordering on idolatry.

Sometime after dusk that evening the ammunition train moved out. At a
point a mile or so from the village a dispatch rider on a motor cycle
stopped the rumbling lorry at the head of the procession and delivered
a message, which the guide read by the light of a sheltered match. The
train moved on, but it did not turn down to the village. It went beyond
to a place of safety, and there remained for the night.

But before that time Henri, lying close in a field, had seen a skulking
figure run from the road to the mill, and soon after had seen the mill
wheel turn once, describing a great arc; and on one of the wings, showing
only toward the poplar trees, was a lighted lantern.

Five minutes later, exactly time enough for the train to have reached
the village street, German shells began to fall in it. Henri, lying
flat on the ground, swore silently and deeply.

In every land during this war there have been those who would sell their
country for a price. Sometimes money. Sometimes protection. And of all
betrayals that of the man who sells his own country is the most dastardly.
Henri, lying face down, bit the grass beneath him in sheer rage.

One thing he had not counted on, he who foresaw most things. The miller
and his son, being what they were, were cowards as well. Doubtless the
mill had been promised protection. It was too valuable to the Germans
to be destroyed. But with the first shot both men left the house by the
mill and scurried like rabbits for the open fields.

Maurice, poor Marie's lover by now, almost trampled on Henri's prostrate
body. And Henri was alone, and his work was to take them alive. They
had information he must have--how the _modus vivendi_ had been arranged,
through what channels. And under suitable treatment they would tell.

He could not follow them through the fields. He lay still, during a
fiercer bombardment than the one before, raising his head now and then
to see if the little house of mercy still stood. No shells came his
way, but the sky line of the village altered quickly. The standing
fragment of the church towers went early. There was much sound of
falling masonry. From somewhere behind him a Belgian battery gave
tongue, but not for long. And then came silence.

Henri moved then. He crept nearer the mill and nearer. And at last he
stood inside and took his bearings. A lamp burned in the kitchen,
showing a dirty brick floor and a litter