ch opened on to the street, and was
bidding the landlady farewell.

"I must be off," he said. "I have to be in Vise by daybreak. This cursed
war has kept me here a whole day. Who is fighting who, I'd like to
know?"

"Vise!" guffawed a man seated at the bar. "You'll never get there. The
army won't let you pass."

"That's the army's affair, not mine," was the typically Flemish answer,
and the other came out, mounted the wagon, chirped to his horses, and
made away.

Dalroy was able to note the name on a small board affixed to the side of
the vehicle: "Henri Joos, miller, Vise."

"That fellow lives in Belgium," he whispered to Irene, who had draped
the shawl over her head and neck, and now carried the jacket rolled into
a bundle. "He is just the sort of dogged countryman who will tackle and
overcome all obstacles. I fancy he is carrying oats to a mill, and will
be known to the frontier officials. Shall we bargain with him for a
lift?"

"It sounds the very thing," agreed the girl.

In their eagerness, neither took the precaution of buying something to
eat. They overtook the wagon before it passed the market. The driver was
not Joos, but Joos's man. He was quite ready to earn a few francs, or
marks--he did not care which--by conveying a couple of passengers to
the placid little town of whose mere existence the wide world outside
Belgium was unaware until that awful first week in August 1914.

And so it came to pass that Dalroy and his protege passed out of
Aix-la-Chapelle without let or hindrance, because the driver, spurred to
an effort of the imagination by promise of largesse, described Irene to
the Customs men as Henri Joos's niece, and Dalroy as one deputed by the
railway to see that a belated consignment of oats was duly delivered to
the miller.

Neither rural Germany nor rural Belgium was yet really at war. The
monstrous shadow had darkened the chancelleries, but it was hardly
perceptible to the common people. Moreover, how could red-fanged war
affect a remote place like Vise? The notion was nonsensical. Even Dalroy
allowed himself to assure his companion that there was now a reasonable
prospect of reaching Belgian soil without incurring real danger. Yet, in
truth, he was taking her to an inferno of which the like is scarce known
to history. The gate which opened at the Customs barrier gave access
apparently to a good road leading through an undulating country. In
sober truth, it led to an earthly hell.