f affairs.

Maertz had now pulled up in obedience to an unusually threatening order
from a Uhlan officer whose horse had been incommoded in passing. Above
the clatter of hoofs and accoutrements Dalroy's trained ear had detected
the sounds of a heavy and continuous cannonade toward the south-west.

"How far are we from Vise?" he asked the driver.

The man pointed with his whip. "You see that black knob over there?" he
said.

"Yes."

"That's a clump of trees just above the Meuse. Vise lies below it."

"But how far?"

"Not more than two kilometres."

Two kilometres! About a mile and a half! Dalroy was tortured by
indecision. "Shall we be there by daybreak?"

"With luck. I don't know what's been happening here. These damned
Germans are swarming all over the place. They must be making for the
bridge."

"What bridge?"

"The bridge across the Meuse, of course. Don't you know these parts?"

"Not very well."

"I wish I were safe at home; I'd get indoors and stop there," growled
the driver, chirping his team into motion again.

Dalroy's doubts were stilled. Better leave this rustic philosopher to
work out their common salvation.

A few hundred yards ahead the road bifurcated. One branch led to Vise,
the other to Argenteau. Here was stationed a picket, evidently intended
as a guide for the cavalry.

Most fortunately Dalroy read aright the intention of an officer who came
forward with an electric torch. "Lie as flat as you can!" he whispered
to Irene. "If they find us, pretend to be asleep."

"Hi, you!" cried the officer to Maertz, "where the devil do you think
you're going?"

"To Joos's mill at Vise," said the gruff Walloon.

"What's in the cart?"

"Oats."

"_Almaechtig!_ Where from?"

"Aachen."

"You just pull ahead into that road there. I'll attend to you and your
oats in a minute or two."

"But can't I push on?"

The officer called to a soldier. "See that this fellow halts twenty
yards up the road," he said. "If he stirs then, put your bayonet through
him. These Belgian swine don't seem to understand that they are Germans
now, and must obey orders."

The officer, of course, spoke in German, the Walloon in the mixture of
Flemish and Low Dutch which forms the _patois_ of the district. But each
could follow the other's meaning, and the quaking listeners in the
middle of the wagon had no difficulty at all in comprehending the
gravity of this new peril.

Maertz was swearing softly to himself; t