e two stood
looking down into the valley, a sputtering rifle-fire broke out across
the river, three hundred yards wide at the bridge, and the volume of
musketry steadily increased. Men, horses, wagons, and motors swarmed on
the roadway or sheltered behind warehouses on the quays.

As a soldier, Dalroy was amazed at the speed and annihilating
completeness of the German mobilisation. Indeed, he was chagrined by it,
it seemed so admirable, so thoroughly thought-out in each detail, so
unapproachable by any other nation in its pitiless efficiency. He did
not know then that the vaunted Prussian-made military machine depended
for its motive-power largely on treachery and espionage. Toward the
close of July, many days before war was declared, Germany had secretly
massed nine hundred thousand men on the frontiers of Belgium and the
Duchy of Luxembourg. Her armies, therefore, had gathered like felons,
and were led by master-thieves in the persons of thousands of German
officers domiciled in both countries in the guise of peaceful traders.

Single-minded person that he was, Dalroy at once focused his thoughts on
the immediate problem. A small stream leaped down from the wood to the
Meuse. Short of a main road bridge its turbulent course was checked by a
mill-dam, and there was some reason to believe that the mill might be
Joos's. The building seemed a prosperous place, with its two giant
wheels on different levels, its ample granaries, and a substantial
house. It was intact, too, and somewhat apart from the actual line of
battle. At any rate, though the transition was the time-honoured one
from the frying-pan to the fire, in that direction lay food, shelter,
and human beings other than Germans, so he determined to go there
without further delay. His main purpose now was to lodge his companion
with some Belgian family until the tide of war had swept far to the
west. For himself, he meant to cross the enemy's lines by hook or by
crook, or lose his life in the attempt.

"One more effort," he said, smiling confidently into Irene's somewhat
pallid face. "Your uncle lives below there, I fancy. We're about to
claim his hospitality."

He hid the rifle, bayonet, and cartridges in a thicket. The milk-pail he
took with him. If they met a German patrol the pail might serve as an
excuse for being out and about, whereas the weapons would have been a
sure passport to the next world.

It was broad daylight when they entered the miller's yard