"The Uhlans have passed this way," said the girl, staring up and down the road.
"But," Stewart, wiping his wet forehead, "but I don't understand. Germany is a nation—war is no longer the thing it once was."
"War is always brutal, I fear," said the girl, sadly; "and of course, among a million men, there are certain to be some—like that! I am no longer hungry. Let us press on."
Stewart, nodding, followed along beside her, across fields, over little streams, up and down stretches of rocky hillside, always . But he saw nothing; his mind was full of other things—of the gray-clad thousands singing as they marched; of the radiant face of the Crown Prince; of that poor murdered woman, who had risen happily this Sunday morning, glad of a day of rest, and looked up to see strange faces at the door——
And this was war. A thousand other women would suffer the same fate; thousands and thousands more would be thrown stripped and defenseless on the world, to live or die as chance might will; a hundred thousand children would be fatherless; a hundred thousand girls, now into womanhood, would be denied their rightful destiny of marriage and children of their own——
Stewart shook the thought away. The picture his imagination painted was too horrible; it could never come true—not all the emperors on earth could make it come true!
He looked about him at the landscape. Nowhere was there a sign of life. The yellow wheat stood ripe for the harvest. The pastures stretched lush and green—and empty. Here and there above the trees he caught a glimpse of chimneys, but no smoke floated above then. A peaceful land, truly, so he told himself—peaceful as death!
Gradually the country grew rougher and more broken, and ahead of them they could see steep and rocky hillsides, by deep valleys and covered by a thick growth of pine.
"We must find a road," said Stewart at last; "we can't climb up and down those hills. And we must find out where we are. There is a certain risk, but we must take it. It is foolish to stumble forward blindly."
"You are right," his companion agreed, and when presently, far below them at the bottom of a valley, they saw a white road , they made their way down to it. Almost at once they came to a house, in whose door stood a , fair-haired woman, with a child clinging to her skirts.
The woman watched them as they approached, and her face seemed to Stewart distinctly friendly.
"Good-morning," he said, stopping before the door-step and lifting his hat—an unaccustomed salutation at which the woman stared. "We seem to have lost our way. Can you tell us——"
The woman shook her head.
"My brother and I have lost our way," said his companion, in rapid French. "We have been tramping the hills all morning. How far is it to the nearest village?"
"The nearest village is Battice," answered the woman in the same language. "It is three kilometers from here."
"Has it a railway station?"
"But certainly. How is it you do not know?"
"We come from the other direction."
"From Germany?"
"Yes," answered the girl, after an instant's of the woman's face.
"Then you are ? Ah, do not fear to tell me," she added, as the girl hesitated. "I have no love for the Germans. I have lived near them too long!"
There could be no doubting the of the words, nor the of disgust which accompanied them.
"Yes," the girl, "we are fugitives. We are trying to get to Liège. Have the Germans been this way?"
"No; I have seen nothing of them, but I have heard that a great army has passed along the road through Verviers."
"Where is your man?"
"He has joined the army, as have all the men in this neighborhood."
"The German army?"
"Oh, no; the Belgian army. It is doing what it can to hold back the Germans."
The girl's face lighted with enthusiasm.
"Oh, how splendid!" she cried. "How splendid for your brave little country to defy the ! Bravo, Belgium!"
The woman smiled at her enthusiasm, but shook her head doubtfully.
"I do not know," she said, simply. "I do not understand these things. I only know that my man has gone, and that I must harvest our grain and cut our winter wood by myself. But will you not enter and rest yourselves?"
"Thank you. And we are very hungry. We have money to pay for food, if you can let us have some."
"Certainly, certainly," and the good wife before them into the house.
An hour later, rested, refreshed, with a supply of sandwiches in their pockets, and armed with a rough map from the directions of their hostess, they were ready to set out westward again. She was of the opinion that they could pass safely through Battice, which was off the main road of the German advance, and that they might even secure there a vehicle of some sort to take them . The trains, she understood, were no longer running. Finally they thanked her for the twentieth time and bade her good-by. She wished them God-speed, and stood watching them from the door until they disappeared from view.
They pushed forward briskly, and presently, in the valley below them, caught sight of the gabled roofs of the village. A bell was ringing vigorously, and they could see the people—women and children for the most part—gathering in toward the little church, crowned by its cross. Evidently nothing had occurred to disturb the of Battice.
, the two were about to push on down the road, when suddenly, topping the opposite slope, they saw a squadron of horsemen, perhaps fifty strong. They were clad in greenish-gray, and each of them bore upright at his right elbow a long lance.
"Uhlans!" cried the girl, and the fugitives stopped short, watching with bated breath.
The troop swung down the road toward the village at a sharp , and presently Stewart could distinguish their queer, flat-topped helmets, reminding him of the mortar-board of his university days. Right at the edge of the village, in the shadow of some trees, the horsemen drew and waited until the bell ceased ringing and the last of the congregation had entered the church; then, at the word of command, they touched spur to flank and swept through the empty street.
A boy saw them first and raised a shout of alarm; then a woman, hurrying toward the church, heard the of , cast one glance behind her, and ran on, screaming wildly. The screams the church, and in a moment the congregation came pouring out, only to find themselves in by a semicircle of lowered lances.
The shouted a command, and four of his men threw themselves from the saddle and disappeared into the church. They were back in a moment, dragging between them a white-haired priest clad in stole and surplice, and a rosy-faced old man, who, even in this trying situation, managed to retain his dignity.
The two were placed before the officer, and a short conference followed, with the townspeople pressing anxiously around, listening to every word. Suddenly there was an outburst of protest and despair, which the priest quieted with a motion of his hand, and the conference was resumed.
"What is it the fellow wants?" asked Stewart.
"Money and supplies, I suppose."
"Money and supplies? But that's robbery!"
"Oh, no; it is a part of the plan of the German General Staff. How many times have I heard Prussian officers boast that a war would cost Germany nothing—that her enemies would be made to bear the whole burden! It has all been arranged—the which each village, even the smallest, must pay—the amount of supplies which each must furnish, the which will be assessed on each individual. This lieutenant of Uhlans is merely carrying out his instructions!"
"Who is the old man?"
"The burgomaster, doubtless. He and the priest are always the most men in a village."
The conference was waxing warmer, the lieutenant was talking in a loud voice, and once he shook his fist menacingly; again there was a of protest from the crowd—women were their hands——
"He is demanding more than the village can supply," remarked the girl. "That is not surprising," she added, with a bitter smile. "They will always demand more than can be supplied. But come; we must be getting on."
Stewart would have liked to see the end of the drama, but he followed his companion over the wall at the side of the road, and then around the village and along the rough hillside. Suddenly from the houses below arose a tumult—shouts, curses, the smashing of glass—and in a moment, a flood of people, , screaming, shaking their fists in the air, burst from the town and swept along the road in the direction of Herve.
"They would better have given all that was demanded," said the girl, looking down at them. "Now they will be made to serve as an example to other villages—they will lose everything—even their houses—see!"
Following the direction of her pointing finger, Stewart saw a black cloud of smoke up from one end of the village.
"But surely," he , "they're not burning it! They wouldn't dare do that!"
"Why not?"
"Isn't looting prohibited by the rules of war?"
"Certainly—looting and the destruction of property of non-combatants."
"Well, then——"
But he stopped, staring helplessly. The cloud of smoke grew in volume, and below it could be seen red tongues of flame. There before him was the hideous reality—and he suddenly realized how it was to make laws for anything so lawless as war, or to expect niceties of conduct from men thrown back into a state of barbarism.
"What do the rules of war matter to a nation which considers treaties of paper?" asked the girl, in a hard voice. "Their very presence here in Belgium is a of the rules of war. Besides, it is the German theory that war should be ruthless—that the enemy must be , , in every possible way. They say that the more merciless it is, the briefer it will be. It is possible that they are not altogether wrong."
"True," muttered Stewart. "But it is a heartless theory."
"War is a heartless thing," commented his companion, turning away. "It is best not to think too much about it. Come—we must be going on."
They pushed forward again, keeping the road, with its of fugitives, at their right. It was a wild and beautiful country, and under other circumstances, Stewart would have gazed in admiring wonder at its cliffs, its deep precipitous valleys, its thickly-wooded hillsides; but now these appeared to him only as so many obstacles between him and safety.
At last the valley opened out, and below them they saw the clustered roofs of another village, which could only be Herve. Around it were broad pastures and fields of yellow grain, and suddenly the girl caught Stewart by the arm.
"Look!" she said, and to the field lying nearest them.
A number of old men, women, and children were cutting the grain, tying it into sheaves, and piling the sheaves into stacks, under the of four men. Those four men were clothed in greenish-gray and carried rifles in their hands! The were stripping the grain from the fields in order to feed their army!
As he this scene, Stewart felt, mixed with his horror and detestation, a sort of . Evidently, as his companion had said, when Germany made war, she made war. She was ruthlessly thorough. She allowed no sentiment, no feeling of pity, no weakening , to between her and her goal. She went to war with but one purpose: to win; and she was to win, no matter what the cost! Stewart shivered at the thought. Whether she won or lost, how awful that cost must be!
The fugitives went on again at last, working their way around the village, keeping always in the shelter of the woods along the hillsides, and after a weary journey, came out on the other side above the line of the railroad. A , with bayonet, stood guard over a engine; except for him, the road seemed quite . For half a mile they along over the rough hillside above it without seeing anyone else.
"We can't keep this up," said Stewart, flinging himself upon the ground. "We shall have to take to the road if we are to make any progress. Do you think we'd better risk it?"
"Let us watch it for a while," the girl suggested, so they sat and watched it and
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