"Karl saw you," said Elizabeth, wringing her hands in her helpless terror. "He will give you up, Mr. Bob, but I could not stay and nothing do after he told me. Your mother's eyes came sorrowfully before me, and I must help you if I can. But, oh, Mr. Bob, if without your uniform they take you! Get back while yet there is time, if some way you know!"
"Karl—here? What a chance!" Bob muttered, his brain on fire now with the impulse of his desperate need.
"It is not chance, Mr. Bob," said Elizabeth heavily. "His regiment was here sent when the Americans joined the French across the line. Karl could choose this or one other regiment, but here he came because my nephew asked him. You will believe me?" Her face was beseeching in its tearful earnestness, lest Bob should not take her warning with instant seriousness.
"Oh, I believe you, Elizabeth—it isn't that!" Bob assured her, darting a glance into the street. "Thank you a thousand times," he stammered, clasping her hands with more fervent gratitude than his hurried words could speak. "Good-bye!"
Elizabeth held him back for an instant. "Oh, Mr. Bob, nothing try against the German army!" she entreated. "They are too strong. Now go, and God go with you."
The street was almost empty. Bob reached it unnoticed and crossed swiftly to the lane from which he had caught a glimpse of the German barracks a quarter of an hour before. He had observed that it ran through the length of the village obliquely parallel with the principal street. At a guess it should come out nearer by half a mile to the north end of the meadow than the way by which he had entered. He began walking down it swiftly, but fear urged him on until his feet would no longer keep the ground. He darted furtive looks around him and saw no passers-by. The scattered houses were closed, too, against the raw, misty air. He broke into a gentle run and reached the village outskirts in ten minutes. Where the lane ended the meadows began, and for a moment Bob paused, uncertain, looking about him at the brown fields and the trees with sombre, bare branches against the gloomy sky. The woods stretched beyond, and to these Bob raised his eyes and saw a splotch of green among the winter bareness. It was the little wood of firs among which Benton lay hid. Bob sprang forward and crossing the first field at a leisurely walk, in case curious eyes were at any of the windows behind him, he descended a little knoll and then, stretching his long legs, broke into a run that would have won him trophies on any athletic field.
For a mile and a half he ran on, over fields and through thickets, steering wide from any signs of habitation, until his breath began to fail and his legs to ache and stumble. But on he went, until the woods closed in and, close at hand, he saw the little thatched shed whose safe haven meant more than anything in the world to him just then—refuge from certain death.
He darted in the narrow doorway and dropped, gasping, on the earthy floor. But only for a moment. The next he was tearing off the shabby, old garments he wore and searching in the dim corner for his precious discarded uniform. Five minutes later—never did he think he could have dressed so quickly—he stood up, once more an American officer.
Discovery he felt to be inevitable, for Karl must have been hot upon his trail when Elizabeth warned him—and he was barely half a mile from Benton's hiding-place. The search would be complete, but by getting further off he would lessen the chance of giving away his comrade with him, and making him the victim of his own rashness. He went out, stepping cautiously, and seeing all clear, walked quickly into the woods toward the German line. He had got no further in his plan than this—to be taken far off to the right, beyond the grove of firs. But as he walked wearily on, he tried vainly to think of some way out, some place of concealment that German sagacity could not fathom. He thought vaguely, too, of home, and wished that he were back there. The words of an old song came into his mind:
"Do they miss me at home, do they miss me,
When the shadows darkly fall?"