The firing sounded fainter, though even here few passers-by were to be met with, their pale, frightened faces, and the locked and shuttered windows of every house showing a state of fear bordering on panic. At the next corner Bob and Alan paused uncertainly, looking vainly about for a policeman.
“Not that way, Mr. Bob! To the right side turn,” cried a panting voice just behind.
Elizabeth came up running, her thin little figure shivering in the poor shawl wrapped about her, her quick breath puffing into the cold air.
“Elizabeth!” Bob’s voice held sharp reproach. “Why didn’t you go back to your master’s house? What are you doing here?”
“You cannot the police find, Mr. Bob. I will show you,” declared the German woman, still panting. “This way come!” She led the way across the street and around a corner. The officers followed, Alan’s curiosity no longer to be suppressed.
“Who is she, Bob? Are you in league with the enemy?”
“She’s not the enemy, poor old soul. She’s as pro-Ally as we are. She’s done the Allies more than one good turn. She was our servant at home in America before the war. Which way now, Elizabeth?” he asked, as the German woman paused for a second, undecided.
“This way, I think.” She hurried on down another street, evidently avoiding open places and crowded thoroughfares. In ten minutes more the three emerged on to Unter den Linden and saw the colored lamp of a police station over a door a few steps away.
“Now, Elizabeth, we’re all right. Go back, won’t you? Get under shelter before the firing grows worse. Else you may not be able to get into the house at all,” entreated Bob, pausing on the sidewalk by the police station door.
“I don’t want to go back, Mr. Bob,” said Elizabeth, her voice shaking with some emotion that was neither fear nor weariness.