The peaceful Cuirassier instantly applies the now familiar revolver to my forehead. The noise makes his expression change from mild melancholy to fierce anger. He is capable of any villainy since he thinks we have arranged an ambush of the French and that he is at last betrayed.
A speedy explanation frees me from my uncomfortable position. More Uhlans ride up. At their head is a scholarly looking officer with a pointed grey beard.
“The Prince of Meiningen,” whispers a soldier in a soft round cap, who is passing by the door.
PRISONERS OF WAR
“Everything is bearable so long as there is bread,” said Sancho Panza. I begin to feel I could reckon with the Uhlans if only we had enough to eat. Between the closely-drawn shutters of the little village shop can be discerned packets of chocolate in small, neat, silver wrapped rows. I would sell my chances of seeing England again for two good sticks or twenty centimes in solid nickel coin with which to purchase them.
For lunch to-day I have a tiny piece of black bread. I eat it lingeringly, carefully putting in the Gladstonian forty bites. Yeastless, heavy as lead, it seems the most delicious food. I am compunctious for having eaten so much when I think that there are only three more such loaves. These are carefully hidden behind the cellar door. They will last us some time, and the Uhlans will not find them easily. But so beautiful is the Belgian nature, I am sure Mdme Job and the others would willingly starve themselves that I—and even the Germans—might have enough.
A hush is on the village since the word is passed round that the Duke of Meiningen has entered the Gendarmerie beneath the shadow of the still waving flag. No doubt it will presently be pulled down, “by order of the Kaiser,” and replaced by the Imperial Eagle. We shall see!
In the meantime all documents and money are taken possession of by the Prince. He comes out and speaks to the soldiers with some show of anger. I gather that the upheaval the interior of the Gendarmerie has undergone is set down to our account.
We shall be punished unless I interfere. In crudest German I explain that none of us has been within the doors, that the disturbance and looting are the work of German soldiers, that we should not dream of interfering with a Belgian Governmental office. My excuses are met with grunts. But I can see that they believe me. We shall pay no penalty for this. I breathe again.
A tin case containing documents and money is set in the roadway by the Gendarmerie door. The street is as full of soldiers with bayonets as of cobblestones. The Prince stalks over to the post office, his scholarly face grave with thought. Prince Ernst, his brother, mounted on a splendid horse, guards the door.