"There is no train," announced the priest. "The Muscovites are mobilizing troops. We're cut off from everywhere. I might have saved myself the trouble of packing."
"But there's worse than that, my lord Count," put in Bartek, the young chauffeur, who had been born on the land and had served first as stove-tender, then as gun-cleaner before being trained as a mechanic. "The tales they're telling at the station made my hair stand on end."
"What tales?" asked Ian.
"Jewish lies," snapped the priest.
Ian turned to the driver, who said:
"The Prussians have crossed the frontier and are in Kalisz."
"Don't you believe it, Ian," put in Father Constantine. "The Jews will say anything to scare honest Christians."
"And please, my lord Count," pursued Bartek the driver, "they are murdering men and women and children there. First they took a lot of money, gold, too, from the town, as a bribe to let the people alone. Then when they'd got the money they went up on that hill that stands over the town. And when the people thought they were safe on account of the gold they had given to the Prussian Colonel, that very officer came down into the town again, shut the people in their houses and shot at them through the windows, like rats in a trap."
"The Prussians so near us?" murmured Ian, looking from one to the other. "It's incredible. What are the Russians doing? There were several regiments in Kalisz."
"They retired before the Prussians came," answered Bartek, who had kept his ears open at the station.