She made no reply; she merely stood a moment longer gazing about her to get her bearings. She had no conscious plan except that she recognized that she was to be taken into some sort of duress from which she must attempt to escape; and if she succeeded she would require memory of landmarks and directions. Von Forstner’s eyes narrowed as he watched her and divined what was passing through her mind; but he pretended that he did not.
“Have I not said it was beautiful here?” he asked.
“It is very beautiful,” Ruth replied and, as he motioned to her, she preceded him into the car and sat upon the rear seat with him.
The car, which was fairly new and in good condition, drove off rapidly. It evidenced to Ruth either that reports of the scarcity of motor cars in Germany had been exaggerated or that Captain von Forstner was a person of sufficient importance to possess a most excellent vehicle from the vanishing supply. It followed a narrow but excellent road through forest for half a mile; it ran out beside cleared land, farm, and meadows, where a few cattle were grazing. A dozen men were working in a field—big, slow-moving laborers.
Von Forstner observed that Ruth gazed at them. “Russians,” he explained to her. “Some of my prisoners.”
He spoke as if he had taken them personally. “I have had, at various times, also French and English and Canadians; and I expect some Americans soon. I have asked for some; but they have not appeared against us frequently enough yet for us to have a great many.”
“Still we have already not a few of you,” Ruth returned quietly. Her situation scarcely could become worse, no matter what she now said; and, as it turned out, von Forstner was amused at this defiance.
“If they are much like the Canadians they will not be much good anyway,” he said.
“For fighting or farm work, you mean?”
Von Forstner hesitated just a trifle before he returned, “They can stand nothing; they die too easily.”