We started early, walking slowly at first, to squander time. As darkness thickened, we increased our pace. But it is difficult to speed up when one has started slowly. Perhaps the village and station were farther away than we thought. Anyhow, it seemed an age before we caught sight of the first signal-lights on the railway. As during the previous night, the road lay through perfectly flat, desolate swamp land, crossed by ditches of stagnant water. A wood accompanied us on our right for some time. The stars were occasionally obscured by drifting clouds.
Suddenly we saw a cluster of red signal-lights over the dim shape of a signal bridge, the lighted station building a hundred yards beyond, and a level crossing turning out of our road at right angles. “This is it,” I said.
We stepped across the metals. Just beyond them, a small building on our left, its windows lighted, cast a glimmer over the road. Apprehensively glancing round I passed into the deep shadow of the avenue beyond it.
A little later we were standing on a bridge in the small village. A considerable brook rushed gurgling underneath.
“When we passed that house,” Tynsdale said casually, “a large dog of the police type came after me. I was walking last, you know. The brute pushed his nose into the back of my knee and turned away without a sound!”
We had a good drink at the brook, then proceeded along the cut-up road, tree-lined and dark. In a likely spot, perhaps five hundred yards behind the village, I stopped. “Here’s where our cross-country work starts; keep close behind.”
As nearly as possible we proceeded in a northwesterly direction. The going was bad. The country was divided by wire fences, deep ditches and hedges, into small fields, most of them swampy meadows. Half the time we waded through water over the tops of our shoes. This continued for an indefinite period, and terminated when we reached a road where it curved from a northerly direction toward the southwest. Here I had what proved to be an inspiration.
I had seen the beginning of the road marked on the map farther north. On paper it terminated nowhere. Actually it was here, in a spot where it ought not to be. Its deeply rutted surface showed that it was frequently used. The village of Steinbild, to the south of us now, was obviously its destination.
I explained to my companions: “I’m as certain as I can be that this road enters Steinbild close to the water’s edge and avoids the main street. The curve seems to show that. I’d like to follow it. To lie in the woods, away from anywhere, and watch the river, may not gain us anything. In the village we may find a boat. We’ve any amount of time, anyway, and can always come back. It’ll not be so very dangerous, with due caution, if the place is as dark as the villages we have seen so far. Will you chance it and follow me?”
“We’ll follow wherever you lead,” said Kent heartily. Tynsdale’s nod I took for granted; I couldn’t see it.