"No, you don't!" Dick muttered in English, taking another step backward from the wild-looking old peasant who had attempted to brain him.
"But a thousand pardons, monsieur!" cried the old man hoarsely in French, and now shaking from head to foot. "I did not see well in the fog, and I mistook you for a German. You are a British soldier!"
"An American soldier," Dick replied in the same tongue.
"Then, had I killed you, grief would have killed me, too, as it has already sent my wits scattering. For I am a Frenchman and hate only Germans."
"Is this a safe place to stand and discuss the Germans?" asked
Dick mildly, in a voice barely above a whisper. "This road——-"
"No, no! It is not safe here," protested the peasant. "Soldiers and wagons move over this road. That was why I was here. I hoped to find some German soldier alone, to leap on him and kill him—-and I thought you a German until after I had swung at you. Heaven is good, and I have not to reproach myself for having struck at the American uniform. But you are in danger here. You are——-"
"An escaped prisoner," Dick supplied in a whisper. "I have just escaped from the Germans."
"If you are quick then, they shall not find you," promised the old man, seizing Dick by the arm. "Come! I can guide you even through this fog."
There was something so sincere about the old peasant, despite his wildness, that Prescott went with him without objection. Both moving softly, they stepped into another field, the guide going forward as one who knew every inch of the way.
Presently buildings appeared faintly in the fog.