"Now the question is, when shall we try to get in?" asked Pariset. "The best time would be when the men are having a meal. The Germans take their meals seriously; if they are ever to be caught off their guard it is when they are feeding."
"That's true," said the miller. "They have their supper somewhere about seven o'clock. I know that because one evening I met old Jules coming back from the village all puffing and blowing. I asked him why he was in such a hurry for an old man; had to ask three times before he heard me; and he told me he'd forgotten the vinegar, and the gentlemen were very angry."
"Well, it's dusk at seven; the lancers will be here by half-past. We'll make our attempt then."
"Better go a little earlier, while it's light enough to see our way," suggested the miller. "I'm not so young as I was, and I doubt whether I could find my way in the dark."
"Very well. It's now nearly five; we have nearly two hours to wait. You'll give us a meal, miller?"
"To be sure; the best I have. I'd feed a regiment to capture a German spy."
Just before seven Pariset and Kenneth left the house with the miller. Pariset had given the farmer a note addressed to the officer of the expected lancers, asking him to leave the horses at the farm, and post his men behind the hedge lining the road in the neighbourhood of the mill, ready to break in if they were called upon, or to intercept the Germans if they tried to escape.
The miller led the way across the fields, by a route which did not expose them to view from the mill-house until they arrived within a few yards of the bank of the stream opposite the wheel. The last part of the journey lay through a cornfield, the wheat growing so high that by stooping they completely hid themselves.
All was silent in the mill-house. Dusk was just falling. A lamp had already been lit in the kitchen, sending a ray of light across the yard to the left. The rear of the building, facing the stream, was dark.
Following the miller, the two young fellows stepped into the stream, and waded across knee deep till they stood below the wheel. It was an undershot wheel. The chains confining it were deeply rusted. Some of the floats had fallen away; others were broken; all were more or less decayed.