"But monsieur is young," said the smith. "All our young men are at the war. The Bosches will make you prisoner--shoot you, perhaps."
"An awkward situation, truly," said Burton, rubbing a greasy hand over his face. Suddenly he remembered the half-witted stripling among the crowd. Could he feign idiocy as an explanation of his presence in the village? He could mop and mow, but nothing could banish the gleam of intelligence from his eyes. And his tongue!--he spoke French fairly well, but his accent would inevitably betray him to any German who chanced to be a linguist.
"There is only one thing," he cried. "I must pretend to be deaf and dumb. Tell everybody, will you?"
"It is clever, monsieur, that idea of yours," said the smith, laughing. "Yes; you are Jules le sourd-muet, burning to fight, but rejected because you could never hear the word of command. But you must be careful, monsieur; a single slip, and--voilà!"
He shrugged his shoulder expressively.
"The Bosches! The Bosches!" screamed a group of frightened children, rushing up the street.
The people fled into their houses and shut the doors. Only the curé and the smith were visible, the latter standing at his door leaning on his hammer, with an angry frown upon his swarthy face. Within the smithy Burton was making a rapid change of dress. He rolled up his own clothes and equipment and threw them into a corner behind a heap of old iron, and donned the dirty outer garments hurriedly provided by the smith. After a moment's hesitation he ferreted out his revolver case from the bundle, and slipped the revolver inside his blouse.
"If they search me, I'm done for," he thought. "But they would shoot the smith if they found the thing here, so it's as broad as it is long. The case must go up the chimney."
Then, completely transformed, he came to the door in time to see a troop of the Death's Head Hussars gallop up the street.
They reined up at the door of the smithy.