"Stoneway's got away, sir," he reported. "I guess the old woman gave him the tip."
"Poor wretch! He can't get far. I'll circulate the news at once and he'll be hunted down. Now get to your billets, men; I shall want your evidence in the morning."
As they were returning through the silent streets, talking over the exciting incidents of the night, Kenneth suddenly exclaimed:
"By George! I remember now. That fellow was the man I saw talking French to Stoneway at St. Pancras station."
CHAPTER XXI
MARKED DOWN
About four o'clock on the following afternoon, an old French peasant was walking along a road some fifteen miles to the west of the village in and around which the Rutlands were billeted. His lean form was bent, wisps of white hair straggled from beneath his broad soft hat, his legs dragged themselves along. There was no one else upon the road, which was remote from the main highways that had been for nine months streams of traffic; but the old man glanced continually right and left, before and behind, as if searching for something with his shrewd bright eyes.
He came to a wood abutting on the road, and, after another look round, disappeared among the trees. A few minutes later he halted, then took a few slow careful steps forward, and stopped again, looking down with a curious eagerness. There, stretched on the fresh springing grass of a glade spangled with bright spots of sunlight, lay a man asleep. He was clad in the uniform of a British soldier, without a belt. His cap had fallen off, his arms were thrown out, his face was half turned to the ground. Perhaps the Frenchman noticed that the regimental badge was missing from his cap, the regimental letters from his shoulders.
After standing for a few moments contemplating the prostrate form, he bent down and touched the man's shoulder. The soldier started up instantly; the expression of his eyes might have betokened anxiety or fear; but it changed when he saw that his disturber was just a simple old Frenchman, with mildness written all over his brown ruddy face, withered like an apple long laid by.
"Bon soir, monsieur," said the Frenchman. "It is a hot sun, to be sure, but monsieur l'Anglais will catch a chill if he remains here asleep."