It chanced that they must pass through one of the older parts of the city to reach the destination fixed by the address on the packet. It also happened, in this time of war, that of vehicles for hire there were very few running in the central part of the city—and there were none at all to be seen in these outskirts and wilderness of narrow, irregular streets.
Henri had not figured on such a condition as no means of public conveyance, for it had not yet been fully impressed upon him that this was not the same Paris he had known in the past. It was now a city fearful; not a city wonderful.
Getting lost in this part of Paris, and when the Apache bandits and ghouls of the night found less restraint and greater need, was no merry jest. Henri began to vainly wish that he had accepted Gilbert’s offer of an escort. Billy and himself had encountered so many big things in the way of danger and peril in the last few months, so many close calls on land and sea, above and below, that this adventure at first seemed of little moment.
Yet the sinister, lurking menace of these silent, shadowy highways and byways in this beleaguered city was heightened by its very contrast with the scenes of turmoil in which the boys had participated, and where death stalked them with open hand.
“I’m stumped if I know just where Gilbert told me to make the turn that would set us straight for the Rue de Rivoli. Here’s night come upon us, and the high lights all out for fear of the Zeppelins, so you really can’t tell whether you are going or coming. Never thought for a moment but what we could hail a cab before this.”
“What’s the matter, then, with turning back, Henri?” questioned Jimmy.
“Nothing the matter with ‘turning,’” replied Henri, “but where is ‘back’?”
Jimmy did not know, so he had nothing more to say on the subject.
The four at the moment were passing a seemingly endless row of tumble-down tenements. The street was cobbled, or had been many years ago, and of sidewalks there was hardly a trace. At a far-away crossing ahead, an imitation of a lamp-post held up the kind of light one might expect from the fag-end of a candle. Behind, the darkness hung like a curtain.
“What a hold-up we would make,” muttered Billy, as he tightened a belt worth something like a quarter of a million francs.