"If those two who chased us when we ran off with their motorcycle saw us, they'd be able to prove it," said Arthur.
"Yes, I hadn't thought of them. But they're prisoners fortunately. I hope they'll be well looked after, too. It would be mighty awkward if they turned up here suddenly. They know just how important were the plans we got and these others don't know anything about that, at all. I believe that our people knowing just where the German guns were placed made a great deal of difference."
The coming of a soldier interrupted them. He told them that they were to be examined at once.
"Then you will be shot," he said, showing his teeth. "As you deserve," he added, trying to look fierce.
But there was a twinkle in his eye that both Paul and Arthur saw. They had been treated very well so far. They had seen nothing, as a matter of fact, to make them think that the Germans were brutal. They made war, and that is brutal in itself. The gentlest men, when they are engaged in a campaign, must do things that they would never attempt of their own free will.
The soldiers now led the way to a house that both boys knew well, for it belonged to a friend of their uncle, whom they had often visited. It was being used as headquarters now by a part of the German staff, and was full of officers who looked at them curiously. They still wore their Boy Scout uniforms. There had been no opportunity, as a matter of fact, for them to change their clothes before the fire, and all the other clothes they possessed had been destroyed, of course, at that time.
"You were caught by our troops in territory occupied by us—within our actual battle line, indeed," said a colonel who received them. "Did you not receive warning that all civilians were to leave the zone in which you were found?"
They could deny that truthfully, and did. Paul was rather glad, as the matter had turned out, that his plan of pretending to be dumb had not been tried. He knew that it would be very hard for Arthur to tell an untruth, even by suggestion, excellent as was the excuse for doing so. Arthur could understand, of course, that to deceive the enemy was permissible, and, more than that, praiseworthy. It was a question simply of whether he could hope to do so successfully.
"The thing to be done now is to get rid of you," said the colonel. He frowned severely, but, as with the soldier who had brought them for examination, there was a smile behind the frown. "I might have you shot, but we should save ammunition. And I might send you back to Germany, to be confined in a fortress, but that would mean that we should have to feed you. If I let you go through the lines toward Huy, will you promise not to come back?"
"Yes, sir," said Paul, heartily. He was amazed, by the prospect of release, but he realized, of course, that while he and Arthur knew what dangerous enemies they had already proved themselves, the colonel did not.