"You're right there, Arthur! Let's slip away quietly. We have done these people here a great service, but they don't quite understand, and I think that instead of being grateful they're almost ready to be suspicious. Perhaps they think we were really trying to help the Germans."
So they slipped out of the village. If any of the villagers of Hannay noticed, they said nothing. They had enough to keep them busy and to occupy their minds, as well. They were learning that this war, of which they knew so little, was affecting them almost as much as if they were actually fighting.
Outside of Hannay, as they moved along toward the north the ground rose gradually, and the road brought them, in less than a mile, to the top of a hill that gave them an excellent view of the surrounding countryside. From Liege there still came the thunder of the big guns, but from other directions they gathered evidence that the fortress was no longer guarding the country. It was still holding out, and was undoubtedly keeping a great many Germans busy. But more Germans had swept around it, and the evidences of their activities were plain.
On all sides smoke was rising, marking burned farmhouses, even whole villages that for one reason or another had been given to the flames. They could see now the smoking ruins of the village whence the refugees who had really caused them to stop in Hannay had come, a scene of desolation that looked all the worse for the bright sunlight in which it was bathed. That same sunlight, too was reflected ever and again on tiny points of steel.
"Uhlans—the sun shines on their lance heads," explained Paul. He looked gloomily at the scene. "Ah, they will have to pay! Perhaps an enemy will cross the Rhine and carry fire and sword into their lands, too. I hope so—for the sake of the poor, homeless ones."
"But you said it was wrong for them to defend themselves—that the Germans had the right to do like that!" said Arthur, wonderingly.
"I said it was wrong for them to give the Germans an excuse to destroy their homes and kill their men," said Paul. "Wrong only because it is useless."
The descending road turned just below the crest of the hill on which they stood. And suddenly a bugle sounded, startlingly near. The two scouts had been so occupied in watching the country for miles about that they had given no heed to what might be going on close by. And so now while they stood in amazement and dismay, German soldiers began to appear over the hilltop, and in a moment they were surrounded by hundreds of the men whose uniforms were so familiar. It was a battalion of German infantry, and in a minute more they had been seized, and were being escorted to the rear, where in a few moments a burly major, plainly a soldier of the old school, and the commander of the battalion, questioned them.
They told their story plainly and truthfully, though they omitted, of course, all the incidents of the adventurous period between their discovery of the spy Ridder and their first capture.
"We are only doing what Colonel Schmidt told us to do, sir," said Paul. "We explained to him that we would try to reach Brussels, and after we got to Huy, we were compelled to come this way."