In the southwest the lights of Huy, could be seen, but they gave no clue as to which army held the town. Only the fires that dotted the ground, clustered about Huy in a great semicircle, seemed to indicate that perhaps the Germans had not yet entered the town. They were west of it, however, though only a few, toward Namur, and Paul muttered angrily to himself as he saw that well west of Huy the fires stretched in a solid line between that place and the fortress of Namur.
"We won't be able to reach Namur, I'm afraid," he said. "We might get through, but I believe that our best chance is to swing right around Huy, staying well inside the line of the fires, and slip past it, just to the west. There is a bridge there, too. I don't believe we could cross the Meuse anywhere else between Huy and Namur."
Twice they passed roadside patrols of Germans, but Paul's appearance was deceptive, and the soldiers simply sprang to attention as the flying car swept by, standing with their hands raised in salute. Paul knew that at any moment he might run into a patrol less easily satisfied, but that was a chance that had to be taken.
Now he was picking his way carefully, having reduced his speed a little. Twice he boldly left the road and drove the car across the soft ground of fields, for he had to follow a semicircle, and the road, had he stuck to it, would have brought him right up to one of the camps each time. But at last he was heading north and west again, and he heaved a sigh of great relief.
He had to sacrifice speed now for a time to certainty. To have taken a false turn would have spelled disaster, and, though he knew the map of the country well enough, he had never traveled these roads himself. But soon all danger seemed to be over. They were coming nearer to the sounds of the battle again. These had died away for a time, and the fight had seemed to be over. But whichever side had been losing had brought up reenforcements, and as the first faint streaks of light in the east that foretold the dawn began to spread in the sky the din was louder than ever.
"Where are you trying to go?" asked Arthur.
"To Eghezee," said Paul. "That is a fair sized town and we ought to find a telephone exchange still working there, with wires into Brussels that haven't been cut. There is its smoke—do you see it right ahead?"
Arthur raised his head to look. And he saw something else. To the right of the town, which was still two miles away, there was a moving mass of grey.
"There come the Germans, too!" he groaned. "And they're nearer than we are!"
Paul's answer was to urge the car to still greater speed. Arthur was right. Heavy masses of Germans—Paul guessed there was a full division of twenty thousand men—were advancing toward the town. They were still some distance away, but they were moving fairly fast.