The sounds died out, and silence followed; though the far-away grumble of the conflict could be heard from time to time.
"They've launched their bolt," said Merritt, "and either skipped out again, or else the German battery has been placed out of commission. We didn't hear the six-pounder go off, so they had no chance to fire back."
They continued their walk in silence. All of them had been much sobered by these thrilling and momentous events that were continually happening around them. Much of the customary jolly humor that, as a rule, characterized their intercourse with one another had been, by degrees, crushed by the tragedies that they had seen happening everywhere among the poor Belgians and amid the stricken soldiers whom they had so nobly assisted on the field of battle.
Striking the little road again at some distance beyond, they continued to follow it, under the belief that they could not now be very far away from the town they were aiming to reach.
Before they entirely lost sight of the late encampment of the German army, the boys discovered that a number of peasants from the surrounding country had come on the scene, and appeared to be hunting for anything of value which might have been purposely or by accident left behind.
"The poor things know they're going to have the hardest winter ever," said Tubby, with considerable feeling in his voice, "and they're trying to find something to help out. Like as not some of them even came from Louvain, where they lost everything they had in the wide world when the place was burned to the ground. It's just awful, that's what it is. America looks like the only place left where there's a chance of keeping the peace."
As they went along Rob was keeping track of their course. He gave Merritt his reasons for believing they would reach Sempst before sunset after all, unless something entirely unexpected happened to delay them again.
"Just now we're in great luck," he finished. "So far as we can see the Germans have cleared out of this particular section completely. They may be back again to-morrow; you never can tell what they'll do. But the main line of railroad is where they are mostly moving, because in that way they can get their supplies of men, guns, ammunition and food, and also take back the wounded. Some of their dead are buried, but in the main they prefer to cremate them, which is the modern way to prevent disease following battles."
Merritt did not make any remark, for he was becoming more and more anxious the closer they drew to the town where he expected to have that question of the success or failure of his mission settled.