John and Fleury saw their own place at once. Several hundred men in French uniforms were lying or sitting on the ground in a great group near the forest. A few slept, but the others, as well as John could see by the light of the fires, were wide awake.
The sight of the brook gave John a burning thirst, and making a sign to the German guard, who nodded, he knelt and drank. He did not care whether the water was pure or not, most likely it was not, with armies treading their way across it, but as it cut through the dust and grime of his mouth and throat he felt as if a new and more vigorous life were flowing into his veins. After drinking once, twice, and thrice, he sat down on the bank with Fleury, but in a minute or two young von Arnheim came for him.
"Our commander wishes to talk with you," he said.
"I'm honored," said John, "but conversation is not one of my strong points."
"The general will make the conversation," said von Arnheim, smiling. "It will be your duty, as he sees it, to answer questions."
John's liking for von Arnheim grew. He had seldom seen a finer young man. He was frank and open in manner, and bright blue eyes shone in a face that bore every sign of honesty. Official enemies he and von Arnheim were, but real enemies they never could be.
He divined that he would be subjected to a cross-examination, but he had no objection. Moreover, he wanted to see a German general of high degree. Von Arnheim led the way through the woods to a little glade, in which about a dozen officers stood. One of them, the oldest man present, who was obviously in command, stood nearest the fire, holding his helmet in his hand.
The general was past sixty, of medium height, but extremely broad and muscular. His head, bald save for a fringe of white hair, had been reddened by the sun, and his face, with its deep heavy lines and his corded neck, was red, too. He showed age but not weakness. His eyes, small, red and uncommonly keen, gazed from under a white bushy thatch. He looked like a fierce old dragon to John.
"The American prisoner, sir," said von Arnheim in English to the general.
The old man concentrated the stare of his small red eyes upon John for many long seconds. The young American felt the weight and power of that gaze. He knew too instinctively that the man before him was a great fighter, a true representative of the German military caste and system. He longed to turn his own eyes away, but he resolutely held them steady. He would not be looked down, not even by an old Prussian general to whom the fate of a hundred thousand was nothing.