In dead silence we laboured onwards.
It was still a solitary walk, for neither of my companions said a word.
Only sometimes, without speaking, one of them would turn his head and look backwards, without stopping, at the red flames reflected in the black sky to northward.
Suddenly, to our amazement, we saw a cart coming down a side-street, containing a man and a little girl.
I ran like lightning towards it, terrified lest it should pass, but that man in the cart had a soul, he had seen the bleeding soldiers, he was stopping of himself, he offered to take me, too.
"Quick, quick, mes amis!" he said. "The Germans are coming in at the other end even now! The petite here was lost, and thanks to the Bon Dieu I have just found her. That is why I am so late."
As the soldiers crawled painfully into the little cart, I whispered to the elder one:
"Do you know where your King is, Monsieur?"
Ah, the flash in that hollow eye!
It was worth risking one's life to see it, and to hear the love that leapt into the Belgian's voice as he answered: