"You think so? So do we," said the Major proudly. "We have taught the Bosches a lesson; we have shown them that Belgians can fight. We must hold them in front of the Liége forts for a few days, and then the French and the English armies will be here. A matter of three days, perhaps, and then, pouf! they blow the Kaiser and his armies upon the bayonets of the Russians. It is good to think that the English are so close."
CHAPTER VII
Disabling a Taube
"Here is the money and the letter you entrusted us with, sir," said Kenneth. "We couldn't get within five miles of Visé."
"The place is burned to the ground, I hear," announced Major Résimont. "Those Prussians are like devils, they spare neither man, woman, nor child. Liége is filled with terrible stories brought by the peasants who escaped. I could, alas! gather no definite tidings of my daughter or of her friend your sister, Monsieur Everest. One thing is certain. They left before the German shells began to fall in Visé, but whither, I know not. Let us hope they went to Maastricht."
It was now early morning. The bombardment, which had ceased during the futile assault, was now being renewed, although the fire lacked the fierceness that characterized the beginning of the siege of Liége.
The Belgian reply, too, had almost ceased, for so rapidly had the big guns been served that they had become overheated. Moreover—a further proof of German methods—the ordnance supplied by Krupp's to the Belgian Government before the war was obviously inferior in workmanship and material, and in consequence had rapidly deteriorated.
The two British dispatch-riders had run across Major Résimont in one of the vaulted galleries. He looked tired and worried: tired owing to the fact that he had been for seventeen hours on duty in the trenches or in the fort; worried by reason of anxiety for his daughter. Yet he was willing and anxious to face the Germans at any time they should take it into their heads to attempt another assault.
"If I were you I would take the chance to get a few hours' sleep," he advised as he bade the lads au revoir. "Remember what I said the next time there is an attack: a dispatch-rider's duty is not in the firing-line. His work lies in another sphere, equally hazardous and equally important."