Rod immediately courteously saluted the colonel and started to speak.
“Pardon me, Colonel, but may I ask why we have been waylaid and taken in charge?”
“It is very simple,” came the astounding answer in plain English; “in times like this spies may be arrested, tried, and executed all inside of an hour. And you three boys are accused of having been known to send information to the enemy!”
CHAPTER XX.
THE ACCUSATION.
That startling accusation sobered even Josh, for the smile faded from his face as he turned an anxious look upon Rod. To be taken for a spy was a serious thing in these war times, when a short shrift often followed such a charge.
Rod did not lose his self-possession. At the same time a little frown appeared on his usually placid face.
“That is a serious thing you charge us with, my Colonel,” he remarked. “We are three American boys who were caught in the whirl of war. We finally found our way out of Belgium with much difficulty. Two of our number started back home, having been recalled by a message of importance.”
“But Belgium is far away from Paris, and the banks of the Marne, young M’sieu!” said the officer, with a touch of satire in his cold voice, and a look toward a man dressed as a civilian, who, Rod noticed, was intently watching them.
“That is true, Monsieur le Colonel,” immediately replied the boy, “and we can explain that easily. We met with a poor French woman in Antwerp whose story enlisted our sympathies. She had just come by a paper from a lawyer in Paris whereby her husband would inherit quite a snug little fortune if he signed the same document within a stated time. But as he had hastened to join his regiment when war was declared she feared the opportunity would be forever lost. And, my Colonel, we three boys, hoping also to see something of what was going on along the French front, gave Jeanne D’Aubrey our promise that we would try to find her Andre, so that the paper might be signed.”