Without daring to look her in the face, I turned down the path in the direction of the tool-shed. Five minutes later I left it, dressed in the gardener's earth-stained clothes, passed like a shadow to the rear of the building, and was over the wall in a trice.
I found myself in a field, and having not the slightest idea regarding the geography of Erquelinnes, went straight ahead at full speed. A quarter of an hour's steeplechasing across ditches and other natural obstacles brought me to a high road, and confronted me with the dilemma as to which way to turn. Without losing a moment's time, for I pictured the hue and cry my disappearance would soon be causing, I made off to the left. Fausse route! In five minutes I came within sight of the lights of the first house of a village, undoubtedly Erquelinnes itself. With a vague idea at the back of my head of gaining the Franco-Belgian frontier, and—avoiding all small places, where curiosity is most rife—reaching Maubeuge, where I might find an asylum among my own people until an opportunity presented itself of getting back to the French lines, I struck off to the right, once more across open country. The dark cloak of night had now fallen, making my progress necessarily slow. On and on I crept in the darkness. How long I continued I cannot say, but it must have been for several hours, for a great weariness suddenly came over me and impelled me to seek sleep. What was apparently a small wood lay in my path at that moment. Groping my way from bole to bole, I divined, rather than saw, a dry and sheltered spot under the trees, and, throwing myself down, quickly fell asleep, amidst the calling of the night-jars.
VII—"HANDS UP—OR I SHOOT"
I cannot tell you how long I slumbered—probably until two or three o'clock in the morning. But I was awakened by the sound of the snapping of dry twigs and muffled voices. I sprang to my feet and listened. Nearer and nearer came the stealthy footsteps. I retired as cautiously as I could; but though I trod ever so lightly, it was impossible to avoid the crackling of dead wood, which seemed to my hypersensitive ears like so many pistol-shots. Even the thumping of my heart appeared audible. One curious thing, however, I noticed: whenever, after a noisy retreat, I stopped to listen, there was a corresponding stoppage and a long silence on the part of my pursuers. But, thought I, was it at all certain they were in pursuit? Would they not, in that case, have come on with a rush? "Suppose I crouch down and run the risk of them passing without seeing me?" I thought. Whilst I was reflecting; with my back to what was apparently a fairly large tree, those who were advancing, emboldened by the silence which had intervened, came on with hastened steps, and got so near that I could hear their heavy breathing. I stepped quickly behind my tree, but too late to serve my purpose, for the next moment a stern voice rapped out an oath almost in my ear and a flash of light from an electric torch struck me full in the face.
"Hands up, or I shoot!" said the voice. "Who are you?"
"A Frenchman," I replied, obeying the command and deciding, on the spur of the moment, that one who spoke to me in my native tongue could hardly be an enemy. "And in need of help."
"Good thing you're not a Pruscot, mate, or you'd have been a goner. In need of help, are you? So are we. Aren't we, mes vieuz?"
This last remark was addressed to the speaker's two companions, whose indistinct forms I could now make out.
"Very well," continued the speaker, slipping the revolver with which he had covered me into his pocket, "I take it to be a bargain. One good service deserves another. You help us with some of these parcels, and we'll help you. I'm not going to ask you too many questions, and we don't expect you to be over inquisitive about our business. C'est compris? But if we're to get there and back before light we must be off. Come on!"
Taking two of the heavy packages which they were transporting, I followed them. In a flash, I saw that I had fallen in with a party of smugglers, who still continued to ply their calling in the neighbourhood of Erquelinnes and other villages on the frontier between Belgium and France. Men of nondescript nationality, though hating the Teuton with all the ardour of a Frenchman or a Belgian, and ready, if a favourable opportunity offered, to rid the world of every Boche who fell into their power, they made it their business to be on friendly terms with the Prussian officers who were in authority on the frontier. Many favours, in the early months of the war, could they obtain from them, in return for a discreetly-offered gift, such as a box of cigars, or a pound or two of tobacco. When taking any important consignment of goods to and fro between their dépôts on the road from Maubeuge to Charleroi, they had, of course, to resort to the traditional methods of their calling; and it was whilst on one of these nocturnal expeditions that I had encountered them.