"An ambush," said Carstairs coolly, "but we've rushed through it."

"Anyway, our luck is better than Weber's," said Wharton. "He was pinked in the arm and we're unhurt. At least I think so. How are you, Scott?"

"Well but scared."

"I believe the first statement, but not the second And you Carstairs."

"Well but annoyed."

"I believe both your statements."

"Is it your recollection that these hedges continue far, Carstairs?"

asked Wharton.

"Five or six miles at least."

"That's mine too, but I hoped I was wrong. It gives those bushwackers an advantage. With the hedges right beside us we can't see well over them, but they on the hills at a distance can look down on us."

"You Yankees are sometimes right, Wharton, and this is one of the times.

Those fellows, whoever they are, will probably get a few more shots at us. I'll lay you two to one they don't hit us."

"I never bet against my sympathies. Ping! didn't you hear it! There was a bullet, five seconds after you offered to bet."

"Yes, I know it. Here's the lock of hair it cut from my head."

He took the hair from his coat, where it had fallen, and let it flutter away. He did not show any alarm. Already it had become the pride of the three never to betray apprehension. John's face was like a mask, although his heart was beating hard. A whistle over his head showed that a bullet had pa.s.sed there and he heard its plunk as it buried itself in a tree on the other side of the road.

He remembered with some consolation that the modern, small, high-powered rifle bullet, unless it killed, did not do so very much harm. It went through one so fast that it did not tear flesh or break bones, and the wounds it made were quick to heal.

Ping! Ping! and once more ping! They reached the crest of the hill and went swiftly down the other slope.

"I think we'll leave them behind here," said Carstairs. "We gain, as we've the open road, while they're obstructed in fields."

"I hope you're a true prophet, Carstairs," said Wharton. "I'm growing reconciled to an army shooting at me, but I would hate to be picked off by an ambushed sharpshooter."

Carstairs was a true prophet in this case. No more shots came and as they entered flat country with open fields, in which they could see everything they slowed to a walk, and not too soon, for the horses were breathing heavily, their mouths covered with foam. Then in order to spare their tired animals the three dismounted and walked a mile, leading them by the bridles.

"I'd never have thought the Uhlans were in the rear of our army," said Carstairs.

"I'm not at all surprised," said John.

"Why not?"

"Because I shall never be surprised at anything the Germans do. You English have fallen into the bad habit of thinking that what you haven't done n.o.body else does."

"I see," said Carstairs with a laugh. "Hit the poor old Britisher. You Yankees are so used to it that you can't get out of the habit, even here and now, when you and I are allies."

"But it's the truth, the real vital truth," said John earnestly. "The Germans are ahead of you. They're like a medieval knight clad in steel and armed from head to foot, going out to fight a peasant in homespun.

And you're the peasant in homespun, Carstairs."

"England is slow, I admit, but when she once takes hold she never lets go."

"Unless she takes hold, when there's something to take hold of it's no use."

"Stop quarreling with him, Scott," said Wharton. "That's my job, and you can't take it from me. I've set two tasks for myself, one to defeat the German army and one to change Carstairs, and I tell you confidentially, John, that I think the defeat of the German army will prove the easier of the two."

"Look how those banks of fog are rolling up," said Carstairs. "The rain is decreasing, but in a quarter of an hour we won't be able to see a thing twenty yards away."

"We shall welcome the fog," said John, who was beginning to feel now that he was on equal terms with the other two.

"So, we should," said Carstairs, "but does fog conduct sound well?"

"I don't know," replied John. "Why?"

"Because I think I hear a noise a long distance to the right. It has a rolling, grinding quality, but that doesn't help me to tell what makes it."

The three stopped, and with all their senses alert listened. Both John and Wharton heard the sound, but they were unable to tell its nature.

The fog meanwhile was closing in, heavy and almost impenetrable.

"I think," said John, "we ought to see what it is. The thing is projecting itself squarely across our path. We've got a mission, but the more news we take the better."

Wharton and Carstairs agreed with him, and finding a low place in the hedge that ran beside the road they forced their way through it. They were remounted now, and the rest had made the horses fit for either a fight or a race.

They rode across the field and then through a belt of open forest, but the fog was so dense they were compelled to keep close together lest they lose one another. The rolling sound increased and now other notes came with it. A little farther and they saw dim lights in the fog.

"An army," whispered Carstairs, "and the torch-bearers are showing the way through the fog. Now what kind of an army is it?"

"German of course," said Wharton. "We know well enough that no French force is near here. It's a part of the flood that's bearing down on France and Belgium."

"There are more trees here to the right," said John. "Let's enter them and get a better view. Even if we were seen we could escape anybody in this fog."

"Good idea," said Carstairs. "I'm as anxious as you to know more. This fair land of France is bearing strange fruit now."

Keeping a wary eye for Uhlans who must be somewhere near they rode with all the courage of youth into a clump of trees that grew upon a hillock close to the road. There, in the shelter of the foliage, they looked down upon what was pa.s.sing.

"Busy Bertha!" said Wharton.

John beheld a giant cannon, one of the mighty howitzers which he had treated as a fable, a soldier's idle dream, until he had heard it booming in the night. But here was another drawn by a powerful motor.

Its monster mouth was turned up at an angle toward the sky, and in the fog lighted only by the torches the thing became alive to John, huge and misshapen, dragging itself over the ground, devouring human beings as it went, like the storied dragons of old.

He glanced at his comrades and saw that the monster had taken hold of them in the same way. They were regarding it with a kind of awe, and yet it was not alone. Its sinister shape merely predominated over everything else. It was preceded and followed by many other cannon, giants themselves, but overshadowed by the mammoth.

Motors drew most of the great guns, and there were thousands more carrying soldiers, arms and various kinds of equipment. Behind them came vast ma.s.ses of gray infantry, marching with the steady German tread. The heavy fog, which the torches lighted but dimly, magnified and distorted everything, and the sight was uncanny and terrifying.

John had the deepest respect for German arms. He knew the strong and tenacious German nature, and he had had some insight into the mighty preparations of the empire. Now he saw them rolling down every road upon France, and, for a little while he did not see how they could be beaten, not though all the world combined against them. The mammoth cannon moving slowly on through the fog typified their irresistible advance.

"I think we've seen enough," said Wharton. "We'd better be up and away."

"Too much for me," said Carstairs. "My eye what a gun!"