a loft under its shelter, and, searching round for some access to it, Henri presently stumbled upon a wooden staircase. Clambering up it, he was astonished to find a glimmer of light coming through the chinks of a door on his left, and, applying his eye to those chinks, discovered a fire burning on a brick hearth in a room of small dimensions. To open the door quietly was the most sensible procedure, and, lifting the latch and pushing the door before him, he carefully investigated every corner of the room.
"Looks as though it were used by some farm hand, or a groom of some sort," he told himself. "In any case, it's warm and comfortable and untenanted, and will allow us to strip off our clothes and dry ourselves."
Turning abruptly on his heel, he crept slowly down the staircase, and very soon had brought Stuart and Jules to the warm quarters he had discovered. There, indeed, they stripped off their wet clothing and hung it in front of the fire, which, by diligent prodding and by an addition of logs which lay beside it, was soon giving off a fine heat, and was crackling and blazing merrily.
"A mighty fine feed," declared Stuart, now without a stutter in his voice and without a chatter about his teeth. "Henri, my boy, you're a nobleman, or ought to be one; and if you aren't, all I can say is, that the French Government don't know what they're doing. And because why? Well, now, I'll just tell you," he proceeded, his mouth half full of sausage, a huge piece in one hand, and a slice of bread in the other, while between his feet, as he stood on the floor, there rested a bottle of beer already opened. "Because why, my boy? Well, here's the reason: our friend Henri contrived, in the first place, to attract our attention to a spot in Ruhleben where escape seemed possible – I'm not going to say that he was the chief cause of our undertaking the venture, but he was one of us – accompanied us to the outside of the entanglements, and led us away from the camp. It was his and Jules's idea to escape those dogs by swimming and floating all this distance down the river, and, though we ain't altogether clear of 'em yet, we're on the high road to be so. But – and here I'll take a denial from no one" – and at that moment he looked across at Jules, as if to challenge him to controvert the statement – "but our friend Henri is the man mainly responsible for bringing us to the farm, for procuring, first of all, food and drink, and then providing warm quarters. If I was the French Government, he'd have every honour possible. As it is, why – well – " said Stuart, hesitating, and taking another bite of sausage, "why, now – I'll drink his health, and that's the best I can do at the moment."
He lifted the bottle, and, tossing his head back, let the frothy fluid, so beloved of the Germans, trickle into his mouth and down his throat, and, gasping at last, replaced it on the floor beside him. Yes, it was a meal which delighted the hearts of all three of them, a meal to be looked back upon, one which, if they escaped safely from the country and lived to tell the tale, would be spoken of in glowing terms as a reminiscence to be thankful for, and an item amongst hundreds during their adventure to be emphasized, to be picked out as momentous, and to be expatiated on in the warmest language.
"And now, what do we do?" asked Stuart, when the meal was finished and each had enjoyed a cigarette – for the cautious Stuart had brought some with him. "One's natural inclination is to stretch out on these boards and sleep in the warmth of the fire; but that, just as naturally, raises the question as to whether it would be wise, and as to whether it would not lead to certain discovery in the morning."
"Of course we could take it in turns to sit up and watch," suggested Henri, yawning widely as he spoke; "but then, we are all of us dead tired, and the chances are that anyone who attempted to keep awake would be overpowered by drowsiness. It looks to me as though it would be far better for us to clear up the mess we have made and to retire into the loft; that is to say, if there is one. And I've another suggestion to offer: it may be that to-morrow we shall find our exit from the farm cut off, or we may find that we have to keep away from all dwellings as we cross country; that points to the need of replenishing the commissariat at this stage, particularly as we know that there is food almost within a stone's throw of us."
The big, beefy, ruddy, and smiling face of Stuart was turned upon him promptly.
"My boy," he exclaimed, smacking Henri heavily on the shoulder, "my boy, didn't I say that you were deserving of the highest honours, and here is another reason for giving you rewards. The idea of food for to-morrow had escaped my notice altogether, and I would say that both Jules and I were so satisfied with what we have had that we didn't give a thought to it. But it's just plain common sense – the common sense which you seem to have got a store of, Henri – which should prepare us to look to to-morrow, to make provision for the future, particularly when it can be done so easily. You get off, Henri, but take care that that fellow with the voice doesn't spot you. Jules and I will search round in the buildings for a loft, and then we'll return to this room and wait for you."
Separating at the door of the room, and leaving a goodly portion of their clothing still hanging in the warmth of the fire, the three parted, Jules and Stuart clambering up the staircase, which ascended again after it had passed the landing at the door of the room they had just vacated, while Henri slid to the floor below, and, marching into the yard, crossed to the kitchen doorway. Pausing there for a while, he listened for the notes of the organ, and presently heard them and the sound of a woman singing, a coarse, guttural, bucolic voice, very different from the other. As for the kitchen, the fire still flickered on the hearth, while the place was untenanted, and once more Henri, emboldened by the success of his previous visit, lit the candle at the fire, looked serenely about him, and entered the little storehouse at the end of the kitchen.
Perhaps three minutes later he emerged from that place with two baskets more than fully laden; for, be it mentioned, if the towns and cities of Germany at these times were feeling the pinch of war, if the blockade of the British Fleet had deprived the Kaiser's subjects of many food-stuffs and other commodities, and if, indeed, as undoubtedly was the case, there was shortage in many parts of Germany, there was still without doubt, abundance in many a farm and homestead, abundance, that is to say, of home-produced articles. Thus, there were strings of sausages in that larder, ready for the hand which sought to take them, there were hard-baked biscuits and bread, and home-brewed beer in abundance. It was indeed with provisions and drink enough to last for several days that Henri struggled from the larder into the kitchen, and, having blown out the candle and replaced it where he had found it, went to the door that led to the yard and made ready to emerge from it. It was indeed in that precise position that his further progress was suddenly arrested; for, as he pulled the door open and prepared to step into the yard, a gang of men came to the corner of the building, and, thrusting their way through that gate which gave admission to the yard, suddenly accosted him in the doorway. They were Germans; they were a party of guards sent from Ruhleben; and beyond them, secured to leashes, were a couple of dogs, sent with them to hound down the prisoners who had escaped from the camp.
CHAPTER V
Eluding the Pursuers
If a picture could have been taken of the astonished and nonplussed Henri at the precise moment when, as he stood half within and half without the door of the farmhouse from which he had been purloining food and drink, he was accosted by that German party from Ruhleben, his own devoted mother would have undoubtedly had the utmost difficulty in recognizing her offspring. To begin with, having discarded his drenched clothing and left it in that room which had provided such warmth and comfort to himself and Stuart and Jules, Henri had, because no other change was possible for the moment, borrowed an old pair of trousers hanging on the wall, which, from their dilapidated and mud-stained appearance, may well have belonged to the farm hand – the usual occupant of the building. An equally tattered coat was over his shoulders, while his bare feet were thrust into a pair of heavily nailed boots, which had been cleaned perhaps a year before. There was no hat on his head, and, thanks to his swim in the river, his hair – which had grown excessively long in Ruhleben – hung lankly over his eyes and forehead, producing altogether an appearance not very uncommon in the country. To be very precise, if not complimentary, we must admit that the usually debonair and dapper Henri looked like the village idiot at that moment; while his astonishment,
