Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1917-06-26
CHAPTER uI-(Continued)

DALROY and the girl were comfortably
~ seated. and almost hidden, among the
sacks Of oats; they were free to talk as
they listed.
Naturally. a soldiers eyes took in details
at once which would escape a woman; but
Irene Beresford soon noted signs Of
the erratic fighting which had taken place
along that very road
Surely we are in Belgium now she
whispered, after an awed glance at the
lights and bustling activity Of field hospi-
tai established near the hamlet of Aubel
Yes" said Dalroy quietly. we have
been in Belgium fully an hour"
"And have the Germans actually attacked
this dear little country"
80 IL would seem"
But why? 1 have always understood
that Belgium was absolutely safe. All the
great nations Of the world have guaranteed
her integrity"
THAT has been the main argument Of
every spouter at International Peace Con-
crosses for many year SAID Dalroy bit
terly "If Belgium and Holland can be
preserved by agreement they contended
why should not all other veXed questions
be settled by arbitration? Yet one of our
chaps in the Berlin embassy, the man
whose ticket you travelled with told me that
the Kaiser could be bluntly outspoken when
that very question was raised during the
autumn maneuvers last year. i shall sweep
through Belgium thus he said, swinging
his arm as though brushing aside feeble
old crone who barred his way. And he
was tdlking to a British officer, too
what a crime These poor, inoffensive
people! Have they resisted, do you think?''
"That field hospital looked pretty busy"
was the grim answer
A little farther on, at a cross road, there
could no longer be any doubt as to what
had happened. The remains of barrcade
Uttered the ditches Broken carts, plows.
harrows, and hurdles lay in heaps. The
carcasses Of scores Of dead horses had been
hastily thrust aside so as to clea- passage.
In a meadow, working by the Light OF lam
terms, gangs Of soldiers and peasants were
digging long pits, while row after row Of
nrone figures could be gimpsed when the
light carried by those directing the opera
tions chanced to fall on them.
Dalroy knew, of course, that all the indi-
cations pointed to successful, II costly,
German advance, which was the last thing
he had counted on in this remote country
side. II the tide of war was rolling into
Belgium 1t should by his reckoning, have
passed to the southwest, engulfing the upper
valley of the Meuse and the two LuXem-
bourgs perhaps, but leaving untouched the
placid land on the frontier Of Holland. For
a time he feared that Holland too was
being attacked Understanding something
OF German pride though far as yet from
plumbing the depths of German infamy, he
imagined that the Teutonic host had bust
all barriers. and was bent on making the
Rhine a German river from source to sea.
Naturally, he did not fail to realize that
the numbering wagon was taking him into
a country already securely held by the
assailants. There were no guards at the
cross roads, no indications Of military pre-
cautions The hospital, the gravediggers,
the successive troops of cavalry felt them
selves safe even In the semidarkness and
this was the prerogative of a conquering
army In the conditions, he did not regard
ms lire as worth much more tnan a hour 5
purchase and he tortured his wits in vain
for some means Of freeing the girl, who re-
posed such implicit confidence in him, from
the meshes of a net which he felt 70 be
tightening every minute. He simply dreaded
the coming Of daylight, heralded already
by tints Of heliotrope and pink in the east
ern sky Certain undulating contours were
becoming suspiclously clear In that part OF
the horizon II might be only what Hahz