Burton drew back behind a rock and waited. Presently, from round one of the innumerable bends and twists in the main track, appeared the great heads of two oxen yoked together; then a woman’s form came into view, perched on the forepart of a heavily laden cart; last of all, tramping in the rear, a tall old man, and, by his side, a boy whose head reached scarcely higher than his elbow. The watcher breathed more freely. It was only a typical refugee party; he had already seen hundreds like it toiling along the southward roads to Salonika. There was nothing to fear here; on the contrary, it suggested a means by which Captain Enderby might be at once removed, without the delay that would be caused by his own going and coming. The cart was creeping laboriously up towards him. When it was nearly opposite, Burton stepped forth from his hiding-place. His sudden appearance drew signs of momentary alarm. The woman stiffened; the old man whipped out a revolver; the boy ran round in front of the cart, and with a fierce expression, comical on his young face, stood before his mother, drawing from his belt a knife. Burton threw out his hands and called out that he was an Englishman. But even before he spoke the attitude of hostility had relaxed, the woman had addressed a few words to the old man, and he had already replaced his weapon. They had recognised that the stranger was neither a Bulgar nor a German. Only the boy remained suspicious and alert, stoutly gripping his knife. The cart had stopped. Burton walked towards it. He had picked up a few words of Greek during the eleven months he had spent in the East, and he explained in that language that he was a friend and an Englishman. Rather to his surprise the old man replied in French. "Does monsieur speak French?" The wall of nationality was down, and in the language of their common ally the Serbian and the Englishman held a rapid colloquy. Presently the old man turned to the boy. "You were right, Marco," he said in his own tongue. "That thing you heard humming like a bee, that thing you saw moving like an eagle, was an English aeroplane. It has come to the ground and broken, struck by a Bulgar’s shell." "Oh! let me see it," cried the boy, eagerly, forgetting all else in the new object of excitement, slipping the knife back into his belt, and moving away from the cart. "Wait!" said his grandfather, peremptorily. He resumed his conversation with Burton. There was anxiety, hesitancy in his air. He appeared to be struggling with himself. "The enemy is not far behind," he said. "We have far to go; every minute is precious." He looked nervously along the track behind him, then seemed to question his daughter with his eyes. She nodded. "Tchk!" he ejaculated. "I will do it. No true Serb, monsieur, much less a descendant of Marco Kralevich, can refuse to succour an ally of his nation. Show me the way."