Rain had been threatening for the last four hours, but was still holding off, when we got on to the road, and proceeded north. We had walked steadily for an hour or so. The night was pitch-dark. Black and flat swamp-land extended all round to the indistinct horizon. Here and there the lighter streaks of ditches, full of foul, stagnant water, were ruled across the black expanse. The wires of a telephone line on our right hummed in the wind. We were walking as best we could--I a little in front on the right, Tynsdale on the other side of the road, Kent almost treading on my heels. The ribbon of turf underneath my feet seemed fairly broad. A sudden splash behind me caused me to stop and whirl round. A white face at my feet heaved itself, as it seemed, out of the ground, and Kent scrambled back on to the road, squirting water from every seam. “Did _you_ know you were walking within half an inch of a ditch? How is it _you_ didn’t fall in?” he demanded savagely of me. “Are you hurt?” I counter-questioned anxiously. “Not a bit! The water was just deep enough to cover me entirely, except my knapsack. That seems dry,” he answered, feeling himself all over. “I’ve lost my hat, though.” “Anything else?” “No, I don’t think so. Never mind the old hat. I hardly ever wear it.” “Come on, then! Keep moving, or you’ll catch a chill.” After about one hour and a half, during which a number of paths had demonstrated the unreliability of our maps in this locality, none of them being marked, a cart road on our left proved too much of a temptation for me. “Are you fellows game,” I asked, “to follow me over uncharted ground? I feel certain I can do better by compass alone, and probably save us several miles.” “Don’t make speeches, old man; get along. We’ll follow.” I was fortunate in being able to justify this move. Three quarters of an hour afterward we struck a highway a mile in front of the village of Spahn, our nearest objective. Pleased with myself, I announced a clear gain of about three miles. Here we took it easy for about twenty minutes, sitting in the road, with our feet in the ditch. Kent and Tynsdale had a draft from the brandy flask, and we all had something to eat. “This is the fifth shrine we’ve seen since Monday night. I always thought northern Germany was entirely Protestant,” Kent remarked when our scouting for water at the entrance of a settlement had led us around the structure. “We’d much prefer a well, anyway,” was our unanimous opinion. We simply had to have water. After searching among the houses we finally found a rain-tub half full of it. It contained a fair number of insect larvæ, to judge from the tiny, soft bodies passing over our tongues while we drank, but we continued our march with heavy water-bottles. The name of the village, in black letters on a white board, dispelled any possible doubt as to our position. A white post close to this sign elicited my angry comment: