"Really," Michael observed, "when the conditions are favorable, traveling as a prisoner of war is the most luxurious traveling of all. I've never experienced the servility of a private courier, but it's wonderful to feel that other people are under an obligation to look after you. However, at present we have the advantages of being new toys. Our friend from Sunbury-on-Thames may be as compassionate as he likes about England, but there's no doubt it confers on the possessor a quite peculiar thrill to own English people--even two such non-combatant creatures as ourselves. It's typical of the Germans' newness to European society that they should have thought the right way to treat English prisoners was to spit at them. I remember once seeing a grandee of Spain who'd been hired as secretary by a Barcelona Jew, and by Jove! he wasn't allowed to forget it. The Bulgarians, on the other hand, have a superficial air of breeding, which they've either copied from the Turks or inherited from the Chinese. Didn't you love the touch about the champagne lunch at Dedeagatch? There's a luxurious hospitality about that which you won't find outside the _Arabian Nights_ or Chicago. Really the English nation should give thanks every Sunday, murmuring with all eyes on the east window and Germany: 'There, but for the grace of God blowing in the west wind, goes John Bull.' Yet I wonder if the hearts would be humble enough to keep the Pharisee out of the thanksgiving." The train went slowly, with frequent stoppages, often in wild country far from any railway station, where in such surroundings its existence seemed utterly improbable. Occasionally small bands of _comitadjis_ would ride up and menace theatrically the dejected Serbian prisoners who were being moved into Bulgaria. There was a cold wind, and snow was lying thinly on the hills. In the rapid dusk Michael fell asleep; soon after, the train seemed to have stopped for the night. Sylvia did not wake him up, but sat for two hours by the light of one candle stuck upon her valise and pored upon the moonless night that pressed against the window-panes of the compartment with scarcely endurable desolation. There was no sound of those murmurous voices that make mysterious even suburban tunnels when trains wait in them on foggy nights. The windows were screwed up; the door into the corridor was locked; in the darkness and silence Sylvia felt for the first time in all its force the meaning of imprisonment. Suddenly a flaring torch carried swiftly along the permanent way threw shadowy grotesques upon the ceiling of the compartment, and Michael, waking up with a start, asked their whereabouts. "Somewhere near Zaribrod, as far as I can make out, but it's impossible to tell for certain. I can't think what they're doing. We've been here for two hours without moving, and I can't hear a sound except the wind. It was somebody's carrying a torch past the window that woke you up."