Liège itself was ten miles distant; Pontisse, the nearest fort, though on the left bank of the river, barely six. The evening was still, there being only a slight breeze from the south-west, which brought the loud thunder of the guns and the crackle of rifle-fire. It was the voice of Belgium proclaiming to the high gods that she was worthy of life. The Bavarians came with their "joint," a noble piece of beef hacked off a whole side looted from a butcher's shop. Madame Joos cut off an ample quantity, some ten pounds, and put it in the oven. The girls peeled potatoes and prepared cabbages. In half-an-hour the kitchen had an appetising smell of food being cooked, the men were smoking, and a casual visitor would never have resolved the gathering into its constituent elements of irreconcilable national hatreds. The corporal even tried to make amends for having damaged the door. He examined the broken latch. "It's a small matter," he said apologetically. "You can repair it for a trifle; and, in any case, you will sleep all the better that we are here." Though somewhat maudlin with liquor, he was very much afraid of the "girl from Berlin." He could not sum her up, but meant to behave himself; while his men, of course, followed his lead unquestioningly. Dalroy kept in the background. He listened, but said hardly anything. The turn of fortune's wheel was distinctly favourable. If the night ended as it had begun there was a chance that he and Irene might slip away to the Dutch frontier next morning, since he had ascertained definitely that Holland was secure for the time, and was impartially interning all combatants, either Germans or Belgians, who crossed the border. At this time he was inclined to abandon his own project of striving to steal through the German lines. He was somewhat weary, too, after the unusual labour of carrying heavy sacks of grain and flour down steep ladders or lowering them by a pulley. Thus, he dozed off in a corner, but was aroused suddenly by the entry of the commissariat officer and three subalterns. With them came an orderly, who dumped a laden basket and a case of champagne on the floor. The corporal and his satellites sprang to attention. The fat man took the salute, and glanced around the kitchen. Then he sniffed. "What! roast beef?" he said. "The men fare better than the officers, it would seem.--Be off, you!" "Herr Major, we are herein billeted," stuttered the corporal. "Be off, I tell you, and take these Belgian swine with you! I make my quarters here to-night." Joos, of course, he recognised; and the miller said, with some dignity, that the gentlemen would be made as comfortable as his resources permitted, but he must remain in his own house. The fat man stared at him, as though such insolence were unheard-of. "Here," he roared to the corporal, "pitch this old hog into the Meuse. He annoys me."