He did not linger over his toilet. Every moment away from his comrade was a moment lost. He found her sitting at the edge of the wood, gazing down across the valley, her hair stirring slightly in the breeze, her whole being radiant with youth. He looked at her for a moment, and then he looked down at himself. "What a scarecrow I am," he said, and ruefully contemplated a long tear in his coat--merely the largest of half a dozen. "And I lost my collar in that dash last night--I left it on the bank, and didn't dare stop to look for it. Even if we met the Germans now, there would be no danger--they would take us for tramps!" "I know I look like a scarecrow," she laughed; "but you might have spared telling me!" "You!" cried Stewart. "A scarecrow! Oh, no; you would attract the birds. They would find you adorable!" His eyes added that not alone to the birds was she adorable. She cast one glance at him--a luminous glance, shy yet glad; abashed yet rejoicing. Then she turned away. "There is a village over yonder," she said. "We can get something to eat there, and find out where we are. Listen! What is that?" Away to the south a dull rumbling shook the horizon--a mighty shock as of an earthquake. "The Germans have got their siege-guns into position," he said. "They are attacking Liège again." Yes, there could be no doubt of it; murder and desolation were stalking across the country to the south. But nothing could be more peaceful than the fields which stretched before them. "There is no danger here," said Stewart, and led the way down across the rough pasture to the road. As he mounted the wall, moved by some strange uneasiness, he stopped to look back toward the east; but the road stretched white and empty until it plunged into a strip of woodland a mile away. Somehow he was not reassured. With that strange uneasiness still weighing on him, a sense of oppression as of an approaching storm, he sprang down beside the girl, and they set off westward side by side. At first they could not see the village, which was hid by a spur of rising ground; then, at a turn of the road, they found it close in front of them. But the road was blocked with fallen trees, strung with barbed wire--and what was that queer embankment of fresh, yellow earth which stretched to right and left? "The Belgians!" cried the girl. "Come! We are safe at last!" and she started to run forward. But only for an instant. As though that cry of hers was an awaited signal, there came a crash of musketry from the wooded ridge to the right, and an answering crash from the crest of the embankment; and Stewart saw that light and speeding figure spin half round, crumple in upon itself, and drop limply to the road. CHAPTER XV DISASTER He was beside her in an instant, his arm around her, raising her. He scarcely heard the guns; he scarcely heard the whistle of the bullets; he knew only, as he knelt there in the road, that his little comrade had been stricken down.