"See what I have found!" cried a voice, and he turned to see the girl running toward him with hands outstretched. In each hand she held three eggs. "Very well for a beginning," he commented. "Now for the melon, the bacon, the rolls, the butter, and the coffee!" "I fear that those must wait," she said. "Here is your breakfast," and she handed him three of the eggs. Stewart looked at them rather blankly. "Thanks!" he said. "But I don't quite see----" "Then watch!" Sitting down on the door-step, she cracked one of her eggs gently, picked away the loosened bit of shell at its end, and put the egg to her lips. "Oh!" he said. "So _that's_ it!" and sitting down beside her, he followed her example. He had heard of sucking eggs, but he had never before tried it, and he found it rather difficult and not particularly pleasant. But the first egg undoubtedly did assuage the pangs of hunger; the second assuaged them still more, and the third quite extinguished them. In fact, he felt a little surfeited. "Now," she said, "for the dessert." "Dessert!" protested Stewart. "Is there dessert? Why didn't you tell me? I never heard of dessert for breakfast, and I'm afraid I haven't room for it!" "It will keep!" she assured him, and leading him around the larger of the outbuildings, she showed him a tree hanging thick with ruddy apples. "There are our supplies for the campaign!" she announced. "My compliments!" he said. "You would make a great general." They ate one or two apples and then filled their pockets. From one of hers, the girl drew a pipe and pouch of tobacco. "Would you not like to smoke?" she asked. "I have been told that a pipe is a great comfort in times of stress!" And Stewart, calling down blessings upon her head, filled up. Never had tobacco tasted so good, never had that old pipe seemed so sweet, as when he blew out the first puff upon the morning air. "Salvation Yeo was right," he said. "As a hungry man's food, a sad man's cordial, a chilly man's fire, there's nothing like it under the canopy of heaven! I only wish you could enjoy it too!" "I can enjoy your enjoyment!" she laughed as they set happily off together. At the corner of the wood, Stewart turned for a last look at the house. "How glad I am I didn't break in!" he said. CHAPTER XII AN ARMY IN ACTION The sound of cannonading grew fiercer and fiercer, as they advanced, and the undertone of rifle fire more perceptible. It was evident that the Germans were rapidly getting more and more guns into action, and that the infantry attack was also being hotly pressed. Below them in the valley, they caught glimpses from time to time, as the trees opened out a little, of the gray-clad host marching steadily forward, as though to overwhelm the forts by sheer weight of numbers; and then, as they came out above a rocky bluff, they saw a new sight--an earnest that the Belgians were fighting to some purpose.