Evidently the Belgians did not intend to enter that deadly zone of fire, and the fight settled down to a dogged, long-distance one. "We cannot get across here," said the girl at last. "We shall have to work our way downstream until we are past the Germans. If we can join the Belgians, we are safe." But to get past the Germans proved a far greater task than they had anticipated. There seemed to be no end to the gray-clad legions. Brigade after brigade packed the stretch of level ground along the river, while the road was crowded with an astounding tangle of transport wagons, cook wagons, armored motors, artillery, tractors, ambulances, and automobiles of every sort, evidently seized by the army in its advance. As he looked at them, Stewart could not but wonder how on earth they had ever been assembled here, and, still more, how they were ever going to be got away again. Also, he thought, how easily might they be cut to pieces by a few batteries of machine-guns posted on that ridge across the river! Looking across, he saw that the army chiefs had foreseen that danger and guarded against it, for a strong body of cavalry had been thrown across the river to screen the advance, while along the bank, behind hasty but well-built intrenchments, long lines of artillery had been massed to repel any attack from that direction. But no attack came. The little Belgian army evidently had its hands full elsewhere, and was very busy indeed, as the roar of firing both up and down the river testified. And then, as the fugitives walked on along the hillside, they saw that one avenue of advance would soon be open, for a company of engineers, heavily guarded by cavalry, and quick-firers, was repairing a bridge whose central span had been blown up by the Belgians as they retreated. The bridge had connected two little villages, that on the east bank dominated by a beautiful white château placed at the edge of a cliff. Of the villages little remained but smoking ruins, and a flag above the château showed that it had been converted into a staff headquarters. Where was the owner of the château, Stewart wondered, looking up at it. Where were the women who had sat and gossiped on its terrace? Where were all the people who had lived in those two villages? Wandering somewhere to the westward, homeless and destitute, every one of them--haggard women and hungry children and tottering old men, whose quiet world had turned suddenly to chaos. "Well," he said, at last, "it looks as if we shall have to wait until these fellows clear out. We can't get across the river as long as there is a line like that before it." "Perhaps when they begin to advance, they will leave a break in the line somewhere," his companion suggested. "Or perhaps we can slip across in the darkness. Let us wait and see." So they sat down behind the screen of a clump of bushes, and munched their apples, while they watched the scene below. Stewart even ventured to light his pipe again.