Korniloff bade his chance host good-bye and was off on his journey again before the regiment was stirring. He decided that he must trust to his feet. He would march right across Hungary; and by means of his map and compass he hoped to make so straight a line that it would not take him more than a month. He was now in good health and in excellent trim generally, and he had no fear of the journey if he could only get enough food to keep him alive. He must not linger on the way, however, for every hour was now of importance to him. Having taken a crust and a cup of coffee at a wayside tavern full of soldiers, he got out of the city while the day was still young. Then began a long and dreary tramp, mostly alone, for the peasants in this region were not communicative, for the simple reason that he could not speak their language. He tramped for whole days without passing anything bigger than small hamlets, and his conversation was limited to asking, most frequently at farmhouses, for _kruh_ (bread) or _viz_ (water). Sometimes the peasants would look him up and down and ask him, "_Osztrak?_" ("Austrian?"), and he would nod his head. Very rarely did he get anything without paying for it, and as he saw his small stock of heller gradually disappearing, he had to be as economical as possible with those that remained. He slept mostly in the open air, since the weather was fine and there was little danger; once he was given a "shake-down" in a loft, and once he paid a few heller for a bed at a country inn. Eventually Korniloff was reduced to almost his last pieces of money, and he felt that he must husband these in case of a very pressing need. A day came when he got nothing to eat but some wild strawberries picked by the roadside. A woman whom he asked for a bit of bread chased him away from her door with an oath, calling him "_Verdammten Osztrak!_" The next morning he got some bread, but again a day passed with no food but wild berries and water from a brook. Things were getting worse and worse, but Korniloff knew he was near the end of his journey, and would be safe in another three or four days if only he could hold out. He had now been walking for nearly twenty days. VII--"HALT!"--HE SALUTES A GERMAN CAPTAIN One of his narrowest escapes happened in the little town of Klausenburg, a quiet place ordinarily, but now the centre of great military activity. He was walking through the town, as it was the best way of keeping to the direct route. Suddenly, from behind him, he heard a harsh voice cry in German, "_Halte!_" Looking round, he saw that it was he himself who was being addressed. He halted; there was nothing else to do. "Why did you not stop and salute me?" asked an offensive-looking young Austrian officer. Korniloff clinked his heels together and saluted. "I did not see you, Herr Hauptmann!" "Ah! you are blind, then? Who are you, and where are you going?"