startled faces.

Our group reassembled itself somehow and followed after those two
Germans who could jog along so serenely through a hostile town. We did
not crowd them--our health forbade that--but we now desired above all
things to get back to our taxicab, two miles or more away, before our
line of retreat should be cut off. But we had tarried too long at our
bread and cheese.

When we came to where the street leading to the Square of Saint Jacques
joined the street that led in turn to the Brussels road, all the people
there were crouching in their doorways as quiet as so many mice, all
looking in the direction in which we hoped to go, all pointing with
their hands. No one spoke, but the scuffle of wooden-shod feet on the
flags made a sliding, slithering sound, which someway carried a message
of warning more forcible than any shouted word or sudden shriek.

We looked where their fingers aimed, and, as we looked, a hundred feet
away through a cloud of dust a company of German foot soldiers swung
across an open grassplot, where a little triangular park was, and
straightened out down the road to Brussels, singing snatches of a German
marching song as they went.

And behind them came trim officers on handsome, high-headed horses, and
more infantry; then a bicycle squad; then cavalry, and then a light
battery, bumping along over the rutted stones, with white dust blowing
back from under its wheels in scrolls and pennons.

Then a troop of Uhlans came, with nodding lances, following close behind
the guns; and at sight of them a few men and women, clustered at the