The night was so dark that though the rain ceased towards midnight they made but slow progress. In changing clothes neither had provided himself with matches, so that Pariset’s compass was useless. Groping from bridlepath to lane, from lane to high road, which they quitted as soon as possible, stealing past the few cottages they came upon, they wandered for an hour or two until both felt that they must wait for daylight, if they were to secure themselves against the risk of falling unawares among the enemy. They tethered their horses in a copse, and, being wet through, paced up and down to maintain their circulation until the dawn stole through the trees. Then, weary, hungry, and bedraggled, they remounted, and pursued their way along a narrow sunken road. Ignorant of their whereabouts, they could only trust to chance and the compass, unless they should presently come upon Belgians whom they might ask to direct them.
But the country appeared to be deserted. When they cautiously approached the first wayside cottage they came to, they found no one there. Everything was in order; the Germans had not yet visited it; clearly the inhabitants had fled at the mere rumour of their advance.
About eight o’clock they came in sight of a large country-house, lying back from the road in extensive grounds. The aspect of it, and an armoured motor-car standing at the gates, caused them to draw up within the cover of the trees bordering the road. The gates were broken, there were gaps in the wall, and one side of the house was damaged by shells.
"We had better go back a little, and cut across the fields," said Pariset. "That car is probably German; there may be Germans inside. It would be risky to pass the house."
"Perhaps it’s a Belgian car," Kenneth suggested. "I’m inclined to wait until we know. We have hopelessly lost our way."
Two men in German uniform had descended on the far side of the car, and begun to walk up and down in front of the gates, in the manner of men stretching their legs after long waiting. Pariset and Kenneth drew farther back, behind a clump of trees, dismounted, and watched.
In a few minutes they heard the characteristic clatter of a motor bicycle. From beyond the house a cyclist in uniform dashed up at full speed; he halted at the gates, dismounted, and exchanging a word with the waiting men walked up the drive and entered the house. Soon he reappeared, with a German officer and a civilian. These entered the motor-car with the two men, and drove away in the direction from which the cyclist had come. He remounted and rode after them. An old man had tottered after the Germans; he closed the gates, or what remained of them; then, after watching the vehicles out of sight, he returned to the house, stepping much more briskly than when he came from it.