THE ESCAPE
The Herr Lieutenant obeyed Hans quickly.
In breathless silence they lay hid in the bushes.
For some time they could hear the soldiers, and then all was silent.
"God be praised!" whispered Hans, "now let us seek the road." And out
they cautiously scrambled.
All night they walked steadily, meeting no one, but now and then
catching sight of some village burning against the sky. Where they were
they had no idea, but somewhere, they knew, in East Prussia. Everywhere
was desolation. Houses had been burned, fences had fallen, and once they
came upon the blackened remains of a village. For two days and nights
they kept in the fields and woods, Hans going but once to a house to beg
for food and some coffee.
On the third evening they came upon a farm at some distance from the
road.
"We might venture there," said Hans, "for it is out of the line of
soldiers. I am sure that, Herr Lieutenant, all is deserted."
But when he reached the window of the house he returned in a scamper,
motioning the Herr Lieutenant away with his hand.
"There are French officers eating there," he announced. "Forward,
march," he added, and on they trudged.
The Herr Lieutenant grew whiter and whiter.
"I can go no farther," he gasped, and sank on the grass at the side of
the road.
His old wound had broken out afresh, and for a moment or two he looked
as if he were dying.
What to do Hans had no idea. While he was perplexing, his brain he heard
the sound of a slow, discouraged step, and presently an old peasant,
with long, unkempt gray hair and a tired, hopeless face, approached from
the wood.
When Hans told him their trouble he hesitated. Kindness and bitterness
seemed to struggle hard in his wrinkled face.
"The French have left me almost nothing," he said. Then he hesitated. He
looked at Hans, then at the suffering man on the grass.
"My house is near here," he said at last, reluctantly. Then he called,
"Heinrich! Heinrich!"
A stupid-looking boy of thirteen or fourteen was quickly at his side.
"Help," he commanded, and the three bore Franz to a small peasant house
behind the wood.
Hans promised to find money at once.
"You say we are near Tilsit?" he asked.
The peasant nodded.
"Can your boy carry a letter to Memel?"
The man hesitated.
"There are the French," he said, and went on to explain that if his boy
were seen going into Memel houses he would perhaps be shot as a spy,
their home burned, and then where were they?
"But at night," urged Hans, "let him lay a note on the window of the
house I mean and they will put out money and provisions."
After much talk the old man agreed, and Hans, with great difficulty, for
he had little education, wrote the letter that the Professor had found
on his window.
For days Franz was unconscious, but when he came to himself again Hans,
with a smile, handed him a letter from his father.
"And we have money now," said the old man with a laugh, "and all the
good food you'll be wanting."
He did not tell the Herr Lieutenant, however, that since they had found
refuge with the peasant the French army had advanced and they were
surrounded by the enemy. Instead, he announced that he had heard from
the peasant that there was talk of peace.
Now, all might have gone well had Hans been content to be quiet. But he
was a restless old fellow and he could not bear sitting still doing
nothing.
"I will go out," he announced next day, "and discover the whereabouts of
the enemy."
In an hour he returned his face full of excitement, his legs shaking.
"The soldiers saw me," he cried. "They are coming this way. Ach Himmel,
if I had been quiet!"
Then he ran for the peasant and told him that they must hide the Herr
Lieutenant.
The peasant, whose face grew dark with dread, nodded, shrugging his
shoulders.
"There is a loft," he said, "but hurry."
In his small barn was this loft, and opening from it and well concealed
by wood, a tiny closet.
There was just room for Franz, who almost fainted from excitement as
they hurriedly moved him.
"And you?" he gasped, looking at Hans.
The old man shrugged his shoulders.
"What comes, comes," he said. "Auf wiedersehen, and we will bring you
supper, Herr Lieutenant."
For hours Franz lay in the stuffy darkness. He heard the arrival of the
soldiers, loud voices, the sound of many feet and then it seemed to him
that for an hour he would die of a sudden hotness. There was a smell of
burning, too, which lasted long after it was cool again.
What had happened? His heart stood still. Would they burn the barn? The
smell of charred wood seemed stronger.
By and by hunger told him that it was supper time, but all continued
silent. He fell at last into a sleep which lasted until what he thought
must be morning. The closet was quite dark, the only air coming in from
the loft, and he felt suffocated. He must have light and air. Where was
Hans? What had happened? At last he felt that he could stand the
suspense no longer.
Putting out one foot he kicked open the door, which, kept in place by a
log, went down with a crash like thunder. Franz was in terror, but,
nothing happening, he dragged himself forward to the loft. Then he could
rise, and standing erect he waited until the dizziness in his head had
settled.
Then seeking the ladder he stepped below. Instead of the neat barn of
the day before, he saw disorder everywhere. Hay was tossed here, horses
had trampled there, and not a sound of a chicken was heard. The day
before he had seen at least a dozen.
He dragged himself to the door.
There was now no peasant's house. Only a scene of blackened ruins met
his eye.
The barn, too, was scorched; but perhaps the wind had blown in an
opposite direction, for it had not burned.
Franz trembled like a poplar leaf when he thought of what might have
been his fate.
"Thank God, thank God!" he murmured, and then, before he could reach out
his hand for support, he fell on the floor in a dead faint, and there he
lay while they were making peace at Tilsit.