A STRANGE MEETING
As he walked west Fred noticed, even in the night, a change in the
country. It was not that he passed once in a while a solitary soldier
guarding a culvert, as he neared a railway, or a patrol, with its
twinkling fire, watching this spot or that that needed special guarding.
That was part of war, the part of war that he had been able to foresee.
It wasn't anything due to the war that made an impression on his mind so
much as a sort of thickening of the country. Though he had traveled so
short a distance from the Russian border, there seemed to be more people
about.
Great houses, rising on high ground, with small, contented looking
villages nestling, as it were, under their protection, were frequent. He
was, as a matter of fact, in a country of great aristocratic
landholders, the great nobles of Prussia, the men who are the real
rulers of the country, under the Prussian King, who is also the German
Kaiser. And in many of these great houses lights were burning, even
after midnight, when all signs of life in the villages had ceased. The
country was stirring, and there was more of it to stir. Now from time to
time he heard the throbbing hum of an automobile motor. Only one or two
of these passed him, going in either direction, on the road along which
he was traveling. But there were parallel roads, and he could hear the
throbbing motors on these, and often see the pointing shafts of light
from their lights, searching out the road before them as they sped
along.
Fred knew enough of Germany to understand something of what he saw and
heard. It was from these great houses that a great many officers were
contributed to the army. These young men had no real career before them
from their birth, almost, except in the army. So it was easy to guess
why the lights were burning in those mansions, and why there was anxiety
among them, and why the throbbing motor cars were humming over the
roads.
If Germany were beaten back in the beginning, if the task she had
undertaken proved too heavy, this was the province that was sure to feel
the first brunt of invasion. Behind him, to the east, Fred knew were the
great masses of Russia, moving slowly, but with a terrible, always
increasing force. No wonder these people were stirring, were sending out
all their men to drive back the huge power that lay so near them, a
constant menace!
But now, though he did not know it, Fred was approaching real danger for
the first time. Many of the motors he saw and heard were going west.
Though he could not guess it, they were carrying women and children away
from the old houses that were too much exposed, too directly in the path
of a possible invasion for the helpless ones to be left in them when the
men had gone to fight. All Germany had to be defended. It happened to be
the part of East Prussia to bear invasion, if it came to that.
And so the people of the great houses were making their migration. The
men went to their regiments; the women to Berlin, and to the great
fortresses that lay nearer than Berlin--Koenigsberg, Danzig, Thorn. This
was historic country that Fred was traversing, the same country that had
trembled beneath the thundering march of Napoleon's grand army more than
a hundred years before, when the great Emperor had launched the mad
adventure against Russia that had sealed his fate.
But he didn't think of these things, except of Napoleon, as he trudged
along. Once more he traveled through the night. Once more, as the first
signs of morning came, he began to feel tired, and, despite the food he
had carried with him which he had stopped to eat about midnight, he was
hungry. And, as had been the case on the night of his tramp from
Virballen, the first rays of the rising sun showed him a village. It was
in a hollow, and above it the ground rose sharply to a large house,
evidently very old, built of a grey stone that had been weathered by the
winds and rains of centuries. It was a very old house, and strangely
out of tune, it seemed to Fred, with the country though not with the
times. It was so old that it showed some traces of fortification, and
Fred knew how long it was since private houses had been built with any
view to defence. It was a survivor of the days when this whole region
had been an outpost of civilization against hordes of barbarian
invaders.
One curious thing he noticed at once about the great house. No flag was
flying from it, though it boasted a sort of turret from which a flag
might well have been flung out to the wind. All the other big houses he
had seen had had flags out and the absence of a standard here seemed
significant, somehow.
When he entered the village he found that there was no inn. He saw the
usual notice of mobilization and the proclamation of war, but the people
were not stirring yet. He had to wait for some time before he found a
house where people were up. They looked at him curiously, but grudgingly
consented to give him breakfast. There was an old man, and another who
was younger, but crippled. And this cripple was the one who seemed most
puzzled by Fred's appearance in the place. He surveyed him closely and
twice Fred caught him whispering, evidently about him.
Then the cripple slipped away and came back, just as Fred was finishing
his meal, with a pompous looking, superannuated policeman, recalled to
duty since the younger men had all gone to war. This man asked many
questions which Fred answered.
"You are American?" asked the policeman, finally. "You are sure you are
not English?"
All at once the truth came over Fred. They thought he was English! Then
England must have entered the war! They would think that he was an
enemy, perhaps a spy! Yet, though he knew now the cause of the
suspicious looks, the mutterings, he couldn't utter a word in his
defence. He hadn't been formally accused of anything.
"Yes, I'm an American," he said, quietly. "I'm not English. I've no
English blood in me."
He had intended to try to get a place to sleep in the village, but now
he decided that it would be better to get away as soon as he could. If
there had been soldiers about, or any really responsible police
officials, he would not have been at all disturbed. But these people
were nervous and ignorant; the best men of the place had gone, the ones
most likely to have a good understanding. So he paid his little
reckoning, and started to walk on.
They followed him as he started. As soon as he was in the open road
again, a new idea came to him. Why not try the great house on the hill?
There certainly someone would know the difference between an American
and an Englishman. He was very tired. He knew that, even if he went on,
he would have to stop at some village sooner or later. And if he was
suspected here, he would be at the next place.
And so, trying to ignore the little crowd that was following him, he
turned off and began climbing toward the mansion above the village.
It was like a signal. From behind him there rose a dull murmur. A lad
not much older than himself raced up and stood threateningly in his
path.
"If you are an American and honest, why are you going there?" asked this
boy, a peasant, and rather stupid in his appearance.
"None of your business!" said Fred, aroused. He didn't think that the
advice of his friend Lieutenant Ernst to answer questions covered this.
"You can't go there. There are spies enough there already!" cried the
other.
And then without any warning, he lunged forward and tried to grapple
with Fred.
That aroused all the primitive fight in Fred. He met the attack joyously
for wrestling was something he understood very well. And in a moment he
had pinned the peasant boy, strong as he was, to the earth.
But he had got rid of one opponent only to have a dozen others spring
up. There was a throng about him as he shook himself free, a throng
that closed in, shouting, cursing. For a moment things looked serious.
Fred now understood these people thought he was a spy. And he could
guess that it would go hard with him if he didn't get away. He forgot
everything but that, and he fought hard and well to make good his
escape. But they were too many for him. Try as he would, he couldn't get
clear, although he put up a fight that must have been a tremendous
surprise to his assailants. In the end, though, they got him down, with
cries of triumph.
And then there came a sudden diversion from outside the mob. Down the
road from the great house, shrieking a warning, came a flying motor car.
Its siren sounded quick, angry blasts, and the mob, terrified, broke and
scattered to get out of the way of the car. Fred, stupefied, didn't run.
He had to jump quickly to one side to get out of the car's path. Then he
saw that it was slowing down, and that it was driven by a boy of his own
age. This boy leaned toward him.
"I'm going to turn and go back. Jump aboard as I come by--I won't be
going very fast!" he cried.
Fred didn't stop to argue or to wonder why this stranger had come to his
aid in such a sensational and timely fashion. Instead, he gathered
himself together and, as the car swung about and passed him, leaped in.
As he grasped the seat, the driver shot the car forward and it went
roaring up the hill, pursued by a chorus of angry cries from the crowd,
utterly balked of its prey.
"That was a close call for you!" said the driver, in German.
But something in his tone made Fred look at him sharply. And then part
of the mystery was solved. For the driver was not a German at all, but
plainly and unmistakably a Russian.
"Yes--but how--why--?"
"Wait! Don't talk now!" said the driver. "Wait till we're inside. We'll
be all right there, and I've got a few questions I'd like to ask, too."
There was no more danger from the mob of villagers, however. The speed
of the car, even on the steep grade, was too great to give pursuers on
foot a chance, and so its driver was able, in a few moments, to drive it
through great open gates into a huge courtyard.
"Now who are you?" he asked. "And why were those people attacking you?"
"They thought I was English," said Fred. "I suppose England must have
declared war on Germany, too."
"She has. Aren't you English, then?"
"No, I'm American. My name's Fred Waring. You're a Russian, aren't you?"
"Yes. My name's Boris Suvaroff. This is a summer place my father owns
here. He's away. I'm glad of that, because the Germans would have taken
him prisoner if he'd been here."
For just a moment neither seemed to catch the other's name. Then the
Russian boy spoke.
"Fred Waring--an American?" he said. "I--is it possible? I've got a
cousin called Waring in America! My father's first cousin married an
American of that name years and years ago."
"She was a Suvaroff--my mother," said Fred, but he spoke stiffly. "Her
family here disowned her--"
"Some of them--only some of them," said Boris. "Are you really my
cousin? My father wrote to your mother long ago--but he got no answer!
He has often told me of her. He was very fond of her! Are you really my
cousin?"
"I guess I am!" said Fred. "I'm glad to know that some of you will own
me! My uncle Mikail had me arrested when I went to see him in
Petersburg!"
And then while they learned about one another, the two of them forgot
the war and the danger in which they stood.