Scheller threw back his great head and laughed.

“If a horse had approached where I worked,” he said, “much good beer would have been spilt.  I was the head waiter in a restaurant on the Unter den Linden.  Ah, the happy days!  Oh, the glorious street! and here it’s nothing but march, march, and shoot, shoot!  Three of my best waiters have been killed already.  And the other lads are no horsemen either.  That big Fritz over there made toys, Joseph drove a taxicab, August was conductor on a train to Charlottenberg, and Eitel was porter in a hotel.  We’re all from Berlin, and will you tell us, Castel, how soon we can take Paris and London and go back to the Unter den Linden?”

John shook his head.

“There are about fifteen hundred million people in the world who are asking that question, Otto Scheller,” he replied, “and out of all the fifteen hundred millions not one can answer it.  But I will ask you a question in return.”

“What is it?”

“Will you give me a ride in one of your wagons to Metz?”

“Why, certainly,” replied Scheller.  “Your passport is in good order, and we can take you to the first line of fortifications.  There you’ll meet high officers and you’ll have to make more statements, because Metz, as you know, is one of the most powerful fortresses in Europe.”

“I know; why shouldn’t I, a Lorrainer, know?  But my passport will take me in.  Meanwhile, I thank you, Otto Scheller, for the kindness you’re showing me.”

“All right, jump in, and off we go.”

It was a provision wagon, drawn by stout Percherons, which John felt sure had been bred in France, and which he also felt sure had never been paid for by German money.  The wagon was empty now, evidently having delivered its burden nearer the battle lines, and John found a comfortable seat beside the sergeant, while a stout Pickelhaube drove.

“Looks like peace, Castel,” said the sergeant, waving his hand at the landscape, “but things are not always what they seem.”

“How so?”

“See the hills across there.  The French hold part of them, and often the artillery goes boom! boom!  They threaten an attack on Metz.  We shall hear the cannon before long.”

John looked long at the hills, high, white and silent, but presently they began to groan and mutter as Scheller had predicted they would.  Flashes of flame appeared and giant shells were emptied like gusts of lava from a volcano.  One burst in the road about three hundred yards in front of them, and tore a hole so deep that they were compelled to drive around it.

“The French are good with the guns,” said Scheller, regarding the excavation meditatively, “but of course it was by mere chance that the shell struck in the road.”

John felt a light and momentary chill.  It would certainly be the irony of fate if on his great quest he were smitten down by a missile from his own army.  But no others struck near them, although the intermittent battle of artillery in the hills continued.