“I am here to save you,” his eyes said.

“I know it,” hers replied.

“I will follow you across the world to help you.”

“I know that, too.”

“Don’t betray the fact that you’ve seen a friend.”

“I will not.”

Thus the eyes spoke to one another and understood what was said.  Julie’s glance passed on, and with unfaltering step she entered an automobile, the German chauffeur standing by the side of it and respectfully holding the door.  Suzanne followed, the chauffeur closed the door, sprang into his seat and the little train moved majestically through the streets of Metz.  Comment was plentiful and it was not unkind to Julie.

“Too handsome to be executed as a spy,” said a burly German almost in John’s ear.  “A girl with a face like that should never feel the touch of a bullet or a rope.  It’s a face to be kissed and a neck to fit into a man’s arm.”

The man’s phrasing was rough, but both his admiration and his pity were sincere, and John felt no resentment toward him.

“Some of the French girls are wonderful for looks,” said another and younger German, “but they’re the most dangerous kind.  If it’s proved on the one the prince has caught she’ll expect her blue eyes and all that hair of gold to pull her through.”

Him, John hated and would have been glad to strike, but he could help neither Julie nor himself by resenting it.  Instead, he watched the automobiles, four in number, disappear on the road leading from Metz toward Stuttgart, a small body of hussars following as a guard, and then, pack on back, he trudged on foot behind them.

The invaluable passport carried him through the fortifications, and along the great highway into the country.  He was glad that Auersperg had not gone by train, as it would have been harder to trace him then.  Now, although far behind, he could hear of him at inns and little towns by the way.  Yet he was compelled to recall to himself again and again the ancient and worn fable of the hare and the tortoise.

He knew well enough that the tortoise did not often overtake the hare.  Hares were cunning little animals, riot able to fight and almost wholly dependent upon speed for survival in the battle of life.  Hence, they never went to sleep, and in only a single instance recorded in history had a tortoise won a footrace from a hare.  Yet an old proverb, even if based upon a solitary exception, is wonderfully consoling, and John was able to use it now as comfort.

After he had passed the fortifications and was well behind the German interior lines, travel became easier.  The Germans, considering their army a wall before them, were less suspicious and the interruptions were few.  John, moreover, was a cheerful peasant.  He had a fair voice, and he sang German hymns and war songs in a mellow baritone as he strode along.  The road was really not so bad, after that long and hideous life in filthy trenches.  The heat of Sahara would be autumn coolness after a return from Hades, and now John enjoyed the contrast.