“I don’t believe I know you,” said John, although there was a familiar note in the voice.

“And yet you’ve met me several times, and under exciting conditions.  It seems to me that we’re always pursuing similar things, or we wouldn’t be together on the same road so often.  You’re acute enough.  Don’t you know me now?”

“I think I do.  You’re Fernand Weber, the Alsatian.”

“And so I am.  I knew your memory would not fail you.  It’s a great movement that we’ve begun, Mr. Scott.  France will be saved or destroyed within the next few days.”

“I think so.”

“You’ve deserted your friend, Philip Lannes, the finest of our airmen.”

“Oh, no, I haven’t.  He’s deserted me.  I couldn’t afford to be a burden on his aeroplane at such a time as this.”

“I suppose not.  I saw an aeroplane come down to earth a little while ago, and then rise again.  I’m sure it was his machine, the Arrow.”

“So am I.”

“Here’s where he naturally would be.  Good-bye, Mr. Scott, and good luck to you.  I must go on with my company.”

“Good-bye and good luck,” repeated John, as the Alsatian shot forward.  He liked Weber, who had a most pleasing manner, and he was glad to have seen him once more.

“Who was that?” asked de Rougemont, waking from his sleep and catching the last words of farewell.

“An Alsatian, named Fernand Weber, who has risked his life more than once for France.  He belongs to the motor-cycle corps that’s just passing.”

“May he and his comrades soon find the enemy, because here is the day.”

The leaves and grass rippled before the breeze and over the eastern hills the dawn broke.

CHAPTER IV

THE INVISIBLE HAND

It was a brilliant morning sun, deepening the green of the pleasant land, lighting up villages and glinting off church steeples.  In a field a little distance to their right John saw two peasants at work already, bent over, their eyes upon the ground, apparently as indifferent to the troops as the troops were to them.

It was very early, but the sun was rising fast, unfolding a splendid panorama.  The French army with its blues and reds was more spectacular than the German, and hence afforded a more conspicuous target.  John was sure that if the war went on the French would discard these vivid uniforms and betake themselves to gray or khaki.  He saw clearly that the day of gorgeous raiment for the soldier had passed.

The great puffing sound of primeval monsters which had blended into one rather harmonious note ceased, as if by signal, and the innumerable motors stopped.  As far as John could see the army stretched to left and right over roads, hills and fields, but in the fields behind them the silent peasants went on with their work—­in fields which the Republic had made their own.