They received bread, sausage and coffee for breakfast from one of the huge kitchen automobiles, and nearly all ate with a good appetite.  Their German captors did not treat them badly, but John, watching both officers and men, did not see any elation.  He had no doubt that the officers were stunned by the terrible surprise of the day before, and as for the men, they would know nothing.  He had seen early that the Germans were splendid troops, disciplined, brave and ingenious, but the habit of blind obedience would blind them also to the fact that fortune had turned her face away from them.

He wished that his friend von Arnheim—­friend he regarded him—­would appear and tell him something about the battle, but his wish did not come true for an hour and meanwhile the whole heavens resounded with the roar of the battle, while distant flashes from the guns could be seen on either flank.

The young German, glasses in hand, evidently seeking a good view, walked to the crest of the hillock behind which Weber had disappeared.  John presumed enough on their brief friendship to call to him.

“Do you see anything of interest?” he asked.

Von Arnheim nodded quickly.

“I see the distant fringe of a battle,” he replied amiably, “but it’s too early in the morning for me to pass my judgment upon it.”

“Nevertheless you can look for a day of most desperate struggle!”

Von Arnheim nodded very gravely.

“Men by tens of thousands will fall before night,” he said.

As if to confirm his words, the roar of the battle took a sudden and mighty increase, like a convulsion.

CHAPTER VII

THE TWO PRINCES

John sat with the other prisoners for more than two hours listening to the thunder of the great battle or rather series of battles which were afterwards classified under the general head the Battle of the Marne.  He was not a soldier, merely a civilian serving as a soldier, but he had learned already to interpret many of the signs of combat.  There was an atmospheric feeling that registered on a sensitive mind the difference between victory and defeat, and he was firm in the belief that as yesterday had gone today was going.  Certainly this great German army which he believed to be in the center was not advancing, and something of a character most menacing was happening to the wings of the German force.  He read it in the serious, preoccupied faces of the officers who passed near.  There was not a smile on the face of the youngest of them all, but deepest anxiety was written alike on young and old.

John and Fleury sat together at the edge of the brook, and for a while forgot their chagrin at not being on the battle line.  The battle itself which they could not see, but which they could hear, absorbed them so thoroughly that they had no time to think of regrets.

John had thought that man’s violence, his energy in destruction on the first day could not be equalled, but it seemed to him now that the second day surpassed the first.  The cannon fire was distant, yet the waves of air beat heavily upon them, and the earth shook without ceasing.  Wisps of smoke floated toward them and the air was tainted again with the acrid smell of burned gunpowder.