“Oh, that’s great!” said Fred.  “Perhaps I can help, too, because I can send by wireless.  I don’t know whether I would be much good with the Continental code, because I’ve learned only with Morse.  But I might be of some use.”

“Another operator will be of the greatest use,” said Boris.  “I know a little, a very little, about it.  And there is a man here.  But I am afraid that they will come very soon and take every man who is of fighting age away.”

“But your men aren’t soldiers!”

“Most of them have served their term in the army.  But, even if they had not, the Germans would take every able-bodied man.  That is all right.  We are probably keeping back all Germans who might go home and go into the army, and all the other countries will do the same with men of a nation with which they are at war.”

“Vladimir has all that I brought,” said Ivan, breaking in now.  “As for me, I must go again.”

“Go?  Now?  Aren’t you going to stay?”

“No!  I have much to do.  I may be back.  But if I return, I shall come through the cellar—­you understand?  There are strange movements of troops in this region that I cannot understand at all.  There are far fewer soldiers here than I thought there would be.  I have not been able to find traces of more than a single corps of Germans—­and we had expected them to have three or four, at the very least, concentrated in East Prussia as soon as the war broke out.  At Augustowo they were even expecting an attack.”

“Then if there are so few as that, won’t we advance?”

“Ah, that I don’t know!  The Austrians, I hear, are very busy.  They say they are moving already in great strength across the border, but that is far away from here, and it is not our concern.  It is for us to keep the Germans so busy here that they will not be able to crush France before England can get her army into action.  At the beginning it does not matter so much whether we win victories or not, so long as we can force the Germans to send many corps here instead of using them to invade France.  But I have talked enough.  Now—­good-bye, and may God be with you here!”

“Good-bye,” said Boris, and Fred repeated Ivan’s wish in Russian.  Ivan seemed astonished.

“So your mother taught you her mother tongue!” he said.  “Ah, but that is splendid!”

Then he was off.

“Ivan might have been a great actor, I believe,” said Boris.  “See, isn’t he the German to the life as he goes, there?  No wonder he can deceive them so!”

“It’s pretty dangerous work for him, though, I should think,” said Fred.  “They wouldn’t waste much time on him if they caught him, would they?”

“Only the time they needed for a drumhead court-martial.  After that, if he was lucky, he would be shot instead of being hung.  But he is ready, you see.  It is his part.  Oh, we Russians are all united now, if we never were before!  Germany has threatened us for years.  She has set Austria against us.  This time we had to fight, and you will see that all Russia will be behind the Czar.  We learned our lessons against the Japanese.  That was not a popular war.  It was not made by the people, but by a few who forced the Czar’s hand.  Now we shall make the world see that though Russia may be beaten, she has the power to rise from defeat.”