“Good-bye, and good luck go with you,” said Ernst.  “If we do not meet again it will be a real good-bye.  If you can send the money back, let it go to my mother in Danzig.  If you cannot, do not let it worry you!  If any people ask you questions, answer them quickly.  If any tell you to stop, stop!  Remember that this is war time and every stranger is suspected.  You will be in no danger if you will remember to answer questions and obey orders.”

“Thank you again—­and good-bye,” said Fred. He had known this German officer for only a few minutes, but he felt that he was parting from a good friend, and, indeed, he was.  Not many men would have been so considerate and so kindly, especially at such a time, to a strange boy from a foreign land, and one, moreover, who had certainly not come with the best of recommendations.  “I—­I hope you’ll come through all right.”

“That’s to be seen,” said Ernst, with a shrug of the shoulders.  “In war who can tell?  We take our chances, we who live by the sword.  If a Russian is to get me, he will do so, and it will not help to be afraid, or to think of the chances that I may not see the end of what has been begun to-night!  We have been getting ready for years.  Now we shall know before long if we have done enough.  The test has come for us of the fatherland.”

And then Fred said a bold thing.

“I can wish you good luck and a safe return, Lieutenant,” he said.  “But I can’t wish that your country may be victorious because my mother, after all, was a Russian.”

“I wouldn’t ask that of you,” said Ernst, with a laugh.  “Even though it is Prince Suvaroff’s country, too?”

“There are Germans you do not like, I suppose—­who are even your enemies,” said Fred.  “Yet now you will forget all that, will you not?”

“God helping us, yes!” said Ernst.  “You are right.  Your heart must be with your own.  But you don’t seem like a Russian, or I would not be helping you.”

Then Fred was off, going on his way into the darkness alone.  Ernst had told him which road to follow, telling him that if he stuck to it he would not be likely to run into any troop movements.

“Don’t see too much.  That is a good rule for one who is in a country at war,” he had advised.  “If you know nothing, you cannot tell the enemy anything useful, and there will be less reason for our people to make trouble for you.  Your only real danger lies in being taken for a spy.  And if you are careful not to learn things, that will not be a very great one.”

Fred was not at all afraid, as a matter of fact, as he set out.  Before he had stepped across the mark that stood for the border he had been hugely depressed.  He had been friendless and alone.  He had been worse than friendless, indeed, since the only man for many miles about who knew him was his bitter enemy.  Now he had found that he could still inspire a man like Ernst with belief in his truthfulness and honesty, and the knowledge did him a lot of good.  And then, of course, he had another excellent reason for not being afraid.  He was entirely ignorant of the particular dangers that were ahead of him.  He had no conception at all of what lay before him, and it does not require bravery not to fear a danger the very existence of which one is entirely without knowledge.