“It is not right for you to run such risks,” said Ivan.  “I wish you were behind our lines!  You are not even a Russian, and yet you have been near to death for us.”

“Don’t you worry about me!” said Fred.  “I don’t suppose that I would have started this, but when I was pushed into it as I was, I feel like doing all I can.  If the Germans had caught me when Boris hid me in the tunnel, they would have treated me like an enemy, so I thought I might as well give them a good excuse, since they were going to do it anyhow.”

“Here we are,” said Ivan.  “Even if you were frightened, this may turn out well.  You will save some time, and I can take you to the very opening of the tunnel.”

“Well, it’s only fair for this car to do me a good turn after the fright it gave me,” said Fred.

Ivan drove swiftly when they started again.  On that deserted road, through a country that had been blasted by the approach of war, though as yet there had been no actual fighting, there was no reason for cautious driving.  And five minutes brought them to the parsonage, and so to a point as close to the opening of the tunnel as the car could go.  As the motor stopped Ivan swore in surprise.

“Look!” he said.

To the west there were a dozen darting searchlights winking back and forth across the sombre sky.  And below the searchlights were hundreds of tiny points of fire.

“They’re advancing!” he cried.  “And listen!”

From the east there came a dull sound that rose presently to a steady, loud roar.

“Everything has changed!” cried Ivan, his face white.  “We are pushing the attack—­we must have occupied Gumbinnen!  The Germans are being driven back—­and they are bringing up their supports!  They must mean to fight here to protect the railway!  This place will be the centre of a battle before morning!  I shall give up my plan.  The only thing that counts now is to get word to the staff of what is going on back here!  Come!”

“What about the car?”

“If it is still here after we have sent word, good!  If it is not, we must do without it.”

Ivan began running toward the mouth of the tunnel.  But Fred, before he followed, switched off the lights and ran the car off the side of the road, so that it was under the wall of the parsonage garden and sheltered, to a certain extent, by the heavy foliage of a large tree, whose branches overhung the wall.

“I’d like to think that that car was where we could get at it,” he said to himself.  “I have an idea that this place is going to be mighty unpleasant before long.”

Then he followed Ivan.  The Russian had already entered the tunnel.  Fred, when he followed him, heard him running up the long passage that led up to the house.  Before he could reach the opening, however, he heard other steps coming toward him, and a moment later Boris was heaping reproaches on him.

“I thought they had caught you!” he cried.  “I saw them chasing someone, and it looked like you.  In fact, I was sure it was you at first sight.”