"
John agreed with him and they quickly made ready, each taking his
automatic and knapsack, and leaving the fire to die of itself on the
hearth.
"I'm telling that cottage good-bye with regret," said John, as they
walked away. "I spent some normal and peaceful hours there last night
and it's a neat little place. I hope its owners will be able to come
back to it. As soon as I open the stable door, in order that the horse
may go where he will, I'll be ready."
He gave the big animal a friendly pat as he left and Marne gazed after
him with envious sorrowful eyes.
They walked a full mile, keeping close to the Marne, where the trees and
bushes were thickest, and listened meanwhile to the fourth day's
swelling roar of the battle. Its long continuance had made it even more
depressing and terrifying than in its earlier stages. To John's mind, at
least, it took on the form of a cataclysm, of some huge paroxysm of the
earth. He ate to it, he slept to it, he woke to it, and now he was
walking to it. The illusion was deepened by the fact that no human being
save Weber was visible to him. The country between the two monstrous
battle lines was silent and deserted.
"Apparently," said Weber, "we're in no danger of human interference as
we walk here."
"Not unless a shell coming from a point fifteen miles or so beyond the
hills should drop on us, or we should be pierced by an arrow from one of
our Frenchmen in the clouds. But so far as I can see there's nothing
above us, although I can make out one or two aeroplanes far toward the
east.
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