Part 2 (2/2)
As they turned to retrace their steps, they were confronted by a tall Belgian soldier wearing the blue uniform of the artillery.
”C'est defendu: marchez!” he ordered sternly.
”All right, monsieur,” replied Kenneth. ”We've lost our way. Which is the Liege road?”
”You are foreigners,” exclaimed the soldier, bringing his bayonet to the ”ready”.
”Yes, English.”
”You must come with me.”
”We have motor-bicycles.”
”No matter. They will be attended to. Forward!”
Realizing the uselessness of attempting to argue the point the lads obeyed, the soldier following three paces in the rear with his rifle and bayonet at the slope.
After covering a distance of about a hundred yards between the edge of the barbed-wire entanglements and the dip formed by the sunken road, the arrested lads found themselves in the presence of a corporal and a file of men.
”You must be taken before the major. I am sorry, but these are my orders,” declared the corporal civilly, after ascertaining that the two chums were English. ”No doubt you will be permitted to go with but little delay.”
”Will our motor-bicycles be all right?” asked Rollo anxiously. ”We left them a little way down the lane.”
”I will send a man to look after them,” was the reply. ”We must take you into Fort Loncine, and you must be blindfolded. These are my orders whenever we find strangers in the vicinity of the defences.”
”Very well,” replied Kenneth with as good a grace as he could command, at the same time producing his handkerchief.
Guided by soldiers, the two blindfolded youths were led into the fort.
Kenneth kept count of the number of paces before crossing the drawbridge; they totalled four hundred and eighty-five, which, allowing thirty inches for his long stride, meant that the glacis, or level gra.s.sy ground surrounding the fort, was a little over four hundred yards in breadth.
When the handkerchiefs were removed from their eyes the lads found themselves in a large vaulted room lighted by electricity. On three sides were several low-arched doorways, on the fourth a fairly broad gateway through which they had been brought. Although it was impossible to see straight into the open air, a distant glimpse of diffused daylight showed that this entrance communicated either with the glacis or else an enclosed portion of the fort that was exposed to the rays of the sun.
Seated on benches or lolling against the walls were quite a hundred soldiers, yet the place was by no means crowded. Beyond looking with evident curiosity at the two lads under arrest, they took no further interest in them.
Presently a sergeant approached and questioned the guards concerning their prisoners.
”English? Perhaps they are sent ... but, no; they are but youths.
Bring them along. I will inform Major Resimont.”
The sergeant knocked at one of the doors, and in reply to a m.u.f.fled ”Entrez!” he pa.s.sed through. The lads noticed that the door was of steel, and required considerable effort on the part of the non-commissioned officer to open it.
”Englishmen found in the vicinity of the fort, mon major,” announced the sergeant, saluting and standing stiffly at attention.
”Let them enter. Ah, my young friends, this, then, is the manner in which you come to Liege?”
The two chums could well express astonishment, for their questioner was none other than the officer who in Namur had advised them to abandon their proposed visit to the Birmingham of Belgium.
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