“And what’ll they do to us in Holland—–­intern us for the duration of the war!” Bob was still pessimistic.

“Oh, you can’t tell.  If we can get away from the Boches we can surely get away from the easy-going Dutchmen—–­and anyway, if we must be interned I’d rather it happened in Holland than in Hun-land.  Let’s play the game till time is called.”

“You’re right,” said Bob.  “I ought to be ashamed of myself for losing heart.  Let’s forget that we came down in that plane, and think of ourselves as pedestrians.  I remember reading somewhere that if you want to play a part you’ve got to imagine yourself living it.  Let’s think we are Belgians.”

“Good!  And let’s look like Belgians too—–­I guess to do that we will have to turn burglar, eh?  Well—–­they say all’s fair in love and war, you know.  Come on!  Let’s break into this house and see what we can find?”

CHAPTER X

PLANNING THE ESCAPE

No breaking in was found necessary.  The back door opened readily enough.  The boys stepped into the rude kitchen and closed the door, listening for a moment in the silence.  A meal of sorts was still spread on the plain deal table, but it had evidently been there for some days.  The place seemed to have been deserted by its inhabitants without any preparation or warning.  The stillness was uncanny, and Bob’s voice sounded unusually loud as he remarked: 

“Not even a cat left behind.”

The poverty of the former occupants was apparent from a glance about the room, on one side of which was a half-cupboard, half-wardrobe, the open door of which showed sundry worn, dirty garments, little more than collections of rags.

“There is another room in front,” remarked Bob.  “From the look of things here, though, we can hardly expect to find any clothing that will serve our purposes.”

Dicky stepped toward the door leading to the front of the building.  “It is as silent as the grave, without a doubt,” he said as he turned the handle and pushed gently.  The door would not open.

“Stand back and let me shove,” said Bob.

He put his shoulder against the door and threw his weight against it.  The flimsy lock broke at the first strain, and Bob caught himself just in time to save himself from falling.  No sooner had the boys gained an entrance to the room than they saw they were not the only occupants of it.  On one side stood a low bed, upon which rested the wasted form of an old woman, her white hair pushed smoothly back from her forehead, but spread in tumbled disorder on the pillow.

The old woman was dead.

The locked front door showed she had shut herself in to die, and had died alone.  How long she had lain there, as if asleep, for so she appeared, was a matter of conjecture.  The thin, gnarled hands, brown with outdoor labor, were folded on her breast.  Her face showed that calm with which death stamps the faces of long-suffering, simple-minded peasant folk.  The patient resignation through the long years of toil, through years, perhaps, of pain and suffering, suffering more likely than not borne in silence, taken as a matter of course—–­all seemed to have culminated in the quiet peace on the seamed dead face.