He would crawl out at last in the darkness and lie flat, as the dead lie.  And then, inch by inch, he would work his way forward, by routes that he knew.  Sometimes he went entirely through the German lines, and reconnoitered on the roads behind.  They were shallow lines then, for the inundation made the country almost untenable, and a charge in force from the Belgians across was unlikely.

Henri knew his country well, as well as he loved it.  In a farmhouse behind the German lines he sometimes doffed his wet gray-green uniform and put on the clothing of a Belgian peasant.  Trust Henri then for being a lout, a simple fellow who spoke only Flemish—­but could hear in many tongues.  Watch him standing at crossroads and marveling at big guns that rumble by.

At first Henri had wished, having learned of an attack, to be among those who repelled it.  Then one day his King had sent for him to come to that little village which was now his capital city.

He had been sent in alone and had found the King at the table, writing.  Henri bowed and waited.  They were not unlike, these two men, only Henri was younger and lighter, and where the King’s eyes were gray Henri’s were blue.  Such a queer setting for a king it was—­a tawdry summer home, ill-heated and cheaply furnished.  But by the presence of Belgium’s man of all time it became royal.

So Henri bowed and waited, and soon the King got up and shook hands with him.  As a matter of fact they knew each other rather well, but to explain more would be to tell that family name of Henri’s which must never be known.

“Sit down,” said the King gravely.  And he got a box of cigars from the mantelpiece and offered it.  “I sent for you because I want to talk to you.  You are doing valuable work.”

“I am glad you think it so, sire,” said Henri rather unhappily, because he felt what was coming.  “But I cannot do it all the time.  There are intervals—­”

An ordinary mortal may not interrupt a king, but a king may interrupt anything, except perhaps a German bombardment.

“Intervals, of course.  If there were not you would be done in a month.”

“But I am a soldier.  My place is—­”

“Your place is where you are most useful.”

Henri was getting nothing out of the cigar.  He flung it away and got up.

“I want to fight too,” he said stubbornly.  “We need every man, and I am —­rather a good shot.  I do this other because I can do it.  I speak their infernal tongue.  But it’s dirty business at the best, sire.”  He remembered to put in the sire, but rather ungraciously.  Indeed he shot it out like a bullet.

“Dirty business!” said the King thoughtfully.  “I see what you mean.  It is, of course.  But—­not so dirty as the things they have done, and are doing.”

He sat still and let Henri stamp up and down, because, as has been said, he knew the boy.  And he had never been one to insist on deference, which was why he got so much of it.  But at last he got up and when Henri stood still, rather ashamed of himself, he put an arm over the boy’s shoulders.