It was a small room into which they looked, very meanly furnished.
An elderly man, in the dress of a menial, was reading a tattered paper
by the light of a guttering candle. He leaned back in his wooden chair
with his feet upon a box, while a bottle of white wine stood with a
half-filled tumbler upon a stool beside him. The sergeant thrust his
needle-gun through the glass, and the man sprang to his feet with a
shriek.
"Silence, for your life! The house is surrounded, and you cannot
escape. Come round and open the door, or we will show you no mercy when
we come in."
"For God's sake, don't shoot! I will open it! I will open it!"
He rushed from the room with his paper still crumpled up in his hand.
An instant later, with a groaning of old locks and a rasping of bars,
the low door swung open, and the Prussians poured into the stone-flagged
passage.
"Where is Count Eustace de Chateau Noir?"
"My master! He is out, sir."
"Out at this time of night? Your life for a lie!"
"It is true, sir. He is out!"
"Where?"
"I do not know."
"Doing what?"
"I cannot tell. No, it is no use your cocking your pistol, sir. You
may kill me, but you cannot make me tell you that which I do not know."
"Is he often out at this hour?"
"Frequently.
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