And the next
moment she was gone round the corner of the house, while I
laughed to think of the excellent watch these gallant gentlemen
were keeping. M. de Cocheforet might have been with her in the
garden, might have talked with her as I had talked, might have
entered the house even, and passed under their noses scot-free.
But that is the way of soldiers. They are always ready for the
enemy, with drums beating and flags flying--at ten o'clock in the
morning. But he does not always come at that hour.
I waited a little, and then I groped my way to the door and
knocked on it with the hilt of my sword. The dogs began to bark
at the back, and the chorus of a drinking-song, which came
fitfully from the east wing, ceased altogether. An inner door
opened, and an angry voice, apparently an officer's, began to
rate someone for not coming. Another moment, and a clamour of
voices and footsteps seemed to pour into the hall, and fill it.
I heard the bar jerked away, the door was flung open, and in a
twinkling a lanthorn, behind which a dozen flushed visages were
dimly seen, was thrust into my face.
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