"Nevertheless, the colonel shall learn what Kurt has told us," said Styrum. "It is best to be upon our guard."
The friends then separated and betook themselves to repose.
CHAPTER XXII.
It had been a weary day for the Baron François de Nouart; he had not even been able to have recourse to his usual stimulant, so impressed was he with the necessity of keeping every faculty upon the alert in the trying position in which he found himself. That this Saxon regiment of all others should have been ordered to Assais was a stroke of terrible ill luck! Not until Gervais reported to him that all was quiet in the castle for the night did he venture to seat himself comfortably at the table in his room with the brandy-flask at his elbow. And even then five minutes had scarcely elapsed when a slight noise causing him to turn his head, he plainly saw through the open window the three officers on the moonlit lawn, and that one of them was the man whom he so dreaded, Count Styrum. He started up and closed the hangings instantly, hearing distinctly as he did so Kurt's words, "Let us turn round; the Baron may else suppose that we wish to spy upon him." Then through a chink in the curtains he watched the three men disappear among the bushes, his heart beating violently the while from fear of detection. After watching some minutes longer he crept softly to Gervais's room, and having received the steward's assurance that the young Uhlan officer with his two friends had returned from the garden, and that all three were now locked in their rooms, he made a stealthy round of the castle. All was quiet, and he once more returned to his room to seek the forgetfulness that he so craved.
But the poor man had scarcely drained a few glasses of his favourite beverage when he was once more disturbed, this time by a low tap upon the window, which he had closed. Could it be a belated officer? Hardly; he would not announce his presence thus. It must be some friend, who for certain reasons did not dare to seek an entrance to the castle more boldly.
Again the knocking came, quicker and more impatient; with uncertain steps the Baron went to the window, and, as he looked through the curtains, uttered an involuntary exclamation of horror, "Count Repuin!" and in an instant the curtains were drawn aside and the window opened. "Are you mad, Count? Do you not know that the castle swarms with Germans?" he whispered, in dismay.
"Then give me your hand and help me to get in at this cursed window," whispered Repuin, who stood without in the disguise of a peasant. "Quick! Am I to stay here until the guard discovers me?"
"I implore you to fly, Count. You will ruin both yourself and me; we shall be shot if you are found in the castle."
"I will not be found. Do as I tell you, and give me your hand!"
The Baron had no choice but to obey. He extended his hand to the Count, who seized it, and with but little difficulty clambered in at the window, which was but a few feet from the ground.