'No,' I said, 'but I have some five-franc pieces.'
A woman near me, who had wished to take my part before, stooped down and seemed to be searching for something on the ground near the door. Coming close up to me, she said in a low voice:
'Run away; believe me, they will kill you. I have been with them, against my will, since Viasma. Come back with help, I implore you, to-morrow morning, to save me!'
I asked her who the other woman was, and she replied, 'A Jewess.'
I was going to question her further, when a voice from the back of the cellar told her to be quiet, and asked her what she had been saying. She answered that she had been telling me to get brandy of a Jew in the new market.
'Hold your tongue!' he replied.
She was silent, and went to a corner of the cellar.
After what the woman had said, I saw there was no doubt that I was in a regular den of thieves. So I did not wait till they turned me out, and, pretending to look for a place to lie down in, I got near the door, opened it, and went out. They called me back, saying I could stay all night and sleep there. But I made no answer, and picking up my musket, which lay near the entrance, I tried to find a way out of the hole. Not succeeding, I was on the point of knocking at the cellar door to ask the way, when the Baden soldier appeared, probably to see if it was time to make an excursion. He asked me again if I would go back. I said no, but I begged him to show me the way to the faubourg. He signed to me to follow him, and crossing the ruins of several houses, he climbed up by means of the staircase. I followed him, and when we were on the ramparts he made several détours on the pretext of showing me the way, but I could see that he wanted me to lose all trace of the way to the cellar. However, I wished to remember it, as I intended to go back the next day with several others to save the poor woman who had begged my help, and also to get an explanation about several portmanteaus I had seen at the back of their cursed cellar.
FOOTNOTES: