"News from Bitche?" inquired Ivor. Curtis, taken by surprise, faltered. "I thought so. What is it?"
"I assure you—nothing definite as to Roy." The suppressed agitation in Curtis's manner hardly bore out his words.
"Anybody arrived from Bitche? Has Roy been seen?"
Curtis hesitated again. He was a bad hand at evasion.
"Whatever has been told you, we must hear the whole—and at once. No keeping back of anything, please."
Under a small tree, some paces off, was an unoccupied seat. Denham moved thither, the other two standing. "Now!" he said.
Colonel Baron had not spoken thus far. In reply to an appealing glance, he muttered, "Yes; no use! You have said too much. Tell the whole." And Curtis obeyed.
The tale which he had to repeat was not new in kind, though perhaps worse than aught which had yet reached their ears. He gave it briefly, making as little as might be of facts which could not be softened down. It was a story which readers of this book already know—about a party of young fellows, chiefly middies, who sought to escape from Bitche over the high outer wall. A French officer of rank, who heard of the project, had kept watch till it neared completion. Then, at the critical moment, he had cut through the rope on which the lads hung; by which brutal deed many of them had been killed on the spot, many others severely hurt.
Colonel Baron's lips were compressed, and his look was stern. Ivor heard with outward quietness.
"Was Roy one of them?"