"Good," said Morand, after an instant's inspection, "the cave extends in the direction of Rue Portefoin. It is nine or ten feet in depth, and there is no brickwork."
"What is the nature of the soil?" inquired Dixmer.
"Chalk; it is all made earth. These gardens have been turned over many times. There is nowhere any rock."
"Be quick," cried Dixmer, "I hear the clogs of our vivandière; take two bottles of wine and let us go up."
They both appeared at the trap-door as Madame Plumeau entered, carrying the cheese so strenuously insisted upon by Dixmer, while several chasseurs followed her, attracted by the favorable appearance of the said cheese.
Dixmer did the honors; he offered twenty bottles of wine to his company, while the Citizen Morand recounted the devotion of Curtius, the disinterestedness of Fabricius, and the patriotism of Brutus and Cassius,—histories almost as much appreciated as the Brie cheese and the Anjou wine offered by Dixmer, which is not saying a little.
Eleven o'clock struck. At half-past, the sentinels were relieved.
"Does not the Austrian generally take her walk from twelve to one?" asked Dixmer of Tison, who passed the cabin.
"From twelve to one, exactly," and he began to sing.
His song was received with a shout of laughter from the National Guard. Dixmer immediately summoned those men in his company whose duty it was to mount guard from half-past eleven o'clock till half-past one, told them to hasten their breakfast, and made Morand take arms, in order to place him, as had been agreed, on the highest story of the tower, in the same turret behind which Maurice was hidden the day he had intercepted the signs intended for the queen from the window on Rue Portefoin. If any one had noticed Morand at the moment he received this order, simple and expected as it was, he would have seen him grow pale beneath the masses of his long black hair.