Thus reminded of his duty Franz hastily pulled forward a stool and made Bob his awkward bow. The two Germans remained standing, waiting for Bob to sit down. Trudchen had retreated into the farther room, but, through the open door, Bob fancied her eagerly listening.
He did not take the proffered stool, but plunged at once into speech, looking at Herr Johann, who was so evidently master, rather than at Franz, who stole sly glances at his chief, as though undecided how he should behave.
“You must know, mein Herr, and Franz, too, that your conduct in the past weeks has laid you open to grave suspicion. I came here to tell you frankly that secret meetings in the forest at midnight and other peculiar acts cannot pass unobserved. Such conspiracy, if for the purpose of inciting revolt, is doomed to failure. I have already reported my observations to our commander at Coblenz.”
Bob put this into his best German, which was none too good. It was good enough, though, to cause Herr Johann’s proud face to flush and his eyes to glow with suppressed anger. He pressed his thin lips sharply together and looked no less than hate at the young American who coolly took him to task. But he said not a word until he could command himself, and when he did speak his voice was steady and held nothing but astonishment, and the faint scorn with which an innocent man replies to base accusations.
“It is hard for me to answer you, Herr Captain, not knowing precisely of what I am accused. Is it of fostering rebellion in the Rhineland? If you knew me”—he said this as if Bob’s ignorance was unlimited—“you would know that I am a Prussian and can have no sympathy with this revolting province. As for Franz, he is an Alsatian. Why should he make common cause with Rhinelanders?”
Bob glanced at the woodcutter, who stood sour-faced and stolid as ever, something of the dumb unhappiness that possessed Trudchen clinging to his dull presence. Bob said to Herr Johann:
“I have not accused you of conspiracy. I only ask an explanation of actions that are certainly suspicious. What reason can you give for spending hours in a woodcutter’s cabin? Why should you give midnight rendezvous in a hunter’s lodge in the forest? Why are you here as a hunter in the dead of winter?”
As Bob’s knowledge of his movements were thus revealed to him, Herr Johann’s eyes gleamed oddly for an instant with a surprise but imperfectly concealed, but he remained untroubled, and answered readily and even with awakening good-humor:
“But, Herr Captain, you have disturbed yourself to no purpose. The explanation is so simple.”
“Then why could not Franz or his wife give it?” Bob interposed.