It was close on ten o'clock of an exceptionally dark night when the posse of police, under the command of the chief commissary, dismounted at the "Grand Duc," a small wayside inn on the Chartres road, and, having stabled their horses, started on foot across country at the heels of their chief. The earth was sodden with recent rains and the little troop moved along in silence, their feet, encased in shoes of soft leather, making no sound as they stealthily advanced.
The little rivulet wound its sluggish course between flat banks bordered by waste land on either side. Far ahead a tiny light gleamed intermittently, like a will-o'-the-wisp, as intervening groups of trees alternately screened it and displayed it to view.
After half an hour of heavy walking the commissary called a halt. The massive block of the farmhouse stood out like a dense and dark mass in the midst of the surrounding gloom. M. Lefèvre called softly to his sergeant.
"Steal along, Hippolyte," he whispered, "under cover of those willow trees, and when you hear me give the first command to open, surround the house so that the rascals cannot escape either by the door or the windows."
Silently and noiselessly these orders were executed; whilst the commissary himself stole up to the house. He came to a halt before the front door and paused a moment, peering anxiously round about him and listening for any sound which might come from within. The house appeared dark and deserted; only from one of the windows on the ground floor a feeble light filtered through the chinks of an ill-fitting shutter, and a mingled murmur of voices seemed to travel thence intermittently. But of this the eager watcher could not be sure. The north-westerly wind, soughing through the bare branches of the trees behind him, also caused the shutters to creak on their hinges and effectually confused every other sound.
The chief commissary then rapped vigorously against the door with the hilt of his sword.
"Open!" he called peremptorily, "in the name of the law!"
Already he could hear the sergeant and his men stealing out from under the trees; but from the stronghold of the Chouans there came no answer to his summons; absolute silence reigned inside the farmhouse; the dismal creaking of a half-broken shutter and the murmur of the wind in the leafless willows alone roused the dormant echoes of the old walls.
Lefèvre rapped once more against the massive panels.
"Open!" he called again, "in the name of the law!"