“Tush, tush,” chided the commander-in-chief gently. “Why keep up the pretense? You are discovered. Why not admit it and have done?”
“Sir!” cried General Tromp, drawing himself up. “I demand an explanation of your strange conduct.”
“And you shall have it, sir!” thundered General Joffre, now very angry, as he took a step forward.
General Tromp quailed before him. His eyes fell to the ground and his injured dignity dropped from him like a mask.
“I accuse you,” continued General Joffre, “of being a traitor to France. I accuse you of aiding and abetting the escape of another traitor, one Dersi. And I also accuse you,” and here the general pointed an accusing finger at General Tromp, “of even now playing into the hands of the enemy by ordering an advance, when you knew very well that such an advance could mean only the extermination of our troops.”
By a great effort General Tromp forced his eyes to meet those of his commander.
“I deny it,” he said in a thick voice.
“A denial is useless,” said General Joffre quietly.
But General Tromp had now succeeded in regaining command of himself to a certain extent, and once more he tried to bluff it out.
“Who accuses me?” he demanded, with well assumed bravado.