“No, excellency.”
“You had better not,” growled the sentry. “Pass on and don’t let me catch you prowling around here any more of nights. I have orders to shoot anybody whose looks I don’t like.”
“Yes, excellency, I will remember,” said the seeming peasant, and slunk away in the direction of the town.
CHAPTER XIII
“TO BE SHOT AT SUNRISE!”
The streets of the town were unlighted, but several houses on the public square showed illumination through lowered window shades. There were no citizens to be seen, and very few soldiers about. In front of the Hotel de Ville (townhall) a sentry paced restlessly to and fro on duty, with a musket laid across his arm. He took no notice of the dirty peasant stalking past.
Buck made it his first business to locate the civic prison where he knew that Bob would be confined. This he found not far from the main thoroughfare of the town, a massive, square, gray-stone building, with iron doors and many little grated windows high up on the walls. A sentry-box beside the door was occupied, so Buck spent no time loitering around there. He made his way back to the public square in search of an inn where he might sit down, and while eating inquire casually about news in general and the trials of war prisoners in particular. He felt pretty sure that the down-trodden Belgians present were sullen and discontented under the iron German rule, and would be willing to discuss almost any topic relative to the oppressions.
The first tavern to which Buck came was large and pretentious; evidently the main hostelry of the city. Even at this late hour people were passing in and out of the big entrance. The disguised boy noted, however, that many of these guests were German officers, and rightly guessed that this being the chief inn of the city, it would be most largely patronized by the conquerors, so he passed on in search of some less popular place.
A little farther on down the street he came upon a smaller, more dingy-looking public house, with apparently less revelry going on inside. Buck determined to take a chance here, and, pulling his disreputable cap lower over his eyes, pulled open the door and slouched in.
He found himself in a small, low-ceilinged room, the walls and oaken rafters of which were dirty and smoked black by the huge open fireplace at one end. Rickety little wooden tables stood here and there, none too clean nor inviting. A doorway at the far end of the room led out into the kitchens, from which a vile odor of cabbage and onions penetrated.