And hear from the Brandenburgers Henri and his party presently did. For an officer dragged a much-soiled handkerchief from his pocket and picked his way, over the tumbled masses of masonry littering the floor of the hall beyond, towards the exit which gave access to the stairs. Dapper and smart to a certain extent, though somewhat dishevelled by the charge in which he had taken a share; arrogant, like the majority of German officers, and bearing about his figure something which seemed familiar to Henri, he stopped at that exit, and, looking up the stairway, peered hard at the enemy.
"Above, there!" he called, and Henri and Jules instantly recognized his voice.
"Our friend of Ruhleben—the fellow who was so anxious to shoot us the other day when we tumbled into his bivouac in the forest. Well, the shooting will not be all on one side now," grinned Jules, his lips close to Henri's ear, as they both peered over the top of the barricade.
"Above, there!" the German officer snapped again. "Ah! You will not answer, then; though I know well enough that Frenchmen are there. Well, let it be so! But don't say that I have not warned you. I give you one minute to come down and surrender—after that, I will blow you to pieces."
"How very violent!" laughed Jules, and his voice, reaching the ear of that German officer, sent the blood flushing to his cheeks and his feet stamping with rage. "How very violent! 'Pon my word, Henri, this fellow needs a lesson, for every time we've listened to him he's been going to do something desperate—something desperate, that is, to other people. Shall we answer the beggar?"
"Yes. We'll do the square thing. A moment ago I had a mind to remain quite still and silent, and let the fellow find out for himself what sort of a place we had got; but we'll be quite fair with him, and then there can't be any complaints. Hallo, below there!" he called; "stand where you are, and don't move forward or one of my men will shoot you. You ask us to surrender, eh?"
"Ask you!" came the arrogant answer. "Not at all—I command you!"
"And we take commands only from our own people. Come and take us," Henri told him delightedly. "Come and take us, if you can, but I warn you to look out for the consequences."
The man below turned about with that precision to be found in the ranks of the Kaiser's armies, and strutted back across the hall, his figure lit up by the beams of light entering through shafts by which the chamber was ventilated. In less than a minute he had rejoined his men, and for a while Henri and his friends watched as a consultation was held. Then, of a sudden, the men dispersed and were lost to view for quite five minutes.
It was perhaps five minutes later when first one and then, perhaps, a couple of dozen grey-coated figures slipped into view from behind the tumbled masonry at the far end of the hall, and, darting to right or to left or down the centre, flopped down behind masses of stone and cement with which the floor was littered.