"Last night."
"How? While on guard outside the camp?"
"No, after I was relieved."
"The trader will be scourged. Who sold it to you?"
"No one. That was just it! I shouldn't have drunk so much if I had bought it. But given! A present of Massican wine! Who can resist it?"
"No German, it seems. And you report for punishment? Of your own free will? Highly improbable. You were probably detected and wish to anticipate?"
"No: no one discovered me. When I was relieved, I had been completely sobered by fright."
"Why?"
"My lord,"--he spoke hesitatingly,--"it is about the Idise."
"Who is that?"