"Yes; a commandant of franc tireurs."
"Hush, then, for your life," the priest said, earnestly. "The village is full of Prussians. The officer, with a soldier as his servant, is upstairs. He arrived in a state of fever; and is, tonight, quite ill. The soldier is up with him. I believe the sergeant, who is at the inn, is in command for to-night. A soldier was dispatched, this evening, to ask for another officer to be sent out.
"What can I do for you?"
"I only want you to tell me in which house the schoolmaster lives. He is a traitor, and has betrayed us to the Prussians. It is owing to him that they are here."
"He has a bad name, in the village," the priest said; "and we had applied to have him removed. He lives in the third house from here, on the same side of the road."
"Has he any Germans quartered upon him?"
"Twenty or thirty men," the priest said. "The schoolroom is full of them."
"Do you know which is his room?" Major Tempe asked. "It would be a great thing, if we could get at him without alarming the enemy. I have thirty men here, but I do not want to have a fight in the village, if I can help it."
"I know his house," the priest said. "The schoolroom is at the side of the house, and his sitting room and kitchen on the ground floor of the house itself. There are three bedrooms over. His room is in front of the house, to the right as you face it."
"Thank you," Major Tempe said. "Have you a ladder?"