The corporal opened both leaves of the door, and the persons expected, who were in an adjoining apartment, entered the room with a grave and measured tread, after the corporal had repeated, with a clear voice, and in an emphatic tone, the last words of Don Pablo Pincheyra.
These strangers, to whom was given a title to which they probably had a very doubtful right, were to the number of five.
Their escort had remained without. On perceiving them the young Frenchman with difficulty repressed an exclamation of surprise. Of the five persons he had recognized two whom he certainly was far from expecting to meet under such circumstances.
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE INTERVIEW.
If Emile Gagnepain became somewhat more calm, certainly the strange spectacle that he had before him had aroused not only his gaiety but his caustic fancy. This shameless parody of interviews accorded by the chiefs of a powerful nation to the representatives of another—played seriously by bandits with low and cruel features, and hands red with blood—half fox and half wolf—whose affected manners had something despicable and repulsive in them—disagreeably impressed the young man, and caused him to experience an undefinable sentiment of disgust and pity for the Spanish officers, who did not scruple to come and humbly implore the aid of these ferocious partisans, whom for a long time they had implacably pursued, to punish them for their innumerable misdeeds.
And, in fact, the Spanish officers appeared to be perfectly aware of their anomalous position, and of the reprehensible step, with regard to honour and the right of nations, that they did not at this moment scruple to take.
Notwithstanding the assurance they affected and their haughty bearing, the blush of shame covered their faces. In spite of them their heads drooped, and their eyes rested only with a kind of hesitation on the persons by whom they were surrounded, and who, without doubt, they wished had been less numerous.