The old man answered with the same brutal impassiveness:
"It was I!"
"It is you, then, that killed them all?"
"All of them—yes, it was I."
"You alone?"
"I alone."
"Tell me the way you managed to do it?"
This time the peasant appeared to be affected; the necessity of speaking at some length incommoded him.
"I know myself. I did it the way I found easiest."
The Colonel proceeded: