How the Adventure terminated.
The new-comers proved to be a couple of the kitchen servants. They were provided with a basket, in which they removed the fish selected by Monsieur Lemaitre, taking them up and conveying them away without vouchsafing to favour me with so much as a single word.
The time passed on without any one else appearing; a silence, as if of the grave, prevailed in the building; and had it not been for the bugle-calls in the adjacent barrack-yard, the shouts of command and the measured tramp of the men at drill, together with the loud and frequent boom of artillery from the walls, and the fainter echo of our own ordnance in the distance, I might have supposed myself to be in a deserted city.
At length the tramp of horses became audible outside; the sound increased rapidly; and in another minute I became aware that a cavalcade of some sort had approached the great door of the building; then there came the sound of champing of bits, the clatter of accoutrements, the jingle of spurs, and loud voices talking and laughing. Finally the heavy latch of the door was turned, one leaf swung heavily back upon its well-oiled hinges, and a group of some fourteen officers entered the hall; among whom was one who I had no doubt was the general.
The majority of the officers merely glanced carelessly at me and passed on; one of them, however, apparently a lieutenant, stopped and asked me what I wanted.
I replied by telling him shortly the story I had arranged; adding that I had been advised to come up and report myself to the general. When I had finished he ordered me to follow him; and we made sail in the wake of the others; passing through a door at the far end of the hall, which led, not, as I had supposed, to a room, but to a long passage terminating in a yard, in one side of which was an archway leading through the building into the barrack-yard, and on the opposite side a group of one-storey buildings, the first of which appeared to be a sort of guard-room.
Entering this room, in which were some twenty men, who rose and saluted my conductor as we passed, we continued on through it into another and very large room, the tables in which were strewed with plans and drawings.
Here we found a great many of the officers who had preceded us, engaged in unbuckling their swords, etcetera, preparatory, as it seemed to me, to sitting down to work upon some of the drawings which lay scattered about.
Crossing this room also, followed by curious glances from many of its occupants, we paused before a door, at which my guide tapped.
“Entrez,” exclaimed a voice from the inside.