"Decidedly not," said the officer with an oath. "They have led us a pretty dance, and what's the good of food to men about to be shot!"
"But they may fall from exhaustion before we reach Rennes," suggested the sergeant, "and that may cause delay. They have had nothing for near twelve hours, mon capitaine, and marching best part of the time."
"Well, give them a crust," said the captain, lazily throwing himself back on the straw; "but it is waste, sheer waste."
The sergeant rose and, taking some scraps of food, crossed the room and disappeared from my sight. I knew now that the deserters of whom they had spoken were actually in the place with them, and found myself pitying the fate of men who had had the ill luck to fall into the hands of so coldly brutal an officer as this captain.
Then I turned about with a start, having the strange feeling-- for I heard nothing--that someone was moving behind me. It was Runnles. He came towards me stealthily, wearing that meek, shy look of his, and told me in a whisper that Joe Punchard had sent him to see what had become of me. At the sight of him a fantastic notion buzzed into my head. I caught him by the sleeve and whispered eagerly in his ear, his eyes becoming two round O's with excitement as he listened. He stole away again, and I turned once more to my business of eavesdropping.
"They eat like pigs," I heard the captain say to the sergeant, who had returned to his lair on the straw. "These peasants never lose the ill manners bred in them. And those English dogs who have escaped from prison--how do I know they are peasants, too, Jules?"
"I can not tell, mon capitaine," says the sergeant.
"Why, because you may be sure they have done a foolish thing, like these deserters of ours. They are seamen; depend upon it, they have made straight for the coast, and we shall soon hear that they have been taken."
I could not help smiling at the ingenuousness of the captain's reasoning.
"My faith!" he went on, "I wish we were going from Rennes to St. Malo instead of from St. Malo to Rennes. I should have loved to join in the hunt for the rascals, and I doubt not you, Jules, would be glad enough to get some portion of the reward offered for their capture. Ah, well! the others will have the luck; but I would give something to see those English dogs when--"