This was received by a hoarse shout of guttural German merriment; for most of the personages among whom I had so suddenly fallen were Imperialists belonging to the garrisons of Toul or Nanci.
'There is a convent of pretty Bernardine nuns at Commercy,' said General Goltz, turning his horse round; 'apply there, my friend.
''Tis a chevalier in the guise of an abbé!' said one.
'The devil lurking behind the cross!' added another.
'A spy of Louis XIII.—a mouchard! a mouchard!' cried the Lorraine musketeers, surrounding me. 'Hola, M. le General—M. le Provost Marechal—a rope, a rope! To the next tree with him! a rope for the mouchard!'
This epithet for a spy or eavesdropper was peculiarly offensive then in France, being derived from the spies of M. de Mouchy, the Inquisitor-General under Francis II., and it inspired me with new anger.
'Who commands here?' I demanded, proudly, thrusting back the most forward with the hilt and edge of my sword.
'I command—I, Wolfgang Count Pappenheim,' replied a lofty and stern-looking cavalier, who was sheathed in burnished steel from neck to knees, and who wore a broad hat with a tall feather, and had long moustaches pointed straight out in a line with his ears.
'Hear me, Count,' said I, glad in this desperate extremity to avail myself of a little subterfuge; 'you dare not kill one who wears this dress.'
'Bah,' said he, roughly; 'I have an indulgence from the Pope to kill whom I please; but surrender, or by the death of the devil, my fellows will make black puddings of thee!'