'The case is gone; I have dropped it somehow,' he exclaimed, in perplexity and confusion.
'Bah!' exclaimed the gendarme; 'I thought so—come along; we are but wasting time.'
A voiture was summoned. A gendarme mounted on the box beside the driver, other two stepped inside with Goring, who, thus escorted, was driven in silence through several streets, just as the lamps were being lighted, to a police station in a narrow alley, near the Rempart Saint Catharine, where he was conducted into a species of office, over the mantelpiece of which were the ancient arms of the city of Antwerp, like those of Edinburgh, a castle triple-towered with three banners, each bearing a human hand, and there he found himself before a Juge de Paix or Préfet he knew not which; but a portly individual armed with considerable authority, and determined apparently to use it.
'For what purpose or reason am I brought here, monsieur?' asked Goring, haughtily and angrily.
The man in authority—the Préfet, we shall call him—drew from his pocket a bronze medal attached to a ribbon, and shook it in his face, saying brusquely,
'I will teach you to know the Belgian colours when you see them. Gardez-vous!' he added.
Goring was too much of a soldier and gentleman to insult or resist any constituted authority, and, believing the whole affair to be, if not a joke, some explainable mistake, waited the next move with patience.
A whispered conversation went on in French between his captors and the Préfet, who made several entries in a large book, looking through his large, round spectacles at their prisoner from time to time, and then most severely at a little roll of printed papers, which the officer of gendarmes laid before him.
'What is all this about—what is the meaning of this absurdity, this outrage?' demanded Goring.
'No outrage at all,' replied the official, knitting his brows.