"The pistol then," he continued, grinding his teeth.
"I will not fight with an assassin, even though he wear the uniform of a colonel of the French Line," I replied, resolutely, though the soldiers began to mutter angrily, and beat the floor with the butts of their muskets.
"Bah—-pst! ce pistolet est en arrêt!" said Bourgneuf, turning on his heel with a sneer on his cruel lip, and this pet phrase of the French soldiers (implying the "white feather") so enraged me, that I could with pleasure have pistolled him on the spot.
Looking round for a man in whom he could trust, he selected a corporal, a most sinister-looking fellow, whose nose was quite awry, and whose shaggy eyebrows met over it in one. To him he gave a whispered order, and though my ear was painfully acute at such a time, I could only detect the words, "distance—sound of firing might not disturb—buried in the snow."
The man with the crooked nose and huge chevrons saluted his colonel, and desired me to follow him, which I did immediately, conceiving that my chances were always better with one man than with a score. As we left the room a gleam of triumphant malice sparkled in the eyes of Bourgneuf, and he gave me an ironical bow.
When next I saw his face its expression was very different.
In the vestibule of the schloss, which was full of sleeping soldiers, the corporal summoned a personage, in whom I recognised Karl Karsseboom, in whose ear he repeated the order of the count, and muttering curses at the trouble I caused them, these two worthies, after carefully loading their muskets, desired me gruffly to follow them, and leaving the schloss by a drawbridge which spanned the snow-filled ditch, we set forth, on what errand I knew not.
The storm of wind and snow was over now. Morning was at hand; the stars shone clear and brilliantly, and so bright was the reflection of the snow that every object could be discerned as distinctly as at noon-day. The silence was profound; even our foot-falls were muffled in the white waste, from amid which the fir-trees stood up like sheeted spectres.
I was weary and chilled, being without any muffling; my head was giddy with the recent blow, and the keen frosty air affected me severely.
I asked the corporal if they were conducting me to the ford of the Lahn.