I had just begun a dignified rebuke, for Michael's language was inexcusable, when it flashed upon me that we had been, indeed, duped.
"Ah," I cried, in my fury, "of course we were taken in! Of course his son was the lame hostler, the very prize we expected to bag! O Lord! what will we say to my lady? We are precious sharp! I ought to have known better. That stuff he told us! Langlois, pshaw, Berri—pouf! A Berri never married a Langlois, and I might have remembered that Gluck wasn't assassinated by a jealous duke. What shall we do?"
We all stood in the middle of the road, gazing stupidly at the lame dog that gave us the clue. Then Arnold timidly suggested:—
"Hadn't we better go back to the inn?"
Instantly our horses' heads were turned and we galloped madly back on our old tracks. Not a word was uttered until we reined up in front of the lonely house, which looked more haunted by daylight than it did the night before.
"What did I tell you?" suddenly cried Michael.
"Over there, you blind bat!" he said, coarsely and impatiently; and pulling out his pistol he fired thrice, and a low, melodious sound followed the reports of his weapon. When the smoke cleared away I saw that he had hit an old harpsichord which stood against a tree, facing the house.
"The ghost!" we yelled, and then we laughed consumedly. But the shots that winged the old-fashioned instrument had a greater result. The fat host appeared on the edge of the forest, and he waved a large napkin as a flag of truce. With him was the lame hostler.
"Mercy, gentlemen, mercy, we beseech you!" he cried, and we soon surrounded both and bound them securely.