“It is really tremendous,” said Ashton-Kirk, “and must require a horde of servants to keep it in order.”
“We have only two besides Kretz—and they are his wife and daughter.”
“I should like to see the kitchen,” said the crime specialist. “Very different, I suppose, from our present compact institutions.”
The kitchen was as huge as imagined; its bricked floor was scrubbed clean; its copper utensils gleamed upon the walls; the great fireplace held a turnspit upon which hung a goose, attended by a stolid-looking girl.
“The sergeant-major’s daughter?” asked Ashton-Kirk.
“Yes, and here is her mother.”
A heavy, vacant-looking woman entered the kitchen with some vegetables; she gave but a passing glance at the visitors, and tucking up her sleeves, proceeded indifferently about her duties.
As they reached the roof of Schwartzberg, Ashton-Kirk saw the searchlight, which he had witnessed in operation the night before, mounted on one of the towers. It was a powerful affair, and seemed in perfect order. But as to its uses Campe said nothing; he passed it by as though it did not exist.
Away in every direction stretched the faded countryside; the hills swelled, the tops of the denuded trees waved starkly in the breeze.
“The prospect is sober at this time of the year,” said Ashton-Kirk, as he gazed out over the hills. “But the summer at Schwartzberg, I should say, is very beautiful.”