When the light above the throne at last flung its feeble illumination over them, it disclosed a stout Bohemian servant carrying a lantern, a young man in a splendid dress of scarlet and fur, and a woman rather clumsily muffled in a military cloak which was caught up so as to show her riding-boots and fantastic long spurs.
The officers saluted; the lady paused and looked at her companion, who returned the salute and said in good French, “We are prisoners, I believe.”
“Austrians?” asked the Colonel.
“No: Poles. On our way to Paris. We were captured by the Pandours, who routed our escort, and then by a Bohemian regiment, who considered us enemies”—he smiled engagingly. “But I have induced them to allow me an audience of M. de Belleisle, who, I am certain, will allow us on our way.”
“Why, doubtless,” returned the Frenchman, with disinterested courtesy; “but it is severe weather for travelling, and in time of war, with a lady.”
“My sister,” said the young Pole, “is used to the cold, for she has lived all her life in Russia.”
The lady lifted a face pale with fatigue and shadowed with anxiety; her black hair was very unbecomingly twisted tight round her head, and she wore a fur cap of fox’s skin drawn down to her ears.
“I have a good reason to wish to hasten to Paris,” she said. “I am summoned there by the Queen.”
She made an impatient gesture to the Bohemian who conducted them, and with a weary little bow followed him through the small door that had been cut in the high blank wall.
With a more elaborate courtesy her companion followed her, his heavy tread echoing in the stillness even after the door had closed behind him.