"My dear chap, if you'll just be kind enough to lend me for one hour four strong men armed with picks and shovels, I shall be at Èbrecourt to-night."
"I say! Four men to dig a six-mile tunnel through the rock in an hour!"
"That's ample. Also, you must promise absolute secrecy both as to the means employed and the rather curious discoveries to which they are bound to lead. I shall make a report to the general commanding in chief; but no one else is to know."
"Very well, I'll select my four fellows for you myself. Where am I to bring them to you?"
"On the terrace, near the donjon."
This terrace commands the Liseron from a height of some hundred and fifty feet and, in consequence of a loop in the river, is exactly opposite Corvigny, whose steeple and the neighboring hills are seen in the distance. Of the castle-keep nothing remains but its enormous base, which is continued by the foundation-walls, mingled with natural rocks, which support the terrace. A garden extends its clumps of laurels and spindle-trees to the parapet.
It was here that Paul went. Time after time he strode up and down the esplanade, leaning over the river and inspecting the blocks that had fallen from the keep under the mantle of ivy.
"Now then," said the lieutenant, on arriving with his men. "Is this your starting-point? I warn you we are standing with our backs to the frontier."
"Pooh!" replied Paul, in the same jesting tone. "All roads lead to Berlin!"
He pointed to a circle which he had marked out with stakes, and set the men to work: