Precisely at a quarter to four Pfels appeared, and led them through a maze of corridors, stairs, and passages, to the commandant’s quarters. These were a handsome suite of rooms, directly on the sallyport.
On entering, they found General Kollnitz seated in a huge chair; he managed to rise from it, in spite of his vast bulk and stiff joints, to welcome his guests.
“You will find us a small party,” said he, “but the fact is we are very short of officers at present, the King having need of all that could be spared, and my military family is much reduced.”
Dinner was soon announced, and proved an excellent one. St. Arnaud exerted himself, as usual, to be agreeable, and he never failed at that. Gavin, too, recovered his spirits at the sight of a good dinner, and sent the fat general into roars of laughter by saying, when Frederick’s name was mentioned:
“And to think I should have been led, like a great calf, out of that closet! Oh, I am afraid the King thinks me a wretched coward!”
The dinner passed pleasantly, and Gavin’s heart was made glad by a polite offer from General Kollnitz to forward letters for them. Gavin immediately began in thought a letter to his mother.
Evidences of vigilance and watchfulness on the part of the garrison were not wanting, even when the commandant and his adjutant were supposed to be taking their ease at dinner. Every hour Pfels was called into the anteroom to receive reports from every quarter of the fortress. About half-past eight o’clock the general, who had been talking gayly, suddenly stopped, laid his head back, and in a moment was slumbering peacefully. Pfels smiled and said: “That has been his habit for years. He is quite unconscious of it, though, and if you hint he has been asleep he grows very angry. He wakes of himself in a half hour or so, and goes back to what he was talking about when he dropped off. I was warned, when I was ordered here, that more aides had been sent back to their regiments for mentioning to the general that he had fallen asleep than one could count. It is quite the garrison joke.”
Sure enough, as Pfels said, the general waked after a while and resumed: “Gentlemen, as we were saying a moment ago, your letters should be ready to-morrow.” None of the young men as much as smiled.
At nine o’clock the rumbling of a carriage under the archway was heard.
“That is no new arrival,” remarked General Kollnitz. “The regulations require me to make the circuit of the fortress, inside and out, at nine o’clock every evening. My disabilities compel me to make the outer circuit in a carriage. But, let none think that the only inspection had is that of a gouty old gentleman, the rattling of whose carriage may be heard a mile off. That is merely perfunctory. Better legs and eyes than mine are on watch day and night. Not a prisoner has escaped since I have been here, and every deserter has been recaptured. On all three sides of the fortress a heavy siege-gun is kept loaded, and as soon as a prisoner or deserter is missed, those guns are fired, one immediately after the other. That gives notice, and arouses not only the garrison, but the town and the surrounding country. As I offer a handsome reward for every prisoner or deserter captured, the peasants and townspeople may be relied on for vigilance; and difficult as the escape is from the fortress, the real obstruction is outside and beyond the walls. I tell you this for your profit, because, being young and adventurous, you may tempt fate; and you will certainly fail unless you can get at least two hours’ start before your absence is discovered.”