"Beg pardon, colonel—I was listening to some sounds ahead," muttered he.
His coolness was manifestly forced—his excuse was manifestly a lie—yet the haughty Englishman only swore at him and turned from him as one avoids the worm in the path.
He resumed his idle conversation with his officer, and passed the time away in light jests and piquant anecdotes of a life neither tame nor simple, and quite ignored the inquisitive Thoms behind him.
But Thoms did not forget to strain every faculty of hearing and seeing while he had the chance. Never did lover drink in love vows of his beautiful betrothed, as did the gray-faced valet his colonel's stories; never did the worshipers of that star of song, Jenny Lind, analyse each tone, each delicate inflection of her voice in the day of her most glorious effulgence, as did Thoms the tones of St. Udo Brand; and when the soldier, weary of speech, sank into mute reverie, the old man's glowing eyes stole over his stately figure, measuring its height, its contour, its carriage, with anxious care, as if but one man lived upon the earth for him, and that night he might be slain.
At midnight the little detachment paused to rest.
The place they chose as favorable to their purpose was the wide-spread grounds of a ruined mansion-house.
Merrily the camp-fires blazed up, paling the shimmer of a myriad of soaring fire-flies, and sparkling through the murk like a broken lava stream.
The chevalier left his company to visit his friend's tent, and the brothers-in-arms exchanged cordial jests and friendly converse, while Thoms, hovering over the camp-fires and boiling the coffee, peered inquisitively at the pocket album which St. Udo was showing his friend.
"How that old wretch listens to our conversation," exclaimed St. Udo, laughing, as the valet retreated for a moment beyond earshot, for another armful of fagots. "He is like Diggory behind his master's chair—every story moves him to laugh or cry."
"Pardieu! he will play eavesdropper, will he?" hissed the chevalier. "We shall see."