There was no reply.
“Why are you absent from your squadron?”
There was no reply still.
“Have you no tongue, sir? The stick shall soon make you speak! Why are you here?”
There was again no answer.
Chateauroy's teeth ground out a furious oath; yet a flash of brutal delight glittered in his eyes. At last he had hounded down this man, so long out of his reach, into disobedience and contumacy.
“Why are you here, and where have you been?” he demanded once more.
“I will not say.”
The answer, given at length, was tranquil, low, slowly and distinctly uttered, in a deliberate refusal, in a deliberate defiance.
The dark and evil countenance above him grew livid with fury.