The burden of the evening lay upon him through the night at mess, where the grey-clad German and Austrian officers ate and drank below the mild faces of Pordenone's frescoed saints, and afterwards in his room, where he dozed and woke and dozed again through the hot, airless hours. The memory of the girl, the impression of her attitude, of her pale, unsmiling face, of her low, strong voice, tormented him; he felt himself alone with her in a hag-ridden land where all men were murderers or murdered; and she would have none of him. He arose sour and unrefreshed.
In the great dining-room the splendor of the morning was tainted with the staleness of last night's cigars, and, for a further flavor, sitting alone at the table, with his cap on his head and his cane on the tablecloth beside him, was Captain Hahn. The mess waiter, lurking near the door, looked scared and worried. He had slept but little.
"Good morning, Herr Hauptmann," said Jovannic, clicking his heels.
Captain Hahn gave him a furious glance and grunted inarticulately. He made the effect as he sat of emitting fumes, vapors of an overcharged personality; his naturally violent face was clenched like a fist.
"Here, you dog!" he exploded. The mess waiter all but leaped into the air. "Get me another glass of brandy." The man dived through the door. "And now you, Jovannic!"
"At your orders, Herr Hauptmann?" Jovannic looked up in astonishment.
The other's face was blazing at him across the table.
"Who," Captain Hahn seemed to have a difficulty in compressing his feelings into words, "who ordered you to untie that prisoner?"
"No one," replied Jovannic. His gaze at the convulsed face opposite him narrowed. He put a hand on the table as though to spring up from his seat. "Is he dead, then?" he demanded.
"Damn it; so you knew he'd do it!" roared the captain. "Don't deny it; you've admitted it. You knew he'd hang himself, and yet."
"But he couldn't," cried Jovannic, as Captain Hahn choked and sputtered. "I ordered him to be watched. I told the sergeant"—Captain Hahn broke in with something like a howl. "I wasn't going to have soldiers kept out of their beds for stuff like that rotten, sentimental Austrian nonsense! I sent 'em off to get their sleep; but you, you knew, you."