'Whither?' I said, setting my teeth together and frowning at him.
'To my master,' he replied, with a curt nod. 'Don't say you won't,' he continued with meaning, 'for he is not one to be denied.'
I looked from one to another of the three men, and for a moment the desperate clinging to liberty, which makes even the craven bold, set my hands tingling and sent the blood surging to my head. But reason spoke in time. I saw that the contest was too unequal, the advantage of a few minutes' freedom too trivial, since the general must sooner or later lay his hand on me; and I crushed down the impulse to resist.
'What scares you, comrades?' I said, laughing savagely. They had recoiled a foot. 'Do you see a ghost or a Swede, that you look so pale? Your general wants me? Then let him have me. Lead on! I won't run away, I warrant you.'
Ludwig nodded as he placed himself by my side. 'That is the right way to take it,' he said. 'I thought that you might be going to be a fool, comrade.'
'Like our friend there,' I said dryly, pointing to the senseless form we were leaving. 'He made a fuss, I suppose?'
Ludwig shrugged his shoulders. 'No,' he answered, 'not he so much; but his wife. Donner! I think I hear her screams now. And she cursed us! Ah!'
I shuddered, and after that was silent. But more than once before we reached the general's quarters the frantic desire to escape seized me, and had to be repressed. I felt that this was the beginning of the end, the first proof of the strong grasp which held us all helpless. I thought of my lady, I thought of Marie Wort, and I could have shrieked like a woman; for I was powerless like a woman--gripped in a hand I could not resist.
The camp grilling and festering in the sunshine--how I hated it! It seemed an age I had lived in its dusty brightness, an age of vague fears and anxieties. I passed through it now in a feverish dream, until an exclamation, uttered by my companion as we turned into the street, aroused me. The street was full of loiterers, all standing in groups, and all staring at a little band of horsemen who sat motionless in their saddles in front of the general's quarters. For a moment I took these to be the general's staff. Then I saw that they were dressed all alike, that their broad, ruddy faces were alike, that they held themselves with the same unbending precision, and seemed, in a word, to be ten copies of one stalwart man. Near them, a servant on foot was leading two horses up and down, and they and he had the air of being on show.
Captain Ludwig, holding me fast by the arm, stopped at the first group of starers we came to. 'Who are these?' he asked gruffly.