When he was gone, and my lady had surveyed the place, she let her satisfaction be seen. The main room had been made habitable enough. She stood in her redingote, tapping the table with her whip.
'Well, Martin, this is better than the forest,' she said.
'Yes, your excellency,' I answered reluctantly.
'I think we have done very well,' she continued; and she smiled to herself.
'We are safe from the rain, at any rate,' I said bluntly. My tongue itched to tell her Von Werder's warning, but Fraulein Anna and Marie Wort were in the room, and I did not think it safe to speak.
I could not stay and not tell, however, and I jumped at the first excuse for retiring. There was a kind of wooden platform in front of the houses, and running their whole length; a walk, raised out of the mud of the street and sheltered overhead by the low, wide eaves. A woman and some children had climbed on to it, and begging with their palms through the windows almost deafened us. I ran out and drove them off, and set a man in front to keep the place free. But the wretched creatures' entreaties haunted me, and when I returned I was in a worse temper than before.
The Waldgrave met me at the door, and to my surprise laid his hand on my shoulder. 'This way, Martin,' he said in a low voice. 'I want a word with you.'
I went with him across the road, and leaned against the fallen trunk of a tree, which was just visible in the darkness. Through the unglazed windows of the house we could see the lighted rooms, the Countess and her attendants moving about, Fraulein Anna sitting with her feet tucked up in a corner, the servants bringing in the meal. All in a frame of blackness, with the hoarse sounds of the camp in our ears, and the pitiful wailing of the beggars dying away in the distance. It was a dark night, and still.
The Waldgrave laughed. 'Dilly, dilly, dilly! Come and be killed,' he muttered. 'Two thousand soldiers? Two thousand cut-throats, Martin. Pappenheim's black riders were gentlemen beside these fellows!'
'Things may look more cheerful by daylight,' I said.