A COMMANDING VOICE EXCLAIMED FROM THE WINDOW, "BRING THAT LAD IN HERE, SOME ONE."
My singing had attracted the attention of several people in the court-yard, and a hostler was hurrying up with the evident intention of sending me to the rightabout. But if that was what he meant to do, he had to give it over, for a commanding voice in English, without the trace of an accent, exclaimed from the window,
"Bring that lad in here, some one."
Before I knew it, I was following one of the servants through a passageway, and was ushered into the presence of the three men seated at the table.
"Where could he have learned that song?" one of them was saying. The short man was humming the air.
"Who are you and what is your name?" questioned the large gentleman with the powdered hair, who evidently was in authority, speaking in French.
"Jean Amédée de Brienne," I said, taking the name by which I had been known for the past few months, only giving it, of course, a pronunciation somewhat different.
"De Brienne!" exclaimed the youngest gentleman, starting. "Where do you come from?"
"From America, monsieur; but just now from the prison at Stapleton, whence I have escaped by a good chance."