“For breaking a bust of the Emperor, and for shouting—‘À bas——’” Lucille could not finish.
“You mean—that they will keep him there to-night?” Denham said.
She looked at him with eyes that were almost wild with fear. “Oui—oui—the citadel to-night! And to-morrow—they say—to Bitche.”
“To—Bitche!” whispered Roy. He grew white, for that word was a sound of terror in the ears of English prisoners, and his glance went in appeal to Ivor.
“Stay here, Roy. I will speak to them.”
Ivor crossed the room with his rapid resolute stride, and went out, meeting the gendarmes half-way downstairs. Lucille clutched Roy’s arm again, half in reproach, half in protection. “Ah, my poor boy! mon pauvre garçon! how could you? Ah, such folly! As if there were not already trouble enough! Ah, my unhappy Roy!”
“Shut up, Lucille! You needn’t jaw a fellow like that! It can’t mean anything really, you know. Wirion just thinks he can screw a lot of money out of my father. And that’s the worst of it,” declared Roy, in an undertone. “I hate to have done such a stupid thing—and I hate the worry of it for Den, just now when he’s like this. But you know they couldn’t really send me to Bitche only for smashing a paltry image. It would be ridiculous.”
“Ah, Roy! even you little know—you—what it means to be under a despot, such as—but one may not dare to speak.”
Lucille’s tears came fast. They stood listening. From the staircase rose loud rough voices, alternating with Ivor’s not loud but masterful tones. That he was prisoner, and that they had power to arrest him too, if they chose, made not a grain of difference in his bearing. It was not defiant or excited, but undoubtedly it was haughty; and Lucille, just able to see him from where she stood, found herself wondering—did he wish to go to prison with Roy? She could almost have believed it.
“Eh bien, messieurs. Since l’Empéreur sees fit to war with schoolboys, so be it,” she heard him say sternly in his polished French. “To me, as an Englishman, it appears that his Majesty might find a foe more worthy of his prowess.”