ations, for
the host was heard to cry out in an angry tone: "Hollo! you there! Call
off your dog, or speak to him. It is Mr. Burgomaster who is coming up."

"Dagobert--do you hear?--it is the burgomaster," said Rose.

"They are coming upstairs--a number of people," resumed Blanche.

The word burgomaster recalled whatever had happened to the mind of
Dagobert, and completed, so to express it, the picture of his terrible
position. His horse was dead, he had neither papers nor money, and
a day, a single day's detention, might defeat the last hope of the
sisters, and render useless this long and toilsome journey.

Men of strong minds, and the veteran was of the number, prefer great
perils, positions of danger accurately defined, to the vague anxieties
which precede a settled misfortune. Guided by his good sense and
admirable devotion, Dagobert understood at once, that his only resource
was now in the justice of the burgomaster, and that all his efforts
should tend to conciliate the favor of that magistrate. He therefore
dried his eyes with the sheet, rose from the ground, erect, calm, and
resolute, and said to the orphans: "Fear nothing, my children; it is our
deliverer who is at hand."

"Will you call off your dog or no?" cried the host, still detained on
the stairs by Spoil-sport, who, as a vigilant sentinel, continued to
dispute the passage. "Is the animal mad, I say? Why don't you tie him
up? Have you not caused trouble enough in my house? I tell you, that Mr.
Burgomaster is waiting to examine you in your turn, for he has finished
with Morok."

Dagobert drew his fingers through his gray locks and across his
moustache, clasped the collar of his top-coat, and brushed the sleeves
with his hand, in order to give himself the best appearance possible;
for he felt that the fate of the orphans must depend on his interview
with the magistrate. It was not without a violent beating of the heart,
that he laid his hand upon the door-knob, saying to the young girls, who
were growing more and more frightened by such a succession of events:
"Hide yourselves in your bed, my children; if any one must needs enter,
it shall be the burgomaster alone."

Thereupon, opening the door, the soldier stepped out on the landing
place, and said: "Down, Spoil-sport!--Here!"

The dog obeyed, but with manifest repugnance. His master had to speak
twice, before he would abstain from all hostile movements towards the
host. This latter, with a lante