d! Did you think
to impose on me with lamentations?" resumed the burgomaster, advancing
towards Dagobert. "Thanks be, I am no longer your dupe!--You shall see
that we have good dungeons at Leipsic for French agitators and female
vagrants, for your damsels are no better than you are. Come," added he,
puffing out his cheeks with an important air, "go down before me--and as
for you, Morok--"

The burgomaster was unable to finish. For some minutes Dagobert had only
sought to gain time, and had cast many a side-glance at a half-open
door on the landing-place, just opposite to the chamber occupied by the
orphans: finding the moment favorable, he now rushed quick as lightning
on the burgomaster, seized him by the throat, and dashed him with such
violence against the door in question, that the magistrate, stupefied
by this sudden attack, and unable to speak a word or utter a cry, rolled
over to the further end of the room, which was completely dark. Then,
turning towards Morok, who, with his arm encumbered by the sling, made
a rush for the staircase, the soldier caught him by his long, streaming
hair, pulled him back, clasped him with hands of iron, clapped his hand
over his mouth to stifle his outcries, and notwithstanding his desperate
resistance, dragged him into the chamber, on the floor of which the
burgomaster lay bruised and stunned.

Having double-locked the door, and put the key in his pocket, Dagobert
descended the stairs at two bounds, and found himself in a passage, that
opened on the court-yard. The gate of the inn was shut, and there was no
possibility of escape on that side. The rain fell in torrents. He could
see through the window of a parlor, in which a fire was burning, the
host and his people waiting for the decision of the burgomaster. To bolt
the door of the passage, and thus intercept all communication with the
yard, was for the soldier the affair of an instant, and he hastened
upstairs again to rejoin the orphans.

Morok, recovering from his surprise, was calling for help with all his
might; but, even if the distance had permitted him to be heard, the
noise of the wind and rain would have drowned his outcries. Dagobert
had about an hour before him, for it would require some time to elapse
before the length of his interview with the magistrate would excite
astonishment; and, suspicion or fear once awakened, it would be
necessary to break open two doors--that which separated the passage from
the court-y