ith
long, swinging trot into the darkness.

He returned to his seat, muttering:

"I wouldn't have believed it!"

And he waited quietly till supper was ready.

The men devoured their meal voraciously, with mouths stretched to their
ears that they might swallow the more. Their round eyes opened at the
same time as their jaws, and as the soup coursed down their throats it
made a noise like the gurgling of water in a rainpipe.

The two women watched in silence the movements of the big red beards. The
potatoes seemed to be engulfed in these moving fleeces.

But, as they were thirsty, the forester's daughter went down to the
cellar to draw them some cider. She was gone some time. The cellar was
small, with an arched ceiling, and had served, so people said, both as
prison and as hiding-place during the Revolution. It was approached by
means of a narrow, winding staircase, closed by a trap-door at the
farther end of the kitchen.

When Berthine returned she was smiling mysteriously to herself. She gave
the Germans her jug of cider.

Then she and her mother supped apart, at the other end of the kitchen.

The soldiers had finished eating, and were all six falling asleep as they
sat round the table. Every now and then a forehead fell with a thud on
the board, and the man, awakened suddenly, sat upright again.

Berthine said to the officer:

"Go and lie down, all of you, round the fire. There's lots of room for
six. I'm going up to my room with my mother."

And the two women went upstairs. They could be heard locking the door and
walking about overhead for a time; then they were silent.

The Prussians lay down on the floor, with their feet to the fire and
their heads resting on their rolled-up cloaks. Soon all six snored loudly
and uninterruptedly in six different keys.

They had been sleeping for some time when a shot rang out so loudly that
it seemed directed against the very wall's of the house. The soldiers
rose hastily. Two-then three-more shots were fired.

The door opened hastily, and Berthine appeared, barefooted and only half
dressed, with her candle in her hand and a scared look on her face.

"There are the French," she stammered; "at least two hundred of them. If
they find you here they'll burn the house down. For God's sake, hurry
down into the cellar, and don't make a 'sound, whatever you do. If you
make any noise we are lost."

"We'll go, we'll go," replied the terrified officer. "Which is the way?"