round him from the guard-room; "but, my friends, when one has the choice
of trusting to an enemy's promises or to this little iron barrel, I
always think it best to rely upon what we have in our hand."

He shook his rifle as he spoke.

"The Pole promises safe-conduct," continued Fink, "because he knows that
in a couple of hours his band will be dispersed by our soldiers. We
should be a good bite for him with our thirty guns. And then, if our
cavalry came, and instead of us, who sent for them, found the house full
of that rabble yonder, they would send a rattling curse after us, and we
should be disgraced forever."

"I wonder whether he meant fair?" inquired one of the men, doubtingly.

Fink took him confidentially by the lappet of his coat. "I do believe,
my boy, that he meant fair; but I ask you how far one could calculate
upon the discipline of those men? We should not get much beyond the wood
yonder before another party would overtake us, and the women and our
property would be maltreated before our eyes; and so I calculate we
shall do the best to show them our teeth."

Warm approbation followed this speech, and a few hurrahs were raised for
the young gentlemen in the castle.

"We thank you," said Fink; "and now all of you to your posts, my men,
for it may chance that you will get a few cracks on your heads again.
That will keep them quiet for an hour or two," said he, turning to
Anton. "I don't expect an attack by day, but it is better for them to
stand at their posts than to be putting their heads together. It was
unlucky that they should have heard the negotiations."

But even the severe discipline which Fink maintained did not avail to
ward off the depression which fell upon the little garrison as the day
wore on. The Pole's proposal had been heard by many; even the women had
in their curiosity opened their door and pushed into the hall. Quietly,
gradually, fear began to take possession of the men's hearts, and,
contagious as a disease, it spread from one to the other. It broke out,
too, in the women's apartments. Suddenly some of them felt a great
desire for water, complaining of thirst, first timidly, then louder,
pressing against the door of the kitchen, and beginning to sob aloud.
Not long after, all the children took to screaming for water, and many
who, under other circumstances, would not have thought about drinking at
all, now felt themselves unspeakably wretched.

Anton had the last bottle of win