ately at hand, only enhanced the horrors of
the distant clamor and the red glare in the sky. At length they stopped
before a low building with a large gateway. Entering, they looked into
the bar, a dirty room with blackened rafters, in which loud-voiced and
brandy-drinking patriots clustered on bench and table. The young officer
called for the landlord. A fat figure with a red face appeared.

"In the name of the government, rooms for myself and my companions,"
said the young man. The host sullenly took up a bundle of rusty keys and
a tallow candle, and led them to an upper floor, where he opened the
door of a damp room, and morosely declared that he had no other for
them.

"Bring us supper and a bottle of your best wine," said the merchant; "we
pay well, and at once."

This announcement occasioned a visible improvement in the mood of the
fat landlord, who even made an unsuccessful attempt to be polite. The
merchant next asked for the wagons and wagoners. These questions were
evidently unwelcome. At first Boniface pretended to know nothing about
them, declaring that there were a great many wagons coming and going in
his court-yard, and that there were several wagoners too, but that he
did not know them.

It was in vain that the merchant tried to make him understand the object
of his coming; the landlord remained obtuse, and was about to relapse
into his former moroseness, when the young Pole came forward, and
informed Mr. Schroeter that this was not the way of dealing with such
people. He then faced the landlord, called him all manner of hard names,
and declared that he would arrest and carry him off on the spot unless
he at once gave the most exact information.

The landlord looked timidly at the officer, and begged to be allowed to
retire and send up one of the wagoners.

Soon a lanky figure with a brown felt hat came lumbering up stairs,
started at the sight of the merchant, and at last announced, with
pretended cheerfulness, that there he was.

"Where are the wagons? where are the bills of lading?"

The wagons were in the court-yard. The bills were reluctantly produced
from the dirty leather purse of the wagoner.

"You guarantee me that your load remains complete and undisturbed?"
asked the merchant.

The felt hat ungraciously replied that he could do nothing of the kind.
The horses had been unharnessed and hid in a secret stable, that they
might not be confiscated by the government; as to the fate of the