he bars drop across it. A
little before, La Trape had taken a candle from someone's hand to light
me the better; and therefore we were not in darkness. But the light
this gave only served to impress on us what the falling bars and the
rising sound of voices outside had already told us--that we were
outwitted! We were prisoners.

The room in which we stood, looking foolishly at one another, was a
great barn-like chamber, with small windows high in the unplaistered
walls. A long board set on trestles, and two or three stools placed
round it--on the occasion, perhaps, of some recent festivity--had for a
moment deceived us, and played the landlord's game.

In the first shock of the discovery, hearing the bars drop home, we
stood gaping, and wondering what it meant. Then Maignan, with an oath,
sprang to the door and tried it--fruitlessly.

I joined him more at my leisure, and raising my voice, asked angrily
what this folly meant. "Open the door there! Do you hear, landlord?"
I cried.

No one moved, though Maignan continued to rattle the door furiously.

"Do you hear?" I repeated, between anger and amazement at the fix in
which we had placed ourselves. "Open!"

But, although the murmur of voices outside the door grew louder, no one
answered, and I had time to take in the full absurdity of the position;
to measure the height; of the windows with my eye and plumb the dark
shadows under the rafters, where the feebler rays of our candle lost
themselves; to appreciate, in a word, the extent of our predicament.
Maignan was furious, La Trape vicious, while my own equanimity scarcely
supported me against the thought that we should probably be where we
were until the arrival of my people, whom I had directed my wife to
send to Le Mesnil at noon next day. Their coming would free us,
indeed, but at the cost of ridicule and laughter. Never was man worse
placed.

Wincing at the thought, I bade Maignan be silent; and, drumming on the
door myself, I called for the landlord. Someone who had been giving
directions in a tone of great, consequence ceased speaking, and came
close to the door. After listening a moment, he struck it with his
hand.

"Silence, rogues!" he cried. "Do you hear? Silence there, unless you
want your ears nailed to the post."

"Fool!" I answered. "Open the door instantly! Are you all mad here,
that you shut up the King's servants in this way?"

"The King's servants!" he cried, jeering at us