strange personage
was turning pale.

"Not at all," he said with a polite gesture of thanks. "I am listening,"
he added, with a nod to the guests, who were all simultaneously looking
at him.

"I have forgotten," said Monsieur Hermann, "the name of the other young
man. But the confidences which Prosper Magnan subsequently made to me
enabled me to know that his companion was dark, rather thin, and jovial.
I will, if you please, call him Wilhelm, to give greater clearness to
the tale I am about to tell you."

The worthy German resumed his narrative after having, without the
smallest regard for romanticism and local color, baptized the young
French surgeon with a Teutonic name.]

By the time the two young men reached Andernach the night was dark.
Presuming that they would lose much time in looking for their chiefs
and obtaining from them a military billet in a town already full of
soldiers, they resolved to spend their last night of freedom at an inn
standing some two or three hundred feet from Andernach, the rich color
of which, embellished by the fires of the setting sun, they had greatly
admired from the summit of the hill above the town. Painted entirely
red, this inn produced a most piquant effect in the landscape, whether
by detaching itself from the general background of the town, or by
contrasting its scarlet sides with the verdure of the surrounding
foliage, and the gray-blue tints of the water. This house owed its name,
the Red Inn, to this external decoration, imposed upon it, no doubt
from time immemorial by the caprice of its founder. A mercantile
superstition, natural enough to the different possessors of the
building, far-famed among the sailors of the Rhine, had made them
scrupulous to preserve the title.

Hearing the sound of horses' hoofs, the master of the Red Inn came out
upon the threshold of his door.

"By heavens! gentlemen," he cried, "a little later and you'd have had to
sleep beneath the stars, like a good many more of your compatriots
who are bivouacking on the other side of Andernach. Here every room is
occupied. If you want to sleep in a good bed I have only my own room to
offer you. As for your horses I can litter them down in a corner of the
courtyard. The stable is full of people. Do these gentlemen come from
France?" he added after a slight pause.

"From Bonn," cried Prosper, "and we have eaten nothing since morning."

"Oh! as to provisions," said the innkeeper, nodding his head, "p