ed to be a couple of the kitchen servants. They were
provided with a basket, in which they removed the fish selected by
Monsieur Lemaitre, taking them up and conveying them away without
vouchsafing to favour me with so much as a single word.

The time passed on without any one else appearing; a silence, as if of
the grave, prevailed in the building; and had it not been for the bugle-
calls in the adjacent barrack-yard, the shouts of command and the
measured tramp of the men at drill, together with the loud and frequent
boom of artillery from the walls, and the fainter echo of our own
ordnance in the distance, I might have supposed myself to be in a
deserted city.

At length the tramp of horses became audible outside; the sound
increased rapidly; and in another minute I became aware that a cavalcade
of some sort had approached the great door of the building; then there
came the sound of champing of bits, the clatter of accoutrements, the
jingle of spurs, and loud voices talking and laughing. Finally the
heavy latch of the door was turned, one leaf swung heavily back upon its
well-oiled hinges, and a group of some fourteen officers entered the
hall; among whom was one who I had no doubt was the general.

The majority of the officers merely glanced carelessly at me and passed
on; one of them, however, apparently a lieutenant, stopped and asked me
what I wanted.

I replied by telling him shortly the story I had arranged; adding that I
had been advised to come up and report myself to the general. When I
had finished he ordered me to follow him; and we made sail in the wake
of the others; passing through a door at the far end of the hall, which
led, not, as I had supposed, to a room, but to a long passage
terminating in a yard, in one side of which was an archway leading
through the building into the barrack-yard, and on the opposite side a
group of one-storey buildings, the first of which appeared to be a sort
of guard-room.

Entering this room, in which were some twenty men, who rose and saluted
my conductor as we passed, we continued on through it into another and
very large room, the tables in which were strewed with plans and
drawings.

Here we found a great many of the officers who had preceded us, engaged
in unbuckling their swords, etcetera, preparatory, as it seemed to me,
to sitting down to work upon some of the drawings which lay scattered
about.

Crossing this room also, followed by curious glances fro