"So you are a painter?" said he.

"Yes," I confessed, "but I do not make a specialty of fortresses, your
excellency, even in the most distant landscapes."

I was grateful he understood, for I saw a gleam of merriment flash in
his eyes.

"_Bon!_" he exclaimed briskly--evidently the title of "excellency"
helped. "It is not the best day, however, for you to be hunting hares.
Are you a good shot, monsieur?"

"That is an embarrassing question," I returned. "If I do not miss I
generally kill."

Pierre, who, during the interview, had been standing mute in attention,
now stepped up to him and bending with a hurried "Pardon," whispered
something in his coarse red ear.

The brigadier raised his shaggy eyebrows and nodded in assent.

"Ah! So you are a friend of Monsieur le Cure!" he exclaimed. "You would
not be Monsieur le Cure's friend if you were not a good shot.
_Sapristi!_" He paused, ran his hand over his rough jowls, and resumed
bluntly: "It is something to kill the wild duck; another to kill a man."

"Has war been suddenly declared?" I asked in astonishment.

A gutteral laugh escaped his throat, he shook his grizzled head in the
negative.

"A little war of my own," said he, "a serious business, _parbleu!_"

"Contraband?" I ventured.

The coarse mouth under the bristling moustache, four times the size of
Pierre's, closed with a snap, then opened with a growl.

"_Sacre mille tonnerres!_" he thundered, slamming his fist down on the
desk within reach of him. "They are the devil, those Belgians! It is for
them my good fellows lose their sleep." Then he stopped, and eyeing me
shrewdly added: "Monsieur, you are an outsider and a gentleman. I can
trust you. Three nights ago a strange sloop, evidently Belgian, from the
cut of her, tried to sneak in here, but our semaphore on the point held
her up and she had to run back to the open sea. Bah! Those _sacre_
Belgians have the patience of a fox!"

"She was painted like one of our fishing-smacks," interposed Pierre, now
too excited to hold his tongue, "but she did not know the channel."

"Aye, and she'll try it again," growled the brigadier, "if the night be
dark. She'll find it clear sailing in, but a hot road out."

"Tobacco?" I asked, now fully alive to the situation.

The brigadier spat.

"Of course, as full as she'll float," he answered. He leaned forward and
touched me good-humouredly on the shoulder. "I'm short of men," he said
hurriedly.

"Command me," I r