rict
commands that no more wine or brandy was to be served to the Englishman
under any circumstances whatever.

"He has two hours in which to sleep off the effects of all that brandy
which he had consumed," he mused as he finally went back to his own
quarters, "and by that time he will be able to write with a steady
hand."

Chapter XXXIII: The English Spy

And now at last the shades of evening were drawing in thick and fast.
Within the walls of Fort Gayole the last rays of the setting sun had
long ago ceased to shed their dying radiance, and through the thick
stone embrasures and the dusty panes of glass, the grey light of dusk
soon failed to penetrate.

In the large ground-floor room with its window opened upon the wide
promenade of the southern ramparts, a silence reigned which was
oppressive. The air was heavy with the fumes of the two tallow candles
on the table, which smoked persistently.

Against the walls a row of figures in dark blue uniforms with scarlet
facings, drab breeches and heavy riding boots, silent and immovable,
with fixed bayonets like so many automatons lining the room all round;
at some little distance from the central table and out of the immediate
circle of light, a small group composed of five soldiers in the same
blue and scarlet uniforms. One of these was Sergeant Hebert. In the
centre of this group two persons were sitting: a woman and an old man.

The Abbe Foucquet had been brought down from his prison cell a few
minutes ago, and told to watch what would go on around him, after which
he would be allowed to go to his old church of St. Joseph and ring the
Angelus once more before he and his family left Boulogne forever.

The Angelus would be the signal for the opening of all the prison gates
in the town. Everyone to-night could come and go as they pleased, and
having rung the Angelus, the abbe would be at liberty to join Francois
and Felicite and their old mother, his sister, outside the purlieus of
the town.

The Abbe Foucquet did not quite understand all this, which was very
rapidly and roughly explained to him. It was such a very little while
ago that he had expected to see the innocent children mounting up those
awful steps which lead to the guillotine, whilst he himself was looking
death quite near in the face, that all this talk of amnesty and of
pardon had not quite fully reached his brain.

But he was quite content that it had all been ordained by le bon Dieu,
and