shly.

"That is about the last thing to suit our purpose. Listen"--he glanced
out through the passage--"the gates won't be shut for an hour yet. It
will take you perhaps twenty minutes to fetch what is necessary. You
understand? Return here, and don't keep us waiting. Afterwards, should
the gates be shut, one of us will see you back to the town."

I bowed without a word and hurried back across the water meadow. Along
the river bank between the patrols the anglers still sat in their
patient row. And on the road to the north-west the tail of the second
brigade was winding slowly out of sight.

Once past the gate and through the streets, I walked more briskly,
paused at my shop door to fit the key in the lock, and was astonished
when the door fell open at the push of my hand.

Then in an instant I understood. The shop had been ransacked--by
that treacherous scoundrel Michu, of course. Bottles, herbs, shaving
apparatus all was topsy-turvy. Drawers stood half-open; the floor was
in a litter.

I had two consolations: the first that there were no incriminating
papers in the, house; the second that Michu had clearly paid me a
private visit before carrying his tale to headquarters. Otherwise the
door would have been sealed and the house under guard. I reflected
that the idiot would catch it hot for this unauthorised piece of work.
Stay! he might still be in the house rummaging the upper rooms. I
crept upstairs.

No, he was gone. He had left my case of instruments, too, after
breaking the lock and scattering them about the floor. I gathered them
together in haste, descended again, snatched up a roll of lint, and
pausing only at the door for a glance up and down the street, made my
escape post haste for the water meadow.

In the patio I found the two disputants standing much as I had left
them, the staff officer gently and methodically smoothing his horse's
crupper, the lieutenant with a watch in his hand.

"Good," said he, closing it with a snap, "seventeen minutes only. By
the way, do you happen to understand French?"

"A very little," said I.

"Because, as you alone are the witness of this our little difference,
it will be in order if I explain that I insulted this gentleman."

"Somewhat grossly," put in the staff officer.

"Somewhat grossly, in return for an insult put upon me--somewhat
grossly--in the presence of my company, two days ago, in the camp
above Penamacor, when I took the liberty to resent a message