d
powerful skull; and he had a huge black moustache like the horns of a
bison. Such a substantial head is generally based on a bull neck; but
this was hidden by a big coloured scarf, swathed round up the man's ears
and falling in front inside his jacket like a sort of fancy waistcoat.
It was a scarf of strong dead colours, dark red and old gold and purple,
probably of Oriental fabrication. Altogether the man had something a
shade barbaric about him; more like a Hungarian squire than an ordinary
French officer. His French, however, was obviously that of a native;
and his French patriotism was so impulsive as to be slightly absurd.
His first act when he burst out of the archway was to call in a clarion
voice down the street: "Are there any Frenchmen here?" as if he were
calling for Christians in Mecca.

Armagnac and Brun instantly stood up; but they were too late. Men
were already running from the street corners; there was a small but
ever-clustering crowd. With the prompt French instinct for the politics
of the street, the man with the black moustache had already run across
to a corner of the cafe, sprung on one of the tables, and seizing a
branch of chestnut to steady himself, shouted as Camille Desmoulins once
shouted when he scattered the oak-leaves among the populace.

"Frenchmen!" he volleyed; "I cannot speak! God help me, that is why I
am speaking! The fellows in their filthy parliaments who learn to
speak also learn to be silent--silent as that spy cowering in the house
opposite! Silent as he is when I beat on his bedroom door! Silent as he
is now, though he hears my voice across this street and shakes where he
sits! Oh, they can be silent eloquently--the politicians! But the time
has come when we that cannot speak must speak. You are betrayed to the
Prussians. Betrayed at this moment. Betrayed by that man. I am Jules
Dubosc, Colonel of Artillery, Belfort. We caught a German spy in the
Vosges yesterday, and a paper was found on him--a paper I hold in my
hand. Oh, they tried to hush it up; but I took it direct to the man who
wrote it--the man in that house! It is in his hand. It is signed with
his initials. It is a direction for finding the secret of this new
Noiseless Powder. Hirsch invented it; Hirsch wrote this note about it.
This note is in German, and was found in a German's pocket. 'Tell the
man the formula for powder is in grey envelope in first drawer to the
left of Secretary's desk, War Office, in red ink