United States or Syria ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Again, a few days later about a dozen fellows were watching a party of Germans, under a Feldwebel Pohlman, digging up an old tunnel which had fallen in near the wire. Everything was quiet and Pohlman was even talking naturally with one of our number, when I noticed him turn and speak a few words to the sergeant of the guard, who turned and entered the guardroom, evidently in a hurry.
Then he clung to the wall of the guardroom, stretched himself out to his full height, and glued himself to the window and the crevices of the door, eagerly examining what they were doing. He saw a confined stuffy room, dirty, like all guardrooms in the world, with bespitten floor, and walls as greasy and stained as though they had been trodden and rolled upon.
The young lawyer himself had cried out twice, "Madame! madame!" in his horror, so much did he fear finding himself in the wrong. The Abbe Carlos Herrera, half fainting, sank on a chair in the guardroom. "Poor man!" said the Baroness. "Can he be a criminal?" The words, though spoken low to the young advocate, could be heard by all, for the silence of death reigned in that terrible guardroom.
A crenellated squat gateway faced me with a carved shield of stone above the open gloom. A young smooth-faced mulatto, in some sort of dirty uniform, but wearing new straw slippers with blue silk rosettes over his naked feet, lounged cross-legged at the door of a kind of guardroom.
It was bitterly cold and, on passing through every village, I was made to remove my coat to show the inhabitants that I was a prisoner. I was quite pleased when we arrived at our destination. The commandant received me with a growl, and I was taken to the guardroom, where the same Hun N.C.O. casually informed me that I was to be shot. In an unconvincing way I told myself this was nonsense.
We went directly from the station to the Castle, a grand mass of ancient and modern buildings, towers, and turrets, and parapets all solidly but elegantly built, of dark gray stone. We entered through a lofty gateway, into the court-yard, from thence into a sort of guardroom, where we recorded our names in a book; and then were conducted up a great marble staircase, to the state apartments.
"You know who we are two of the royal pages." "Can't pass," said the man sternly. "But we must," said Frank, in an agonised whisper. "Here, take this." "Can't pass," said the man; "'gainst orders. You must come to the guardroom." But he took the coin Frank handed to him, and slipped it into his pocket. "We want to go to the meeting the fight," whispered Andrew now.
They were at once divided into parties in accordance with the vacancies in the various prisons. Only four were left behind. These were taken to a guardroom until allotted to the various wards. One by one they were taken out, Godfrey being the last to be summoned. He was conducted to a room in which several convicts were seated writing; through this a long passage led to the governor's room.
The three passed through the deserted corridors of the sleeping castle, taking a route at Barney's suggestion that led them to the stable courtyard without necessitating traversing the main corridors or the great hall or the guardroom, in all of which there still were Austrian and Blentz soldiers, whose duties or pleasures had kept them from their blankets.
As they drew him back, terribly wounded, into the guardroom, De Varicourt and Durepaire took his place. De Varicourt was soon slain, but Durepaire, a man of prodigious strength and prowess, held the assassins at bay for some time, till he too fell, reduced to helplessness by a score of deep wounds; when he, in his turn, was replaced by Miomandre.
Word Of The Day