The landlord looked timidly at the officer, and begged to be allowed to retire and send up one of the wagoners.
Soon a lanky figure with a brown felt hat came lumbering up stairs, started at the sight of the merchant, and at last announced, with pretended cheerfulness, that there he was.
"Where are the wagons? where are the bills of lading?"
The wagons were in the court-yard. The bills were reluctantly produced from the dirty leather purse of the wagoner.
"You guarantee me that your load remains complete and undisturbed?" asked the merchant.
The felt hat ungraciously replied that he could do nothing of the kind. The horses had been unharnessed and hid in a secret stable, that they might not be confiscated by the government; as to the fate of the wagons, he could neither prevent nor ascertain it, and all responsibility ceased in troublous times like these.
"We are in a den of thieves," said the merchant to his escort; "I must request your assistance in bringing these people to reason."
Now bringing people to reason was just what the young Pole believed to be his speciality; so, with a smile, he took a pistol in one hand, and said aside to Anton, "Do as I, and have the goodness to follow me." Next he seized the wagoner by the throat, and dragged him down the stair. "Where is the landlord?" cried he, in the most formidable tone he could raise. "The dog of a landlord and a lantern!" The lantern being brought, he drove the whole pack--the strangers, the fat landlord, the captured wagoner, and all others assembled by the noise, before him into the court-yard. Arrived there, he placed himself and his prisoner in the centre of the circle, bestowed a few more injurious epithets upon the landlord, rapped the wagoner on the head with his pistol, and then courteously observed in French to the merchant, "This fellow's skull sounds remarkably hollow; what next do you require from the boobies?"
"Have the goodness to summon the wagoners."
"Then I will examine the freight of the wagons, if it be possible to do so in the dark."
"Every thing is possible," said the Pole, "if you like to take the trouble to search through the old canvas in the night. But I should be inclined to advise a bottle of Sauterne and a few hours' repose instead. In times like these, one should not lose an opportunity of refreshing one's self."