Old Bouvet was waiting in the passage when I entered, and he asked me whether we might not crack a bottle of wine together.  ’My faith, we must not be long,’ said he.  ’There are ten thousand of Theilmann’s Prussians in the woods up yonder.’

‘Where is the wine?’ I asked.

‘Ah, you may trust two hussars to find where the wine is,’ said he, and taking a candle in his hand, he led the way down the stone stairs into the kitchen.

When we got there we found another door, which opened on to a winding stair with the cellar at the bottom.  The Cossacks had been there before us, as was easily seen by the broken bottles littered all over it.  However, the Mayor was a bon-vivant, and I do not wish to have a better set of bins to pick from.  Chambertin, Graves, Alicant, white wine and red, sparkling and still, they lay in pyramids peeping coyly out of sawdust.  Old Bouvet stood with his candle looking here and peeping there, purring in his throat like a cat before a milk-pail.  He had picked upon a Burgundy at last, and had his hand outstretched to the bottle when there came a roar of musketry from above us, a rush of feet, and such a yelping and screaming as I have never listened to.  The Prussians were upon us!

Bouvet is a brave man:  I will say that for him.  He flashed out his sword and away he clattered up the stone steps, his spurs clinking as he ran.  I followed him, but just as we came out into the kitchen passage a tremendous shout told us that the house had been recaptured.

‘It is all over,’ I cried, grasping at Bouvet’s sleeve.

‘There is one more to die,’ he shouted, and away he went like a madman up the second stair.  In effect, I should have gone to my death also had I been in his place, for he had done very wrong in not throwing out his scouts to warn him if the Germans advanced upon him.  For an instant I was about to rush up with him, and then I bethought myself that, after all, I had my own mission to think of, and that if I were taken the important letter of the Emperor would be sacrificed.  I let Bouvet die alone, therefore, and I went down into the cellar again, closing the door behind me.

Well, it was not a very rosy prospect down there either.  Bouvet had dropped the candle when the alarm came, and I, pawing about in the darkness, could find nothing but broken bottles.  At last I came upon the candle, which had rolled under the curve of a cask, but, try as I would with my tinderbox, I could not light it.  The reason was that the wick had been wet in a puddle of wine, so suspecting that this might be the case, I cut the end off with my sword.  Then I found that it lighted easily enough.  But what to do I could not imagine.  The scoundrels upstairs were shouting themselves hoarse, several hundred of them from the sound, and it was clear that some of them would soon want to moisten their throats.  There would be an end to a dashing soldier, and of the mission and of the medal.  I thought of my