We stayed in that taverne and in the small living room behind it, and in the small high-walled courtyard behind the living room, all that afternoon and that evening and that night, being visited at intervals by either the lieutenant or the sergeant, or both of them at once.  We dined lightly on soldiers’ bread and some of the prince’s wine—­ furnished by Rosenthal—­and for dessert we had some shelled almonds and half a cake of chocolate—­furnished by ourselves; also drinks of pale native brandy from the bar.

During the evening we received several bulletins regarding the mythical automobile.  Invariably Mittendorfer was desolated to be compelled to report that there had been another slight delay.  We knew he was desolated, because he said he was.  During the evening, also, we met all the regular members of the household living under that much-disturbed roof.  There was the husband, a big lubberly Fleming who apparently did not count for much in the economic and domestic scheme of the establishment; his wife, a large, commanding woman who ran the business and the house as well; his wife’s mother, an old sickly woman in her seventies; and his wife’s sister, a poor, palsied half-wit.

When the sister was a child, so we heard, she had been terribly frightened, so that to this day, still frightened, she crept about, a pale shadow, quivering all over pitiably at every sound.  She would stand behind a door for minutes shaking so that you could hear her knuckles knocking against the wall.  She seemed particularly to dread the sight of the German privates who came and went; and they, seeing this, were kind to her in a clumsy, awkward way.  Hourly, like a ghost she drifted in and out.

For a while it looked as though we should spend the night sitting up in chairs; but about ten o’clock three soldiers, led by Rosenthal and accompanied by the landlady, went out; and when they came back they brought some thick feather mattresses which had been commandeered from neighboring houses, we judged.  Also, through the goodness of his heart, Mittendorfer, who impressed us more and more as a strange compound of severity and softness, took pity on Gerbeaux and Stevens, and bringing them forth from that pestilential hole next door, he convoyed them in to stay overnight with us.  They told us that by now the air in the improvised prison was absolutely suffocating, what with the closeness, the fouled straw, the stale food and the proximity of so many dirty human bodies all packed into the kennel together.

Ten of us slept on the floor of that little grogshop—­the five of our party lying spoon-fashion on two mattresses, Gerbeaux and Stevens making seven, and three soldiers.  The soldiers relieved each other in two-hour spells, so that while two of them snored by the door the third sat in a chair in the middle of the room, with his rifle between his knees, and a shaded lamp and a clock on a table at his elbow.  Just before we turned in, Rosenthal, who had adopted a paternal tone to the three guards, each of whom was many years older than he, addressed them softly, saying: