“How high up?” asked the general, surprised.

“I mean does this order which forbids the soldiers from robbing and plundering under pain of death, affect only the common private, or must the higher officers also obey it?”

“I would advise every one to do so,” cried Tottleben, with a harsh laugh.  “The order is for all.”

“Even the highest officers?”

“Not even the generals are excepted.”  “Then, sir,” said Gotzkowsky, drawing himself up and advancing a step toward the general, “I accuse before you an officer who has had the presumption to disobey your general order.  You forbid, under severe penalty, robbery and plundering, and yet he is intent on them.  You have strictly ordered the army to preserve discipline, and not to ill-treat nor abuse the defenceless, and yet a general is about to do it.”

“Who dares that?  Give me the name of this general!”

“It is General von Tottleben,” answered Gotzkowsky, quietly.

Count Tottleben stepped back and gazed at him in amazement.

Gotzkowsky did not lower his eyes, but met his flashing glance firmly.  “Are you beside yourself?” asked the general, after a long pause.  “Is your life such a burden to you that you are determined to lose it?”

“If my head were to fall, it would only be a confirmation of what I have asserted—­that General von Tottleben issues an order, and does not respect it himself; that while he forbids his soldiers to rob and steal, under penalty of death, even he commits those very offences.”

The excess of this boldness had the effect upon the general on which Gotzkowsky had calculated.  He had speculated somewhat on the leonine nature of Tottleben’s character.

The general, instead of annihilating his foolhardy antagonist, found pleasure in his presumption, and it flattered him that he was esteemed too magnanimous to revenge himself for a few words of insult.

“Look here, my friend, you are so outrageously bold that you make me laugh.  For the sake of its rarity, I will hear you out, and try to remain cool.  Speak on, then.  Accuse me—­but woe to you if I justify myself!  Fail not to prove what you say.”

“The proverb says, ’Small thieves are hung, while great ones go free,’” replied Gotzkowsky, shrugging his shoulders.  “You wish to prove the truth of this proverb.  The soldier who enters the house for theft and plunder, you condemn; but you acquit the general who devastates a whole town, and in the arrogance of his victory wishes to make himself, like Erostratos, immortal by incendiarism and arson.”

“Do not presume too much on my forbearance,” interrupted Tottleben, stretching his arm out threateningly toward the bold speaker.  “Erostratos was a violator of temples.”

“You are not less one!” cried Gotzkowsky; “you mean, with impious hand, to cast a firebrand into the holy temple of labor.  Erostratos only destroyed the temple of an imaginary deity; but you, sir, are worse—­you wish to destroy factories!”