“In a small way,” I answered apologetically.

The lieutenant turned again to his companion.  “He might do for us; the sooner the better, unless—­”

“Unless,” interrupted the staff officer with cold politeness, “you prefer the apology you owe me.”

The lieutenant swung round again with a brusque laugh.  “Look here, have you your instruments about you?”

For answer I held up my bottle with the one absurd leech dormant at the bottom.  He laughed again just as harshly.

“That is about the last thing to suit our purpose.  Listen”—­he glanced out through the passage—­“the gates won’t be shut for an hour yet.  It will take you perhaps twenty minutes to fetch what is necessary.  You understand?  Return here, and don’t keep us waiting.  Afterwards, should the gates be shut, one of us will see you back to the town.”

I bowed without a word and hurried back across the water meadow.  Along the river bank between the patrols the anglers still sat in their patient row.  And on the road to the north-west the tail of the second brigade was winding slowly out of sight.

Once past the gate and through the streets, I walked more briskly, paused at my shop door to fit the key in the lock, and was astonished when the door fell open at the push of my hand.

Then in an instant I understood.  The shop had been ransacked—­by that treacherous scoundrel Michu, of course.  Bottles, herbs, shaving apparatus all was topsy-turvy.  Drawers stood half-open; the floor was in a litter.

I had two consolations:  the first that there were no incriminating papers in the, house; the second that Michu had clearly paid me a private visit before carrying his tale to headquarters.  Otherwise the door would have been sealed and the house under guard.  I reflected that the idiot would catch it hot for this unauthorised piece of work.  Stay! he might still be in the house rummaging the upper rooms.  I crept upstairs.

No, he was gone.  He had left my case of instruments, too, after breaking the lock and scattering them about the floor.  I gathered them together in haste, descended again, snatched up a roll of lint, and pausing only at the door for a glance up and down the street, made my escape post haste for the water meadow.

In the patio I found the two disputants standing much as I had left them, the staff officer gently and methodically smoothing his horse’s crupper, the lieutenant with a watch in his hand.

“Good,” said he, closing it with a snap, “seventeen minutes only.  By the way, do you happen to understand French?”

“A very little,” said I.

“Because, as you alone are the witness of this our little difference, it will be in order if I explain that I insulted this gentleman.”

“Somewhat grossly,” put in the staff officer.

“Somewhat grossly, in return for an insult put upon me—­somewhat grossly—­in the presence of my company, two days ago, in the camp above Penamacor, when I took the liberty to resent a message conveyed by him to my colonel—­as he alleges upon the authority of the marshal, the Duke of Ragusa.”