“How can you possibly know that to be true, Scott?”

Then John told the story of the register, and of the successive writing of the names.  Cotton heard him, too, and his face was very grave.

“It’s a pity Bougainville couldn’t have come earlier,” he said.  “We might not only have saved Mademoiselle Julie but have captured this Prince of Auersperg as well.  Then we should indeed have had a prize.  But the wireless could not talk through all the storm and we had no warning of the German movement until the snowfall died down.”

“What are we going to do?” asked John.

“We’ll stay on the site of Chastel at least until morning, which can’t be far away.”

John looked at his watch.

“It will be daylight in two hours,” he said.

“Oh, by the way,” exclaimed Carstairs, “what became of Weber?”

“We were making our escape in Mademoiselle Lannes’ automobile when we ran into a detachment of Germans.  Our car was riddled; we both dodged for shelter and that was the last I saw of him.”

“He escaped.  I wager a pound to a shilling on it.  The Alsatian not only has borrowed the nine lives of a cat, but he has nine original ones of his own.”

“I feel sure, like you, Carstairs, that he has escaped and I certainly hope so.  He’s a clever man who has the faculty of turning up at the right time.”

“It promises to be a clear dawn,” said Wharton.  “You may not believe it, Carstairs, but I’m a fine weather prophet in my own country, and if I can do so well there I ought at least to do as well with the low-grade weather supplied by an inferior continent like Europe.”

“It’s no wonder they call you a mad Yankee, Wharton.  Low-grade weather!  Have you any fog that can equal our London variety?”

“It’s quality, not quantity that counts with a superior, intellectual people such as we are.”

“Intellect!  It’s luck!  I don’t remember his name, but he was a discerning Frenchman, who said that a special Providence watched over drunken men and Americans.”

“A special Providence watches over only those who have superior merit.”

“I think,” said John, “that I’m bound to take a little rest, if Captain Colton will let me.”

“Oh, he’ll let you if you ask him,” said Carstairs.  “You’re a particular favorite of his, although I can’t understand why.  Wharton and I are much more deserving.  But you do look all played out, old fellow.”

John had sustained a sudden collapse.  Intense emotion and immense physical exertion, continued so long, could be endured no longer, and he felt as if he would fall in the snow.  But a portion of the victorious force was to remain at Chastel, and some tents had been pitched.  Captain Colton readily gave John permission to enter one of them and roll himself in the blankets.

It was still an hour of dawn, but the night was light.  Fires yet burned here and there in Chastel, where not a single building now stood unharmed, save the cathedral.  The mutter of the cannon came from the vast front both to east and to west.