Le Marchant was not in the best of humours.  He chose to regard the old man’s hospitality with suspicion, and even went the length of casting doubts upon his piety.  But I put it down to the heat of the herb lotion, which had made his face like a full-blown red rose, and had doubtless got into his blood.

I was very sound asleep when a violent shaking of the arm woke me, and Le Marchant’s whisper in my ear—­“Carre, there’s something wrong.  Don’t speak!  Listen!”—­brought me all to myself in a moment, and I heard what he heard,—­the hushed movement of people in the outer room off which our bedroom opened, the soft creak of a loose board in the flooring.

“Outside the window a minute ago,” he murmured in my ear.

Then a sound reached us that there was no mistaking, the tiny click of the strap-ring of a musket against the barrel, and a peaceful miller has no need of muskets.

We had but a moment for thought.  I feared greatly that we were trapped, and felt the blame to myself.  There would be men outside the window, but more in the room, for they looked to catch us sleeping.  I had no doubt, in my own mind, that it was a pressgang, in which case their object was to take us, not to kill us.  And, thinking it over since, I have thought it possible that the treacherous old miller may have signalled them by a light in the top of the mill, which would be seen a very long way.

I peeped out of the window.  Three men with muskets and cutlasses stood there watching it.  We were trapped of a surety.  Carette and Sercq seemed to swing away out of sight, and visions of the routine and brutality of the King’s service loomed up very close in front.

We had no weapons except my sailor’s knife, which would be little use against muskets and cutlasses.  But there was a stout oak chair by the bedside, and at a pinch its legs might serve.

We could do nothing but wait to see what their move would be, and that waiting, with the gloomiest of prospects in front, was as long and dismal a time as any I have known.

It was just beginning to get light when a tap came on the door, and the voice of the villainous old miller—­

“Your breakfast is ready.  We should start in half an hour.”

“Hel-lo?” I asked, in as sleepy a fashion as I could make it.

He repeated his message, and Le Marchant, with his ear against the door, nodded confirmation of our fears.  The breakfast we were invited to consisted of muskets and cutlasses and hard blows.

It was Le Marchant’s very reasonable anger at this treacherous usage that saved us in a way we had not looked for.  But possibly there was in him some dim idea of chances of escape in what might follow.  Chance there was none if we walked into the next room or tried the window.

Our comfortable bed consisted of sweet soft hay inside the usual covering.  He suddenly ripped this open, tore out the hay in handfuls and flung it under the bedstead, then pulled out his flint and steel and set it ablaze.  The room was full of smoke in a moment, and we heard startled cries from the outer room.  Taking the stout oak chair by opposite legs we pulled till they parted, and we were armed.