The maire shrugged his shoulders at the disingenuous parenthesis.  It was, he knew, useless to protest.  For all he knew he might be signing his own death-warrant.  He studied the style a little more attentively.  “Mon Dieu, what French!” he said to himself; “‘etait,’ ‘seraient,’ ‘venait’!  What moods!  What tenses!  Monsieur le Capitaine,” he continued aloud, “if I had used such French in my exercises at the Lycee my instituteur would have said I deserved to be shot.  Pray allow me to make it a little more graceful.”  But the Prussian’s ignorance of French syntax was only equalled by his suspicion of it.  The maire’s irony merely irritated him and his coolness puzzled him.  “I give you thirty seconds to sign,” he said, as he took out his watch and the inevitable revolver.  The maire took up a needle-like pen, dipped it in the ink, and with a sigh wrote in fragile but firm characters “X——­ Y——.”  The officer called a corporal’s guard, and the maire, who had fasted since noon, was marched out of the room and thrust into a small closet upon the door of which were the letters “Cabinet.”  This, he reflected grimly, was certainly what in military language is called “close confinement.”  The soldiers accompanied him.  There was just room for him to stretch his weary body upon the stone floor; one soldier remained standing over him with fixed bayonet, the others took up their position outside.

Meanwhile a company of Landwehr had bivouacked in the square, four machine-guns had been placed so as to command the four avenues of approach, patrols had been sent out, sentries posted, all lights extinguished, and all doors ordered to be left open by the householders.  Billeting officers had gone from house to house, chalking upon the doors such legends as “Drei Maenner,” “6 Offiziere—­Eingang verboten,” and, on rare occasions “Gute Leute hier.”  The trembling inhabitants had been forced to wait on their uninvited guests as they clamoured noisily for wine and liqueurs.  All the civilians of military age, and many beyond it, had been rounded up and taken under guard to the church; their wives and daughters alone remained, and were the subject of menacing pleasantries.  So much the maire knew before he had returned from his errand.  As he lay in his dark cell he speculated painfully as to what might be happening in the homes of his fellow-townsmen.  He sat up once or twice to listen, until the toe of the sentry’s boot in his back reminded him of his irregularity.  Now and again a woman’s cry broke the silence of the night, but otherwise all was still.  He composed himself to sleep on the floor, reflecting that he must husband his strength and his nerves for what might lie ahead of him.  He was very tired and slept heavily in spite of his cold stone bed.  At the hour of one in the morning he was awakened by a kick, and he found himself staring at an electric torch which was being held to his face by a tall figure shrouded in darkness.  It was the captain.  He sat up and rubbed his eyes.