The soldiers had finished eating, and were all six falling asleep as they sat round the table.  Every now and then a forehead fell with a thud on the board, and the man, awakened suddenly, sat upright again.

Berthine said to the officer: 

“Go and lie down, all of you, round the fire.  There’s lots of room for six.  I’m going up to my room with my mother.”

And the two women went upstairs.  They could be heard locking the door and walking about overhead for a time; then they were silent.

The Prussians lay down on the floor, with their feet to the fire and their heads resting on their rolled-up cloaks.  Soon all six snored loudly and uninterruptedly in six different keys.

They had been sleeping for some time when a shot rang out so loudly that it seemed directed against the very wall’s of the house.  The soldiers rose hastily.  Two-then three-more shots were fired.

The door opened hastily, and Berthine appeared, barefooted and only half dressed, with her candle in her hand and a scared look on her face.

“There are the French,” she stammered; “at least two hundred of them.  If they find you here they’ll burn the house down.  For God’s sake, hurry down into the cellar, and don’t make a ’sound, whatever you do.  If you make any noise we are lost.”

“We’ll go, we’ll go,” replied the terrified officer.  “Which is the way?”

The young woman hurriedly raised the small, square trap-door, and the six men disappeared one after another down the narrow, winding staircase, feeling their way as they went.

But as soon as the spike of the out of the last helmet was out of sight Berthine lowered the heavy oaken lid—­thick as a wall, hard as steel, furnished with the hinges and bolts of a prison cell—­shot the two heavy bolts, and began to laugh long and silently, possessed with a mad longing to dance above the heads of her prisoners.

They made no sound, inclosed in the cellar as in a strong-box, obtaining air only from a small, iron-barred vent-hole.

Berthine lighted her fire again, hung the pot over it, and prepared more soup, saying to herself: 

“Father will be tired to-night.”

Then she sat and waited.  The heavy pendulum of the clock swung to and fro with a monotonous tick.

Every now and then the young woman cast an impatient glance at the dial-a glance which seemed to say: 

“I wish he’d be quick!”

But soon there was a sound of voices beneath her feet.  Low, confused words reached her through the masonry which roofed the cellar.  The Prussians were beginning to suspect the trick she had played them, and presently the officer came up the narrow staircase, and knocked at the trap-door.

“Open the door!” he cried.

“What do you want?” she said, rising from her seat and approaching the cellarway.

“Open the door!”

“I won’t do any such thing!”