The man spoke in a low voice to the three others seated at the table with him.  “May I ask whither you were journeying when thus caught in the storm?” he asked in a more civil tone than he had hitherto used.

“Certainly you may.  We were in haste to get on to Gunzenhausen by morning, as a friend of ours has work ready for us there.  We did not expect this storm when we left Eichstadt just before the gates closed, and as the nights are short we thought we would push straight through.”

“You are woodmen, I see.”

“Ay, woodmen and charcoal burners.”

“You are not from this part, at least, judging from your tongue.”

“Nor, I fancy, are you,” Hector replied.

“No,” the other said.  “In times like these every one is liable to be driven from home either because the troops of one army or another have plundered and destroyed everything, or perhaps because he has been forced into the ranks.”

“That is just our case, and you will understand that in times like these, as you say, no one cares to answer questions on the part of strangers.  But we have no particular cause of concealment.  We have both been in the army, and, as you see, have left it, and have our reasons for wishing to travel at night, when there is no chance of falling in with troops whose officers might ask inconvenient questions.  As, thanks to our host and you, we are nearly wet through, we will thank him to get ready as quick as may be two flagons of hot beer, and if he has got a couple of eggs to beat up in each of them, so much the better.”

The landlord left the room, and a minute or two later the man who had spoken to Hector got up and went out.

“These men are up to no good,” Hector whispered to Paolo as they sat down on a bench at a table some little distance from that at which the other men were seated.  “I am sorry now that I asked for the liquor, it was necessary to order something.  I should not be surprised if they drug it.  Do you put yours to your lips, and then groan as if it hurt you too much to try to swallow, and leave it standing in front of you.  I will pretend to drink mine, and will manage to pour it away on the floor.  Presently do you lean forward on to the table and appear to fall asleep.  As I am in the corner, I will lean back and seem to go off also.  Unless I am greatly mistaken this is a regular thieves’ den.  Keep one hand on the butt of a pistol.  We will both keep awake for a time, and if nothing comes of it we will then watch by turns.  It is clear that they suspect that we are not what we seem.”

The men at the other table were talking together in low voices, and, listening intently, Hector could hear a murmur of voices in the room behind him.

“There were more than two voices there,” he whispered presently to Paolo.  The latter nodded, for he too had been listening.  Presently the landlord returned with the two flagons of hot beer, which were set down on the table before them.  The room was lighted only by a torch stuck in a cresset on the wall, and Hector had purposely seated himself as far from this as possible.  Paolo took up his mug, raised it to his lips, and then set it down again with a sudden cry.