The state dining-hall of the chateau was serving as the breakfast room of a French general and his numerous staff. If the uniforms worn had not indicated to what nation these soldiers belonged, the proof was surely in the fact that they jested and sang before breakfast. It takes a gay lot to be jolly before breakfast. After dinner anybody might have the notion to be merry. How Chateau Trouville had escaped destruction by the big guns of the Germans might be accounted for by the fact that the aforesaid big guns had been mostly employed, when not turned loose on the trenches, in silencing French barrier forts. As a German battery lieutenant remarked, “only forts really counted.”
However it was, this fine French country house had not even been scratched, as yet.
The chatter in the dining-hall was all Greek to Billy, though Henri and Reddy appeared to be much interested and amused by the lively conversation.
Reddy pointed out here and there a chasseur that he knew by name.
“What’s the matter with us having a little[96] breakfast ourselves?” suggested Henri. There was plenty to eat in the knapsacks.
Billy and Reddy had no protest to make on this proposition, but they found it thirsty work to swallow camp rations without even a sup of liquid.
It so happened that a foot soldier serving as waiter passed close to the wall, carrying a flagon filled with water. At the moment everybody in the hall stood up in attitude of salute. The general was just coming in to breakfast. The soldier set the flagon down near the panel; Henri pressed the knob, making the opening wide enough for Reddy to poke an arm through, and quick as a flash that expert young gentleman yanked the prize through the crack, which was instantly closed by Henri.
The boys could not see what the soldier did when he discovered his loss, but they imagined that he must have been considerably surprised by the mysterious disappearance of the flagon.
The boys had not had a wink of sleep for more than twenty-four hours, and with all their walking and the heavy work they had done at “point of rocks” they were completely fagged.
“Oh, for a good soft place on which to stretch, and some air that is decent to breathe,” murmured Billy with nodding head.
“The surest thing I know,” was Henri’s encouraging[97] words to the sleepy-head. “Come on, fellows.”
Further up the passage Henri pressed another knob in the wall, and the opening immediately created let in a veritable blaze of sunlight.
It was a small, narrow room on the other side of this panel, but spangled with mullioned or barred windows.
Off this room was another apartment, longer but no wider than the first. In this latter chamber stood a gilded bedstead under canopy.
“Here,” said Henri, “royalty was once upon a time concealed, when it was good for his princely health to be hidden.”
Billy was more intent on the project of testing the bed than listening to legends. He mussed up the rich covering to his liking and rolled like a............