About eight o'clock that same evening, twenty wagons, loaded alternately with hay and straw, left Froeschwiller by the road to Enashausen. Each one was driven by a man who, in accordance with the old saying that French was intended to be spoken to men, Italian to women, and German to horses, addressed his horses in a language marked by the strange oaths that Schiller put in the mouths of his Robbers. Once beyond Froeschwiller the wagons went silently along the highroad leading to the village of Enashausen, which bends straight back, by an angle, to Woerth. They stopped in the village only long enough for the drivers to take a drink at the door of the wine-shop, and then continued on their way.
When they were within a hundred feet of the town the first wagoner stopped his cart and went on alone to the gate. He was challenged by a sentinel before he had gone ten paces, to whom he replied: "I am bringing some wagons that have been ordered and am on my way to report."
The first sentinel let him pass, as did the second and the third. At the gate he slipped his paper through the wicket and waited. The wicket closed again, and in a moment the little side door opened and the sergeant in charge appeared.
"Is it you, my boy?"' he asked; "where are your wagons?"
"About a hundred feet off, sergeant."
It is needless to add that both question and answer were in German.
"Very well," said the sergeant, still in German, "I will[Pg 203] bring them in myself." And he went out, charging the man he left behind to be careful.
The sergeant and the wagoner passed the three lines of sentinels and reached the wagons which were waiting on the highroad. The sergeant glanced at them carelessly and ordered them to proceed. Wagons and wagoners started, and, led by the sergeant, passed the sentinels and entered the gate which closed behind them.
"Now," said the sergeant, "do you know the way to the barracks or shall I go with you?"
"No need of that," replied the chief wagoner; "we will take the wagons to the Golden Lion to-night in order to save trouble, and in the morning we will take the forage to the barracks."
"Very well," said the sergeant, re-entering the guard-house; "good-night, comrades."
"Good-night," replied the wagoner.
The Golden Lion was scarcely a hundred feet from the gate by which they had just entered. The chief wagoner rapped upon the glass, and as it was only ten o'clock the landlord appeared upon the threshold.
"Ah! is it you, Stephan?" he asked, glancing at the long line of wagons, which extended from his door almost to the Haguenau gate.
"Yes, Monsieur Bauer, myself," replied the chief wagoner.
"And all goes well?"
"Perfectly."
"No trouble in entering?"
"Not the slightest. And here?"
"We are ready."
"The house?"
"A match is all that is needed."
"Then we had better bring the carts into the courtyard. Our men must be stifling."
Fortunately the courtyard was large, and the twenty carts had no difficulty in entering. The great gate was[Pg 204] closed, and the landlord and the wagoner were alone. Then, at a given signal—three claps of the hand—a singular thing came to pass.
The bales of hay or straw in each wagon began to move. Then two heads appeared, followed by two bodies, and finally two men, dressed in the Prussian uniform, emerged. Then from each of the carts they took another uniform, which they gave the wagoners. Then, to crown the work, each soldier, standing in the wagon, armed himself with a musket, and took out a third for the wagoner. Thus, when nine o'clock sounded, Stephan, clad as a Prussian sergeant, had under his orders the sixty resolute German-speaking men for whom he had asked Pichegru. They went directly to the stable, where the door was shut after them when they had received the order to load their muskets, which had been left unloaded for fear of accidents in the wagons.
Then Bauer and Stephan went out arm in arm. They went to the house to which the latter had referred when they met; it stood in the highest part of the town, as far as possible from the Haguenau gate, and not a hundred feet from the powder-magazine. The house, which resembled a Swiss chalet, was built entirely of wood. Bauer showed Stephan a room filled with combustible matter and resinous wood.
"At what time shall I fire the house?" asked Bauer, as simply as if he had been speaking of the............