would be solved at the château. And it was there he had arranged to meet his comrade, anyway. 

 He stopped and looked back at the devastated village. Already a light was blazing in one of the houses. It would soon be afire. He could do nothing then. The château called him. He broke into a run again, heavy-footed and tired out though he was. Around the château in the courtyard were dozens of wagons. His experienced glance told him that they were army wagons, containing provisions, arms, ammunition. Some of the covers had been raised to expose the contents. There was not a living man present, and scarcely a living horse. There had been some sort of a battle evidently, for the wagons were in all sorts of confusion and there were dead men and horses everywhere. He did not stop to examine them save to make sure that the dead men were French, proving that the convoy had come from Paris. He threaded his way among the wagons and finally reached the steps that led to the broad terrace upon which rose the château. 

 The main door was open. There were no soldiers about, which struck him as peculiar, almost terrifying. He went up the steps and across the terrace, and stopped before the building, almost stumbling over the bodies of two men whose uniforms were plainly Russian! He inspected them briefly and stepped toward the door of the entrance hall. It was open but dimly lighted, and the light wavered fitfully. The faint illumination came into the hall from a big broad open door upon the right, giving entrance to what had been the great room. Still keeping within the shadow, he moved carefully and noiselessly into the hall, until he could get a view of the room beyond. 

 A huge fire was burning in the enormous fireplace. The many tables with which the room had been furnished had been pushed together in the center, several tall candles pulled from the candelabra and fastened there by their own melted wax stood upon these tables and added their illumination to the fire-light. Several men in uniforms, two of them rough-coated Cossacks, and two whose dress showed clearly that they belonged to the Russian Imperial Guard, lay on the floor, bound and helpless. A stout, elderly man, in civilian garb, with a very red face and an angry look, his wig awry, was lashed to a chair. Between two ruffianly looking men, who held her firmly, stood a woman. 

 There were perhaps two dozen other men in the room, unkempt, savage, brutal, armed with all sorts of nondescript weapons from ancient pistols to fowling pieces, clubs and scythes. They were all in a state of great 

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