I replied, with some impatience, that he had just said that he had a room; adding, that if I was not in it and comfortably settled before five minutes were up I would know the reason. I thought that this would settle the matter, whatever maggot had got into the man's head; and, in a way, it did so, for he begged my pardon hastily, and made way for me to enter, calling, at the same time, to a lad who was standing by, to attend to the horses. But when we were inside the door, instead of showing me through the kitchen to my room, he muttered something, and hurried away; leaving me to wonder what was amiss with him, and why the loungers outside, who had listened with all their ears to our conversation, had come in after us as far as they dared, and were regarding us with an odd mixture of suspicion and amusement. The landlord remained long away, and seemed, from sounds that came to my ears, to be talking with someone in a distant room. At length, however, he returned, bearing a candle and followed by a serving-man. I asked him roughly why he had been so long, and began to rate him; but he took the words out of my mouth by his humility, and going before me through the kitchen--where his wife and two or three maids who were about the fire stopped to look at us, with the basting spoons in their hands--he opened a door which led again into the outer air. "It is across the yard," he said apologetically, as he went before, and opening a second door, stood aside for us to enter. "But it is a good room, and, if you please, a fire shall be lighted. The shutters are closed," he continued, as we passed him, Maignan and La Trape carrying my baggage, "but they shall be opened. Hallo! Pierre! Pierre, there! Open these shut--" On the word his voice rose--and broke; and in a moment the door, through which we had all passed unsuspecting, fell to with a crash behind us. Before we could move we heard the bars drop across it. A little before, La Trape had taken a candle from someone's hand to light me the better; and therefore we were not in darkness. But the light this gave only served to impress on us what the falling bars and the rising sound of voices outside had already told us--that we were outwitted! We were prisoners. The room in which we stood, looking foolishly at one another, was a great barn-like chamber, with small windows high in the unplaistered walls. A long board set on trestles, and two or three stools placed round it--on the occasion, perhaps, of some recent festivity--had for a moment deceived us, and played the landlord's game. In the first shock of the discovery, hearing the bars drop home, we stood gaping, and wondering what it meant. Then Maignan, with an oath, sprang to the door and tried it--fruitlessly. I joined him more at my leisure, and raising my voice, asked angrily what this folly meant. "Open the door there! Do you hear, landlord?" I cried. No one moved, though Maignan continued to rattle the door furiously.