"And there is yours," he said. Then, opening a closet, he continued, "This closet you will have for yourself. No one will put anything in it that does not belong to you, and you must not put anything in any closet that is not yours. As your bundle is not large, I think it will answer. If you have anything that you value particularly, carry it about with you; that is the safest way. Not that you risk having it stolen, but you risk leaving it behind you when the order comes for a hurried departure, whether it be to advance or to retreat." "General," said the boy, ingenuously, "I had nothing precious except my father's letter to you, and you have that now." "Then kiss me and unpack your belongings; I must get back to my map." As he turned toward the table, he caught sight of two men talking in the corridor opposite his door. "Ah!" he said. "Come in, citizen Ballu; come in, citizen Dumont! I want you to meet a guest who has just arrived." And he pointed to Charles. Then, as they both looked at him without recognizing him, Pichegru continued: "My dear compatriots, thank this child; he sent you the warning which has kept your heads on your shoulders until to-day." "Charles!" they both cried at once, embracing him and pressing him to their hearts. "Our wives and our children shall know your name to love and bless it." While Charles was replying as best he could to this effusion, a young man entered, and, in excellent Latin, asked Pichegru whether he could grant him an interview of a quarter of an hour. Pichegru, much astonished by this greeting, replied in the same language that he was at his disposal. Opening the door of a smaller room, he signed to the stranger to enter it, and followed him: then, thinking that the man had something confidential to confide to him, he closed the door behind him. CHAPTER XIX THE SPY Pichegru threw a rapid and questioning glance at the new-comer; but sharp and piercing as it was, it failed to tell him to what nationality he belonged. His appearance was that of a man who has come a long distance, and has walked much of the way. He wore a fox-skin cap and a blouse made of goat-skin, secured at the waist by a leather belt; the sleeves of a striped woollen vest showed through the openings at the upper part of this blouse, of which the hairy side was turned in; and his long boots, of which the soles were in a bad state, came up to his knees. There was no hint of his nationality in all this. But his fair hair, his clear blue eye, firm even to fierceness, his flaxen mustache, his determined chin and broad jaws, convinced Pichegru that he belonged to one of the northern races. The young man suffered this examination in a silence which seemed to defy Pichegru's scrutiny. "Hungarian or Russian?" asked Pichegru in French. "Polish," replied the young man, laconically, in the same language. "An exile then?" asked Pichegru. "Worse than that!"