Chapter 3

III

THE WATCH

She went out to caution the servants to a strict watch, armed to
the teeth, before the gate all night long, and she crossed the
deserted garden. Under the veranda the schwitzar was spreading a
mattress for Ermolai. She asked him if he had seen the young
Frenchman anywhere, and after the answer, could only say to herself,
"Where is he, then?" Where had Rouletabille gone? The general,
whom she had carried up to his room on her back, without any help,
and had helped into bed without assistance, was disturbed by this
singular disappearance. Had someone already carried off "their"
Rouletabille? Their friends were gone and the orderlies had taken
leave without being able to say where this boy of a journalist had
gone. But it would be foolish to worry about the disappearance of
a Journalist, they had said. That kind of man - these journalists
- came, went, arrived when one least expected them, and quitted
their company - even the highest society - without formality. It
was what they called in France "leaving English fashion." However,
it appeared it was not meant to be impolite. Perhaps he had gone
to telegraph. A journalist had to keep in touch with the telegraph
at all hours. Poor Matrena Petrovna roamed the solitary garden in
tumult of heart. There was the light in the general's window on
the first floor. There were lights in the basement from the
kitchens. There was a light on the ground-floor near the
sitting-room, from Natacha's chamber window. Ah, the night was
hard to bear. And this night the shadows weighed heavier than ever
on the valiant breast of Matrena. As she breathed she felt as
though she lifted all the weight of the threatening night. She
examined everything - everything. All was shut tight, was perfectly
secure, and there was no one within excepting people she was
absolutely sure of - but whom, all the same, she did not allow to
go anywhere in the house excepting where their work called them.
Each in his place. That made things surer. She wished each one
could remain fixed like the porcelain statues of men out on the
lawn. Even as she thought it, here at her feet, right at her very
feet, a shadow of one of the porcelain men moved, stretched itself
out, rose to its knees, grasped her skirt and spoke in the voice
of Rouletabille. Ah, good! it was Rouletabille. "Himself, dear
madame; himself."

"Why is Ermolai in the veranda? Send him back to the kitchens and
tell the schwitzar to go to bed. The servants are enough for an
ordinary guard outside. Then you go in at once, shut the door,
and don't concern yourself about me, dear madame. Good-night."

Rouletabille had resumed, in the shadows, among the other porcelain
figures, his pose of a porcelain