—'here hand the small trunk, and now away and unlash there behind.'
During all this scene, Delly had remained perfectly silent in her trembling and rustic alarm; while Isabel, by occasional cries to Pierre, had vainly besought some explanation. But though their complete ignorance of city life had caused Pierre's two companions to regard the scene thus far with too much trepidation; yet now, when in the obscurity of night, and in the heart of a strange town, Pierre handed them out of the coach into the naked street, and they saw their luggage piled so near the white light of a watch-house, the same ignorance, in some sort, reversed its effects on them; for they little fancied in what really untoward and wretched circumstances they first touched the flagging of the city.
As the coach lumbered off, and went rolling into the wide murkiness beyond, Pierre spoke to the officer.
'It is a rather strange accident, I confess, my friend, but strange accidents will sometimes happen.'
'In the best of families,' rejoined the other, a little ironically.
Now, I must not quarrel with this man, thought Pierre to himself, stung at the officer's tone. Then said, 'Is there any one in your—office?'
'No one as yet—not late enough.'
'Will you have the kindness, then, to house these ladies there for the present, while I make haste to provide them with better lodgment? Lead on, if you please.'
The man seemed to hesitate a moment, but finally acquiesced; and soon they passed under the white light, and entered a large, plain, and most forbidding-looking room, with hacked wooden benches and bunks ranged along the sides, and a railing before a desk in one corner. The permanent keeper of the place was quietly reading a paper by the long central double
