CHAPTER II
THE INN OF THE WINGED GOD
It was drawing toward the evening of the third day following, when Colonel O'Rourke rounded an elbow in the road and came, simultaneously, into view of the Inn of the Winged God, and to a stop.
He was weary and footsore. He was, moreover, thirsty. Behind him the road stretched long, and white, and hot, and straight as any string across the Department of the Meurthe-et-Moselle, back to Longwy, whence he had come afoot.
For, in consideration of the temper of Prince Georges de Lützelburg, Chambret and O'Rourke had agreed that it would be the part of prudence for the Irishman to enter the duchy as unobtrusively as possible; and in his light tweeds, with the dust of the road white upon his shoes and like a film upon his clothes, O'Rourke might well have passed for an English milord upon a walking tour.
To the seeing eye, perhaps, there was about the Irishman a devil-may-care swing, a free carelessness in the way he put his best foot forward, a fine spirit in the twirl of his walking stick, that was hardly to be considered characteristic of that solemn person, the Englishman, plugging stolidly forward upon his walking tour as upon a penance self-imposed. But the similitude was sufficient to impose upon the peasantry of Lutzelburg; and should suffice, barring accidents.
O'Rourke paused, I say, looking forward to the inn, and then about him, considering the lay of the land. To the
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