Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/274

 So it seemed to me. We took it as an indication of the lot that would be ours if we were captured. In fact, however, as we learned subsequently, the executions began only a few days later. What we had heard was probably some shots fired in cleaning guns.

Toward three o'clock a great ado began in the shed below. The cavalrymen were evidently preparing for departure; but they had hardly gone when another troop took possession of the premises. We concluded from the conversations overheard that it was a troop of Hussars. Toward evening a large crowd of people seemed to gather below, and we distinguished among them also women's voices. Then the trumpeters began to play waltzes and the merry company to dance. This was by no means disagreeable to us, for we expected that after such a frolic, which could scarcely pass off without some drink, our Hussars would sleep all the better. But before nine o'clock the crowd dispersed, and all would have been quiet had not one of the Hussars held back on the spot a Rastatt maiden. The couple stood or sat immediately under our hiding place, and we could understand every word they exchanged. The conversation was of a very sentimental character. He assured her that she was charming; that she had inflamed his heart when she first looked at him, and that he loved her tenderly. She answered he should not trouble her with his bad jests. But he may have observed that she really did not want to be left untroubled, and so he continued to vary the theme in all sorts of bold and flowery figures of speech. At last she seemed to be really inclined to believe all he told her. We should certainly have laughed had we dared. But when this otherwise interesting conversation would not come to an end, I began to be a little anxious lest it last until midnight, and so this Hussar love might interfere seriously with our plans. I felt,