.
The rest of the afternoon and a part of the night, the proprietor kept receiving news from the Keeper after his visits to the castle.

The General and numerous officers were now occupying the rooms.

Not a single door was locked, all having been opened with blows of the axe or gun.
Many things had completely disappeared; the man did not know exactly how, but they had vanished--perhaps destroyed, or perhaps carried off by those who were coming and going.

The chief with the banded sleeve was going from room to room examining everything, dictating in German to a soldier who was writing down his orders.

Meanwhile the General and his staff were in the dining room drinking heavily, consulting the maps spread out on the floor, and ordering the Warden to go down into the vaults for the very best wines.
By nightfall, an onward movement was noticeable in the human tide that had been overflowing the fields as far as the eye could reach.