It was near dark of a January day when we rode at last into the
town of Dunkirk. We left our horses at the post, and found a guide
to Bazin's Inn, which lay beyond the walls. Night was quite
fallen, so that we were the last to leave that fortress, and heard
the doors of it close behind us as we passed the bridge. On the
other side there lay a lighted suburb, which we thridded for a
while, then turned into a dark lane, and presently found ourselves
wading in the night among deep sand where we could hear a bullering
of the sea. We travelled in this fashion for some while, following
our conductor mostly by the sound of his voice; and I had begun to
think he was perhaps misleading us, when we came to the top of a
small brae, and there appeared out of the darkness a dim light in a
window.
"Voila l'auberge a Bazin," says the guide.
Alan smacked his lips. "An unco lonely bit," said he, and I
thought by his tone he was not wholly pleased.
A little after, and we stood in the lower storey of that house,
which was all in the one apartment, with a stairs leading to the
chambers at the side, benches and tables by the wall, the cooking
fire at the one end of it, and shelves of bottles and the cellar-
trap at the other.
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