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When he had sat in his saddle some half-hour, taking note of

these things, Darnay found himself confronted by the same man in

authority, who directed the guard to open the barrier. Then he

delivered to the escort, drunk and sober, a receipt for the

escorted, and requested him to dismount. He did so, and the two

patriots, leading his tired horse, turned and rode away without

entering the city.

He accompanied his conductor into a guard-room, smelling of

common wine and tobacco, where certain soldiers and patriots,

asleep and awake, drunk and sober, and in various neutral states

between sleeping and waking, drunkenness and sobriety, were

standing and lying about. The light in the guard-house, half

derived from the waning oil-lamps of the night, and half from the

overcast day, was in a correspondingly uncertain condition. Some

registers were lying open on a desk, and an officer of a coarse,

dark aspect, presided over these.