We shall get drummed out of the barracks if we don't mind our etiquette." At this they hesitated; and Edouard himself thought, on the whole, it would be better to go and hammer at the front door.
Now while they hesitated, a soft delicious harmony of female voices suddenly rose, and seemed to come and run round the walls.

The men looked at one another in astonishment; for the effect was magical.

The staircase being enclosed on all sides with stone walls and floored with stone, they were like flies inside a violoncello; the voices rang above, below, and on every side of the vibrating walls.

In some epochs spirits as hardy as Raynal's, and wits as quick as Riviere's, would have fled then and there to the nearest public, and told over cups how they had heard the dames of Beaurepaire, long since dead, holding their revel, and the conscious old devil's nest of a chateau quivering to the ghostly strains.
But this was an incredulous age.

They listened, and listened, and decided the sounds came from up-stairs.
"Let us mount, and surprise these singing witches," said Edouard.
"Surprise them! what for?
It is not the enemy--for once.