All was still; the din and clash of strife
were gone. I had spent the day hidden in the forest, from the time when
Fritz had led me off, leaving Sapt with the princess. Under cover of
dusk, muffled up, I had been brought to the Castle and lodged where I
now lay. Though three men had died there--two of them by my hand--I was
not troubled by ghosts. I had thrown myself on a pallet by the window,
and was looking out on the black water; Johann, the keeper, still pale
from his wound, but not much hurt besides, had brought me supper. He
told me that the King was doing well, that he had seen the princess;
that she and he, Sapt and Fritz, had been long together. Marshal
Strakencz was gone to Strelsau; Black Michael lay in his coffin, and
Antoinette de Mauban watched by him; had I not heard, from the chapel,
priests singing mass for him?
Outside there were strange rumours afloat. Some said that the prisoner
of Zenda was dead; some, that he had vanished yet alive; some, that he
was a friend who had served the King well in some adventure in England;
others, that he had discovered the Duke's plots, and had therefore been
kidnapped by him. One or two shrewd fellows shook their heads and said
only that they would say nothing, but they had suspicions that more was
to be known than was known, if Colonel Sapt would tell all he knew.
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