r, as he drew near the trooper's door. "What a nest of suspicion
may be growing! The wasps may be breeding. A whisper may become an
ominous threat. Is not the danger even greater than it was before,
when I could place my hand on my foeman? The man must speak!--must!"

With a firm step the king's guest entered the chamber of the injured
soldier. Upon a narrow bed lay the trooper, his mustachios appearing
unusually red and fierce against his now yellow, washed-out complexion.
As the free baron drew near the couch a tall figure arose from the side
of the bed.

"How is your patient, doctor?" said the visitor, shortly.

"Low," returned the other, laconically. This person wore a black gown;
a pair of huge, broad-rimmed glasses rested on the bridge of a thin,
long nose, and in his claw-like fingers he held a vial, the contents of
which he stirred slowly. His aspect was that of living sorrow and
melancholy.

"Has he been conscious again?" asked the caller.

"He has e'en lain as you see him," replied the wearer of the black robe.

"Humph!" commented the free baron, attentively regarding the motionless
and silent figure.

"I urged upon him the impropriety of sending for you at the
festivities," resumed the man, sniffing at the vial, "but he became
excited, swore he would leave the bed and brain me with mine own pestle
if I ventured to hinder him. So I consented to convey his request."

"And when I arrived he was still as a log," supplemented the visitor,
gloomily.

"Alas, yes; although I tried to keep him up, giving him specifics and
carminatives and bleeding him once."

"Bleeding him!" cried the false duke, angrily, glowering upon the
impassive and woebegone countenance of the medical attendant. "As if
he had not bled enough from his hurts! Quack of an imposter! You have
killed him!"

"As for that," retorted the man in a sing-song voice, "no one can tell
whether a medicine be antidote or poison, unless as leechcraft and
chirurgery point out--"

"His days are numbered," quoth the free baron to himself, staring
downward. But as he spoke he imagined he saw the red mustachios move,
while one eye certainly glared with intelligent hatred upon the doctor
and turned with anxious solicitude upon his master. The latter
immediately knelt by the bedside and laid his hand upon the already
cold one of the soldier.

"Speak!" he said.

It was the command of an officer to a trooper, an authoritative
bidding, and