to his friends; but now I acknowledged that the brains, if not the arms,
of the conspiracy were his.

"Does the King know this?" I asked.

"I and my brother," answered Johann, "put up the pipe, under the orders
of my Lord of Hentzau. He was on guard that day, and the King asked my
lord what it meant. 'Faith,' he answered, with his airy laugh, 'it's a
new improvement on the ladder of Jacob, whereby, as you have read, sire,
men pass from the earth to heaven. We thought it not meet that your
Majesty should go, in case, sire, you must go, by the common route. So
we have made you a pretty private passage where the vulgar cannot stare
at you or incommode your passage. That, sire, is the meaning of
that pipe.' And he laughed and bowed, and prayed the King's leave to
replenish the King's glass--for the King was at supper. And the King,
though he is a brave man, as are all of his House, grew red and then
white as he looked on the pipe and at the merry devil who mocked him.
Ah, sir" (and the fellow shuddered), "it is not easy to sleep quiet in
the Castle of Zenda, for all of them would as soon cut a man's throat
as play a game at cards; and my Lord Rupert would choose it sooner for
a pastime than any other--ay, sooner than he would ruin a woman, though
that he loves also."

The man ceased, and I bade Fritz take him away and have him carefully
guarded; and, turning to him, I added:

"If anyone asks you if there is a prisoner in Zenda, you may answer
'Yes.' But if any asks who the prisoner is, do not answer. For all my
promises will not save you if any man here learns from you the truth as
to the prisoner of Zenda. I'll kill you like a dog if the thing be so
much as breathed within the house!"

Then, when he was gone, I looked at Sapt.

"It's a hard nut!" said I.

"So hard," said he, shaking his grizzled head, "that as I think, this
time next year is like to find you still King of Ruritania!" and he
broke out into curses on Michael's cunning.

I lay back on my pillows.

"There seems to me," I observed, "to be two ways by which the King can
come out of Zenda alive. One is by treachery in the duke's followers."

"You can leave that out," said Sapt.

"I hope not," I rejoined, "because the other I was about to mention
is--by a miracle from heaven!"

CHAPTER 14

A Night Outside the Castle

It would have surprised the good people of Ruritania to know of the
foregoing talk; for, according to the official report