ess, it shall be the
lady and the squire--and your friend the thief shall be no nearer than
the fountain. Do you promise?"

"Madam, in everything you are to command; you shall be captain, I am but
supercargo," answered Otto.

"Well, Heaven bring all safe to port!" she said. "It is not Friday!"

Something in her manner had puzzled Otto, had possibly touched him with
suspicion.

"Is it not strange," he remarked, "that I should choose my accomplice
from the other camp?"

"Fool!" she said. "But it is your only wisdom that you know your
friends." And suddenly, in the vantage of the deep window, she caught up
his hand and kissed it with a sort of passion. "Now go," she added, "go
at once."

He went, somewhat staggered, doubting in his heart that he was
over-bold. For in that moment she had flashed upon him like a jewel; and
even through the strong panoply of a previous love he had been conscious
of a shock. Next moment he had dismissed the fear.

Both Otto and the Countess retired early from the drawing-room, and the
Prince, after an elaborate feint, dismissed his valet, and went forth by
the private passage and the back postern in quest of the groom.

Once more the stable was in darkness, once more Otto employed the
talismanic knock, and once more the groom appeared and sickened with
terror.

"Good-evening, friend," said Otto pleasantly. "I want you to bring a
corn sack--empty this time--and to accompany me. We shall be gone all
night."

"Your Highness," groaned the man, "I have the charge of the small
stables. I am here alone."

"Come," said the Prince, "you are no such martinet in duty." And then
seeing that the man was shaking from head to foot, Otto laid a hand
upon his shoulder. "If I meant you harm," he said, "should I be here?"

The fellow became instantly reassured. He got the sack; and Otto led him
round by several paths and avenues, conversing pleasantly by the way,
and left him at last planted by a certain fountain where a goggle-eyed
Triton spouted intermittently into a rippling laver. Thence he proceeded
alone to where, in a round clearing, a copy of Gian Bologna's Mercury
stood tiptoe in the twilight of the stars. The night was warm and
windless. A shaving of new moon had lately arisen; but it was still too
small and too low down in heaven to contend with the immense host of
lesser luminaries; and the rough face of the earth was drenched with
starlight. Down one of the alleys, which widened as i