Tullis was comparing notes with Truxton
King in the room beneath the armourer's shop; Count Marlanx was hiding
in the trader's inn outside the northern gates; the abductors themselves
were scattered about the city, laughing triumphantly over the success of
the ruse that had drawn the well-feared American away on a wild-goose
chase to the distant passes of Dawsbergen. More than that: at five
o'clock in the afternoon a second detachment of soldiers left the city
for the scene of the riots in the construction camps, twenty miles away.

Surely the well-laid plans of the Iron Count were being skilfully
carried out!

All afternoon and evening men straggled in from the hills and
surrounding country, apparently loth to miss the early excitement
attending the ceremonies on the following day. Sullen strikers from the
camps came down, cursing the company but drinking noisy toasts to the
railroad and its future. The city by night swarmed with revelling
thousands; the bands were playing, the crowds were singing, and mobs
were drinking and carousing in the lower end. The cold, drizzling rain
that began to blow across the city at ten o'clock did little toward
checking the hilarity of the revellers. Honest citizens went to bed
early, leaving the streets to the strangers from the hills and the
river-lands. Not one dreamed of the ugly tragedy that was drawing to a
climax as he slept the sleep of the just, the secure, the
conscience-free.

At three o'clock in the morning word flew from brothel to brothel, from
lodging house to lodging house, in all parts of the slumbering city; a
thousand men crept out into the streets after the storm, all animated
by one impulse, all obeying a single fierce injunction.

They were to find and kill a tall American! They were to keep him or his
companion from getting in touch with the police authorities, or with the
Royal Castle, no matter what the cost!

The streets were soon alive with these alert, skulking minions. Every
approach to the points of danger was guarded by desperate, heavily armed
scoundrels who would not have hesitated an instant if it came to their
hands to kill Truxton King, the man with all their dearest secrets in
his grasp. In dark doorways lounged these apparently couchless
strangers; in areaways and alleys, on doorsteps they found shelter; in
the main streets and the side streets they roamed. All the time they had
an eager, evil eye out for a tall American and a slender girl!