ff your boots. But, pardon me, your four friends
behind appear in spite of what I have said to be thrusting you forward.
I beg you to remain on the step on which you stand. For if you mount one
more, you will put me to the inconvenience of drawing my sword."

Wogan leaned back idly against the wall. The Princess should now be on
the road and past the inn--unless perhaps Whittington was at watch
beneath the windows. That did not seem likely, however. Whittington
would work in the dark and not risk detection. The leader of the four
had stepped back at Wogan's words, but he said very bravely,--

"I warn you to use no violence to officers in discharge of their duty.
We hold a warrant for your arrest."

"Indeed?" said Wogan, with a great show of surprise. "I cannot bring
myself to believe it. On what counts?"

"Firstly, in that you stole away her Highness the Princess Clementina
from the Emperor's guardianship on the night of the 27th of April at
Innspruck."

"Did I indeed do that?" said Wogan, carelessly. "Upon my word, this
cloak of mine is frayed. I had not noticed it;" and he picked at the
fringe of his cloak with some annoyance.

"In the second place, you did kill and put to death, at a wayside inn
outside Stuttgart, one Anton Gans, servant to the Countess of Berg."

Wogan smiled amicably.

"I should be given a medal for that with a most beautiful ribbon of
salmon colour, I fancy, salmon or aquamarine. Which would look best, do
you think, on a coat of black velvet? I wear black velvet, as your
relations will too, my friend, if you forget which step your foot is on.
Shall we say salmon colour for the ribbon? The servant was a noxious
fellow. We will."

The leader of the four, who had set his foot on the forbidden step,
withdrew it quickly. Wogan continued in the same quiet voice,--

"You say you have a warrant?" And a voice very different from his
leader's--a voice loud and decisive, which came from the last of the
four--answered him,--

"We have. The Emperor's warrant."

"And how comes it," asked Wogan, "that the Emperor's warrant runs in
Venice?"

"Because the Emperor's arm strikes in Venice," cried the hindermost
again, and he pushed past the man in front of him.

"That we have yet to see," cried Wogan, and his sword flashed naked in
his hand. At the same moment the man who had spoken drew a pistol and
fired. He fired in a hurry; the bullet cut a groove in the rail of the
stair and flattened itself a