Clementina

When the horse galloped up to the door, the Princess turned on her side

and went to sleep. In the common-room below Gaydon and Wogan were

smoking a pipe of tobacco over the fire. Both men rose on the instant;

Wogan stealthily opened the door an inch or so and looked down the

passage. Gaydon raised a corner of the blind and peered through the

window. The two remaining members of the party, Misset and O'Toole, who

as lackeys had served the supper of the Princess, were now eating their

own. When the Princess turned over on her side, and Wogan stepped on

tiptoe to the door and Gaydon peeped through the window, Misset laid

down his knife and fork, and drawing a flask from his pocket emptied its

contents into an earthenware water-jug which stood upon the table.

O'Toole, for his part, simply continued to eat.

"He is getting off his horse," said Gaydon.

"Has he ridden hard, do you think?" asked Misset.

"He looks in a mighty ill-humour."

O'Toole looked up from his plate, and became gradually aware that

something was occurring. Before he could speak, however, Gaydon dropped

the blind.

"He is coming in. It will never do for him to find the four of us

together. He may not be the courier from Innspruck; on the other hand,

he may, and seeing the four of us he will ask questions of the landlord.

Seeing no more than two, he will very likely ask none."

O'Toole began to understand. He understood, at all events, that for him

there was to be no more supper. If two were to make themselves scarce,

he knew that he would be one of the two.

"Very well," said he, heaving a sigh which made the glasses on the table

dance, and laying his napkin down he got up. To his surprise, however,

he was bidden to stay.

"Gaydon and I will go," said Wogan. "Jack will find out the fellow's

business."

Misset nodded his head, took up his knife and fork again. He leaned

across the table to O'Toole as the others stepped out of the room.

"You speak only French, Lucius. You come from Savoy." He had no time to

say more, for the new-comer stamped blustering down the passage and

flung into the room. The man, as Gaydon had remarked, was in a mighty

ill-humour; his clothes and his face were splashed with mud, and he

seemed, moreover, in the last stage of exhaustion. For though he bawled

for the landlord it was in a weak, hoarse voice, which did not reach

beyond the door.