"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 against the passage wall.
"The Emperor's arm shakes, it seems," said Wogan, with a laugh. The
leader of the party, thrust forward by those behind him, was lifted to
the forbidden step.
"I warned you," cried Wogan, and his sword darted out. But whether from
design or accident, the man uttered a cry and stumbled forward on his
face. Wogan's sword flashed over his shoulder, and its point sank into
the throat of the soldier behind him. That second soldier fell back,
with the blood spurting from his wound, upon the man with the smoking
pistol, who thrust him aside with an oath.
"Make room," he cried, and lunged over the fallen leader.