Truxton King

King interrupted him. "I haven't the least doubt that you will kill me in the end. She may not be here to protect me after--after the assassination."

"She is prepared to die by the same bomb that slays the Prince," was all that Brutus would say in response to this, but King observed the sly look that went round amongst them. He knew then that they meant to kill him in the end.

Afterward, in his little room, he writhed in the agony of helplessness. The Prince, his court, the government--all were to be blasted to satisfy the end of this sickening conspiracy. Loraine! She, too, was doomed! He groaned aloud in his misery and awe.

Food and water came after that, but he ate and drank little, so depressed had he become. He sought for every means of escape that suggested itself to him. The walls, the floors, the doors, the stairway to the armourer's shop--all were impassable, so carefully was he guarded. From time to time he heard inklings of the plot which was to culminate on the fatal 26th; he did not get the details in particular, but he knew that the bomb was to be hurled at the Prince near the entrance to the plaza and that Marlanx's men were to sweep over the stricken city almost before the echo died away.

There was a telegraph instrument in the outer room. He could hear it ticking off its messages day and night, and could hear the discussion of reports as they came in or went out. It soon became clear to him that the wire connected the room with Marlanx's headquarters near Balak in Axphain, a branch instrument being stationed in the cave above the Witch's hut. He marvelled at the completeness of the great conspiracy; and marvelled more because it seemed to be absolutely unknown to the omnipresent Dangloss.

On his third night he heard the Committee discussing the failure of one of Marlanx's most cunning schemes. The news had come in over the wire and it created no small amount of chagrin among the Red conspirators. That one detail in their mighty plot should go contrary to expectations seemed to disturb them immeasurably. King was just beginning to realise the stupendous possibilities of the plot; he listened for every detail with a mind so fascinated by horror that it seemed hardly able to grasp the seriousness of his own position.

It seemed that Marlanx deemed it necessary--even imperative--to the welfare of the movement, that John Tullis should be disposed of summarily before the crucial chapter in their operations. Truxton heard the Committee discussing the fiasco that attended his first attempt to draw the brainy, influential American out of the arena. It was clear that Marlanx suspected Tullis of a deep admiration for his wife, the Countess Ingomede; he was prepared to play upon that admiration for the success of his efforts. The Countess disappeared on a recent night, leaving the court in extreme doubt as to her fate. Later a decoy telegram was sent by a Marlanx agent, informing Tullis that she had gone to Schloss Marlanx, never to return, but so shrewdly worded that he would believe that it had been sent by coercion, and that she was actually a prisoner in the hands of her own husband. Tullis was expected to follow her to the Castle, bent on rescue. As a matter of fact, the Countess was a prisoner in the hills near Balak, spirited away from her own garden by audacious agents of the Iron Count. Tullis was swift to fall into the trap, but, to the confusion of the arch-plotter, he was just as swift to avoid the consequences.