CHAPTER XXI.
IF LOVE WERE ALL.
It was night, and I was in the cell wherein the king had lain in the castle of Zenda. The great pipe that Rupert of Hentzau had nicknamed "Jacob's ladder" was gone, and the lights in the room across the moat twinkled in the darkness. All was still; the din and clash of strife were gone. I had spent the day hidden in the forest from the time when Fritz had led me off, leaving Sapt with the princess. Under cover of dusk, muffled up, I had been brought to the castle and lodged where I now lay. Though three men had died there—two of them by my hand—I was not troubled by ghosts. I had thrown myself on a pallet by the window, and was looking out on the black water; Johann, the keeper, still pale from his wound, but not much hurt besides, had brought me supper. He told me that the king was doing well, that he
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