had seen the princess; that she and he, Sapt and Fritz had been long together. Marshal Strakencz was gone to Strelsau; Black Michael lay in his coffin, and Antoinette de Mauban watched by him. Had I not heard from the chapel priests singing Mass for him?
Outside there were strange rumors afloat. Some said that the prisoner of Zenda was dead; some, that he had vanished yet alive; some, that he was a friend who had served the king well in some adventure in England; others, that he had discovered the duke's plots, and had therefore been kidnaped by him. One or two shrewd fellows shook their heads and said only that they would say nothing, but they had suspicions that more was to be known than was known if Colonel Sapt would tell all he knew.
Thus Johann chattered till I sent him away and lay there alone, thinking, not of the future, but—as a man is wont to do when stirring things have happened to him—rehearsing the events of the past weeks, and wondering how strangely they had fallen out. And above me in the stillness of the
