“So you haven’t seen anything of her?”

“Not a sign.  I came here first, but not a soul was at the castle.  Nobody knows where she is.  I came here this time to throw them off the track, but I failed.  I had a close shave this noon.  I’ll light out to-morrow.  It isn’t safe in these parts.  It would be of no use to tell them that I do not know where the princess is.  They have connected me with her as they connect one link of a chain to another.  You can kill a German, but you can’t convince him.  How long have you been here?”

I did not reply at once.  “About ten days.”

“Ten days!” he echoed.  “What on earth has kept you in this ruin that long?”

“Rest,” said I, glibly.  “But I am going away to-morrow.  We’ll go together.  They will not know what to do with two of us.”

“Yes, they will.  You will be taken for my accomplice. . . .  Hark!  What’s that?” holding his hand to his ear.  “Horses.  Come, I’m not going to take any risk.”

So we made a run for the inn.  In the twilight haze we could see two horsemen coming along the highway at a brisk gallop.

“By the Lord Harry!” Hillars cried excitedly; “the very men I have been dodging all day.  Hurry!  Can you put me somewhere for the time being?  The garret; anywhere.”

“Come on; there’s a place in the garret where they’ll never find you.”

I got him upstairs unseen.  If no one but I knew him to be at the inn, so much the better.

“O, say!  This’ll smother me,” said Dan, as I pushed him into the little room.

“They’ll put you in a smaller place,” I said.  “Hang it all Jack; I’d rather have it out with them.”

“They have their pistols and sabres.”

“That’s so.  In that case, discretion is the better part of valor, and they wouldn’t appreciate any coup on my side.  Come back and let me out as soon as they go.”

I descended into the barroom and found the two officers interrogating the innkeeper.  They were the same fellows who had visited the inn earlier in the day.  Gretchen was at her place behind the bar.  She was paler than usual.

“Ah,” said the innkeeper, turning to me, “am I not right in saying that you are the only guest at the inn, and that no American has been here?”

I did not understand his motive, for he knew that I was an American.

“It is perfectly true,” said I, “that I am your only guest.”

“Ah, the Englishman!” said the lieutenant, suspiciously.  “We are looking for a person by the name of Hillars whom we are charged to arrest.  Do you know anything about him?”

“It is not probable,” said I, nonchalantly.

I glanced at Gretchen.  I could fathom nothing there.

“Well,” snarled the lieutenant, “I suppose you will not object to my seeing your passports?”

“Not in the least,” said I. But I felt a shock.  The word “American” was written after the nationality clause in my passports.  I was in for some excitement on my own account.  If I returned from my rooms saying that I could not find my passports they would undoubtedly hold me till the same were produced.  “I’ll go and bring them for you,” said I. I wanted some time in which to mature a plan of action, if action became necessary.