‘No, no, Von Strelitz, we cannot do it,’ said another voice.

‘Can we not?  I shall show you that!’ and there came a jerk on the bridle which nearly pulled me to the ground.  At the same instant a sword flashed and the leather was cut through within two inches of my neck.

‘By Heaven, Korner, this is rank mutiny,’ cried the captain.  ’You may hang yourself before you are through with it.’

‘I have drawn my sword as a soldier and not as a brigand,’ said the young poet.  ’Blood may dim its blade, but never dishonour.  Comrades, will you stand by and see this gentleman mishandled?’

A dozen sabres flew from their sheaths, and it was evident that my friends and my foes were about equally balanced.  But the angry voices and the gleam of steel had brought the folk running from all parts.

‘The Princess!’ they cried.  ‘The Princess is coming!’

And even as they spoke I saw her in front of us, her sweet face framed in the darkness.  I had cause to hate her, for she had cheated and befooled me, and yet it thrilled me then and thrills me now to think that my arms have embraced her, and that I have felt the scent of her hair in my nostrils.  I know not whether she lies under her German earth, or whether she still lingers, a grey-haired woman in her Castle of Hof, but she lives ever, young and lovely, in the heart and memory of Etienne Gerard.

‘For shame!’ she cried, sweeping up to me, and tearing with her own hands the noose from my neck.  ’You are fighting in God’s own quarrel, and yet you would begin with such a devil’s deed as this.  This man is mine, and he who touches a hair of his head will answer for it to me.’

They were glad enough to slink off into the darkness before those scornful eyes.  Then she turned once more to me.

‘You can follow me, Colonel Gerard,’ she said.  ’I have a word that I would speak to you.’

I walked behind her to the chamber into which I had originally been shown.  She closed the door, and then looked at me with the archest twinkle in her eyes.

‘Is it not confiding of me to trust myself with you?’ said she.  ’You will remember that it is the Princess of Saxe-Felstein and not the poor Countess Palotta of Poland.’

‘Be the name what it might,’ I answered, ’I helped a lady whom I believed to be in distress, and I have been robbed of my papers and almost of my honour as a reward.’

‘Colonel Gerard,’ said she, ’we have been playing a game, you and I, and the stake was a heavy one.  You have shown by delivering a message which was never given to you that you would stand at nothing in the cause of your country.  My heart is German and yours is French, and I also would go all lengths, even to deceit and to theft, if at this crisis I could help my suffering fatherland.  You see how frank I am.’

‘You tell me nothing that I have not seen.’

’But now that the game is played and won, why should we bear malice?  I will say this, that if ever I were in such a plight as that which I pretended in the inn of Lobenstein, I should never wish to meet a more gallant protector or a truer-hearted gentleman than Colonel Etienne Gerard.  I had never thought that I could feel for a Frenchman as I felt for you when I slipped the papers from your breast.’