“Ay, I follow you.”

“We must act, and quickly! You saw tonight—you heard—tonight—”

“I did,” said he.

“Your cursed acuteness told you what I should do. Well, leave me here a week—and there’s another problem for you. Do you find the answer?”

“Yes, I find it,” he answered, frowning heavily. “But if you did that, you’d have to fight me first—and kill me.”

“Well, and if I had—or a score of men? I tell you, I could raise all Strelsau on you in an hour, and choke you with your lies—yes, your mad lies—in your mouth.”

“It’s gospel truth,” he said—“thanks to my advice you could.”

“I could marry the princess, and send Michael and his brother together to—”

“I’m not denying it, lad,” said he.

“Then, in God’s name,” I cried, stretching out my hands to him, “let us go to Zenda and crush this Michael and bring the King back to his own again.” The old fellow stood and looked at me for full a minute.

“And the princess?” he said.

I bowed my head to meet my hands, and crushed the rose between my fingers and my lips.

I felt his hand on my shoulder, and his voice sounded husky as he whispered low in my ear:

“Before God, you’re the finest Elphberg of them all. But I have eaten of the King’s bread, and I am the King’s servant. Come, we will go to Zenda!”

And I looked up and caught him by the hand. And the eyes of both of us were wet.