the city. There is no time to enter into even the most brief of
explanations, but the point is this: My Lord Dick and I have devised a
plan to frustrate this atrocious plot, and all that we need is your
Majesty's immediate and unqualified assent to enable us to put the plan
into effect. It involves your trusting yourself alone with me while I
take you back to the city and the palace by a shorter but very lonely
route. Will you do it? It is the joint plan of my Lord Dick and
myself, and it is our earnest desire and entreaty that you will be
graciously pleased to assent to it."

"Of course," agreed the queen, with the utmost readiness. "I will trust
myself with my Lord Dick and you anywhere."

"I greatly appreciate the confidence which your Majesty is pleased to
put in me," remarked Earle. "But I fear that I have not succeeded in
making myself quite understood. The success of our plan demands that
you come with me _alone_. My Lord Dick cannot come with us. It is
necessary that he shall remain with the bodyguard."

"Necessary that he should remain?" objected the queen. "Nay, surely
not. Let him turn over the command for the moment, to Acor, and come
with us. It is not that I am afraid to trust myself alone with you, my
lord," she added, in response to a sigh and a gesture of disappointment
from Earle, "but--but--"

"Oh yes, your Majesty, of course I know," responded Earle wearily, "but
what you suggest simply cannot be done. You see--Oh! hang it all," he
continued, breaking into English, "tell the child that she simply _must_
do as we ask; that you wish it; or she'll stand here arguing until
further orders."

The unmistakable tone of annoyance and impatience with which Earle ended
his speech caused the queen to glance at him with big, startled eyes;
but when Dick bent over her and whispered an entreaty that she would
fall in with the plan, so that he might thus be relieved of a very heavy
load of anxiety, she acquiesced without further ado, while Earle
triumphantly chortled, in English:

"I told you so!"

They were by this time close to the royal chariot, near which stood a
dismounted trooper, holding his horse by the bridle with one hand, while
over his other arm he held unfolded the long, black military cloak in
which officers and men alike were wont to envelop themselves at night
time to protect their armour and accoutrements from the drenching night
dews.

Without saying a word, Dick at once took