ill he died; and then, hearing
Rupert's taunts, she had come forth to avenge him. Me she had not seen,
nor did she till I darted out of my ambush, and leapt after Rupert into
the moat.

The same moment found my friends on the scene. They had reached the
chateau in due time, and waited ready by the door. But Johann, swept
with the rest to the rescue of the duke, did not open it; nay, he took
a part against Rupert, putting himself forward more bravely than any
in his anxiety to avert suspicion; and he had received a wound, in the
embrasure of the window. Till nearly half-past two Sapt waited; then,
following my orders, he had sent Fritz to search the banks of the moat.
I was not there. Hastening back, Fritz told Sapt; and Sapt was for
following orders still, and riding at full speed back to Tarlenheim;
while Fritz would not hear of abandoning me, let me have ordered what I
would. On this they disputed some few minutes; then Sapt, persuaded by
Fritz, detached a party under Bernenstein to gallop back to Tarlenheim
and bring up the marshal, while the rest fell to on the great door
of the chateau. For several minutes it resisted them; then, just as
Antoinette de Mauban fired at Rupert of Hentzau on the bridge, they
broke in, eight of them in all: and the first door they came to was the
door of Michael's room; and Michael lay dead across the threshold, with
a sword-thrust through his breast. Sapt cried out at his death, as I
had heard, and they rushed on the servants; but these, in fear, dropped
their weapons, and Antoinette flung herself weeping at Sapt's feet. And
all she cried was, that I had been at the end of the bridge and leapt
off. "What of the prisoner?" asked Sapt; but she shook her head. Then
Sapt and Fritz, with the gentlemen behind them, crossed the bridge,
slowly, warily, and without noise; and Fritz stumbled over the body of
De Gautet in the way of the door. They felt him and found him dead.

Then they consulted, listening eagerly for any sound from the cells
below; but there came none, and they were greatly afraid that the King's
guards had killed him, and having pushed his body through the great
pipe, had escaped the same way themselves. Yet, because I had been seen
here, they had still some hope (thus indeed Fritz, in his friendship,
told me); and going back to Michael's body, pushing aside Antoinette,
who prayed by it, they found a key to the door which I had locked, and
opened the door. The staircase was d