I forgot to tie
them, and they are gone. Yet what matter? For the king--yes, sweet, I
think now it is the king--will not be here for some minutes yet, and
those minutes I have still for love and life."

"He will kill you!" she said.

"Yes," said he.

She looked long in his eyes; then she threw her arms about his neck,
and, for the first time unasked, covered his face with kisses.

"Kiss me, kiss me," said she; and he kissed her. Then she drew back
a little, but took his arm and set it round her waist. And she drew a
little knife from her girdle, and showed it him.

"If the king will not pardon us and let us love one another, I also
will die," said she; and her voice was quiet and happy. "Indeed, my
love, I should not grieve. Ah, do not tell me to live without you!"

"Would you obey?" he asked.

"Not in that," said she.

And thus they stood silent, while the sound of the hoofs drew very
near. But she looked up at him, and he looked at her; then she looked
at the point of the little dagger, and she whispered:

"Keep your arm round me till I die."

He bent his head, and kissed her once again, saying:

"My princess, it is enough."

And she, though she did not know why he smiled, yet smiled back at
him. For although life was sweet that day, yet such a death, with him
and to prove her love for him, seemed well-nigh as sweet. And thus
they awaited the coming of the king.

II.

King Rudolf and his guards far out-stripped the people who pursued
them from the city; and when they came to the skirts of the wood,
they divided themselves into four parties, since, if they went all
together, they might easily miss the fugitives whom they sought. Of
these four parties, one found nothing; another found the two horses
which the student himself, who had hidden them, failed to find; the
third party had not gone far before they caught sight of the lovers,
though the lovers did not see them; and two of them remained to watch
and, if need be, to intercept any attempted flight, while the third
rode off to find the king and bring him where Osra and the student
were, as he had commanded.

But the fourth party, with which the king was, though it did not find
the fugitives, found the embassy from the Grand Duke of Mittenheim;
and the ambassador, with all his train, was resting by the roadside,
seeming in no haste at all to reach Strelsau. When the king suddenly
rode up at great speed and came upon the embassy, an officer