ssibility.

CHAPTER III

THE PRINCE AND THE ENGLISH TRAVELLER

So far Otto read, with waxing indignation; and here his fury overflowed.
He tossed the roll upon the table and stood up. "This man," he said, "is
a devil. A filthy imagination, an ear greedy of evil, a ponderous
malignity of thought and language: I grow like him by the reading!
Chancellor, where is this fellow lodged?"

"He was committed to the Flag Tower," replied Greisengesang, "in the
Gamiani apartment."

"Lead me to him," said the Prince; and then, a thought striking him,
"Was it for that," he asked, "that I found so many sentries in the
garden?"

"Your Highness, I am unaware," answered Greisengesang, true to his
policy. "The disposition of the guards is a matter distinct from my
functions."

Otto turned upon the old man fiercely, but ere he had time to speak,
Gotthold touched him on the arm. He swallowed his wrath with a great
effort. "It is well," he said, taking the roll. "Follow me to the Flag
Tower."

The Chancellor gathered himself together, and the two set forward. It
was a long and complicated voyage; for the library was in the wing of
the new buildings, and the tower which carried the flag was in the old
schloss upon the garden. By a great variety of stairs and corridors,
they came out at last upon a patch of gravelled court; the garden peeped
through a high grating with a flash of green; tall, old, gabled
buildings mounted on every side; the Flag Tower climbed, stage after
stage, into the blue; and high over all, among the building daws, the
yellow flag wavered in the wind. A sentinel at the foot of the tower
stairs presented arms; another paced the first landing; and a third was
stationed before the door of the extemporised prison.

"We guard this mud-bag like a jewel," Otto sneered.

The Gamiani apartment was so called from an Italian doctor who had
imposed on the credulity of a former prince. The rooms were large, airy,
pleasant, and looked upon the garden; but the walls were of great
thickness (for the tower was old), and the windows were heavily barred.
The Prince, followed by the Chancellor, still trotting to keep up with
him, brushed swiftly through the little library and the long saloon, and
burst like a thunderbolt into the bedroom at the farther end. Sir John
was finishing his toilet; a man of fifty, hard, uncompromising, able,
with the eye and teeth of physical courage. He was unmoved by the
irruption, and bowed