to sleep. In the common-room below Gaydon and Wogan were
smoking a pipe of tobacco over the fire. Both men rose on the instant;
Wogan stealthily opened the door an inch or so and looked down the
passage. Gaydon raised a corner of the blind and peered through the
window. The two remaining members of the party, Misset and O'Toole, who
as lackeys had served the supper of the Princess, were now eating their
own. When the Princess turned over on her side, and Wogan stepped on
tiptoe to the door and Gaydon peeped through the window, Misset laid
down his knife and fork, and drawing a flask from his pocket emptied its
contents into an earthenware water-jug which stood upon the table.
O'Toole, for his part, simply continued to eat.

"He is getting off his horse," said Gaydon.

"Has he ridden hard, do you think?" asked Misset.

"He looks in a mighty ill-humour."

O'Toole looked up from his plate, and became gradually aware that
something was occurring. Before he could speak, however, Gaydon dropped
the blind.

"He is coming in. It will never do for him to find the four of us
together. He may not be the courier from Innspruck; on the other hand,
he may, and seeing the four of us he will ask questions of the landlord.
Seeing no more than two, he will very likely ask none."

O'Toole began to understand. He understood, at all events, that for him
there was to be no more supper. If two were to make themselves scarce,
he knew that he would be one of the two.

"Very well," said he, heaving a sigh which made the glasses on the table
dance, and laying his napkin down he got up. To his surprise, however,
he was bidden to stay.

"Gaydon and I will go," said Wogan. "Jack will find out the fellow's
business."

Misset nodded his head, took up his knife and fork again. He leaned
across the table to O'Toole as the others stepped out of the room.

"You speak only French, Lucius. You come from Savoy." He had no time to
say more, for the new-comer stamped blustering down the passage and
flung into the room. The man, as Gaydon had remarked, was in a mighty
ill-humour; his clothes and his face were splashed with mud, and he
seemed, moreover, in the last stage of exhaustion. For though he bawled
for the landlord it was in a weak, hoarse voice, which did not reach
beyond the door.

Misset looked at him with sympathy.

"You have no doubt come far," said he; "and the landlord's a laggard.
Here's something that may comfort you till he come