nscious with
some narcotic, and then dragged me to the place I am now in."

The King now began to explore the place on his hands and knees, his ears
keenly alive to the slightest sound. He crawled around trying to
discover the extent and nature of his prison.

The floor appeared to be of hard earth with occasional stretches of
cement. The walls were smooth, but whether of stone or metal he could
not determine. The height of the ceiling at the point where he lay was
not over three feet, but gradually rose, vault-like, until he was able
to stand fully upright. Was he buried alive in some kind of tomb? The
idea terrified him and he began to shout for help. After many fruitless
efforts and completely exhausted, he dropped to the ground overcome with
the horror of his situation.

The distant rumbling sound now became louder from time to time, and at
moments shook the walls of his prison, then died away to a faint murmur.

Frederick-Christian now tried to collect his thoughts upon the situation
and bring some sort of order to his mind.

Susy d'Orsel was dead ...

The King had felt no deep love for the girl. Still, he had been fond of
her in a way and her sudden death affected him deeply.

He himself was a prisoner. But a prisoner of whom? Evidently of those
who had killed his mistress. Again, in all probability, they did not
contemplate killing him since they had had the opportunity to do so and
he was still alive and unharmed. This being so, they would not let him
die of hunger and thirst.

His watch had stopped and he had no way of measuring the lapse of time;
but his attention was called to the fact that the rumbling noises were
happening at greater intervals.

"The pulse-beats of a man are separated by intervals of a second," he
thought, "and by counting my pulse I can determine the interval between
the rumbling, and thus gain some idea of the passing hours."

He was about to put this plan into practice when a sudden cry escaped
him:

"Good God!"

In the blackness of his cell a thin shaft of light appeared.

The King sprang toward it, but found the light too feeble for him to
distinguish surrounding objects by. It entered the cell through a small
fissure in one of the walls, and after a few minutes was suddenly
withdrawn. Frederick-Christian stumbled forward in the darkness and,
after taking a few steps, his feet struck some object lying on the
ground. Stooping down, he groped with his hands until they tou