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“Good God!”
    Fritz looked up with an eager, bewildered gaze.
    â€œImpossible!” I muttered. “I should be known.”
    â€œIt’s a risk—against a certainty,” said Sapt. “If you shave, I’ll wager you’ll not be known. Are you afraid?”
    â€œSir!”
    â€œCome, lad, there, there; but it’s your life, you know, if you’re known—and mine—and Fritz’s here. But, if you don’t go, I swear to you Black Michael will sit tonight on the throne, and the King lie in prison or his grave.”
    â€œThe King would never forgive it,” I stammered.
    â€œAre we women? Who cares for his forgiveness?”
    The clock ticked fifty times, and sixty and seventy times, as I stood in thought. Then I suppose a look came over my face, for old Sapt caught me by the hand, crying:
    â€œYou’ll go?”
    â€œYes, I’ll go,” said I, and I turned my eyes on the prostrate figure of the King on the floor.
    â€œTonight,” Sapt went on in a hasty whisper, “we are to lodge in the Palace. The moment they leave us you and I will mount our horses—Fritz must stay there and guard the King’s room—and ride here at a gallop. The King will be ready—Josef will tell him—and he must ride back with me to Strelsau, and you ride as if the devil were behind you to the frontier.”
    I took it all in in a second, and nodded my head.
    â€œThere’s a chance,” said Fritz, with his first sign of hopefulness .
    â€œIf I escape detection,” said I.
    â€œIf we’re detected,” said Sapt. “I’ll send Black Michael down below before I go myself, so help me heaven! Sit in that chair, man.”
    I obeyed him.
    He darted from the room, calling “Josef! Josef!” In three minutes he was back, and Josef with him. The latter carried a jug of hot water, soap and razors. He was trembling as Sapt told him how the land lay, and bade him shave me.
    Suddenly Fritz smote on his thigh:
    â€œBut the guard! They’ll know! they’ll know!”
    â€œPooh! We shan’t wait for the guard. We’ll ride to Hofbau and catch a train there. When they come, the bird’ll be flown.”
    â€œBut the King?”
    â€œThe King will be in the wine-cellar. I’m going to carry him there now.”
    â€œIf they find him?”
    â€œThey won’t. How should they? Josef will put them off.”
    â€œBut—”
    Sapt stamped his foot.
    â€œWe’re not playing,” he roared. “My God! don’t I know the risk? If they do find him, he’s no worse off than if he isn’t crowned today in Strelsau.”
    So speaking, he flung the door open and, stooping, put forth a strength I did not dream he had, and lifted the King in his hands. And as he did so, the old woman, Johann the keeper’s mother, stood in the doorway. For a moment she stood, then she turned on her heel, without a sign of surprise, and clattered down the passage.
    â€œHas she heard?” cried Fritz.
    â€œI’ll shut her mouth!” said Sapt grimly, and he bore off the King in his arms.
    For me, I sat down in an armchair, and as I sat there, half-dazed, Josef clipped and scraped me till my moustache and imperial were things of the past and my face was as bare as the King’s. And when Fritz saw me thus he drew a long breath and exclaimed:—
    â€œBy Jove, we shall do it!”
    It was six o’clock now, and we had no time to lose. Sapt hurried me into the King’s room, and I dressed myself in the uniform of a colonel of the Guard, finding time as I slipped on the King’s boots to ask Sapt what he had done with the old woman.
    â€œShe swore she’d heard nothing,” said he; “but to make sure I tied her legs together and put a handkerchief in her mouth and bound her hands, and locked her up in the coal-cellar, next door to the King. Josef will look after them both