"I shall get less if you don't tell me."
"Wait a moment!"
He filled his tobacco-pipe and lighted it. I followed his example, and between the puffs he related the history of those far-away days in London. To me, lying back upon the boughs which formed my bed in the dark loft, it seemed like the weaving of a fairy tale. The house in Pall Mall--St. James's Park--the piazza, of Covent Garden! How strange it all sounded, and how unreal!
The odour of pine-wood was in my nostrils, and I had but to raise my arm to touch the sloping thatch above my head.
CHAPTER XXII
[A TALK WITH OTTO. I ESCAPE TO INNSPRUCK.]
"Of what happened at Bristol," he began, "you know well-nigh as much as I do, in a sense, maybe more; for I have never learnt to this day why my master, the late Count, left me behind there to keep an eye upon the old attorney and Sir Julian Harnwood's visitors. There's only one thing I need tell you. The night you came from the Bridewell, after--well, after----" He hesitated, seeming at a loss for a word. I understood what it was that he stuck at, and realising that my turn had come to chuckle, I said, with a laugh:
"The blow was a good one, Otto."
"'Twas not so good as you thought," he replied rather hotly, "not by a great deal; and for all that you ran away so fast," he repeated the phrase with considerable emphasis, "for all that you ran away so fast, I found out where you lodged. I passed the lawyer man as he was coming back alone, and remembering that I had traced him into Limekiln Lane in the afternoon, I returned there the next morning. The 'Thatched House' was the only tavern in the street, and I inquired whether a woman had stayed there overnight. They told me no; they had only put up one traveller, and he had left already. I thought no more of this at the time, believing my suspicions to be wrong, and so got me back to Lukstein. After the wedding-night I told the Countess all that I knew."
"Wait!" I said, interrupting him.