“I think it may be possible, your Majesty,” replied my father in a low voice.
The King frowned.
“Colonel Bernhard,” he said, “how can that be? You are responsible for the safety as well as the person of any prisoner committed to your charge.”
“So long as the prisoner is left wholly to my charge I can answer for his safety with my head, so please your Majesty,” said my father, reddening; “but not when he is provided with a special attendant over whom I have no control.”
“What special attendant? Where did he come from? Who sent him?”
“I believe he came from Berlin, your Majesty. He was sent by your Majesty's Minister of War. His name is Hartmann.”
The King stood thinking. His officers had fallen out of earshot, and were talking together in a little knot some four yards behind. I was still standing on the spot to which the King had called me. He looked round, and saw my anxious face.
“What, still there, little one?” he said. “You have not heard what we were saying?”
“Yes,” I said; “I heard it.”
“The child may have heard, your Majesty,” interposed my father, hastily; “but she did not understand. Run home, Gretchen. Make thy obeisance to his Majesty, and run home quickly.”