The escort left them at the door and Dasso and Mozara stood undecided on the great steps. Then, leaving their horses, they walked towards the gates. Once out of sight of the building, however, they stopped. Dasso was gnawing at his moustache in impotent fury.
"They told me he was better at seven o'clock. The nurse herself told me. What cursed luck." They walked on again, taking a path that led into the shrubberies. For, perhaps, five minutes they strode on in silence, then the lieutenant halted and caught at his companion's arm.
"Listen!" he said.
From a path close at hand came the sound of running footsteps and the heavy breathing of a spent man. Then round the bend before them emerged the figure of Edward Sydney. With a little laugh Dasso barred his way.
"So," he said.
Edward pulled up short and stared at the wicked faces before him.
"Gentlemen—you will let me—pass?" he gasped.
"I don't think so, Mr. Sydney. Haven't this gentleman and myself, as you English say, a bone to pick with you?"
Dasso smiled grimly as he spoke, a smile which caused a little shiver to pass over Edward and set him looking about him for a possible way of escape.
They had met in one of the narrow paths. On either hand the tall mass of foliage made an impenetrable wall. A few paces away Edward could make out an alley-way which ran at right angles, and he told himself that with luck and a start of a few yards he would stand a good chance of evading capture among the tortuous twists and turns of the shrubbery. In the mean time he must temporize.