“The gentleman in a Russian uniform, who took you aside, showed you a written paper, and whispered a few words, in consequence of which you immediately set us free.”
“Do not you know the gentleman? Was he not one of your company?”
“No,” answered the prince; “and I have very important reasons for wishing to be more intimately acquainted with him.”
“I know very little of him myself. Even his name is unknown to me, and I saw him to-day for the first time in my life.”
“How? And was he in so short a time, and by using only a few words, able to convince you both of our innonocence and his own?”
“Undoubtedly, with a single word.”
“And this was? I confess I wish to know it.”
“This stranger, my prince,” said the officer, weighing the zechins in his band,—“you have been too generous for me to make a secret of it any longer,—this stranger is an officer of the Inquisition.”
“Of the Inquisition? This man?”
“He is, indeed, gracious prince. I was convinced of it by the paper which he showed to me.”