Chapter Thirty Two.
Check!—query, mate?
Feeling that the crisis had come, no sooner did Denis hear the first strokes of the second chiming of the clock, which came so opportunely upon the King’s discovery, than the lad dashed off along the passage leading towards the staircase that he would have to descend to gain the inner court and the stabling.
But he had not proceeded many yards before he stopped short, startled by the thought that if he continued by this corridor he would come right upon some gentleman of the household, whose nightly duty it was to be on guard at the angle of the gallery which led towards the King’s apartments.
“Oh,” he muttered beneath his breath, “I had forgotten. Carrbroke told me he would be there to-night.”
There was nothing for it but to retrace his steps, pass right round two-thirds of one of the lesser courts, and get back to the corridor again beyond the range of apartments sacred to the King.
Then reaching the end of the gallery, he began to hurry once more to make up for lost time, when feeling that, much as he desired to act, such hurried procedure would attract the attention of the first officer who was on guard, the lad checked his headlong steps, thrust his hands into his trunk hose, and began to walk carelessly along, catching up and humming the air which came softly from where the musicians were still playing.
It was well he did, for as he turned the next corner he came upon a couple of the King’s guards upon the landing at the head of a staircase.