"Yes," continued our hero; "and I may as well state to you frankly and candidly under what circumstances I became your guest—for you were all inmates of the house at the time I entered it."
"Speak, young gentleman," said Zingary: "we will listen with attention to all you may please to tell us; but we do not seek your confidence of our own accord, as curiosity is forbidden to our race."
"I must inform you," resumed Richard, "that I have sustained great and signal injuries at the hands of a miscreant, whom I one night traced to your dwelling in St. Giles's."
"Call it the Palace, young gentleman," said Zingary, smoking his pipe, and listening with great complacency.
"On that night, the man to whom I allude was desperately wounded——"
"Ah!" ejaculated the gipsies, as it were in a breath.
"And you removed him with you, away from the Palace during the night—or rather very early in the morning."
"Then you, young gentleman," said the King, "were the stranger whom the porter locked in the room to which you were shown, and who escaped from the Palace by some means or other? The matter was duly reported to us by letter."
"It is perfectly true that I liberated myself from the room in which I was imprisoned," said Markham. "But, answer me—I implore you—one question; did that vile man die of the wound which he received?"
"Before I reply to you," observed Zingary, "you will have the goodness to inform me why you left the Palace by stealth on that occasion, and whether you saw or heard any thing remarkable after we had taken our departure?"