“Let’s see what they do to the prophet,” I said, and went back to the window. The sound of keys turning in locks had become so familiar to me that I scarcely paid any attention to it. John, exhausted by his wound and its dressing, stayed on the sofa.
“Funny,” he groaned, “that of all the doctors in Alaria we should have happened to come to this man, who is obviously such a staunch adherent of Conrad’s.”
“Not funny a bit,” I said, “it would have been a bit of amazing luck if we had happened to find one who wasn’t. Those two women are not exactly popular heroines.”
Outside was the greatest confusion. The prophet was no longer on the fountain. In his place half a dozen men were standing, all speaking at once, but no one paying much attention to them. Every once in a while a stone crashed through a window, or someone screamed. Then, from somewhere to the left, came the sound of a trumpet. “The gendarmes!” I cried. “Listen, John.”
The crowd parted slowly, and into the square rode a small troop of cavalry. We were in a second story window, and I could see uninterruptedly from the moment they entered the square. At their head rode the Black Ghost, on a black horse, his crusader’s cross showing white against his breast. All his men were in black, and rode black horses, and every man in the troop wore a short black mask across the upper part of his face. Only the Black Ghost was entirely covered, even to the hands.
“Enter the villain of the piece,” I said. “It’s our old friend, Fakat Zol.”
“I guess that lets us out of our week-end in Herrovosca,” John said, “I wonder where he’ll send us now, and what he has done with the Countess Waldek? She thought we’d have her message delivered by now. I wonder who the devil he is, anyway?”
“Devil is right,” I said, “and that door is far too thick to smash without being heard, even supposing there’s no one guarding the other side of it. Too bad. This is our only chance for a getaway. This time they’ll shut us up so we can’t get out.”
“There’s the window,” said John.
“With your wounded arm? You’d never be able to get through that crowd. They’d jostle you and you’d faint again.”