By this time day was breaking; and the soldiers, unable to sleep, got ready their morning meal.
As no one offered me any, I went without, which was not an agreeable method of beginning the day.
However, they gave me plenty of rope instead, and I was firmly fastened on Ober's horse, while two men with levelled pistols rode one on either side of me.
The detachment sent out during the night met us a few miles from the village, and the officer reported they had been unable to find any trace of the mysterious stranger.
Talking amongst themselves, the hussars declared that the daring intruder must have been Batori Gabor, and I held that opinion too.
Rakoczy was a prisoner, and Mecsey Sándor far away, so that unless one of the disbanded soldiers had performed the deed, the robber-captain was the only person left to suspect.
However, the scheme had failed, and I was more strongly guarded than before.
Von Theyer gave the strictest orders to the two troopers, one of whom was Franz, the comrade of the dead Ober.
This man eyed me most maliciously, and I felt sure he would be a splendid tool in furthering the colonel's scheme.
From boyhood, riding had been one of my chief pleasures; but this new style, tied hand and foot and bound to a horse's back, was a novelty I did not appreciate.