"Steady, Buckley! I am here!" shouted Harry.
He drew his pistol from his belt, slipped under Buckley's arm, and just as the Croatian hurled himself up the last step intervening between himself and his foe, Harry fired point-blank at his heart, and he fell back upon his comrades. The narrow stairway was choked with men; the din of their shouts echoed and re-echoed from the winding walls, and above all the uproar Harry distinguished the tones of Aglionby, yelling to his men to make way for him to pass.
When Fanshawe left the castle he walked steadily on for some hours, making a wide circuit round the enemy's position, guiding himself by the north star. His progress was difficult over the hills in the darkness. He had to scale bluffs, to creep up rocks, to spring across ravines, to wade through swamps at the risk of being engulfed, to skirt patches of wood—though in one case, finding that he was being taken too far out of his course, he plunged boldly into a copse, trusting to his good fortune to bring him safely out at the other side. Thus delayed, it was long before he felt sure that he was safe.
At last he struck into a narrow pathway leading north-west. Proceeding more rapidly along this, he was brought, after walking for some four hours, into what was apparently the highroad along which he had passed with Marlborough's letter about ten days earlier. He was very tired, but resolved to press on until he reached a village. Another hour's walk brought him to a hamlet with a modest Gasthaus. He knocked up the landlord, and with some difficulty persuaded the suspicious man to provide him with a horse. No troops, he learnt, had passed through. The landlord had been told that firing had been heard among the hills in the direction of Rauhstein; he did not understand what it could be, for the castle was in the possession of brigands, and he did not think the prince's men were near enough.
Staying at the inn but to eat a little food, Fanshawe rode on, and suddenly, some little while before dawn, came on a picket of four men upon the road. He was challenged; the speaker was evidently a German, and of German Fanshawe knew not enough to frame a sentence. He tried French; but that raised the sergeant's suspicions; he mentioned the names of Marlborough and Prince Eugene, with no better success; and he was marched off under guard into the neighbouring village.
His escort halted at a small cottage, and the sergeant entered. Colonel von Stickstoff was in bed. He was awakened, but the colonel was nothing if not a stickler for etiquette, and he declined to see Fanshawe until he had made some preparations. When Fanshawe was marched in, therefore, he found himself confronted by a short, stout, pompous little officer, with his tunic buttoned tight, a rug across his knees, which were guiltless of breeches, and a large flaxen wig set awry over his nightcap. The quarter-master was summoned, and an interrogation began.
"Who are you, sir, and what have you to say for yourself?" asked the officer in German.
Fanshawe tried to explain in French, of which he had obtained a smattering.
"Ha! You are a Frenchman! Take that down, quartermaster. Everything must be done in order."
This was somewhat embarrassing. Fanshawe might understand the German's French, but he must necessarily be ignorant of what was said to the quarter-master in German.