“I fear I have quite too much sentiment,” he said; “I have already expended far more than you would believe—on the Castle, and the mountains, and the valley, and all the rest. Now I’m done with it, except for animate objects; the business we have in hand promises to be sufficiently occupying. Yonder is the Book; and how to get it, and quickly.” He leveled his glasses at Lotzen Castle and studied it a long time.... “A pretty hard proposition,” he remarked. “Have you ever been in it?”
“Unfortunately, no; but Major Meux has been Constable here for two years, and surely must have been there often—yonder he is now, by the gate tower.”
The Archduke caught Meux’s glance and motioned for him.
“Major,” said he, “can you give us an idea of the plan of Lotzen Castle?”
“I can do better than that, Your Highness, I can show you a plan, drawn to scale and most complete. I came upon it in the library only last week. It’s more than a hundred years old, but I think it is still in effect accurate.”
“I wonder how it happens to be here?” said the Princess, with the peculiar curiosity of a woman as to non-essentials.
“At the time it was made Lotzen was also a Royal Castle,” the Constable explained; “it was very natural to deposit the draft here with the King’s own records.”
As they crossed the main hall, they chanced upon Colonel Moore, and, taking him with them, they went into the library—a great, high-ceilinged room, on the second floor of the keep, the walls hidden by massive, black oak cases, filled with books and folios, in bindings of leather stamped with the Dalberg Lion—and from a shelf in a dark corner the Constable brought a small portfolio, made to resemble a book, in which the draft was folded.
“This is admirable,” the Archduke remarked, examining it with the trained eye and instant comprehension of the engineer officer; “it could not be done better now.... See, Dehra, it is the whole fortification, as plain as though we were on the high tower, here—” indicating on the draft.
“I suppose so,” she smiled; “but to me it looks only like a lot of black lines, flung down at random and with varying degrees of force; sort of an embroidery pattern, you know.”