“Come, cousin mine, what shall it be: swords, bullets, poison? Time passes. You have disturbed me at an unseemly hour, and I must to sleep again.... No answer, cousin? Truly, you have changed; once your tongue was free enough; and it’s not from fright, I’m sure; that, I will grant—you’re no more afraid than am I myself. However, if you won’t choose, I’ll have to do it for you.... You came by the secret passage, and by it shall you return—part way—bound, but not gagged, it won’t be necessary; please appreciate my leniency. Then, while you are lying quietly there, the revolving stones shall be sealed so tight that mortal man can never find them. Is it not a fine plan, cousin, to have been devised so quickly; and are you not proud of the mausoleum that you, a poor, unknown American, will have: the titular castle of Valeria’s new King?”
At first, the Princess had been cold with terror—the muzzles of loaded rifles at ten paces, are not for women’s nerves; but as the Duke talked she grew calmer, and the fear subsided, and anger came instead. And even as he seemed to take a devilish pleasure in grilling his victims with rage-provoking words, so she let him run along, to dig his own grave the deeper.
Now she stepped out from the group, and dropped her mask.
“Which cousin do you think you have been addressing, my lord of Lotzen?” she asked, taking off her hat.
The commotion in the room was instant; but the Duke stayed it with an angry gesture. His men were foreigners, and free of any sentiment beyond the sheen of gold.
“So, you little fool,” he laughed, “you have dared to come here, too! Do you fancy that even you can save your upstart lover?”
“If you mean His Royal Highness the Archduke Armand,” said she, very quietly, “he needs no saving—he is not here.”
There was but one person in all the world whose word Ferdinand of Lotzen would accept as truth: he knew the Princess Dehra never lied. And now he sprang up.
“Not here!” he cried, “not here!”
She turned to her companions.