An impatient movement of the sword—which weapon Dick had so managed as to check every one of his highness's numerous impulses to rush upon him—ended Frederick's hesitation. He petulantly drank the contents of the glass, and handed it back to Dick, who motioned him to put it on the table and to go to the couch.
"Call Antoine," said Dick to Catherine, following the Landgrave close to the couch on which the latter dropped.
Noiselessly Catherine unlocked the door and let in the two servants. Gretel, as soon as she saw what was up, begged to be taken along, and found a cloak for herself in the room. Antoine, at Dick's whispered direction, took coverings from the bed in the alcove, and knotted them together so as to form a means of descent from the balcony. Meanwhile, Catherine had relocked the door and possessed herself of the phial, which Dick had placed on the table.
"Come," said Dick, taking Catherine's hand and leading the way towards the open window, when at last the Landgrave slept. "Put out the light, Antoine, and let us hasten. In a few hours, that old snoring rascal will be a prince again!"
CHAPTER XXI.
"THE ROAD TO PARIS."
Dick descended first, then came Catherine, Gretel next, Antoine last. While the four were speeding, in the darkness, from the open grounds of the palace, Antoine bethought him that he had not yet dismissed the horse on which he had come from Spangenberg. He therefore went and got the animal, in sight of the guards at one of the doors, who supposed he had left the palace by another exit. He then rode boldly out of the town, crossing the bridge to take the Melsungen road. As he not only knew the password for all guards and patrols, but was also known to have been riding on the Landgrave's business, he was not detained a moment on the bridge. He rode on to a place that Dick had named as a rendezvous.
Meanwhile, Dick and the two women joined Romberg at the riverside, silently got aboard the boat, and rowed up the Fulda to a point some distance out of the city. Here they disembarked and found the two horses where the gentlemen had left them. In a few minutes they, too, were pressing forward on the Melsungen road, Catherine mounted behind Dick, Gretel behind Romberg.
"What road is this?" asked Catherine, whose sense of locality and direction had been confused by the darkness and the haste.