It was a heavy task, and Jorian's head spun with the shock of the wave and the weight of their burden long before they reached the point where the boundary wall approached nearest to the house.
"We can never hope to get him up that ladder and down the other side," said Boris, shaking his head.
"Even if we had the ladder!" answered Jorian, glad of a chance to grumble; "but, thanks to your stupidity, it is on the other side of the wall."
Without noticing his companion's words, Boris took a handful of small pebbles and threw them up at a lighted window. The head of Werner von Orseln immediately appeared, his grizzled hair blown out like a misty aureole about his temples.
"Come down!" shouted Boris, making a trumpet of his hands to fight the wind withal. "We have found a drowned man on the beach!"
And indeed it seemed literally so, as they carried their burden round the walls to the wicket door and waited. It seemed an interminable time before Werner von Orseln arrived with the dumb man's lantern in his hand.
They carried the body into the great hall, where the Duchess and the old servitor met them. There they laid him on a table. Joan herself lifted the lantern and held it to his face. His fair hair clustered about his head in wet knots and shining twists. The features of his face were white as death and carven like those of a statue. But at the sight the heart of the Duchess leaped wildly within her.
"Conrad!" she cried—that word and no more. And the lantern fell to the floor from her nerveless hand.
There was no doubt in her mind. She could make no mistake. The regular features, the pillar-like neck, the massive shoulders, the strong clean-cut mouth, the broad white brow—and—yes, the slight tonsure of the priest. It was the White Knight of the Courtland lists, the noble Prince of the summer parlour, the red-robed prelate of her marriage-day, Conrad of Courtland, Prince and Cardinal, but to her—"he"—the only "he."