As their lips parted he turned and dropped lightly from the window to the landing-stage beneath. Rigid with a despair too poignant for tears, she stood and watched him, never heeding the knocking and rattling at the door. She saw him creep out along the pier that bridged the platform and the boat-house, the shelter of which he gained just as the door of the temple was sent flying open and two men stumbled into the room.
In a moment they comprehended how their man had escaped.
“The window,” Ompertz commanded hastily. “Pardon this violence, Highness,” he added with a bow to the Princess, who stood before him motionless, impassive as a statue, “but we are after a fellow who haunts this place and may offer to molest your Highness.”
Her face did not change as with dry lips she said quietly, “He is not here.”
Meanwhile the other man had got out of the window and been joined from outside by a third. “To the boat-house, idiots!” cried Ompertz, hastening to the window. Minna came in and sank down trembling and hysterical by her mistress. The men ran along the gangway and disappeared into the boat-house. Ompertz, waiting by the window, half turned and began another apology to the Princess. With a touch of her wonted imperiousness she cut him short, forbidding him to address her. One of the men came back along the pier.
“Well?” Ompertz demanded. “Have you caught him?”
“He is not there, Captain,” the fellow answered, at a loss. “The place is empty.”
Ompertz swore an oath between his teeth. A shot rang out from the boat-house. The two men leaned forward, peering anxiously across the shadow-streaked water. They were too intent to hear a gasping sigh as Princess Ruperta sank down by Minna’s side in a swoon.
CHAPTER XI
UDO SEES
WITHIN the hour Ompertz was standing before his employer.