'That is the man, I am told,' he said, pointing suddenly to me with his whip.
'He is at your service,' the general answered with a shrug of indifference.'
In an instant Von Werder's horse was at my side. 'A word with you, my man,' he said sharply. 'Come with me.'
Ludwig had hold of my arm still. He had not loosed me, and at this he interposed. 'My lord,' he cried to the general, 'this man--I have something to----'
'Silence, fool!' Tzerclas growled. 'And stand aside, if you value your skin!'
Ludwig let me go; immediately, as if an angel had descended to speak for me, the crowd parted, and I was free--free and walking away down the street by the side of the stranger, who continued to look at me from time to time, but still kept silence. When we had gone in this fashion a couple of hundred paces or more, and were clear of the crowd, he seemed no longer able to control himself, though he looked like a man apt at self-command. He waved his escort back and reined in his horse.
'You are the man to whom I talked the other night,' he said, fixing me with his eyes--'the Countess of Heritzburg's steward?'
I replied that I was. His face as he looked down at me, with his back to his following, betrayed so much agitation that I wondered more and more. Was he going to save us? Could he save us? Who was he? What did it all mean? Then his next question scattered all these thoughts and doubled my surprise.
'You had a chain stolen from you,' he said harshly, 'the night I lay in your camp?'
I stared at him with my mouth open. 'A chain?' I stammered.