He jumped to his feet and lifted both hands above his head.
"Mauravania!" he cried. "Oh, Mauravania! For you! For you!" Then jumped to the mantelpiece, and catching up a lighted candle, flashed it twice across the window's width, and broke again into the national hymn.
"Monsieur," cried out madame, "monsieur, what is the meaning of that?
Have you lost your wits? You give a signal! For what? To whom?"
"To the guards of Mauravania's king, madame, in honour of his safe escape from you!" he made reply; then twitched back the window curtains until the whole expanse of glass was bared. "Look! do you see them—do you, madame? His Majesty of Mauravania sends Madame Tcharnovetski a command to leave his kingdom, since he no longer has cause to fear a wasp whose sting has been plucked out."
Her swift glance flashed to the fireplace, then to the corner where
Clopin still sat with his jabbering parakeets, then flashed back to
Cleek, and—she laughed in his face.
"I think not, monsieur," she said, with a swaggering air. "Truly, I think not, my excellent friend."
"What a pity you only think so, madame! As for me—Ah, welcome, Count, welcome a thousand times. The paper, my friend; you have brought it? Good! Give it to me. Madame, your passport—yours and your associates'. You leave Mauravania by the midnight train, and you have but little time to pack your effects. Your passport, madame, and—your bedroom candle. Oh, yes, the paper is still round it—see!" slipping off a sheet of note paper that was wrapped round the full length of the candle from top to bottom, "but if you will examine it, madame, you will find it is blank. I burned the real letter the night before last when I put this in its place."
"You what?" she snapped; then caught the tube-shaped covering he had stripped from the candle, uncurled it, and—screamed.
"Blank, madame, quite blank, you see," said Cleek serenely. "For one so clever in other things, you should have been more careful. A little pinch of powder in the punch at dinner-time—just that—and on the first night, too! It was so easy afterward to get into your room, remove the real paper, and wrap the candle in a blank piece while you slept."
"You—you dog!" she snapped out viciously. "You drugged me?"