For I was faint, spent, and weary.

And that wild-cat Rupert Hentzau was yet at large in the Castle.

Yet, because I could better defend the narrow door at the top of the stairs than the wider entrance to the room, I dragged myself up the steps, and stood behind it listening.
What was the sound?
Again a strange one for the place and time.

An easy, scornful, merry laugh--the laugh of young Rupert Hentzau! I could scarcely believe that a sane man would laugh.

Yet the laugh told me that my men had not come; for they must have shot Rupert ere now, if they had come.