Though three men had died there--two of them by my hand--I was not troubled by ghosts.

I had thrown myself on a pallet by the window, and was looking out on the black water; Johann, the keeper, still pale from his wound, but not much hurt besides, had brought me supper.

He told me that the King was doing well, that he had seen the princess; that she and he, Sapt and Fritz, had been long together.

Marshal Strakencz was gone to Strelsau; Black Michael lay in his coffin, and Antoinette de Mauban watched by him; had I not heard, from the chapel, priests singing mass for him?
Outside there were strange rumours afloat.

Some said that the prisoner of Zenda was dead; some, that he had vanished yet alive; some, that he was a friend who had served the King well in some adventure in England; others, that he had discovered the Duke's plots, and had therefore been kidnapped by him.