Page:Anthony Hope - Rupert of Hentzau.djvu/154

144 (which he did not resheathe) in the other, he stepped over the body of the boar-hound, and I followed him.

We were now in front of the door of the room where Rudolf Rassendyll had supped with us on the day of his first coming to Ruritania, and whence he had set out to be crowned in Strelsau. On the right of it was the room where the King slept, and farther along in the same direction the kitchen and the cellars. The officer or officers in attendance on the King used to sleep on the other side of the dining-room.

"We must explore, I suppose," said Sapt; in spite of his outward calmness I caught in his voice the ring of excitement rising and ill-repressed. But at this moment we heard from the passage on our left (as we faced the door) a low moan, and then a dragging sound, as if a man were crawling along the floor, painfully trailing his limbs after him. Sapt held the lamp in that direction, and we saw Herbert the forester, pale-faced and wide-eyed, raised from the ground on his two hands, while his legs stretched behind him and his stomach rested on the boards.

"Who is it?" he said in a faint voice.

"Why, man, you know us," said the Constable, stepping up to him. "What's happened here?"

The poor fellow was very faint, and, I think, wandered a little in his brain.