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 stopped and then took to flight, some at times even taking shelter in a ditch. He again threw himself into his work as if possessed, mixed materials together which nobody would have dreamed of associating, armed with a blind certainty that he could convert them into explosives. He filled flasks, match-boxes, tins for preserved food, everything that came into his hands. The table, window-ledges and the floor were covered with them and he went on until he simply had nowhere to put the stuff. In the afternoon the Princess appeared, veiled and wrapped up to the eyes in her cloak. He ran towards her and would have taken her in his arms, but she repulsed him. “No, no, to-day I’m ugly. Please go on working; I’ll watch you.”

She sat down on the edge of a chair directly opposite to the frightful arsenal of explosives. Prokop with set lips was rapidly weighing and mixing something which hissed and smelt bitter. Then he filtered it with the greatest care. She watched him, her hands motionless, her eyes burning. Both were thinking that the royal heir was to arrive that day.

Prokop was looking for something on a shelf on which were ranged various acids. She stood up, raised her veil, put her arms round his neck and placed her dry, closed lips against his mouth. They swayed about between the rows of bottles containing unstable oxozobenzol and terribly powerful fulminates, dumb and convulsed, but again she pushed him away and sat down, covering her face with her hands. Prokop set to work again still more quickly, like a baker making bread, and this time it was to be the most diabolical substance which man ever prepared,