Page:The Prisoner of Zenda.djvu/57

 CHAPTER IV. THE KING KEEPS HIS APPOINTMENT.

I had slept a minute or a year I knew not. I awoke with a start and a shiver; my face, hair, and clothes dripped water, and opposite me stood old Sapt, a sneering smile on his face and an empty bucket in his hand. On the table by him sat Fritz von Tarlenheim, pale as a ghost and black as a crow under the eyes.

I leaped to my feet in anger.

"Your joke goes too far, sir!" I cried.

"Tut, man, we've no time for quarreling. Nothing else would rouse you. It's five o'clock." "I'll thank you, Colonel Sapt——" I began again, hot in spirit, though I was uncommonly cold in body.

"Rassendyll," interrupted Fritz, getting down from the table and taking my arm, "look here."

The king lay full length on the floor. His face 43