The Castle clock struck a quarter to one as I felt the water under me
and began to swim round the keep, pushing the ladder before me, and
hugging the Castle wall. Thus voyaging, I came to my old friend,
"Jacob's Ladder," and felt the ledge of the masonry under me. I crouched
down in the shadow of the great pipe--I tried to stir it, but it was
quite immovable--and waited. I remember that my predominant feeling
was neither anxiety for the King nor longing for Flavia, but an intense
desire to smoke; and this craving, of course, I could not gratify.
The drawbridge was still in its place. I saw its airy, slight framework
above me, some ten yards to my right, as I crouched with my back against
the wall of the King's cell. I made out a window two yards my side of it
and nearly on the same level. That, if Johann spoke true, must belong to
the duke's apartments; and on the other side, in about the same relative
position, must be Madame de Mauban's window. Women are careless,
forgetful creatures. I prayed that she might not forget that she was to
be the victim of a brutal attempt at two o'clock precisely. I was rather
amused at the part I had assigned to my young friend Rupert Hentzau; but
I owed him a stroke--for, even as I sat, my shoulder ached where he had,
with an audacity that seemed half to hide his treachery, struck at me,
in the sight of all my friends, on the terrace at Tarlenheim.
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