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Lapas had whitened to the lips and now stood hesitant. "I don't understand," he stammered. The Spaniard's expression changed swiftly from good humor to the sternness of a taskmaster. "The Duke is impatient," he asserted, "of delays and misunderstandings on the part of his servants. His Grace believed that your memory had been well schooled.
It will require fifteen minutes for the King to go from the Palace to the Fortress. I must not remain here I must be where I can see." Lapas rose and consulted his watch with nervous haste. "You will excuse me?" he added. "I must be at my post. Are you satisfied?" Blanco also rose, bowing as he drew back the heavy chair he had occupied. "I am quite satisfied," he approved.
Lapas, his eyes fixed on the door, had no hint. A picture of serene sky and steady mountains was blotted from his brain. There was blackness instead and unconsciousness. A bleeding scalp told the toreador that the blow had only cut and stunned. Rapidly he bound and gagged his captive.
"You will, I am informed, find Lieutenant Lapas bound to a telescope at the Rock. You will find the explosives at do Freres connected with a percussion cap which was to have been touched while we were there this afternoon. The Countess was disappointed because the percussion cap was not exploded. Sometimes, when ladies are bitterly grieved, they swoon."
With growing astonishment Karyl listened, then slowly his brows came together in a frown. It was distasteful to him beyond expression to feel that he owed his life and throne to Benton, but of that he said nothing. Lapas had been, in the days of his childhood, his playmate.
That would be only in the event of refusal by the governments to recognize; the governments had not refused! Possibly Lapas had turned traitor! There had also been some unexplained delay seaward. The little steamer, which should have remained near by, was a speck on the horizon, and without her there was no possibility of escape.
Louis, the King, may prove forgetful of those who are forgetful of Louis, the Duke." Lapas still stood silent, pitiably unnerved. If the man was Karyl's spy an incautious reply might cost him his life. If he was genuinely a messenger from the Pretender any hesitation might prove equally fatal. Time was important.
The hours dragged interminably. Louis walked the stone buttress where the flag which he had raised in signal to Lapas flapped and whipped against its staff. At last his binoculars, fixed on the rock, caught the dip of the colors there. With a great sigh of relief the Duke watched to see them rise and dip, rise and dip again. The flag came down the length of the pole and did not go up.
"The plan is this. It is to happen at the Fortress do Freres this afternoon while the King inspects the arsenal. Now, in fifteen minutes!" He pointed down toward the city. "See, the cortége leaves the Palace! Lapas was to be here at the rock the blessed Saints help him! He is hobbled to his telescope." Swiftly he rehearsed the story as it had come from the lips of Lapas.
"Rarely, indeed," he began, "do I permit personal indignation to excite me. But this is so unspeakable that I wished to talk to you. You enjoy the confidence of the Countess Astaride?" "Only in a humble way," confessed young Lapas. "But you are her friend? If she were wronged and had no other defender, you would assume her cause?" "With my life," protested the officer, fervently.
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