In another hour I was before Black Michael's castle at Bock. These
are lightning changes, I know--and the sovereignty of
Trulyruralania WAS somewhat itinerant--but when a kingdom and a
beautiful Princess are at stake, what are you to do? Fritz had
begged me to take him along, but I arranged that he should come
later, and go up unostentatiously in the lift. I was going by way
of the moat. I was to succor the King, but I fear my real object
was to get at Rupert of Glasgow.
I had noticed the day before that a large outside drain pipe,
decreed by the Bock County Council, ran from the moat to the third
floor of the donjon keep. I surmised that the King was imprisoned
on that floor. Examining the pipe closely, I saw that it was
really a pneumatic dispatch tube, for secretly conveying letters
and dispatches from the castle through the moat beyond the castle
walls. Its extraordinary size, however, gave me the horrible
conviction that it was to be used to convey the dead body of the
King to the moat. I grew cold with horror--but I was determined.
I crept up the pipe. As I expected, it opened funnel-wise into a
room where the poor King was playing poker with Black Michael. It
took me but a moment to dash through the window into the room, push
the King aside, gag and bind Black Michael, and lower him by a
stout rope into the pipe he had destined for another.
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