He rode watchfully, avoiding towns, and with an eye alert for every passer-by.  That he was ahead of any courier from the Emperor at Vienna he did not doubt, but, on the other hand, the Countess of Berg and Lady Featherstone had the advantage of him by some four days.  There would be no lack of money to hinder him; there would be no scruple as to the means.  Wogan remembered the moment in his bedroom when he had seen the dagger bright in the moon’s rays.  If he could not be arrested, there were other ways to stop him.  Accidents may happen to any man.

However, he rode unhindered with the Prince’s commission safe against his breast.  He felt the paper a hundred times a day to make sure that it was not stolen nor lost, nor reduced to powder by a miracle.  Day by day his fears diminished, since day by day he drew a day’s journey nearer to Schlestadt.  The paper became a talisman in his thoughts,—­a thing endowed with magic properties to make him invisible like the cloak or cap of the fairy tales.  Those few lines in writing not a week back had seemed an unattainable prize, yet he had them; and so now they promised him that other unattainable thing, the enlargement of the Princess.  It was in his nature, too, to grow buoyant in proportion to the difficulties of his task.  He rode forward, therefore, with a good heart, and one sombre evening of rain came to a village some miles beyond Augsburg.

The village was a straggling half-mile of low cottages, lost as it were on the level of a wide plain.  Across this plain, bare but for a few lines of poplars and stunted willow-trees, Wogan had ridden all the afternoon; and so little did the thatched cottages break the monotony of the plain’s appearance, that though he had had the village within his vision all that while, he came upon it unawares.  The dusk was gathering, and already through the tiny windows the meagre lights gleamed upon the road and gave to the falling raindrops the look of steel beads.  Four days would now bring Wogan to Schlestadt.  The road was bad and full of holes.  He determined to go no farther that night if he could find a lodging in the village, and coming upon a man who stood in his path he stopped his horse.

“Is there an inn where a traveller may sleep?” he asked.

“Assuredly,” replied the man, “and find forage for his horse.  The last house—­but I will myself show your Honour the way.”

“There is no need, my friend, that you should take a colic,” said Wogan.

“I shall earn enough drink to correct the colic,” said the man.  He had a sack over his head and shoulders to protect him from the rain, and stepped out in front of Wogan’s horse.  They came to the end of the street and passed on into the open darkness.  About twenty yards farther a house stood by itself at the roadside, but there were only lights in one or two of the upper windows, and it held out no promise of hospitality.  In front of it, however, the man stopped; he opened the door and halloaed into the passage.  Wogan stopped too, and above his head something creaked and groaned like a gibbet in the wind.  He looked up and saw a sign-board glimmering in the dusk with a new coat of white paint.  He had undoubtedly come to the inn, and he dismounted.