Once more the stable was in darkness, once more Otto employed the
talismanic knock, and once more the groom appeared and sickened with
terror.
'Good-evening, friend,' said Otto pleasantly. 'I want you to bring
a corn sack - empty this time - and to accompany me. We shall be
gone all night.'
'Your Highness,' groaned the man, 'I have the charge of the small
stables. I am here alone.'
'Come,' said the Prince, 'you are no such martinet in duty.' And
then seeing that the man was shaking from head to foot, Otto laid a
hand upon his shoulder. 'If I meant you harm,' he said, 'should I
be here?'
The fellow became instantly reassured. He got the sack; and Otto
led him round by several paths and avenues, conversing pleasantly by
the way, and left him at last planted by a certain fountain where a
goggle-eyed Triton spouted intermittently into a rippling laver.
Thence he proceeded alone to where, in a round clearing, a copy of
Gian Bologna's Mercury stood tiptoe in the twilight of the stars.
The night was warm and windless. A shaving of new moon had lately
arisen; but it was still too small and too low down in heaven to
contend with the immense host of lesser luminaries; and the rough
face of the earth was drenched with starlight. Down one of the
alleys, which widened as it receded, he could see a part of the
lamplit terrace where a sentry silently paced, and beyond that a
corner of the town with interlacing street-lights.
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