CHAPTER III.
AGAIN TO ZENDA.
BY Heaven's care, or—since a man may be over-apt to arrogate to himself a great share of such attention—by good luck, I had not to trust for my life to the slender thread of an oath sworn by Rupert of Hentzau. The visions of my dazed brain were transmutations of reality; the scuffle, the rush, the retreat were not all dream.
There is an honest fellow now living at Wintenberg comfortably and at his ease, by reason that his waggon chanced to come lumbering along with three or four stout lads in it, at the moment when Rupert was meditating a second and murderous blow. Seeing the group of us, the good carrier and his boys leapt down and rushed on my assailants. One of the thieves, they said, was for fighting it out—I could guess who that was—and called on the rest to stand; but they, more prudent, laid hands on him, and in spite of his oaths hustled him off along the road towards the station. Open country lay there, and the promise of safety. My new friends set off in pursuit, but a couple of revolver-shots, heard by me but
