without risk to themselves. But so soon as the door should be in danger of being forced, then Rupert Hentzau or Detchard (for one of these two was always there) should leave the others to hold it as long as they could, and himself pass into the inner room, and without more ado kill the king, who lay there, well treated indeed, but without weapons, and with his arms confined in fine steel chains, which did not allow him to move his elbow more than three inches from his shoulder. Thus, before the outer door were stormed, the king would be dead. And his body? For his body would be evidence as damning as himself.
"Nay, sir," said Johann, "his Highness has thought of that. While the two hold the outer room the one who has killed the king unlocks the bars in the square window (they turn on a hinge). The window now gives no light, for its mouth is choked by a great pipe of earthenware; and this pipe, which is large enough to let pass through it the body of a man, passes into the moat, coming to an end immediately above the surface of the water, so that there is no perceptible interval between
