"Here's an exploit, if we but carry it through, which even antiquity
will be at pains to match! It's more than an exploit, for it has the
sanctity of a crusade. On the one side there's tyranny, oppression,
injustice, the one woman who most deserves a crown robbed of it. And on
the other--"

"There's the King," said Gaydon; and the three brief words seemed
somehow to quench and sober Wogan.

"Yes," said he; "there's the King, and we four to serve him in his
need. We are few, but in that lies our one hope. They will never look
for four men, but for many. Four men travelling to the shrine of Loretto
with the Pope's passport may well stay at Innspruck and escape a close
attention."

"I am ready," O'Toole repeated.

"But we shall not start to-night. There's the passport to be got, a plan
to be arranged."

"Oh, there's a plan," said O'Toole. "To be sure, there's always a plan."
And he sat down again heavily, as though he put no faith in plans.

Misset and Gaydon drew their chairs closer to Wogan's and instinctively
lowered their voices to the tone of a whisper.

"Is her Highness warned of the attempt?" asked Gaydon.

"As soon as I obtained the King's permission," replied Wogan, "I hurried
to Innspruck. There I saw Chateaudoux, the chamberlain of the Princess's