"Am I not understood?" said I; and, biting his moustache again, he gave
the orders. I saw old Sapt smiling into his beard, but he shook his
head at me. If I had been killed in open day in the streets of Strelsau,
Sapt's position would have been a difficult one.

Perhaps I ought to say that I was dressed all in white, except my boots.
I wore a silver helmet with gilt ornaments, and the broad ribbon of the
Rose looked well across my chest. I should be paying a poor compliment
to the King if I did not set modesty aside and admit that I made a very
fine figure. So the people thought; for when I, riding alone, entered
the dingy, sparsely decorated, sombre streets of the Old Town, there
was first a murmur, then a cheer, and a woman, from a window above a
cookshop, cried the old local saying:

"If he's red, he's right!" whereat I laughed and took off my helmet that
she might see that I was of the right colour and they cheered me again
at that.

It was more interesting riding thus alone, for I heard the comments of
the crowd.

"He looks paler than his wont," said one.

"You'd look pale if you lived as he does," was the highly disrespectful
retort.

"He's a bigger man than I thought," said another.

"So he had a good jaw under that beard after all," commented a third.