The King breathed loudly and heavily.

Sapt stirred him again with his foot.
"The drunken dog!" he said; "but he's an Elphberg and the son of his father, and may I rot in hell before Black Michael sits in his place!" For a moment or two we were all silent; then Sapt, knitting his bushy grey brows, took his pipe from his mouth and said to me: "As a man grows old he believes in Fate.

Fate sent you here.

Fate sends you now to Strelsau." I staggered back, murmuring "Good God!" Fritz looked up with an eager, bewildered gaze.
"Impossible!" I muttered.

"I should be known." "It's a risk--against a certainty," said Sapt.