"If you shave, I'll wager you'll not be known.

Are you afraid ?" "Sir!" "Come, lad, there, there; but it's your life, you know, if you're known--and mine--and Fritz's here.

But, if you don't go, I swear to you Black Michael will sit tonight on the throne, and the King lie in prison or his grave." "The King would never forgive it," I stammered.
"Are we women?
Who cares for his forgiveness ?" The clock ticked fifty times, and sixty and seventy times, as I stood in thought.

Then I suppose a look came over my face, for old Sapt caught me by the hand, crying: "You'll go ?" "Yes, I'll go," said I, and I turned my eyes on the prostrate figure of the King on the floor.
"Tonight," Sapt went on in a hasty whisper, "we are to lodge in the Palace.

The moment they leave us you and I will mount our horses--Fritz must stay there and guard the King's room--and ride here at a gallop.
The King will be ready--Josef will tell him--and he must ride back with me to Strelsau, and you ride as if the devil were behind you to the frontier." I took it all in in a second, and nodded my head.
"There's a chance," said Fritz, with his first sign of hopefulness.
"If I escape detection," said I.
"If we're detected," said Sapt.