They came up to kidnap the King, and--as I say--somehow they found him.

If you hadn't gone to Strelsau, you and I and Fritz had been in heaven by now!" "And the King ?" "Who knows where the King is now ?" he asked.
"Come, let's be off!" said I; but he sat still.

And suddenly he burst into one of his grating chuckles: "By Jove, we've shaken up Black Michael!" "Come, come!" I repeated impatiently.
"And we'll shake him up a bit more," he added, a cunning smile broadening on his wrinkled, weather-beaten face, and his teeth working on an end of his grizzled moustache.

"Ay, lad, we'll go back to Strelsau.

The King shall be in his capital again tomorrow." "The King ?" "The crowned King!" "You're mad!" I cried.
"If we go back and tell the trick we played, what would you give for our lives ?" "Just what they're worth," said I.
"And for the King's throne?
Do you think that the nobles and the people will enjoy being fooled as you've fooled them?
Do you think they'll love a King who was too drunk to be crowned, and sent a servant to personate him ?" "He was drugged--and I'm no servant." "Mine will be Black Michael's version." He rose, came to me, and laid his hand on my shoulder.
"Lad," he said, "if you play the man, you may save the King yet.