When the narrator had got thus far in his story, I leaned forward to catch a full view of him, and saw, to my surprise, and, I own, to my misery, that he was the German count we had met at the Titi-See. So overwhelming was this discovery to me, that I heard nothing for many minutes after. All of that wretched scene between us on the last evening at the inn came full to my memory, and I bethought me of lying the whole night on the hard table, fevered with rage and terror alternately. If it were not that his narrative regarded Miss Herbert now, I would have skulked out of the room, and out of the inn, and out of the town itself, never again to come under the insolent stare of those wicked gray eyes; but in that name there was a fascination,--not to say that a sense of jealousy burned at my heart like a furnace. The turmoil of my thought lost me a great deal of his story, and might have lost me more, had not the hearty laughter of his comrades recalled me once again to attention. He was describing how, as a _vetturino_, he drove their carriage with his own spanking gray horses to Coire, and thence to Andeer. He had bargained, it seemed, that Miss Herbert should travel outside in the cabriolet, but she failed to keep her pledge, so that they only met at stray moments during the journey. It was in one of these she said laughingly to him,-- “'Nothing would surprise me less than to learn, some fine morning, that you were a prince in disguise, or a great count of the empire, at least. It was only the other day we were honored with the incognito presence of a royal personage; I do not exactly know who, but Mrs. Keats could tell you. He left us abruptly at Schaffbausen.' “'You can't mean the creature,' said I, 'that I saw in your company at the Titi-See?' “'The same,' said she, rather angrily. “'Why, he is a saltimbanque; I saw him the morning I came through Constance, with some others of his troop dragged before the maire for causing a disturbance in a cabaret; one of the most consummate impostors, they told me, in Europe.'” “An infamous falsehood, and a base liar the man who says it!” cried I, springing to my legs, and standing revealed before the company in an attitude of haughty defiance. “I am the person you have dared to defame. I have never assumed to be a prince, and as little am I a rope-dancer. I am an English gentleman, travelling for his pleasure, and I hurl back every word you have said of me with contempt and defiance.” Before I had finished this insolent speech, some half-dozen swords were drawn and brandished in the air, very eager, as it seemed, to cut me to pieces, and the Count himself required all the united strength of the party to save me from his hands. At last I was pushed, hustled, and dragged out of the room to another smaller one on the same floor, and, the key being turned on me, left to my very happy reflections. CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE DUEL WITH PRINCE MAX.