As the prince was evidently speaking to himself rather than to him, Ned remained silent. "Please to write all the particulars down that you have given me," the prince went on, "that I may think it over at my leisure. And so you could not see the Count of Coeverden? Was he more difficult of access than he of Sluys?" "I do not know that he was, sir," Ned replied; "but my attire was not such as to gain me an entrance into antechambers." "No, I did not think of that," the prince said. "You should have taken with you a suit of higher quality. I forgot when I agreed that you should, for safety, travel as a country lad, that in such dress you could hardly gain an entrance into the palaces of nobles; and of course it would have excited surprise for one so attired to try to purchase such clothes as would have enabled you to boldly enter." "I might possibly have managed as a peasant lad," Ned replied with a smile; "but having been detected in that attire, and being eagerly sought for by Von Aert's agents, I was at the time dressed as a peasant woman, and could think of no possible excuse upon which I might obtain an audience with the count." "No, indeed," the prince said smiling. "I must hear your story with all its details; but as it is doubtless somewhat long, I must put it off until later. After the evening meal you shall tell us your adventures before I betake myself to my work." Ned retired to his own room and resumed the attire he usually wore. After supper he was sent for by the prince, with whom he found the chamberlain and three or four of his principal officers. "Now, young sir, tell us your story," the prince said. "Do not fear of its being long. It is a rest to have one's mind taken off the affairs of state. I have already told these gentlemen what valuable services you have rendered to the cause we all have at heart, and they, like myself, wish to know how you fared, and how you escaped the danger you referred to at the hands of Von Aert." Thus requested, Ned gave a full account of his journey, and of the adventures he had met with in Brussels and on his way back.