"You know my business," said Walter, abruptly. "I carried out your orders in collecting information with regard to the number of the troops, the position of the regiments, and the defences of the camp and city. This report I was ordered to deliver to an officer of the prince privately--in order, as I was informed, not to offend those dignitaries of the city and others who hated the war and wished ill-success to the prince's campaigns. I set out, therefore, last evening with three of your retainers, supplied for the purpose by you, to the inn of Brederode. There I was met, not by an accredited servant of the prince, but by an officer of the French king, who endeavored first by promises and then by force to obtain the papers from me; and now I have brought back the reports safely to Amersfort, to lay them before the prince in person, and, at the same time, to tax you with double-dealing and treachery." Barra listened with an amused air. "And pray, whom do you expect to delude with this cock-and-bull story?" he said. "Not, surely, the prince, in whose company I was till a late hour last night; and not surely myself, who never in my life either issued or heard of any such preposterous order." "I demand to see the prince, to whom I shall speak my mind," reiterated Walter, still more curtly. "You shall see the inside of a prison in a few moments," returned Barra, with vicious emphasis. But ere he could summon an officer the inner door opened, and there entered a dark, thin, sallow-faced man, with brilliant, hollow-set eyes, who walked with his head a little forward, as if he had gone all his life in haste. It was the Prince of Orange himself, dressed in his general's uniform, but without decorations or orders of any kind. Barra rose at his entrance and remained standing. "Pray sit down," said the prince to him, "and proceed with your conversation with these gentlemen of your country." "I was about," said Barra, deferentially, "to commit to prison this soldier of the Douglas Dragoon regiment for a most insolent slander concerning myself, and also for collecting information as to the condition of our forces with intent to communicate it to the enemy. There is, indeed, an officer of the King of France with the man at this very moment, but in disguise." The prince turned his bright keen eyes upon Wat and Scarlett in turn. "And you, sir! what have you to say?" he asked, quietly. Whereupon, nothing daunted, Wat told his plain tale, and showed the order which he had received from Sergeant Davie Dunbar, signed with Barra's name. "I never wrote the order, and never heard of it," said Barra, who stood, calmly contemptuous, at the prince's elbow. "Call Sergeant David Dunbar!" ordered the prince. It was a few minutes before that stanch soldier arrived. In the mean time, the prince turned his attention to Scarlett. "You are an officer of the King of France?" he said, with an ominous gleam in his eye as he spoke of his arch-enemy.