'I have the honour to deliver to your excellency these documents, entrusted to me by his Majesty the King.' 'His Majesty the King does not owe you many thanks for the haste you have made!' replied Tchernaieff, as he somewhat rudely snatched the papers from Cecil's hand, while his eyes literally glared at him. 'I do not understand this bearing of yours, general,' said he, haughtily. 'You may understand, however, Herr Lieutenant, that you loitered for many days idly at Palenka.' 'A dislocated arm--dislocated when fording the Morava--detained me there.' 'A likely story, truly,' said Tchernaieff, with growing indignation; 'why ford a river that has bridges, and why the devil ford it at all, before coming to the town of Tjuprija?' 'I lost the direct road and fell into the river in the night. The family of the Count----' 'Knew not that they were harbouring a traitor,' said Palenka, grimly. 'A traitor, Herr Count!' exclaimed Cecil. 'I have said it; so don't repeat my words.' 'There must be some strange misconception in all this,' replied Cecil, more bewildered than indignant, perhaps; 'the way was beset----' 'By Captain Mattei Guebhard,' interrupted Tchernaieff. 'You know it!' 'From his own lips. He is now in camp, and very properly and duly reported to me that he had done so; but that you escaped him, he knows not how, after killing one of his men, and causing, by misadventure, the death of another.' Cecil was more and more bewildered by the strange candour of Guebhard in acknowledging the outrageous conduct of which he had been guilty; but the injurious treatment now so unexpectedly accorded him, after all he had undergone, filled him with just anger and indignation. 'Who dares to accuse me of wrong, or even of error?' he demanded. 'That you will discover in time.' 'Of what am I accused?' he continued. 'That also you will learn in time; and in time you may see the mines of Siberia, if you escape death! Meanwhile you will withdraw, and remain under close arrest. Count Palenka, take his sword.' 'The officer of the nearest guard can do that. Your excellency must hold me excused,' was the haughty and contemptuous reply of Palenka; and a few minutes afterwards Cecil found himself disarmed and a prisoner under close arrest, with special sentries guarding the door of the house, in an apartment of which he was left to his own bitter and confused thoughts. That he was the victim of some strange and malevolent report made by Guebhard to the general and Count Palenka, he could not doubt; but of what nature could that slander be? Palenka had called him a 'traitor.' He could only be so to King Milano Obrenovitch, and he felt certain that no act of his own could draw such an epithet upon him, so to Guebhard now did the whole tide of his fury turn. CHAPTER VI. A FATAL PROOF FOUND. Food and wine were placed before him; he recoiled from the former, but drank the latter like one who had been long athirst.