Whatever drug it was with which Terhune had doctored the guards' wine, it could not have been a very powerful one, for even as the two men rushed past several of the guards sat up, rubbing their eyes in bewilderment, and by the time Wenzel was on the scene they were all sitting up from the positions into which they had fallen. The sight of Wenzel, his face and clothes covered in blood, rushing into their midst, was their first intimation that anything was wrong. "Dogs! Beasts!" furiously shouted Wenzel. "The prisoner has escaped!" There was a dramatic silence while the stupefied guards gazed at one another, and observing this, Wenzel gabbled with rage. "Fools, dolts, idiots! follow them! follow me!" and rushing past them, kicking them as he went, he led the pursuit, and the guards, realizing at last what had happened, rushed pell-mell after him. Wenzel was outside, staring up and down the street. "Which way?" the guards cried, but Wenzel shook his head helplessly. Some distance away two shadows darted across the dark street, but one of the guards saw. "That way, look!" he called; and the guards set off in a ragged group, Wenzel leading them. Here and there against an occasional light they saw twin shadows fleeing from them, one stumbling and falling, the other pulling. Gradually Wenzel and the guards caught up. Another moment and the two who were pursued would have been caught, but seeing this, they parted company, one to fall helplessly to the ground, where he lay without moving, and the other to speed still quicker away, till he was lost from sight. Wenzel struck a match. The fallen one, his face smothered in the mud of the road, was the Count. "Ho, ho, comrades!" hoarsely cried out Wenzel in triumph, "back to the jail with him. Get up!" he ordered, and kicked the man at his feet, but the Count did not move. "Fainted. Pah! the chicken. Come, friends, carry him back. I hope they will lash him for this." The guards dragged the helpless man along the streets, till inside the prison they let him fall, and there he lay, cold and stiff. Suddenly Wenzel gave a cry, and with his already filthy handkerchief wiped away the mud from the face of the prisoner, and having done so gazed with stupefaction at what he saw. It was not Count Bakocz who lay there, but a two or three days' old corpse of another man, dressed in the Count's clothes. The White Knight had won again. _CHAPTER IV_ Because of the rigid censorship not one of the Budapest newspapers hinted at the escape of Count Bakocz; yet the news was passed on from mouth to mouth, was repeated and commented upon, until it finally percolated into the uttermost environs of the city. Disclaimed by the risen scum, in their requisitioned mansions, acclaimed in the sanctuaries of the refugees; by the first it was furtively believed but outwardly denied, and by the second inwardly discredited but optimistically confirmed.