When, perhaps, two hundred paces up the slope the sounds above the
boy ceased. The night was still, save for the rustling and creeping
of the creatures of the air and the forest. For a long time not a
sound indicative of the presence of human life was heard, then a
woman's cry of fright came from above.
Ned was about to hasten forward when a voice came to his ears from
the darkness.
"We can't permit either of them to leave!" the low, well-modulated
voice he had heard before that night said. "Even if we get away with
the prince, their stories would ruin us. There is no knowing how soon
the gabblings of the old woman might reach the ears of the adherents
of the prince."
"Then you propose--"
"Nothing that will not come to them in due course of time! They can
go to sleep in the snug inner room and never wake again. They will
not know when the change comes. They will sleep forever in their
mountain tomb."
"I am opposed to murder," said another voice, harsher, more decisive.
"And so the trap was well set!" mused Ned. "The princeling is still
here! Well, the battle may not bring victory to me, but I will at
least know that I planned it right, acting on the best information at
hand."
It was plain, from what the first speaker had said, that the camp of
the conspirators was in a cave, for he had spoken of a snug inner
room.
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