"I
found the house dark and the doors shut. They were only secured,
however, by a wooden beam dropped into a couple of sockets on the
inside."
"But how did you open them?" asked Clementina.
"Your Highness, I have, after all, a pair of arms," said O'Toole. "I
just pressed on the doors till--"
"Till the sockets gave?"
"No, till the beam broke," said he, and Clementina laughed.
"That's my six foot four!" said she. O'Toole did not understand. But he
smiled with great condescension and dignity, and continued his story.
"I groped my way up the stairs into the room and found the bundle
untouched in the corner."
He handed it to the Princess; Wogan sprang again onto the box, and
Gaydon whipped up the horses. They reached the first posting stage at
two, the second at four, the third at six, and at each they wasted no
time. All that night their horses strained up the mountain road amid the
whirling sleet. At times the wind roaring down a gorge would set the
carriage rocking; at times they stuck fast in drifts; and Wogan and
Gaydon must leap from the box and plunging waist-deep in the snow, must
drag at the horses and push at the wheels.
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