, and without
further inquiry committed to the Provost-Marshal for instant execution; - on
which account, all persons were warned carefully to forbear from intrusions of
simple curiosity, since in the hurry of the moment it might be difficult to make
the requisite distinctions.«
    It was anticipated that this insulting notice would not long go without an
answer from The Masque. Accordingly, on the following morning, a placard,
equally conspicuous, was posted up in the same public places, side by side with
that to which it replied. It was couched in the following terms: - »That he who
ruled by night in Klosterheim could not suppose himself to be excluded from a
nocturnal fête given by any person in that city. That he must be allowed to
believe himself invited by the Prince, and would certainly have the honour to
accept his Highness's obliging summons. With regard to the low personalities
addressed to himself, that he could not descend to notice anything of that
nature coming from a man so abject as Adorni, until he should first have cleared
himself from the imputation of having been a tailor in Venice at the time of the
Spanish conspiracy in 1618, and banished from that city, not for any suspicions
that could have settled upon him and his eight journeymen as making up one
conspirator, but on account of some professional tricks in making a doublet for
the Doge. For the rest, he repeated that he would not fail to meet the Landgrave
and his honourable company.«
    All Klosterheim laughed at this public mortification offered to Adorni's
pride; for that minister had incurred the public dislike as a foreigner, and
their hatred on the score of private character. Adorni himself foamed at the
mouth with rage, impotent for the present, but which he prepared to give deadly
effect to at the proper time. But, whilst it laughed, Klosterheim also trembled.
Some persons indeed were of opinion that the answer of The Masque was a mere
sportive effusion of malice or pleasantry from the students, who had suffered so
much by his annoyances. But the majority, amongst whom was Adorni himself,
thought otherwise. Apart even from the reply, or the insult which had provoked
it, the general impression was that The Masque would not have failed in
attending a festival which, by the very costume which it imposed, offered so
favourable a cloak to his own mysterious purposes. In this persuasion, Adorni
took all the precautions which personal vengeance and Venetian subtlety could
suggest, for availing himself of the single opportunity that would perhaps ever
be allowed him for entrapping this public enemy, who had now become a private