The startling assertion created a fresh sensation. Sensations had come so thick and so fast, however, that they seemed component parts of one grand bewildering climax. The new actor in the drama held the center of the stage undisputed.
"Harry!" cried Lorry.
"Prince Gabriel, why do you shake like a leaf? Is it because you know what I am going to say?" exclaimed Anguish, pointing his finger accusingly at the astonished Prince of Dawsbergen.
Gabriel's lips parted, but nothing more than a gasp escaped them. Involuntarily his eyes sought the door, then the windows, the peculiar uncontrollable look of the hunted coming into them. Bolaroz allowed his gaze to leap instantly to that pallid face and every eye in the room followed. Yetive was standing again, her face glowing.
"An accomplice has confessed all. I have the word of the man who saw the crime committed. I charge Prince Gabriel with the murder of His Highness, Prince Lorenz."
With a groan, Gabriel threw his hands to his heart and tottered forward, glaring at the merciless face of the accuser.
"Confessed! Betrayed!" he faltered. Then he whirled like a maniac upon his little coterie of followers. "Vile traitor!" he shrieked, "I will drink your heart's blood!"
With a howl he leaped toward one of the men, a darkfaced nobleman named Berrowag. The latter evaded him and rushed toward the door, crying: "It is a lie! a lie! He has tricked you! I did not confess!"
The Prince was seized by his friends, struggling and cursing. A peculiar smile lit up the face of Harry Anguish.
"I repeat, he is the assassin!"
Gabriel broke from the detaining hands and drawing a revolver, rushed for the door.
"Out of the way! I will not be taken alive!"
Allode met him at the curtains and grasped him in his powerful arms, Baron Dangloss and others tearing the weapon from his hand. The utmost confusion reigned--women screaming, men shouting--and above all could be heard the howls of the accused Prince.
"Let me go! Curse you! Curse you! I will not surrender! Let me kill that traitor! Let me at him!" Berrowag had been seized by willing hands, and the two men glared at each other, one crazy with rage, the other shrinking with fear.
Dangloss and Allode half carried, half dragged the Prince forward. As he neared Bolaroz and the Princess he collapsed and became a trembling, moaning suppliant for mercy. Anguish's accusation had struck home.
"Prince Bolaroz, I trust you will not object if the Princess Yetive substitutes the true assassin for the man named in your promise to Graustark," said Anguish, dramatically. Bolaroz, as if coming from a dream, turned and knelt before the throne.