In pursuance of that plan I yesterday concealed
myself and overheard all that passed in the council chamber with
the officers, and at the banquet subsequently."
Wallenstein leapt to his feet with an angry exclamation.
"Your excellency will please to remember," Malcolm went on quietly,
"that I could have kept all this to myself and used it to the
benefit or detriment of your excellency, but it seemed to me that
I should benefit at once your designs and the cause I serve by
frankly acquainting you with what I have discovered. It would be
a work of time for me to make my way with my companion through the
lines of your army and to gain those of the Swedes. I might be slain
in so doing and the important information I have acquired lost.
"It is of all things important to you that the Swedish chancellor,
whose nature is cautious and suspicious, should be thoroughly
convinced that it is your intention to make common cause with him
and to join him heart and soul in forcing the emperor to accept
the conditions which you and he united may impose upon him. This
the information I have acquired will assuredly suffice to do, and
he will, without doubt, at once set his army in motion to act in
concert with yours."
Wallenstein paced the room for a minute or two in silence.
"The stars truly said that you are a brave man and that your destiny
is connected with mine," he said at length, "for assuredly none
but a brave man would venture to tell me that he had spied into
my councils.
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