“Who am I, man?” insisted the king.
“You are Leopold Rubinroth, sire, by the grace of God, king of Lutha,” cried the frightened man. “Have mercy on an old man, your majesty.”
“Wait! Am I mad? Was I ever mad?”
“As God is my judge, sire, no!” replied Peter of Blentz.
Leopold turned to Butzow.
“Remove the traitor from our presence,” he commanded, and at a word from the lieutenant a dozen guardsmen seized the trembling man and hustled him from the cathedral amid hisses and execrations.
Following the coronation the king was closeted in his private audience chamber in the palace with Prince Ludwig.
“I cannot understand what has happened, even now, your majesty,” the old man was saying. “That you are the true Leopold is all that I am positive of, for the discomfiture of Prince Peter evidenced that fact all too plainly. But who the impostor was who ruled Lutha in your name for two days, disappearing as miraculously as he came, I cannot guess.
“But for another miracle which preserved you for us in the nick of time he might now be wearing the crown of Lutha in your stead. Having Peter of Blentz safely in custody our next immediate task should be to hunt down the impostor and bring him to justice also; though”—and the old prince sighed—“he was indeed a brave man, and a noble figure of a king as he led your troops to battle.”
The king had been smiling as Von der Tann first spoke of the “impostor,” but at the old man’s praise of the other’s bravery a slight flush tinged his cheek, and the shadow of a scowl crossed his brow.