Colonel Galenski dismounted, neglecting no detail of the signs of combat, the bullet-scarred flagging, the broken rock, the timbers, the two figures lying in the shadow of the wall of the gate.
"From below, with my glasses, I saw the Austrians attacking your drawbridge," he said. "There were many of them along the road. Your men have well defended the position. Where are they?"
The tall man smiled and took the beautiful young woman by the hand.
"I beg to present you to my garrison," he said with a laugh. "Countess Marishka Strahni—and—er——?"
"Colonel Galenski of the Fifth Regiment—horse," said the Colonel with a bow. "And you, sir—who are you?"
The tall man extended a grimy hand to the immaculate Russian.
"I will tell you that, sir, if"—and he laughed—"if you'll give me a cigarette."
IN REGARD TO THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE
If the reader of this book is not inclined to accept the prima-facie evidence as presented in the newspapers from official sources with regard to the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, he is referred by the publishers to the very interesting article by Mr. Henry Wickham Steed called "The Pact of Konopisht," printed in the Nineteenth Century for February, 1916. Mr. Steed, as is well known, was for twenty years the correspondent in Vienna of the London Times, and is also the author of the latest and presumably the most authoritative work in English on the Austro-Hungarian government and the House of Habsburg.