TRUXTON KING

A STORY of GRAUSTARK

BY

GEORGE BARR McCUTCHEON

Author of "Graustark"
"Beverly of Graustark"
etc.

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BY HARRISON FISHER

NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
1909

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

TRUXTON KING

A STORY OF GRAUSTARK

CHAPTER I

TRUXTON KING

He was a tall, rawboned, rangy young fellow with a face so tanned by wind and sun you had the impression that his skin would feel like leather if you could affect the impertinence to test it by the sense of touch. Not that you would like to encourage this bit of impudence after a look into his devil-may-care eyes; but you might easily imagine something much stronger than brown wrapping paper and not quite so passive as burnt clay. His clothes fit him loosely and yet were graciously devoid of the bagginess which characterises the appearance of extremely young men whose frames are not fully set and whose joints are still parading through the last stages of college development. This fellow, you could tell by looking at him, had been out of college from two to five years; you could also tell, beyond doubt or contradiction, that he had been in college for his full allotted time and had not escaped the usual number of "conditions" that dismay but do not discourage the happy-go-lucky undergraduate who makes two or three teams with comparative ease, but who has a great deal of difficulty with physics or whatever else he actually is supposed to acquire between the close of the football season and the opening of baseball practice.

This tall young man in the panama hat and grey flannels was Truxton King, embryo globe-trotter and searcher after the treasures of Romance. Somewhere up near Central Park, in one of the fashionable cross streets, was the home of his father and his father's father before him: a home which Truxton had not seen in two years or more. It is worthy of passing notice, and that is all, that his father was a manufacturer; more than that, he was something of a power in the financial world. His mother was not strictly a social queen in the great metropolis, but she was what we might safely call one of the first "ladies in waiting." Which is quite good enough for the wife of a manufacturer; especially when one records that her husband was a manufacturer of steel. It is also a matter of no little consequence that Truxton's mother was more or less averse to the steel business as a heritage for her son. Be it understood, here and now, that she intended Truxton for the diplomatic service: as far removed from sordid steel as the New York post office is from the Court of St. James.

But neither Truxton's father, who wanted him to be a manufacturing Croesus, or Truxton's mother, who expected him to become a social Solomon, appears to have taken the young man's private inclinations into consideration. Truxton preferred a life of adventure distinctly separated from steel and velvet; nor was he slow to set his esteemed parents straight in this respect. He had made up his mind to travel, to see the world, to be a part of the big round globe on which we, as ordinary individuals with no personality beyond the next block, are content to sit and encourage the single ambition to go to Europe at least once, so that we may not be left out of the general conversation.

Young Mr. King believed in Romance. He had believed in Santa Claus and the fairies, and he grew up with an ever increasing bump of imagination, contiguous to which, strange to relate, there was a properly developed bump of industry and application. Hence, it is not surprising that he was willing to go far afield in search of the things that seemed more or less worth while to a young gentleman who had suffered the ill-fortune to be born in the nineteenth century instead of the seventeenth. Romance and adventure, politely amorous but vigorously attractive, came up to him from the seventeenth century, perhaps through the blood of some swash-buckling ancestor, and he was held enthralled by the possibilities that lay hidden in some far off or even nearby corner of this hopelessly unromantic world of the twentieth century.

To be sure there was war, but war isn't Romance. Besides, he was too young to fight against Spain; and, later on, he happened to be more interested in football than he was in the Japs or the Russians. The only thing left for him to do was to set forth in quest of adventure; adventure was not likely to apply to him in Fifth Avenue or at the factory or—still, there was a certain kind of adventure analogous to Broadway, after all. He thought it over and, after trying it for a year or two, decided that Broadway and the Tenderloin did not produce the sort of Romance he could cherish for long as a self-respecting hero, so he put certain small temptations aside, chastened himself as well as he could, and set out for less amiable but more productive by-ways in other sections of the globe.

We come upon him at last—luckily for us we were not actually following him—after two years of wonderful but rather disillusioning adventure in mid-Asia and all Africa. He had seen the Congo and the Euphrates, the Ganges and the Nile, the Yang-tse-kiang and the Yenisei; he had climbed mountains in Abyssinia, in Siam, in Thibet and Afghanistan; he had shot big game in more than one jungle, and had been shot at by small brown men in more than one forest, to say nothing of the little encounters he had had in most un-Occidental towns and cities. He had seen women in Morocco and Egypt and Persia and—But it is a waste of time to enumerate. Strange to say, he was now drifting back toward the civilisation which we are pleased to call our own, with a sense of genuine disappointment in his heart. He had found no sign of Romance.

Adventure in plenty, but Romance—ah, the fairy princesses were in the story books, after all.

Here he was, twenty-six years old, strong and full of the fire of life, convincing himself that there was nothing for him to do but to drift back to dear old New York and talk to his father about going into the offices; to let his mother tell him over and over again of the nice girls she knew who did not have to be rescued from ogres and all that sort of thing in order to settle down to domestic obsolescence; to tell his sister and all of their mutual friends the whole truth and nothing but the truth concerning his adventures in the wilds, and to feel that the friends, at least, were predestined to look upon him as a fearless liar, nothing more.

For twenty days he had travelled by caravan across the Persian uplands, through Herat, and Meshed and Bokhara, striking off with his guide alone toward the Sea of Aral and the eastern shores of the Caspian, thence through the Ural foothills to the old Roman highway that led down into the sweet green valleys of a land he had thought of as nothing more than the creation of a hairbrained fictionist.

Somewhere out in the shimmering east he had learned, to his honest amazement, that there was such a land as Graustark. At first he would not believe. But the English bank in Meshed assured him that he would come to it if he travelled long enough and far enough into the north and west and if he were not afraid of the hardships that most men abhor. The dying spirit of Romance flamed up in his heart; his blood grew quick again and eager. He would not go home until he had sought out this land of fair women and sweet tradition. And so he traversed the wild and dangerous Tartar roads for days and days, like the knights of Scheherazade in the times of old, and came at last to the gates of Edelweiss.

Not until he sat down to a rare dinner in the historic Hotel Regengetz was he able to realise that he was truly in that fabled, mythical land of Graustark, quaint, grim little principality in the most secret pocket of the earth's great mantle. This was the land of his dreams, the land of his fancy; he had not even dared to hope that it actually existed.

And now, here he was, pinching himself to prove that he was awake, stretching his world-worn bones under a dainty table to which real food was being brought by—well, he was obliged to pinch himself again. From the broad terrace after dinner he looked out into the streets of the quaint, picture-book town with its mediæval simplicity and ruggedness combined; his eyes tried to keep pace with the things that his fertile brain was seeing beyond the glimmering lights and dancing window panes—for the whole scene danced before him with a persistent unreality that made him feel his own pulse in the fear that some sudden, insidious fever had seized upon him.

If any one had told him, six months before, that there was such a land as Graustark and that if he could but keep on travelling in a certain direction he would come to it in time, he would have laughed that person to scorn, no matter how precise a geographer he might have been.

Young Mr. King, notwithstanding his naturally reckless devotion to first impressions, was a much wiser person than when he left his New York home two years before. Roughing it in the wildest parts of the world had taught him that eagerness is the enemy of common sense. Therefore he curbed the thrilling impulse to fare forth in search of diversion on this first night; he conquered himself and went to bed early—and to sleep at once, if that may serve to assist you in getting an idea of what time and circumstances had done for his character.

A certain hard-earned philosophy had convinced him long ago that adventure is quite content to wait over from day to day, but that when a man is tired and worn it isn't quite sensible to expect sleep to be put off regardless. With a fine sense of sacrifice, therefore, he went to bed, forsaking the desire to tread the dim streets of a city by night in advance of a more cautious survey by daylight. He had come to know that it is best to make sure of your ground, in a measure, at least, before taking too much for granted—to look before you leap, so to speak. And so, his mind tingling with visions of fair ladies and goodly opportunities, he went to sleep—and did not get up to breakfast until noon the next day.

And now it becomes my deplorable duty to divulge the fact that Truxton King, after two full days and nights in the city of Edelweiss, was quite ready to pass on to other fields, completely disillusionised in his own mind, and not a little disgusted with himself for having gone to the trouble to visit the place. To his intense chagrin, he had found the quaint old city very tiresome. True, it was a wonderful old town, rich in tradition, picturesque in character, hoary with age, bulging with the secrets of an active past; but at present, according to the well travelled Truxton, it was a poky old place about which historians either had lied gloriously or had been taken in shamelessly. In either case, Edelweiss was not what he had come to believe it would be. He had travelled overland for nearly a month, out of the heart of Asia, to find himself, after all, in a graveyard of great expectations!

He had explored Edelweiss, the capital. He had ridden about the ramparts; he had taken snapshots of the fortress down the river and had not been molested; he had gone mule-back up the mountain to the snowcapped monastery of St. Valentine, overtopping and overlooking the green valleys below; he had seen the tower in which illustrious prisoners were reported to have been held; he had ridden over the King's Road to Ganlook and had stood on American bridges at midnight—all the while wondering why he was there. Moreover, he had traversed the narrow, winding streets of the city by day and night; never, in all his travels, had he encountered a more peaceful, less spirit-stirring place or populace.

Everybody was busy, and thrifty, and law abiding. He might just as well have gone to Prague or Nuremburg; either was as old and as quaint and as stupid as this lukewarm city in the hills.

Where were the beautiful women he had read about and dreamed of ever since he left Teheran? On his soul, he had not seen half a dozen women in Edelweiss who were more than passably fair to look upon. True, he had to admit, the people he had seen were of the lower and middle classes—the shopkeepers and the shopgirls, the hucksters and the fruit vendors. What he wanted to know was this: What had become of the royalty and the nobility of Graustark? Where were the princes, the dukes and the barons, to say nothing of the feminine concomitants to these excellent gentlemen?

What irritated him most of all was the amazing discovery that there was a Cook's tourist office in town and that no end of parties arrived and departed under his very nose, all mildly exhilarated over the fact that they had seen Graustark! The interpreter, with "Cook's" on his cap, was quite the most important, if quite the least impressive personage in town. It is no wonder that this experienced globe-trotter was disgusted!

There was a train to Vienna three times a week. He made up his mind that he would not let the Saturday express go down without him. He had done some emphatic sputtering because he had neglected to take the one on Thursday.

Shunning the newly discovered American club in Castle Avenue as if it were a pest house, he lugubriously wandered the streets alone, painfully conscious that the citizens, instead of staring at him with admiring eyes, were taking but little notice of him. Tall young Americans were quite common in Edelweiss in these days.

One dingy little shop in the square interested him. It was directly opposite the Royal Café (with American bar attached), and the contents of its grimy little windows presented a peculiarly fascinating interest to him. Time and again, he crossed over from the Café garden to look into these windows. They were packed with weapons and firearms of such ancient design that he wondered what they could have been used for, even in the Middle Ages. Once he ventured inside the little shop. Finding no attendant, he put aside his suddenly formed impulse to purchase a mighty broadsword. From somewhere in the rear of the building came the clanging of steel hammers, the ringing of highly tempered metals; but, although he pounded vigorously with his cane, no one came forth to attend him.

On several occasions he had seen a grim, sharp-featured old man in the doorway of the shop, but it was not until after he had missed the Thursday train that he made up his mind to accost him and to have the broadsword at any price. With this object in view, he quickly crossed the square and inserted his tall frame into the narrow doorway, calling out lustily for attention. So loudly did he shout that the multitude of ancient swords and guns along the walls seemed to rattle in terror at this sudden encroachment of the present.

"What is it?" demanded a sharp, angry voice at his elbow. He wheeled and found himself looking into the wizened, parchment-like face of the little old man, whose black eyes snapped viciously. "Do you think I am deaf?"

"I didn't know you were here," gasped Truxton, forgetting to be surprised by the other's English. "The place looked empty. Excuse me for yelling."

"What do you want?"

"That broad—Say, you speak English, don't you?"

"Certainly," snapped the old man. "Why shouldn't I? I can't afford an interpreter. You'll find plenty of English used here in Edelweiss since the Americans and British came. They won't learn our language, so we must learn theirs."

"You speak it quite as well as I do."

"Better, young man. You are an American." The sarcasm was not lost on Truxton King, but he was not inclined to resent it. A twinkle had come into the eyes of the ancient; the deep lines about his lips seemed almost ready to crack into a smile.

"What's the price of that old sword you have in the window?"

"Do you wish to purchase it?"

"Certainly."

"Three hundred gavvos."

"What's that in dollars?"

"Four hundred and twenty."

"Whew!"

"It is genuine, sir, and three hundred years old. Old Prince Boris carried it. It's most rare. Ten years ago you might have had it for fifty gavvos. But," with a shrug of his thin shoulders, "the price of antiquities has gone up materially since the Americans began to come. They don't want a thing if it is cheap."

"I'll give you a hundred dollars for it, Mr.—er—" he looked at the sign on the open door—"Mr. Spantz."

"Good day, sir." The old man was bowing him out of the shop. King was amused.

"Let's talk it over. What's the least you'll take in real money?"

"I don't want your money. Good day."

Truxton King felt his chin in perplexity. In all his travels he had found no other merchant whom he could not "beat down" two or three hundred per cent. on an article.

"It's too much. I can't afford it," he said, disappointment in his eyes.

"I have modern blades of my own make, sir, much cheaper and quite as good," ventured the excellent Mr. Spantz.

"You make 'em?" in surprise.

The old man straightened his bent figure with sudden pride. "I am armourer to the crown, sir. My blades are used by the nobility—not by the army, I am happy to say. Spantz repairs the swords and guns for the army, but he welds only for the gentlemen at court."

"I see. Tradition, I suppose."

"My great-grandfather wrought blades for the princes a hundred years ago. My son will make them after I am gone, and his son after him. I, sir, have made the wonderful blade with the golden hilt and scabbard which the little Prince carries on days of state. It was two years in the making. There is no other blade so fine. It is so short that you would laugh at it as a weapon, and yet you could bend it double. Ah, there was a splendid piece of work, sir. You should see the little toy to appreciate it. There are diamonds and rubies worth 50,000 gavvos set in the handle. Ah, it is—"

Truxton's eyes were sparkling once more. Somehow he was amused by the sudden garrulousness of the old armourer. He held up his hand to check the flow of words.

"I say, Herr Spantz, or Monsieur, perhaps, you are the first man I've met who has volunteered to go into rhapsodies for my benefit. I'd like to have a good long chat with you. What do you say to a mug of that excellent beer over in the Café garden? Business seems to be a little dull. Can't you—er—lock up?"

Spantz looked at him keenly under his bushy brows, his little black eyes fairly boring holes into King's brain, so to speak.

"May I ask what brings you to Edelweiss?" he asked abruptly.

"I don't mind telling you, Mr. Spantz, that I'm here because I'm somewhat of a fool. False hopes led me astray. I thought Graustark was the home, the genesis of Romance, and I'm more or less like that chap we've read about, who was always in search of adventure. Somehow, Graustark hasn't come up to expectations. Up to date, this is the slowest burg I've ever seen. I'm leaving next Saturday for Vienna."

"I see," cackled Spantz, his eyes twinkling with mirth. "You thought you could capture wild and beautiful princesses here just as you pleased, eh? Let me tell you, young man, only one American—only one foreigner, in fact—has accomplished that miracle. Mr. Lorry came here ten years ago and won the fairest flower Graustark ever produced-the beautiful Yetive—but he was the only one. I suppose you are surprised to find Graustark a solid, prosperous, God-fearing little country, whose people are wise and happy and loyal. You have learned, by this time, that we have no princesses for you to protect. It isn't as it was when Mr. Lorry came and found Her Serene Highness in mediæval difficulties. There is a prince on the throne to-day—you've seen him?"

"No. I'm not looking for princes. I've seen hundreds of 'em in all parts of the world."

"Well, you should see Prince Robin before you scoff. He's the most wonderful little man in all the world."

"I've heard of nothing but him, my good Mr. Spantz. He's seven years old and he looks like his mother and he's got a jewelled sword and all that sort of thing. I daresay he's a nice little chap. Got American blood in him, you see."

"Do not let any one hear you laugh about him, sir. The people worship him. If you laugh too publicly, you may have your hands full of adventures in a very few minutes—and your body full of fine steel blades. We are very proud of our Prince."

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Spantz. I didn't mean lesé majesté. I'm bored, that's all. You wouldn't blame me for being sore if you'd come as far as I have and got as little for your pains. Why, hang it all, this morning that confounded man from Cook's had a party of twenty-two American school-teachers and Bible students in the Castle grounds and I had to stand on my toes outside the walls for two hours before I could get a permit to enter. American engineers are building the new railroad; American capital controls the telephone and electric light companies; there are two American moving picture shows in Regengetz Circus and an American rush hand laundry two blocks up. And you can get Bourbon whisky anywhere. It's sickening."

"The Americans have done much for Edelweiss, sir. We don't resent their progressiveness. They have given us modern improvements without overthrowing ancient customs. My dear young sir, we are very old here—and very honest. That reminds me that I should accept your kind invitation to the Café garden. If you will bear with me for just one moment, sir." With this polite request, the old man retired to the rear of the shop and called out to some one upstairs. A woman's voice answered. The brief conversation which followed was in a tongue unknown to King.

"My niece will keep shop, sir, while I am out," Spantz explained, taking his hat from a peg behind the door. Truxton could scarcely restrain a smile as he glanced over his queer little old guest. He looked eighty but was as sprightly as a man of forty. A fine companion for a youth of twenty-six in search of adventure!

They paused near the door until the old man's niece appeared at the back of the shop. King's first glance at the girl was merely a casual one. His second was more or less in the nature of a stare of amazement.

A young woman of the most astounding beauty, attired in the black and red of the Graustark middle classes, was slowly approaching from the shadowy recesses at the end of the shop. She gave him but a cursory glance, in which no interest was apparent, and glided quietly into the little nook behind the counter, almost at his elbow. His heart enjoyed a lively thump. Here was the first noticeably good-looking woman he had seen in Edelweiss, and, by the powers, she was a sword-maker's niece!

The old man looked sharply at him for an instant, and a quick little smile writhed in and out among the mass of wrinkles. Instead of passing directly out of the shop, Spantz stopped a moment to give the girl some suddenly recalled instruction. Truxton King, you may be sure, did not precede the old man into the street. He deliberately removed his hat and waited most politely for age to go before youth, in the meantime blandly gazing upon the face of this amazing niece.

Across the square, at one of the tables, he awaited his chance and a plausible excuse for questioning the old man without giving offence. Somewhere back in his impressionable brain there was growing a distinct hope that this beautiful young creature with the dreamy eyes was something more than a mere shopgirl. It had occurred to him in that one brief moment of contact that she had the air, the poise of a true aristocrat.

The old man, over his huge mug of beer, was properly grateful. He was willing to repay King for his little attention by giving him a careful history of Graustark, past, present and future, from the time of Tartar rule to the time of the so-called "American invasion." ills glowing description of the little Prince might have interested Truxton in his Lord Fauntleroy days, but just at present he was more happily engaged in speculating on the true identify of the girl in the gun-shop. He recalled the fact that a former royal princess of Graustark had gone sight-seeing over the world, incognita, as a Miss Guggenslocker, and had been romantically snatched up by a lucky American named Lorry. What if this girl in the gun-shop should turn out to be a—well, he could hardly hope for a princess; but she might be a countess.

The old mart was rambling on. "The young Prince has lived most of his life in Washington and London and Paris, sir. He's only seven, sir. Of course, you remember the dreadful accident that made him an orphan and put him on the throne with the three 'wise men of the East' as regents or governors. The train wreck near Brussels, sir? His mother, the glorious Princess Yetive, was killed and his father, Mr. Lorry, died the next day from his injuries. That, sir, was a most appalling blow to the people of Graustark. We loved the Princess and we admired her fine American husband. There never will be another pair like them, sir. And to think of them being destroyed as they were—in the most dreadful way, sir. Their coach was demolished, you remember. I—I will not go into the details. You know them, of course. God alone preserved the little Prince. He was travelling with them, on the way from London to Edelweiss. By some strange intervention of Providence he had gone with his governess and other members of the party to the luggage van in the fore part of the train, which had stopped on a side track below the station. The collision was from the rear, a broken rail throwing a locomotive into the Princess's coach. This providential escape of the young Prince preserved the unbroken line of the present royal family. If he had been killed, the dynasty would have come to an end, and, I am telling no secret, sir, when I say that a new form of government would have followed."

"What sort of government?"

"A more modern system, sir. Perhaps socialistic. I can't say. At all events, a new dynasty could not have been formed. The people would have rejected it. But Prince Robin was spared and, if I do say it, sir, he is the manliest little prince in all the world. You should see him ride and fence and shoot—and he is but seven!"

"I say, Mr. Spantz, I don't believe I've told you that your niece is a most remarkably beau—"

"As I was saying, sir," interrupted Spantz, so pointedly that Truxton flushed, "the little Prince is the idol of all the people. Under the present regency he is obliged to reside in the principality until his fifteenth year, after which he may be permitted to travel abroad. Graustark intends to preserve him to herself if it is in her power to do so. Woe betide the man who thinks or does ill toward little Prince Robin."

King was suddenly conscious of a strange intentness of gaze on the old man's part. A peculiar, indescribable chill swept over him; he had a distinct, vivid impression that some subtle power was exercising itself upon him—a power that, for the briefest instant, held him in a grip of iron. What it was, he could not have told; it passed almost immediately. Something in the old man's eyes, perhaps—or was it something in the queer smile that flickered about his lips?

"My dear Mr. Spantz," he hastened to say, as if a defence were necessary, "please don't get it into your head that I'm thinking ill of the Prince. I daresay he's a fine little chap and I'm sorry he's—er—lost his parents."

Spantz laughed, a soft, mirthless gurgle that caused Truxton to wonder why he had made the effort at all. "I imagine His Serene Highness has little to fear from any American," he said quietly. "He has been taught to love and respect the men of his father's land. He loves America quite as dearly as he loves Graustark." Despite the seeming sincerity of the remark, Truxton was vaguely conscious that a peculiar harshness had crept into the other's voice. He glanced sharply at the old man's face. For the first time he noticed something sinister—yes, evil—in the leathery countenance; a stealthiness in the hard smile that seemed to transform it at once into a pronounced leer. Like a flash there darted into the American's active brain a conviction that there could be no common relationship between this flinty old man and the delicate, refined girl he had seen in the shop. Now he recalled the fact that her dark eyes had a look of sadness and dejection in their depths, and that her face was peculiarly white and unsmiling.

Spantz was eyeing him narrowly. "You do not appear interested in our royal family," he ventured coldly.

Truxton hastened to assure him that he was keenly interested. Especially so, now that I appreciate that the little Prince is the last of his race."

"There are three regents, sir, in charge of the affairs of state—Count Halfont, the Duke of Perse and Baron Jasto Dangloss, who is minister of police. Count Halfont is a granduncle of the Prince, by marriage. The Duke of Perse is the father of the unhappy Countess Ingomede, the young and beautiful wife of the exiled "Iron Count" Marlanx. No doubt you've heard of him."

"I've read something about him. Sort of a gay old bounder, wasn't he? Seems to me I recall the stories that were printed about him a few years ago. I remember that he was banished from the principality and his estates seized by the Crown."

"Quite true, sir. He was banished in 1901 and now resides on his estates in Austria. Three years ago, in Buda Pesth, he was married to Ingomede, the daughter of the Duke. Count Marlanx has great influence at the Austrian court. Despite the fact that he is a despised and discredited man in his own country, he still is a power among people high in the government of more than one empire. The Duke of Perse realised this when he compelled his daughter to accept him as her husband. The fair Ingomede is less than twenty-five years of age; the Iron Count is fully sixty-five."

"She ought to be rescued," was King's only comment, but there was no mistaking the gleam of interest in his steady grey eyes.

"Rescued?" repeated the old man, with a broad grin. "And why? She is mistress of one of the finest old castles in Austria, Schloss Marlanx, and she is quite beautiful enough to have lovers by the score when the Count grows a little blinder and less jealous. She is in Edelweiss at present, visiting her father. The Count never comes here."

"I'd like to see her if she's really beautiful. I've seen but one pretty woman in this whole blamed town—your niece, Herr Spantz. I've looked 'em over pretty carefully, too. She is exceedingly attract—"

"Pardon me, sir, but it is not the custom in Graustark to discuss our women in the public drinking places." King felt as if he had received a slap in the face. He turned a fiery red under his tan and mumbled some sort of an apology. "The Countess is a public personage, however, and we may speak of her," went on the old man quickly, as the American, in his confusion, called a waiter to replenish the tankards. The steely glitter that leaped into the armourer's eyes at this second reference to his niece disappeared as quickly as it came; somehow it left behind the impression that he knew how to wield the deadly blades he wrought.

"I'd like to hear more about her," murmured Mr. King. "Anything to pass the time away, Mr. Spantz. As I said before, I journeyed far to reach this land of fair women and if there's one to be seen, I'm properly eager to jump at the chance. I've been here two days and I've seen nothing that could start up the faintest flutter around my heart. I'm sorry to say, my good friend, that the women I've seen in the streets of Edelweiss are not beauties. I won't say that they'd stop a clock, but they'd cause it to lose two or three hours a day, all right enough."

"You will not find the beautiful women of Edelweiss in the streets, sir."

"Don't they ever go out shopping?"

"Hardly. The merchants, if you will but notice, carry their wares to the houses of the noble and the rich. Graustark ladies of quality would no more think of setting foot in a shop or bazaar than they would think of entering a third class carriage. Believe me, there are many beautiful women in the homes along Castle Avenue. Noblemen come hundreds of miles to pay court to them."

"Just the same, I'm disgusted with the place. It's not what it's cracked up to be. Saturday will see me on my way."

"To-morrow the garrison at the fortress marches in review before the Prince. If you should happen to be on the avenue near the Castle gate at twelve o'clock, you will see the beauty and chivalry of Graustark. The soldiers are not the only ones who are on parade." There was an unmistakable sneer in his tone.

"You don't care much for society, I'd say," observed Truxton, with a smile.

Spantz's eyes flamed for an instant and then subtly resumed their most ingratiating twinkle. "We cannot all be peacocks," he said quietly. "You will see the Prince, his court and all the distinguished men of the city and the army. You will also see that the man who rides beside the Prince's carriage wheel is an American, while Graustark nobles take less exalted places."

"An American, eh?"

"Yes. Have you not heard of John Tullis, the Prince's friend?"

"Another seven-year-old?"

"Not at all. A grown man, sir. He, your countryman, is the real power behind our throne. On his deathbed, the Prince's father placed his son in this American's charge and begged him to stand by him through thick and thin until the lad is able to take care of himself. As if there were not loyal men in Graustark who might have done as much for their Prince!"

King looked interested. "I see. The people, no doubt, resent this espionage. Is that it?"

Spantz gave him a withering look, as much as to say that he was a fool to ask such a question in a place so public. Without replying, he got to his feet and made ready to leave the little garden.

"I must return. I have been away too long. Thank you, sir, for your kindness to an old man. Good day, sir, and—"

"Hold on! I think I'll walk over with you and have another look at that broadsword. I'm—"

"To-morrow, sir. It is past time to close the shop for to-day. Come to-morrow. Good day."

He was crossing the sidewalk nimbly before King could offer a word of remonstrance. With a disappointed sigh, the American sank back in his chair, and watched his odd companion scurry across the square. Suddenly he became conscious of a disquieting feeling that some one was looking at him intently from behind. He turned in his chair and found himself meeting the gaze of a ferocious looking, military appearing little man at a table near by. To his surprise, the little man's fierce stare maintained its peculiarly personal intentness until he, himself, was compelled to withdraw his own gaze in some little confusion and displeasure. His waiter appeared at his elbow with the change.

"Who the devil is that old man at the table there?" demanded young Mr. King loudly.

The waiter assumed a look of extreme insolence. "That is Baron Dangloss, Minister of Police. Anything more, sir?"

"Yes. What's he looking so hard at me for? Does he think I'm a pickpocket?"

"You know as much as I, sir," was all that the waiter said in reply. King pocketed the coin he had intended for the fellow, and deliberately left the place. He could not put off the feeling, however, that the intense stare of Baron Dangloss, the watch-dog of the land, followed him until the corner of the wall intervened. The now incensed American glanced involuntarily across the square in the direction of Spantz's shop. He saw three mounted soldiers ride up to the curb and hail the armourer as he started to close his doors. As he sauntered across the little square his gaze suddenly shifted to a second-story window above the gun-shop.

The interesting young woman had cautiously pushed open one of the shutters and was peering down upon the trio of red-coated guardsmen. Almost at the same instant her quick, eager gaze fell upon the tall American, now quite close to the horsemen. He saw her dark eyes expand as if with surprise. The next instant he caught his breath and almost stopped in his tracks.

A shy, impulsive smile played about her red lips for a second, lighting up the delicate face with a radiance that amazed him. Then the shutter was closed gently, quickly. His first feeling of elation was followed instantly by the disquieting impression that it was a mocking smile of amusement and not one of inviting friendliness. He felt his ears burn as he abruptly turned off to the right, for, somehow, he knew that she was peeping at him through the blinds and that something about his tall, rangy figure was appealing to her sense of the ridiculous.

You will see at once that Truxton King, imaginative chap that he was, had pounced upon this slim, attractive young woman as the only plausible heroine for his prospective romance, and, as such, she could not be guilty of forwardness or lack or dignity. Besides, first impressions are always good ones: she had struck him at the outset as being a girl of rare delicacy and refinement.

In the meantime, Baron Dangloss was watching him covertly from the edge of the Café garden across the square.

CHAPTER II

A MEETING OF THE CABINET

At this time, the principality of Graustark was in a most prosperous condition. Its affairs were under the control of an able ministry, headed by the venerable Count Halfont. The Duke of Perse, for years a resident of St. Petersburg, and a financier of high standing, had returned to Edelweiss soon after the distressing death of the late Princess Yetive and her American husband, and to him was entrusted the treasury portfolio. He at once proceeded to endear himself to the common people by the advocacy of a lower rate of taxation; this meant the reduction of the standing army. He secured new and advantageous treaties with old and historic foes, putting Graustark's financial credit upon a high footing in the European capitals. The people smugly regarded themselves as safe in the hands of the miserly but honest old financier. If he accomplished many things by way of office to enhance his own particular fortune, no one looked askance, for he made no effort to blind or deceive his people. Of his honesty there could be no question; of his financial operations, it is enough to say that the people were satisfied to have their affairs linked with his.

The financing of the great railroad project by which Edelweiss was to be connected with the Siberian line in the north, fell to his lot at a time when no one else could have saved the little government from heavy losses or even bankruptcy. The new line traversed the country from Serros, capital of Dawsbergen, through the mountains and canyons of Graustark, across Axphain's broad steppes and lowlands, to a point at which Russia stood ready to begin a connecting branch for junction with her great line to the Pacific. All told, it was a stupendous undertaking for a small government to finance; it is well known that Graustark owns and controls her public utility institutions. The road, now about half completed, was to be nearly two hundred miles in length, fully two-thirds of which was on Graustark territory. The preponderance of cost of construction fell upon that principality, Dawsbergen and Axphain escaping with comparatively small obligations owing to the fact that they had few mountains to contend with. As a matter of fact, the Dawsbergen and Axphain ends of the railroad were now virtually built and waiting for the completion of the extensive work in the Graustark highlands.

The opening of this narrative finds the ministry preparing to float a new five million gavvo issue of bonds for construction and equipment purposes. Agents of the government were ready to depart for London and Paris to take up the matter with the great banking houses. St. Petersburg and Berlin were not to be given the opportunity to gobble up these extremely fine securities. This seemingly extraordinary exclusion of Russian and German bidders was the result of vigorous objections raised by an utter outsider, the American, John Tullis, long time friend and companion of Grenfall Lorry, consort to the late Princess.

Tullis was a strange man in many particulars. He was under forty years of age, but even at that rather immature time of life he had come to be recognised as a shrewd, successful financial power in his home city, New York. At the very zenith of his power he suddenly and with Quixotic disregard for consequences gave up his own business and came to Graustark for residence, following a promise made to Grenfall Lorry when the latter lay dying in a little inn near Brussels.

They had been lifelong friends. Tullis jestingly called himself the little Prince's "morganatic godfather." For two years he had been a constant resident of Graustark, living contentedly, even indolently, in the picturesque old Castle, his rooms just across the corridor from those occupied by the little Prince. To this small but important bit of royalty he was "Uncle Jack"; in that capacity he was the most beloved and at the same time the most abused gentleman in all Graustark. As many as ten times a week he was signally banished from the domain by the loving, headstrong little ruler, only to be recalled with grave dignity and a few tears when he went so far as to talk of packing his "duds" in obedience to the edict.

John Tullis, strong character though he was, found this lazy, dolce far niente life much to his liking. He was devoted to the boy; he was interested in the life at this tiny court. The days of public and court mourning for the lamented Princess and her husband wearing away after an established period, he found himself eagerly delving into the gaieties that followed. Life at the Castle and in the homes of the nobility provided a new and sharp contrast to the busy, sordid existence he had known at home. It was like a fine, wholesome, endless dream to him. He drifted on the joyous, smiling tide of pleasure that swept Edelweiss with its careless waves night and day. Clever, handsome, sincere in his attitude of loyalty toward these people of the topmost east, he was not long in becoming a popular idol.

His wide-awake, resourceful brain, attuned by nature to the difficulties of administration, lent itself capably to the solving of many knotty financial puzzles; the ministry was never loth to call on him for advice and seldom disposed to disregard it. An outsider, he never offered a suggestion or plan unasked; to this single qualification he owed much of the popularity and esteem in which he was held by the classes and the masses. Socially, he was a great favourite. He enjoyed the freedom of the most exclusive homes in Edelweiss. He had enjoyed the distinction of more than one informal visit to old Princess Volga of Axphain, just across the border, to say nothing of shooting expeditions with young Prince Dantan of Dawsbergen, whose American wife, formerly Miss Calhoun of Washington, was a friend of long standing.

John Tullis was, beyond question, the most conspicuous and the most admired man in Edelweiss in these serene days of mentorship to the adored Prince Robin.

There was but one man connected with the government to whom his popularity and his influence proved distasteful. That man was the Duke of Perse. On more than one occasion the cabinet had chosen to be guided by the sagacity of John Tullis in preference to following the lines laid down by the astute minister of finance. The decision to offer the new bond issue in London and Paris was due to the earnest, forceful argument of John Tullis—outside the cabinet chamber, to be sure. This was but one instance in which the plan of the treasurer was overridden. He resented the plain though delicate influence of the former Wall Street man. Tullis had made it plain to the ministry that Graustark could not afford to place itself in debt to the Russians, into whose hands, sooner or later, the destinies of the railroad might be expected to fall. The wise men of Graustark saw his point without force of argument, and voted down, in the parliament, the Duke's proposition to place the loan in St. Petersburg and Berlin. For this particular act of trespass upon the Duke's official preserves he won the hatred of the worthy treasurer and his no inconsiderable following among the deputies.

But John Tullis was not in Edelweiss for the purpose of meddling with state affairs. He was there because he elected to stand mentor to the son of his life-long friend, even though that son was a prince of the blood and controlled by the will of three regents chosen by his own subjects. He was there to watch over the doughty little chap, who one day would be ruler unrestrained, but who now was a boy to be loved and coddled and reprimanded in the general process of man-making.

To say that the tiny Prince loved his big, adoring mentor would be putting it too gently: he idolised him. Tullis was father, mother and big brother to the little fellow in knickers.

The American was a big, broad shouldered man, reddish haired and ruddy cheeked, with cool grey eyes; his sandy mustache was closely cropped and turned up ever so slightly at the corners of his mouth. Despite his colouring, his face was somewhat sombre—even stern—when in repose. It was his fine, enveloping smile that made friends for him wherever he listed, with men and with women. More frequently than otherwise it made more than friends of the latter.

One woman in Graustark was the source of never-ending and constantly increasing interest to this stalwart companion to the Prince. That woman was, alas! the wife of another man. Moreover, she was the daughter of the Duke of Perse.

The young and witty Countess of Marlanx came often to Edelweiss. She was a favourite at the Castle, notwithstanding the unhealthy record of her ancient and discredited husband, the Iron Count. Tullis had not seen the Count, but he had heard such tales of him that he could not but pity this glorious young creature who called him husband. There is an old saying about the kinship of pity. Not that John Tullis was actually in love with the charming Countess. He was, to be perfectly candid, very much interested in her and very much distressed by the fact that she was bound to a venerable reprobate who dared not put his foot on Graustark soil because once he had defiled it atrociously.

But of the Countess and her visits to Edelweiss, more anon—with the indulgence of the reader.

At present we are permitted to attend a meeting of the cabinet, which sits occasionally in solemn collectiveness just off the throne room within the tapestried walls of a dark little antechamber, known to the outside world as the "Room of Wrangles." It is ten o'clock of the morning on which the Prince is to review the troops from the fortress. The question under discussion relates to the loan of 5,000,000 gavvos, before mentioned. At the head of the long table, perched upon an augmentary pile of law books surmounted by a little red cushion, sits the Prince, almost lost in the hugh old walnut chair of his forefathers. Down the table sit the ten ministers of the departments of state, all of them loving the handsome little fellow on the necessary pile of statutes, but all of them more or less indifferent to his significant yawns and perplexed frowns.

The Prince was a sturdy, curly-haired lad, with big brown eyes and a lamentably noticeable scratch on his nose—acquired in less stately but more profitable pursuits. (It seems that he had peeled his nose while sliding to second base in a certain American game that he was teaching the juvenile aristocracy how to play.) His wavy hair was brown and rebellious. No end of royal nursing could keep it looking sleek and proper. He had the merit of being a very bad little boy at times; that is why he was loved by every one. Although it was considered next to high treason to strike a prince of the royal blood, I could, if I had the space, recount the details of numerous fisticuffs behind the state stables in which, sad to relate, the Prince just as often as not came off with a battered dignity and a chastened opinion of certain small fry who could not have been more than dukes or barons at best. But he took his defeats manfully: he did not whimper lesé majesté. John Tullis, his "Uncle Jack," had proclaimed his scorn for a boy who could not "take his medicine." And so Prince Robin took it gracefully because he was prince.

To-day he was—for him—rather oppressively dignified and imperial. He may have blinked his weary eyes a time or two, but in the main he was very attentive, very circumspect and very much puzzled. Custom required that the ruling prince or princess should preside over the meetings of the cabinet. It is needless to observe that the present ruler's duty ended when he repeated (after Count Halfont): "My lords, we are now in session." The school-room, he confessed, was a "picnic" compared to the "Room of Wrangles": a fellow got a recess once in a while there, but here—well, the only recess he got was when he fell asleep. To-day he was determined to maintain a very dignified mien. It appears that at the last meeting he had created considerable havoc by upsetting the ink well while trying to fill his fountain pen without an injector. Moreover, nearly half a pint of the fluid had splashed upon the Duke of Perse's trousers—and they were grey, at that. Whereupon the Duke announced in open conclave that His Highness needed a rattling good spanking—a remark which distinctly hurt the young ruler's pride and made him wish that there had been enough ink to drown the Duke instead of merely wetting him.

About the table sat the three regents and the other men high in the administration of affairs, among them General Braze of the Army, Baron Pultz of the Mines, Roslon of Agriculture. The Duke of Perse was discussing the great loan question. The Prince was watching his gaunt, saturnine face with more than usual interest.

"Of course, it is not too late to rescind the order promulgated at our last sitting. There are five bankers in St. Petersburg who will finance the loan without delay. We need not delay the interminable length of time necessary to secure the attention and co-operation of bankers in France and England. It is all nonsense to say that Russia has sinister motives in the matter. It is a business proposition—not an affair of state. We need the money before the winter opens. The railroad is now within fifteen miles of Edelweiss. The bridges and tunnels are well along toward completion. Our funds are diminishing, simply because we have delayed so long in preparing for this loan. There has been too much bickering and too much inane politics. I still maintain that we have made a mistake in refusing to take up the matter with St. Petersburg or Berlin. Why should we prefer England? Why France?"

For some unaccountable reason he struck the table violently with his fist and directed his glare upon the astonished Prince. The explosive demand caught the ruler by surprise. He gasped and his lips fell apart. Then it must have occurred to him that the question could be answered by no one save the person to whom it was so plainly addressed. He lifted his chin and piped up shrilly, and with a fervour that startled even the intense Perse:

"Because Uncle Jack said we should, that's why."

We have no record of what immediately followed this abrupt declaration; there are some things that never leak out, no matter how prying the chronicler may be. When one stops to consider that this was the first time a question had been put directly to the Prince—and one that he could understand, at that—we may be inclined to overlook his reply, but we cannot answer for certain members of the cabinet. Unconsciously, the boy in knickers had uttered a truth that no one else had dared to voice. John Tullis was the joint stepping-stone and stumbling-block in the deliberations of the cabinet.

It goes without saying that the innocent rejoinder opened the way to an acrid discussion of John Tullis. If that gentleman's ears burned in response to the sarcastic comments of the Duke of Perse and Baron Pultz, they probably tingled pleasantly as the result of the stout defence put up by Halfont, Dangloss and others. Moreover, his most devoted friend, the Prince, whose lips were sullenly closed after his unlucky maiden effort, was finding it exceedingly difficult to hold his tongue and his tears at the same time. The lad's lip trembled but his brown eyes glowered; he sat abashed and heard the no uncertain arraignment of his dearest friend, feeling all the while that the manly thing for him to do would be to go over and kick the Duke of Perse, miserably conscious that such an act was impossible. His little body trembled with childish rage; he never took his gaze from the face of the gaunt traducer. How he hated the Duke of Perse!

The Duke's impassioned plea was of no avail. His confrères saw the wisdom of keeping Russia's greedy hand out of the country's affairs—at least for the present—and reiterated their decision to seek the loans in England and France. The question, therefore, would not be taken to Parliament for reconsideration. The Duke sat down, pale in defeat; his heart was more bitter than ever against the shrewd American who had induced all these men to see through his eyes.

"I suppose there is no use in kicking against the pricks," he said sourly as he resumed his seat. "I shall send our representatives to London and Paris next month. I trust, my lords, that we may have no trouble in placing the loans there." There was a deep significance the dry tone which he assumed.

"I do not apprehend trouble," said Count Halfont. "Our credit is still good, your Grace. Russia is not the only country that is ready to trust us for a few millions. Have no fear, your Grace."

"It is the delay that I am apprehensive of, your Excellency."

At this juncture the Prince, gathering from the manner of his ministers that the question was settled to his liking, leaned forward and announced to his uncle, the premier:

"I'm tired, Uncle Caspar. How much longer is it?"

Count Halfont coughed. "Ahem! Just a few minutes, your Highness. Pray be patient—er—my little man."

Prince Bobby flushed. He always knew that he was being patronised when any one addressed him as "my little man."

"I have an engagement," he said, with a stiffening of his back.

"Indeed?" said the Duke dryly.

"Yes, your Grace—a very important one. Of course, I'll stay if I have to, but—what time is it, Uncle Caspar?"

"It is half past eleven, your Highness."

"Goodness, I had a date for eleven. I mean a engagement—an engagement." He glanced helplessly, appealingly from Count Halfont to Baron Dangloss, his known allies.

The Duke of Perse smiled grimly. In his most polite manner he arose to address the now harassed Princeling, who shifted uneasily on the pile of law books.

"May your most humble subject presume to inquire into the nature of your Highness's engagement?"

"You may, your Grace," said the Prince.

The Duke waited. A smile crept into the eyes of the others. "Well, what is the engagement?"

"I had a date to ride with Uncle Jack at eleven."

"And you imagine that 'Uncle Jack' will be annoyed if he is kept waiting by such a trivial matter as a cabinet meeting, unfortunately prolonged?"

"I don't know just what that means," murmured the Prince. Then his face brightened. "But I don't think he'll be sore after I tell him how busy we've been."

The Duke put his hand over his mouth. "I don't think he'll mind half an hour's wait, do you?"

"He likes me to be very prompt."

Count Halfont interposed, good-humouredly. "There is nothing more to come before us to-day, your Grace, so I fancy we may as well close the meeting. To my mind, it is rather a silly custom which compels us to keep the Prince with us—er—after the opening of the session. Of course, your Highness, we don't mean to say that you are not interested in our grave deliberations."

Prince Bobby broke in eagerly: "Uncle Jack says I've just got to be interested in 'em, whether I want to or not. He says it's the only way to catch onto things and become a regular prince. You see, Uncle Caspar, I've got a lot to learn."

"Yes, your Highness, you have," solemnly admitted the premier. "But I am sure you will learn."

"Under such an able instructor as Uncle Jack you may soon know more than the wisest man in the realm," added the Duke of Perse.

"Thank you, your Grace," said the Prince, so politely that the Duke was confounded; "I know Uncle Jack will be glad to hear that. He's—he's afraid people may think he's butting in too much."

"Butting in?" gasped the premier.

At this the Duke of Perse came to his feet again, an angry gleam in his eyes. "My lords," he began hastily, "it must certainly have occurred to you before this that our beloved Prince's English, which seems after all to be his mother tongue, is not what it should be. Butting in! Yesterday I overheard him advising your son, Pultz, to 'go chase' himself. And when your boy tried to chase himself—'pon my word, he did—what did our Prince say? What did you say, Prince Robin?"

"I—I forget," stammered Prince Bobby.

"You said 'Mice!' Or was it—er—"

"No, your Grace. Rats. I remember. That's what I said. That's what all of us boys used to say in Washington."

"God deliver us! Has it come to this, that a Prince of Graustark should grow up with such language on his lips? I fancy, my lords, you will all agree that something should be done about it. It is too serious a matter. We are all more or less responsible to the people he is to govern. We cannot, in justice to them, allow him to continue under the—er—influences that now seem to surround him. He'll—he'll grow up to be a barbarian. For Heaven's sake, my lords, let us consider the Prince's future—let us deal promptly with the situation."

"What's he saying, Uncle Caspar?" whispered the Prince fiercely.

"Sh!" cautioned Count Halfont.

"I won't sh! I am the Prince. And I'll say 'chase yourself' whenever I please. It's good English. I'll pronounce it for you in our own language, so's you can see how it works that way. It goes like—"

"You need not illustrate, your Highness," the Premier hastened to say. Turning to the Duke, he said coldly: "I acknowledge the wisdom in your remarks, your Grace, but—you will pardon me, I am sure—would it not be better to discuss the conditions privately among ourselves before taking them up officially?"

"That confounded American has every one hypnotised," exploded the Duke. "His influence over this boy is a menace to our country. He is making on oaf of him—a slangy, impudent little—"

"Your Grace!" interrupted Baron Dangloss sharply.

"Uncle Jack's all right," declared the Prince, vaguely realising that a defence should be forthcoming.

"He is, eh?" rasped the exasperated Duke, mopping his brow.

"He sure is," pronounced the Prince with a finality that left no room for doubt. They say that fierce little Baron Dangloss, in striving to suppress a guffaw, choked so impressively that there was a momentary doubt as to his ever getting over it alive.

"He is a mountebank—a meddler, that's what he is. The sooner we come to realise it, the better," exclaimed the over-heated Duke. "He has greater influence over our beloved Prince than any one else in the royal household. He has no business here—none whatsoever. His presence and his meddling is an affront to the intelligence of—"

But the Prince had slid down from his pile of books and planted himself beside him so suddenly that the bitter words died away on the old man's lips. Robin's face was white with rage, his little fists were clenched in desperate anger, his voice was half choked with the tears of indignation.

"You awful old man!" he cried, trembling all over, his eyes blazing. "Don't you say anything against Uncle Jack. I'll—I'll banish you—yes, sir—banish you like my mother fired Count Marlanx out of the country. I won't let you come back here ever—never. And before you go I'll have Uncle Jack give you a good licking. Oh, he can do it all right. I—I hate you!"

The Duke looked down in amazement into the flushed, writhing face of his little master. For a moment he was stunned by the vigorous outburst. Then the hard lines in his face relaxed and a softer expression came into his eyes—there was something like pride in them, too. The Duke, be it said, was an honest fighter and a loyal Graustarkian; he loved his Prince and, therefore, he gloried in his courage. His own smile of amusement, which broke in spite of his inordinate vanity, was the sign that brought relief to the hearts of his scandalised confrères.

"Your Highness does well in defending a friend and counsellor," he said gently. "I am sorry to have forgotten myself in your presence. It shall not occur again. Pray forgive me."

Prince Bobby was still unappeased. "I could have you beheaded," he said stubbornly. "Couldn't I, Uncle Caspar?"

Count Halfont gravely informed him that it was not customary to behead gentlemen except for the most heinous offences against the Crown.

The Duke of Perse suddenly bent forward and placed his bony hand upon the unshrinking shoulder of the Prince, his eyes gleaming kindly, his voice strangely free from its usual harshness. "You are a splendid little man, Prince Robin," he said. "I glory in you. I shall not forget the lesson in loyalty that you have taught me."

Bobby's eyes filled with tears. The genuine humility of the hard old man touched his tempestuous little heart.

"It's—it's all right, Du—your Grace. I'm sorry I spoke that way, too."

Baron Dangloss twisted his imperial vigorously. "My lords, I suggest that we adjourn. The Prince must have his ride and return in time for the review at one o'clock."

As the Prince strode soberly from the Room of Wrangles, every eye was upon his sturdy little back and there was a kindly light in each of them, bar none. The Duke, following close behind with Halfont, said quietly:

"I love him, Caspar. But I have no love for the man he loves so much better than he loves any of us. Tullis is a meddler—but, for Heaven's sake, my friend, don't let; Bobby know that I have repeated myself."

Later on, the Prince in his khaki riding suit loped gaily down the broad mountain road toward Ganlook, beside the black mare which carried John Tullis. Behind them rode three picked troopers from the House Guard. He had told Tullis of his vainglorious defence in the antechamber.

"And I told him, Uncle Jack, that you could lick him. You can, can't you?"

The American's face was clouded for a second; then, to please the boy, a warm smile succeeded the frown.

"Why, Bobby, you dear little beggar, he could thresh me with one hand."

"What?" almost shrieked Prince Bobby, utterly dismayed.

"He's a better swordsman than I, don't you see. Gentlemen over here fight with swords. I know nothing about duelling. He'd get at me in two thrusts."

"I—I think you'd better take some lessons from Colonel Quinnox. It won't do to be caught napping."

"I daresay you're right."

"Say, Uncle Jack, when are you going to take me to the witch's hovel?" The new thought abruptly banished all else from his eager little brain.

"Some day, soon," said Tullis. "You see, I'm not sure that she's receiving visitors these days. A witch is a very arbitrary person. Even princes have to send up their cards."

"Let's telegraph her," in an inspired tone.

"I'll arrange to go up with you very soon, Bobby. It's a hard ride through the pass and—and there may be a lot of goblins up there where the old woman keeps herself."

The witch's hovel was in the mountain across the most rugged of the canyons, and was to be reached only after the most hazardous of rides. The old woman of the hills was an ancient character about whom clung a thousand spookish traditions, but who, in the opinion of John Tuilis, was nothing more than a wise fortune-teller and necromancer who knew every trick in the trade of hoodwinking the superstitious. He had seen her and he had been properly impressed. Somehow, he did not like the thought of taking the Prince to the cabin among the mists and crags.

"They say she eats boys, now and then," he added, as if suddenly remembering it.

"Gee! Do you suppose we could get there some day when she's eating one?"

As they rode back to the Castle after an hour, coming down through Castle Avenue from the monastery road, they passed a tall, bronzed young man whom Tullis at once knew to be an American. He was seated on a big boulder at the roadside, enjoying the shade, and was evidently on his way by foot to the Castle gates to watch the beau monde assembling for the review. At his side was the fussy, well-known figure of Cook's interpreter, eagerly pointing out certain important personages to bun as they passed. Of course, the approach of the Prince was the excuse for considerable agitation and fervour on the part of the man from Cook's. He mounted the boulder and took off his cap to wave it frantically.

"It's the Prince!" he called out to Truxton King. "Stand up! Hurray! Long live the Prince!"

Tullis had already lifted his hand in salute to his countryman, and both had smiled the free, easy smile of men who know each other by instinct.

The man from Cook's came to grief. He slipped from his perch on the rock and came floundering to the ground below, considerably crushed in dignity, but quite intact in other respects.

The spirited pony that the Prince was riding shied and reared in quick affright. The boy dropped his crop and clung valiantly to the reins. A guardsman was at the pony's head in an instant, and there was no possible chance for disaster.

Truxton King unbent his long frame, picked up the riding crop with a deliberateness that astonished the man from Cook's, strode out into the roadway and handed it up to the boy in the saddle.

"Thank you," said Prince Bobby.

"Don't mention it," said Truxton King with his most engaging smile. "No trouble at all."

CHAPTER III

MANY PERSONS IN REVIEW

Truxton King witnessed the review of the garrison. That in itself was rather a tame exhibition for a man who had seen the finest troops in all the world. A thousand earnest looking soldiers, proud of the opportunity to march before the little Prince—and that was all, so far as the review was concerned.

But, alluringly provident to the welfare of this narrative, the red and black uniformed soldiers were not the only persons on review that balmy day in July. Truxton King had his first glimpse of the nobility of Graustark. He changed his mind about going to Vienna on the Saturday express. A goodly number of men before him had altered their humble plans for the same reason, I am reliably informed.

Mr. King saw the court in all its glory, scattered along the shady Castle Avenue—in carriages, in traps, in motors and in the saddle. His brain whirled and his heart leaped under the pressure of a new-found interest in life. The unexpected oasis loomed up before his eyes just as he was abandoning all hope in the unprofitable desert of Romance. He saw green trees and sparkling rivulets, and he sighed with a new, strange content. No, on second thoughts, he would not go to Vienna. He would stay in Edelweiss. He was a disciple of Micawber; and he was so much younger and fresher than that distinguished gentleman, that perhaps he was justified in believing that, in his case, something was bound to "turn up."

If Truxton King had given up in disgust and fled to Vienna, this tale would never have come to light. Instead of being the lively narrative of a young gentleman's adventures in far-away Graustark, it might have become a tale of the smart set in New York—for, as you know, we are bound by tradition to follow the trail laid down by our hero, no matter which way he elects to fare. Somewhat dismayed by his narrow escape, he confided to his friend from Cook's that he could never have forgiven himself if he had adhered to his resolution to leave on the following day.

"I didn't know you'd changed your mind, sir," remarked Mr. Hobbs in surprise.

"Of course you didn't know it," said Truxton. "How could you? I've just changed it, this instant. I didn't know it myself two minutes ago. No, sir, Hobbs—or is it Dobbs? Thanks—no, sir, I'm going to stop here for a—well, a week or two. Where the dickens do these people keep themselves? I haven't seen 'em before."

"Oh, they are the nobility—the swells. They don't hang around the streets like tourists and rubbernecks, sir," in plain disgust.

"I thought you were an Englishman," observed King, with a quizzical smile.

"I am, sir. I can't help saying rubbernecks, sir, though it's a shocking word. It's the only name for them, sir. That's what the little Prince calls them, too. You see, it's one form of amusement they provide for him, and I am supposed to help it along as much as possible. Mr. Tullis takes him out in the avenue whenever I've got a party in hand. I telephone up to the Castle that I've got a crowd and then I drive 'em out to the Park here. The Prince says he just loves to watch the rubbernecks go by. It's great fun, sir, for the little lad. He never misses a party, and you can believe it or not, he has told me so himself. Yes, sir, the Prince has had more than one word with me—from time to time." King looked at the little man's reddish face and saw therein the signs of exaltation indigenous to a land imperial.

He hesitated for an instant and then remarked, with a mean impulse to spoil Hobbs's glorification: "I have dined with the President of the United States."

Hobbs was politely unimpressed. "I've no doubt, sir," he said. "I daresay it was an excellent dinner."

King blinked his eyes and then turned them upon the passing show. He was coming to understand the real difference between men.

"I say, who is that just passing—the lady in the victoria?" he asked abruptly.

"That is the Countess Marlanx."

"Whew! I thought she was the queen!"

Hobbs went into details concerning the beautiful Countess. During the hour and a half of display he pointed out to King all of the great personages, giving a Baedeker-like account of their doings from childhood up, quite satisfying that gentleman's curiosity and involving his cupidity at the same time.

When, at last, the show was over, Truxton and the voluble little interpreter, whom he had employed for the occasion, strolled leisurely back to the heart of the town. Something had come over King, changing the quaint old city from a prosaic collection of shops and thoroughfares into a veritable playground for Cinderellas and Prince Charmings. The women, to his startled imagination, had been suddenly transformed from lackadaisical drudges into radiant personages at whose feet it would be a pleasure to fall, in whose defence it would be divine to serve; the men were the cavaliers that had called to him from the pages of chivalrous tales, ever since the days of his childhood. Here were knights and ladies such as he had dreamed of and despaired of ever seeing outside his dreams.

Hobbs was telling him how every one struggled to provide amusement for the little Prince at whose court these almost mythological beings bent the knee. "Every few days they have a royal troupe of acrobats in the Castle grounds. Next week Tantora's big circus is to give a private performance for him. There are Marionettes and Punch and Judy shows, and all the doings of the Grand Grignol are beautifully imitated. The royal band plays every afternoon, and at night some one tells him stories of the valorous men who occupied the throne before him. He rides, plays baseball and cricket, swims, goes shooting—and, you may take it from me, sir, he is already enjoying fencing lessons with Colonel Quinnox, chief of the Castle guard. Mr. Tullis, the American, has charge of his—you might say, his education and entertainment. They want to make of him a very wonderful Prince. So they are starting at the bottom. He's quite a wonderful little chap. What say, sir?"

"I was just going to ask if you know anything about a young woman who occasionally tends shop for William Spantz, the armourer."

Hobbs looked interested. "She's quite a beauty, sir, I give you my word."

"I know that, Hobbs. But who is she?"

"I really can't say, sir. She's his niece, I've heard. Been here a little over a month. I think she's from Warsaw."

"Well, I'll say good-bye here. If you've nothing on for to-morrow we'll visit the Castle grounds and—ahem!—take a look about the place. Come to the hotel early. I'm going over to the gun-shop. So long!" As he crossed the square, his mind full of the beautiful women he had seen, he was saying to himself in a wild strain of exhilaration: "I'll bet my head that girl isn't the nobody she's setting herself up to be. She looks like these I've just seen. She's got the marks of a lady. You can't fool me. I'm going to find out who she is and—well, maybe it won't be so dull here, after all. It looks better every minute."

He was whistling gaily as he entered the little shop, ready to give a cheery greeting to old Spantz and to make him a temporising offer for the broadsword. But it was not Spantz who stood behind the little counter. Truxton flushed hotly and jerked off his hat. The girl smiled.

"I beg pardon," he exclaimed. "I—I'm looking for Mr. Spantz—I—"

"He is out. Will you wait? He will return in a very few minutes." Her voice was clear and low, her accent charming. The smile in her eyes somehow struck him as sad, even fleeting in its attempt at mirth. As she spoke, it disappeared altogether and an almost sombre expression came into her face.

"Thanks. I'll—wait," he said, suddenly embarrassed. She turned to the window, resuming the wistful, preoccupied gaze down the avenue. He made pretence of inspecting the wares on the opposite wall, but covertly watched her out of the corner of his eye. Perhaps, calculated he, if she were attired in the gown of one of those fashionables she might rank with the noblest of them in beauty and delicacy. Her dark little head was carried with all the serene pride of a lady of quality; her features were clear cut, mobile, and absolutely flawless. He was sure of that: his sly analysis was not as casual as one might suppose under the circumstances. As a matter of fact, he found himself having what he afterward called "a very good look at her." She seemed to have forgotten his presence. The longer he looked at the delicate profile, the more fully was he convinced that she was not all that she pretended. He experienced a thrill of hope. If she wasn't what she pretended to be, then surely she must be what he wanted her to be—a lady of quality. In that case there was a mystery. The thought restored his temerity.

"Beg pardon," he said, politely sauntering up to the little counter. He noted that she was taller than he had thought, and slender. She started and turned toward him with a quick, diffident smile, her dark eyes filling with an unspoken apology. "I wanted to have another look at the broadsword there. May I get it out of the window, or will you?"

Very quickly—he noticed that she went about it clumsily despite her supple gracefulness—she withdrew the heavy weapon from the window and laid it upon the counter. He was looking at her with a peculiar smile upon his lips. She flushed painfully.

"I am not—not what you would call an expert," she said frankly.

"You mean in handling broadswords," he said in his most suave manner. "It's a cunning little thing, isn't it?" He picked up the ponderous blade. "I don't wonder you nearly dropped it on your toes."

"There must have been giants in those days," she said, a slight shudder passing over her.

"Whoppers," he agreed eagerly. "I've thought somewhat of buying the old thing. Not to use, of course. I'm not a giant."

"You're not a pigmy," she supplemented, her eyes sweeping his long figure comprehensively.

"What's the price?" he asked, his courage faltering under the cool, impersonal gaze.

"I do not know. My uncle has told you?"

"I—I think he did. But I've got a wretched memory when it comes to broadswords."

She laughed. "This is such a very old broadsword, too," she said. "It goes back beyond the memory of man."

"How does it come that you don't know the price?" he asked, watching her narrowly. She met his inquiring look with perfect composure.

"I am quite new at the trade. I hope you will excuse my ignorance. My uncle will be here in a moment." She was turning away with an air that convinced King of one thing: she was a person who, in no sense, had ever been called upon to serve others.

"So I've heard," he observed. The bait took effect. She looked up quickly; he was confident that a startled expression flitted across her face.

"You have heard? What have you heard of me?" she demanded.

"That you are new at the business," he replied coolly.

"You are a stranger in a strange land, so they say."

"You have been making inquiries?" she asked, disdain succeeding dismay.

"Tentatively, that's all. Ever since you peeked out of the window up there and laughed at me. I'm curious, you see."

She stared at him in silent intensity for a moment. "That's why I laughed at you. You were very curious."

"Am I so bad as all that?" he lamented.

She ignored the question. "Why should you be interested in me, sir?"

Mr. King was inspired to fabricate in the interest of psychical research. "Because I have heard that you are not the niece of old man Spantz." He watched intently to catch the effect of the declaration.

She merely stared at him; there was not so much as the flutter of an eyelid. "You have heard nothing of the kind," she said coldly.

"Well, I'll confess I haven't," he admitted cheerfully. "I was experimenting. I'm an amateur Sherlock Holmes. It pleases me to deduce that you are not related to the armourer. You don't look the part."

Now she smiled divinely. "And why not, pray? His sister was my mother."

"In order to establish a line on which to base my calculations, would you mind telling me who your father is?" He asked the question with his most appealing smile—a smile so frankly impudent that she could not resent it.

"My mother's husband," she replied in the same spirit.

"Well, that is quite a clue!" he exclaimed. "'Pon my soul, I believe I'm on the right track. Excuse me for continuing, but is he a count or a duke or just a—"

"My father is dead," she interrupted, without taking her now serious gaze from his face.

"I beg your pardon," he said at once. "I'm sorry if I've hurt you."

"My mother is dead. Now can you understand why I am living here with my uncle? Even an amateur may rise to that. Now, sir, do you expect to purchase the sword? If not, I shall replace it in the window."

"That's what I came here for," said he, resenting her tone and the icy look she gave him.

"I gathered that you came in the capacity of Sherlock Holmes—or something else." She added the last three words with unmistakable meaning.

"You mean as a—" he hesitated, flushing.

"You knew I was alone, sir."

"By Jove, you're wrong there. I give you my word, I didn't. If I'd known it, I'd surely have come in sooner. There, forgive me. I'm particularly light-headed and futile to-day, and I hope—Beg pardon?"

She was leaning toward him, her hands on the counter, a peculiar gleam in her dark eyes—which now, for the first time, struck him as rather more keen and penetrating than he had suspected before.

"I simply want to tell you, Mr. King, that unless you really expect to buy this sword it is not wise in you to make it an excuse for coming here."

"My dear young lady, I—"

"My uncle has a queer conception of the proprieties. He may think that you come to see me." A radiant smile leaped into her face, transforming its strange sombreness into absolutely impish mirth.

"Well, hang it all, he can't object to that, can he? Besides, I never buy without haggling," he expostulated, suddenly exhilarated, he knew not why.

"Don't come in here unless you expect to buy," she said, serious in an instant. "It isn't the custom in Edelweiss. Young men may chat with shopgirls all the world over—but in Edelweiss, no—unless they come to pay most honourable court to them. My uncle would not understand."

"I take it, however, that you would understand," he said boldly.

"I have lived in Vienna, in Paris and in London. But now I am living in Edelweiss. I have not been a shopgirl always."

"I can believe that. My deductions are justified."

"Pray forgive me for offering this bit of advice. A word to the wise. My uncle would close the door in your face if—if he thought—"

"I see. Well, I'll buy the blooming sword. Anyhow, that's what I came in for."

"No. You came in because I smiled at you from the window upstairs. It is my sitting-room."

"Why did you smile? Tell me?" eagerly.

"It was nature asserting itself."

"You mean you just couldn't help it?"

"That's precisely what I mean."

"Not very complimentary, I'd say."

"A smile is ever a compliment, sir."

"I say, do you know you interest me?" he began warmly, but she put her finger to her lips.

"My uncle is returning. I must not talk to you any longer." She glanced uneasily out upon the square, and then hurriedly added, a certain wistfulness in her voice and eyes. "I couldn't help it to-day. I forgot my place. But you are the first gentleman I've spoken to since I came here."

"I—I was afraid you might think I am not a gentleman. I've been rather fresh."

"I happen to have known many gentlemen. Before I went into—service, of course." She turned away abruptly, a sudden shadow crossing her face. Truxton King exulted. At last he was touching the long-sought trail of the Golden Girl! Here was Romance! Here was mystery!

Spantz was crossing the sidewalk. The American leaned forward and half-whispered: "Just watch me buy that broadsword. I may, in time, buy out the shop, piece by piece."

She smiled swiftly. "Let me warn you: don't pay his price."

"Thanks."

When Spantz entered the door, a moment later, the girl was gazing listlessly from the window and Truxton King was leaning against the counter with his back toward her, his arms folded and a most impatient frown on his face.

"Hello!" he said gruffly. "I've been waiting ten minutes for you."

Spantz's black eyes shot from one to the other. "What do you want?" he demanded sharply. As he dropped his hat upon a stool near, the door, his glance again darted from the man to the girl and back again.

"The broadsword. And, say, Mr. Spantz, you might assume a different tone in addressing me. I'm a customer, not a beggar."

The girl left the window and walked slowly to the rear of the shop, passing through the narrow door, without so much as a glance at King or the old man. Spantz was silent until she was gone.

"You want the broadsword, eh?" he asked, moderating his tone considerably. "It's a rare old—"

"I'll give you a hundred dollars-not another cent," interrupted King, riot yet over his resentment. There followed a long and irritating argument, at the conclusion of which Mr. King became the possessor of the weapon at his own price. Remembering himself in time, he fell to admiring some old rings and bracelets in a cabinet near by, thus paving the way for future visits.

"I'll come in again," he said indifferently.

"But you are leaving to-morrow, sir."

"I've changed my mind."

"You are not going?"

"Not for a few days."

"Then you have discovered something in Edelweiss to attract you?" grinned the old armourer. "I thought you might."

"I've had a glimpse of the swells, my good friend."

"It's all the good you'll get of it," said Spantz gruffly.

"I daresay you're right. Clean that sword up a bit for me, and I'll drop in to-morrow and get it. Here's sixty gavvos to bind the bargain. The rest on delivery. Good day, Mr. Spantz."

"Good day, Mr. King."

"How do you happen to know my name?"

Spantz put his hand over his heart and delivered himself of a most impressive bow. "When so distinguished a visitor comes to our little city," he said, "we lose no time in discovering his name. It is a part of our trade, sir, believe me."

"I'm not so sure that I do believe you," said Truxton King to himself as he sauntered up the street toward the Hotel. "The girl knew me, too, now that I come to think of it. Heigho! By Jove, I do hope I can work up a little something to interest—Hello!"

Mr. Hobbs, from Cook's, was at his elbow, his eyes glistening with eagerness.

"I say, old Dangloss is waiting for you at the Regengetz, sir. Wot's up? Wot you been up to, sir?"

"Up to? Up to, Hobbs?"

"My word, sir, you must have been or he wouldn't be there to see you."

"Who is Dangloss?"

"Minister of Police—haven't I told you? He's a keen one, too, take my word for it. He's got Sherlock beat a mile."

"So have I, Hobbs. I'm not slow at Sherlocking, let me tell you that. How do you know he's waiting to see me?"

"I heard him ask for you. And I was there just now when one of his men came in and told him you were on your way up from the gunshop down there."

"So they're watching me, eh? 'Gad, this is fine!"

He lost no time in getting to the hotel. A well-remembered, fierce-looking little man in a white linen suit was waiting for him on the great piazza.

Baron Jasto Dangloss was a polite man but not to the point of procrastination. He advanced to meet the puzzled American, smiling amiably and twirling his imposing mustachios with neatly gloved fingers.

"I have called, Mr. King, to have a little chat with you about your father," he said abruptly. He enjoyed the look of surprise on the young man's face.

"My father?" murmured Truxton, catching his breath. He was shaking hands with the Baron, all the while staring blankly into his twinkling, snapping eyes.

"Won't you join me at this table? A julep will not be bad, eh?" King sat down opposite to him at one of the piazza tables, in the shade of the great trailing vines.

"Fine," was his only comment.

A waiter took the order and departed. The Baron produced his cigarette case. King carefully selected one and tapped its tip on the back of his hand.

"Is—has anything happened to my father?" he asked quietly. "Bad news?"

"On the contrary, sir, he is quite well. I had a cablegram from him to-day."

"A cablegram?"

"Yes. I cabled day before yesterday to ask if he could tell me the whereabouts of his son."

"The deuce you say!"

"He replies that you are in Teheran."

"What is the meaning of this, Baron?"

"It is a habit I have. I make it a practice to keep in touch with the movements of our guests."

"I see. You want to know all about me; why I'm here, where I came from, and all that. Well, I'm ready for the 'sweat box.'"

"Pray do not take offence. It is my rule. It would not be altered if the King of England came. Ah, here are the juleps. Quick service, eh?"

"Remarkably so, due to your powers of persuasion, I fancy."

"I really ordered them a few minutes before you arrived. You see, I was quite certain you'd have one. You take one about this hour every day."

"By Jove, you have been watching me!" cried Truxton delightedly.

"What are you doing in Edelweiss, Mr. King?" asked the Baron abruptly but not peremptorily.

"Sight-seeing and in search of adventure," was the prompt response.

"I fancied as much. You've seen quite a bit of the world since you left home two years ago, on the twenty-seventh of September."

"By Jove!"

"Been to South Africa, Asia and—South America—to say nothing of Europe. That must have been an exciting little episode in South America."

"You don't mean to say—"

"Oh, I know all about your participation in the revolution down there. You were a captain, I understand, during the three weeks of disturbance. Splendid! For the fun of the thing, I suppose. Well, I like it in you. I should have done it myself. And you got out of the country just in time, if I remember rightly. There was a price placed on your head by the distressed government. I imagine they would have shot you if they could have caught you—as they did the others." The old man chuckled. "You don't expect to return to South America, do you? The price is still offered, you know."

King was glaring at him in sheer wonder. Here was an episode in his life that he fondly hoped might never come to light; he knew how it would disturb his mother. And this foxy old fellow away off here in Graustark knew all about it.

"Well, you're a wonder!" in pure admiration.

"An appreciated compliment, I assure you. This is all in the way of letting you know that we have found out something concerning your movements. Now, to come down to the present. You expected to leave to-morrow. Why are you staying over?"

"Baron, I leave that to your own distinguished powers of deduction," said Truxton gently. He took a long pull at the straw, watching the other's face as he did so. The Baron smiled.

"You have found the young lady to be very attractive," observed the Baron. "Where have you known her before?"

"I beg pardon?"

"It is not unusual for a young man in search of adventure to follow the lady of his choice from place to place. She came but recently, I recall."

"You think I knew her before and followed her to Edelweiss?"

"I am not quite sure whether you have been in Warsaw lately. There is a gap in your movements that I can't account for."

King became serious at once. He saw that it was best to be frank with this keen old man.

"Baron Dangloss, I don't know just what you are driving at, but I'll set you straight so far as I'm concerned. I never saw that girl until the day before yesterday. I never spoke to her until to-day."

"She smiled on you quite familiarly from her window casement yesterday," said Dangloss coolly.

"She laughed at me, to be perfectly candid. But what's all this about? Who is she? What's the game? I don't mind confessing that I have a feeling she is not what she claims to be, but that's as far as I've got."

Dangloss studied the young man's face for a moment and then came to a sudden decision. He leaned forward and smiled sourly.

"Take my advice: do not play with fire," he said enigmatically.

"You—you mean she's a dangerous person? I can't believe that, Baron."

"She has dangerous friends out in the world. I don't mean to say she will cause you any trouble here—but there is a hereafter. Mind you, I'm not saying she isn't a good girl, or even an adventuress. On the contrary, she comes of an excellent family—in fact, there were noblemen among them a generation or two ago. You know her name?"

"No. I say, this is getting interesting!" He was beaming.

"She is Olga Platanova. Her mother was married in this city twenty-five years ago to Professor Platanova of Warsaw. The Professor was executed last year for conspiracy. He was one of the leaders of a great revolutionary movement in Poland. They were virtually anarchists, as you have come to place them in America. This girl, Olga, was his secretary. His death almost killed her. But that is not all. She had a sweetheart up to fifteen months ago. He was a prince of the royal blood. He would have married her in spite of the difference in their stations had it not been for the intervention of the Crown that she and her kind hate so well. The young man's powerful relatives took a hand in the affair. He was compelled to marry a scrawny little duchess, and Olga was warned that if she attempted to entice him away from his wife she would be punished. She did not attempt it, because she is a virtuous girl—of that I am sure. But she hates them all—oh, how she hates them! Her uncle, Spantz, offered her a home. She came here a month ago, broken-spirited and sick. So far, she has been exceedingly respectful to our laws. It is not that we fear anything from her; but that we are obliged to watch her for the benefit of our big brothers across the border. Now you know why I advised you to let the fire alone."

King was silent for a moment, turning something over in his head.

"Baron, are you sure that she is a Red?"

"Quite. She attended their councils."

"She doesn't look it, 'pon my word. I thought they were the scum of the earth."

"The kind you have in America are. But over here—oh, well, we never can tell."

"I don't mind saying she interests me. She's pretty—and I have an idea she's clever. Baron, let me understand you. Do you mean that this is a polite way of commanding me to have nothing to do with her?"

"You put it broadly. In the first place, I am quite sure she will have nothing to do with you. She loved the husband of the scrawny duchess. You, my good friend, handsome as you are, cannot interest her, believe me."

"I daresay you're right," glumly.

"I am merely warning you. Young men of your age and temperament sometimes let their fancies lead them into desperate predicaments. I've no doubt you can take care of yourself, but—" he paused, as if very much in doubt.

"I'm much obliged. And I'll keep my eyes well opened. I suppose there's no harm in my going to the shop to look at a lot of rings and knick-knacks he has for sale?"

"Not in the least. Confine yourself to knick-knacks, that's all."

"Isn't Spantz above suspicion?"

"No one is in my little world. By the way, I am very fond of your father. He is a most excellent gentleman and a splendid shot."

Truxton stared harder than ever. "What's that?"

"I know him quite well. Hunted wild boars with him five years ago in Germany. And your sister! She was a beautiful young girl. They were at Carlsbad at the time. Was she quite well when you last heard?"

"She was," was all that the wondering brother could say.

"Well, come in and see me at the tower. I am there in the mornings. Come as a caller, not as a prisoner, that's all." The Baron cackled at his little jest. "Au revoir! Till we meet again." They were shaking hands in the friendliest manner. "Oh, by the way, you were good enough to change your mind to-day about the personal attractiveness of our ladies. Permit me to observe, in return, that not a few of our most distinguished beauties were good enough to make inquiries as to your identity."

He left the American standing at the head of the steps, gazing after his retreating figure with a look of admiration in his eyes.

Truxton fared forth into the streets that night with a greater zest in life than he had ever known before. Some thing whispered insistently to his fancy that dreariness was a thing of the past; he did not have to whistle to keep up his spirits. They were soaring of their own accord.

He did not know, however, that a person from the secret service was watching his every movement. Nor, on the other hand, is it at all likely that the secret service operative was aware that he was not the only shadower of the blithe young stranger.

A man with a limp cigarette between his lips was never far from the side of the American—a man who had stopped to pass the time of day with William Spantz, and who, from that hour was not to let the young man out of his sight until another relieved him of the task.

CHAPTER IV

TRUXTON TRESPASSES

He went to bed that night, tired and happy. To his revived spirits and his new attitude toward life in its present state, the city had suddenly turned gay and vivacious. Twice during the evening he passed Spantz's shop. It was dark, upstairs and down. He wondered if the unhappy Olga was looking at him from behind the darkened shutters. But even if she were not—la, la! He was having a good time! He was gay! He was seeing pretty women in the cafés and the gardens! Well, well, he would see her to-morrow—after that he would give proper heed to the Baron's warning! An anarchist's daughter!

He slept well, too, with never a thought of the Saturday express which he had lain awake on other nights to lament and anathematise. Bright and early in the morning he was astir. Somehow he felt he had been sleeping too much of late.

There was a sparkle in his eyes as he struck out across town after breakfast. He burst in upon Mr. Hobbs at Cook's.

"Say, Hobbs, how about the Castle to-day—in an hour, say? Can you take a party of one rubbernecking this A.M.? I like you, Hobbs. You are the best interpreter of English I've ever seen. I can't help understanding you, no matter how hard I try not to. I want you to get me into the Castle grounds to-day and show me where the duchesses dawdle and the countesses cavort. I'm ashamed to say it, Hobbs, but since yesterday I've quite lost interest in the middle classes and the component parts thereof. I have suddenly acquired a thirst for champagne—in other words, I have a hankering for the nobility. Catch the idea? Good! Then you'll guide me into the land of the fairies? At ten?"

"I'll take you to the Castle grounds, Mr. King, all right enough, sir, and I'll tell you all the things of interest, but I'll be 'anged, sir, if I've got the blooming nerve to introduce you to the first ladies of the land. That's more than I can ever 'ope to do, sir, and—"

"Lord bless you, Hobbs, don't look so depressed. I don't ask you to present me at court. I just want to look at the lilacs and the gargoyles. That's as far as I expect to carry my invasion of the dream world."

"Of course, sir, you understand there are certain parts of the Park not open to the public. The grotto and the playgrounds and the Basin of Venus—"

"I'll not trespass, so don't fidget, Hobbs. I'll be here for you at ten."

Mr. Hobbs looked after the vigorous, happy figure as it swung down the street, and shook his head mournfully. Turning to the solitary clerk who dawdled behind the cashier's desk he remarked with more feeling than was his wont:

"He's just the kind of chap to get me into no end of trouble if I give 'im rope enough. Take it from me, Stokes, I'll have my hands full of 'im up there this morning. He's charged like a soda bottle; and you never know wot's going to happen unless you handle a soda bottle very careful-like."

Truxton hurried to the square and across it to the shop of the armourer, not forgetting, however, to look about in some anxiety for the excellent Dangloss, who might, for all he knew, be snooping in the neighbourhood. Spantz was at the rear of the shop, talking to a customer. The girl was behind the counter, dressed for the street.

She came quickly out to him, a disturbed expression in her face. As he doffed his hat, the smile left his lips; he saw that she had been weeping.

"You must not come here, Mr. King," she said hurriedly, in low tones. "Take your broadsword this morning and—please, for my sake, do not come again. I—I may not explain why I am asking you to do this, but I mean it for your good, more than for my own. My uncle will be out in a moment. He knows you are here. He is listening now to catch what I am saying to you. Smile, please, or he will suspect—"

"See here," demanded King, smiling, but very much in earnest, "what's up? You've been crying. What's he been doing or saying to you? I'll give him a—"

"No, no! Be sensible! It is nothing in which you could possibly take a hand. I don't know you, Mr. King, but I am in earnest when I say that it is not safe for you to come here, ostensibly to buy. It is too easily seen through—it is—"

"Just a minute, please," he interrupted. "I've heard your story from Baron Dangloss. It has appealed to me. You are not happy. Are you in trouble? Do you need friends, Miss Platanova?"

"It is because you would be a friend that I ask you to stay away. You cannot be my friend. Pray do not consider me bold for assuming so much. But I know—I know men, Mr. King. The Baron has told you all about me?" She smiled sadly. "Alas, he has only told you what he knows. But it should be sufficient. There is no place in my life for you or any one else. There never can be. So, you see, you may not develop your romance with me as the foundation. Oh, I've heard of your quest of adventure. I like you for it. I had an imagination myself, once on a time. I loved the fairy books and the love tales. But not now-not now. There is no romance for me. Nothing but grave reality. Do not question me! I can say no more. Now I must be gone. I—I have warned you. Do not come again!"

"Thanks, for the warning," he said quietly. "But I expect to come in occasionally, just the same. You've taken the wrong tack by trying to frighten me off. You see, Miss Platanova, I'm actually looking for something dangerous—if that's what you mean."

"That isn't all, believe me," she pleaded. "You can gain nothing by coming. You know who I am. I cannot be a friend—not even an acquaintance to you, Mr. King. Good-bye! Please do not come again!"

She slipped into the street and was gone. King stood in the doorway, looking after her, a puzzled gleam in his eyes. Old Spantz was coming up from the rear, followed by his customer.

"Queer," thought the American. "She's changed her tactics rather suddenly. Smiled at me in the beginning and now cries a bit because I'm trying to return the compliment. Well, by the Lord Harry, she shan't scare me off like—Hello, Mr. Spantz! Good morning! I'm here for the sword."

The old man glared at him in unmistakable displeasure. Truxton began counting out his money. The customer, a swarthy fellow, passed out of the door, turning to glance intently at the young man. A meaning look and a sly nod passed between him and Spantz. The man halted at the corner below and, later on, followed King to Cook's office, afterward to the Castle gates, outside of which he waited until his quarry reappeared. Until King went to bed late that night this swarthy fellow was close at his heels, always keeping well out of sight himself.

"I'll come in soon to look at those rings," said King, placing the notes on the counter. Spantz merely nodded, raked in the bills without counting them, and passed the sword over to the purchaser.

"Very good, sir," he growled after a moment.

"I hate to carry this awful thing through the streets," said King, looking at the huge weapon with despairing eye. Inwardly, he was cursing himself for his extravagance and cupidity.

"It belongs to you, my friend. Take it or leave it."

"I'll take it," said Truxton, smiling indulgently. With that he picked up the weapon and stalked away.

A few minutes later he was on his way to the Castle grounds, accompanied by the short-legged Mr. Hobbs, who, from time to time, was forced to remove his tight-fitting cap to mop a hot, exasperated brow, so swift was the pace set by long-legs. The broadsword reposed calmly on a desk under the nose of a properly impressed young person named Stokes, cashier.

Hobbs led him through the great Park gates and up to the lodge of Jacob Fraasch, the venerable high steward of the grounds. Here, to King's utter disgust, he was booked as a plain Cook's tourist and mechanically advised to pay strict attention to the rules which would be explained to him by the guide.

"Cook's tourist, eh?" muttered King wrathfully as they ambled down the shady path together. He looked with disparaging eye upon the plain little chap beside him.

"It's no disgrace," growled Hobbs, redder than ever. "You're inside the grounds and you've got to obey the rules, same as any tourist. Right this way, sir; we'll take a turn just inside the wall. Now, on your left, ladies and—ahem!—I should say—ahem!—sir, you may see the first turret ever built on the wall. It is over four hundred years old. On the right, we have—"

"See here, Hobbs," said King, stopping short, "I'm damned if I'll let you lecture me as if I were a gang of hayseeds from Oklahoma."

"Very good, sir. No offence. I quite forgot, sir."

"Just tell me—don't lecture."

For three-quarters of an hour they wandered through the spacious grounds, never drawing closer to the Castle than permitted by the restrictions; always coming up to the broad driveway which marked the border line, never passing it. The gorgeous beauty of this historic old park, so full of traditions and the lore of centuries, wrought strange fancies and bold inclinations in the head of the audacious visitor. He felt the bonds of restraint; he resented the irksome chains of convention; he murmured against the laws that said he should not step across the granite road into the cool forbidden world beyond—the world of kings. Hobbs knew he was doomed to have rebellion on his hands before long; he could see it coming.

"When we've seen the royal stables, we'll have seen everything of any consequence," he hastened to say. "Then we'll leave by the upper gates and—"

"Hobbs, this is all very beautiful and very grand and very slow," said King, stopping to lean against the moss-covered wall that encircled the park within a park: the grounds adjoining the grotto. "Can't I hop over this wall and take a peep into the grotto?"

"By no means," cried Hobbs, horrified. "That, sir, is the most proscribed spot, next to the Castle itself. You can't go in there."

King looked over the low wall. The prospect was alluring. The pool, the trickling rivulets, the mossy banks, the dense shadows: it was maddening to think he could not enter!

"I wouldn't be in there a minute," he argued. "And I might catch a glimpse of a dream-lady. Now, I say, Hobbs, here's a low place. I could jump—"

"Mr. King, if you do that I am ruined forever. I am trusted by the steward. He would cut off all my privileges—" Hobbs could go no further. He was prematurely aghast. Something told him that Mr. King would hop over the wall.

"Just this once, Hobbs," pleaded his charge. "No one will know."

"For the love of Moses, sir, I—" Hobbs began to wail. Then he groaned in dismal horror. King had lightly vaulted the wall and was grinning back at him from the sacred precincts—from the playground of princesses.

"Go and report me, Hobbs, there's a good fellow. Tell the guards I wouldn't obey. That will let you out, my boy, and I'll do the rest. For Heaven's sake, Hobbs, don't burst! You'll explode sure if you hold in like that much longer. I'll be back in a minute."

He strode off across the bright green turf toward the source of all this enchantment, leaving poor Mr. Hobbs braced against the wall, weak-kneed and helpless. If he heard the frantic, though subdued, whistles and the agonized "hi!" of the man from Cook's a minute or two later, he gave no heed to the warning. A glimpse behind might have shown him the error of his ways, reflected in the disappearance of Hobbs's head below the top of the wall. But he was looking ahead, drinking in the forbidden beauties of this fascinating little nook of nature.

Never in all his wanderings had he looked upon a more inviting spot than this. He came to the edge of the deep blue pool, above which could be seen the entrance to the Grotto. Little rivulets danced down through the crannies in the rocks and leaped joyously into the tree-shaded pool. Below and to the right were the famed Basins of Venus, shimmering in the sunlight, flanked by trees and banks of the softest green. On their surface swam the great black swans he had heard so much about. Through a wide rift in the trees he could see the great, grey Castle, half a mile away, towering against the dense greens of the nearby mountain. The picture took his breath away. He forgot Hobbs. He forgot that he was; trespassing. Here, at last, was the Graustark he had seen in his dreams, had come to feel in his imagination.

Regardless of surroundings or consequences, he sat down upon the nearest stone bench, and removed his hat. He was hot and tired and the air was cool. He would drink it in as if it were an ambrosial nectar in—and, moreover, he would also enjoy a cigarette. Carefully he refrained from throwing the burnt-out match into the pool below: even such as he could feel that it might be desecration. As he leaned back with a sigh of exquisite ease and a splendid exhalation of Turkish smoke, a small, imperious voice from somewhere behind broke in upon his primary reflections.

"What are you doing in here?" demanded the voice.

Truxton, conscious of guilt, whirled with as much consternation as if he had been accosted by a voice of thunder. He beheld a very small boy standing at the top of the knoll above him, not thirty feet away. His face was quite as dirty as any small boy's should be at that time of day, and his curly brown hair looked as if it had not been combed since the day before. His firm little legs, in half hose and presumably white knickers, were spread apart and his hands were in his pockets.

King recognised him at once, and looked about uneasily for the attendants whom he knew should be near. It is safe to say that he came to his feet and bowed deeply, even in humility.

"I am resting, your Highness," he said meekly.

"Don't you know any better than to come in here?" demanded the Prince. Truxton turned very red.

"I am sorry. I'll go at once."

"Oh, I'm not going to put you out," hastily exclaimed the Prince, coming down the slope. "But you are old enough to know better. The guards might shoot you if they caught you here." He came quite close to the trespasser. King saw the scratch on his nose. "Oh, I know you now. You are the gentleman who picked up my crop yesterday. You are an American." A friendly smile illumined his face.

"Yes, a lonely American," with an attempt at the pathetic.

"Where's your home at?"

"New York. Quite a distance from here."

"You ever been in Central Park?"

"A thousand times. It isn't as nice as this one."

"It's got amilies—no, I don't mean that," supplemented the Prince, flushing painfully. "I mean—an-i-muls," very deliberately. "Our park has no elephunts or taggers. When I get big I'm going to set out a few in the park. They'll grow, all right."

"I've shot elephants and tigers in the jungle," said Truxton. "I tell you they're no fun when they get after you, wild. If I were you I'd set 'em out in cages."

"P'raps I will." The Prince seemed very thoughtful.

"Won't you sit down, your Highness?"

The youngster looked cautiously about. "Say, do you ever go fishing?" he demanded eagerly.

"Occasionally."

"You won't give me away, will you?" with a warning frown. "Don't you tell Jacob Fraasch. He's the steward. I—I know a fine place to fish. Would you mind coming along? Look out, please! You're awful big and they'll see you. I don't know what they'd do to us if they ketched us. It would be dreadful. Would you mind sneaking, mister? Make yourself little. Right up this way."

The Prince led the way up the bank, followed by the amused American, who stooped so admirably that the boy, looking back, whispered that it was "just fine." At the top of the knoll, the Prince turned into a little shrub-lined path leading down to the banks of the pool almost directly below the rocky face of the grotto.

"Don't be afraid," he whispered to his new friend. "It ain't very deep, if you should slip in. But you'd scare the fish away. Gee, it's a great place to catch 'em. They're all red, too. D'you ever see red fish?"

Truxton started. This was no place for him! The Prince had a right to poach on his own preserves, but a grown man to be caught in the act of landing the royal goldfish was not to be thought of. He hung back.

"I'm afraid I won't have time, your Highness. A friend is waiting for me back there. He—"

"It's right here," pleaded the Prince. "Please stop a moment. I—I don't know how to put the bait on the pin. I just want to catch a couple. They won't bite unless there's worms on the hook. I tried 'em. Look at 'em! Goodness, there's lots of 'em. Nobody can see us here. Please, mister, fix a worm for me."

The man sat down behind a bush and laughed joyously. The eager, appealing look in the lad's eyes went to his heart. What was a goldfish or two? A fish has no feeling—not even a goldfish. There was no resisting the boyish eagerness.

"Why, you're a real boy, after all. I thought being a prince might have spoiled you," he said.

"Uncle Jack says I can always be a prince, but I'll soon get over being a boy," said Prince Bobby sagely. "You will fix it, won't you?"

King nodded, conscienceless now. The Prince scurried behind a big rock and reappeared at once with a willow branch from the end of which dangled a piece of thread. A bent pin occupied the chief end in view. He unceremoniously shoved the branch into the hands of his confederate, and then produced from one of his pockets a silver cigarette box, which he gingerly opened to reveal to the gaze a conglomerate mass of angle worms and grubs.

"A fellow gets awful dirty digging for worms, doesn't he?" he pronounced.

"I should say so," agreed the big boy. "Whose cigarette case is this?"

"Uncle Caspar's—I mean Count Halfont's. He's got another, so he won't miss this one. I'm going to leave some worms in it when I put it back in his desk. He'll think the fairies did it. Do you believe in fairies?"

"Certainly, Peter," said Truxton, engaged in impaling a stubborn worm.

"My name isn't Peter," said the Prince coldly.

"I was thinking of Peter Pan. Ever hear of him?"

"No. Say, you mustn't talk or you'll scare 'em away. Is it fixed?" He took the branch and gingerly dropped the hook into the dancing pool. In less time than it requires to tell it he had a nibble, a bite and a catch. There never was a boy so excited as he when the scarlet nibbler flew into the shrubbery above; he gasped with glee. Truxton recovered the catch from the bushes and coolly detached the truculent pin.

"I'll have 'em for dinner," announced the Prince.

"Are you going to catch a mess?" queried the man, appalled.

"Sure," said Bobby, casting again with a resolute splash.

"Are you not afraid they'll get onto you if you take them to the Castle?" asked the other diplomatically. "Goldfish are a dead give-away."

"Nobody will scold 'cept Uncle Jack, and he won't know about it. He's prob'ly gone away by this time." King noticed that his lip trembled suddenly.

"Gone away?"

"Yes. He was banished this morning right after breakfast." The announcement began with a tremor but ended with imperial firmness.

"Great Scott!" gasped the other, genuinely shocked.

"I banished him," said the Prince ruefully. "But," with a fine smile, "I don't think he'll go. He never does. See my sign up there?" He pointed to the rocks near the grotto. "I did it with Hugo's shoe blacking."

A placard containing the important announcement, "NO FISHING ALOUD" stared down at the poachers from a tree trunk above. There was nothing very peremptory in its appearance, but its designer was sufficiently impressed by the craftiness it contained.

"I put it up so's people wouldn't think anybody—not even me—would dare to fish here. Oh, look!" The second of his ruddy mess was flopping in the grass. Again Truxton thought of Mr. Hobbs, this time with anxious glances in all directions.

"Where do they think you are, your Highness?"

"Out walking with my aunt. Only she met Count Vos Engo, and while they were talking I made a sneak—I mean, I stole away."

"Then they'll be searching for you in all parts of the—" began Truxton, coming to his feet. "I really must be going. Please excuse me, your—"

"Oh, don't go! I'll not let 'em do anything to you," said the Prince staunchly. "I like Americans better than anybody else," he went on with deft persuasiveness. "They ain't—aren't afraid of anything. They're not cowards."

Truxton sat down at once. He could not turn tail in the face of such an exalted opinion.

"I'm not supposed to ever go out alone," went on the Prince confidentially. "You see, they're going to blow me up if they get a chance."

"Blow you up?"

"Haven't you heard about it? With dynamite bums—bombs. Yes, sir! That's the way they do to all princes." He was quite unconcerned. Truxton's look of horror diminished. No doubt it was a subterfuge employed to secure princely obedience, very much as the common little boy is brought to time by mention of the ubiquitous bogie man.

"That's too bad," commiserated Truxton, baiting the pin once more.

"It's old Count Marlanx. He's going to blow me up. He hated my mother and my father, so I guess he hates me. He's turrible, Uncle Caspar says."

King was very thoughtful for a moment. Something vivid yet fleeting had shot through his brain—something that he tried to catch and analyse, but it was gone before he could grasp its significance. He looked with new interest upon this serene, lovable little chap, who was growing up, like all princes, in the shadow of disaster.

Suddenly the fisherman's quick little ears caught a sound that caused him to reveal a no-uncertain agitation. He dropped his rod incontinently and crawled to the opening in the shrubbery, peering with alarmed eyes down the path along the bank.

"What is it? A dynamiter?" demanded Truxton uneasily.

"Worse'n that," whispered his royal Highness. "It's Aunt Loraine. Gee!" To King's utter dismay, the Prince scuttled for the underbrush.

"Here!" he called in consternation. The Prince stopped, shamefaced on the instant. "I thought you were going to protect me."

"I shall," affirmed Bobby, manfully resuming his ground. "She's coming up the path. Don't run," he exclaimed scornfully, as Truxton started for the rocks. "She can't hurt you. She's only a girl."

"All right. I won't run," said the big culprit, who wished he had the power to fly.

"And there's Saffo and Cors over there watching us, too. We're caught. I'm sorry, mister."

On the opposite bank of the pool stood two rigid members of the Royal Guard, intently watching the fishers. King was somewhat disturbed by the fact that their rifles were in a position to be used at an instant's notice. He felt himself turning pale as he thought of what might have happened if he had taken to flight.

A young lady in a rajah silk gown, a flimsy panama hat tilted well over her nose, with a red feather that stood erect as if always in a state of surprise, turned the bushes and came to a stop almost at King's elbow. He had time to note, in his confusion, that she was about shoulder-high alongside him, and that she was staring up into his face with amazed grey eyes. Afterward he was to realise that she was amazingly pretty, that her teeth were very white and even, that her eyes were the most beautiful and expressive he had ever seen, that she was slender and imperious, and that there were dimples in her checks so fascinating that he could not gather sufficient strength of purpose to withdraw his gaze from them. Of course, he did not see them at the outset: she was not smiling, so how could he?

The Prince came to the rescue. "This is my Aunt Loraine, Mr.—Mr.—" he swallowed hard and looked helpless.

"King," supplied Truxton, "Truxton King, your Highness." Then with all the courage he could produce, he said to the beautiful lady: "I'm as guilty as he. See!" He pointed ruefully to the four goldfish, which he had strung upon wire grass and dropped into the edge of the pool.

She did not smile. Indeed, she gave him a very severe look. "How cruel!" she murmured. "Bobby, you deserve a sound spanking. You are a very naughty little boy." She spoke rapidly in French.

"He put the bait on," said Bobby, also in French. Here was treachery!

Truxton delivered himself of some French. "Oh, I say, your Highness, you said you'd pardon me if I were caught."

"I can't pardon you until you are found guilty," said the Prince in English.

"Please put those poor little things back in the pool, Mr. King," said the lady in perfect English.

"Gladly—with the Prince's permission," said King, also in English. The Prince looked glum, but interposed no imperial objection. Instead he suddenly shoved the cigarette box under the nose of his dainty relative, who at that unpropitious instant stooped over to watch King's awkward attempt to release the fishes.

"Look at the worms," said the Prince engagingly, opening the box with a snap.

"Oh!" cried the young lady, starting back. "Throw them away! the horned things!"

"Oh, they can't bite," scoffed the Prince. "See! I'm not afraid of 'em. Look at this one." He held up a wriggler and she fled to the rock. She happened to glance at Truxton's averted face and was conscious of a broad grin; whereupon she laughed in the quick staccato of embarrassment.

It must be confessed that King's composure was sorely disturbed. In the first place, he had been caught in a most reprehensible act, and in the second place, he was not quite sure that the Prince could save him from ignominious expulsion under the very eyes—and perhaps direction—of this trim and attractive member of the royal household. He found himself blundering foolishly with the fishes and wondering whether she was a duchess or just a plain countess. Even a regal personage might jump at the sight of angle worms, he reflected.

He glanced up, to find her studying him, plainly perplexed.

"I just wondered in here," he began guiltily. "The Prince captured me down there by the big tree."

"Did you say your name is Truxton King?" she asked somewhat sceptically.

"Yes, your—yes, ma'am," he replied. "Of New York."

"Your father is Mr. Emerson King? Are you the brother of Adele King?"

Truxton stared. "Have you been interviewing the police?" he asked before he thought.

"The police? What have you been doing?" she cried, her eyes narrowing.

"Most everything. The police know all about me. I'm a spotted character. I thought perhaps they had told you about me."

"I asked if you were Adele's brother."

"I am."

"I've heard her speak of her brother Truxton. She said you were in South America."

He stared the harder. Could he believe his ears?

She was regarding him with cool, speculative interest. "I wonder if you are he?"

"I think I am," he said, but doubtfully. "Please pardon my amazement. Perhaps I'm dreaming. At any rate, I'm dazed."

"We were in the convent together for two years. Now that I observe you closely, you do resemble her. We were very good friends, she and I."

"Then you'll intercede for me?" he urged, with a fervent glance in the direction of the wall.

She smiled joyously. He realised then and there that he had never seen such beautiful teeth, nor any creature so radiantly beautiful, for that matter.

"More than that," she said, "I shall assist you to escape. Come!"

He followed her through the shrubbery, his heart pounding violently. The Prince, who trotted on ahead, had mentioned a Count. Was she married? Was she of the royal blood? What extraordinary fate had made her the friend of his sister? He looked back and saw the two guardsmen crossing the bridge below, their eyes still upon him.

"It's very good of you," he said. She glanced back at him, a quaint smile in her eyes.

"For Adele's sake, if you please. Trespassing is a very serious offence here. How did you get in?"

"I hopped in, over the wall."

"I'd suggest that you do not hop out again. Hopping over the walls is not looked upon with favour by the guards."

He recalled the distressed Mr. Hobbs. "The man from Cook's tried to restrain me," he said in proper spirit. "He was very much upset."

"I dare say. You are a Cook's tourist, I see. How very interesting! Bobby, Uncle Jack is waiting to take you to see the trained dogs at the eastern gate."

The Prince gave a whoop of joy, but instantly regained his dignity.

"I can't go, auntie, until I've seen him safe outside the walls," he said firmly. "I said I would."

They came to the little gate and passed through, into a winding path that soon brought them to a wide, main-travelled avenue. A light broke in upon Truxton's mind. He had it! This was the wonderful Countess Marlanx! No sooner had he come to that decision than he was forced to abandon it. The Countess's name was Ingomede and she already had been pointed out to him.

"I suppose I shall have to recall Uncle Jack from exile," he heard the Prince saying to the beautiful lady. Truxton decided that she was not more than twenty-two. But they married very young in these queer old countries—especially if they happened to be princes or princesses. He wanted to talk, to ask questions, to proclaim his wonder, but discreetly resolved that it was best to hold his tongue. He was by no means sure of himself.

Be that as it may, he was filled with a strange rejoicing. Here was a woman with whom he was as sure to fall in love as he was sure that the sun shone. He liked the thought of it. Now he appreciated the distinction between the Olga Platanova type and that which represented the blood of kings. There was a difference! Here was the true Patrician!

The Castle suddenly loomed up before them—grey and frowning, not more than three hundred yards away. He was possessed of a wild desire to walk straight into the grim old place and proclaim himself the feudal owner, seizing everything as his own—particularly the young woman in the rajah silk. People were strolling in the shady grounds. He felt the instant infection of happy indolence, the call to luxury. Men in gay uniforms and men in cool flannels; women in the prettiest and daintiest of frocks—all basking in the playtime of life, unmindful of the toil that fell to the Sons of Martha out in the sordid world.

"Do you think you can find your man from Cook's?" she asked.

"Unless he has gone and jumped into the river, your—madam. In any event, I think I may safely find my way out. I shall not trouble you to go any farther. Thank you for overlooking my indiscretion. Thank you, my dear little Prince, for the happiest experience of my life. I shall never forget this hour." He looked boldly into her eyes, and not at the Prince. "Have you ever been in New York?" he asked abruptly.

He was not at all sure whether the look she gave him was one of astonishment or resentment. At any rate, it was a quick glance, followed by the palpable suppression of words that first came to her lips, and the substitution of a very polite:

"Yes, and I love it." He beamed. The smile that came into her eyes escaped him. If he could have seen it, his bewilderment; would have been sadly increased.

"Say!" whispered the Prince, dropping back as if to impart a grave secret. "See that man over there by the fountain, Mr. King?"

"Bobby!" cried the lady sharply. "Good-bye, Mr. King. Remember me to your sister when you write. She—"

"That's Aunt Loraine's beau," announced the Prince.

"That's Count Eric Vos Engo." Truxton's look turned to one of interest at once. The man designated was a slight, swarthy fellow in the uniform of a colonel. He did not appear to be particularly happy at the moment.

The American observed the lady's dainty ears. They had turned a delicate pink.

"May I ask who—" began Truxton timidly.

"She will know if you merely call me Loraine."

"So long," said the Prince.

They parted company at once, the Prince and the lady in the rajah silk going toward the Castle, King toward the gates, somewhat dazed and by no means sure of his senses. He came down to earth after he had marched along on air for some distance, so to speak, and found himself deciding that she was a duchess here, but Loraine at school. What a wonderful place a girl's school must be! And his sister knew her—knew a lady of high degree!

"Hobbs!" he called, catching sight of a dejected figure in front of the chief steward's door.

"Oh, it's you, is it?" said Mr. Hobbs sullenly.

"It is, Hobbs—very much me. I've been fishing with royalty and chatting with the nobility. Where the devil have you been?"

"I've been squaring it with old man Fraasch. I'm through with you, sir. No more for me, not if I know—"

"Come along, Hobbs," said the other blithely, taking Hobbs by the arm. "The Prince sent his love to you."

"Did he mention Cook's?" gasped Hobbs.

"He certainly did," lied Truxton. "He spoke of you most kindly. He wondered if you could find time to come around to-morrow."

CHAPTER V

THE COMMITTEE OF TEN

It has been said before that Truxton King was the unsuspecting object of interest to two sets of watchers. The fact that he was under the surveillance of the government police, is not surprising when we consider the evident thoroughness of that department; but that he should be continually watched by persons of a more sinister cast suggests a mystery which can be cleared up by visiting a certain underground room, scarce two blocks from the Tower of Graustark. It goes without saying that corporeal admittance to this room was not to be obtained easily. In fact, one must belong to a certain band of individuals; and, in order to belong to that band, one must have taken a very solemn pledge of eternal secrecy and a primal oath to devote his life to certain purposes, good or evil, according to his conscience. By means of the friendly Sesame that has opened the way for us to the gentler secrets, we are permitted to enter this forbidding apartment and listen in safety to the ugly business of the Committee of Ten.

There were two ways of reaching this windowless room, with its low ceilings and dank airs. If one had the secret in his possession, he could go down through the mysterious trap door in the workshop of William Spantz, armourer to the Crown; or he might come up through a hidden aperture in the walls of the great government sewer, which ran directly parallel with and far below the walls of the quaint old building. One could take his choice of direction in approaching this hole in the huge sewer: he could come up from the river, half a mile away, or he could come down from the hills above if he had the courage to drop through one of the intakes.

It is of special significance that the trap door in Spantz's workshop was reserved for use by the armourer and his more fastidious comrades—of whom three were women and one an established functionary in the Royal Household. One should not expect ladies to traverse a sewer if oilier ways are open to them. The manner of reaching the workshop was not so simple, however, as you might suppose. The street door was out of the quest ion, with Dangloss on the watch, day and night. As much as can be said for the rear door. It was necessary, therefore, that the favored few should approach the shop by extraordinary paths. For instance, two of the women came through friendly but unknown doors in the basements of adjoining houses, reaching the workshop by the narrow stairs leading up from a cobwebby wine-cellar next door. Spantz and Olga Platanova, of course, were at home in the place. All of which may go to prove that while ten persons comprised the committee, at least as many more of the shopkeepers in that particular neighbourhood were in sympathy with their secret operations.

So cleverly were all these means of approach concealed and so stealthy the movements of the Committee, that the existence of this underground room, far below the street level, was as yet unsuspected by the police. More than that, the existence of the Committee of Ten as an organisation was unknown to the department, notwithstanding the fact that it had been working quietly, seriously for more than a year.

The Committee of Ten represented the brains and the activity of a rabid coterie in Edelweiss, among themselves styled the Party of Equals. In plain language, they were "Reds." Less than fifty persons in Graustark were affiliated with this particular community of anarchists. For more than a year they had been preparing themselves against the all-important hour for public declaration. Their ranks had been augmented by occasional recruits from other lands; their literature was circulated stealthily; their operations were as secret as the grave, so far as the outside world was concerned. And so the poison sprung up and thrived unhindered in the room below the street, growing in virulence and power under the very noses of the vaunted police of Edelweiss, slowly developing into a power that would some day assert itself with diabolical fury.

There were men and women from Axphain and Dawsbergen in this seed circle that made Edelweiss its spreading ground. They were Reds of the most dangerous type—silent, voiceless, crafty men and women who built well without noise, and who gave out nothing to the world from which they expected to take so much.

The nominal leader was William Spantz, he who had a son in the Prince's household, Julius Spantz, the Master-of-arms. Far off in the hills above the Danube there lived the real leader of this deadly group—the Iron Count Marlanx, exile from the land of his birth, hated and execrated by every loyal Graustarkian, hating and execrating in return with a tenfold greater venom. Marlanx, the man who had been driven from wealth and power by the sharp edict of Prince Robin's mother, the lamented Yetive, in the days of her most glorious reign,—this man, deep in his raging heart, was in complete accord with the desperate band of Reds who preached equality and planned disaster.

Olga Platanova was the latest acquisition to this select circle. A word concerning her: she was the daughter of Professor Platanova, one time oculist and sociologist in a large German University. He had been one of the most brilliant men in Europe and a member of a noble family. There was welcome for him in the homes of the nobility; he hobnobbed, so to speak, with the leading men of time Empire. The Platanova home in Warsaw was one of the most inviting and exclusive in that great, city. The professor's enthusiasm finally carried him from the conservative paths in which he had walked; after he had passed his fiftieth year he became an avowed leader among the anarchists and revolutionists in Poland, his native state. Less than a year before the opening of this tale he was executed for treason and conspiracy against the Empire.

His daughter, Olga, was recognised as one of the most beautiful and cultured young women in Warsaw. Her suitors seemed to be without number; nor were they confined to the student and untitled classes with whom she was naturally thrown by force of circumstance. More than one lordly adventurer in the lists of love paid homage to her grace and beauty. Finally there came one who conquered and was beloved. He was the son of a mighty duke, a prince of the blood.

It was true love for both of them. The young prince pledged himself to marry her, despite all opposition; he was ready to give up his noble inheritance for the sake of love. But there were other forces greater than a young man's love at work. The all-powerful ruler of an Empire learned of this proposed mesalliance and was horrified. Two weeks afterward the prince was called. The will of the Crown was made known to him and—he obeyed. Olga Platanova was cast aside but not forgotten. He became the husband of an unloved, scrawny lady of diadems. When the situation became more than he could bear he blew out his brains.

When Olga heard the news of his death she was not stricken by grief. She cried out her joy to a now cloudless sky, for he had justified the great love that had been theirs and would be theirs to the end of time.

From a passive believer in the doctrines of her father and his circle she became at once their most impassioned exponent. Over night she changed from a gentle-hearted girl into a woman whose breast flamed with a lust for vengeance against a class from which death alone could free her lover. She threw herself, heart and soul, into the deliberations and transactions of the great red circle: her father understood and yet was amazed.

Then he was put to death by the class she had come to hate. One more stone in the sepulchre of her tender, girlish ideals. When the time came she travelled to Graustark in response to the call of the Committee of Ten; she came prepared to kill the creature she would be asked to kill. And yet down in her heart she was sore afraid.

She was there, not to kill a man grown old in wrongs to her people, but to destroy the life of a gentle, innocent boy of seven!

There were times when her heart shrank from the unholy deed she had been selected to perform; she even prayed that death might come to her before the hour in which she was to do this execrable thing in behalf of the humanity she served. But there was never a thought of receding from the bloody task set down for her—a task so morbid, so horrid that even the most vicious of men gloated in the satisfaction that they had not been chosen in her place. Weeks before she came to Graustark Olga Platanova had been chosen by lot to be the one to do this diabolical murder. She did not flinch, but came resolute and ready. Even the men in the Committee of Ten looked upon the slender, dark-eyed girl with an awe that could not be conquered. She had not the manner of an assassin, and yet they knew that she would not draw back; she was as soft and as sweet as the Madonnas they secretly worshipped, and yet her heart was steeled to a purpose that appalled the fiercest of them.

On a Saturday night, following the last visit of Truxton King to the armourer, the Committee of Ten met in the underground room to hear the latest word from one who could not be with them in person, but was always there in spirit—if they were to believe his most zealous utterances. The Iron Count Marlanx, professed hater of all that was rich and noble, was the power behind the Committee of Ten. The assassination of the little Prince and the overthrow of the royal family awaited his pleasure: he was the man who would give the word.

Not until he was ready could anything be done, for Marlanx had promised to put the Committee of Ten in control of this pioneer community when it came under the dominion of anarchists.

Alas, for the Committee of Ten! The wiliest fox in the history of the world was never so wily as the Iron Count. Some day they were to find out that he was using them to pull his choicest chestnuts from the fire.

The Committee was seated around the long table in the stifling, breathless room, the armourer at the head. Those who came by way of the sewer had performed ablutions in the queer toilet room that once had been a secret vault for the storing of feudal plunder. What air there was came from the narrow ventilator that burrowed its ways up to the shop of William Spantz, or through the chimney-hole in the ceiling. Olga Platanova sat far down the side, a moody, inscrutable expression in her dark eyes. She sat silent and oppressed through all the acrid, bitter discussions which carried the conclave far past the midnight hour. In her heart she knew that these men and women were already thinking of her as a regicide. It was settled—it was ordained. At Spantz's right lounged Peter Brutus, a lawyer—formerly secretary to the Iron Count and now his sole representative among these people. He was a dark-faced, snaky-eyed young man, with a mop of coarse black hair that hung ominously low over his high, receding forehead. This man was the chosen villain among all the henchmen who came at the beck and call of the Iron Count.

Julius Spantz, the armourer's son, a placid young man of goodly physical proportions, sat next to Brutus, while down the table ranged others deep in the consideration of the world's gravest problems. One of the women was Madame Drovnask, whose husband had been sent to Siberia for life; and the other, Anna Cromer, a rabid Red lecturer, who had been driven from the United States, together with her amiable husband: an assassin of some distinction and many aliases, at present foreman in charge of one of the bridge-building crews on the new railroad.

Every man in the party, and there were eight, for Olga was not a member of the Ten, wore over the lower part of his face a false black beard of huge dimensions. Not that they were averse to recognition among themselves, but in the fear that by some hook or crook Dangloss or his agents might be able to look in upon them—through stone walls, as it were. They were not men to belittle the powers of the wonderful Baron.

As it sat in secret conclave, the Committee of Ten was a sinister-looking group.

Brutus was speaking. "The man is a spy. He has been brought here from America by Tullis. Sooner or later you will find that I am right."

"It is best to keep close watch on him," advised one of the men. "We know that he is in communication with the police and we know that he visits the Castle, despite his declaration that he knows no one there. To-day's experience proves that. I submit that the strictest caution be observed where he is concerned."

"We shall continue to watch his every movement," said William Spantz. "Time will tell. When we are positive that he is a detective and that he is dangerous, there is a way to stop his operations."

His son grinned amiably as he swept his finger across his throat. The old man nodded.

"Dangloss suspects more than one of us" ventured Brutus, his gaze travelling toward Olga. There was lewd admiration in that steady glance. "But we'll fool the old fox. The time will soon be here for the blow that frees Graustark from the yoke. She will be the pioneer among our estates, we the first of the individuals in equality; here the home seat of perfect rulership. There is nothing that can stop us. Have we not the most powerful of friends? Who is greater and shrewder than Count Marlanx? Who could have planned and perfected an organization so splendid? Will any one dispute this?"

He had the floor, and having the floor means everything to a Red. For half an hour he spoke with impassioned fervour, descanting furiously on the amazing virtues of his wily master and the plans he had arranged. It appeared in the course of his remarks that Marlanx had friends and supporters in all parts of Graustark. Hundreds of men in the hills, including honest shepherds and the dishonest brigands who thrived on them, coal miners and wood stealers, hunters and outlaws were ready to do his bidding when the time was ripe. Moreover, Marlanx had been successful in his design to fill the railway construction crews with the riff-raff of all Europe, all of whom were under the control of leaders who could sway them in any movement, provided it was against law and order. As a matter of fact, according to Brutus, nearly a thousand aliens were at work on the road, all of them ready to revolt the instant the command was given by their advisers.

Something that the Committee of Ten did not know was this: those alien workmen were no less than so many hired mercenaries in the employ of the Iron Count, brought together by that leader and his agents for the sole purpose of overthrowing the Crown in one sudden, unexpected attack, whereupon Count Marlanx would step in and assume control of the government. They had been collected from all parts of the world to do the bidding of this despised nobleman, no matter to what lengths he might choose to lead them. Brutus, of course, knew all this: his companions on the Committee were in complete ignorance of the true motives that brought Marlanx into their operations.

With a cunning that commands admiration, the Iron Count deliberately sanctioned the assassination of the little Prince by the Reds, knowing that the condemnation of the world would fall upon them instead of upon him, and that his own actions following the regicide would at once stamp him as irrevocably opposed to anarchy and all of its practices!

In the course of his remarks, Peter Brutus touched hastily upon the subject of the little Prince.

"He's not very big," said he, with a laugh, "and it won't require a very big bomb to blow him to smithereens. He will—"

"Stop!" cried Olga Platanova, springing to her feet and glaring at him with dilated eyes. "I cannot listen to you! You shall not speak of it in that way! Peter Brutus, you are not to speak of—of what I am to do! Never—never again!"

They looked at her in amazement and no little concern. Madame Drovnask was the first to speak, her glittering eyes fastened upon the drawn, white face of the girl across the table.

"Are you going to fail? Are you weakening?" she demanded.

"No! I am not going to fail! But I will not permit any one to jest about the thing I am to do. It is a sacred duty with me. But, Madame Drovnask—all of you, listen—it is a cruel, diabolical thing, just the same. Were it not in behalf of our great humanity, I, myself, should call it the blackest piece of cruelty the world has ever known. The slaughter of a little boy! A dear, innocent little boy! I can see the horror in all of your faces! You shudder as you sit there, thinking of the thing I am to do. Yes, you are secretly despising me, your instrument of death! I—I, a girl, I am to cast the bomb that blows this dear little body to pieces. I! Do you know what that means? Even though I am sure to be blown to pieces by the same agent, the last thing I shall look upon is his dear, terrified little face as he watches me hurl the bomb. Ah!"

She shuddered violently as she stood there before them, her eyes closed as if to shut out the horrible picture her mind was painting. There were other white faces and ice-cold veins about the table. The sneer on Anna Cromer's face deepened.

"She will bungle it," came in an angry hiss from her lips.

Olga's lids were lifted. Her dark eyes looked straight into those of the older woman.

"No," she said quietly, her body relaxing, "I shall not bungle it."

William Spantz had been watching her narrowly, even suspiciously. Now his face cleared.

"She will not fail," he announced calmly. "Let there be no apprehension. She is the daughter of a martyr. Her blood is his. It will flow in the same cause. Sit down, Olga, my dear. We will not touch upon this subject again—until—"

"I know, uncle," she said quietly, resuming her seat and her attitude of indifference.

The discussion went back to Truxton King. "Isn't it possible that he is merely attracted by the beauty of our charming young friend here?" ventured Madame Drovnask, after many opinions had been advanced respecting his interest in the shop and its contents. "It is a habit with Americans, I am told."

"Miss Platanova is most worthy of the notice of any man," agreed Brutus, with an amiable leer. Olga seemed to shrink within herself. It was plain that she was not a kindred spirit to these vicious natures.

"It is part of his game," said Julius Spantz. "He knows Olga's past; he is waiting for a chance to catch her off her guard. He may even go so far as to make pretty love to you, cousin, in the hope that—no offence, my dear, no offence!" Her look had silenced him.

"Mr. King is not a spy," she said steadily.

"Well," concluded William Spantz, "we are safe if we take no chances with him. He must be watched all the time. If we discover that he is what some of us think he is, there is a way to end his usefulness."

"Let him keep away from the shop downstairs," said Peter Brutus, with a sidelong glance at the delicate profile of the girl down the table.

She smiled suddenly, to the amazement of her sinister companions.

"Have no fear, Brutus. When he hears that you object, he will be very polite and give us a wide berth," she said. Peter flushed angrily.

"He doesn't mean any good by you," he snapped. "He'll fool you and—poof! Away he goes, rejoicing."

She still smiled. "You have a very good opinion of me, Peter Brutus."

"Well," doggedly, "you know what men of his type think of shopgirls. They consider them legitimate prey."

"And what, pray, do men of your type think of us?" she asked quietly.

"Enough of this," interposed William Spantz. "Now, Brutus, what does Count Marlanx say to this day two weeks? Will he be ready? On that day the Prince and the Court are to witness the unveiling of the Yetive memorial statue in the Plaza. It is a full holiday in Graustark. No man will be employed at his usual task and—"

Brutus interrupted him. "That is the very day that the Count has asked me to submit to the Committee. He believes it to be the day of all days. Nothing should go amiss. We conquer with a single blow. By noon of that day, the 26th of July, the Committee of Ten will be in control of the State; the new regime will be at hand. A new world will be begun, with Edelweiss as the centre, about which all the rest shall revolve. We—the Committee of Ten—will be its true founders. We shall be glorified forever—"

"We've heard all this before, Brutus," said Julius Spantz unfeelingly, "a hundred times. It's talk, talk, talk! What we need now is action. Are we sure that the Count will be prepared to do all that he says he will on the 26th of July? Will he have his plans perfected? Are his forces ready for the stroke?"

"Positively. They await the word. That's all I can say," growled Peter. "The death of the Prince is the signal for the overthrow of the present government and the establishment of the new order of equal humanity."

"After all," mused Julius, Master-at-arms in the Castle, "it is more humane to slay the Prince while he is young. It saves him from a long life of trouble and fear and the constant dread of the very thing that is to happen to him now. Yes, it is best that it should come soon." Down in his heart, Julius loved the little Prince.

For an hour longer the Committee discussed plans for the eventful day. Certain details were left for future deliberations; each person had his part to play and each one was settled in his or her determination that nothing should go amiss.

The man they feared was Dangloss. They did not fear God!

When they dispersed for the night, it was to meet again three days hence for the final word from Marlanx, who, it seems, was not so far away that communication with him was likely to be delayed. A sword hung over the head of Truxton King, an innocent outsider, and there was a prospect that it would fall in advance of the blow that was intended to startle the world. Olga Platanova was the only one who did not look upon the sprightly American as a spy in the employ of the government—a dangerously clever spy at that.

Up in the distant hills slept the Iron Count, dreaming of the day when he should rule over the new Graustark—for he would rule!—a smile on his grizzled face in reflection of recent waking thoughts concerning the punishment that should fall swiftly upon the assassins of the beloved Prince Robin.

He would make short shrift of assassins!

CHAPTER VI

INGOMEDE THE BEAUTIFUL

A light, chilling drizzle had been falling all evening, pattering softly upon the roof of leaves that covered the sidewalks along Castle Avenue, glistening on the lamp-lit pavements and blowing ever so gently in the faces of those who walked in the dripping shades. Far back from the shimmering sidewalks, surrounded by the blackest of shadows, and approached by hedge-bordered paths and driveways, stood the mansions occupied by the nobility of this gay little kingdom. A score or more of ancient palaces, in which the spirit, of modern aggression had wrought interior changes but had left the exteriors untouched, formed this aristocratic line of homes. Here were houses that had been built in the fifteenth century,—great, square, solemn-looking structures, grown grey and green with age.

There were lights in a thousand windows along this misty, royal road—lights that reflected the pleasures of the rich and yet caused no envy in time hearts of the loyal poor.

Almost in the centre of the imposing line stood the home of the Duke of Perse, Minister of Finance, flanked on either side by structures as grim and as gay as itself, yet far less significant in their generation. Here dwelt the most important man in the principality, not excepting the devoted prime minister himself. Not that Perse was so well beloved, but that he held the destinies of the land in Midas-like fingers. More than that, he was the father of the far-famed Countess Marlanx, the most glorious beauty at the Austrian and Russian courts. She had gone forth from Graustark as its most notable bride since the wedding day of the Princess Yetive, late in the nineties. Ingomede, the beautiful, had journeyed far to the hymeneal altar; the husband who claimed her was a hated, dishonoured man in his own land. They were married in Buda Pesth. All Europe pitied her at the time; there was but one form of prophecy as to her future. There were those who went so far as to say that her father had delivered her into the hands of a latter-day Bluebeard, who whisked her off into the highlands many leagues from Vienna.

She was seen no more in the gay courts for a year. Then, of a sudden, she appeared before them all, as dazzlingly beautiful as ever, but with a haunting, wistful look in her dark eyes that could not be mistaken. The old Count found an uneasy delight in exhibiting her to the world once more, plainly as a bit of property that all men were expected to look upon with envy in their hearts. She came up out of the sombre hills, freed from what must have been nothing less than captivity in that once feudal castle, to prove to his world that she thrived in spite of prophetic babblers. They danced from court to court, grotesquely mis-mated, deceiving no one as to the true relations that existed between them. She despised him without concealment; he took pride in showing that he could best resent her attitude by the most scrupulous devotion, so marked that its intent could not be mistaken.

Then the Duke of Perse resumed his residence in Edelweiss, opening the old palace once more to the world. His daughter, after the death of the Princess, began her extended visits to the home of her girlhood. So long as the Princess was alive she remained away from Edelweiss, reluctant to meet the friend who had banished her husband long before the wedding day in Buda Pesth. Now she came frequently and stayed for weeks at a time, apparently happy during these escapes from life in the great capitals. Here, at least, she was free from the grim old man whose countess she was; here, all was sweet and warm and friendly, delicious contrast to the cold, bitter life she knew on the Danube.

Without warning she came and without farewells she left Edelweiss on the occasion of these periodical visits. No word was ever spoken concerning her husband, except on the rare occasions when she opened her heart to the father who had bartered her into slavery for the sake of certain social franchises that the Iron Count had at his disposal. The outside world, which loved her, never heard of these bitter passages between father and child. Like Cinderella, she sometimes disappeared from joyous things at midnight; the next heard of her, she was in Vienna, or at Schloss Marlanx.

If the Duke of Perse repented of his bargain in giving his daughter to the Iron Count, he was never known to intimate as much. He loved Ingomede in his own, hard way. No doubt he was sorry for her. It is a fact that she was sorry for him. She could read his bitter thoughts more clearly than he suspected.

Of late she came more frequently to Edelweiss than before. She was seen often at the Castle; no court function was complete without the presence of this lovely noblewoman; no salon worth while unless graced by her wit and her beauty.

John Tullis was always to remember the moment when he looked upon this exquisite creature for the first time. That was months ago. After that he never ceased being a secret, silent worshipper at her transient shrine.

Ten o'clock on this rainy night: A carriage has drawn up before the lower gates to the Perse grounds, and a tall, shadowy figure leaves it to hurry through the shrub lined walks to the massive doors. A watchman in the garden salutes him. The tall figure dips his umbrella in response, characteristically laconic. A footman lifts his hand to his forelock at the top of the steps and throws open the doors without question. This visitor is expected, it is plain to be seen; a circumstance which may or may not explain the nervousness that attends him as he crosses the broad hall toward the library.

Tullis had long since ceased to be a welcome visitor in the home of the Duke of Perse. The men were openly unfriendly to each other. The Duke resented the cool interference of the sandy-haired American; on the other hand, Tullis made no effort to conceal his dislike, if not distrust, of the older man. He argued—with unofficial and somewhat personal authority,—that a man who could trade his only child for selfish ends might also be impelled to sacrifice his country's interests without cramping his conscience.

The Countess was alone in the long, warm-tinted library. She stood before the dying embers in the huge old fireplace, her foot upon one of the great iron dogs. Her smiling face was turned toward the door as he entered.

"It is good of you to come," she said, as they shook hands warmly. "Do you know it is almost a year since you last came to this house?"

"It would be a century, Countess, if I were not welcomed in other houses where I am sure of a glimpse of you from time to time and a word now and then. Still, a year's a year. The room hasn't changed so far as I can see. The same old tiger-skin there, the rugs, the books, the pictures—the leopard's skin here and the—yes, the lamp is just where it used to be. 'Pon my soul, I believe you are standing just as you were when I last saw you here. It's uncanny. One might think you had not moved in all these months!"

"Or that it has been a minute instead of a year," she supplemented. His quick, involuntary glance about him did not escape her understanding. "The Duke has gone to Ganlook to play Bridge with friends," she said at once. "He will not return till late. I have just telephoned—to make sure." Her smile did more than to reassure him.

"Of course, you will understand how impossible it is for me to come here, Countess. Your father, the Duke, doesn't mince matters, and I'm not quite a fool." Tullis squinted at the fire.

"Do you think ill of me for asking you to come to-night?"

"Not at all," he said cheerfully, "so long as you are quite sure that your father is in Ganlook. He would be perfectly justified in kicking me out if he were to catch me here. And as I'm rather cumbersome and he's somewhat venerable, I don't like to think of the jar it would be to his system. But, so long as he isn't here, and I am, why shouldn't I draw up a chair before the fire for you, and another for myself, with the cigarettes and a world between us, to discuss conditions as they are, not as they might be if we were discovered? Shall I? Good! I defy any one's father to get me out of this chair until I am ready to relinquish it voluntarily."

"I suppose you superintended the 'going-to-bed' of Prince Robin before you left the Castle?" she said, lying back in the comfortable chair and stretching her feet out to the fire. He handed her a match and watched her light the long, ridiculously thin cigarette.

"Yes. I never miss it, Countess. The last thing he does, after saying his prayers, is to recall me from exile. He wouldn't be happy if he couldn't do that. He says amen and hops into bed. Then he grins in a far from imperial way and announces that he's willing to give me another chance, and please won't I tell him the latest news concerning Jack-the-giant-killer. He asked me to-night if I thought you'd mind if he banished your father. They've had a children's quarrel, I believe. If you do mind, I am to let him know: he won't banish him. He's very fond of you, Countess." She laughed gaily.

"He is a dear boy. I adore him. I think I quite understand why you are giving up your life to him. At first I wasn't sure."

"You thought I expected to gain something by it, is not that so? Well, there are a great many people who think so still—your father among them. They'll never understand. I don't blame them, for, I declare to you, I don't fully appreciate it myself. John Tullis playing nurse and story-teller to a seven-year-old boy, to the exclusion of everything else, is more than I can grasp. Somehow, I've come to feel that he's mine. That must be the reason. But you've heard me prate on this subject a hundred times. Don't let me start it again. There's something else you want to talk to me about, so please don't encourage me to tell all the wonderful things he has said and done to-day."

"It is of the Prince that I want to speak, Mr. Tullis," she said, suddenly serious. "I don't care to hear whether he stubbed his toe to-day or just how much he has grown since yesterday, but I do want to talk very seriously with you concerning his future—I might say his immediate future."

He looked at her narrowly.

"Are you quite serious?"

"Quite. I could not have asked you to come to this house for anything trivial. We have become very good friends, you and I. Too good, perhaps, for I've no doubt there are old tabbies in Edelweiss who are provoked to criticism—you know what I mean. Their world is full of imaginary affairs, else what would there be left for old age? But we are good friends and we understand why we are good friends, so there's the end to that. As I say, I could not have asked so true a friend into the house of his enemy for the mere sake of having my vanity pleased by his obedience."

"I am quite sure of that," he said. "Are you in trouble, Countess? Is there anything I can do?"

"It has to do with the Prince, not with me," she said. "And yet I am in trouble—or perhaps I should say, I am troubled."

"The Prince is a sturdy little beggar," he began, but she lifted her hand in protest.

"And he has sturdy, loyal friends. That is agreed. And yet—" she paused, a perplexed line coming between her expressive eyes.

John Tullis opened his own eyes very wide. "You don't mean to say that he is—he is in peril of any sort?"

She looked at him a long time before speaking. He could feel that she was turning something over in her mind before giving utterance to the thought.

At last she leaned nearer to him, dropping the ash from her cigarette into the receiver as she spoke slowly, intensely. "I think he is in peril—in deadly peril."

He stared hard. "What do you mean?" he demanded, with an involuntary glance over his shoulder. She interpreted that glance correctly.

"The peril is not here, Mr. Tullis. I know what you are thinking. My father is a loyal subject. The peril I suggest never comes to Graustark."

She said no more but leaned forward, her face whiter than its wont. He frowned, but it was the effect of temporary perplexity. Gradually the meaning of her simple, though significant remark filtered through his brain.

"Never comes to Graustark?" he almost whispered. "You don't—you can't mean your—your husband?"

"I mean Count Marlanx," she said steadily.

"He means evil to Prince Robin? Good Heavens, Countess, I—I can't believe it. I know he is bitter, revengeful, and all that, but—"

"He is all that and more," she said. "First, you must let me impress you that I am not a traitor to his cause. I could not be that, for the sufficient reason that I only suspect its existence. I am not in any sense a part of it. I do not know anything. I only feel. I dare say you realise that I do not love Count Marlanx—that there is absolutely nothing in common between us except a name. We won't go into that. I—"

"I am overjoyed to hear you say this, Countess," he said very seriously. "I have been so bold on occasion as to assert—for your private ear, of course—that you could not, by any freak of nature, happen to care for Count Marlanx, whom I know only by description. You have laughed at my so-called American wit, and you have been most tolerant. Now, I feel that I am justified. I'm immeasurably glad to hear you confess that you do not love your husband."

"I cannot imagine any one so stupid as to think that I do love Count Marlanx, for that matter, that he loves me. Still, I am relieved to hear you say that you are glad. It simplifies the present for us, and that is what we are to discuss."

"You are very, very beautiful, and young, and unhappy," he said irrelevantly, a darker glow in his cheeks. She smiled serenely, without a trace of diffidence or protest.

"I can almost believe it, you say it so convincingly," she said. For a moment she relaxed luxuriantly into an attitude of physical enjoyment of herself, surveying her toe-tips with a thoughtfulness that comprehended more; and then as abruptly came back to the business of the moment. "You must not spoil it all by saying it too fervently," she went on with a smile of warning. He gave a short laugh of confusion and sank back in the chair.

"You have never tried to make love to me," she went on. "That's what I like about you. I think most men are silly, not because I am so very young, but because my husband is so ridiculously old. Don't you think so? But, never mind! I see you are quite eager to answer—that's enough. Take another cigarette and—listen to what I am going to say." He declined the cigarette with a shake of his head.

After a moment she went on resolutely: "As I said before, I do not know that my suspicions are correct. I have not even breathed them to my father. He would have laughed at me. My husband is a Graustarkian, even as I am, but there is this distinction between us: he despises Graustark, while I love her in every drop of my blood. I know that in his heart he has never ceased to brew evil for the throne that disgraced him. He openly expresses his hatred for the present dynasty, and has more than once said in public gatherings that he could cheerfully assist in its utter destruction. That, of course, is commonly known in Graustark, where he is scorned and derided. But he is not a man to serve his hatred with mere idle words and inaction." She stopped for a moment, and then cried impulsively: "I must first know that you will not consider me base and disloyal in saying these things to you. After all, he is my husband."

He saw the faint curl of her lip. "Before that," he argued simply, "you were a daughter of Graustark. You were not born to serve a cause that means evil to the dear land. Graustark first made you noble; you can't go back on that, you know. Don't let your husband degrade you. I think you can see how I feel about it. Please believe that I know you can do no wrong."

"Thank you," she said, returning the look in his earnest grey eyes with one in which the utmost confidence shone. "You are the only man to whom I feel sure that I can reveal myself and be quite understood. It isn't as if I had positive facts to divulge, for I have not; they are suspicions, fears, that's all, but they are no longer vague shapes to me; they mean something."

"Tell me," he said quietly. He seemed to square his broad shoulders and to set his jaw firmly, as if to resist physical attack. She knew she had come with her fears to a man in whose face it was declared that he could laugh at substance as well as shadow.

"I am seeing you here in this big room, openly, for the simple reason that if I am being watched this manner of meeting may be above suspicion. We may speak freely here, for we cannot be heard unless we raise our voices. Don't betray surprise or consternation. The eyes of the wall may be better than its ears."

"You don't mean to say you are being watched here in your father's house?" he demanded.

"I don't know. This I do know: the Count has many spies in Edelweiss. He is systematically apprised of everything that occurs at court, in the city, or in the council chamber. So you see, he is being well served, whether to an evil purpose or to satisfy his own innate curiosity, I do not know. He has reports almost daily,—voluminous things, partly in cipher, partly free, and he is forever sending men away on secret, mysterious missions. Understand, I do not know that he is actually planning disaster to Graustark. Day before yesterday I saw his secretary in the streets—a man who has been in his employ for five years or more and who now pretends to be a lawyer here. His name is Brutus. I spoke with him. He said that he had left the Count six weeks ago in Vienna, determined to set out for himself in his chosen profession. He knows, of course, that I am not and never have been in the confidences of my husband. I asked him if it was known in Edelweiss that he had served the Count as secretary. He promptly handed me one of his business cards, on which he refers to himself as the former trusted and confidential secretary of Count Marlanx. Now, I happen to know that he is still in my husband's service,—or was no longer ago than last week."

"My dear Countess, he may be serving him legitimately as an attorney. There would be nothing strange in that."

"But he is still serving him as confidential secretary. He is here for a purpose, as my husband's representative. I have not been asleep all these months at Schloss Marlanx. I have seen and heard enough to convince me that some great movement is on foot. My intelligence tells me that it has to do with Graustark. As he wishes the Prince no good, it must be for evil." "But there is nothing he can do. He has no following here. The Prince is adored by the people. Count Marlanx would not be such a fool as to—"

"He is no fool," she interrupted quickly. "That's why I am afraid. If he is plotting against the Crown, you may depend upon it he is laying his plans well. John Tullis, that man is a devil—a devil incarnate." She turned her face away.

A spasm of utter repugnance crossed her face; she shuddered so violently that his hand went forth to clutch the fingers that trembled on the arm of the chair. He held them in his firm grasp for a moment. They looked into each other's eyes and he saw the flicker of undisguised horror in hers. An instant later she was herself again. Withdrawing her hand, she added, with a short laugh of derision: "Still I did not expect heaven, so why complain."

"But you are an angel," he blurted out.

"I don't believe the Count will agree to that," she said, with a reflective twinkle in her dark eyes. "He has not found me especially angelic. If you imagine that I cannot scratch back, my dear friend, you are very much mistaken. I have had the pleasure of giving him more than one bad half hour. You may be sure he has never called me an angel. Quite the other thing, I assure you. But we are straying from the point."

"Wait a moment, please," he commanded. "I want to say to you here and now: you are the gentlest, loveliest woman I have ever known. I don't say it idly. I mean it. If you gave him half as good as he sent, I rejoice in your spirit. Now, I want to ask if you expect to go back to live with the da—with him."

"That, Mr. Tullis, is hardly a matter I can discuss with you," she said gently, and he was not offended.

"Perhaps not, Countess, but now is the time for you to decide the issue. Why should you return to Castle Marlanx? Why keep up the farce—or I might say, tragedy—any longer? You love Graustark. You love the Prince. You betray them both by consorting with their harshest foe. Oh, I could tell you a thousand reasons why—"

"We haven't time for them," she interrupted, with mock despair in her face. "Besides, I said we cannot discuss it. It requires no learned argument to move me, one way or the other. I can decide for myself."

"You should divorce him," he said harshly.

She laughed easily, softly. "My good friend, if I did that, I'd lose your friendship." He opened his lips to remonstrate, but suddenly caught the undercurrent of the naive remark.

"By Jove," he said, his eyes glowing, "you must not risk finding me too obtuse."

"Bravo!" she cried. "You are improving."

"I could provide a splendid substitute for the friendship you speak of," he said coolly.

"Poof! What is that to me? I could have a hundred lovers—but, ach, friends are the scarcest things in the world. I prefer friendship. It lasts. There! I see disapproval in your face! You Americans are so literal." She gazed into the fireplace for a moment, her lips parted in a whimsical smile. He waited for her to go on; the words were on her tongue's end, he could tell. "A divorce at twenty-five. I believe that is the accepted age, isn't it? If one gets beyond that, she—but, enough of this!" She sprang to her feet and stood before him, the flash dying in her eyes even as it was born that he might see so briefly. "We diverge! You must go soon. It is best not to be seen leaving here at a very late hour—especially as my father is known to be away. I am afraid of Peter Brutus. He is here to watch—everybody."

She was leaning against the great carved mantel post, a tall, slender, lissome creature, exquisitely gowned in rarest Irish lace, her bare neck and shoulders gleaming white against the dull timbers beyond, the faint glow from the embers creeping up to her face with the insistence of a maiden's flush. He gazed in rapt admiration, his heart thumping like fury in his great breast. She was little more than a girl, this wife of old Marlanx, and yet how wise, how clever, how brilliant she was!

A face of unusual pallor and extremely patrician in its modelling, surmounted by a coiffure so black that it could be compared only to ebony—black and almost gleaming with the life that was in it. It came low on her forehead, shading the wondrous dark eyes—eyes that were a deep yellowish green in their division between grey and black, eyes that were soft and luminous and unwaveringly steadfast, impelling in their power to fascinate, yet even more dangerously compassionate when put to the test that tries woman's vanity.

There were diamonds on her long, tapering fingers, and a rope of pearls in her hair. A single wide gold band encircled her arm above the elbow, an arm-band as old as the principality itself, for it had been worn by twenty fair ancestors before her. The noblewomen of Graustark never wore bracelets on their wrists; always the wide chased gold band on the upper arm. There was a day, not so far back in history, when they wore bands on their ankles.

She was well named Ingomede, the Beautiful.

A soft, almost imperceptible perfume, languorous in its appeal to the senses, exuded from this perfect creation; added to this, the subtle, unfailing scent of young womanhood; the warm, alive feel of her presence in the atmosphere; a suggestion of something sensuous, clean, pure, delicious. The undescribable.

"Does Baron Dangloss know this man Brutus?" asked Tullis, arising to stand beside her. A sub-conscious, triumphant thrill shot through him as an instantaneous flash of his own physical superiority over this girl's husband came over him. He was young and strong and vital. He could feel the sensation of being strong; he tingled with the glory of it. He was thirty-five, Marlanx seventy. He wondered if Marlanx had ever been as strong as he.

"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. "I have not spoken to him concerning Brutus. Perhaps he knows. The Baron is very wise. Let me tell you how I happen to know that Peter Brutus is still serving Count Marlanx and why I think his presence signifies a crisis of some sort." Tullis stood facing the great fireplace, his back to the hail. He observed that she looked toward the doors quite as often as she looked at him; it struck him that she was extremely cautious despite her apparent ease.

Her voice, always low and even, second lower still. "In the first place, I have a faithful friend in one of the oldest retainers at Schloss Marlanx. His daughter is my maid. She is here with me now. The old man came to see Josepha one day last week. He had accompanied Count Marlanx to the town of Balak, which is in Axphain, a mile beyond the Graustark line. Peter Brutus was with my husband in Balak for two days. They were closeted together from morning till night in the house where Marlanx was stopping. At the end of two days Brutus went away, but he carried with him a vast sum of money provided by my husband. It was given out that he was on his way to Serros in Dawsbergen, where he expected to purchase a business block for his master. Marlanx waited another day in Balak, permitting Josepha's father to come on to Edelweiss with a message for me and to see his daughter. He—"

"And Josepha's father saw Brutus in Edelweiss?"

"No. But he did see him going into Balak as he left for Edelweiss that morning. He wore a disguise, but Jacob says he could not be mistaken. Moreover, he was accompanied by several men whom he recognised as Graustark mountaineers and hunters of rather unsavoury reputation. They left Brutus at the gates of Balak and went off into the hills. All this happened before I knew that Peter was living in Edelweiss. When I saw him here, I knew at once that his presence meant something sinister. I can put many things together that once puzzled me—the comings and goings of months, the secret reports and consultations, the queer looking men who came to the Castle, the long absences of my husband and my—my own virtual imprisonment—yes, imprisonment. I was not permitted to leave the castle for days at a time during his absences."

"Surely you will not go back again"—he began hotly.

"Sh!" She put a finger to her lips. A man-servant was quietly crossing the hall just off the library. "He is a new man. I do not like his appearance."

"Do you think he heard us or observed anything? I can make short work of him if—" He paused significantly. She smiled up into his face.

"He did not hear anything. We've frightened him off, if he intended to play the eavesdropper." The servant had disappeared through a door at the end of the hall.

"Then there were the great sums of money that my husband sent off from time to time, and the strange boxes that came overland to the castle and later went away again as secretly as they came. Mr. Tullis, I am confident in my mind that those boxes contained firearms and ammunition. I have thought it all out. Perhaps I am wrong, but it seems to me that I can almost see those firearms stored away in the caves and cabins outside of Edelweiss, ready for instant use when the signal comes."

"God! An uprising? A plot so huge as that?" he gasped, amazed. It is fortunate that he was not facing the door; the same servant, passing once more, might have seen the tell-tale consternation in his eyes. "It cannot be possible! Why, Dangloss and his men would have scented it long ago."

"I have not said that I am sure of anything, remember that. I leave it to you to analyse. You have the foundation on which to work. I'd advise you to waste no time. Something tells me that the crisis is near at hand."

"Why should Josepha's father tell these things to you?"

"Because, if you will pardon my frankness, I have protected his daughter against Count Marlanx. He understands. And yet he would not betray a trust imposed upon him even by the Count. He has only told me what any one else might have seen with his own eyes. Wait! The new servant is in the hall again." She clapped her hands sharply and called out "Franz!"

The new man appeared in the doorway almost on the instant. "You may replenish the fire, Franz." The man, a sallow, precise fellow, crossed deliberately and poked the half dead fire; with scrupulous care he selected two great chunks of wood from the hopper near by and laid them on the coals, the others watching his movements with curious interest. There was nothing about the fellow to indicate that he was other than what he pretended to be.

"Isn't it strange that we should have fires in July?" she asked casually. "The mountain air and the night fogs make it absolutely necessary in these big old houses."

"We had a jolly fire in the Prince's room when I left the Castle. Our monarch is subject to croup, you see."

"That is all, Franz." The man bowed and left the room. "What do you think of him?" she asked, after a moment.

"He has a very bad liver," was all Tullis deigned to offer in response. The Countess stared for a moment and then laughed understandingly. "I think he needs a change."

"I have a strange feeling that he is but one of a great many men who are in Edelweiss for the purposes I mentioned before. Now I have a favour to ask of you. Will you take this matter up with Baron Dangloss as if on your own initiative? Do not mention me in any way. You can understand why I ask this of you. Let them believe that the suspicions are yours. I trust you to present them without involving me."

"Trust me, my dear Countess. I am a very diplomatic liar. You need have no fear. I shall find a quick way of getting my friend Dangloss on the right track. It may be a wild goose chase, but it is best to be on the safe side. May I now tell you how greatly I appreciate your confidence in—"

She stopped him with a glance. "No, you may not tell me. There is nothing more to be said."

"I think I understand," he said gently.

"Let us change the subject. I have uttered my word to the wise. Eh bien! It may not be so bad as I think. Let us hope so, at least."

"I have a vague notion that you'd rejoice if we should catch your ogre and chop his head off," said he, coolly lighting a fresh cigarette. She liked his assurance. He was not like other men.

Glancing up at his sandy thatch, she said, with a rueful droop at the corners of her mouth, a contradictory smile in her eyes: "I shall rejoice more if you do not lose your head afterwards."

"Double entendre?"

"Not at all."

"I thought, perhaps, you referred to an unhappy plight that already casts its shadow before," he said boldly. "I may lose everything else, my dear Countess, but not my head."

"I believe you," she said, strangely serious. "I shall remember that."

She knew this man loved her.

"Sit down, now, and let us be comfy. We are quite alone," she added instantly, a sudden confusion coming over her. "First, will you give me that box of candy from the table? Thank you so much for sending it to me. How in the world do you manage to get this wonderful New York candy all the way to Graustark? It is quite fresh and perfectly delicious."

"Oh, Fifth Avenue isn't so far away as you think," he equivocated. "It's just around the corner—of the world. What's eight or nine thousand miles to a district messenger boy? I ring for one and he fetches the candy, before you can wink your eye or say Jack Robinson. It's a marvellous system."

He watched her white teeth set themselves daintily in the rich nougat; then the red lips closed tranquilly only to open again in a smile of rapture. For reasons best known to himself, he chose not to risk losing the thing he had vowed not to lose. He turned his head—and carefully inspected the end of his cigarette. A wholly unnecessary precaution, as any one might have seen that it was behaving beautifully.

Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly as she studied his averted face in that brief instant. When he turned to her again, she was resting her head against the back of the chair, and her eyes were closed as if in exquisite enjoyment of the morsel that lay behind her smiling lips.

"Are you enjoying it?" he asked.

"Tremendously," she replied, opening her eyes slowly.

"'Gad, I believe you are," he exclaimed. She sat up at once, and caught her breath, although he did not know it. His smile distinctly upset her tranquillity.

"By the way," he added, as if dismissing the matter, "have you forgotten that on Tuesday we go to the Witch's hut in the hills? Bobby has dingdonged it into me for days."

"It will be good fun," she said. Then, as a swift afterthought: "Be sure that the bodyguard is strong—and true."

CHAPTER VII

AT THE WITCH'S HUT

The next morning, before setting forth to consult the minister of police at the Tower, he called up the Perse palace on the telephone and asked for the Countess, to tell her in so many words that he had been followed from her door to the very gates of the Castle grounds. Not by one man alone, for that would have excited suspicion, but by half a dozen at least, each one taking up the surveillance in the most casual manner as the watcher before him left off. Tullis was amazed by the cunning which masked these proceedings; there was a wily brain behind it.

The Duke's secretary answered the call. Tullis was completely bowled over by the curt information that the Countess Marlanx had left Edelweiss before six that morning, to join her husband, who was shooting wild boars with a party in Axphain.

"When does she return?" demanded the American, scarcely believing his ears. She had said nothing of this the night before. What could it mean?

"I do not know, sir."

"In a day or two?"

"She took sixteen trunks, sir," was the laconic reply, as if that told the story in full.

"Well, I'm damned!"

"I beg pardon, sir!"

"I beg your pardon. Good morning."

In the meantime, our excellent young friend, Truxton King, was having a sorry time of it. It all began when he went to the Cathedral in the hope of seeing the charming aunt of the little Prince once more. Not only did he attend one service, but all of them, having been assured that the royal family worshipped there quite as regularly and as religiously as the lowliest communicant. She did not appear.

More than all this, he met with fresh disappointment when he ambled down to the armourer's shop. The doors were locked and there was no sign of life about the shuttered place. The cafés were closed on this day of rest, so there was nothing left for him to do but to slink off to his room in the Regengetz, there to read or to play solitaire and to curse the progress of civilisation.

Monday was little better than Sunday. Hobbs positively refused to escort him to the Castle grounds again. No amount of bribing or browbeating could move the confounded Englishman from his stand. He was willing to take him anywhere else, but never again would he risk a personally conducted tour into hot waters royal. Mr. King resigned himself to a purely business call at the shop of Mr. Spantz. He looked long, with a somewhat shifty eye, at the cabinet of ancient rings and necklaces, and then departed without having seen the interesting Miss Platanova. If the old man observed a tendency to roam in the young man's eye, he did not betray the fact—at least not so that any one could notice. Truxton departed, but returned immediately after luncheon, vaguely inclined to decide between two desirable rings. After a protracted period of indecision, in which Olga remained stubbornly out of sight, he announced that he could not make up his mind, and would return later for another inspection.

At his room in the hotel, he found a note addressed to himself. It did not have much to say, but it meant a great deal. There was no signature, and the handwriting was that of a woman.

"Please do not come again." That was all.

He laughed with a fine tone of defiance and—went back to the shop at five o'clock, just to prove that nothing so timid as a note could stop him. This, however, was after he had taken a long walk down Castle Avenue, with a supplementary stroll of little incident outside the grim, high walls that enclosed the grounds. If any one had told him that he was secretly hoping to find a crevasse through which he could invade paradise, I make no doubt he would have resented the imputation soundly. On the occasion of this last visit to the shop, he did not stay long, but went away somewhat dazed to find himself the possessor of a ring he did not want and out of pocket just thirty dollars, American. Having come to the conclusion that knight-errantry of that kind was not only profligate but distinctly irritating to his sense of humour, he looked up Mr. Hobbs and arranged for a day's ride in the mountains.

"You'll oblige me, Mr. Hobbs, by removing that band from your cap. I know you're an interpreter. It's an insult to my intelligence to have it flaunted in my face all day long. I'll admit you're what you say you are, so take it off before we start out to-morrow."

And so, minus the beguiling insignia of office, Mr. Hobbs led his hypercritical patron into the mountain roads early the next morning, both well mounted and provided with a luncheon large enough to restore the amiability that was sure to flag at mid-day unless sustained by unæsthetic sandwiches and beer.

The day was bright and clear, warm in the valley where the city lay, cooler to cold as one mounted the winding roads that led past the lofty Monastery of St. Valentine, sombre sentinel among the clouds.

A part of Edelweiss is built along the side of the mountain, its narrow streets winding upward and past countless terraces to the very base of the rocky, jagged eminence at whose top, a full mile above the last sprinkling of houses, stands the isolated, bleak Monastery. The view from these upper streets, before one enters the circuitous and hidden Monastery road that winds afar in its climb, is never to be forgotten by the spectator, no matter how often he traverses the lofty thoroughfares. As far as the eye can reach, lies the green valley, through which winds the silvery river with its evergreen banks and spotless white houses-greens and whites that almost shame the vaunted tints of old Ireland as one views them from the incoming steamers. Immediately below one's feet lies the compact little city, with its red roofs and green chimney pots, its narrow streets and vivid awnings, its wide avenues and the ancient Castle to the north. To the south, the fortress and the bridges; encircling the city a thick, high wall with here and there enormous gates flanked by towers so grim and old that they seem ready to topple over from the sheer fatigue of centuries. A soft, Indian summer haze hangs over the lazy-lit valley; it is always so in the summer time.

Outside the city walls stretch the wheat-fields and the meadows, the vineyards and orchards, all snug in the nest of forest-crowned hills, whose lower slopes are spotted with broken herds of cattle and the more mobile flocks of sheep. An air of tranquillity lies low over the entire vista; one dozes if he looks long into this peaceful bowl of plenty.

From the distant passes in the mountains to the east and north come the dull intonations of dynamite blasts, proving the presence of that disturbing element of progress which is driving the railroad through the unbroken heart of the land.

It is a good three hours' ride to the summit of Monastery Mountain. And, after the height has been attained, one does not care to linger long among the chilly, whistling crags, with their snow-crevasses and bitter winds; the utter loneliness, the aloofness of this frost-crowned crest appals, disheartens one who loves the fair, green things of life. In the shelter of the crags, at the base of the Monastery walls, looking out over the sunlit valley, one has his luncheon and his snack of spirits quite undisturbed, for the monks pay no heed to him. They are not hospitable, neither are they unfriendly. One seldom sees them.

Truxton King and Mr. Hobbs were not long in disposing of their lunch. It was too cold for comfort in their draughty dining-room, and they were not invited to enter the inhospitable gates. In half an hour they were wending their way down the north side of the peak by gradually declining roads, headed for the much-talked-of home of the Witch in Ganlook Gap, some six miles from Edelweiss as the crow flies, but twice that distance over the tortuous bridle paths and post roads.

It was three o'clock when they clattered down the stone road and up to the forbidding vale in which lurked, like an evil, guilty thing, the log-built home of that ancient female who made no secret of her practices in witchcraft. The hut stood back from the mountain road a hundred yards or more, at the head of a small, thicket- grown recess.

A low, thatched roof protruded from the hill against which the hut was built. As a matter of fact, a thin chimney grew out of the earth itself, for all the world like a smoking tree stump. The hovel was a squalid, beggary thing that might have been built over night somewhere back in the dark ages. Its single door was so low that one was obliged to stoop to enter the little room where the dame had been holding forth for three-score years, 'twas said. This was her throne-room, her dining-room, her bed-chamber, her all, it would seem, unless one had been there before and knew that her kitchen was beyond, in the side of the hill. The one window, sans glass, looked narrowly out upon an odd opening in the foliage below, giving the occupant of the hut an unobstructed view of the winding road that led up from Edelweiss. The door faced the Monastery road down which the two men had just ridden. As for the door yard, it was no more than a pebbly, avalanche-swept opening among the trees and rocks, down which in the glacial age perhaps a thousand torrents had leaped, but which was now so dry and white and lifeless that one could only think of bones bleached and polished by a sun that had sickened of the work a thousand years ago.

This brief, inadequate description of the Witch's hut is given in advance of the actual descent of the personally conducted gentleman for the somewhat ambiguous reason that he was to find it not at all as described.

The two horsemen rode into the glen and came plump upon a small detachment of the royal guard, mounted and rather resolute in their lack of amiability.

"Wot's this?" gasped Mr. Hobbs, drawing rein at the edge of the pebbly dooryard.

"Soldiers, I'd say," remarked Mr. King, scowling quite glumly from beneath the rim of his panama. "Hello!" His eyes brightened and his hat came off with a switch. "There's the Prince!"

"My word," ejaculated Mr. Hobbs, and forthwith began to ransack his pockets for the band which said he was from Cook's.

Farther up the glen, in fact at the very door of the Witch's hut, were gathered a small but rather distinguished portion of the royal household. It was not difficult to recognise the little Prince. He was standing beside John Tullis; and it is not with a desire to speak ill of his valour that we add: he was clutching the slackest part of that gentleman's riding breeks with an earnestness that betrayed extreme trepidation. Facing them, on the stone door-step, was the Witch herself, a figure to try the courage of a time-tried hero, let alone the susceptibilities of a small boy in knickers. Behind Tullis and the Prince were several ladies and gentlemen, all in riding garments and all more or less ill at ease.

Truxton King's heart swelled suddenly; all the world grew bright again for him. Next to the tall figure of Colonel Quinnox, of the Royal Guard, was the slim, entrancing lady of his most recent dreams—the Prince's aunt! The lady of the grotto! The lady of the goldfish conspiracy!

The Countess Marlanx, tall and exquisite, was a little apart from the others, with Baron Dangloss and young Count Vos Engo—whom Truxton was ready to hate because he was a recognised suitor for the hand of the slim, young person in grey. He thought he had liked her beyond increase in the rajah silk, but now he confessed to himself that he was mistaken. He liked her better in a grey riding habit. It struck him sharply, as he sat there in the saddle, that she would be absolutely and adorably faultless in point lace or calico, in silk or gingham, low-neck or high. He was for riding boldly up to this little group, but a very objectionable lieutenant barred the way, supported in no small measure by the defection of Mr. Hobbs, who announced in a hoarse, agitated whisper that he's "be 'anged if he'd let any man make a fool of him twice over."

The way was made easy by the intervention of the alert young woman in grey. She caught sight of the restricted adventurers—or one of them, to be quite accurate—and, after speeding a swift smile of astonishment, turned quickly to Prince Bobby.

A moment later, the tall stranger with the sun-browned face was the centre of interest to the small group at the door. He bowed amiably to the smiling young person in grey and received a quick nod in response. As he was adventuring what he considered to be a proper salute for the Prince, he observed that a few words passed between the lad's aunt and John Tullis, who was now surveying him with some interest.

The Prince broke the ice.

"Hello!" he cried shrilly, his little face aglow.

"Hello!" responded the gentleman, readily.

John Tullis found himself being dragged away from the Witch's door toward the newcomer at the bottom of the glen. Mr. Hobbs listened with deepening awe to the friendly conversation which resulted in Truxton King going forward to join the party in front of the hut. He came along in the rear, after having tethered the tired horses, not quite sure that he was awake. The Prince had called him Mr. Cook, had asked him how his Sons were, all of which was highly gratifying when one pauses to consider that he had got his cap band on upside down in his excitement. He always was to wonder how the little monarch succeeded in reading the title without standing on his head to do so.

Truxton was duly presented to the ladies and gentlemen of the party by John Tullis, who gracefully announced that he knew King's parents in New York. Baron Dangloss was quite an old friend, if one were to judge by the manner in which he greeted the young man. The lady in grey smiled so sweetly and nodded so blithely, that Tullis, instead of presenting King to her as he had done to the Countess Marlanx and others, merely said:

"And you know one another, of course." Whereupon she flushed very prettily and felt constrained to avoid Truxton's look of inquiry. He did not lose his wits, but vowed acquiescence and assumed that he knew.

As a result of the combined supplications of the entire party, the old woman grudgingly consented to take them into her hovel, where, in exchange for small pieces of silver, she would undertake certain manifestations in necromancy.

Truxton King, scarcely able to believe his good fortune, crowded into the loathsome, squalid room with his aristocratic companions, managing, with considerable skill, to keep close beside his charming friend. They stood back while the others crowded up to the table where the hag occupied herself with the crystal ball.

Never had Truxton looked upon a creature who so thoroughly vindicated the life-long reliance he had put in the description of witches given by the fairy-tale tellers of his earliest youth. She had the traditional hook-nose and peaked chin, the glittering eyes, the thousand wrinkles and the toothless gums. He looked about for the raven and the cat, but if she had them, they were not in evidence. At a rough guess, he calculated her age at one hundred years. A youth of extreme laziness, who Baron Dangloss said was the old woman's grandson, appeared to be her man-of-all-work. He fetched the old woman's crystal, placed stools for the visitors, lighted the candles on the table, occupying no less than a quarter of an hour in performing these simple acts, so awkward that at least two of his observers giggled openly and whispered their opinions.

"Gruesome lady, isn't she?" whispered King.

"I shall dream of her for months," whispered the lady in grey, shuddering.

"Are you willing to have her read your future in that ball?"

"Do you really think she can tell?"

"I once had a fortune-teller say that I would be married before I was twenty-three," he informed her. She appeared interested.

"And were you?"

"No. But she did her part, you know—the fortune-teller, I mean."

"She warned you. I see. So it really wasn't her fault." She was watching the preparations at the table with eager eyes, her lips parted and her breath coming quick through excitement.

"Would you mind telling me how I am to address you?" whispered King. They were leaning against the mud-plastered wall near the little window, side by side. The whimsical smile that every one loved to see was on his lips, in his eyes. "You see, I'm a stranger in a strange land. That accounts for my ignorance."

"You must not speak while she is gazing into the crystal," she warned, after a quick, searching glance at his face. He could have sworn that he saw a gleam of concern in her eyes, followed instantly by a twinkle that meant mischief.

"Please consider my plight," he implored. "I can't call you Aunt Loraine, you know."

She laughed silently and turned her head to devote her entire attention to the scene at the table. Truxton King was in a sudden state of trepidation. Had he offended her? There was a hot rush of blood to his ears. He missed the sly, wondering glance that she gave him out of the corner of her eye a moment later.

Although it was broad daylight, the low, stuffy room would have been pitch dark had it not been for the flickering candles on the table beside the bent, grey head of the mumbling fortune-teller, whose bony fingers twitched over and about the crystal globe like wiggling serpents' tails. The window gave little or no light and the door was closed, the grinning grandson leaning against it limply. The picture was a weird, uncanny one, despite the gay, lightsome appearance of the visitors. The old woman, in high, shrill tones, had commanded silence. The men obeyed with a grim scepticism, while the women seemed really awed by their surroundings.

The Witch began by reading the fortune of John Tullis, who had been pushed forward by the wide-eyed Prince. In a cackling monotone she rambled through a supposititious history of his past, for the chief part so unintelligible that even he could not gainsay the statements. Later, she bent her piercing eyes upon the Prince and refused to read his future, shrilly asserting that she had not the courage to tell what might befall the little ruler, all the while muttering something about the two little princes who had died in a tower ages and ages ago. Seeing that the boy was frightened, Tullis withdrew him to the background. The Countess Marlanx, who had returned that morning to Edelweiss as mysteriously as she had left, came next. She was smiling derisively.

"You have just returned from a visit to some one whom you hate," began the Witch. "He is your husband. You will marry again. There is a fair-haired man in love with you. You are in love with him. I can see trouble—"

But the Countess deliberately turned away from the table, her cheeks flaming with the consciousness that a smile had swept the circle behind her graceful back.

"Ridiculous," she said, and avoided John Tullis's gaze. "I don't care to hear any more. Come, Baron You are next."

Truxton King, subdued and troubled in his mind, found himself studying his surroundings and the people who went so far to make them interesting. He glanced from time to time at the delicate, eager profile of the girl beside him; at the soft, warm cheek and the caressing brown hair; at the little ear and the white slim neck of her—and realised just what had happened to him. He had fallen in love; that was the plain upshot of it. It had come to pass, just as he had hoped it would in his dearest dreams. He was face to face with the girl of royal blood that the story books had created for him long, long ago, and he was doing just what he had always intended to do: falling heels over head and hopelessly in love with her. Never had he seen hair grow so exquisitely about the temples and neck as this one's hair—but, just to confound his budding singleness of interest, his gaze at that instant wandered off and fell upon something that caused him to stare hard at a certain spot far removed from the coiffure of a fair and dainty lady.

His eye had fallen upon a crack in the door that led to the kitchen, although he had no means of knowing that it was a kitchen. To his amazement, a gleaming eye was looking out upon the room from beyond this narrow crack. He looked long and found that he was not mistaken. There was an eye, glued close to the opposite side of the rickety door, and its gaze was directed to the Countess Marlanx.

The spirit of adventure, recklessness, bravado—whatever you may choose to call it—flared high in the soul of this self-despised outsider. He could feel a strange thrill of exaltation shooting through his veins; he knew as well as he knew anything that he was destined to create commotion in that stately crowd, even against his better judgment. The desire to spring forward and throw open the door, thus exposing a probable con- federate, was stronger than he had the power to resist. Even as he sought vainly to hold himself in check, he became conscious that the staring eye was meeting his own in a glare of realisation.

Without pausing to consider the result of his action, he sprang across the room, shouting as he did so that there was a man behind the door. Grasping the latch, he threw the door wide open, the others in the room looking at him as if he were suddenly crazed.

He had expected to confront the owner of that basilisk eye. There was not a sign of a human being in sight. Beyond was a black little room, at the back of which stood an old cooking stove with a fire going and a kettle singing. He leaped through, prepared to grasp the mysterious watcher, but, to his utter amazement, the kitchen was absolutely empty, save for inanimate things. His surprise was so genuine that it was not to be mistaken by the men who leaped to his side. He had time to note that two of them carried pistols in their hands, and that Tullis and Quinnox had placed themselves between the Prince and possible danger.

There was instant commotion, with cries and exclamations from all. Quick as the others were, the old woman was at his side before them, snarling with rage. Her talon-like fingers sunk into his arm, and her gaze went darting about the room in a most convincing way. Some minutes passed before the old woman could be quieted. Then King explained his action. He swore solemnly, if sheepishly, that he could not have been mistaken, and yet the owner of that eye had vanished as if swallowed up by the mountain.

Baron Dangloss was convinced that the young man had seen the eye. Without compunction he began a search of the room, the old woman looking on with a grin of glee.

"Search! Search!" she croaked. "It was the Spirit Eye! It is looking at you now, my fine baron! It finds you, yet cannot be found. No, no! Oh, you fools! Get out! Get out! All of you! Prince or no Prince, I fear you not, nor all your armies. This is my home! My castle! Go! Go!"

"There was a man here, old woman," said the Baron coolly. "Where is he? What is your game? I am not to be fooled by these damnable tricks of yours. Where is the man?"

She laughed aloud, a horrid sound. The Prince clutched Tullis by the leg in terror.

"Brace up, Bobby," whispered his big friend, leaning down to comfort him. "Be a man!"

"It—it's mighty hard," chattered Bobby, but he squared his little shoulders.

The ladies of the party had edged forward, peering into the kitchen, alarm having passed, although the exclamation "boo!" would have played havoc with their courage.

"I swear there was some one looking through that crack," protested King, wiping his brow in confusion. "Miss—er—I should say—you could have seen it from where you stood," he pleaded, turning to the lady in grey.

"Dear me, I wish I had," she cried. "I've always wanted to see some one snooping."

"There is no window, no trap door, no skylight," remarked the Baron, puzzled. "Nothing but the stovepipe, six inches in diameter. A man couldn't crawl out through that, I'm sure. Mr. King, we've come upon a real mystery. The eye without a visible body."

"I'm sure I saw it," reiterated Truxton. The Prince's aunt was actually laughing at him. But so was the Witch, for that matter. He didn't mind the Witch.

Suddenly the old woman stepped into the middle of the room and began to wave her hands in a mysterious manner over an empty pot that stood on the floor in front of the stove. The others drew back, watching her with the greatest curiosity.

A droning song oozed from the thin lips; the gesticulations grew in weirdness and fervor. Then, before their startled eyes, a thin film of smoke began to rise from the empty pot. It grew in volume until the room was quite dense with it. Even more quickly than it began, it disappeared, drawn apparently by some supernatural agency into the draft of the stove and out through the rickety chimney pipe. Even Dangloss blinked his eyes, and not because they were filled with smoke.

A deafening crash, as of many guns, came to their ears from the outside. With one accord the entire party rushed to the outer door, a wild laugh from the hag pursuing them.

"There!" she screamed. "There goes all there was of him! And so shall we all go some day. Fire and smoke!"

Not one there but thought on the instant of the Arabian nights and the genii who went up in smoke—those never-to-be-forgotten tales of wonder.

Just outside the door stood Lieutenant Saffo of the guard, his hand to his cap. He was scarcely distinguishable, so dark had the day become.

"Good Lord!" shouted Tullis. "What's the matter? What has happened?"

"The storm, sir," said Saffo. "It is coming down the valley like the wind." A great crash of thunder burst overhead and lightning darted through the black, swirling skies.

"Very sudden, sir," added Mr. Hobbs from behind. "Like a puff of wind, sir."

The Witch stood in the door behind them, smiling as amiably as it was possible for her to smile.

"Come in," she said. "There's room for all of you. The spirits have gone. Ha, ha! My merry man! Even the eye is gone. Come in, your Highness. Accept the best I can offer—shelter from the hurricane. I've seen many, but this looks to be the worst. So it came sudden, eh? Ha, ha!"

The roar of wind and rain in the trees above seemed like a howl of confirmation. Into the hovel crowded the dismayed pleasure-seekers, followed by the soldiers, who had made the horses fast at the first sign of the storm.

Down came the rain in torrents, whisked and driven, whirled and shot by the howling winds, split by the lightning and urged to greater glee by the deafening applause of the thunder. Apple carts in the skies!

Out in the dooryard the merry grandson of the Witch was dancing as if possessed by revelling devils.

CHAPTER VIII

LOOKING FOR AN EYE

"Washing the dead men's bones," was the remark King made a few minutes later. The storm was at its height; the sheets of rain that swept down the pebbly glen elicited the gruesome sentence. He stood directly behind the quaking Loraine, quite close to the open door; there is no doubt that the observation was intended for her ears, maliciously or otherwise.

She gave him an awed glance, but no verbal response. It was readily to be seen that she was terrified by the violence of the mountain tornado. As if to shame him for the frivolous remark, she suddenly changed her position, putting herself behind him.

"I like that," he remonstrated, emboldened by the elements. "You leave me in front to be struck by the first bolt of lightning that comes along. And I a stranger, too."

"Isn't it awful?" she murmured, her fingers in her ears, her eyes tightly closed. "Do you think we'll be struck?"

"Certainly not," he assured her. "This is a charmed spot. It's a frolic of her particular devils. She waves her hand: all the goblins and thunder-workers in this neck of the woods hustle up to see what's the matter. Then there's an awful rumpus. In a minute or two she'll wave her hand and—presto! It will stop raining. But," with a distressed look out into the thick of it, "it would be a beastly joke if lightning should happen to strike that nag of mine. I'd not only have to walk to town, but I'd have to pay three prices for the brute."

"I think she's perfectly—ooh!—perfectly wonderful. Goodness, that was a crash! Where do you think it struck?"

"If you'll stand over here a little closer I'll point out the tree. See? Right down the ravine there? See the big limb swaying? That's the place. The old lady is carrying her joke too far. That's pretty close home. Stand right there, please. I won't let it rain in on you."

"You are very good, Mr. King. I—I've always thought I loved a storm. Ooh! But this is too terrible! Aren't you really afraid you'll be struck? Thanks, ever so much." He had squared himself between her and the door, turning his back upon the storm: but not through cowardice, as one might suppose.

"Don't mention it. I won't mind it so much, don't you know, if I get struck in the back. How long ago did you say it was that you went to school with my sister?"

All this time the Witch was haranguing her huddled audience, cursing the soldiers, laughing gleefully in the faces of her stately, scornful guests, greatly to the irritation of Baron Dangloss, toward whom she showed an especial attention.

Tullis was holding the Prince in his arms. Colonel Quinnox stood before them, keeping the babbling, leering beldame from thrusting her face close to that of the terrified boy. Young Vos Engo glowered at Truxton King from the opposite side of the room. Mr. Hobbs had safely ensconced himself in the rear of the six guardsmen, who stood near the door, ready to dash forth if by any chance the terrified horses should succeed in breaking away.

The Countess Marlanx, pale and rigid, her wondrous eyes glowing with excitement, stood behind John Tullis, straight and strong, like a storm spirit glorying in the havoc that raged about her. Time and again she leaned forward to utter words of encouragement in the ear of the little Prince, never without receiving a look of gratitude and surprise from his tall protector.

And all this time the goose-herd grandson of the Witch was dancing his wild, uncanny solo in the thick of the brew, an exalted grin on his face, strange cries of delight breaking from his lips: a horrid spectacle that fascinated the observers.

With incredible swiftness the storm passed. Almost at its height, there came a cessation of the roaring tempest; the downpour was checked, the thunder died away and the lightning trickled off into faint flashes. The sky cleared as if by magic. The exhibition, if you please, was over!

Even the most stoical, unimpressionable men in the party looked at each other in bewilderment and—awe, there was no doubt of it. The glare that Dangloss bent upon the hag proved that he had been rudely shaken from his habitual complacency.

"It is the most amazing thing I've ever seen," he said, over and over again.

The Countess Marlanx was trembling violently. Tullis, observing this, tried to laugh away her nervousness.

"Mere coincidence, that's all," he said. "Surely you are not superstitious. You can't believe she brought about this storm?"

"It isn't that," she said in a low voice. "I feel as if a grave personal danger had just passed me by. Not danger for the rest of you, but for me alone. That is the sensation I have: the feeling of one who has stepped back from the brink of an abyss just in time to avoid being pushed over. I can't make you understand. See! I am trembling. I have seen no more than the rest of you, yet am more terrified, more upset than Robin, poor child. Perhaps I am foolish. I know that something dreadful has—I might say, touched me. Something that no one else could have seen or felt."

"Nerves, my dear Countess. Shadows! I used to see them and feel them when I was a lad no bigger than Bobby if left alone in the dark. It is a grown-up fear of goblins. You'll be over it as soon as we are outside."

Ten minutes later the cavalcade started down the rain-swept road toward the city, dry blankets having been placed across the saddles occupied by the ladies and the Prince. The Witch stood in her doorway, laughing gleefully, inviting them to come often.

"Come again, your Highness," she croaked sarcastically.

"The next time I come, it will be with a torch to burn you alive!" shouted back Dangloss. To Tullis he added: "'Gad, sir, they did well to burn witches in your town of Salem. You cleared the country of them, the pests."

Darkness was approaching fast among the sombre hills; the great pass was enveloped in the mists and the gloaming of early night. In a compact body the guardsmen rode close about Prince Robin and his friend. Ingomede had urged this upon Tullis, still oppressed by the feeling of disaster that had come over her in the hovel.

"It means something, my friend, it means something," she insisted. "I feel it—I am sure of it." Riding quite close beside him, she added in lower tones: "I was with my husband no longer ago than yesterday. Do you know that I believe it is Count Marlanx that I feel everywhere about me now? He—his presence—is in the air! Oh, I wish I could make you feel as I do."

"You haven't told me why you ran away on Sunday," he said, abruptly, dismissing her argument with small ceremony.

"He sent for me. I—I had to go." There was a new, strange expression in her eyes that puzzled him for a long time. Suddenly the solution came: she was completely captive to the will of this hated husband. The realisation brought a distinct, sickening shock with it.

Down through the lowering shades rode the Prince's party, swiftly, even gaily by virtue of relaxation from the strain of a weird half hour. No one revealed the slightest sign of apprehension arising from the mysterious demonstration in which nature had taken a hand.

Truxton King was holding forth, with cynical good humour, for the benefit, if not the edification of Baron Dangloss, with whom he rode—Mr. Hobbs galloping behind not unlike the faithful Sancho of another Quixote's day.

"It's all tommy-rot, Baron," said Truxton. "We've got a dozen stage wizards in New York who can do all she did and then some. That smoke from the kettle is a corking good trick—but that's all it is, take my word for it. The storm? Why, you know as well as I do, Baron, that she can't bring rain like that. If she could, they'd have her over in the United States right now, saving the crops, with or without water. That was chance. Hobbs told me this morning it looked like rain. By the way, I must apologise to him. I said he was a crazy kill-joy. The thing that puzzles me is what became of the owner of that eye. I'll stake my life on it, I saw an eye. 'Gad, it looked right into mine. Queerest feeling it gave me."

"Ah, that's it, my young friend. What became of the eye? Poof! And it is gone. We searched immediately. No sign. It is most extraordinary."

"I'll admit it's rather gruesome, but—I say, do you know I've a mind to look into that matter if you don't object, Baron. It's a game of some sort. She's a wily old dame, but I think if we go about it right we can catch her napping and expose the whole game. I'm going back there in a day or two and try to get at the bottom of it. That confounded eye worries me. She's laughing up her sleeve at us, too, you know."

"I should advise you to keep away from her, my friend. Granted she has tricked us: why not? It is her trade. She does no harm—except that she's most offensively impudent. And I rather imagine she'll resent your investigation, if you attempt it. I can't say that I'd blame her." The Baron laughed.

"Baron, it struck me a bit shivery at the time, but I want to say to you now that the eye that I saw at the crack was not that of an idle peeper, nor was it a mere fakir's substitute. It was as malevolent as the devil and it glared—do you understand? Glared! It didn't peep!"

Truxton King, for reasons best known to himself, soon relapsed into a thoughtful, contemplative silence. Between us, he was sorely vexed and disappointed. When the gallant start was made from the glen of "dead men's bones," he found that he was to be cast utterly aside, quite completely ignored by the fair Loraine. She rode off with young Count Vos Engo without so much as a friendly wave of the hand to him. He said it over to himself several times: "not even a friendly wave of her hand." It was as if she had forgotten his existence, or—merciful Powers! What was worse—as if she took this way of showing him his place. Of course, that being her attitude, he glumly found his place—which turned out rather ironically to be under the eye of a police officer—and made up his mind that he would stay there.

Vos Engo, being an officer in the Royal Guard, rode ahead by order of Colonel Quinnox. Truxton, therefore, had her back in view—at rather a vexing distance, too—for mile after mile of the ride to the city. Not so far ahead, however, that he could not observe every movement of her light, graceful figure as she swept down the King's Highway. She was a perfect horsewoman, firm, jaunty, free. Somehow he knew, without seeing, that a stray brown wisp of hair caressed her face with insistent adoration: he could see her hand go up from time to time to brush it back—just as if it were not a happy place for a wisp of hair. Perhaps—he shivered with the thought of it—perhaps it even caressed her lips. Ah, who would not be a wisp of brown hair!

He galloped along beside the Baron, a prey to gloomy considerations. What was the use? He had no chance to win her. That was for story-books and plays. She belonged to another world—far above his. And even beyond that, she was not likely to be attracted by such a rude, ungainly, sunburned lout as he, with such chaps about as Vos Engo, or that what's-his-name fellow, or a dozen others whom he had seen. Confound it all, she was meant for a prince, or an archduke. What chance had he?

But she was the loveliest creature he had ever seen. Yes; she was the golden girl of his dreams. Within his grasp, so to speak, and yet he could not hope to seize her, after all. Was she meant for that popinjay youth with the petulant eye and the sullen jaw? Was he to be the lucky man, this Vos Engo?

The Baron's dry, insinuating voice broke in upon the young man's thoughts. "I think it's pretty well understood that she's going to marry him." The little old minister had been reading King's thoughts; he had the satisfaction of seeing his victim start guiltily. It was on the tip of Truxton's tongue to blurt out: "How the devil did you know what I was thinking about?" But he managed to control himself, asking instead, with bland interest:

"Indeed? Is it a good match, Baron?"

The Baron smiled. "I think so. He has been a trifle wild, but I believe he has settled down. Splendid family. He is desperately in love, as you may have noted."

"I hadn't thought much about it. Is she in love with him?"

"She sees a great deal of him," was the diplomatic answer.

Truxton considered well for a minute or two, and then bluntly asked:

"Would you mind telling me just who she is, Baron? What is her name?"

Dangloss was truly startled. He gave the young man a quick, penetrating glance; then a set, hard expression came into his eyes.

"Do you mean, sir, that you don't know her?" he asked, almost harshly.

"I don't know her name."

"And you had the effrontery to—My excellent friend, you amaze me. I can't believe it of you. Why, sir, how dare you say this to me? I know that Americans are bold, but, by gad, sir, I've always looked upon them as gentlemen. You—"

"Hold on, Baron Dangloss," interrupted Truxton, very red in the face. "Don't say it, please. You'd better hear my side of the story first. She went to school with my sister. She knows me, but, confound it, sir, she refuses to tell me who she is. Do you think that is fair? Now, I'll tell you how it came about." He related the story of the goldfish and the pinhook. The Baron smiled comfortably to himself, a sphinx-like expression coming into his beady eyes as he stared steadily on ahead; her trim grey back seemed to encourage his admiring smile.

"Well, my boy, if she elects to keep you in the dark concerning her name, it is not for me to betray her," he said at the end of the recital. "Ladies in her position, I dare say, enjoy these little mysteries. If she wants you to know, she'll tell you. Perhaps it would be well for you to be properly, officially presented to her hi—to the young lady. Your countryman, Mr. Tullis, will be glad to do so, I fancy. But let me suggest: don't permit your ingenuousness to get the better of you again. She's having sport with you on account of it. We all know her propensities."

It was dusk when they entered the northern gates. Above the Castle, King said good-bye to Tullis and the Countess, gravely saluted the sleepy Prince, and followed Mr. Hobbs off to the heart of the city. He was hot with resentment. Either she had forgotten to say good-bye to him or had wilfully decided to ignore him altogether; at any rate, she entered the gates to the Castle grounds without so much as an indifferent glance in his direction.

Truxton knew in advance that he was to have a sleepless, unhappy night.

In his room at the hotel he found the second anonymous letter, unquestionably from the same source, but this time printed in crude, stilted letters. It had been stuck under the door, together with some letters that had been forwarded from Teheran.

"Leave the city at once. You are in great danger. Save yourself!"

This time he did not laugh. That it was from Olga Platanova he made no doubt. But why she should interest herself so persistently in his welfare was quite beyond him, knowing as he did that in no sense had he appealed to her susceptibility. And what, after all, could she mean by "great danger"? "Save yourself!" He sat for a long time considering the situation. At last he struck the window sill a resounding thwack with his fist and announced his decision to the silent, disinterested wall opposite.

"I'll take her advice. I'll get out. Not because I'm afraid to stay, but because there's no use. She's got no eyes for me. I'm a plain impossibility so far as she's concerned. It's Vos Engo—damn little rat! Old Dangloss came within an ace of speaking of her as 'her Highness.' That's enough for me. That means she's a princess. It's all very nice in novels, but in real life men don't go about picking up any princess they happen to like. No, sir! I might just as well get out while I can. She treated me as if I were a yellow dog to-day—after I'd been damned agreeable to her, too, standing between her and the lightning. I might have been struck. I wonder if she would have been grateful. No; she wouldn't. She'd have smiled her sweetest, and said: "wasn't it lucky?"

He picked up the note once more. "If I were a storybook hero, I'd stick this thing in my pocket and set out by myself to unravel the mystery behind it. But I've chucked the hero job for good and all. I'm going to hand this over to Dangloss. It's the sensible thing to do, even if it isn't what a would-be hero in search of a princess aught to do. What's more, I'll hunt the Baron up this very hour. Hope it doesn't get Olga into trouble."

He indulged in another long spell of thoughtfulness. "No, by George, I'll not turn tail at the first sign of danger. I'll stay here and assist Dangloss in unravelling this matter. And I'll go up to that Witch's hole before I'm a day older to have it out with her. I'll find out where the smoke came from and I'll know where that eye went to." He sighed without knowing it. "By Jove, I'd like to do something to show her I'm not the blooming duffer she thinks I am."

He could not find Baron Dangloss that night, nor early the next day. Hobbs, after being stigmatised as the only British coward in the world, changed his mind and made ready to accompany King to the hovel in Ganlook Gap.

By noon the streets in the vicinity of the Plaza were filled with strange, rough-looking men, undeniably labourers.

"Who are they?" demanded King, as they rode past a particularly sullen, forbidding crowd at the corner below the city hail.

"There's a strike on among the men who are building the railroad," said Hobbs. "Ugly looking crowd, eh?"

"A strike? 'Gad, it's positively homelike."

"I heard a bit ago that the matter has been adjusted. They go back to work to-morrow, slight increase in pay and a big decrease in work. They were to have had their answer to-day. Mr. Tullis, I hear, was instrumental in having the business settled without a row."

"They'd better look out for these fellows," said King, very soberly. "I don't like the appearance of 'em. They look like cut-throats."

"Take my word for it, sir, they are. They're the riff-raff of all Europe. You should have seen them of a Sunday, sir, before the order went out closing the drinking places on that day. My word, they took the town. There was no living here for the decent people. Women couldn't go out of their houses."

"I hope Baron Dangloss knows how to handle them?" in some anxiety. "By the way, remind me to look up the Baron just as soon as we get back to town this evening."

"If we ever get back!" muttered the unhappy Mr. Hobbs. Prophetic lamentation!

In due time they rode into the sombre solitudes of Ganlook Gap and up to the Witch's glen. Here Mr. Hobbs balked. He refused to adventure farther than the mouth of the stony ravine. Truxton approached the hovel alone, without the slightest trepidation. The goose-herd grandson was driving a flock of geese across the green bowl below the cabin. The American called out to him and a moment later the youth, considerably excited, drove his geese up to the door. He could understand no English, nor could Truxton make out what he was saying in the native tongue. While they were vainly haranguing each other the old woman appeared at the edge of the thicket above the hut. Uttering shrill exclamations, she hurried down to confront King with blazing eyes. He fell back, momentarily dismayed. Her horrid grin of derision brought a flush to his cheek; he faced her quite coolly.

"I'll lay you a hundred gavvos that the kettle and smoke experiment is a fake of the worst sort," he announced, after a somewhat lengthy appeal to be allowed to enter the hut as a simple seeker after knowledge.

"Have it your own way! Have it your own way!" she cackled.

"Tell you what I'll do; if I can't expose that trick in ten minutes, I'll make you a present of a hundred gavvos."

She took him up like a flash, a fact which startled and disconcerted him not a little. Her very eagerness augured ill for his proposition. Still, he was in for it; he was determined to get inside the hut and solve the mystery, if it were possible. Exposure of the Witch would at least attract the interest if not the approval of a certain young lady in purple and fine linen. That was surely worth while.

With a low, mocking bow, the shrivelled hag stood aside and motioned for him to precede her into the hovel. He looked back at Mr. Hobbs. That gentleman's eyes seemed to be starting from his head.

"A hundred gavvos is a fortune not easily to be won," said the old dame. "How can I be sure that you will pay me if you lose?"

"It is in my pocket, madam. If I don't pay, you may instruct your excellent grandson to crack me over the head. He looks as though he'd do it for a good deal less money, I'll say that for him."

"He is honest—as honest as his grandmother," cried the old woman. She bestowed a toothless grin upon him. "Now what is it you want to do?"

They were standing in the centre of the wretched living-room. The goose-boy was in the door, looking on with strangely alert, questioning eyes, ever and anon peering over his shoulder toward the spot where Hobbs stood with the horses. He seldom took his gaze from the face of the old woman, a rat-like smile touching the corners of his fuzz-lined lips.

"I want to go through that kitchen, just to satisfy myself of one or two things." King was looking hard at the crack in the kitchen door. Suddenly he started as if shot.

The staring, burning eye was again looking straight at him from the jagged crack in the door!

"I'll get you this time," he shouted, crossing the room in two eager leaps. The door responded instantly to his violent clutch, swung open with a bang, and disclosed the interior of the queer little kitchen.

The owner of that mocking, phantom eye was gone!

Like a frantic dog, Truxton dashed about the little kitchen, looking in every corner, every crack for signs of the thing he chased. At last he paused, baffled, mystified. The old woman was standing in the middle of the outer room, grinning at him with what was meant for complacency, but which struck him at once as genuine malevolence.

"Ha, ha!" she croaked. "You fool! You fool! Search! Smell him out! All the good it will do you! Ha, ha!"

"By gad, I will get at the bottom of this!" shouted Truxton, stubborn rage possessing him. "There's some one here, and I know it. I'm not such a fool as to believe—Say! What's that? The ceiling! By the eternal, that scraping noise explains it! There's where the secret trap-door is—in the ceiling! Within arm's reach, at that! Watch me, old woman! I'll have your spry friend out of his nest in the shake of a lamb's tail."

The hag was standing in the kitchen door now, still grinning evilly. She watched the eager young man pound upon the low ceiling with a three-legged stool that he had seized from the floor.

"I don't see how he got up there so quickly, though. He must be like greased lightning."

He was pounding vigorously on the roughly boarded ceiling when the sharp voice of the old woman, raised in command, caused him to lower the stool and turn upon her with gleaming, triumphant eyes. The look he saw in her face was sufficient to check his enterprise for the moment. He dropped the stool and started toward her, his arms extended to catch her swaying form. The look of the dying was in her eyes; she seemed to be crumpling before him.

He reached her in time, his strong arms grasping the frail, bent figure as it sank to the floor. As he lifted her bodily from her feet, intent upon carrying her to the open air, her bony fingers sank into his arm with the grip of death, and—could he believe his ears!—a low, mocking laugh came from her lips.

Down where the pebbly house-yard merged into the mossy banks, Mr. Hobbs sat tight, still staring with gloomy eyes at the dark little hut up the glen. His sturdy knees were pressing the skirts of the saddle with a firmness that left no room for doubt as to the tension his nerves were under. Now and then he murmured "My word!" but in what connection it is doubtful if even he could tell. A quarter of an hour had passed since King disappeared through the doorway: Mr. Hobbs was getting nervous.

The shiftless, lanky goose-herd came forth in time, and lazily drove his scattered flock off into the lower glen.

The horses were becoming impatient. To his extreme discomfort, not to say apprehension, they were constantly pricking their ears forward and snorting in the direction of the hovel; a very puzzling circumstance, thought Mr. Hobbs. At this point he began to say "dammit," and with some sense of appreciation, too.

Presently his eye caught sight of a thin stream of smoke, rather black than blue, arising from the little chimney at the rear of the cabin. His eyes flew very wide open; his heart experienced a sudden throbless moment; his mind leaped backward to the unexplained smoke mystery of the day before. It was on the end of his tongue to cry out to his unseen patron, to urge him to leave the Witch to her deviltry and come along home, when the old woman herself appeared in the doorway—alone.

She sat down upon the doorstep, pulling away at a long pipe, her hooded face almost invisible from the distance which he resolutely held. He felt that she was eyeing him with grim interest. For a few minutes he waited, a sickening doubt growing up in his soul. A single glance showed him that the chimney was no longer emitting smoke. It seemed to him that the old woman was losing all semblance of life. She was no more than a black, inanimate heap of rags piled against the door-jamb.

Hobbs let out a shout. The horses plunged viciously. Slowly the bundle of rags took shape. The old woman arose and hobbled toward him, leaning upon a great cane.

"Whe—where's Mr. King?" called out Hobbs.

She stopped above him and he could see her face. Mr. Hobbs was chilled to the bone. Her arm was raised, a bony finger pointing to the treetops above her hovel.

"He's gone. Didn't you see him? He went off among the treetops. You won't see him again." She waited a moment, and then went on, in most ingratiating tones: "Would you care to come into my house? I can show you the road he took. You—"

But Mr. Hobbs, his hair on end, had dropped the rein of King's horse and was putting boot to his own beast, whirling frantically into the path that led away from the hated, damned spot! Down the road he crashed, pursued by witches whose persistence put to shame the efforts of those famed ladies of Tam O'Shanter in the long ago; if he had looked over his shoulder, he might have discovered that he was followed by a riderless horse, nothing more.

But a riderless horse is a gruesome thing—sometimes.

CHAPTER IX

STRANGE DISAPPEARANCES

The further adventures of Mr. Hobbs on this memorable afternoon are quickly chronicled, notwithstanding the fact that he lived an age while they were transpiring, and experienced sensations that would still be fresh in his memory if he lived to be a hundred.

He was scarcely well out of sight of the cabin when his conscience began to smite him: after all, his patron might be in dire need of his services, and here he was, fleeing from an old woman and a whiff of smoke! Hobbs was not a physical coward, but it took more than a mile of hard-ridden conscience to bring his horse to a standstill. Then, with his heart in his mouth, he slowly began to retrace his steps, walking where he had galloped a moment before. A turn in the road brought him in view of something that caused him to draw rein sharply. A hundred yards ahead, five or six men were struggling with a riderless bay horse.

"My Gawd!" ejaculated Hobbs. "It's his horse! I might have known!"