leman go," he said. "He is a friend of mine. _Senores_, I am
glad to see you again. Have you come to congratulate me on my marriage?"

The guards stepped back; and the King's question was a command. He said
"_Senores_"; therefore he was speaking to Dick as well as to me. I walked
towards him as he stood ready to greet us; and now Dick, who had kept
behind in the crowd, was at my side.

Carmona's face grew scarlet, then yellow-pale.

"I beg your Majesty's forgiveness," he said, "but you cannot know what I
know of this man, or you would not receive him. This may be another
horrible plot; for he is the Marques de Casa Triana, suspected of throwing
a bomb in Barcelona some years ago, who not only has broken his parole and
come secretly to Spain, but has been following you about from place to
place in his motor-car, and--"

The King burst out laughing, in his boyish way.

"All the better for me if he has, since he has continually found the way
to do me some good turn. If it hadn't been for him and his motor-car I'm
not sure that I would be here--and happy--to-day." He held out his hand to
me. "So you are the Marques de Casa Triana," he said. "And that was why
you wouldn't tell me your name, when your friend let me know I had one
more thing to thank you for besides those I knew--on the day of the
brigands?"

He smiled at Dick, who presumed on his notice.

"Your Majesty," he ventured, "may I mention the name of the man who
employed those brigands, not to injure you, but one he had already
injured--Casa Triana himself? Well, it's the Duke of Carmona; and when the
brigands failed, he tried having Casa Triana knocked on the head and shut
up in a house of his at Granada, so that he could marry the girl who was
engaged to my friend. You can ask Lady Monica Vale, sir, if I'm not
telling you the truth--as far as she knows it."

The King, without answering, turned his eyes on Monica.

"It is true, sir, that we were engaged," she replied to the question in
his look. "I love him still, and only promised to marry the Duke because
he said, if I did, he would save Ramon from imprisonment--and worse. He
told me he had helped Ramon to get out of Spain to England, when he was on
the point of being arrested for--something that happened in Seville. Now I
know it wasn't true;--that he--lied, and that he's been horribly treacherous
to Ramon, as well as to me. I'll not keep my promise to him to-morrow, or
ever."

"This seems a strange s