zendorf himself."

"I am sorry, but you cannot go through. If you choose to take up the
matter with my superior officer, you will find the Kaserne in the main
street near the mosque. I shall pass you only upon his vise. That is
final. You will please turn your car and return to the village."

Captain Goritz gazed longingly along the pale beam of the motor lamps
into the dark reaches of the bridge, and then at the shadow of the heavy
chain. At last with reluctance he gave the order to turn back. There
seemed no doubt that the restriction was unusual, and that the visit of
the Archduke had much to do with the obstruction of traffic between
Sarajevo and central Europe. The car moved slowly back through the
darkened village in the direction from which they had come, while Goritz
planned what was better to be done. The nearest other crossing at Kobas
was twenty miles away, over the road by which they had come, and they
knew that the roads upon the Bosnian side of the river were mere cow
tracks. If the officer at the bridge refused to pass them, how were they
to be certain that they would fare any better at the hands of his
superior, probably a crusty village official who would not relish being
awakened in the small hours of the morning even by a belated army
officer? At the order of Captain Goritz, the chauffeur Karl backed the
car into a meadow and put out the lights. Then Goritz lighted a
cigarette and smoked rapidly.

"Brod is Serbian for ford. Is the passage above the bridge or below?"

"Below, Herr Hauptmann, but dangerous at this season. I should not risk
it."

"Ah, I see." He paused a moment, thinking rapidly. "Is there a chain at
the other end of the bridge?"

"I have never seen one, Herr Hauptmann."

"Very good. You will await me here."

And without further words he got down and disappeared into the darkness.
Marishka sat trembling with uncertainty, trying to pierce the obscurity
in the direction in which her companion had gone. Silence, except for
the droning of the insects and the distant rushing of the river.
Fifteen, twenty minutes in which Marishka sat tensely waiting, hoping,
fearing she knew not what, and then silently, merely a darker shadow of
the night itself, a figure appeared and silently mounted into the seat
beside the waiting Karl.

CHAPTER XIII

TRAGEDY

She heard a few phrases pass between them and then, without lights, the
machine suddenly moved forward. The explosions of the