aurice, "what is next on your damned program?"

"The other side of the frontier."

"Maybe," said Maurice.

With an unexpected movement he sent the table over, the lights went
out; and he had judged the distance so accurately that he felt his hands
close over the revolvers.

"The door! the door!" a voice bawled. "Knock down any one who attempts
to pass."

This was precisely what Maurice desired. With the soldiers massed about
the door, he would be free to liberate Fitzgerald; which he did. He
had scarcely completed the task, when a flame spurted up. The leader
fearlessly lit a candle and righted the table. He saw both his
prisoners, one of them with extended arms, at the ends of which
glistened revolver barrels.

"The devil!" he said.

"Maybe it is," replied Maurice. "Now, my gay banqueteers, open the door;
and the first man who makes a suspicious movement will find that I'm a
tolerable shot."

"Seize him, your Excellency!" shouted one of the troopers. "Those are my
revolvers he has, and they are not loaded."

CHAPTER VIII. THE RED CHATEAU

Two o'clock in the morning, on the king's highway, and a small body of
horse making progress. The moon was beginning to roll away toward the
west, but the world was still frost-white, and the broad road stretched
out like a silver ribbon before the horsemen, until it was lost in the
blue mist of the forests.

The troop consisted of ten men, two of whom rode with their hands tied
behind their backs and their feet fastened under the bellies of the
horses. The troop was not conspicuous for this alone. Three others had
their heads done up in handkerchiefs, and a fourth carried his arm in a
sling.

Five miles to the rear lay the sleeping city of Bleiberg, twenty miles
beyond rose the formidable heights of the Thalians. At times the horses
went forward at a gallop, but more often they walked; when they galloped
the man with his arm in the sling complained. Whenever the horses
dropped into a walk, the leader talked to one of the prisoners.

"You fight like the very devil, my friend," he said; "but we were
too many by six. Mind, I think none the less of you for your attempt;
freedom is always worth fighting for. As I said before, no harm is meant
to you, physically; as to the moral side, that doesn't concern me. You
have disabled four of my men, and have scarcely a dozen scratches to
show for it. I wanted to take only four men with me; I was ordered to
take eight. The