terday, and we shall doubtless hear of him shortly.
Very likely they are both in the hills tonight. And, Oscar, listen
carefully to what I say."

The soldier drew nearer to Armitage, who sat swinging his legs on the
table in the bungalow.

"If I should die unshriven during the next week, here's a key that opens
a safety-vault box at the Bronx Loan and Trust Company, in New York. In
case I am disabled, go at once with the key to Baron von Marhof,
Ambassador of Austria-Hungary, and tell him--tell him--"

He had paused for a moment as though pondering his words with care; then
he laughed and went on.

"--tell him, Oscar, that there's a message in that safety box from a
gentleman who might have been King."

Oscar stared at Armitage blankly.

"That is the truth, Sergeant. The message once in the good Baron's hands
will undoubtedly give him a severe shock. You will do well to go to bed.
I shall take a walk before I turn in."

"You should not go out alone--"

"Don't trouble about me; I shan't go far. I think we are safe until two
gentlemen have met in Washington, discussed their affairs, and come down
into the mountains again. The large brute we caught the other night is
undoubtedly on watch near by; but he is harmless. Only a few days more
and we shall perform a real service in the world, Sergeant,--I feel it in
my bones."

He took his hat from a bench by the door and went out upon the veranda.
The moon had already slipped down behind the mountains, but the stars
trooped brightly across the heavens. He drank deep breaths of the cool
air of the mountain night, and felt the dark wooing him with its calm and
peace. He returned for his cloak and walked into the wood. He followed
the road to the gate, and then turned toward the Port of Missing Men. He
had formed quite definite plans of what he should do in certain
emergencies, and he felt a new strength in his confidence that he should
succeed in the business that had brought him into the hills.

At the abandoned bridge he threw himself down and gazed off through a
narrow cut that afforded a glimpse of the Springs, where the electric
lights gleamed as one lamp. Shirley Claiborne was there in the valley and
he smiled with the thought of her; for soon--perhaps in a few hours--he
would be free to go to her, his work done; and no mystery or dangerous
task would henceforth lie between them.

He saw march before him across the night great hosts of armed men,
singing hymns