uit-carrying
steamer lying at Morgan's wharf in Baltimore, in which they expected
to make off after they had finished with me. At one time they had some
idea of kidnapping me; and it isn't my fault they failed at that game.
But I leave it to you, gentlemen, to deal with them. I will suggest,
however, that the presence just now in the West Indies, of the cruiser
_Sophia Margaret_, flying the flag of Austria-Hungary, may be
suggestive."

He smiled at the quick glance that passed between the Ambassador and
Judge Claiborne.

Then Baron von Marhof blurted out the question that was uppermost in the
minds of all.

"Who are _you_, John Armitage?"

And Armitage answered, quite simply and in the quiet tone that he had
used throughout:

"I am Frederick Augustus von Stroebel, the son of your sister and
of the Count Ferdinand von Stroebel. The Archduke's son and I were
school-fellows and playmates; you remember as well as I my father's place
near the royal lands. The Archduke talked much of democracy and the New
World, and used to joke about the divine right of kings. Let me make my
story short--I found out their plan of flight and slipped away with them.
It was believed that I had been carried away by gipsies."

"Yes, that is true; it is all true! And you never saw your father--you
never went to him?"

"I was only thirteen when I ran away with Karl. When I appeared before my
father in Paris last year he would have sent me away in anger, if it had
not been that I knew matters of importance to Austria--Austria, always
Austria!"

"Yes; that was quite like him," said the Ambassador. "He served his
country with a passionate devotion. He hated America--he distrusted the
whole democratic idea. It was that which pointed his anger against
you--that you should have chosen to live here."

"Then when I saw him at Geneva--that last interview--he told me that
Karl's statement had been stolen, and he had his spies abroad looking for
the thieves. He was very bitter against me. It was only a few hours
before he was killed, as a part of the Winkelried conspiracy. He had
given his life for Austria. He told me never to see him again--never to
claim my own name until I had done something for Austria. And I went to
Vienna and knelt in the crowd at his funeral, and no one knew me, and it
hurt me, oh, it hurt me to know that he had grieved for me; that he had
wanted a son to carry on his own work, while I had grown away from the
whole idea of