of which they profess total ignorance would fill many interesting
volumes. Have no fear, General. I said 'a friend.' He gave me a pleasant
message."

"Ah, from a woman, of course?"

"No. But----"

Delgrado wheeled round to face a tall burly man standing stiffly at his
side as though awaiting orders. Stampoff, who had been following the
vanishing figure of Beaumanoir's emissary with suspicious eyes, turned
and looked at the newcomer.

"Oh, that is Bosko," he said, "my servant--yours, too, for that matter.
You can trust Bosko with your life. Can't he, you dog?"

"_Oui, m'sieur!_" said Bosko.

CHAPTER IV

THE WHITE CITY

Alec was sound asleep when the Orient Express rumbled over the Danube
for the last time during its slow run to the Near East. He was aroused
by an official examining passports, which he was informed would be
restored in the railway station at Delgratz. He disliked the implied
subterfuge; but it could not be helped. Austria, gracious to travelers
within her bounds, excepts those who mean to cross her southeastern
frontier. There she frowns and inquires. If it was known that a Delgrado
was in the train, he would have been stopped for days, pestered by
officialdom; and possibly deported.

A curious element of safety was, however, revealed by newspapers
purchased at Budapest. The various factions in Delgratz had declared a
truce. The Delgrado partizans had telegraphed an invitation to Prince
Michael to come and occupy the throne, and the Prince, or some wiser
person, had sent a gracious reply stating that his matured decision
would reach Kosnovia in due course. The National Assembly was still
coquetting with the republican idea; but, in the same breath, avowed its
patriotic impartiality. In a word, Delgratz wanted peace. Toward that
end, the Seventh Regiment continued to occupy the Black Castle, the
remainder of the troops stood fast, and the citizens pulled down their
barricades.

Oddly enough, the Paris correspondent of "The Budapest Gazette" pointed
out that Prince Michael's son was playing polo in the Bois during the
afternoon of Tuesday. The journalist little dreamed that Alec was
reading his sarcastic comments on the Delgrado lack of initiative at
Budapest at midnight on Wednesday.

The train was about to cross the River Tave (Delgratz stands on the
junction of that stream and the Danube) when Stampoff appeared. The
Albanian servant accompanied him.

"Leave everything to Bosko,"