st, with a wildly beating heart she had seen the King, Von Ritz and
the escort ride up to the entrance and disappear. She had
waited--waited--waited, her nerves set for the climax, until the
continued silence seemed an unendurable shock.

Then the King and escort emerged. She, sitting pale and rigid, saw them
mount and turn back unharmed toward the city. Her ears, eagerly set for
the detonation which should shake the town and reverberate along the
mountain sides, ached with the emptiness of silence.

Across the street a soldier, off duty and in civilian clothes, sat on
the sea-wall and whittled. Incidentally he noticed that Madame the
Countess was interested beyond the usual in some matter. He was there to
notice Madame the Countess. His instructions from Von Ritz had been to
keep a record of her goings and comings, and who came to see her or went
away.

Therefore, when the King and his small retinue had trotted past the
window and when Madame the Countess rose to go in, and when just as she
crossed the low sill of the window she suddenly caught up both hands to
her throat and fell heavily to the floor, the soldier, whittling a small
crucifix, made a record of that also. When a moment later a gentleman
whom he had not seen in Puntal for months, but whom he knew as the Count
Borttorff, because that gentleman had formerly been Major of his
battalion, hurriedly left a closed carriage and entered the place, the
incident was noted. When still later both Borttorff and the Countess
emerged and reentered the conveyance, driving rapidly away, he likewise
noted these things. Going from the pier whither he had followed the
closed carriage, he reported his observations with soldierly dispatch to
Colonel Von Ritz.

The Grand Duke Louis meanwhile, waiting in great anxiety, had received
the message which had come by the wireless mast. The words were in code,
and being translated they read: "France, Italy, Spain, Portugal will
recognize. Strike." The signature was "Jt.," which Delgado knew for
Jusseret. The Duke had been greatly excited. He paced the room in a
nervous tremor. It was arranged that a small steamer, which had stood a
short distance offshore since yesterday to relay the wireless message
and make it doubly sure, should pick the Duke up as soon as Lapas
signaled by a triple dip of the flag that the fortress had been
destroyed. The steamer was then to rush the Grand Duke around the cape
to Puntal, bringing him in as thoug