vague, unknown danger and excitement had entered into his life.

CHAPTER III.

THE GENTLEMEN OF THE GUARD.

Members of great families frequently regard themselves as submerged
individualities. They wilfully sink all identity of their own in the
traditions handed down to them, and live as mere representatives of a
line which bears in common a noble name. This principle, which has
something to recommend it, was adopted long ago into the system of the
Guard of Maasau, the officers of which were first gentlemen of the Guard
and afterwards men in the private and ordinary sense of the term. There
were eight of them--a colonel-in-chief, whose position became honorary
after his elevation to that rank; a colonel, upon whom devolved the
active command; a second in command, whose title of over-captain may be
translated major; three captains, and as many subalterns. And every
individual was drawn from the noblest blood of the country.

Thus it will be seen that Rallywood was about to enter the best company
in Revonde.

On a lofty cliff above the gorge from which the Kofn issues to curve
round the Palace gardens, and exposed to the four winds of heaven,
stands an imposing square block of grey buildings. These contain the
permanent quarters of the Guard. One whole side of the courtyard within
is taken up by the domed mess-room with its necessary adjuncts and
offices.

Here on the day following Rallywood's interview with Selpdorf, three men
lounged over their lunch. Any one of them, had he cared to take the
regimental rolls from their brass-bound coffer in the ante-room, could
have read his own name repeating itself down the columns as generation
after generation lived through its identical life in the same
surroundings, and died, most of them going to the devil with a fine
inherited pride and even gracefully.

Nearly every man who had crossed the page of the Maasaun annals had
dined in that historic room, and each one of the men who now held the
right to dine there had a hereditary interest, and in many cases a
hereditary characteristic, to maintain. There was old walrus-faced
Wallenloup; thin, dark, reckless Colendorp; Adiron, whose great bulk
behind a cavalry sword was a sight for the gods, and so on; the three
lieutenants following closely in the footsteps of the three lieutenants
who had been before them; men who went to the rendezvous of a duel in
all comfort, affecting to be infinitely more afraid of catching co