rced to
bear as a matter of diplomacy, and would end by getting stabbed in
the back. She thought it was better to have a live lover, even though
he were a hundred miles away, than a dead soldier. He scowled in
disgust, but she reached his hand under the table. She had given
orders to Otaballo and then she had lain awake all night crying
because he had carried them out. Her plan had been to get the
kingdom all straightened out and at peace, and then to abdicate.
But things had gone wrong and she told them a story of plots and
counterplots, of strange men arrested at her very door with knives
in their hands, of a bomb found in the palace, that held them
breathless. Danbury fairly boiled over with excitement.

"And you had me tied up while those things were going on? Trix--I'll
never forgive you. I might have been a regular story-book hero."

"Not in Carlina; you'd have been killed before night."

"Rot! Don't you think I'm old enough to take care of myself?"

"No," she answered. "And that's why I've come with you."

"I'd have cleared up that trouble in a week," he exploded. "And as for
those beggars of mine--do you know I risked my life to get their pay
to them through an agent? And then they turned against us."

"Still for pay," she said.

"Well, their life will be a short one and a merry in that crowd. Once
the darned republic is running again, they will be got rid of."

If Danbury squirmed at having missed the excitement at Bogova, he
fairly writhed with envy of Stubbs and Wilson. As he listened he
hitched back and forth in his chair, leaned over the table until he
threatened to sprawl among the glasses, and groaned jealously at every
crisis. Wilson told his story as simply as possible from its
beginning; the scenes at the house, his finding the map, his
adventures in Bogova, the long trip to the cave, his danger there, and
their dash back with the treasure, omitting, however, the story of the
Priest's relation to the girl as of too personal a nature. At this
point the black coffee was brought on, the steward dismissed, and as a
climax to the narrative the contents of the twenty bags of jewels
poured out upon the table. They made a living, sparkling heap that
held everyone of them in silent wonder. Beneath the electric lights,
they took on their brightest hues, darting rays in all directions, a
dazzling collection which in value and beauty was greater than any
which has ever been gathered at one time. To-day th