ce companies have long paid the claims upon the Archduke's
premiums for his life, and that fact alone is almost as desirable an
evidence as a death-certificate to his heir. But one Sunday in July
1910, the Imperial Court of Austria also issued an edict to appear
simultaneously in the chief official gazettes of the habitable globe,
declaring that, unless within six months further particulars were
supplied concerning one, namely, the Archduke Johann Salvator, of the
House of Austria and Tuscany, otherwise and hereinafter known as Johann
Orth, master mariner, and concerning his alleged decease, together with
that of one Milli Orth, _nee_ Stubel, his reputed accomplice in
matrimony, the property, estates, effects, titles, jewels, family
vaults, and other goods of the aforesaid Johann Orth, should forthwith
and therewithal pass into the possession of the Archduke Joseph
Ferdinand, nephew and presumptive heir of the aforesaid Johann Orth, to
the estimated value of L150,000 sterling, in excess or defect thereof as
the case might be, it being thereafter presumed that the aforesaid
Johann Orth, together with the aforesaid Milli Orth, his reputed
accomplice in matrimony, did meet or encounter their death upon the high
seas by the act or other intervention of God.

Oh, never believe it! There is an unsuspected island in untravelled
seas. Like the island of Tirnanog, which is the Irish land of eternal
youth, it lies below the sunset, brighter than the island-valley of
Avilion:

"Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,
Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies
Deep-meadow'd, happy, fair with orchard lawns
And bowery hollows crown'd with summer sea."

To that island have those star-like lovers fared, since they gave the
world and all its Imperial Courts the slip. There they have discovered
an innocent and lovely race, adorned only with shells and the flowers of
hibiscus; and, intermingled with that race, in accordance with
indigenous marriage ceremonies, the crew of the _Santa Margherita_ now
rear a dusky brood. In her last extant letter, addressed to the leader
of the _corps de ballet_ at the Ring Theatre in Vienna, Madame Milli
Orth herself hinted at a No-Man's Land, which they were seeking as the
home of their future happiness. They have found it now, having trodden
the golden path of rays. There palls not wealth, or state, or any rank,
nor ever Court snores loudly, but men and women meet each evening to
discuss the