t; and I have heard that his followers simply come to
him and that he marries them himself, with a sort of blessing, which in
its turn is based upon a text, I forget which. He is always writing
socialistic pamphlets, which are promptly seized and suppressed, and he
makes seditious speeches. And the man is even standing for the house of
deputies!"

"One who abjures his title a member of the house of deputies!" smiled
Von Fest.

"Oh, his doctrine swarms with such inconsistencies!" growled Ducardi.
"He will tell you of course that, so long as there is nothing better
than the house of deputies, he is content to be a member of it. And the
crown-prince wants to take notice of what a man like that does!"

Von Fest shrugged his shoulders:

"Let him be, general. The prince is young. He wants to know and see
things. That's a good sign."

"But ... the emperor will never approve of it, colonel!" thundered the
general, with an oath.

Again Von Fest shrugged his shoulders:

"Nevertheless I should not dissuade him any longer, general. If the
prince wants a thing, let him have it, it will do him good.... And, if
he gets blown up by his father afterwards, that will do him good too, by
way of reaction."

Ducardi looked him straight in the face:

"What do you think of our prince?" he asked, point-blank.

Von Fest returned the general's glance, smilingly, looking straight into
his searching eyes. He was honest by nature and upright, but enough of a
courtier to be able to dissimulate when he thought necessary:

"A most charming lad," he replied. "But life--or rather he himself--will
have to change him very much if he is to hold his own ... later on."

The officers understood each other. Ducardi heaved a deep sigh:

"Yes, there are difficult times coming," he said, with an oath.

"Yes," answered the Gothlandic colonel, simply.

The princes mounted their horses in the courtyard; they took the same
road along which Othomar had driven with the duchess the previous
afternoon past Zanti's castle. Leoni had learnt where the huts lay; the
mountains began to retreat, the road wound curve after curve beneath the
trampling hoofs of the horses. Suddenly the Zanthos spread itself out on
the horizon: the wide expanse of flooded water, one great lake under the
broad, gleaming, vernal sky.

"That must be they," said Leoni.

His finger pointed to a hamlet of long wooden buildings, evidently newly
built, smelling of fresh timber in the m