s coming here. He
shook his head.

Then his eyes sought Von Fest: they glanced up at the colonel under
their eyelids, deep-black, moist, almost reproachful.

But he held out his hand:

"Thank you, colonel," he said, in a husky voice.

The colonel pressed the hand which the prince offered him:

"Glad to be of service, highness!" he replied, with soldierly
brusqueness.

"And now let us go on to the Zanthos," said Othomar, walking up to his
horse.

But the old general could master himself no longer. In these last
moments he had felt all his passionate love--seated hereditarily, firmly
in his blood, of a piece with him, his very soul and all that soul--for
the reigning house. His fathers had died for it in battle, without
hesitation. And with the mad, wide embrace of his long, powerful old
arms, he ran up to Othomar, grateful that he was alive, pressed him as
if he would crush him against his breast, until the buttons of his
uniform scratched Othomar's cheek, and cried, sobbing, under his
trembling moustache:

"My prince, my prince, my prince!..."

8

The attempt on Othomar's life was known at Castel Vaza before the
princes returned, from peasants of the duke's, who had told the
castle-servants long stories of how the prince had been severely
wounded. The duchess had at first refused to believe it; then, in rising
anxiety, in the greatest tension and uncertainty, she had walked about
the corridors. She had first tried to persuade herself that the people
were sure to exaggerate. When she reflected that, in the event of
Othomar's being wounded, the princes and the equerries would have
returned at once, she became more tranquil and waited patiently.

But the chamberlain, who had been to Vaza, returned in dismay: people
were very uneasy in the town, pressing round the doors of the
newspaper-offices to read the bulletins, which mentioned the attempt
briefly, with the provoking comment that further particulars were not
yet to hand. The duchess realized that by this time the bulletin had
also been telegraphed to Lipara; and she feared not only that Othomar
had met with harm, but that she herself would lose favour with the
empress....

When the duchess at last, after long watching from a window in the west
corridor, saw the princes and their suite come trotting, very small,
along a distant road, she could not restrain herself and went to meet
them in the courtyard. But she saw that Othomar was unhurt. The Duke