dressingroom beyond they would find a long gray cloak.

They were to wrap all these in a bundle which the old shopkeeper was
to carry.

"And, Butzow," added Barney, "look to my revolvers and your own, and
lay my sword out as well. The chances are that we shall have to use
them before we are ten minutes older."

In an incredibly short space of time the young man emerged from the
bath, his luxuriant beard gone forever, he hoped. Butzow looked at
him with a smile.

"I must say that the beard did not add greatly to your majesty's
good looks," he said.

"Never mind the bouquets, old man," cried Barney, cramming his arms
into the sleeves of his khaki jacket and buckling sword and revolver
about him, as he hurried toward a small door that opened upon the
opposite side of the apartment to that through which his visitors
had been conducted.

Together the three hastened through a narrow, little-used corridor
and down a flight of well-worn stone steps to a door that let upon
the rear court of the palace.

There were grooms and servants there, and soldiers too, who saluted
Butzow, according the old shopkeeper and the smooth-faced young
stranger only cursory glances. It was evident that without his beard
it was not likely that Barney would be again mistaken for the king.

At the stables Butzow requisitioned three horses, and soon the trio
was galloping through a little-frequented street toward the
northern, hilly environs of Lustadt. They rode in silence until they
came to an old stone building, whose boarded windows and general
appearance of dilapidation proclaimed its long tenantless condition.
Rank weeds, now rustling dry and yellow in the November wind, choked
what once might have been a luxuriant garden. A stone wall, which
had at one time entirely surrounded the grounds, had been almost
completely removed from the front to serve as foundation stone for a
smaller edifice farther down the mountainside.

The horsemen avoided this break in the wall, coming up instead upon
the rear side where their approach was wholly screened from the
building by the wall upon that exposure.

Close in they dismounted, and leaving the animals in charge of the
shopkeeper of Tafelberg, Barney and Butzow hastened toward a small
postern-gate which swung, groaning, upon a single rusted hinge. Each
felt that there was no time for caution or stratagem. Instead all
depended upon the very boldness and rashness of their attack, and so
as they