Governor-General.

"Without touching his hands, sir. He was very tall; must have been seven
feet."

"If you ever had an atom of gray matter, evidently this stranger has
beaten it out of you. Hurry and notify the police!"

Kalora's candid version of the whole affair was hardly less startling
than that of the guards. The stranger had come over the wall suddenly,
much to her alarm. He attempted to converse with her, but she sternly
ordered him from the premises. He was exceedingly tall, as the guards
had said, and very dark, with rather long hair and curling black
mustache. He addressed her in English, but spoke with a marked German
accent.

This description, faithfully set down by Popova, was carried away to the
secret police of Morovenia, said to be the most astute in the world.
They were instructed to watch all trains and guard the frontier and, as
soon as they had their prisoner safely put away in the lower dungeon of
the municipal prison, they were to notify the Governor-General, who
would privately pass sentence.

A crime against any member of the ruler's household comes under a
separate category and need not be tried in public sessions. For entering
a royal harem or addressing a woman of title the sentences range from
the bastinado to solitary confinement for life.

No wonder Kalora waited in trembling. Like every other provincial she
had much respect for the indigenous constabulary. She did not believe it
possible for the pleasing stranger to break through the network that
would be woven about him.

Shunning her father and sister, and shunned by them, she waited many
sleepless hours in her own apartments for the inevitable news from
beyond the walls.

Next morning there came to her a cheering and terrifying message.

VII

THE ONLY KOLDO

Three hours after his pole-vault, Mr. Alexander H. Pike, wearing a
dinner-jacket newly ironed by his man-slave, and with a soft hat crushed
jauntily down over the right ear, was pacing back and forth in the main
corridor of the Hotel de l'Europe waiting for the dread summons to the
table d'hote.

He had to admit to himself that his nerves seemed to be about as taut as
piano wires. He told himself that possibly he was "up against it," and
yet he had stood on the brink of disaster so often during his college
career without acquiring vertigo, that the experience of the afternoon
was like a joyous renewal of youth.

He had no set program but he had a feeling t