e, he had left weeping at the station; but since the day she
disappeared with his orchestra for twenty-four hours, Pobloff's
affection had gradually cooled; he was leaving the capital without a
pang on a month's leave of absence--a delicate courtesy of the king's
extended to a brother ruler, though a semi-barbarous one, the khedive of
Ramboul.

Pobloff was not sad nor was he jubilantly glad. The journey was an easy
one; a night and day and the next night would see him, God willing,--he
crossed himself,--in the semi-tropical city of Nirgiz. From Balak to
Nirgiz, from southeastern Europe to Asia Minor!

The heir-apparent was said to be a music-loving lad, very much under
the cunning thumb of his grim old aunt, who, rumour averred, wore a
black beard, and was the scourge of her little kingdom. All that might
be changed when the prince would reach his majority; his failing health
and morbid melancholy had frightened the grand vizier, and the king of
Balakia had been petitioned to send Pobloff, the composer, designer of
inimitable musical masques, Pobloff, the irresistible interpreter of
Chopin, to the aid of the ailing youth.

So this middle-aged David left his nest to go harp for a Saul yet in his
adolescence. What his duties were to be Pobloff had not the slightest
idea. He had received no special instructions; a member of the royal
household bore him the official mandate and a purse fat enough to soothe
his wife's feelings. After appointing his first violin conductor of the
Balakian Orchestra during his absence, the fussy, stout, good-natured
Russian (he was born at Kiew, 1865, the biographical dictionaries say)
secured a sleeping compartment on the Ramboul express, from the windows
of which he contemplated with some satisfaction the flat land that
gradually faded in the mists of night as the train tore its way noisily
over a rude road-bed.

II

Pobloff slept. He usually snored; but this evening he was too fatigued.
He heard not the sudden stoppages at lonely way stations where hoarse
voices and a lantern represented the life of the place; he did not heed
the engine as it thirstily sucked water from a tank in the heart of the
Karpakians; and he was surprised, pleased, proud, when a hot February
sun, shining through his window, awoke him.

It was six o'clock of a fine morning, and the train was toiling up a
precipitous grade to the spine of the mountain, where the down-slope
would begin and air-brakes rule. Poblo