that my
quarter-mile swim was the hardest job I ever did. On shore I bought new
clothes, and took the first train. Q.E.D."

"How did you get here ahead of us?" asked the Princess, still
misbelieving her senses. "I knew you would make it--but how so fast?"

"I had a good day's start of you--even without this automobile. But
let's get on up to that castle of yours, for I want to finish up my job
and get back to America."

The Duke had been watching the expression of the American, trying in
vain to fathom the mystery.

"This has been a wretched hoax--you have all been in league to trick
me!" he began.

But Jarvis interrupted menacingly.

"Now, listen. No whining. I stood for a good deal--I knew about that
wireless, and I guess tricks can be played both ways. May I ride with
your chauffeur, your Highness?"

She nodded, and, the obstruction in the road removed, they journeyed
on, slowly but more or less surely, toward the distant castle.

"We will stop at old Pedro's inn to-night, for I am frantic to hear of
my brother," she said as they advanced. Carlos was too deep in thought
to speak again.

And up at that same inn the usual nightly round of mediaeval revelry was
going on. This ancient structure, indeterminate in age and style of
architecture, was built upon uneven ground. To save expense and
trouble, in the distant days of its inception, it had been built upon
two levels, without the excavating for foundations. Time and the
weather had warped and twisted the old wooden floors and beams so that
by this date it had numerous levels. Yet the remaining furniture was of
substantial oak, and here and there could be seen evidence of the
expenditure, in days long past, of good Spanish gold.

Asleep, with his head on the square table by the fireplace, was Pedro,
the old proprietor. Two villagers sat at another table in the side of
the big room playing cards, with wordy arguments about their winnings
and losses.

A young woman of perhaps twenty-three, dark-skinned, dark-eyed and
dark-tressed, crossed the floor from an adjoining room, to answer a
knock at the door.

From the room she had left came the sound of singing and mandolines.

"Hello, Vardos--any more news?" she asked of the peasant who entered
the portal bearing a basket of food.

"Still no word or sign of the Prince," he said apologetically, avoiding
her scornful look. "Here's yesterday's basket untouched as usual."

"And you left to-day's basket at the