ry
beautiful young woman. Colonel Galenski was a good officer, but the
fact, though of no military importance, was quite clearly to be noted--a
very beautiful woman. The man beside the girl was tall, and bore himself
well. But he was covered with grime and dust and his clothing was torn
and streaked with blood. One sleeve of his shirt was missing, and his
bare arm was bandaged just below the arm-pit with a bloodstained cloth.
And as he looked, the man smiled and saluted.

Colonel Galenski returned the salute, and spoke in German.

"You will lower the drawbridge if you please. I wish to enter."

The man disappeared for a moment, the girl beside him, and presently,
with a loud clatter of rusty chains which made necessary some excellent
feats of horsemanship by the men of the company behind him, the
drawbridge crashed down, and Colonel Galenski rode forward through the
gate, followed by the company of horsemen, who wheeled by fours into
line and halted in the courtyard.

Colonel Galenski dismounted, neglecting no detail of the signs of
combat, the bullet-scarred flagging, the broken rock, the timbers, the
two figures lying in the shadow of the wall of the gate.

"From below, with my glasses, I saw the Austrians attacking your
drawbridge," he said. "There were many of them along the road. Your men
have well defended the position. Where are they?"

The tall man smiled and took the beautiful young woman by the hand.

"I beg to present you to my garrison," he said with a laugh. "Countess
Marishka Strahni--and--er----?"

"Colonel Galenski of the Fifth Regiment--horse," said the Colonel with a
bow. "And you, sir--who are you?"

The tall man extended a grimy hand to the immaculate Russian.

"I will tell you that, sir, if"--and he laughed--"if you'll give me a
cigarette."

IN REGARD TO THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE

If the reader of this book is not inclined to accept the _prima-facie_
evidence as presented in the newspapers from official sources with
regard to the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, the
Duchess of Hohenberg, he is referred by the publishers to the very
interesting article by Mr. Henry Wickham Steed called "The Pact of
Konopisht," printed in the _Nineteenth Century_ for February, 1916. Mr.
Steed, as is well known, was for twenty years the correspondent in
Vienna of the _London Times_, and is also the author of the latest and
presumably the most authoritative work in English on th