ed; there
was no sign of life about. He broke a window, and entered the customs
office. Remembering that Colonel Mollendorf smoked, he searched the
inner pocket of his coat. He drew forth a box of wax matches, struck one
and looked about. A struggle had taken place. Evidences were strewn on
the floor. The telegraph operator's table had been smashed into bits,
the instrument twisted out of shape, the jars broken and the wires cut.
Like indications of a disturbance were also found in the barrack.

Maurice began to comprehend. Madame's troopers had crossed the frontier,
but they had returned again, taking with them the handful of troopers
belonging to the king. It was plain that the object of this skirmish had
been to destroy communications between Bleiberg and the frontier. Madame
desired to effect a complete surprise, to swoop down on the capital
before it could bring a large force into the field.

There is an unwritten law that when one country intends to wage war
against its neighbor a formal declaration shall be made. But again
Madame had forsaken the beaten paths. More than three weeks had passed
since the duchy's representative in Bleiberg had been discredited and
given his passports. At once the duchess had retaliated by discrediting
the king's representative in Brunnstadt. Ordinarily this would have been
understood as a mutual declaration of war. Instead, both governments
ignored each other, one suspiciously, the other intentionally. All of
which is to say, the gage of war had been flung, but neither had stooped
to pick it up.

Perhaps Madame expected by this sudden aggressiveness to win her fight
with as little loss of blood as possible, which in justice to her was to
her credit. Again, a declaration of war openly made might have moved the
confederation to veto it by coercion. To win without loss of life would
leave the confederation powerless to act. Therefore it will be seen that
Madame was not only a daring woman, but a general of no mean ability.

This post was an isolated one; between it and Bleiberg there was not
even a village. The main pass from the kingdom into the duchy was about
thirty miles east. Here was a small but lively city named Coberg, a
railway center, garrisoned by one thousand troops. At this pass Madame's
contemplated stroke of war would have been impossible. The railway ran
directly from Coberg to Brunnstadt, fifty miles south of the frontier.
A branch of the railway ran from Brunnstadt