ited fiercely,

"'Fifteen men on a dead man's chest.
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum!'"

"A spirited song," observed old Adelbert, as before. But his eyes were
on the grating.

That evening Adelbert called to see his friend, the locksmith in the
University Place. He possessed, he said, a padlock of which he had lost
the key, and which, being fastened to a chest, he was unable to bring
with him. A large and heavy padlock, perhaps the size of his palm.

When he left, he carried with him a bundle of keys, tied in a brown
paper.

But he did not go back to his chest. He went instead to the thicket
around the old gate, which was still termed the "Gate of the Moon," and
there, armed with a lantern, pursued his investigations during a portion
of the night.

When he had finished, old Adelbert, veteran of many wars, one-time
patriot and newly turned traitor, held in his shaking hands the fate of
the kingdom.

CHAPTER XXVI. AT THE INN

The Countess Loschek was on her way across the border. The arrangements
were not of her making. Her plan, which had been to go afoot across the
mountain to the town of Ar-on-ar, and there to hire a motor, had been
altered by the arrival at the castle, shortly after the permission was
given, of a machine. So short an interval, indeed, had elapsed that she
concluded, with reason, that this car now placed at her disposal was the
one which had brought that permission.

"The matter of passports for the border is arranged, madame," Black
Humbert told her.

"I have my own passports," she said proudly.

"They will not be necessary."

"I will have this interview at my destination alone; or not at all."

He drew himself to his great height and regarded her with cold eyes. "As
you wish," he said. "But it is probably not necessary to remind madame
that, whatever is discussed at this meeting, no word must be mentioned
of the Committee, or its plans."

Although he made no threat, she had shivered. No, there must be no word
of the Committee, or of the terror that drove her to Karl. For, if the
worst happened, if he failed her, and she must do the thing they had set
her to do, Karl must never know. That card she must play alone.

So she was not even to use her own passports! Making her hasty
preparations, again the Countess marveled. Was there no limit to the
powers of the Committee of Ten? Apparently the whole machinery of the
Government was theirs to command. Who were th