ng out over a small garden, and
commanding more distantly the harbor and town lights below. From
somewhere in the garden came the splashing of a small fountain.

Here Von Ritz left his charge to himself, silently departing with a bow.
For a while the Spaniard remained alone. The room was not so brightly
illuminated as many through which he had come on his way across the
Palace. Light filtered through swinging lamps of wrought metal encrusted
with prisms of green and amber and garnet. The Moorish scheme depends in
part upon its shadows. Finally a gentleman entered from a balcony. He
was neither in uniform nor in evening dress. His face was smooth-shaven
and pleasing.

Blanco fancied this was a secretary or attendant of some sort, and was
conscious of slight surprise that as he entered the place he smoked a
cigarette with a freedom scarcely fitting the King's personal chambers.
At the window the gentleman halted and looked Blanco over with a frank
but not offensive curiosity. Manuel returned the gaze, wondering where
he had seen the face before, yet unable to identify it. Then the
newcomer crossed and proffered the Spaniard a cigarette from a gold
case, which the _toreador_ declined with a shake of his head.

"_Gracias, Senor_," he said, "but I am waiting for the King."

The other smiled, and the visitor noticed that even in smiling his lips
fell into lines of sadness.

"None the less," he said pleasantly, "a man may as well have the solace
of tobacco while he waits--even though he awaits a King."

The Andalusian once more shook his head, and the other continued to
study him with that undisguised interest which his eyes had worn from
the first.

"So you are one of the two men," he said, "who learned what all the
secret agents of the Throne failed to unearth. Incidentally it is to you
that the present King owes not only his Crown, but his life as well." He
paused.

"After all," he went on, "it is neither your fault nor Mr. Benton's that
the King could have done very well without either the Crown or his life.
You restored something which perhaps he held worthless.... But that is
his own misfortune."

Blanco's expressive face mirrored a shade of resentment. He had come on
summons from the King and found himself listening to the familiar, even
disrespectful, chatter of some underling who laughed at his Monarch and
lightly appraised the value of his life while he smoked cigarettes in
the Royal apartments. The Spania