and fishermen, could raise an army."

The King snapped his fingers impatiently.

"An army of brigands and smugglers!" he exclaimed. "That for his
popularity!" But he instantly raised his hands as though in protest at
his own warmth of speech and in apology for his outbreak.

"His zeal will ruin us in time. He is deucedly in the way," he
continued, in his usual tone of easy cynicism. "We should have let him
into our plans from the first, and then if he chose to take no part in
them we would at least have had a free hand. As it is now, we have
three different people to deceive: this Cabinet of shopkeepers, which
seems easy enough; Father Paul and his fanatics of the Church party;
and this apostle of the divine right of kings, Kalonay. And he and the
good father are not fools----"

At these words Madame Zara glanced again toward the garden, and this
time with such evident uneasiness in her face that Barrat eyed her with
quick suspicion.

"What is it?" he asked, sharply. "There is something you have not told
us."

The woman looked at the King, and he nodded his head as though in
assent. "I had to tell them who else was in the plot besides myself,"
she said, speaking rapidly. "I had to give them the name of some man
who they knew would be able to do what I have promised we could do--who
could put a stop to the revolution. The name I gave was
his--Kalonay's."

Barrat threw himself forward in his chair.

"Kalonay's?" he cried, incredulously.

"Kalonay's?" echoed Erhaupt. "What madness, Madame! Why name the only
one who is sincere?"

"She will explain," said the King, in an uneasy voice; "let her
explain. She has acted according to my orders and for the best, but I
confess I----"

"Some one had to be sacrificed," returned the woman, boldly, "and why
not he? Indeed, if we wish to save ourselves, there is every reason
that it should be he. You know how mad he is for the King's return,
how he himself wishes to get back to the island and to his old position
there. Why, God only knows, but it is so. What pleasure he finds in a
land of mists and fogs, in a ruined castle with poachers and smuggling
fishermen for companions, I cannot comprehend. But the fact remains,
he always speaks of it as home and he wishes to return. And now,
suppose he learns the truth, as he may at any moment, and discovers
that the whole expedition for which he is staking his soul and life is
a trick, a farce; that we use it o