urgus, as well as by
Solomon and Justinian; and it was again employed by the partisans of
Louis XVIII to save the House of Bourbon. It is that mystic code which
binds Royalty together and is given only to those whom Royalty may
trust. That ancient code meant freedom if it reached the prisoners
in time! It rested with these silent men to pass the scrutiny of a
million eyes to liberate the victims from the fury of the mob.

Such a rescue, as time swept by, became nothing but a slender hope
with any of the women. They began to realize that their blood
would not very greatly shock the nerves of statesmen who had become
accustomed to the daily cataract that poured down upon the soil of
Europe. They felt abandoned by the diplomats. Their only friends were
busy in the red work of war. One chance alone remained. Soldiers might
be deceived by men disguised as comrades. The Secret Service might
overlook the hysterical entertainers who fluttered under the mask of
charitable workers and skipped across forbidden lines protected by a
Cross. This was the only possibility, this the phantom hope that stood
trembling on the brink of the prisoners' abysmal fear. Thus the sight
of a Red Cross driver or an English uniform in the midst of their
disaster became a welcome incident in the lives of these affronted
women. The appearance of either seemed to carry to the prisoners
a spirit of encouragement and reflect a ray of mercy into the dark
corners of their hearts. They indulged the hope that some of
those foreign uniforms might conceal trustworthy friends. And they
recognized a basis for such a hope in the mystifying movements of one
of those uniforms that met their notice day by day. It was near them
at the palace when they were thrown upon a maddened world. They saw it
following onward as they passed through pathless wilds. They could see
it hovering near them on that last historic night. They learned about
its maneuvers in the morning as it moved among the silent rooms of the
pretty mansard cottage that had witnessed their withdrawal from
the vision of historical events,--how it had paused to scan without
emotion the small blood stain on the floor--how an agitated censor
informed the credulous that the prisoners had been murdered in cold
blood! Thus they learned that the world had heard with skepticism
that, so far as history and international politicians were affected,
their _seven lives had been, technically, blotted out_! (See Part II: