ngle
detail of it.

When he was finally convinced that they were telling the truth, he
extended his hand to the American.

"I knelt to you once, young man," he said, "and kissed your hand. I
should be filled with bitterness and rage toward you. On the
contrary, I find that I am proud to have served in the retinue of
such an impostor as you, for you upheld the prestige of the house of
Rubinroth upon the battlefield, and though you might have had a
crown, you refused it and brought the true king into his own."

Leopold sat tapping his foot upon the carpet. It was all very well
if he, the king, chose to praise the American, but there was no need
for old von der Tann to slop over so. The king did not like it. As a
matter of fact, he found himself becoming very jealous of the man
who had placed him upon his throne.

"There is only one thing that I can harbor against you," continued
Prince Ludwig, "and that is that in a single instance you deceived
me, for an hour before the coronation you told me that you were a
Rubinroth."

"I told you, prince," corrected Barney, "that the royal blood of
Rubinroth flowed in my veins, and so it does. I am the son of the
runaway Princess Victoria of Lutha."

Both Leopold and Ludwig looked their surprise, and to the king's
eyes came a sudden look of fear. With the royal blood in his veins,
what was there to prevent this popular hero from some day striving
for the throne he had once refused? Leopold knew that the minds of
men were wont to change most unaccountably.

"Butzow," he said suddenly to the lieutenant of horse, "how many do
you imagine know positively that he who has ruled Lutha for the past
two days and he who was crowned in the cathedral this noon are not
one and the same?"

"Only a few besides those who are in this room, your majesty,"
replied Butzow. "Peter and Coblich have known it from the first, and
then there is Kramer, the loyal old shopkeeper of Tafelberg, who
followed Coblich and Maenck all night and half a day as they dragged
the king to the hiding-place where we found him. Other than these
there may be those who guess the truth, but there are none who
know."

For a moment the king sat in thought. Then he rose and commenced
packing back and forth the length of the apartment.

"Why should they ever know?" he said at last, halting before the
three men who had been standing watching him. "For the sake of Lutha
they should never know that another than the true