hanging by his hands from the sill
without. What lay beneath or how far the drop he could not guess,
but that certain death menaced him from above he knew from the
conversation he had overheard earlier in the evening.

For an instant he hung suspended. He heard the men groping about
the room. Evidently they were in some fear of the unknown assailant
they sought, for they did not move about with undue rashness.
Presently one of them struck a light--Barney could see its flare
lighten the window casing for an instant.

"The room is empty," came a voice from above him.

"Look to the window!" cried Peter of Blentz, and then Barney Custer
let go his hold upon the sill and dropped into the blackness below.

His fall was a short one, for the window had been directly over a
low shed at the side of the inn. Upon the roof of this the American
landed, and from there he dropped to the courtyard without mishap.
Glancing up, he saw the heads of three men peering from the window
of the room he had just quitted.

"There he is!" cried one, and instantly the three turned back into
the room. As Barney fled from the courtyard he heard the rattle of
hasty footsteps upon the rickety stairway of the inn.

Choosing an alley rather than a street in which he might run upon
soldiers at any moment, he moved quickly yet cautiously away from
the inn. Behind him he could hear the voices of many men. They were
raised to a high pitch by excitement. It was clear to Barney that
there were many more than the original three--Prince Peter had, in
all probability, enlisted the aid of the military.

Could he but reach the frontier with his stolen passes he would be
comparatively safe, for the rugged mountains of Lutha offered many
places of concealment, and, too, there were few Luthanians who did
not hate Peter of Blentz most cordially--among the men of the
mountains at least. Once there he could defy a dozen Blentz princes
for the little time that would be required to carry him into Serbia
and comparative safety.

As he approached a cross street a couple of squares from the inn he
found it necessary to pass beneath a street lamp. For a moment he
paused in the shadows of the alley listening. Hearing nothing moving
in the street, Barney was about to make a swift spring for the
shadows upon the opposite side when it occurred to him that it might
be safer to make assurance doubly sure by having a look up and down
the street before emerging into the lig