The governess listened. She did not like Americans. Barbarians they were, and these were of the middle class, being in trade. For a scenic railway is trade, naturally. Except that they paid a fat salary, with an extra month at Christmas, she would not be there. She and Pepy, the maid, had many disputes about this. But Pepy was a Dalmatian, and did not matter.

"He means the old soldier upstairs," said Bobby's mother softly. She was a gentle person. Her eyes were wide and childlike, and it was a sort of religion of the family to keep them full of happiness.

This also the governess could not understand.

"So the old soldier is out of work," mused the head of the family. Head, thought the governess! When they wound him about their fingers! She liked men of sterner stuff. In her mountain country the men did as they wished, and sometimes beat their wives by way of showing their authority. Under no circumstances, she felt, would this young man ever beat his wife. He was a weakling.

The weakling smiled across the table at the wife with the soft eyes.

"How about it, mother?" he asked. "Shall the firm of 'Bobby and I' offer him a job?"

"I would like it very much," said the weakling's wife, dropping her eyes to hide the pride in them.

"Suppose," said the weakling, "that you run up after dinner, Bob, and bring him down. Now sit still, young man, and finish. There's no such hurry as that."

And in this fashion did old Adelbert become ticket-chopper of the American Scenic Railway.

And in this fashion, too, commenced that odd friendship between him and the American lad that was to have so vital an effect on the very life itself of the Crown Prince Ferdinand William Otto of Livonia.

Late that evening, old Adelbert's problem having been solved, Pepy the maid and Bobby had a long talk. It concerned itself mainly with kings.

Pepy sat in a low chair by the tiled stove in the kitchen, and knitted a stocking with a very large foot.

"What I want to know is this," said Bobby, swinging his legs on the table: "What are the Terrorists?"

Pepy dropping her knitting, and stared with open mouth. "What know you of such things?" she demanded.

"Well, Terrorists killed the Crown Prince's father, and--"

Quite suddenly Pepy leaped from her chair, and covered Bobby's mouth with her hand. "Hush!" she said, and stared about her with frightened eyes. The door into the dining-room was open, and the governess sat there with a book. Then, in a whisper: "They are everywhere. No one knows who they are, nor where they meet." The superstition of her mountains crept into her voice. "It is said that they have the assistance of the evil one, and that the reason the police cannot find them is because they take the form of cats. I myself," she went on impressively, "crossing the Place one night late, after spending the evening with a friend, saw a line of cats moving in the shadows. One of them stopped and looked at me." Pepy crossed herself. "It had a face like the Fraulein in there."

Bobby stared with interest through the doorway. The governess did look like a cat. She had staring eyes, and a short, wide face. "Maybe's she's one of them," he reflected aloud.

"Oh, for God's sake, hush!" cried Pepy, and fell to knitting rapidly.

Nor could Bobby elicit anything further from her. But that night, in his sleep, he saw a Crown Prince, dressed in velvet and ermine, being surrounded and attacked by an army of cats, and went, shivering, to crawl into his mother's bed.

CHAPTER XIX. THE COMMITTEE OF TEN

On the evening of the annual day of mourning, the party returned from the fortress. The Archduchess slept. The Crown Prince talked, mostly to Hedwig, and even she said little. After a time the silence affected the boy's high spirits. He leaned back in his chair on the deck of the launch, and watched the flying landscape. He counted the riverside shrines to himself. There were, he discovered, just thirteen between the fortress and the city limits.

Old Father Gregory sat beside him. He had taken off his flat black hat, and it lay on his knee. The ends of his black woolen sash fluttered in the wind, and he sat, benevolent hands folded, looking out.

From guns to shrines is rather a jump, and the Crown Prince found it difficult.

"Do you consider fighting the duty of a Christian?" inquired the Crown Prince suddenly.

Father Gregory, whose mind had been far away, with his boys' school at Etzel, started.

"Fighting? That depends. To defend his home is the Christian duty of every man."

"But during the last war," persisted Otto, "we went across the mountains and killed a lot of people. Was that a Christian duty?"

Father Gregory coughed. He had himself tucked up his soutane and walked forty miles to join the army of invasion, where he had held services, cared for the wounded, and fired a rifle, all with equal spirit. He changed the subject to the big guns at the fortress.

"I think," observed the Crown Prince, forgetting his scruples, "that if you have a pencil and an old envelope to draw on, I'll invent a big gun myself."

Which he proceeded to do, putting in a great many wheels and levers, and adding, a folding-table at the side on which the gunners might have afternoon tea--this last prompted by the arrival just then of cups and saucers and a tea service.

It was almost dark when the launch arrived at the quay. The red carpet was still there, and another crowd. Had Prince Ferdinand William Otto been less taken up with finding one of his kid gloves, which he had lost, he would have noticed that there was a scuffle going on at the very edge of the red carpet, and that the beggar of the morning was being led away, between two policemen, while a third, running up the river bank, gingerly deposited a small round object in the water, and stood back. It was merely one of the small incidents of a royal outing, and was never published in the papers. But Father Gregory, whose old eyes were far-sighted, had seen it all. His hand--the hand of the Church--was on the shoulder of the Crown Prince as they landed.

The boy looked around for the little girl of the bouquet. He took an immense interest in little girls, partly because he seldom saw any. But she was gone.

When the motor which had taken them from the quay reached the Palace, Hedwig roused the Archduchess, whose head had dropped forward on her chest. "Here we are, mother," she said. "You have had a nice sleep."

But Annunciata muttered something about being glad the wretched day was over, and every one save Prince Ferdinand William Otto seemed glad to get back. The boy was depressed. He felt, somehow, that they should have enjoyed it, and that, having merely endured it, they had failed him again.

He kissed his aunt's hand dutifully when he left her, and went with a lagging step to his own apartments. His request to have Hedwig share his supper had met with a curt negative.

The Countess, having left her royal mistress in the hands of her maids, went also to her own apartment. She was not surprised, on looking into her mirror, to find herself haggard and worn. It had been a terrible day. Only a second had separated that gaping lens in her bag from the eyes of the officers about. Never, in an adventurous life, had she felt so near to death. Even now its cold breath chilled her.

However, that was over, well over. She had done well, too. A dozen pictures of the fortress, of its guns, of even its mine chart as it hung on a wall, were in the bag. Its secrets, so securely held, were hers, and would be Karl's.

It was a cunningly devised scheme. Two bags, exactly alike as to appearance, had been made. One, which she carried daily, was what it appeared to be. The other contained a camera, tiny but accurate, with a fine lens. When a knob of the fastening was pressed, the watch slid aside and the shutter snapped. The pictures when enlarged had proved themselves perfect.

Pleading fatigue, she dismissed her maid and locked the doors. Then she opened the sliding panel, and unfastened the safe. The roll of film was in her hand, ready to be deposited under the false bottom of her jewel-case.

Within the security of her room, the Countess felt at ease. The chill of the day left her, to be followed by a glow of achievement. She even sang a little, a bit of a ballad from her native mountains:

He has gone to the mountains, The far green mountains. (Hear the cattle lowing as they drive them up the hill!) When he comes down he'll love me; When he comes down he'll marry me. (But what is this that touches me with fingers dead and chill?)

Still singing, she carried the jewel-case to her table, and sat down before it. Then she put a hand to her throat.

The lock had been forced.

A glance about showed her that her code-book was gone. In the tray above, her jewels remained untouched; her pearl collar, the diamond knickknacks the Archduchess had given her on successive Christmases, even a handful of gold coins, all were safe enough. But the code-book was gone.

Then indeed did the Countess look death in the face and found it terrible. For a moment she could not so much as stand without support.

It was then that she saw a paper folded under her jewels and took it out with shaking fingers. In fine, copperplate script she read:

MADAME,--To-night at one o'clock a closed fiacre will await you in the Street of the Wise Virgins, near the church. You will go in it, without fail, to wherever it takes you.

(Signed)THE COMMITTEE OF TEN

The Committee of Ten! This thing had happened to her. Then it was true that the half-mythical Committee of Ten existed, that this terror of Livonia was a real terror, which had her by the throat. For there was no escape. None. Now indeed she knew that rumor spoke the truth, and that the Terrorists were everywhere. In daylight they had entered her room.

They had known of the safe, known of the code. Known how much else?