"This is the man of whom word was sent to the Committee," he said.

"I ventured to ask that he be allowed to come here, because he brings information of value."

"Step forward, comrade," said the leader. "What is your name and occupation?"

"Adelbert, Excellency. As to occupation, for years I was connected with the Opera. Twenty years, Excellency. Then I grew old, and another--"

His voice broke. What with excitement and terror, he was close to tears.

"Now I am reduced to selling tickets for an American contrivance, a foolish thing, but I earn my bread by it."

He paused, but the silence continued unbroken. The battery of eyes behind the masks was turned squarely on him.

Old Adelbert fidgeted. "Before that, in years gone by, I was in the army," he said, feeling that more was expected of him, and being at a loss. "I fought hard, and once, when I suffered the loss you perceive, the King himself came to my bed, and decorated me. Until lately, I have been loyal. Now, I am--here." His face worked.

"What is the information that brings you here?"

Suddenly old Adelbert wept, terrible tears that forced their way from his faded eyes, and ran down his cheeks. "I cannot, Excellencies!" he cried. "I find I cannot."

He collapsed into the chair, and throwing his arms across the table bowed his head on them. His shoulders heaved under his old uniform. The Committee stirred, and the concierge caught him brutally by the wrist.

"Up with you!" he said, from clenched teeth. "What stupidity is this?

Would you play with death?"

But old Adelbert was beyond fear. He shook his head. "I cannot," he muttered, his face hidden.

Then the concierge stood erect and folded his arms across his chest.

"He is terrified, that is all," he said. "If the Committee wishes, I can tell them of this matter. Later, he can be interrogated."

The leader nodded.

"By chance," said the concierge, "this--this brave veteran"--he glanced contemptuously at the huddled figure in the chair, "has come across an old passage, the one which rumor has said lay under the city wall, and for which we have at different times instituted search."

He paused, to give his words weight. That they were of supreme interest could be told by the craning forward of the Committee.

"The entrance is concealed at the base of the old Gate of the Moon. Our friend here followed it, and reports it in good condition. For a mile or thereabouts it follows the line of the destroyed wall. Then it turns and goes to the Palace itself."

"Into the Palace?"

"By a flight of stairs, inside the wall, to a door in the roof. This door, which was locked, he opened, having carried keys with him. The door he describes as in the tower. As it was night, he could not see clearly, but the roof at that point is flat."

"Stand up, Adelbert," said the leader sharply. "This that our comrade tells is true?"

"It is true, Excellency."

"Shown a diagram of the Palace, could you locate this door?"

Old Adelbert stared around him hopelessly. It was done now. Nothing that he could say or refuse to say would change that. He nodded.

When, soon after, a chart of the Palace was placed on a table, he indicated the location of the door with a trembling forefinger. "It is there," he said thickly. "And may God forgive me for the thing I have done!"

CHAPTER XXX. KING KARL

"They love us dearly!" said King Karl.

The Chancellor, who sat beside him in the royal carriage, shrugged his shoulders. "They have had little reason to love, in the past, Majesty,"

he said briefly.

Karl laughed, and watched the crowd. He and the Chancellor rode alone, Karl's entourage, a very modest one, following in another carriage.

There was no military escort, no pomp. It had been felt unwise. Karl, paying ostensibly a visit of sympathy, had come unofficially.

"But surely," he observed, as they passed between sullen lines of people, mostly silent, but now and then giving way to a muttering that sounded ominously like a snarl,--"surely I may make a visit of sympathy without exciting their wrath!"

"They are children," said Mettlich contemptuously. "Let one growl, and all growl. Let some one start a cheer, and they will cheer themselves hoarse."

"Then let some one cheer, for God's sake!" said Karl, and turned his mocking smile to the packed streets.

The Chancellor was not so calm as he appeared. He had lined the route from the station to the Palace with his men; had prepared for every contingency so far as he could without calling out the guard. As the carriage, drawn by its four chestnut horses, moved slowly along the streets, his eyes under their overhanging thatch were watching ahead, searching the crowd for symptoms of unrest.

Anger he saw in plenty, and suspicion. Scowling faces and frowning brows. But as yet there was no disorder. He sat with folded arms, magnificent in his uniform beside Karl, who wore civilian dress and looked less royal than perhaps he felt.

And Karl, too, watched the crowd, feeling its temper and feigning an indifference he did not feel. Olga Loschek had been right. He did not want trouble. More than that, he was of an age now to crave popularity.

Many of the measures which had made him beloved in his own land had no higher purpose than this, the smiles of the crowd. So he watched and talked of indifferent things.

"It is ten years since I have been here," he observed, "but there are few changes."

"We have built no great buildings," said Mettlich bluntly. "Wars have left us no money, Majesty, for building!"

That being a closed road, so to speak, Karl tried another. "The Crown Prince must be quite a lad," he experimented. "He was a babe in arms, then, but frail, I thought."

"He is sturdy now." The Chancellor relapsed into watchfulness.

"Before I see the Princess Hedwig," Karl made another attempt, "it might be well to tell me how she feels about things. I would like to feel that the prospect is at least not disagreeable to her."

The Chancellor was not listening. There was trouble ahead. It had come, then, after all. He muttered something behind his gray mustache. The horses stopped, as the crowd suddenly closed in front of them.

"Drive on!" he said angrily, and the coachman touched his whip to the horses. But they only reared, to be grasped at the bridles by hostile hands ahead.

Karl half rose from his seat.

"Sit still, Majesty," said the Chancellor. "It is the students. They will talk, that is all."

But it came perilously near to being a riot. Led by some students, pushed by others, the crowd surrounded the two carriages, first muttering, then yelling. A stone was hurled, and struck one of the horses. Another dented the body of the carriage itself. A man with a handkerchief tied over the lower half of his face mounted the shoulders of two companions, and harangued the crowd. They wanted no friendship with Karnia. There were those who would sell them out to their neighbor and enemy. Were they to lose their national existence? He exhorted them madly through the handkerchief. Others, further back, also raised above the mob, shrieked treason, and called the citizens to arm against this thing. A Babel of noise, of swinging back and forth, of mounted police pushing through to surround the carriage, of cries and the dominating voices of the student-demagogues. Then at last a semblance of order, low muttering, an escort of police with drawn revolvers around the carriage, and it moved ahead.

Through it all the Chancellor had sat with folded arms. Only his livid face told of his fury. Karl, too, had sat impassive, picking at his small mustache. But, as the carriage moved on, he said: "A few moments ago I observed that there had been few changes. But there has been, I perceive, after all, a great change."

"One cannot judge the many by the few, Majesty."