"Of course. I have been watching it, as we came down the road. Fighting has been going on there for an hour or more."

"Fighting?"

"Yes. I don't understand. The Austrians were attacking it. I am certain for I clearly made out the kepi of the infantry."

"That is strange."

"Is it possible that some of our advance posts could have occupied it?"

"I should say that that was impossible."

"We must investigate. Detach your company from the command and bring your men up the road yonder. I will join you."

Captain Kotchukoff saluted, wheeled his horse and galloped at full speed down the road into the meadow, while Colonel Galenski trotted slowly down the hill until he found a ford in the stream, and then slowly rode up the hill beyond.

"It is very strange," he muttered.

As he reached the road above, the company of Captain Kotchukoff came riding up, but he gave the command to walk their horses, and slowly, Colonel and Captain riding in front, they approached the end of the long causeway which led to the castle. That he had not been mistaken in his observations was clearly to be seen, for several men lay either dead or severely wounded in the middle of the walled road. As they neared the drawbridge three more prostrate figures were seen, one of them hanging almost on the lip of the abyss.

The drawbridge was raised and beyond the gate another form lay beyond the threshold. But as yet he saw no sign of life. Colonel Galenski reined in his horse sharply, raised his hand, and behind him his captain shouted the loud order to halt.

At the sound a man suddenly appeared in the gate, and beside him a very beautiful young woman. Colonel Galenski was a good officer, but the fact, though of no military importance, was quite clearly to be noted--a very beautiful woman. The man beside the girl was tall, and bore himself well. But he was covered with grime and dust and his clothing was torn and streaked with blood. One sleeve of his shirt was missing, and his bare arm was bandaged just below the arm-pit with a bloodstained cloth.

And as he looked, the man smiled and saluted.

Colonel Galenski returned the salute, and spoke in German.

"You will lower the drawbridge if you please. I wish to enter."

The man disappeared for a moment, the girl beside him, and presently, with a loud clatter of rusty chains which made necessary some excellent feats of horsemanship by the men of the company behind him, the drawbridge crashed down, and Colonel Galenski rode forward through the gate, followed by the company of horsemen, who wheeled by fours into line and halted in the courtyard.

Colonel Galenski dismounted, neglecting no detail of the signs of combat, the bullet-scarred flagging, the broken rock, the timbers, the two figures lying in the shadow of the wall of the gate.

"From below, with my glasses, I saw the Austrians attacking your drawbridge," he said. "There were many of them along the road. Your men have well defended the position. Where are they?"

The tall man smiled and took the beautiful young woman by the hand.

"I beg to present you to my garrison," he said with a laugh. "Countess Marishka Strahni--and--er----?"

"Colonel Galenski of the Fifth Regiment--horse," said the Colonel with a bow. "And you, sir--who are you?"

The tall man extended a grimy hand to the immaculate Russian.

"I will tell you that, sir, if"--and he laughed--"if you'll give me a cigarette."

IN REGARD TO THE EVIDENCE IN THE CASE

If the reader of this book is not inclined to accept the _prima-facie_ evidence as presented in the newspapers from official sources with regard to the assassination of the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, he is referred by the publishers to the very interesting article by Mr. Henry Wickham Steed called "The Pact of Konopisht," printed in the _Nineteenth Century_ for February, 1916. Mr.

Steed, as is well known, was for twenty years the correspondent in Vienna of the _London Times_, and is also the author of the latest and presumably the most authoritative work in English on the Austro-Hungarian government and the House of Habsburg.

The facts presented in that article beginning with the open breach between Franz Joseph and the Archduke on his marriage to Sophie Chotek; the _entente_ between Kaiser and Archduke at Eckartzau and Potsdam; the seizure of the Archduke's papers by the Austrian government after the assassination; the instructions to the Sarajevo police from the military authorities of Austria-Hungary to make no special arrangements for the Archduke's protection; the fact that no evidence has ever been adduced proving the complicity of the Serbian government; the funeral of the Archduke and Duchess, at which no wreaths were sent by Emperor Franz Joseph, by the Archduke's sister, or any member of the Austro-Hungarian Imperial Family; the inadequacy of the formal arrangements for burial and the obvious intention of the Court authorities to pay as little honor as possible to the dead; the exclamation of the Kaiser, during Kiel week when the news of the assassination was brought to him, "Now I must begin all over again":--these facts must be considered as circumstantial evidence of the most positive sort that the relations between Archduke and Kaiser had been looked on with disfavor and suspicion by the Imperial Family of Austria. What actually happened at Konopisht of course will never be known, but there is strong presumptive evidence that a pact of the character suggested in this story was made in the rose garden of the castle and that Von Tirpitz was a witness to it.

Whatever the police records show with regard to Cabrinovitz and Prinzep, the former, who threw the bomb, the latter who did the killing, no successful effort has been made to show that they were employed by the Serbian government, nor is it probable that Serbia would have promoted a plot which would give Austria Hungary a pretext for assailing her, a pretext that Austria Hungary had already sought. The story of the beginnings of the Great War has shown how she found it.

In the light of the ascertained facts concerning the production of anti-Serbian forgeries employed by Austria during the annexation crises of 1908-9, and exposed during the Friedjung trial of December, 1909, it certainly would not be beyond the power of Austro-Hungarian Secret Service agents to cook up a plot at Belgrade or Sarajevo, were it considered desirable, for reasons of Imperial policy, either to "remove" obnoxious personages or to provide a pretext for war.

The dream of an empire from Hamburg to Saloniki is as yet a dream, but that it was dreamed in Potsdam no one doubts.

Books by George Gibbs

The Secret Witness Paradise Garden The Yellow Dove The Flaming Sword Madcap The Silent Battle The Forbidden Way The Bolted Door Tony's Wife