The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1923-05-06
MAGAZINE

prise when, seated in comfort with their
coffee AID lqueurs, Raoul leaned over the
table to him and said frankly
''Leonhardt of Pannonia is alive"
Humphrey flushed with pleasure.
II thought it must be So" said he grasp
ing the friendly hand held out to him. "It
is fine hearing. Yet, though accepting it
naturally upon your statement l can't for
the life of me see how it can be true, al
though have been told by the princess, who
honors me with some of her confidence, that
she has twice been secretly warned that he
lives"
"Ah, the princess" said Raoul, quick
ly, and stopped short. "The princess is the
uncertain quantity in the situation" he re-
marked, thoughtfully.
"Uncertain?"
'She has handsome suitor-a sutton
who is, for the first time in his life, des-
perately in earnest. Nordernreich has been
clever, usual. They wanted to force
Leonhardt, whose existence they suspected,
to declare himself before we were ready;
and they knew that, in order to draw him
they could not do better than present him
with serious rival.
ably" began Herluin; and Humphrey cut
"Have they succeeded in making Leon
hard declare himself too soon?"
mot exactly" Raoups tone was reas-
surfing. "Marvilion is ready, Pannonia is
what our American friends describe as
good and ready'-and now we have almost
screwed Kilistria to the sticking point; but
it has made our man manageable"
do, for PHYS sake, sire, tell me where
he is and what, in the name of all that's
wonderful, he has been doing all this time?"
Raouls fine teeth flashed under his mus
tache
"As to where he is-tO the best of my
knowledge and belief he is in Pannonia;
you may we'll say In the name of all that's
wonderful'-it's the only word for him."
"If ever one would have felt able to swear
that a man was most certainly, and past all
question, dead
THE man who was attacked and mur-
dered in the streets of Dalmeira is certain
ly, and beyond all question, dead. But that
man was not Leonhardt, God be praised!
Did you ever hear what were his last words,
reported by two or three of his guards, who
had fought their way through to where he
lay dying in the road?-'Thank God! Pan
nonia is saved!"
"Saved?"
eyes He had saved it by taking the
kings place. He Michael Ferolitz
Ferolitz was absolutely devoted to Leon
hardt, and he had had very reliable in
formation, from Count Loriscu, an enthu-
siastic royalist Pannonian noble, of the
Nordernreich plot. Leonhardt was inclined
to scott From the first moment he had cap
tured the heart of his people, he knew him
self to be the popular idol He refused to
believe in his danger. He said his people
would stand by him through thick and thin.
Like all the rest of us, he was ignorant of
the full capacity of Nordernreich in the
direction of privately paid treachery, engi-
neered revolutions, and the like"
cit was before the great disillusionment
of 1914" put in Herluin, dryly.
"Just so. Ferolitz and Leonhardt were
cousins and good deal alike, though not.
l should have said, sufficiently so as to be
taken for one another except at distance.
However, it answered all right. Ferolitz in.
sisted upon testing the truth of his own
suspicious by taking the kings place in the
afternoons program; and you know the
result. Even Herluin here was deceived.o
II admit it," replied the baron, "but
you must remember how horribly disfigured
the face was. There was saber cut right
across the cheek, and he had been dragged
in the dust. l could see a change l re-
member thinking how death altered face.
But the change of identity did not so much