Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 15, 2025
Before Maenck was half-way through his narrative, Peter of Blentz was wide awake and all attention. His eyes glowed with suddenly aroused interest. "Somewhere in this, prince," concluded Maenck, "there must lie the seed of fortune for you and me." Peter nodded. "Yes," he mused, "there must." For a time both men were buried in thought. Suddenly Maenck snapped his fingers. "I have it!" he cried.
At the same instant his own sword leaped from his scabbard, and now Maenck found himself facing grim steel in the hand of a master swordsman. The governor of Blentz drew back from the touch of that sharp point. "What do you mean?" he cried. "This is mutiny."
Not even Peter of Blentz would countenance such abhorrent treatment of a prisoner." "You do not know Peter my dear," responded Maenck. "But you need not fear. You shall be my wife. Peter has promised me a baronetcy for the capture of Leopold, and before I am done I shall be made a prince, of that you may rest assured, so you see I am not so bad a match after all."
But we had the devil's own time getting him. Stein was killed and Maenck and I both wounded, and all morning we have spent the time hiding from troopers who seemed to be searching for us. Only fifteen minutes since did we reach the hiding-place that you instructed us to use.
Lieutenant Butzow, you may place Prince Peter, Coblich, Maenck, and Stein under arrest. We charge them with treason against their king, and conspiring to assassinate their rightful monarch." Butzow smiled as he turned with his troopers at his back to execute this most welcome of commissions; but in a moment he was again at Barney's side. "They have fled, your majesty," he said.
There is something at the bottom of it all, and that something I must know." "I am Leopold!" cried the king. "Don't you recognize me, Prince Peter? Look at me! Maenck must know me. It was I who wrote and signed the American's pardon at the point of the American's revolver. He forced me to exchange clothing with him, and then he brought me here to this room and left me."
"Sire," exclaimed Maenck, "this is the first sight I have had of the prisoners except in the darkness of the night; until this instant I had not the remotest suspicion of his identity. He told me that he was a servant of the house of Von der Tann." "I told you the truth, then," interjected Barney. "Silence, you ingrate!" cried the king. "Ingrate?" repeated Barney.
It seemed that Butzow had been absent from Lutha for a number of years as military attache to the Luthanian legation at a foreign court. He had known nothing of the true condition at home until his return, when he saw such scoundrels as Coblich, Maenck, and Stein high in the favor of the prince regent.
Troopers were scouring the country about Lustadt as far as Blentz in search of Maenck and Coblich. Could they locate these two and arrest them "with all found in their company," as his order read, he felt sure that he would be able to deliver the missing king to his subjects in time for the coronation at noon. Barney looked straight into the eyes of old Von der Tann.
"It was with greater difficulty, however, my dear Peter, that I convinced him that you, Von Coblich, and Captain Maenck were his most loyal friends. He fears you yet, but, nevertheless, he has pardoned you all. Do not forget when you return to your dear Lutha that you owe your repatriation to Count Zellerndorf of Austria."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking