he 
 
 LIGHTED 
 MATCH 
 
 CHARLES NELLIE BUCK
 
 i^^> 
 
 t^A./$~^
 
 . LltfUAiU, LOb 
 
 THE LIGHTED MATCH
 
 E HELD OUT HER HAND TO BENTON AND WATCHED, TRANCE-LIKE, 
 HIS LOWERED HEAD AS HE BENT HIS LIPS TO HER FINGERS.
 
 LIGHTED 
 M ATC H eg 
 
 CHARLES NEVILLE 
 
 Schabelitz_ 
 
 WJ.Watt Dtmpany 
 Publishers Newark
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1911. BY 
 J. WATT A COMPANY 
 
 PHblishtd Slay 
 
 PRESS OF 
 
 BRAUNWORTH 4 OO. 
 
 OOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN. M. Y.
 
 To K. du P. 
 
 2125644
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 HAPTER PAGE 
 
 I AN OMEN is CONSTRUED . . ,.j ,.-. ,., ,.. 9 
 
 II BENTON PLAYS MAGICIAN ... ... ,., ,., . 17 
 
 III THE MOON OVERHEARS . . . ., ,., . 28 
 
 IV THE DOCTRINE ACCORDING TO JONESY . ,., 40 
 V IT is DECIDED TO MASQUERADE ...,., 49 
 
 VI IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO . > 56 
 
 VII IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO . ... 70 
 
 VIII THE PRINCESS CONSULTS JONESY . t ., ,., 82 
 
 IX THE TOREADOR APPEARS . ,., ,., ., ,. 92 
 
 X OP CERTAIN TRANSPIRINGS AT A CAFE 
 
 TABLE ........... 102 
 
 XI THE PASSING PRINCESS AND THE MISTAKEN 
 
 COUNTESS ..... ,., -.. . L . 112 
 
 XII BENTON MUST DECIDE . . . ,. . .123 
 
 XIII CONCERNING FAREWELLS AND WARNINGS . 137 
 
 XIV COUNTESS AND CABINET NOIR JOIN FORCES 144 
 XV THE TOREADOR BECOMES AMBASSADOR . ,.155 
 
 XVI THE AMBASSADOR BECOMES ADMIRAL . .167 
 
 XVII BENTON CALLS ON THE KING .... 178 
 
 XVIII IN WHICH THE SPHINX BREAKS SILENCE . 190 
 
 XIX THE JACKAL TAKES THE TRAIL . . 203
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 214. 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 XX THE DEATH OF ROMANCE is DEPLORED 
 XXI NAPLES ASSUMES NEW BEAUTY .... 222 
 XXII THE SENTRY-BOX ANSWERS THE KING'S 
 
 QUERY 229 
 
 XXIII " SCARABS OF A DEAD DYNASTY "... 2*4. 
 
 XXIV IN WHICH KINGS AND COMMONERS Discuss 
 
 LOVE 255 
 
 XXV ABDUL SAID BEY EFFECTS A RESCUE . . 265 
 XXVI IN A CURIO SHOP IN STAMBOUL . . . 276 
 
 XXVII BENTON SAYS GOOD-BY 288 
 
 XXVIII JUSSERET MAKES A REPORT . . 300
 
 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 AN OMEN IS CONSTRUED 
 
 * ^"l^THEN a feller an' a gal washes their hands 
 * * in the same basin at the same time, it's a 
 tol'able good sign they won't git married this year.*' 
 
 The oracle spoke through the bearded lips of a 
 farmer perched on the top step of his cabin porch. 
 The while he construed omens, a setter pup industriously 
 gnawed at his boot-heels. 
 
 The girl was bending forward, her fingers spread 
 in a tin basin, as the man at her elbow poured water 
 slowly from a gourd-dipper. Heaped, in disorder 
 against the cabin wall, lay their red hunting-coats, 
 crops, and riding gauntlets. 
 
 The oracle tumbled the puppy down the steps and 
 watched its return to the attack. Then with something 
 of melancholy retrospect in his pale eyes he pursued 
 his reflections. " Now there was Sissy Belmire an* 
 Bud Thomas, been keeping company for two years, 
 then washed hands in common at the Christian Endeavor 
 9
 
 10 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 picnic an* " He broke off to shake his head in sor- 
 rowing memory. 
 
 The young man, holding his muddied digits over the 
 water, paused to consider the matter. 
 
 Suddenly his hands went down into the basin with 
 a splash. 
 
 "It is now the end of October," he enlightened; 
 " next year comes in nine weeks." 
 
 The sun was dipping into a cloud-bank already pur- 
 pled and gold-rimmed. Shortly it would drop behind 
 the bristling summit-line of the hills. 
 
 The girl looked down at tell-tale streaks of red clay 
 on the skirt of her riding habit, and shook her head. 
 " 'Twill never, never do to go back like this," she sighed. 
 " They'll know I've come a cropper, and they fancy 
 I'm as breakable as Sevres. There will be no end of 
 questions." 
 
 The young man dropped to his knees and began in- 
 dustriously plying a brush on the damaged skirt. The 
 farmer took his eyes from the puppy for an upward 
 glance. His face was solicitous. 
 
 " When I saw that horse of yours fall down, it 
 looked to me like he was trying to jam you through to 
 China. You sure lit hard 1 " 
 
 " It didn't hurt me," she laughed as she thrust her 
 arms into the sleeves of her pink coat. " You see, 
 we thought we knew the run better than the whips,
 
 AN OMEN IS CONSTRUED 11 
 
 and we chose the short cut across your meadow. My 
 horse took off too wide at that stone fence. That's 
 why he went down, and why we turned your house into 
 a port of repairs. You have been very kind." 
 
 The trio started down the grass-grown pathway to 
 the gate where the hunters stood hitched. The young 
 man dropped back a few paces to satisfy himself that 
 she was not concealing some hurt. He knew her half- 
 masculine contempt for acknowledging the fragility of 
 her sex. 
 
 Reassurance came as he watched her walking ahead 
 with the unconscious grace that belonged to her pliant 
 litheness and expressed it-self in her superb, almost boy- 
 ish carriage. 
 
 When they had mounted and he had reined his bay 
 down to the side of her roan, he sat studying her through 
 half -closed, satisfied eyes though he already knew her 
 as the Moslem priest knows the Koran. While they 
 rode in silence he conned the inventory. Slim upright- 
 ness like the strength of a young poplar; eyes that 
 played the whole color-gamut between violet and slate- 
 gray, as does the Mediterranean under sun and cloud- 
 bank; lips that in repose hinted at melancholy and 
 that broke into magic with a smile. Then there was 
 the suggestion of a thought-furrow between the brows 
 and a chin delicately chiseled, but resolute and fascinat- 
 ingly uptilted.
 
 12 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 It was a face that triumphed over mere prettiness 
 with hints of challenging qualities; with individuality, 
 with possibilities of purpose, with glints of merry humor 
 and unspoken sadness; with deep-sleeping potentiality 
 for passion ; with a hundred charming whimsicalities. 
 
 The eyes were just now fixed on the burning beauty 
 of the sunset and the thought-furpow was delicately 
 accentuated. She drew a long, deep breath and, letting 
 the reins drop, stretched out both arms toward the 
 splendor of the sky-line. 
 
 " It is so beautiful so beautiful ! " she cried, with 
 the rapture of a child, " and it all spells Freedom. I 
 should like to be the freest thing that has life under 
 heaven. What is the freest thing in the world? " 
 
 She turned her face on him with the question, and 
 her eyes widened after a way they had until they 
 seemed to be searching far out in the fields of untalked- 
 of things, and seeing there something that clouded them 
 with disquietude. 
 
 " I should like to be a man," she went on, " a man 
 and a hobo." The furrow vanished and the eyes sud- 
 denly went dancing. " That is what I should like to 
 be a hobo with a tomato-can and a fire beside the 
 railroad-track." 
 
 The man said nothing, and she looked up to encounter 
 a steady gaze from eyes somewhat puzzled. 
 
 His pupils held a note of pained seriousness, and her
 
 AN OMEN IS CONSTRUED 13 
 
 voict became responsively vibrant as sht leaned forward 
 with answering gravity in her own. 
 
 " What is it? " she questioned. " You are troubled." 
 
 He looked away beyond her to the pine-topped hills, 
 which seemed to be marching with lances and ragged 
 pennants, against the orange field of the sky. Then 
 his glance came again to her face. 
 
 " They call me the Shadow," he said slowly. " You 
 know whose shadow that means. These weeks have 
 made us comrades, and I am jealous because you are 
 the sum of two girls, and I know only one of them. 
 I am jealous of the other girl at home in Europe. I 
 am jealous that I don't know why you, who are seem- 
 ingly subject only to your own fancy, should crave the 
 freedom of the hobo by the railroad track." 
 
 She bent forward to adjust a twisted martingale, 
 and for a moment her face was averted. In her hidden 
 eyes at that moment, there was deep suffering, but when 
 she straightened up she was smiling. 
 
 "There is nothing that you shall not know. But 
 not yet not yet ! After all, perhaps it's only that 
 in another incarnation I was a vagrant bee and I'm 
 homesick for its irresponsibility." 
 
 " At all events " he spoke with an access of boyish 
 enthusiasm " I ' thank whatever gods may be ' that 
 I have known you as I have. I'm glad that we 
 have not just been idly rich together. Why, Cara, do
 
 14 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 you remember the day we lost our way in the far 
 woods, and I foraged corn, and you scrambled stolen 
 eggs? We were forest folk that day; primitive as 
 in the years when things were young and the best 
 families kept house in caves." 
 
 The girl nodded. " I approve of my shadow," she 
 affirmed. 
 
 The smile of enthusiasm died on his face and some- 
 thing like a scowl came there. 
 
 "The chief trouble," he said, "is that altogether 
 too decent brute, Pagratide. I don't like double 
 shadows; they usually stand for confused lights." 
 
 "Are you jealous of Pagratide?" she laughed. 
 " He pretends to have a similar sentiment for you." 
 
 "Well," he conceded, laughing in spite of himself, 
 " it does seem that when a European girl deigns to 
 play a while with her American cousins, Europe might 
 stay on its own side of the pond. This Pagratide is 
 a commuter over the Northern Ocean track. He 
 harasses the Atlantic with his goings and comings." 
 
 "The Atlantic?" she echoed mockingly. 
 
 " Possibly I was too modest," he amended. " I mean 
 me and the Atlantic particularly me." 
 
 From around the curve of the road sounded a tem- 
 pered shout. The girl laughed. 
 
 " You seem to have summoned him out of space," she 
 suggested.
 
 AN OMEN IS CONSTRUED 15 
 
 The man growled. " The local from Europe appears 
 to have arrived." He gathered in his reins with an 
 almost vicious jerk which brought the bay's head up 
 with a snort of remonstrance. 
 
 A horseman appeared at the turn of the road. Wav- 
 ing his hat, he put spurs to his mount and came forward 
 at a gallop. The newcomer rode with military upright- 
 ness, softened by the informal ease of the polo-player. 
 Even at the distance, which his horse was lessening under 
 the insistent pressure of his heels, one could note a boy- 
 ish charm in the frankness of his smile and an eagerness 
 in his eyes. 
 
 "I have been searching for you for centuries at 
 least," he shouted, with a pleasantly foreign accent, 
 which was rather a nicety than a fault of enunciation, 
 " but the quest is amply rewarded ! " 
 
 He wheeled his horse to the left with a precision that 
 again bespoke the cavalryman, and bending over the 
 girl's gauntleted hand, kissed her fingers in a manner 
 that added to something of ceremonious flourish much 
 more of individual homage. Her smile of greeting was 
 cordial, but a degree short of enthusiasm. 
 
 " I thought " she hesitated. " I thought you were 
 on the other side." 
 
 The newcomer's laugh showed a glistening line of the 
 whitest teeth under a closely-cropped dark mustache. 
 
 " I have run away," he declared. " My honored
 
 16 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 father is, of course, furious, but Europe was desolate 
 and so " He shrugged his shoulders. Then, 
 noting Benton's half-amused, half-annoyed smile, he 
 bowed and saluted. "Ah, Benton," he said. "How 
 are you? I see that your eyes resent foreign invasion." 
 
 Benton raised his brows in simulated astonishment. 
 "Are you still foreign?" he inquired. "I thought 
 perhaps you had taken out your first citizenship 
 papers." 
 
 "But you?" Pagratide turned to the girl with 
 something of entreaty. " Will you not give me your 
 welcome?" 
 
 In the distance loomed the tile roofs and tall chimneys 
 of "Idle Times." Between stretched a level sweep 
 of road. 
 
 " You didn't ask permission," she replied, with a 
 touch of disquiet in her pupils. " When a woman is 
 asked to extend a welcome, she must be given time to 
 prepare it. I ran away from Europe, you know, and 
 after all you are a part of Europe." 
 
 She shook out her reins, bending forward over the 
 roan's neck, and with a clatter of gravel under their 
 twelve hoofs, the horses burst forward in a sudden 
 neck and neck dash, toward the patch of red roofs set 
 in a mosaic of Autumn woods.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BENTON PLAYS MAGICIAN 
 
 TN the large living-room, Van Bristow, the master of 
 * " Idle Times," had expressed his tastes. Here in 
 the almost severe wainscoting, in inglenook and chim- 
 ney-corner, one found the index to his fancy. It was 
 his fancy which had dictated that the broad windows, 
 with sills at the level of the floor, should not command 
 the formal terraces and lawns of a landscape-gardener's 
 devising, but should give exit instead upon a strip of 
 rugged nature, where the murmur of the creek came up 
 through unaltered foliage and underbrush. 
 
 Shortening their entrance through one of the win- 
 dows, the trio found their host, already in evening dress. 
 Bristow was idling on the hearth with no more imme- 
 diate concern than a cigarette and the enjoyment of the 
 crackling logs, unspoiled by other light. 
 
 As the clatter of boots and spurs announced their 
 coming, Van glanced up and schooled his face into a 
 very fair counterfeit of severity. 
 
 " Lucky we don't make our people ring in on the 
 clock," he observed. " You three would be docked." 
 17
 
 18 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 The girl stood in the red glow of the hearth, slowly 
 drawing off her riding-gauntlets. 
 
 Pagratide went to the table in search of cigarettes 
 and matches, and as the light there was dim, the host 
 joined him and laid a hand readily enough upon the 
 brass case for which the other was fumbling. As he 
 held a light to his guest's cigarette, he bent over and 
 spoke in a guarded undertone. Benton noticed in the 
 brief flare that the visitor's face mirrored sudden sur- 
 prise. 
 
 " Colonel Von Ritz is here," confided Bristow. " Ar- 
 rived by the next train after you and was for posting 
 off in search of you instanter. He acted very much 
 like a summons-server or a bailiff. He's ensconced in 
 rooms adjoining yours. You might look in on him 
 as you go up to dress. He seems to be in the very 
 devil of a hurry." 
 
 Pagratide's brows went up in evident annoyance and 
 for an instant there was a defiant stiffening of his 
 jaw, but when he spoke his voice held neither excite- 
 ment nor surprise. 
 
 " Ah, indeed ! " The exclamation was casual. He 
 watched the glowing end of his cigarette for a moment, 
 then magnanimously added : " However, since he has 
 followed across three thousand miles, I had better see 
 him." 
 
 The host turned to the girl. " I'm borrowing this
 
 BENTON PLAYS MAGICIAN 19 
 
 young man until dinner," he vouchsafed as he led 
 Pagratide to the door. 
 
 Cara stood watching the two as they passed into the 
 hall; then her face changed suddenly as though she 
 had been leaving a stage and had laid aside a part 
 abandoning a semblance which it was no longer 
 necessary to maintain. A pained droop came to the 
 corners of her lips and she dropped wearily into the 
 broad oak seat of the inglenook. There she sat, with 
 her chin propped on her hands, elbows on her knees, 
 and gazed silently at the logs. 
 
 " Why did they have to come just now and spoil my 
 holiday?" 
 
 She spoke as though unconscious that her musings 
 were finding voice, and the half-whispered words were 
 wistful. Benton took a step nearer and bent impul- 
 sively forward. 
 
 " What is it? " he anxiously questioned. 
 
 She only looked intently into the coals with trouble- 
 clouded eyes and shook her head. He could not tell 
 whether in response to his words or to some thought of 
 her own. 
 
 Dropping on one knee at her feet, he gently cov- 
 ered her hands with his own. He could feel the deli- 
 cate play of her breath on his forehead. 
 
 " Cara," he whispered, what is it, dear? " 
 
 She started, and with a spasmodic movement caught
 
 gO THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 one of his hands, for an instant pressing it in her own, 
 then, rising, she shook her head with a gesture of the 
 fingers at the temples as though she would brush away 
 cobwebs that enmeshed and fogged the brain. 
 
 " Nothing, boy." Her smile was somewhat wistful. 
 " Nothing but silly imaginings." She laughed and 
 when she spoke again her voice was as light as if her 
 world held only triviality and laughter. " Yet there be 
 important things to decide. What shall I wear for 
 dinner? " 
 
 " It's such a hard question," he demurred. " I like 
 you best in so many things, but the queen can do no 
 wrong make no mistake." 
 
 A sudden shadow of pain crossed her eyes, and she 
 caught her lower lip sharply between her teeth. 
 
 " Was it something I said? " he demanded. 
 
 " Nothing," she answered slowly. " Only don't say 
 that again, ever * the queen can do no wrong.' Now, 
 I must go." 
 
 She rose and turned toward the door, then suddenly 
 carrying one hand to her eyes, she took a single un- 
 steady step and swayed as though she would fall. In- 
 stantly his arms were around her and for a moment he 
 could feel, in its wild fluttering, her heart against the 
 red breast of his hunting-coat. 
 
 Her laugh was a little shaken as she drew away from
 
 BENTON PLAYS MAGICIAN 21 
 
 him and stood, still a trifle unsteady. Her voice was 
 surcharged with self-contempt. 
 
 " Sir Gray Eyes, I I ask you to believe that I don't 
 habitually fall about into people's arms. I'm devel- 
 oping nerves there is a white feather in my moral 
 and mental plumage." 
 
 He looked at her with grave eyes, from which he 
 sternly banished all questioning and remained silent. 
 
 They passed out into the hall and, at the foot of the 
 stairs where their ways diverged, she paused to look 
 back at him with an unclouded smile. 
 
 " You have not told me what to wear." 
 
 His eyes were as steady as her own. " You will please 
 wear the black gown with the shimmery things all over 
 it. I can't describe it, but I can remember it. And a 
 single red rose," he judiciously added. 
 
 " 'Tis October and the florists are fifty miles away," 
 she demurred. " It would take a magician's wand to 
 produce the red rose." 
 
 " I noticed a funny looking thing among my golf 
 sticks," he remembered. " It is a little bit like a niblick, 
 but it may be a magic wand in disguise. You wear the 
 black gown and trust to providence for the red rose." 
 
 She threw back a laugh and was gone. 
 
 When she disappeared at the turning, he wheeled and 
 went to the "bachelors' barracks," as the master of
 
 22 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " Idle Times " dubbed the wing where the unmarried 
 men were quartered. 
 
 Two suites next adjoining the room allotted to Ben- 
 ton had been unoccupied when he had gone out that 
 forenoon. Between his quarters and these erstwhile 
 vacant ones lay a room forming a sort of buffer space. 
 Here a sideboard, a card-table, and desk made the 
 " neutral zone," as Van called it, available for his guests 
 as a territory either separating or connecting their in- 
 dividual chambers. 
 
 Now a blaze of transoms and a sound of voices pro- 
 claimed that the apartments were tenanted. Benton 
 entered his own unlighted room, and then with his hand 
 at the electric switch halted in embarrassment. 
 
 The folding-doors between his apartment and the 
 " neutral territory " stood wide, and the attitudes and 
 voices of the two men he saw there indicated their in- 
 terview to be one in which outsiders should have no 
 concern. To switch on the light would be to declare 
 himself a witness to a part at least; to remain would 
 be to become unwilling auditor to more; to open the 
 door he had just closed behind him would also be to 
 attract attention to himself. He paused in momentary 
 uncertainty. 
 
 One of the men was Pagratide, transformed by 
 anger; seemingly taller, darker, lither. The second 
 man stood calm, immobile, with his arms crossed on
 
 BENTON PLAYS MAGICIAN 23 
 
 his breast, bending an impassive glance on the other 
 from singularly steady eyes. His six feet of well- 
 proportioned stature just missed an exaggeration of 
 soldierly bearing. 
 
 The unwavering mouth-line; level, dark brows almost 
 meeting over unflinching gray eyes ; the uncurved nose 
 and commanding forehead were in concert with the 
 clean, almost lean sweep of the jaw, in spelling force for 
 field or council. 
 
 " Am I a brigand, Von Ritz, to be harassed by police ? 
 Answer me am I? " Pagratide spoke in a tempest of 
 anger. He halted before the other man, his hands 
 twitching in fury. 
 
 Von Ritz remained as motionless, apparently as 
 mildly interested, as though he were listening to the 
 screaming of a parrot. 
 
 " My orders were explicit." His words fell icily. 
 " They were the orders of His Majesty's government. 
 I shall obey them. I beg pardon, I shall attempt to 
 obey them ; and thus far my attempts to serve His 
 Majesty have not encountered failure. I should pre- 
 fer not having to call on the ambassador or the 
 American secret service." 
 
 "By God! If I had a sword" breathed Pagra- 
 tide. His fury had gone through heat to cold, and his 
 attitude was that of a man denied the opportunity of 
 resenting a mortal affront.
 
 24 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Von Ritz coolly inclined his head, indicating the 
 heaped-up luggage on the table between them. Other- 
 wise he did not move. 
 
 "The stick there, on the table, is a sword-cane," 
 he commented. 
 
 Pagratide stood unmoving. 
 
 The other waited a moment, almost deferentially, 
 then went on with calm deliberation. 
 
 " You left your regiment without leave, captain. 
 One might almost call that " Then Benton remem- 
 bered an auxiliary door at the back of his apartment 
 and made his escape unnoticed. 
 
 A half hour later, changed from boots and breeches 
 into evening dress, Benton was opening a long pack- 
 age which bore the name of his florist in town. In 
 another moment he had spread a profusion of roses on 
 his table and stood bending over them with the critically 
 selective gaze of a Paris. 
 
 When he had made the choice of one, he carefully 
 pared every thorn from its long stem. Then he went 
 out through the rear of the hall to a stairway at the 
 back. 
 
 He knew of a window-seat above, where he could 
 wait in concealment behind a screening mass of potted 
 palms to rise out of his ambush and intercept Cara 
 as she came into the hall. It pleased him to regard 
 himself as a genie, materializing out of emptiness to
 
 BENTON PLAYS MAGICIAN 25 
 
 present the rose which she had chosen to declare unob- 
 tainable. 
 
 In the shadowed recess he ensconced himself with 
 his knees drawn up and the flower twirling idly be- 
 tween his fingers. 
 
 For a while he measured his vigil only by the ticking 
 of a clock somewhere out of sight, then he heard a quiet 
 footfall on the hardwood, and through the fronds of 
 the plants he saw a man's figure pace slowly by. The 
 broad shoulders and the lancelike carriage proclaimed 
 Von Ritz even before the downcast face was raised. At 
 Cara's door the European wheeled uncertainly and 
 paused. Because something vague and subconscious in 
 Benton's mind had catalogued this man as a harbinger 
 of trouble and branded him with distrust, his own eyes 
 contracted and the rose ceased twirling. 
 
 Just then the door of Cara's room opened and closed, 
 and the slender figure of the girl stood out in the sil- 
 houette of her black evening gown against the white 
 woodwork. Her eyes widened and she paled percepti- 
 bly. For an instant, she caught her lower lip between 
 her teeth ; but she did not, by start or other overt mani- 
 festation, give sign of surprise. She only inclined 
 her head in greeting, and waited for Von Ritz to 
 speak. 
 
 He bowed low, and his manner was ceremonious. 
 
 " You do not like me " He smiled, pausing as
 
 26 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 though in doubt as to what form of address he should 
 employ ; then he asked : " What shall I call you ? " 
 
 " Miss Carstow," she prompted, in a voice that seemed 
 to raise a quarantine flag above him. 
 
 " Certainly, Miss Carstow," he continued gravety. 
 " Time has elapsed since the days of your pinafores 
 and braids, when I was honored with the sobriquet of 
 ' Soldier-man ' and you were the ' Little Empress.' " 
 
 His voice was one that would have lent itself to elo- 
 quence. Now its even modulation carried a sort of cold 
 charm. 
 
 " You do not like me,'* he repeated. 
 
 " I don't know," she answered simply. " I hadn't 
 thought about it. I was surprised." 
 
 " Naturally." He contemplated her with grave eyes 
 that seemed to admit no play of expression. " I came 
 only to ask an interview later. At any time that may 
 be most agreeable Pardon me," he interrupted 
 himself with a certain cynical humor in his voice, " at 
 any time, I should say, that may be least disagreeable 
 to you." 
 
 " I will tell you later," she said. He bowed himself 
 backward, then turning on his heel went silently down 
 the stairs. 
 
 She stood hesitant for a moment, with both hands 
 pressed against the door at her back, and her brow 
 drawn in a deep furrow, then she threw her chin upward
 
 BENTON PLAYS MAGICIAN 27 
 
 and shook her head with that resolute gesture which 
 meant, with her, shaking off at least the outward seem- 
 ing of annoyance. 
 
 Benton came out from his hiding-place behind the 
 palms, and she looked up at him with a momentary 
 clearing of her brow. 
 
 " Where were you? " she asked. 
 
 " I unintentionally played eavesdropper," he said 
 humbly, handing her the rose. " I was lying in wait 
 to decorate you." 
 
 "It is wonderful," she exclaimed. "I think it is 
 the wonderfulest rose that any little girl ever had for 
 a magic gift." She held it for a moment, softly against 
 her cheek. 
 
 He bent forward. " Cara ! " he whispered. No an- 
 swer. " Cara ! " he repeated 
 
 "Yeth, thir," she lisped in a whimsical little-girl 
 voice, looking up with a smile stolen from a fairy-tale. 
 
 " I am just lending you that rose. I had meant to 
 give it to you, but now I want it back when you 
 are through with it. May I have it? " 
 
 She held it out teasingly. " Do you want it now 
 Indian-giver? " she demanded. 
 
 " You know I don't," in an injured tone. 
 
 "I'm glad, because you couldn't have it yet." 
 And she was gone, leaving him to make his appearance 
 from the direction of his own apartments.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE MOON OVERHEARS 
 
 AT dinner the talk ran for a course or two with 
 the hounds, then strayed aimlessly into a dozen 
 discursive channels. 
 
 " My boy," whispered Mrs. Van from her end of 
 the table, to Pagratide on her right, " I relinquish you 
 to the girl on your other side. You have made a very 
 brave effort to talk to me. Ah, I know " raising a 
 slender hand to still his polite remonstrance " there is 
 no Cara but Cara, and Pagratide is " She let her 
 mischief-laden smile finish the comment. 
 
 " Her satellite," he confessed. 
 
 " One of them," she wickedly corrected him. 
 
 The foreigner turned his head and nodded gravely. 
 Cara was listening to something that Benton was say- 
 ing in undertone, her lips parted in an amused smile. 
 
 Through a momentary lull as the coffee came, rose 
 the voice of O*Barreton, the bore, near the head of the 
 table ; O'Barreton, who must be tolerated because as a 
 master of hounds he had no superior and a bare 
 quorum of equals. 
 
 " For my part," he was saying, " I confess an aug- 
 28
 
 THE MOON OVERHEARS 29 
 
 mented admiration for Van because he's distantly re- 
 lated to near-royalty. If that be snobbish, make the 
 most of it." 
 
 Van laughed. "Related to royalty?" he scornfully 
 repeated. " Am I not myself a sovereign with the right 
 on election day to stand in line behind my chauffeur and 
 stable-boys at the voting-place? " 
 
 " How did it happen, Van ? How did you acquire 
 your gorgeous relatives?" persisted O'Barreton. 
 
 " Some day I'll tell you all about it. Do you think 
 the Elkridge hounds will run " 
 
 " I addressed a question to you. That question is 
 still before the house," interrupted O'Barreton, with 
 dignity. " How did you acquire 'em ? " 
 
 " Inherited 'em ! " snapped Van, but O'Barreton was 
 not to be turned aside. 
 
 " Quite true and quite epigrammatic," he persisted 
 sweetly. "But how?" 
 
 Van turned to the rest of the table. "You don't 
 have to listen to this," he said in despair. " I have to 
 go through it with O'Barreton every time he comes 
 here. It's a sort of ritual." Then, turning to the tor- 
 menting guest, he explained carefully : " Once upon 
 a time the Earl of Dundredge had three daughters. 
 The eldest my mother married an American hus- 
 band. The second married an Englishman she is the 
 mother of my fair cousin, Cara, there ; the third and
 
 SO THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 youngest married the third son of the Grand Duke of 
 Maritzburg, at that time a quiet gentleman who loved 
 the Champs Elysees and landscape-painting in South- 
 ern Spain." 
 
 Van traced a family-tree on the tablecloth with a salt- 
 spoon, for his guest's better information. 
 
 " That doesn't enlighten me on the semi-royal status 
 of your Aunt Maritzburg," objected O'Barreton. 
 " How did she grow so great ? " 
 
 " Vicissitudes, Barry," explained the host patiently. 
 " Just vicissitudes. The father and the two elder 
 brothers died off and left the third son to assume the 
 government of a grand duchy, which he did not want, 
 and compelled him to relinquish the mahl-stick and 
 brushes which he loved. My aunt was his grand- 
 duchess-consort, and until her death occupied with him 
 the ducal throne. If you'd look these things up for 
 yourself, my son, in some European ' Who's Who,' you'd 
 remember 'em and save me much trouble." 
 
 After dinner Cara disappeared, and Benton wan- 
 dered from room to room with a seemingly purposeless 
 eye, keenly alert for a black gown, a red rose, and a 
 girl whom he could not find. Von Ritz also was miss- 
 ing, and this fact added to his anxiety. 
 
 In the conservatory he came upon Pagratide, likewise 
 stalking about with restlessly roving eyes, like a hunter 
 searching a jungle. The foreigner paused with one
 
 THE MOON OVERHEARS 31 
 
 foot tapping the marble rim of a small fountain, and 
 Benton passed with a nod. 
 
 The evening went by without her reappearance, and 
 finally the house darkened, and settled into quiet. 
 Benton sought the open, driven by a restlessness that 
 obsessed and troubled him. A fitful breeze brought 
 down the dead leaves in swirling eddies. The moon was 
 under a cloud-bank when, a quarter of a mile from the 
 house, he left the smooth lawns and plunged among the 
 vine-clad trees and thickets that rimmed the creek. In 
 the darkness, he could hear the low, wild plaint with 
 which the stream tossed itself over the rocks that cum- 
 bered its bed. 
 
 Beyond the thicket he came again to a more open 
 space among the trees, free from underbrush, but 
 strewn at intervals with great bowlders. He picked his 
 way cautiously, mindful of crevices where a broken leg 
 or worse might be the penalty of a misstep in the dark- 
 ness. The humor seized him to sit on a great rock 
 which dropped down twenty feet to the creek bed, and 
 listen to the quieting music of its night song. His 
 eyes, grown somewhat accustomed to the darkness, had 
 been blinded again by the match he had just struck to 
 light a cigarette, and he walked, as it behooved him, 
 carefully and gropingly. 
 
 " Please, sir, don't step on me." 
 
 Benton halted with a start and stared confusedly
 
 32 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 about him. A ripple of low laughter came to his ears 
 as he widened his pupils in the effort to accommodate 
 his eyes to the murk. Then the moon broke out once 
 more and the place became one of silver light and dark, 
 soft shadow-blots. She was sitting with her back 
 against a tree, her knees gathered between her arms, 
 fingers interlocked. She had thrown a long, rough 
 cape about her, but it had fallen open, leaving visible 
 the black gown and a spot he knew to be a red rose on 
 her breast. 
 
 He stood looking down, and she smiled up. 
 
 " Cara ! " he exclaimed. " What are you doing here 
 alone?" 
 
 " Seeking freedom," she responded calmly. " It's 
 not so good as the hobo's fire beside the track, but it's 
 better than four walls. The moon has been wonderful, 
 Sir Gray Eyes as bright and dark as life ; radiant a 
 little while and hidden behind clouds a great deal. And 
 the wind has been whispering like a troubadour to the 
 tree-tops." 
 
 " And you," he interrupted severely, dropping on 
 the earth at her feet and propping himself on one 
 elbow, " have been sitting in the chilling air, with your 
 throat uncovered and probably catching cold." 
 
 " What a matter-of-fact person it is ! " she laughed. 
 " I didn't appoint you my physician, you know."
 
 PLEASE, SIR, DON'T STEP ON ME.'
 
 THE MOON OVERHEARS 33 
 
 " But your coming alone out here in these woods, 
 and so late ! " he expostulated. 
 
 " Why not? " She looked frankly up at him. " I 
 am not afraid." 
 
 " I am afraid for you." He spoke seriously. 
 
 " Why ? " she inquired again. 
 
 He knelt beside her, looking directly into her eyes. 
 " For many reasons," he said. " But above all else, be- 
 cause I love you." 
 
 The fingers of her clasped hands tightened until they 
 strained, and she looked straight away across the clear- 
 ing. The moon was bright now, and the thought-fur- 
 row showed deep between her brows, but she said 
 nothing. 
 
 The tree-tops whispered, and the girl shivered 
 slightly. He bent forward and folded the cape across 
 her throat. Still she did not move. 
 
 " Cara, I love you," he repeated insistently. 
 
 " Don't I can't listen." Her voice was one of 
 forced calm. Then, turning suddenly, she laid her 
 hand on his arm. It trembled violently under her 
 touch. " And, oh, boy," she broke out, with a voice 
 of pent-up vibrance, " don't you see how I want to listen 
 to you? " 
 
 He bent forward until he was very close, and his tone 
 was almost fierce in its tense eagerness.
 
 34. THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 "You want to! Why?" 
 
 Again a tremor seized her, then with the sudden 
 abandon of one who surrenders to an impulse stronger 
 than one's self, she leaned forward and placed a hand 
 on each of his shoulders, clutching him almost wildly. 
 Her eyes glowed close to his own. 
 
 " Because I love you, too," she said. Then, with a 
 break in her voice : " Oh, you knew that ! Why did 
 you make me say it? " 
 
 While the stars seemed to break out in a chorus above 
 him, he found his arms about her, and was vaguely con- 
 scious that his lips were smothering some words her 
 lipg were trying to shape. Words seemed to him just 
 then so superfluous. 
 
 There was a tumult of pounding pulses in his veins, 
 responsive to the fluttering heart which beat back of a 
 crushed rose in the lithe being he held in his arms. Then 
 he obeyed the pressure of the hands on his shoulders 
 and released her. 
 
 " Why should you find it so hard to say ? " he 
 asked. 
 
 She sat for a moment with her hands covering her 
 face. 
 
 " You must never do that again," she said faintly. 
 " You have not the right. I have not the right." 
 
 " I have the only right," he announced trium- 
 phantly.
 
 THE MOON OVERHEARS 35 
 
 She shook her head. " Not when the girl is en- 
 
 She looked at him with a sad droop at the corners of 
 her lips. He sat silent waiting. 
 
 " Listen ! " She spoke wearily, rising and leaning 
 against the rough bole of the tree at her back, with 
 both hands tightly clasped behind her. " Listen and 
 don't interrupt, because it's hard, and I want to finish 
 it." Her words came slowly with labored calm, almost 
 as if she were reciting memorized lines. " It sounds 
 simple from your point of view. It is simple from mine, 
 but desperately hard. Love is not the only thing. To 
 some of us there is something else that must come first. 
 I am engaged, and I shall marry the man to whom I 
 am engaged. Not because I want to, but because 
 her chin went up with the determination that was in her 
 " because I must." 
 
 " What kind of man will ask you to keep a promise 
 that your heart repudiates? " he hotly demanded. 
 
 " He knew that I loved you before you knew it," she 
 answered ; " that I would always love you that I 
 would never love him. Besides, he must do it. After 
 all, it's fortunate that he wants to." She tried to 
 laugh. 
 
 "Is his name Pagratide? " The man mechanically 
 drew his handkerchief from his cuff, and wiped beads 
 of cold moisture from his forehead.
 
 36 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 The girl shook her head. " No, his name is not 
 Pagratide." 
 
 He took a step nearer, but she raised a hand to wave 
 him back, and he bowed his submission. 
 
 " You love me you are certain of that ? " he whis- 
 pered. 
 
 "Do you doubt it?" 
 
 " No," he said, " I don't doubt it." 
 
 Again he pressed the handkerchief to his forehead, 
 and in the silvering radiance of the moonlight she could 
 see the outstanding tracery of the arteries on his 
 temples. 
 
 Instantly she flung both arms about his neck. 
 
 " Don't ! " she cried passionately. " Don't look like 
 that! You will kill me!" 
 
 He smiled. " Under such treatment, I shall look pre- 
 cisely as you say," he acquiesced. 
 
 " Listen, dear." She was talking rapidly, wildly, her 
 arms still about his neck. " There are two miserable 
 little kingdoms over there. . . . Horrible little 
 two-by-four principalities, that fit into the map of 
 Europe like little, ragged chips in a mosaic. 
 Cousin Van lied in there to protect my disguise. 
 It is my father who is the Grand Duke of Maritzburg, 
 and it is ordained that I shall marry Prince Karyl 
 of Galavia. It was Von Ritz's mission to re-
 
 THE MOON OVERHEARS 37 
 
 mind me of my slavery." Her voice rose in sudden 
 protest. " Every peasant girl in the vineyards may 
 select her own lover, but I must be awarded by the 
 crowned heads of the real kingdoms like a prize 
 in a lottery. Do you wonder that I have run away 
 and masqueraded for a taste of freedom before the 
 end? Do you wonder" the head came down on his 
 shoulder " that I want to be a hobo with a tomato- 
 can and a fire of deadwood? " 
 
 He kissed her hair. " Are you crying, Cara, dear? " 
 he asked softly. 
 
 Her head came up. " I never cry," she answered. 
 " Do you believe there are more lives other incarna- 
 tions that I may yet live to be a butterfly or a 
 vagrant bee? " 
 
 " I believe " his voice was firm " I believe you 
 are not Queen of Galavia yet by a good bit. There's 
 a fairly husky American anarchist in this game, dear- 
 est, who has designs on that dynasty." 
 
 "Don't!" she begged. "Don't you see that I 
 wouldn't let them force me? It is that I see the inexora- 
 ble call of it, as my father saw it when he left his studio 
 in Paris for a throne that meant only unhappiness 
 as you would see it, if your country called for volun- 
 teers." 
 
 He bowed his head. For a moment neither spoke.
 
 38 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Then she took the rose from her breast and kissed 
 it. 
 
 " Sir Knight of the Red Rose," she said, with a piti- 
 fully forced smile. " I don't want to give it back 
 ever. I want to keep it always." 
 
 He took her in his arms, and she offered no protest. 
 
 " To-morrow is to-morrow," he said. " To-day you 
 are mine. I love you." 
 
 She took his head between her palms and drew his 
 face down. " I shall never do this with anyone else," 
 she said slowly, kissing his forehead. " I love you." 
 
 Slowly they turned together toward the house. 
 
 " I like your cavalryman, Pagratide," he said 
 thoughtfully. His mind had suddenly recurred to the 
 scene in the foreigner's room, and he thought he began 
 to understand. " He is a man. He dares to challenge 
 royal wrath by venturing his love in the lists against 
 his prince." 
 
 " I wish he had not come," she said slowly. 
 
 " But you don't love him? " he demanded with sudden 
 unreasoning jealousy. 
 
 " I love just, only, solely, you, Mr. Monopoly," 
 she replied. 
 
 At the door they paused. There was complete silence 
 save for a clock striking two and the distant crowing 
 of a cock. The pause belonged to them their mo- 
 ment of reprieve.
 
 THE MOON OVERHEARS 39 
 
 At last she said quietly : " But you are stupid not 
 to guess it." 
 
 " Guess what? " he inquired. 
 
 " There is no Pagratide. Pagratide's real name is 
 Karyl of Galavia."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE DOCTRINE ACCORDING TO JONEST 
 
 F the living-room at "Idle Times" bore the im- 
 * press of Van Bristow's individuality and taste, his 
 den was the tangible setting of his personality. 
 
 His marriage had, only eighteen months before, cut 
 his life sharply with the boundary of an epoch. The 
 den bore something of the atmosphere of a museum 
 dedicated to past eras. It was crowded with useless 
 junk that stood for divers memories and much wan- 
 dering. Many of the pictures that cumbered the walls 
 were redolent of the atmosphere of overseas. 
 
 There were photographs wherein the master of " Idle 
 Times " and Mr. George Benton appeared together, 
 ranging from ancient football days to snapshots of a 
 mountain-climbing expedition in the Andes, dated only 
 two years back. 
 
 It was into this sanctum that Benton clanked, booted 
 and spurred, early the following morning. 
 
 Ostensibly Van was looking over business letters, but 
 there was a trace of wander-lust in the eyes that strayed 
 off with dreamy truancy beyond the tree-tops. 
 40
 
 ACCORDING TO JONESY 41 
 
 Benton planted himself before his host with folded 
 arms, and stood looking down almost accusingly into 
 the face of his old friend. 
 
 " Whenever I have anything particularly unpleasant 
 to do," began the guest, " I do it quick. That's why 
 I'm here now." 
 
 Van Bristow looked up, mildly astonished. 
 
 During a decade of intimacy these two men had 
 joyously, affectionately and consistently insulted each 
 other on all possible occasions. Now, however, there 
 was a certain purposeful ring in Benton's voice which 
 told the other this was quite different from the time- 
 honored affectation of slander. Consequently his de- 
 mand for further enlightenment came with terse direct- 
 ness. 
 
 Benton nodded and a defiant glint came to his pupils. 
 
 " I come to serve notice," he announced briefly, " of 
 something I mean to do." 
 
 Van took the pipe from his mouth and regarded it 
 with concentrated attention, while his friend went on 
 in carefully gauged voice. 
 
 " I am here," he explained, " as a guest in your 
 house. I mean to make war on certain plans and ar- 
 rangements which presumably have your sympathy and 
 support and I mean to make the hardest war I know." 
 He paused, but as Van gave no indication of cutting 
 in, he went on in aggressive announcement. " What
 
 42 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 I mean to do is my business mine and a girl's 
 but since she is your kinswoman and this is your place, 
 it wouldn't be quite fair to begin without warning." 
 
 For a time Bristow's attitude remained that of deep 
 and silent reflection. Finally he knocked the ashes 
 from his pipe and came over until he stood directly 
 confronting Benton. 
 
 " So she has told you ? " was his brief question at 
 last. 
 
 The other nodded. 
 
 The master of " Idle Times " paced thoughtfully up 
 and down the room. When at length he stopped it was 
 to clap his hand on his class-mate's shoulder. 
 
 " George," he said, with a voice hardened to edit 
 down the note of sympathy that threatened it, " you 
 seem to start out with the assumption that I am against 
 you. Get that out of your head. Cara has hungered 
 for freedom. We've felt that she had the right to, 
 at least, her little intervals of recess. It happened that 
 she could have them here. Here she could be Miss 
 Carstow and cease to be Cara of Maritzburg. I 
 am sorry if you and she must pay for these va- 
 cations with your happiness. I see now that people 
 who are sentenced to imprisonment, should not play with 
 liberty." 
 
 " She is not going to play with liberty," declared 
 Benton categorically. " She is going to have it. She
 
 ACCORDING TO JONESY 48 
 
 is going to have for the rest of her life just what she 
 wants." He lifted his hand in protest against antici- 
 pated interruption. " I know that you have got to 
 line up with your royal relatives. I know the utter 
 impossibility of what I want but I'm going to win. 
 If you regard me as a burglar, you may turn me out, 
 but you can't stop me." 
 
 " I sha'n't turn you out," mused Van quietly. " I 
 wish you could win. But you are not merely fighting 
 people. You are fighting an idea. It is only for an 
 idea that men and women martyr themselves. With 
 Cara this idea has become morbid an obsession. She 
 has inherited it together with an abnormally developed 
 courage, and her conception of courage is to face what 
 she most hates and fears." 
 
 " But if I can show her that it is a mistaken courage 
 that instead of loyalty it is desertion?" The man 
 spoke with quick eagerness. 
 
 Van shook his head, and his eyes clouded with the 
 gravity of sympathy for a futile resolve. 
 
 " That you can't do. I am an American myself. 
 I'm not policing thrones. To me it seems a monstrous 
 thing that a girl superbly American in everything but 
 the accident of birth should have no chance no oppor- 
 tunity to escape life-imprisonment. It doesn't alto- 
 gether compensate that the prison happens to be a 
 palace."
 
 44 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 For a time neither spoke, then Bristow went on. 
 
 " At the age of five, Cara stood before a mirror 
 and critically surveyed herself. At the end of the 
 scrutiny she turned away with a satisfied sigh. ' I 
 finks I'm lovely,' she announced. At five one is frank. 
 Her verdict has since then been duly and reliably con- 
 firmed by everyone who has known her yet she might 
 as well have been born into unbeautiful, hopeless 
 slavery." 
 
 Benton went to the window and stood moodily look- 
 ing out. Finally he wheeled to demand : " How did 
 the crown of Maritzburg come to your uncle? " 
 
 " When he married my aunt," said Bristow, " he 
 fancied himself safe-guarded from the ducal throne by 
 two older brothers. That's why he was able to choose 
 his own wife. He was dedicated with passionate loyalty 
 to his brushes and paint tubes. He saw before him 
 achievement of that sort. Assassination claimed his 
 father and brothers, and, facing the same peril, he took 
 up the distasteful duties of government. My aunt's 
 life was intolerably shadowed by the terror of violence 
 for him. She died at Cara's birth and the child in- 
 herited all the protest and acceptance so paradoxically 
 bequeathed by her heart-broken mother." 
 
 " Realizing that Cara could not hope to escape a 
 royal marriage, her father looked toward Galavia. 
 There at least the strain was clean . . . untouched
 
 ACCORDING TO JONESY 45 
 
 by degeneracy and untainted with libertinism. Karyl is 
 as decent a chap as yourself. He loves her, and though 
 he knows she accepts him only from compulsion, he 
 believes he can eventually win her love as well as her 
 mere acquiescence. It's all as final as the laws of the 
 Medes and Persians." 
 
 Again there was a long silence. Bristow began to 
 wonder if it was, with his friend, the silence of despair 
 and surrender. At last Benton lifted his face and his 
 jaw was set unyieldingly. 
 
 " Personally," he commented quietly, " I have de- 
 cided otherwise." 
 
 Despite the raw edge on the air, the hardier guests 
 at " Idle Times " still clung to those outdoor sports 
 which properly belonged to the summer. That after- 
 noon a canoeing expedition was made up river to ex- 
 plore a cave which tradition had endowed with some 
 legendary tale of pioneer days and Indian warfare. 
 
 Pagratide, having organized the expedition with 
 that object in view, had made use of his prior knowl- 
 edge to enlist Cara for the crew of his canoe, but Ben- 
 ton, covering a point that Pagratide had overlooked, 
 pointed out that an engagement to go up the river in a 
 canoe is entirely distinct from an engagement to come 
 down the river in a canoe. He cited so many excellent
 
 46 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 authorities in support of his contention that the matter 
 was decided in his favor for the return trip, and Mrs. 
 Porter-Woodleigh, all unconscious that her escort was 
 a Crown Prince, found in him an introspective and 
 altogether uninteresting young man. 
 
 Benton and the girl in one canoe, were soon a quarter 
 of a mile in advance of the others, and lifting their 
 paddles from the water they floated with the slow cur- 
 rent. The singing voices of the party behind them 
 came softly adrift along the water. All of the singers 
 were young and the songs had to do with sentiment. 
 
 The girl buttoned her sweater closer about her throat. 
 The man stuffed tobacco into the bowl of his pipe 
 and bent low to kindle it into a cheerful spot of light. 
 
 A belated lemon afterglow lingered at the edge of 
 the sky ahead. Against it the gaunt branches of a 
 tall tree traced themselves starkly. Below was the 
 silent blackness of the woods. 
 
 Suddenly Benton raised his head. 
 
 " I have a present for you," he announced. 
 
 "A present?" echoed the girl. "Be careful, Sir 
 Gray Eyes. You played the magician once and gave 
 me a rose. It was such a wonderful rose " she spoke 
 almost tenderly, " that it has spoiled me. No com- 
 monplace gift will be tolerated after that." 
 
 " This is a different sort of present," he assured 
 her. " This is a god."
 
 ACCORDING TO JONESY 47 
 
 " A what ! " Cara was at the stern with the guiding 
 paddle. The man leaned back, steadying the canoe with 
 a hand on each gunwale, and smiled into her face. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " he is a god made out of clay 
 with a countenance that is most unlovely and a com- 
 plexion like an earthenware jar. I acquired him in 
 the Andes for a few centavos. Since then we have 
 been companions. In his day he had his place in a 
 splendid temple of the Sun Worshipers. When I res- 
 cued him he was squatting cross-legged on a counter 
 among silver and copper trinkets belonging to a civili- 
 zation younger than his own. When you've been a god 
 and come to be a souvenir of ruins and dead things 
 " the man paused for a moment, then with the ghost 
 of a laugh went on, " it makes you see things dif- 
 ferently. In the twisted squint of his small clay face 
 one reads slight regard for mere systems and codes." 
 
 He paused so long that she prompted him in a voice 
 that threatened to become unsteady. " Tell me more 
 about him. What is his godship's name ? " 
 
 " He looked so protestingly wise," Benton went on, 
 " that I named him Jonesy. I liked that name because 
 it fitted him so badly. Jonesy is not conventional in 
 his ideas, but his morals are sound. He has seen re- 
 ligions and civilizations and dynasties flourish and de- 
 cay, and it has all given him a certain perspective on 
 life. He has occasionally given me good council."
 
 48 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 He paused again, but, noting that the singing voices 
 were drawing nearer, he continued more rapidly. 
 
 " In Alaska I used to lie flat on my cot before a 
 great open fire and his god-ship would perch cross- 
 legged on my chest. When I breathed, he seemed to 
 shake his fat sides and laugh. When a pagan god 
 from Peru laughs at you in a Yukon cabin, the situa- 
 tion calls for attention. I gave attention. 
 
 " Jonesy said that the major human motives sweep 
 in deep channels, full-tide ahead. He said you might 
 in some degree regulate their floods by rearing abut- 
 ments, but that when you try to build a dam to stop 
 the Amazon you are dealing with folly. He argued 
 that when one sets out to dam up the tides set flowing 
 back in the tributaries of the heart it is written that one 
 must fail. That is the gospel according to Jonesy." 
 
 He turned his face to the front and shot the canoe 
 forward. There was silence except for the quiet dip- 
 ping of their paddles, the dripping of the water from 
 the lifted blades, and the song drifting down river. 
 Finally Benton added: 
 
 " I don't know what he will say to you, but per- 
 haps he will give you good advice on those matters 
 which the centuries can't change." 
 
 Cara's voice came soft, with a hint of repressed tears. 
 " He has already given me good advice, dear " she 
 said, " good advice that I can't follow."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 IT IS DECIDED TO MASQUERADE 
 
 rilHE first day of quail-shooting found Van Bris- 
 * tow's guests afield. 
 
 Separated from the others, Benton and Cara came 
 upon a small grove, like an oasis in the stretching acres 
 of stubble. Under a scarlet maple that reared itself 
 skyward all aflame, and shielded by a festooning pro- 
 fusion of wild-grape, a fallen beech-trunk offered an 
 inviting seat. The girl halted and grounded arms. 
 
 The man seated himself at her feet and looked up. 
 He framed a question, then hesitated, fearing the an- 
 swer. Finally he spoke, controlling his voice with an 
 effort. 
 
 " Cara," he questioned, " how long have I? " 
 
 Her eyes widened as if with terror. " A very 
 very little time, dear," she said. " It frightens me to 
 think how little. Then then nothing but memory. 
 Do you realize what it all means?" She leaned for- 
 ward and laid a hand on each of his shoulders. " Just 
 one week more, and after that I shall look out to sea 
 when the sun sinks, red and sullen, into leaden waters 
 and think of of Arcady and you." 
 49
 
 50 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " Don't, Cara ! " He seized her hands and went on 
 talking fast and vehemently. " Listen ! I love you 
 that is not a unique thing. You love me that is the 
 miracle. And because of a distorted idea of duty, our 
 lives must go to wreck. Don't you see the situation 
 is ludicrous intolerable ? You are trying to live a 
 medieval life in a day of wireless telegraph and air 
 ships." 
 
 She nodded. " But what are we going to do about 
 it ? " she questioned simply. 
 
 " Cara, dear if I could find a way ! " he pleaded 
 eagerly. " Suppose I could play the magician ! " 
 
 He rose and stood back of the log. 
 
 She leaned back so that she might look into his 
 eyes. " I wish you could," she mused with infinite 
 weariness. 
 
 He stooped suddenly and kissed the drooping lips 
 with a resentful sense of the monstrous injustice of 
 a scheme of things wherein such lips could droop. 
 
 " No, no, no ! " she cried. " You must not ! I've got 
 to be Queen of Galavia I've got to be his wife." 
 Then, in a quick, half -frightened tone : " Yet when 
 you are with me I can't help it. It's wicked to love 
 you and I do." 
 
 He smiled through the misery of his own frown. 
 "Am I so bad as that?" he questioned. 
 
 " You are so bad " she suddenly caught his hands
 
 IT IS DECIDED TO MASQUERADE 51 
 
 in hers and slowly shook her head " that I don't trust 
 myself on the same side of the road with you. You 
 must go across and sit on that opposite side." She 
 lightly kissed his forehead. " That's a kiss before exile 
 
 now go." 
 
 He measured the distance with disapproving eyes. 
 " That must be fifteen feet away," he protested, " and 
 my arms are not a yard long." He stretched them out, 
 viewing them ruefully. 
 
 " Go ! " she repeated with sternness. 
 
 He obeyed slowly, his face growing sullen. 
 
 " If I am to stay here until I recant what I said 
 about your odious kingdom and your miserable throne, 
 I'll I'll " He cast about for a sufficiently rebel- 
 lious sentiment, then resolutely asserted : " I'll stay here 
 until I rot in my chains." He raised his hands and 
 shook imaginary manacles. " Clink ! Clink ! Clink ! " 
 he added dramatically. 
 
 " You are being punished for being too fascinating 
 to a poor little fool princess who has played truant 
 and who doesn't want to go back to school." She 
 talked on with forced levity. " As for the kingdom," 
 
 once more her eyes became wistful " you may say 
 what you like about it. You can't possibly hate it as 
 much as I. There is no anarchist screaming his ad- 
 herence to the red flag or inventing infernal machines, 
 who hates all thrones as much as the one small girl
 
 52 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 who must needs be Queen of Galavia. No, lese-majeste 
 is not the fault for which you are being punished." 
 
 For a while he was silent, then his voice was raised 
 in exile, almost cheerfully. 
 
 " Destiny is stronger than the paretic councils of 
 little inbred kings. Why, Cara, I can get one good, 
 husky Methodist preacher who can do in five minutes 
 what I hardly think your royalties can undo 
 ever." 
 
 " Oh, don't ! " she stopped him with plaintive appeal. 
 " I know all that. I know it. Don't you realize that 
 the longer the flight into the open blue of the skies, 
 the harder the return to a gilt cage? But, dearest 
 there is such a thing as keeping one's parole. I must 
 go back, unless I am held by a force stronger 
 than I. I must go back. I have been here almost 
 too long." 
 
 " Cara," he said slowly, " I, too, have a sense of duty. 
 It is to you. The open blue of the skies is yours 
 by right divine right. You have nothing to do with 
 cages, gilt or otherwise. My duty is to free you. 
 I mean to do it. I haven't finished thinking it out yet, 
 but I am going to find the way." 
 
 Her answering voice was deeply grave. 
 
 " If you just devise a situation where I shall have 
 to fight it all out again, you will only make it harder 
 for me. I must do what I must do. I could only be
 
 IT. IS DECIDED TO MASQUERADE 53 
 
 rescued by some power stronger than myself. Come, 
 let's go back." 
 
 At dinner that same evening Mrs. Van announced to 
 her guests that " by request of one who should be name- 
 less," punctuating her pledge of secrecy with a pro- 
 nounced glance at Benton, there would be a masquerade 
 affair on the evening before Cara's departure for New 
 York. She said this was to be an informal sort of 
 frolic in fancy dress, and the only requirement would 
 be that every grown-up should for an evening return 
 to childhood. 
 
 On the next morning ensued a hegira from the place, 
 the object whereof was guarded with the most diplomatic 
 deception and secrecy. 
 
 "Why this unanimous desertion?" demanded Van 
 indignantly from the head of the table when it began 
 to develop that an exodus impended. " Do your ap- 
 petites crave the stimulus of city cooking? Are you 
 leaving my simple roof for the lobster palaces? " 
 
 Benton shook his head. " Singular," he commented, 
 studying his grape-fruit with the air of an oracle gaz- 
 ing into crystal. " There, for example, is Colonel Cen- 
 tress who will probably tell you that he has had an 
 imperative summons to confer with his brokers and " 
 
 He paused, while the ancient beau across the table 
 quickly nodded affirmation. 
 
 " Quite so. How did you guess it ? " he inquired.
 
 54 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " Never talk business at table, of course, but this is a 
 mysterious flurry in stocks quite a mysterious flurry." 
 
 " Quite so," echoed Benton. " Nevertheless, if you 
 were to shadow the gallant Colonel in Manhattan to- 
 day he would probably lead you to a costuming tailor, 
 where you would discover him in the act of being fitted 
 with a Roman toga or a crusader's mail." 
 
 Mrs. Porter-Woodleigh shot a malicious glance at 
 the tall foreigner whose emotionless face proved a con- 
 stant irritation to her exuberant vivacity. " I under- 
 stand, Colonel Von Ritz," she innocently suggested, 
 " that you are to impersonate a polar bear." 
 
 The Galavian smiled deep in his eyes only ; his lips 
 remained sober. One would have said that he had not 
 recognized the thrust. " I shall only remain myself," 
 he replied. " I am allowed to be a looker-on in Venice." 
 
 Under her breath the widow confided to her next 
 neighbor : " Ah ! then it is true." 
 
 " What are you going to town for? " demanded Mrs. 
 Van, looking accusingly at Benton, as that gentleman 
 arose from the table. 
 
 " I should say," he laughingly responded, " that I am 
 going to complete final arrangements for getting the 
 Isis into commission, but nobody would believe me. 
 You are all becoming so diplomatic of late ! " 
 
 Von Ritz glanced up casually. " There is one very 
 dangerous diplomacy one very difficult to become ac-
 
 IT IS DECIDED TO MASQUERADE 55 
 
 customed to," he commented. " I allude to the Ameri- 
 can diplomacy of frankness." 
 
 " The his? To think I have never seen your yacht ! " 
 mused Cara. " And yet you are allowing me to cross 
 on a steamer." 
 
 " If she could be put in shape so soon," declared 
 Benton regretfully, glancing from Von Ritz to Pagra- 
 tide, " I should shanghai Mrs. Van for a chaperon and 
 give a party to Europe. Unfortunately I can't get 
 her in readiness promptly enough; unless," he added 
 hopefully, "Miss Carstow can postpone her sailing- 
 day?"
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO 
 
 T II 7HEN Benton had straightened out his car for 
 * * the run to the city, and the road had begun to 
 slip away under the tires, he turned to McGuire, his 
 chauffeur. 
 
 "McGuire," he inquired, "where is the runabout?" 
 
 11 At ' Idle Times,' sir. You loaned it to Mr. Bristow 
 to fill up the garage." 
 
 " I remember. Now, listen ! " And as Benton talked 
 a slow grin of contentment spread across the visage 
 of Mr. McGuire, hinting of some enterprise that ap- 
 pealed to his venturesome soul with a lure beyond the 
 ordinary. 
 
 In the city, Benton was a busy man, though his visit 
 to the costumer's was brief. Coming out of the place, 
 he fancied he caught a glimpse of Von Ritz, but the 
 view was fleeting and he decided that his eyes must 
 have deceived him. He had himself patronized a rather 
 obscure shop, recommended by Mr. McGuire. Von 
 Ritz would presumably have selected some more fash- 
 ionable purveyor of disguises even had his assertion that
 
 IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO 57 
 
 he would not masquerade been made only to deceive. 
 Perhaps, thought the American, Colonel Von Ritz was 
 becoming an obsession with him, merely because he stood 
 for Galavia and the threat of royalty's mandate. He 
 was convinced of this later in the day, when he once 
 more fancied that a disappearing pair of broad shoul- 
 ders belonged to the European. This time he laughed 
 at the idea. The surroundings made the supposition 
 ludicrous. It was among the tawdry shops of ship 
 chandlers in the East Side, where he himself had gone 
 in search of certain able seamen in the company of 
 the sailing-master of the Isis. Von Ritz would hardly 
 be consorting with the fo'castle men who frequent the 
 water front below Brooklyn Bridge. 
 
 The few days of the last week raced by, with all 
 the charm of sky and field that the magic of Indian 
 summer can lavish, and for Benton and Cara, they 
 raced also with the sense of fast-slipping hope and re- 
 lentlessly marching doom. Outwardly Cara set a pace 
 for vivacious and care-free enjoyment that left Mrs. 
 Porter- Woodleigh, the " semi-professional light-hearted 
 lady," as O'Barreton named her, " to trail along in 
 the ruck." Alone with Benton, there was always the 
 furrow between the brows and the distressed gaze upon 
 the mystery beyond the sky-line, but Pagratide and Von 
 Ritz were vigilant, to the end that their tete-a-tetes 
 were few.
 
 58 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Neither Benton nor Cara had alluded to the man's 
 overbold assertion that he would find a way. It was a 
 futile thing said in eagerness. The day of the dance, 
 the last day they could hope for together, came un- 
 prefaced by development. To-morrow she must take 
 up her journey and her duty: her holiday would be 
 at its end. It was all the greater reason why this 
 evening should be memorable. He should think of her 
 afterward as he saw her to-night, and it pleased her 
 that in the irresponsibility of the maskers she should 
 appear to him in the garb of vagabond liberty, since 
 in fact freedom was impossible to her. 
 
 As the kaleidoscope of the first dance sifted and 
 shifted its pattern of color, three men stood by the 
 door, scanning the disguised figures with watchful eyes. 
 
 One of the three was fantastically arrayed as a canni- 
 bal chief, in brown fleshings, with cuffs upon his ankles, 
 gaudy decorations about his neck, and huge rings in 
 nose and ears. 
 
 The second man was a Bedouin : a camel-driver of the 
 Libyan Desert. From the black horsehair circlet on 
 his temples a turban-scarf fell to his shoulders. He 
 was wrapped in a brown cashmere cloak which dropped 
 domino-like to his ankles. Shaggy brows ran in an 
 unbroken line from temple to temple, masking his eyes, 
 while a fierce mustache and beard obliterated the con- 
 tour of his lower face. His cheek-bones and fore-
 
 IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO 59 
 
 head showed, under some dye, as dark as leather, and 
 as his gaze searchingly raked the crowds, he fingered 
 a string of Moslem prayer-beads. 
 
 The third man was conspicuous in ordinary dress. 
 Save for the decoration of the Order of Takavo, sus- 
 pended by a crimson ribbon on his shirt-front, and the 
 Star of Galavia, on the left lapel of his coat, there 
 was no break in the black and white scheme of his 
 evening clothes. Von Ritz had told the truth. He was 
 not disguised. He stood, his arms folded on his breast, 
 towering above the Fiji Islander, possibly a quarter of 
 an inch taller than the Bedouin. A half-amused smile 
 lurked in his steady eyes the smile of unwavering 
 brows and dispassionately steady mouth-line. 
 
 The cannibal chief waved his hand. " Bright the 
 lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men ! " he de- 
 claimed, in a disguised voice; then scowled about him 
 villainously, remembering that an affable quoting of 
 Lord Byron is incompatible with the qualities of a man- 
 eating savage. 
 
 The Bedouin gravely inclined his head. " Allahu 
 Akbar! " he responded, in a soft voice. 
 
 Suddenly the caravan driver commenced a hurried and 
 zigzag course across the crowded floor. The eyes of 
 Colonel Von Ritz indolently followed. 
 
 Through a low-silled window a girl had just entered, 
 carrying herself with the untrammeled freedom of
 
 60 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 some wild thing, erect, poised from the waist, rhythmic 
 in motion. Her walk was like the scansion of good 
 verse. The Bedouin caught the grace before the en- 
 semble of costume met his eye. It was in harmony. 
 
 She wore a silk skirt to the ankles, and about her 
 waist and hips was bound the yellow and red sash of 
 the Spanish gipsy, tightly knotted, and falling at its 
 tasseled ends. Her arms were bare to the elbows, and 
 gay with bracelets ; her hair fell from her forehead and 
 temples, dropping over her shoulders in two ribbon 
 bound braids. A tall, gray-cowled monk, whose mili- 
 tary bearing gave the lie to his cassock, a Spanish 
 grandee, and a fool in motley saw her at the same mo- 
 ment and hurried to intercept her, but with a slide which 
 carried him a quarter of the way across the floor the 
 Bedouin arrived first, and before the others had come 
 up he was drifting away with her in the tide of the 
 dancers. 
 
 " Allah is good to me Flamencine," whispered the 
 camel-driver as he drew her close to avoid a careless 
 dancer. 
 
 " Why, Flamencine? " demanded a carefully altered 
 voice, from which, however, the music had not been 
 eliminated. 
 
 " Don't you remember? " The Arab stole a covert, 
 identifying glance down at the tip of one ear which 
 showed under its masking of brown hair an ear that
 
 IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO 61 
 
 looked as though it were chiseled from the pink coral 
 of Capri. He quoted: 
 
 ' ' There was a gipsy maiden within the forest green, 
 There was a gipsy maiden who shook a tambourine. 
 The stars of night had not the face, 
 The woodland wind had not the grace, 
 Of Flamencine.' " 
 
 Then the music stopped, and with its silencing came 
 the monk, the clown, the grandee, and others. 
 
 In the insistent demand of the many the Arab had 
 too few dances with the Spanish girl. There were 
 Comanches, Samurai, policemen, Zulus and courtiers, 
 who, seeing her dance, discovered that their immediate 
 avocation was dancing with her. 
 
 Yet it wanted an hour of unmasking time when a 
 Bedouin led a gipsy maiden from Andalusia into the 
 deserted library, where the darkness was broken only 
 by blazing logs on an open hearth. 
 
 When they were alone he turned to her anxiously. 
 His voice was freighted with appeal. Her face, now 
 unmasked, wore an expression of stunned misery. 
 
 "Dear," he asked, "how are you?" 
 
 She gazed at the flickering logs. " I should think 
 you would know," she answered wearily. Then, with 
 a mirthless laugh, she spread both hands toward the 
 blaze. " I'm looking ahead I can see it all there
 
 62 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 in the fire." Her fingers convulsively clenched them- 
 selves until blue marks showed against the pink palms. 
 
 He pushed a chair forward for her, but with a shake 
 of her head she declined it. 
 
 " Whoever heard of a gipsy girl sitting in a leather 
 chair? " she demanded. " It's more like like some 
 effete princess." 
 
 She dropped to the Persian rug and, gathering her 
 knees between her clasped hands, sat looking into the 
 dying blaze. " For a few brief minutes I am the 
 gipsy girl," she added. 
 
 " And," he said, dropping cross-legged to the rug at 
 her side, " when the caravan halts at evening, and 
 prayers have been said facing Mecca, and the grunting 
 camels kneel, to be unloaded, neither do we, the gipsies 
 of the desert, sit in chairs." He swayed slightly to- 
 ward her, lowering his voice to a whisper. As the 
 soft touch of her shoulder brushed him and electrified 
 him, his cashmere-draped arms closed around her and 
 held her hungrily to him. The vagrant maiden of 
 Andalusia and the caravan-driver of Africa sat gazing 
 together at the glowing pictures in the logs as they 
 turned slowly to ashes. 
 
 " Cara," he went on in a voice of pent-up earnest- 
 ness, " we be nomads we two. ' The scarlet of the 
 maples can shake us like the cry of bugles going by.' 
 Come away with me while there is time. Let us follow
 
 IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO 63 
 
 out our destinies where gipsy blood calls us; in the 
 desert, the jungle, wherever you say. Let your fancy 
 be our guide your heart our compass. Suppose " 
 he paused and, with one outstretched arm, pointed to 
 the fire " suppose that to be a camp-fire what do 
 you see in the coals? " 
 
 " I have already told you," she said wearily. " I 
 see a throne, a life with all the confining littleness of 
 a prison, with none of the breadth of an empire. I 
 see the sacrifice of all I love. I see year upon year 
 of purple desolation. . . . Purple is the color of 
 mourning and royalty." 
 
 She fell silent, and he spoke slowly. 
 
 " I see the desert, many-hued, like an opal with the 
 setting of the sun. I see the flickering of camp-fires 
 and the palm-fringe of an oasis. I see the tapering 
 minarets of a mosque, and the long booths of the 
 bazaars. I smell the scent of the perfume-seller's stall, 
 the heavy sweetness of attar of roses ... I hear 
 the tinkle of camel bells . . . There comes a 
 change ... I see a mountain-pass and a mule- 
 train crawling through the dust. I see the paths that 
 go around the world. Which of our pictures do you 
 prefer? " 
 
 She gave a pained, low cry, and buried her face pas- 
 sionately on his shoulder. " Oh, you know, you know ! " 
 she cried, in a piteous voice. " And you love me, yet
 
 64 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 you tempt me to break my parole. If I could do it 
 and be freed of the responsibility ! If a miracle could 
 work itself!" 
 
 " Cara," he whispered, resolutely steadying himself, 
 " don't forget the gospel according to Jonesy. You 
 can't dam up the tributaries of the heart. Some day 
 you must come to me. That much is immutably written. 
 For God's sake come now while the road is still clear. 
 Otherwise we shall grope our ways to each other, even 
 if it be through tragedy through hell itself." 
 
 For a moment she gazed at him with wide eyes. 
 
 " I know it " she whispered in a frightened voice. 
 " I know it and yet I must go ahead." 
 
 He rose and lifted her; then as she stood clinging 
 to him he said: " I ask your forgiveness if I've made 
 it harder and one boon. Slip away with me and give 
 me an hour with you." 
 
 "They will find me. Pagratide and Von Ritz will 
 find me," she objected helplessly. " They won't let us 
 be alone for long." 
 
 " Listen," he replied. " It is not too cold and the 
 moon is brilliant. It is the last real moon for me. 
 Come with me in my car for a while." 
 
 " You must not make love to me," she stipulated. 
 " I am going to try to get my face properly composed 
 and if you make love to me, I can't. Besides, when
 
 IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO 65 
 
 you make love I'm rather afraid of you. So you 
 mustn't." 
 
 Then, with a wild spasmodic gesture, she caught the 
 edges of his cashmere cloak and gripped them tightly 
 in both hands as she looked up into his eyes and im- 
 petuously contradicted herself. 
 
 " Yes, please do," she appealed. 
 
 He laughed. "Destiny says I must make love to 
 you," he asserted, " and who am I to disobey Destiny? " 
 
 Outside, she insisted upon waiting by the bridge while 
 he went for his car. So he turned and started alone 
 to the point on the driveway just around the angle 
 of the house, where McGuire, pursuant to previous or- 
 ders, was to be waiting with the machine. It had been 
 only an hour since Benton had slipped away from the 
 dancers and consulted with McGuire in the shadow of 
 the wall, instructing him explicitly in his duties. Mc- 
 Guire was to wait with the machine ready upon call. 
 The lamps were not to be lighted. When Benton came, 
 the chauffeur was to run the car to the point where 
 a lady should enter it. He was at that point to leave, 
 without words. It had been impressed on McGuire that 
 utter silence was imperative. The chauffeur was then 
 to follow in the runabout, acting as a reserve in the 
 event of need. Both cars were to take a certain circui- 
 tous route to a point on the shore thirty miles distant,
 
 66 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 the runabout keeping just close enough to hold the 
 first car in sight. McGuire had listened and under- 
 stood. Yet now McGuire was missing, together with 
 one very necessary motor-car. 
 
 As Benton stood, boiling with wrath at the miscarriage 
 of his plans, he fancied he heard the soft muffled song 
 of his motor just beyond the turn where the road circled 
 the house. He bent and held a lighted match close to 
 the gravel. On a muddied spot he found the easily 
 recognizable tread of his tires. The car had been there. 
 For the sake of speed he ran to the garage near by 
 and took a swift look at the runabout. It was wait- 
 ing, and, thanks to the God of Machines, would start 
 on compression. He flung himself to the driver's seat 
 and gave it the spark. Far away about as far as 
 the bridge, he calculated he heard one short, cautious 
 blast of an automobile horn. 
 
 Just before the last turn brought him to the bridge, 
 where he should meet Cara, he noticed a man hurrying 
 toward him, on foot, and recognized McGuire. To- 
 tally mystified, he slowed down the machine. 
 
 " Get in, you infernal blockhead," he called. " Tell 
 me about it as we go. I'm in a hurry." 
 
 But McGuire performed strangely. He clapped one 
 hand to his forehead and looked at his employer out 
 of large, wild eyes. " Am I dippy? My God! Am I
 
 IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO 67 
 
 dippy?" he exclaimed, repeating the question over and 
 over in a low, trembling voice. 
 
 " Apparently you are. Get in, damn you ! " Benton 
 ordered. 
 
 "It's weird," declared McGuire. "It's damned 
 weird." 
 
 " Why, sir," he ran on, talking fast, now that the 
 first shock was over and his tongue again loosened. 
 " Either I've made a fool mistake, or else I'm crazier 
 than hell. I waited at the place you said. You 
 or your ghost came and took his seat, and waved 
 his hand. I started the car for the bridge. He didn't 
 say a word. At the bridge I jumped out. He was 
 you and yet you are here same size same cos- 
 tume same beard even the same beads around the 
 neck." 
 
 They had almost reached the bridge and were slow- 
 ing down when Benton, scanning the road, empty in the 
 moonlight, grasped for the first time a definite suspicion 
 of what had happened. 
 
 " Cara! " he shouted. " Good God, where is she? " 
 
 The chauffeur leaned over and shouted into his ear. 
 " I'm telling you, sir. The lady's in that other car 
 with that other edition of you. And, sir beggin' 
 your pardon they're beatin' it like hell ! " 
 
 Benton's only answer was to feed gas to the spark
 
 68 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 so frantically that the car seemed to rise from the 
 ground and shiver before it settled again. Then it shot 
 forward and reeled crazily into a speed never intended 
 for a curving road at night. 
 
 The moonlight fell on a gray streak of a car, driven 
 by a maniac with a scarf blowing back from a turban 
 over two wildly gleaming eyes. . 
 
 Back at " Idle Times " a Capuchin monk, wandering 
 apart from the dancers in consonance with the austere 
 proclaiming of his garb, was studying the frivolous 
 gamboling of a school of fountain gold-fish in the con- 
 servatory. He looked up, scowling, to take a note from 
 a servant. 
 
 " Colonel Von Ritz said to hand this to the gentleman 
 masquerading as a monk," explained the man. 
 
 " Von Ritz," growled the monk. " He annoys me." 
 
 He impatiently tore open the letter and scanned it. 
 His brows contracted in astonished mystification, then 
 slowly his eyes narrowed and kindled. 
 
 The scrawl ran: 
 
 " Your Highness : If you see neither Mr. Benton, 
 masquerading as an Arab, her Highness, the Princess, 
 nor myself in ten minutes from the time of receiv- 
 ing this, take the car which you will find ready in the 
 garage. My orderly will be there to act as your 
 chauffeur. Follow the main road to the second village. 
 Turn there to the right, and drive to the small bay,
 
 IN WHICH ROMEO BECOMES DROMIO 69 
 
 where you will find me or an explanation. I have been 
 conducting certain investigations. The affair is urgent 
 and touches matters of great import to Europe as well 
 as to Your Highness."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO 
 
 \\ 7HEN Cara, waiting at the bridge, had seen the 
 * * car flash up, a bearded Bedouin at the wheel, she 
 had leaped lightly to the seat beside him, without wait- 
 ing for the machine to come to a full stop ; then she 
 had thrown herself back luxuriously on the cushions with 
 a sigh of satisfaction, and had only said : " Drive me 
 fast." 
 
 For a long time she lay back, drinking, in long 
 draughts, the spiced night air, frosted only enough to 
 give it flavor. There was no necessity for speech, and 
 above, the stars glittered lavishly, despite the white 
 light of the moon. 
 
 At last she murmured half-aloud and almost content- 
 edly : " * Who knows but the world may end to- 
 night?"' 
 
 Above the throbbing purr of the engine which had 
 already done ten miles, the man beside her caught the 
 voice, but missed the words. He bent forward. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ? " he politely inquired. 
 
 At the question she started violently, and both hands 
 70
 
 IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO 71 
 
 came to her heart with a spasmodic movement. Von 
 Ritz carried the car around an ugly rut. 
 
 " Don't be alarmed, Your Highness," he said, in a 
 cold, evenly modulated voice which, though pitched low, 
 carried clearly above the noise of the cylinders. " I 
 may call you 'Your Highness' now, may I not? We 
 are quite alone. Or do you still prefer that I respect 
 your incognita? " 
 
 The girl's eyes blazed upon him until he could feel 
 their intense focusing, though he kept his own fixed 
 unbendingly on the road ahead. Finally she mastered 
 her anger enough to speak. 
 
 " Colonel Von Ritz," she commanded, " you will take 
 me back at once ! " She drew herself as far away from 
 him as the space on the seat permitted. 
 
 " Your Highness's commands are supreme." The 
 man spoke in the same even voice. " I intend taking 
 Your Highness back when it is safer for Your High- 
 ness to go back." 
 
 He turned the car suddenly to the right and sped 
 along the narrower road that led away from the main 
 thoroughfare. 
 
 " You will take me back, now. I had not supposed 
 that to a gentleman " Her voice choked into silence 
 and her eyes filled with angry tears. 
 
 " Your Highness misunderstands," he said coldly. 
 " I obey the throne. If I live long enough to serve
 
 12 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 it in another reign, Your Highness will be Your 
 Majesty. Yet even then will jour commands be no 
 more supreme to me no more sacred than now. 
 But even then, Your Highness " 
 
 '* Call me Miss Carstow," she interrupted in impas- 
 sioned anger. " I will have my freedom for to-night 
 at least." 
 
 " Yet even then, Miss Carstow," he calmly resumed, 
 " when danger threatens you or your throne, I shall take 
 such means as I can to avert that danger, as I am 
 doing now. Even though " for a moment the cold, 
 metallic evenness left his voice and a human note stole 
 into his words " even though the reward be contempt." 
 
 She did not answer. 
 
 " Your High Miss Carstow," Von Ritz spoke 
 with a deferential finality " believe me, some things 
 are inevitable." 
 
 Suddenly the car stopped. 
 
 The girl made a movement as though she would rise, 
 but the man's arm quietly stretched itself across before 
 her, not touching her, but forming an effective barrier. 
 
 She did not speak, but her eyes blazed indignantly. 
 For the first time he was able to return her gaze directly, 
 and as she looked into the unflinching gray pupils, un- 
 der the level brows, there was a momentary combat, then 
 her own dropped. He sat for a space with his arm 
 outstretched, holding her prisoner in the seat.
 
 IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO 73 
 
 " Your Highness " he spoke as impersonally as a 
 judge ruling from the bench "I must remind you 
 again that I am your escort to-night only in order that 
 someone else may not be. What his plans were, I need 
 not now say, but I know, and it became my duty to 
 thwart him. It is hardly necessary to explain how I 
 discovered Mr. Benton's purpose. It was not easy, but 
 it has been accomplished. I have acquainted myself 
 with his movements, his intention, and his preparations ; 
 I have even counterfeited his masquerade and stolen his 
 car. There are bigger things at stake than individual 
 wishes. I stand for the throne. Mr. Benton has 
 played a daring game and lost." 
 
 He paused, and she found herself watching with a 
 strange fascination the face almost marble-like in its 
 steadiness. 
 
 " Some day perhaps soon," he went on, the arm 
 unmoved, " you will be Queen of Galavia." She shud- 
 dered. " You can then strip away my epaulets if you 
 choose. For the moment, however, I must regard you 
 as a prisoner of war and ask your parole, as a gentle- 
 man and an officer, not to leave the car while I investi- 
 gate the trouble with the motor. Otherwise " he 
 added composedly, " we shall have to remain as we are." 
 
 She hesitated, her chin thrown up and her eyes blaz- 
 ing; then, with a glance at the unmoving arm, she 
 bowed reluctant assent.
 
 74 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " All I promise is to remain in the car," she said. 
 " May I go back into the tonneau ? " 
 
 Satisfying himself that the engine was temporarily 
 dead, he responded, with a half-smile, " That promise I 
 think is sufficient." 
 
 He bent to his task of diagnosis. After much futile 
 spinning of the crank, he rose and contemplated the 
 stalled engine. 
 
 " Since this machine went out with lamps unlighted, 
 and I have no matches in this garb, I must go to that 
 farmhouse up the hillside where the light shines 
 through the trees . Will Your Highness regard 
 your parole as effective until my return, not to leave 
 the car? Yes? I thank Your Highness; I shall not be 
 long." 
 
 The girl for answer honked the horn in several loud 
 blasts, and he stopped with a murmured apology to 
 silence it by tearing off the bulb and throwing it to 
 one side. 
 
 The Colonel turned and took his way through the 
 woods, statuesquely upright and spectral in his long 
 Arab cloak. 
 
 Benton and McGuire had just passed the crossing 
 where Von Ritz had left the main road, when McGuire's 
 quick ear caught the familiar tooting of the other horn 
 and brought his hand to his employer's arm. The car 
 was stopped, and McGuire, by match-light, examined
 
 IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO 75 
 
 the road with its frosty mud unmarked by fresh auto- 
 mobile tracks, save those running back from their own 
 tires. 
 
 The runabout turned and slipped along cautiously 
 to the rear, watchful for byways. At the cross-road 
 McGuire was out again. His match, held close to the 
 mud and gravel, revealed the tread of familiar tires. 
 
 "All right, sir," he briefly reported. "The other 
 edition went this track." 
 
 With a twist of the wheel Benton was again on the 
 trail. Back in the side lane stood a car in which a 
 girl sat alone, solemnly indignant. 
 
 " Cara ! " Benton was standing on the step. His 
 voice was tremulous with solicitude and perplexed 
 anxiety. "Cara!" he repeated. "What does it 
 mean ? " 
 
 " I don't know," she responded coolly. " Some- 
 thing seems to be broken." 
 
 " I don't mean that." McGuire was already inves- 
 tigating. " What does it mean? " 
 
 She sighed wearily. 
 
 " When I foolishly agreed to play Juliet to your 
 Romeo," she informed him, and her tones were frigid, 
 " I didn't know that your Romeo was really only a 
 Dromio. The other edition of you " he flinched at 
 the words, and McGuire choked violently " is back 
 there, I believe, hunting for matches."
 
 76 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " She's all right, sir," interrupted McGuire in tri- 
 umph. " She'll travel now. It's only diconnected 
 spark plugs and a short circuiting." 
 
 " Travel, then ! " snapped Benton. " Leave the run- 
 about here. The other gentleman may prefer not to 
 walk home." 
 
 As he swung himself into the tonneau, the chauffeur 
 had already seized the wheel and the car was backing 
 for the turn. Far back up the hillside there was a 
 crashing of underbrush. A spectral figure, struggling 
 with the unaccustomed drapery of a Bedouin robe, 
 emerged from the woods into the open, and halted in 
 momentary astonishment. 
 
 " I believe I am under parole to the other 
 Dromio not to run away," she suggested wearily. 
 
 " Oh, that's all right ; I'm doing this and I have no 
 treaty with Galavia," replied the gentleman pleasantly. 
 " Hit her up a bit, McGuire." 
 
 He took one of the hands that lay wearily in Cara's 
 lap and she did not withdraw it. She only lay back in 
 the leather upholstery and said nothing. Finally he 
 bent nearer. 
 
 " Dearest," he said. There was no answer. 
 
 " Dearest," he whispered again. 
 
 She only turned her head and smiled forgiveness. 
 
 " What is the matter? " he asked. 
 
 " Oh, I'm so tired so tired of all of it," she sighed.
 
 IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO 77 
 
 " Don't you see ? I wish someone bigger that I am would 
 take me away to a place where they had never heard of 
 a throne somewhere beyond the Milky Way." 
 
 He took her in his arms, and the spangle-crowned 
 gipsy head fell heavily on his shoulder. She stretched 
 up both arms towards the stars, and the moonlight 
 glinted from her gilt bracelets. 
 
 " Somewhere beyond the Milky Way," she murmured, 
 then collapsed like a tired child and lay still. 
 
 "Dearest," he whispered, "I'll tell you a secret." 
 He paused and listened to the rhythmic cylinders 
 throbbing a racing pulse; he looked back at the white 
 band of road that was being flung out behind them 
 like thread from a falling spool. He held her fiercely 
 to him and kissed her. " I'll tell you a secret. You 
 are being stolen. The I sis is waiting in a little cove, 
 and there is steam in her engines, and a chaplain on 
 board. If it's necessary I shall run up the skull and 
 cross-bones at her masthead. Do you hear? " Then, 
 with a less piratical voice : " Dearest, I love you." 
 
 She looked up drowsily into his eyes. "You don't 
 have to be such a boa-constrictor," she suggested. 
 " You are not a cave-man, after all, you know, if you 
 are taking a lady without asking her." Then she con- 
 tentedly whispered : " I'm going to sleep." And she 
 did. 
 
 As the car at last swept around a curve and took the
 
 78 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 shore road, Benton caught, far away as yet, the red 
 and green glint of tiny port and starboard lights on 
 the bridge of the his, and the long ruby and emerald 
 shafts quivering beneath in the calm waters of the bay. 
 In the light of a low moon, swinging down the mid- 
 night sky, the trim silhouette of the yacht stood out 
 boldly. 
 
 Cara, after sleeping through the rowboat stage of 
 the journey, awoke on the deck of the Isis and gazed 
 wonderingly about. In her ears was the sound of 
 anchor chains upon the capstan. 
 
 "Is it a dream? "she asked. 
 
 " It is a dream to me, but I am going to make it 
 real," he responded. 
 
 She went to the rail. He followed her. 
 
 " I shouldn't have let you, but I was so tired," she 
 said, " I hardly knew where the dream began and the 
 reality ended. Ah, I wish the dream could come 
 true." 
 
 " This one is to come true, Cara," he whispered. 
 
 She shook her head. " Stand still ! " she commanded. 
 
 He was bending forward with his elbows on the rail. 
 Suddenly, with something like a stifled sob, she caught 
 his head in both arms and held him close, so close that 
 he heard her heart pounding and her breath coming 
 with spasmodic gasps. He put out his arms, but she 
 held him off.
 
 IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO 79 
 
 " No, no ; don't touch me now only listen ! " 
 
 He waited a moment before she spoke again. 
 
 " You said I was your prisoner." Her voice 
 dropped in a tremor as though the tears would prevail, 
 but she steadied it and went on. " I wish I were. 
 Always I am your prisoner, but I must go back. It 
 is because it is written." 
 
 He straightened up and took her in his arms. " I 
 know how you have settled it," he said, "but I have 
 stolen you. The anchor is coming up. You love me 
 
 I have claimed what is mine. It is now beyond your 
 power, your responsibility." 
 
 " No, it is not," she softly denied. " I will not marry 
 you but I love you I love you ! " 
 
 " You mean that if I hold you my prisoner you will 
 still not be my wife? " he incredulously demanded. 
 
 Slowly she nodded her head. 
 
 The man gazed off with the eyes of one stunned and 
 slowly fought himself back into control before he 
 trusted his voice. After a while, he raised his face and 
 spoke in fragmentary sentences, his voice pitched low, 
 his words broken. 
 
 " But you said just now back there on the road 
 
 you wished someone stronger than yourself 
 would take you away somewhere beyond the Milky 
 Way." 
 
 His tones strengthened and suddenly he almost sang
 
 80 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 out with recovered resolution, speaking buoyantly and 
 triumphantly. 
 
 " Dearest, I am stronger than you, and I'm going 
 to take you away I'm going to take you beyond the 
 Milky Way, to the uttermost stars of Love. How can 
 it matter to me how far, if you are there? " 
 
 Again she shook her head. 
 
 " No, dear," she whispered, " you are not so strong 
 as I, in this, because I am strong enough to say No 
 when my heart says only Yes and because Fate is 
 stronger than any of us." 
 
 " Boat ahoy ! " came a voice from the crow's nest. 
 
 " They have come for you," he said, speaking as 
 through a fog. " Show them here," he shouted to an 
 officer who was hurrying to the gangway. 
 
 Two figures came over the side, and slowly followed 
 the first officer forward. One was a Capuchin monk, 
 bearing himself rigidly; at his side strode a Bedouin, 
 bedraggled, but erect and military of bearing. The 
 original Arab turned with a sudden sag of the shoulders 
 and looked helplessly out at the path of silver that 
 stretched across the water below, to the moon, now 
 sunk close to the horizon. He waved one hand in a 
 gesture of submission and despair, and stood silent. 
 
 The gipsy girl, standing near, took a sudden step 
 forward and stood close to him as the others ap- 
 proached.
 
 IN WHICH DROMIO BECOMES ROMEO 81 
 
 " They may take me back if they wish to, now," she 
 said, with a suddenly upflaring defiance. " But they 
 shall find me like this ! " And she flung her arms about 
 his neck and kissed him.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE PRINCESS CONSULTS JONESY 
 
 PT1HE coldness of the moonlight killed the pallor of 
 * Karyl's face, but added a note of stark accentua- 
 tion to his set chin and labored self-containment. 
 Von Ritz, despite his bedraggled masquerade was as 
 composed and expressionless as though he had seen 
 nothing beyond the expected. With Von Ritz nothing 
 was beyond the expected. 
 
 He had to-night counterfeited Benton's disguise; 
 stolen Benton's car; substituted himself for the Ameri- 
 can and made a decisive effort to interrupt the kidnap- 
 ing of a Queen. 
 
 Finding himself checkmated, he had joined forces 
 with the Prince and brought the pursuit to a suc- 
 cessful termination. His manner now was precisely 
 what it had been last night, when his only excitement 
 had been a game of billiards. Men who knew him 
 would have told you that his manner had been the 
 same on a certain red and smoky day when the order 
 of Takavo had been pinned on his breast, in the reek 
 and noise of a battlefield. 
 
 82
 
 THE PRINCESS CONSULTS JONESY 83 
 
 After a moment of tense silence, Benton took a step 
 forward. 
 
 " At any suitable time," he said, in a voice too low 
 for Cara to catch, " I shall, of course, be entirely at 
 your service." 
 
 Pagratide drew a labored breath, but when he raised 
 his head it was to lift his brows inquiringly. 
 
 " For what? " he asked in an equally low tone. 
 " Have I asked any questions ? " In a matter-of-fact 
 voice he added: "It is growing late. If Miss 
 Carstow has finished the inspection of your yacht, I 
 suggest a return." 
 
 Benton recognized the other's refusal to read his 
 motive. After all that was the best course; the only 
 course. Pagratide stepped forward. 
 
 " Mr. Benton had the pleasure of driving you down 
 " he suggested, " may I have the same honor, re- 
 turning? " 
 
 The girl met the eyes of the Prince, with defiance in 
 her own. 
 
 " I am not a child ! " she vehemently declared. " We 
 may as well be honest with each other. If he had 
 chosen to have it so, you could not have come aboard. 
 I must obey the decrees of State ! " She paused, then 
 impulsively swept on : "I can force myself to do what 
 I must do, but I cannot compel my heart that is
 
 84 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 his, utterly his." She raised both hands. " Now you 
 know," she said. " You may decide." 
 
 Karyl inclined his head. 
 
 " I have questioned nothing," he repeated. " Will 
 you honor me by returning in my car? " 
 
 Cara tilted her chin rebelliously. 
 
 " No," she said, " I don't think I shall. My vaca- 
 tion ends to-morrow if you still wish it, but to-night it 
 has not ended. I return with Mr. Benton." 
 
 Pagratide stiffened painfully, but with supreme self- 
 mastery he forced a smile as though he had asked noth- 
 ing more than a dance and had found it engaged. 
 
 " I must submit," he replied in a steady voice. " I 
 even understand. But you will agree with me that 
 they " with a gesture toward the direction from which 
 they had come " had best know nothing." 
 
 Benton and Von Ritz went to the gangway, where the 
 yachtsman bent forward to give some direction to the 
 boat crew below. 
 
 " Karyl ! " The girl moved impulsively toward the 
 man she must marry, and laid a hand on his arm. 
 " Karyl," she said plaintively, " if you only wanted to 
 marry me for State reasons it would be different. 
 It wouldn't hurt me then to hurt you. You mean so 
 much as a friend, but I can never be in love with you. 
 You are being unfair with yourself if you go on. 
 I must be honest with you."
 
 THE PRINCESS CONSULTS JONESY 85 
 
 Pagratide spoke slowly, and his voice carried the 
 tremor of feeling. 
 
 " You have always been honest with me, and I will 
 make you love me. Until you marry me I have no 
 privilege to question you. When you do, I shall not 
 have to question you." He leaned forward and spoke 
 confidently. " I would marry you if you hated me 
 and then I would win your love ! " 
 
 An hour later the Spanish gipsy girl, having shown 
 herself in the emptying ball-room with ingenious ex- 
 cuses for her long absence, took refuge in her own 
 apartments. 
 
 On sailing day, Benton, at the pier, watched the 
 steamer stand out into the river between the coming and 
 going of ferry-boats and tugs. About him stamped 
 the usual farewell throng with hats raised and hand- 
 kerchiefs a-flutter. The music of the ship's band grew 
 faint as a wider and wider gap of water opened between 
 the wharf and the liner's gray hull. 
 
 Gradually the crowd scattered back through the 
 great barn-like spaces of the pier-house to be re- 
 absorbed by cabs, motors and surface-cars into the main 
 arteries of the city's life. It was over. Bon voyage 
 had been said. One more ship had put out to sea. 
 
 Benton stood looking after a slim figure in a blue 
 traveling gown and dark furs, pressed against the 
 after-rail, her handkerchief waving in the raw wind.
 
 86 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Most of the sea-going ones had retreated into the 
 shelter of the saloon or cabin, but she remained. 
 
 Van Bristow, shivering at his friend's elbow, did not 
 suggest turning back. 
 
 Cara stood, still looking shoreward, a furrow between 
 her brows, her cheeks pale, her fingers tightly gripping 
 the rail. She was holding with that grip to all her 
 shaken self-command. 
 
 She saw the fang-edged skyline of lower Manhattan 
 lifting its gray shafts through wet streamers of fog ; 
 she saw flotillas of squat ferry-boats shouldering their 
 ways against the sullen heave of the river's tide-water; 
 she heard the discordant shriek of their steam throats ; 
 she saw the tilting swoop of a hundred gulls, buffeting 
 the wind; but she was conscious only of the vista of 
 oily water widening between herself and him. 
 
 Von Ritz had long since drifted into the smoking- 
 room where the men were christening the voyage with 
 brandy-and-soda and dropping into tentative groups, 
 regardful of future poker games. 
 
 Pagratide, at Cara's elbow, was silent, respecting her 
 silence. 
 
 When at last the two had the deck to themselves and 
 Manhattan had become a shadowy and ragged mono- 
 tone, she turned and smiled. It was a smile of accept- 
 ing the inevitable. He went with her to the forward
 
 THE PRINCESS CONSULTS JONESY 87 
 
 deck where her staterooms were situated, and left her 
 there in silence. 
 
 Von Ritz, standing apart near the threshold of the 
 smokeroom, heard his name paged almost before the 
 speaker had entered the door, and turned to take from 
 the hand of the bearer a Marconigram just relayed 
 from shore. He read it and for an instant a look of 
 pain crossed the features that rarely yielded to expres- 
 sion. Then he sought out Karyl's stateroom. 
 
 Karyl turned wearily from the wintry picture of a 
 sullenly heaving sea, to answer the rap on the door. 
 His face did not brighten as he recognized Von Ritz. 
 
 The Colonel was that type of being upon whom 
 men may depend or whom they must fear. Whenever 
 there was need, Karyl had come to know that there would 
 be Von Ritz, but also there went with him an austerity 
 and an impersonality that robbed him of the grati- 
 tude and love he might have claimed. 
 
 Now there was a note almost surly in the expression 
 with which the Prince looked up to greet his father's 
 confidential representative. 
 
 " Well? " he demanded. 
 
 For answer the officer held out the message. 
 
 Karyl puckered his brows over the intricacies of the 
 code and handed it back. 
 
 " Be good enough to construe it," he commanded.
 
 88 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " The King," said Von Ritz, " is ill. His Majesty 
 wishes to instruct you in certain matters before " 
 He broke off with something like a catch in his voice, 
 then continued calmly. " Recovery is despaired of, 
 though death may not be immediate." 
 
 Karyl turned away, not wishing the soldier to see 
 the tears he felt in his eyes, and Von Ritz discreetly 
 withdrew as far as the door. There he paused, and 
 after a moment's hesitation inquired : 
 
 " Her Highness goes to Maritzburg to her father's 
 Court I presume ? " 
 
 With his back still turned, the Prince nodded. 
 "Why? "he demanded. 
 
 " Because the message holds no hope " Von 
 Ritz paused, then added quietly " and if Your High- 
 ness is called upon to mount the throne, it is advisable 
 to hasten the marriage." 
 
 He backed out, closing the door behind him. 
 
 In her own cabin the girl had bolted the door. At 
 the small desk of her suite-de-luxe she sat with her head 
 on her crossed arms. For a half-hour she remained 
 motionless. 
 
 Finally she rose and, with uncertain hands, opened 
 a suitcase, drawing from its place among filmy fabrics 
 and feminine essentials a small, squat figure of time- 
 corroded clay. The little Inca huaca had perhaps 
 looked with that same unseeing squint upon Princesses
 
 THE PRINCESS CONSULTS JONESY 89 
 
 of other dynasties so long dead that their heartbreaks 
 and ecstasies were now the same nothing. 
 
 She placed the image before her and rested her chin 
 on one hand, gazing at its grotesque and ancient visage. 
 
 Her eyes slowly filled with tears. Again she dropped 
 her face on her arms and the tears overflowed. 
 
 Benton and Bristow had been sitting without speech 
 as their motor threaded its way through the traffic 
 along Fourteenth Street, and it was not until the 
 chauffeur had turned north on Fifth Avenue that either 
 spoke. Then Benton roused himself out of seeming 
 lethargy to inquire with suddenness : " Do you remem- 
 ber the bull-fight we saw in Seville? " 
 
 His companion looked up, suppressing his surprise 
 at a question so irrelevant. 
 
 " You mean the Easter Sunday performance," he 
 asked, " when that negligent banderillero was gored? " 
 
 " Just so," assented Benton. " Do you remember 
 the chap we met afterwards at one of the cafes? He 
 was being feted and flattered for the brilliancy of his 
 work in the ring. His name was Blanco." 
 
 " Sure I remember him." Van talked glibly, pleased 
 that the conversation had turned into channels so im- 
 personal. " He was a fine-looking chap with the grace 
 of a Velasquez dancing-girl and the nerve of a bull-
 
 90 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 terrier. I remember he was more like a grandee than 
 a toreador. We had him dine with us hard bread 
 black olives fish bad wine all sorts of native 
 truck. For the rest of our stay in Seville he was our 
 inseparable companion. Do you remember how the 
 street gamins pointed us out? Why, it was like walk- 
 ing down Broadway with your arm linked in that of 
 Jim Jeffries ! " 
 
 He paused, somewhat disconcerted by his companion's 
 steady gaze; then, taking a fresh start, he went on, 
 talking fast. 
 
 " Besides sticking bulls, he could discuss several 
 topics in several languages. I recall that he had been 
 educated for the Church. If he hadn't felt the lure 
 of the strenuous life, he might have been celebrating 
 Mass instead of playing guide for us. In the end he'd 
 have won a cardinal's hat." 
 
 The fixity of the other's stare at last chilled and 
 quelled his chatter to an embarrassed silence. He real- 
 ized that the object of his mild subterfuge was trans- 
 parent. 
 
 " I'm after his address not his biography," sug- 
 gested Benton coolly. " His name was Manuel Blanco, 
 wasn't it? " 
 
 " Why, yes, I believe it was. What do you want 
 with him?" 
 
 " Never mind that," returned his friend. " Do you
 
 THE PRINCESS CONSULTS JONESY 91 
 
 happen to know where he lived? I seem to recall that 
 you promised to write him frequent letters." 
 
 " By Jove, so I did," acknowledged Van with humility. 
 " I must get busy. He is a good sort. His ad- 
 dress " He paused to search through his pocket- 
 book for a small tablet dedicated to names and num- 
 bers, then added : " His address is Numero 18, Calle 
 Isaac Peral, Cadiz." 
 
 Benton was scribbling the direction on the back of 
 an envelope. 
 
 " You needn't grow penitent and start a belated cor- 
 respondence," he suggested. " I am going to write 
 him myself and I'm going to visit him."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE TOREADOR APPEARS 
 
 Q^LOWLY, with a gesture almost subconscious, 
 ^-^ Benton- slipped an unopened envelope from his 
 breast pocket; turned it over; looked at it and slipped 
 it back, still unopened. Then, leaning heavily on his 
 elbow, he gazed off, frowning, over the rail of the 
 yacht's forward deck. 
 
 The waters that lap the quays and wharves of Old 
 Cadiz, green as jade and quiet as farm-yard pools, 
 were darkening into inkiness toward shore. White 
 walls that had been like ivory were turning into ashy 
 gray behind the Bateria San Carlos and the pillars of 
 the Entrada. The molten sun was sinking into a rich 
 orange sky beyond the Moorish dome and Christian 
 towers of the cathedral. 
 
 Shafts of red and green wavered and quaked in the 
 black dock waters. 
 
 Between the hulks of cork- and salt-freighters, the 
 steam yacht Isis slipped with as graceful a motion as 
 that of the gulls. Then when the anchor chains ran 
 gratingly out, Benton turned on his heel and went to 
 his cabin.
 
 THE TOREADOR APPEARS 93 
 
 Behind a bolted door he dropped into a chair and 
 sat motionless. Finally the right hand wandered me- 
 chanically to his breast pocket and brought out the 
 envelope. He read for the thousandth time the en- 
 dorsement in the corner. 
 
 " Not to be opened until the evening of March 5th," 
 and under that, " I love you." 
 
 There was another envelope; an outer one much 
 rubbed from the pocket. It was directed in her hand 
 and the blurred postmark bore a date in February. 
 He could have described every mark upon the enclos- 
 ing cover with the precision of a careful detective. 
 When his impatient fingers had first torn off the end, 
 only to be confronted by the order : " Not to be 
 opened until the evening of March 5th," he had fallen 
 back on studying outward marks and indications. In 
 the first place, it had been posted from Puntal, and in- 
 stead of the familiar violet stamp of Maritzburg, with 
 which her other letters had been franked during the 
 two months past, this stamp was pink, and its medallion 
 bore the profile of Karyl. 
 
 That she had left Maritzburg, and that she had 
 written him a message to be sealed for a month, meant 
 that the date of March 5th had significance. That 
 she was in Gala via meant that the significance was 
 he winced. 
 
 On the calendar of a bronze desk-set, the first four
 
 94 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 days of March were already cancelled. Now, taking 
 up a blue pencil, he crossed off the number five. After 
 that he looked at his watch. It wanted one minute 
 of six. He held the timepiece before him while the 
 second-hand ticked its way once around its circle, then 
 with feverish impatience he tore the end from the en- 
 velope. 
 
 Benton's face paled a little as he drew out the 
 many pages covered with a woman's handwriting, but 
 there was no one to see that or to notice the tremor of 
 his fingers. 
 
 For a moment he held the pages off, seeing only 
 the "Dearest" at the top, and the wild way the pen 
 had raced, forming almost shapeless characters. 
 
 " Dearest," she said in part, " I write now because I 
 must turn to someone because my heart must speak or 
 break. All day I must smile as befits royalty, and act 
 as befits one whose part is written for her. Unless 
 there be an outlet, there must be madness. I have en- 
 closed this envelope in another and enjoined you not 
 to read it until March 5th. Then it will be too late 
 for you to come to me. If you came to-night, you 
 would find me hurrying out to meet you and to sur- 
 render. Duty would so gladly lay down its arms to 
 Love, dear, and desert the fight. 
 
 " To-night I have slipped away from the uniforms, 
 the tawdry mockery of a puppet court, to find the
 
 THE TOREADOR APPEARS 95 
 
 pitiful comfort of rehearsing my heart-ache to you, 
 who own my heart. In my life here every hour is 
 mapped, and I seem to move from cell to cell. So 
 many obsequious jailers who call themselves courtiers 
 stand about and seem to watch me, that I feel as if I 
 had to ask permission to draw my breath. Out in 
 the narrow streets of this little picture town, I see 
 dark-skinned, bare-footed girls. Some of them carry 
 skins of wine on their heads. All of them are poor. 
 They also are gloriously free. As they pass the 
 palace, they look up enviously, and I, from the inside, 
 look out enviously. I know how Richard of the Lion 
 Heart felt when he was a prisoner in France, only 
 I have not the comfort of a Lion Heart, and it is 
 not written in the book of things that you shall pass 
 outside and hear my harp and rescue me. . . . 
 One little taste of liberty I give myself. It caused a 
 terrible battle at first, but I was stubborn and told 
 them that if I was going to be Queen I was going to 
 do just what I wanted, and that if they didn't like it, 
 they could get some other girl to be Queen, so of 
 course they let me. . . . There is an old half- 
 forgotten roadway walled in on both sides that runs 
 through the town from this horrible palace to the 
 woods upon the mountain. There is some sort of 
 foolish legend that in the old days the Kings used to 
 go by. this protected road to a high point called Look-
 
 96 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 out Rock, and stand there where they could see pretty 
 much all of this miserable little Kingdom and a great 
 deal of the Mediterranean besides. No one uses it 
 now except me ; but I do as often as I can steal away. 
 I dress in old clothes and take the little Inca god 
 with me and no one knows us. We slip off among 
 the bowlders and pine trees where the view is wonder- 
 ful, and as his godship presides on a moss-covered 
 rock and I sit on the carpet of pine needles, he gives 
 me advice. Somewhere in these woods crowds of 
 children live. They are very shy, and for a long time 
 looked at me wonderingly from big liquid eyes, but 
 now I have made friends with them and they come and 
 sit around me in a circle and make me tell them fairy 
 stories. . . . 
 
 " Once, dear, I was strong enough to say ' no ' to 
 you. Twice I could not be." 
 
 The reader paused and scowled at the wall with set 
 jaws. 
 
 " But when you read this, almost three thousand miles 
 away, there will be only a few days between me and (it 
 is hard to say it) the marriage and the coronation. He 
 is to be crowned on the same day that we are married. 
 Then I suppose I can't even write what is in my heart." 
 
 Benton rose and paced the narrow confines of the 
 cabin. Suddenly he halted. " Even under sealed 
 orders," he mused slowly, " one may dispose of three
 
 THE TOREADOR APPEARS 97 
 
 thousand miles. They, at least, are behind." A 
 countenance somewhat drawn schooled its features into 
 normal expressionlessness, as a few moments afterward 
 he rose to open the door in response to a rapping out- 
 side. 
 
 As the door swung in a smile came to Benton's face: 
 the first it had worn since that night when he had taken 
 leave of Hope. 
 
 " You, Blanco ! " he exclaimed. " Why, hombre, 
 the anchor is scarce down. You are prompt ! " 
 
 The physically superb man who stood at the thresh- 
 old smiled. The gleam of perfect teeth accentuated 
 the swarthy olive of his face and the crisp jet of his 
 hair. His brown eyes twinkled good-humoredly. Jaw, 
 neck and broad shoulders declared strength, while the 
 slenderness of waist and thigh hinted of grace a 
 hint that every movement vindicated. It was the grace 
 of the bull-fighter, to whom awkwardness would mean 
 death. 
 
 " I had your letter. It was correctly directed 
 Manuel Blanco, Calle Isaac Peral" The Spaniard 
 smiled delightedly. " When one is once more to see an 
 old friend, one does not delay. How am I? Ah, it 
 is good of the Senor to ask. I do well. I have retired 
 from the Plaza de Toros. I busy myself with guiding 
 parties of touristos here and abroad and in the col- 
 lection and sale of antiques. But this time, what is
 
 98 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 your enterprise or pleasure, Senor? What do you in 
 Spain?" 
 
 " My business in Spain," replied Benton slowly, " is 
 to get out of Spain. After that I don't know. Will 
 you go and take chances of anything that might befall? 
 I sent for you to ask you whether you have leisure to 
 accompany me on an enterprise which may involve dan- 
 ger. It's only fair to warn you." 
 
 Blanco laughed. " Who reads manana? " he de- 
 manded, seating himself on the edge of the table, and 
 busying his fingers with the deft rolling of a cigarette. 
 " The toreador does not question the Prophets. I am at 
 your disposition. But the streets of Cadiz await us. 
 Let us talk of it all over the table d'hote:' 
 
 An hour later found the two in the Calle Duke de 
 Tetuan, blazing with lights like a jeweler's show-case. 
 
 The narrow fissure between its walls was aflow with 
 the evening current of promenaders, crowding its scant 
 breadth, and sending up a medley of laughter and 
 musical sibilants. Grandees strolled stiffly erect 
 with long capes thrown back across their left shoul- 
 ders to show the brave color of velvet linings. Young 
 dandies of army and navy, conscious of their multi- 
 colored uniforms, sifted along through the press, 
 toying with rigidly-waxed mustaches and regarding the 
 warm beauty of their countrywomen through keen, ap- 
 preciative eyes, not untinged with sensuousness. Here
 
 THE TOREADOR APPEARS 99 
 
 and there a common hombre in short jacket, wide, low- 
 crowned sombrero and red sash, zig-zagged through the 
 pleasure-seekers to cut into a darker side street whence 
 drifted pungent whiffs of garlic, black olives and pep- 
 pers from the stalls of the street salad-venders. Oc- 
 casionally a Moor in fez and wide-bagging trousers, 
 passed silently through the volatile chatter, looking 
 on with jet eyes and lips drawn down in an impervious 
 dignity. 
 
 They found a table in one of the more prominent 
 cafes from which they could view through the plate- 
 glass front the parade in the street, as well as the groups 
 of coffee-sippers within. 
 
 " Yonder," prompted Blanco, indicating with his 
 eyes a near-by group, " he with the green-lined cape, 
 is the Duke de Tavira, one of the richest men in Spain 
 it is on his estate that they breed the bulls for the 
 rings of Cadiz and Seville. Yonder, quarreling over 
 politics, are newspaper men and Republicans. Yonder, 
 artists." He catalogued and assorted for the American 
 the personalities about the place, presuming the curios- 
 ity which, should be the tourist's attribute-in-chief. 
 
 " And at the large table yonder under the potted 
 palms, and half-screened by the plants who are 
 they?" questioned Benton perfunctorily. "They ap- 
 pear singularly engrossed in their talk." 
 
 " Assume to look the other way, Senor, so they will
 
 100 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 not suspect that we speak of them," cautioned the 
 Andalusian. " I dare say that if one could overhear 
 what they say, he could sell his news at his own price. 
 Who knows but they may plan new colors for the map 
 of Southern Europe? " 
 
 Benton's gaze wandered over to the table in ques- 
 tion, then came uninquisitively back to Blanco's im- 
 passive face. It took more than European politics to 
 distract him. 
 
 " International intrigue? " he inquired. 
 
 The eyes of the other were idly contemplating the 
 street windows, and as he talked he did not turn them 
 toward the men whom he described. Occasionally he 
 looked at Benton and then vacantly back to the street 
 parade, or the red end of his own cigarette. 
 
 " There is a small, and, in itself, an unimportant 
 Kingdom with Mediterranean sea-front, called Galavia," 
 said Blanco. Benton's start was slight, and his fea- 
 tures if they gave a telltale wince at the word became 
 instantly casual again in expression. But his interest 
 was no longer forced by courtesy. It hung from that 
 moment fixed on the narrative. 
 
 " Ah, I see the Senor knows of it," interpolated 
 Blanco. " The tall man with the extremely pale face 
 and the singularly piercing eye who sits facing us," 
 Blanco paused, " is the Duke Louis Delgado. He 
 is the nephew of the late King of Galavia, and if '
 
 THE TOREADOR APPEARS 101 
 
 the Spaniard gave an expressive shrug, and watched 
 the smoke ring he had blown widen as it floated up 
 toward the ceiling " if by any chance, or mischance, 
 Prince Karyl, who is to be crowned at Puntal three days 
 hence, should be called to his reward in heaven, the 
 gentleman who sits there would be crowned King of 
 Galavia in his stead."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 OF CERTAIN TRANSPIRINGS AT A CAFE TABLE 
 
 "OENTON'S eyes seemed hypnotically drawn to the 
 *-* table pointed out, but he kept them tensely riveted 
 on his coffee cup. 
 
 " Yes ? " he impatiently prompted. 
 
 " Of course," continued Blanco absently, " no one 
 could regret more profoundly than the Grand Duke 
 any accident or fatality which might befall his royal 
 kinsman, yet even the holy saints cannot prevent evil 
 chances ! " He paused to sip his coffee. " At the 
 right of ' Louis, the Dreamer,' as he is called, sits the 
 Count Borttorff, who is not greatly in favor with 
 Prince Karyl. He, too, is a Galavian of noble birth, 
 but Paris knows him better than Puntal. He on the 
 left, the man with the puffed eyes and the dissipated 
 mouth you will notice also a scar over the left 
 temple " Blanco was regarding his cigarette tip as 
 he flecked an ash to the floor " is Monsieur Jusseret 
 supposed to be high in the affairs of the French Cabi- 
 net Noir." 
 
 " There is one more and a vacant chair," sug- 
 gested Benton. 
 
 102
 
 TRANSPIRINGS AT A CAFE TABLE 103 
 
 The toreador nodded. " True, I had not forgotten 
 the other. Tall, black-haired, not unlike yourself in 
 appearance, Senor, save for a heavier jaw and the mus- 
 tache which points upward. He is an Englishman by 
 birth, a native of the world by adoption. Once he 
 bore a British army commission. Now he is seen in 
 distinguished society " Blanco laughed " when dis- 
 tinguished society wants something done which clean 
 men will not do. His name, just now, is Martin. In 
 many quarters he is better known as the English Jackal. 
 Where one sees him one may scent conspiracy." 
 
 In all the life and color compassed between the 
 four walls of Moorish tiles and arches, Benton felt the 
 magnet of the group irresistibly drawing his eyes to 
 itself. 
 
 "And this gathering about a table for a cup of 
 coffee, in Cadiz what of it?" argued Benton. He 
 tried to speak as if his curiosity were dilute and his 
 thoughts west of the Atlantic. "Are they not all 
 known here ? " 
 
 Again Blanco gave the expressive Spanish shrug. 
 
 " Few people here know any of them. I only said, 
 Senor, that if any chance should cause Galavia to 
 mourn her new King that same chance would elevate 
 the tall, pale gentleman from a cafe table to a throne. 
 I did not say that the chance would occur." 
 
 "And yet?" urged Benton, his eyes narrowing,
 
 104 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " your words seem to hint more than they express. 
 What is it, Manuel?" 
 
 The Spaniard took a handful of matches from a 
 porcelain receptacle on the table. He laid one down. 
 
 " Let that match," he smilingly suggested, " stand 
 for the circumstance of the Grand Duke leaving Paris 
 for Cadiz which is well, nearer to Puntal and less 
 observant than Paris." He laid another on the marble 
 table-top with its sulphur head close to the first, so 
 that the two radiated from a common center like spokes 
 from a hub. " Regard that as a coincidence of the 
 arrival of the Count Borttorff from the other direc- 
 tion, but at the same time, and at the precise season 
 of the coronation and marriage of the King." He 
 looked at the two matches, then successively laid down 
 others, all with the heads at the common center. 
 " That," he said, " is the joining of the group by the 
 distinguished Frenchman that the presence of the 
 English Jackal that is the chance that runs against 
 any King or Queen of meeting death. That " he 
 struck another match and held it a moment burning in 
 his fingers " regard that, Senor, as the flaring up 
 of ambitions that are thwarted by a life or two." 
 
 He touched the burning match to the grouped tips of 
 sulphur and his teeth gleamed white as he contem- 
 plated the little spurt of hissing flame. Then he 
 dropped his flattened hand upon the tiny eruption and
 
 HIS TEETH GLEAMED WHITE AS HE CONTEMPLATED THE 
 LITTLE SPURT OF HISSING FLAME.
 
 TRANSPIRINGS AT A CAFE TABLE 105 
 
 extinguished it, as his sudden grin died away to a bored 
 smile. 
 
 " There, it is over," he yawned, " and of course it 
 may not happen. Quien sdbe? '* 
 
 " And if they should flare up ' Benton spoke 
 slowly, carefully, " others might suffer than the King? " 
 
 " How should one say? The King alone would suf- 
 fice, but Kings are rarely found in solitude," reasoned 
 the Andalusian. " For a brief moment Europe looks 
 with eyes of interest on the feasting little capital. The 
 King will not be alone. No, it must be so one would 
 surmise at the coronation." 
 
 " Good God ! " Benton gaspingly breathed the ex- 
 clamation. " But, man, think of it the women 
 the children the utterly innocent people the 
 Queen ! " 
 
 The Spaniard leaned back, balancing his chair on 
 two legs, his hands spread on the table. " Si, Senor, it 
 is regrettable. Yet nothing on earth appears so easy 
 to supply as Kings except Queens. And after all, 
 what is it to us an American millionaire a Cadiz 
 toreador? " 
 
 For a moment Benton was silent. When he spoke 
 it was in quick, clear-clipped interrogation. 
 
 " You know Puntal and Galavia? " 
 
 " As I know Spain." 
 
 " Manuel, suppose the quaking of a throne does
 
 106 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 interest me, you will go there with me even though 
 I may lead you where its fall may crush us both? " 
 
 The Spaniard grinned with a dazzling show of white 
 teeth. His shoulders rose and fell in a shrug. "As 
 well a tumbling castle wall as a charging bull." 
 
 " Good. The first thing is to learn all we can of 
 Louis and his party." 
 
 " There is," observed Blanco calmly, " a table on 
 this side also shielded by plants. From its angle we 
 can observe, and be ourselves protected from their 
 view. However, we will first go for a stroll in the calle 
 and return. The change of position will then be less 
 noticeable. Also, the Senor's forehead is beaded with 
 moisture. The air of the street will be grateful." 
 
 As Benton rose he noticed that the Grand Duke was 
 leaning confidentially toward the member of the French 
 Cabinet Noir. 
 
 Fifteen minutes later the two men were ensconced in 
 their more sheltered coign, with wine glasses before 
 them, and all the seeming of idle hours to kill. 
 
 "Is Louis ostensibly a friend of the throne?" de- 
 manded the American. 
 
 " Professedly, he is, Senor. He will write his felici- 
 tations when the marriage and the crowning occur 
 he will even send suitable gifts, but he will remain at 
 his cafe here with his absinthe, or in Paris near the
 
 TRANSPIRINGS AT A CAFE TABLE 107 
 
 fair Comptessa Astaride, whom he adores, unless, of 
 course, he goes to touch the match." 
 
 "Does he never return to Puntal?" 
 
 " Once in five years he has been there. Then he went 
 quietly to his hunting lodge which is ten miles, as the 
 crow flies from the capital, yet barred off by the moun- 
 tain ridge. It is two days' journey by sea from Puntal, 
 and save by the sea one comes only through the moun- 
 tain pass, which is always guarded. Yet on that oc- 
 casion heliographs reported his movements ; the King's 
 escort was doubled and the King went little abroad." 
 
 "Who stands at Louis' back? Revolutionists?" 
 
 " Dios! No, Senor. The Galavians are cattle. 
 Karyl or Louis, it is one to them. Galavia is a key. 
 The key cares not at what porter's belt it jingles. 
 Europe cares who opens and closes the lock. Com- 
 prende? Spain cares, France cares, Italy cares, even 
 the Northern nations care. The movement of pawns 
 affects castles and kings." 
 
 Manuel suddenly halted in his flow of talk. " Blessed 
 Saints ! " he breathed softly. " When he comes nearer 
 you will see him the palms obscure him now. " It is 
 Colonel Von Ritz. He has just entered. He stands 
 near Karyl and the throne. He is a great man wasted 
 in a toy kingdom. All Europe envies the services 
 which Von Ritz squanders on Galavia."
 
 108 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Benton looked up with a rush of memories, and was 
 glad that the Galavian could not see him. 
 
 Like all the men concerned, Von Ritz was incon- 
 spicuously a civilian in dress, but as he came down the 
 center of the room he was, as always, the command- 
 ing figure, challenging attention. His steady eyes 
 swept the place with dispassionate scrutiny. His 
 straight mouth-line betrayed no expression. He came 
 slowly, idly, as though looking for someone. When 
 still some distance from the table where sat the Duke 
 Louis, he halted and their eyes met. Those of the 
 Duke, as he inclined his head slightly, stiffly, wore a 
 glint of veiled hostility. Those of Von Ritz, as he re- 
 turned the salute, no whit more cordially, were blank, 
 except that for the moment, as he stood regarding the 
 party, his non-committal pupils seemed to bore into 
 each face about the table and to catalogue them all in 
 an insolent inventory. 
 
 Each man in the group uneasily shifted his eyes. 
 Then Karyl's officer turned on his heel and left the 
 place. Louis watched him, scowling, and as the Col- 
 onel passed into the street turned suddenly and spoke 
 in a vehement whisper. Jusseret's sardonic lips twisted 
 into a wry smile as though in recognition of an ad- 
 versary's clever check. 
 
 The cafe was now filled. Few tables remained un-
 
 TRANSPIRINGS AT A CAFE TABLE 109 
 
 occupied, and of these, several were near that of the 
 Ducal party. 
 
 Blanco rose. " Wait for me, Senor," he whispered, 
 then went to the front of the cafe where Benton lost 
 him in a crowd at the door. A moment later he came 
 lurching back. His lower lip was stupidly pendent, his 
 eyes heavy and dull, and as he floundered about he 
 dropped with the aimless air of one heavily intoxicated 
 into a chair by a vacant table not more than ten feet 
 distant from that of Louis, the Dreamer. 
 
 There he remained huddled in apparent torpor and 
 for some moments unobserved, until the Duke signaled 
 to a passing waiter and indicated the toreador with 
 a glance. The waiter came over to Blanco. " The 
 Senor will find another table," he said with the in- 
 gratiating courtesy of one paying a compliment. " It 
 is regrettable, but this one is reserved." Blanco ap- 
 peared too stupid to understand, and when finally he did 
 grasp the meaning he rose with profuse and clumsy 
 apologies and staggered vacantly about in the immediate 
 neighborhood of the conspiring coterie. Finally, after 
 receiving further attention and guidance from the 
 waiter, he returned to Benton, and dropping into his 
 chair leaned over, his white teeth flashing a satisfied 
 smile. " The matches may not flare, Senor," he said, 
 " but it would appear it was planned. Now Martin
 
 110 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 and Borttorff cannot go to Puntal. Since the brief 
 visit of Von Ritz they are branded men. The others 
 are already known to Karyl's government." 
 
 Benton sat with his brows knitted intently listening. 
 
 " Now," went on Blanco, " there is one thing more. 
 They await the man for whom they hold the empty 
 chair." 
 
 There was a brief silence, then the Spaniard uttered 
 a low exclamation of satisfaction. Benton glanced up 
 to see a young man of frank face, blond mustache and 
 Paris clothes drop into the vacant place with evident 
 apologies for his tardiness. 
 
 " Ah," breathed Blanco again, " I feared it would be 
 someone I did not know. He is the Tenlente Lapas, of 
 Karyl's Palace guard. The pobrecito! I wonder what 
 post he hopes to adorn at the Court of the Pretender." 
 
 For a moment the Spaniard looked on with an ex- 
 pression of melancholy reflection. " That boy," he said 
 at last, " has the trust and friendship of the King. 
 Before him lies every prospect of advancement, yet he 
 has been beguiled by the Countess Astaride, and throws 
 himself into a plot against Karyl. It is pitiable when 
 one is perfidious so young and with such small 
 cause." 
 
 "Who is the Countess Astaride?" inquired the 
 American. 
 
 " One of the most beautiful women in Europe, to
 
 TRANSPIRINGS AT A CAFE TABLE 111 
 
 whom these children are playthings. For her there is 
 only Louis Delgado. It is her firing of his dreams 
 which makes him aspire to a throne. It is she who 
 has the determination. He can see visions of power 
 only in the colors of his absinthe glass. She uses men 
 to her ends. Lapas is the latest unless " Blanco 
 paused " unless he is playing two parts, and really 
 serves Karyl. Come, Senor, there is nothing further 
 to interest us here."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE PASSING PRINCESS AND THE MISTAKEN COUNTESS 
 
 WITH the sapphire bay of Puntal at his back, his 
 knees clasped between interlacing fingers, Benton 
 sat on the stone sea-wall and affected to whistle up 
 a lightness of heart. Near at hand sprawled a pic- 
 turesque city, its houses tinted in pea-greens, pinks and 
 soft blues, or as white and decorative as though fash- 
 ioned in icing on a cake. 
 
 Clinging steeply to higher levels and leaning on 
 buttressing walls, lay outspread vineyards and cane 
 fields and gardens. Splotching the whole with imperial 
 and gorgeous purple, hung masses of bougonvillea be- 
 tween trellis and masonry. At a more lofty line, where 
 the sub-tropical profusion halted in the warning breath 
 of a keener atmosphere, came the scrub growth and 
 beyond that, in succeeding altitudes, the pine belt, the 
 snow line and the film of trailing cloud on the white 
 peaks. 
 
 Out of the center of the color-splashed town rose 
 the square tower of the ancient cathedral, white in a 
 coat of plaster for two-thirds of its height, but gray 
 at its top in the nakedness of mossy stone. 
 112
 
 PRINCESS AND COUNTESS 113 
 
 To its dilapidated clock Benton's eyes traveled re- 
 peatedly and anxiously while he waited. 
 
 From the clock they wandered in turn to the road 
 circling the bay, and the cliff at his left, where the 
 jail-like walls of the King's Palace rose sheer from 
 the rock, fifty feet above him. 
 
 From the direction of the Cathedral drifted frag- 
 ments of band music, and the bugle calls of marching 
 platoons. Everywhere festivity reigned, working great 
 profits to the keepers of the wine-shops. 
 
 Manuel Blanco turned the corner and Benton slipped 
 quickly down from his perch on the wall and fell 
 into step as the other passed. 
 
 "It is difficult to learn anything, Senor" The 
 Spaniard spoke low as he led the way outward from 
 the city. 
 
 " Puntal is usually a quiet place and the festivities 
 have made it like a child at a fiesta. One hears only 
 ' Long live the King the Queen ! ' There are to be 
 illuminations to-night, and music, and the limit will be 
 taken off the roulette wheels at the Strangers' Club. 
 Bah ! One could have read it in the papers without leav- 
 ing Cadiz." 
 
 "Then you have learned nothing?" 
 
 " One thing, yes. An old friend of mine has come 
 for the festivities from the Duke's estate. He says
 
 114. THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 the pass is picketed and a guard is posted at the Look- 
 out Rock." 
 
 " The Look-out Rock? " Benton repeated the words 
 with an inflection of inquiry. 
 
 " Yes look above you at the hill whose summit is 
 less high than the ridge peaks there below the snow." 
 Blanco suddenly raised his voice from confidential un- 
 dertone to the sing-song of the professional guide. 
 " Yonder," he said, scarcely changing the direction of 
 his pointed finger, " is the unfinished sanatorium for 
 consumptives which the Germans undertook and left 
 unfinished." Two soldiers were sauntering by, smart 
 in newly issued uniforms of tall red caps, dark tunics, 
 sky-blue breeches, and polished boots. " That point," 
 went on Blanco, dropping his voice again, as they 
 passed out of earshot, " is three thousand, five hundred 
 feet above the sea. From the rock by the pines if 
 you had a strong glass, you could see the Galavian 
 flag which flies there the eye sweeps the sea for many 
 empty leagues. One's gaze can also follow the gorge 
 where runs the pass through the mountains. Also, to 
 the other side, one has an eagle's glimpse of the Grand 
 Duke's hunting lodge. There is an observatory just 
 back of the rock and flag. The speck of light which 
 you can see, like a splinter of crystal, is its dome, but 
 only military astronomers now look through its tele- 
 scope. There one can read the tale of open shutters
 
 PRINCESS AND COUNTESS 115 
 
 or barred windows in the house of Louis, the Dreamer. 
 You understand? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Now, do you see the thread of broken masonry 
 zig-zagging upward from the Palace? That is a walled 
 drive which runs part of the way up to the rock. 
 In other days the Kings of Galavia went thus from 
 their castle to the point whence they could see the 
 peninsula spread out below like a map on the page of 
 a school-book." 
 
 "Yes? What else?" 
 
 " This. The lodge of the Duke as seen by the tele- 
 scope sleeps shuttered an expanse of blank walls. 
 Yet the Duke is there ! " 
 
 " Louis in Galavia? " 
 
 " Wait." Blanco laid his hand on the other's arm 
 and smiled. 
 
 " My friend is superstitious and ignorant. He 
 tells how the Duke has a ship's mast with wires on a 
 tower fronting the far side. He says Louis talks with 
 the open sea." 
 
 " A Marconi mast? " 
 
 Manuel nodded. 
 
 Benton's eyes narrowed under drawn brows. When 
 he spoke his voice was tense. 
 
 " In God's name, Manuel," he whispered, " what is 
 the answer?"
 
 116 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 The Spaniard met the gaze gravely. " I fancy, 
 Senor," he said slowly, " the matches will burn." 
 
 "When? Where?" 
 
 " Quien sale? " Blanco paused to light a cigarette. 
 Two priests, their black robes relieved by crimson sashes 
 and stockings, approached, and until they were at a 
 safe distance he talked on once more at random with 
 the sing-song patter of the guide. " That dungeon- 
 like building is the old Fortress do Freres. It has 
 clung to that gut of rock out there in the bay since 
 the days when the Moors held the Mediterranean. It 
 is said that the new King will convert it from a fortress 
 into a prison. It is now employed as an arsenal." 
 
 Slowly the two men moved back to the busier part 
 of the city. They walked in silence until they were 
 swallowed in the crowds drifting near the Central Ave- 
 nue. Finally Blanco leaned forward, moved by the 
 anxious face of his companion. " Manana, Senor," he 
 suggested reassuringly. " Perhaps we may learn to- 
 morrow." 
 
 " And to-morrow may be too late," replied Benton. 
 
 " Hardly, Senor. The marriage and coronation are 
 the day following. It should be one of those occa- 
 sions." Benton only shuddered. 
 
 They swung into the Ruo Centrale, between lining 
 sycamores, olive trees and acacias, to be engulfed in a
 
 PRINCESS AND COUNTESS 117 
 
 jostling press of feast-day humanity. Suddenly Ben- 
 ton felt his coat-sleeve tugged. 
 
 " Let us stop," Manuel shouted into his ear above 
 the roar of the carnival clamor. " The Royal carriage 
 comes." 
 
 Between a garden and the pavement ran a stone 
 coping, topped by a tall iron grill, and laden with 
 screening vines. The two men mounted this masonry 
 and clung to the iron bars, as the crowd was driven 
 back from the street by the outriders. Before Ben- 
 ton's eyes the whole mass of humanity swam in a blur 
 of confusion and vertigo. The passing files of blue 
 and red soldiery seemed wavering figures mounted on 
 reeling horses. The King's carriage swung into view 
 and a crescendo of cheering went up from the crowd. 
 
 Benton saw blurred circles of color whirling dizzily 
 about a steady center, and the center was the slender 
 woman at Karyl's side, who was the day after to- 
 morrow to become his Queen. He saw the fixed smile 
 with which she tried to acknowledge the salutations as 
 the crowd eddied about her carriage. Her wide, stricken 
 eyes were shimmery with imprisoned tears. To drive 
 through the streets of Puntal with that half -stunned 
 misery written clear in lips and eyes, she must, he 
 knew, have reached the outmost border of endurance. 
 Karyl bent solicitously forward and spoke, and she
 
 118 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 nodded as if answering in a dream, smiling wanly. 
 It was all as some young Queen might have gone to 
 the guillotine rather than to her coronation. As she 
 looked bewilderedly from side to side her glance fell 
 upon the clustering flowers of the vine. Benton gripped 
 the iron bars and groaned, and then her eyes met his. 
 For a moment her pupils dilated and one gloved hand 
 convulsively tightened on the paneling of the carriage 
 door. The man dropped into the crowd and was swal- 
 - lowed up, and he knew by her familiar gesture of brush- 
 ing something away from her temples, that she believed 
 she had seen an image projected from a troubled brain. 
 " Come," he said brokenly to his companion, " for 
 God's sake get me out of this crowd." 
 
 The Strangers' Club of Puntal sits high on a solid 
 wall of rock and overlooks the sea. Its beauty is too 
 full of wizardry to seem real, and what nature had done 
 in view and sub-tropical luxuriance the syndicate which 
 operates the ball rooms, tea gardens, and roulette wheels 
 has striven to abet. To-night a moon two-thirds full 
 immersed the grounds in a bath of blue and silver, and 
 far off below the cliff wall the Mediterranean was 
 phosphorescent. In the room where the croupiers spun 
 the wheels, the color scheme was profligate. 
 
 Benton idled at one of the tables, his eyes search- 
 ing the crowd in the faint hope of discovering some
 
 PRINCESS AND COUNTESS 119 
 
 thread which he might follow up to definite conclu- 
 sion. Beyond the wheel, just at the croupier's elbow, 
 stood a woman, audaciously yet charmingly gowned in 
 red, with a scale-like shimmer of passementerie. A red 
 rose in her black hair threw into conspicuous effect its 
 intense luster. 
 
 She might have been the genius of Rouge et Noir. 
 Her litheness had the panther's sinuous strength. The 
 vivid contrast of olive cheeks, carmine lips and dark 
 eyes, gave stress to her slender sensuousness. 
 
 Hers was the allurement of poppy and passion-flower. 
 In her movements was suggestion of vital feminine 
 force. 
 
 Perhaps the incurious glance of the American made 
 itself felt, for as she threw down a fresh louis d'or, she 
 looked up and their eyes met. For an instant her ex- 
 pression was almost that of one who stifles an impulse 
 to recognize another. Possibly, thought Benton, she 
 had mistaken him for someone else. 
 
 " Mon dteu," whispered a voice in French, " the 
 Comptessa d'Astaride is charming this evening." 
 
 " Ah, such wit ! Such charm ! " enthused another 
 voice at Benton's back. " She is most perfect in those 
 gowns of unbroken lines, with a single rose." Evi- 
 dently the men left the tables at once, for Benton heard 
 no more. He also turned away a moment later to make 
 way for an Italian in whose feverish eyes burned the
 
 120 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 roulette-lust. He went to the farthest end of the 
 gardens, where there was deep shadow, and a seaward 
 outlook over the cliff wall. There the glare of electric 
 bulbs and blazing doorways was softened, and the or- 
 chestra's music was modulated. Presently he was 
 startled by a ripple of laughter at his shoulder, low and 
 rich in musical vibrance. 
 
 " Ah, it is not like this in your gray, fog-wrapped 
 country." 
 
 Benton wheeled in astonishment to encounter the daz- 
 zling smile of the Countess Astaride. She was stand- 
 ing slender as a young girl, all agleam in the half- 
 light as though she wore an armor of glowing copper 
 and garnets. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," stammered the American, but 
 she laid a hand lightly on his arm and smilingly shook 
 her head. 
 
 " I know, Monsieur Martin, we have not met, but you 
 were with the Duke at Cadiz. You have come in his 
 interest. In his cause, I acknowledge no conventions." 
 In her voice was the fusing of condescension and regal 
 graciousness. " It was wise," she thoughtfully added, 
 " to shave your mustache, but even so Von Ritz will 
 know you. You cannot be too guarded." 
 
 For an instant Benton stood with his hands braced 
 on the coping regarding her curiously. Evidently he 
 stood on the verge of some revelation, but the role
 
 PRINCESS AND COUNTESS 121 
 
 in which her palpable mistake cast him was one he must 
 play all in the dark. 
 
 " You can trust me," she said with an impassioned 
 note but without elevating her voice. " I am the Coun- 
 tess " 
 
 " Astaride," finished Benton. 
 
 Then he cautiously added the inquiry : " Have you 
 heard the plans that were discussed by the Duke, and 
 Jusseret and Borttorff ? " 
 
 " And yourself and Lieutenant Lapas," she aug- 
 mented. 
 
 " And Lapas and myself," admitted Benton, lying 
 fluently. 
 
 " I know only that Louis is to wait at his lodge 
 to hear by wireless whether France and Italy will recog- 
 nize his government," she hastily recited ; " and that on 
 that signal you and Lapas wait to strike the blow." 
 
 " Do you know when ? " inquired the American, fen- 
 cing warily in the effort to lead her into betrayal of 
 more definite information. 
 
 " It must be soon or never ! But tell me, has 
 Louis come? Has he reached his hunting lodge? 
 Does he know that guards are at the rock? Do you, 
 or Lapas, wait to flash the signal from the look-out? 
 Ah, how my gaze shall be bent toward the flag-staff." 
 Then, as her eyes wandered out to sea, her voice be- 
 came soft with dreams. She laughed low and shook
 
 122 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 her head. " Louis, Louis ! " she murmured. " When 
 you are King ! But tell me " again she was anxious, 
 executive, imperious " tell me everything ! " 
 
 Obviously he was mistaken for the English Jackal ! 
 
 Benton countered anxiously. " Yet, Your Majesty," 
 he bent low as he anticipated her ambition in be- 
 stowing the title "Your Majesty asks so many ques- 
 tions all at once, and we may be interrupted." 
 
 Once more she was in a realm of air castles as she 
 leaned on the stone coping and gazed off into the moon- 
 light. " It is but the touching of a button," she mur- 
 mured, " and allons! In the space of an explosion, 
 dynasties change places." Suddenly she stood up. 
 " You are right. We cannot talk here. I shall be 
 missed. Take this " she slipped a seal ring from her 
 finger. " Come to me to-morrow morning. I am at the 
 Hotel de France. I shall be ostensibly out, but show 
 the ring and you will be admitted. When I am Queen, 
 you shall not go undecorated." She gave his hand a 
 warm momentary pressure and was gone.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 BENTON MUST DECIDE 
 
 the next afternoon at the base of the flag-staff 
 above Look-out Rock, Lieutenant Lapas nervously 
 swept the leagues of sea and land, spreading under him, 
 with strong glasses. Though the air was somewhat 
 rarer and cooler here than below, beads of sweat stood 
 out on his forehead, and the cigarettes which he in- 
 cessantly smoked followed each other with a furious 
 haste which denoted mental unrest. 
 
 At a sound of foliage rustled aside and a displaced 
 rock bumping down the slope, the watcher took the 
 glasses from his eyes with a nervous start. 
 
 Up the hill from the left climbed an unknown man. 
 His features were those of a Spaniard. As the officer's 
 eyes challenged him he halted, panting, to mop his brow 
 with the air of one who takes a breathing space after 
 violent exertion. The newcomer smiled pleasantly as 
 he leaned against a bowlder and genially volunteered: 
 " It is a long journey from the shore." Then after a 
 moment he added in a tone of respectful inquiry: 
 " You are Lieutenant Lapas ? " 
 123
 
 124 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 The officer had regained his composure. He re- 
 garded the other with a mild scrutiny touched with 
 superciliousness as he nodded acquiescence and in re- 
 turn demanded : " Who are you ? " 
 
 " Do you see that speck of white down yonder by the 
 sea? " Blanco drew close and his outstretched finger 
 pointed a line to the Duke's lodge. " I come from 
 there," he explained with concise directness. 
 
 The officer bit his lip. 
 
 " Why did you come ? " The Spaniard paused to 
 roll a cigarette before he answered: 
 
 " I come from the Duke, of course. Why else should 
 I climb this accursed ladder of hills? " 
 
 "What Duke?" The interrogation tumbled too 
 eagerly from the soldier's lips to be consonant with his 
 wary assumption of innocence. " There are so many 
 Dukes. Myself, I serve only the King." 
 
 The Spaniard's teeth gleamed, and there was a 
 strangely disarming quality in the smile that broke 
 in sudden illumination over his dark face. 
 
 " I have been here only a few days," explained 
 Blanco. Then, lying with apt fluency, he continued: 
 " I have arrived from Cadiz in the service of the Grand 
 Duke Louis Delgado, who will soon be His Majesty, 
 Louis of Galavia, and I am sent to you as the bearer 
 of his message." He ignored the other's protestations
 
 BENTON MUST DECIDE 125 
 
 of loyalty to the throne as completely as he ignored the 
 frightened face of the man who made them. 
 
 Lapas had whitened to the lips and now stood hesitant. 
 " I don't understand," he stammered. 
 
 The Spaniard's expression changed swiftly from 
 good humor to the sternness of a taskmaster. 
 
 " The Duke is impatient," he asserted, " of delays and 
 misunderstandings on the part of his servants. His 
 Grace believed that your memory had been well schooled. 
 Louis, the King, may prove forgetful of those who are 
 forgetful of Louis, the Duke." 
 
 Lapas still stood silent, pitiably unnerved. If the 
 man was Karyl's spy an incautious reply might cost 
 him his life. If he was genuinely a messenger from 
 the Pretender any hesitation might prove equally fatal. 
 
 Time was important. Blanco drew from his pocket 
 a gold seal ring which until last night had adorned 
 the finger of the Countess Astaride. Upon its shield 
 was the crest of the House of Delgado. At the sight 
 of the familiar quarterings, the officer's face became 
 contrite, apologetic, but above all immeasurably re- 
 lieved. 
 
 " Caution is so necessary," he explained. " One can- 
 not be too careful. It is not for myself alone, but for 
 the Duke also that I must have a care." 
 
 Blanco accepted the explanation with a bow, then he
 
 126 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 spoke energetically and rapidly, pressing his advantage 
 before the other's weakness should lead him into fresh 
 vacillation. 
 
 " The Duke feared that there might be some mis- 
 understanding as to the signal and the programme. 
 He wished me to make it clear to you." 
 
 Lapas nodded and, turning, led the way through the 
 pine trees to a small kiosk that was something between 
 a sentinel box and a signal station built against the 
 walls of the old observatory. 
 
 "I think I understand," said Lapas, "but I shall 
 be glad to have you repeat the Duke's commands and 
 inform me if any changes have been made." 
 
 " No, the arrangements stand unaltered," replied the 
 Spaniard. " My directions were that you should re- 
 peat to me the order of your instructions and that I 
 should judge for His Grace whether or not your mem- 
 ory is retentive. There must be no hitch." 
 
 " I don't know you," demurred Lapas. 
 
 " His Grace knows me and trusts me. That should 
 be sufficient," retorted Blanco. " I bring you creden- 
 tials which you will refuse to recognize at your own 
 risk. Unless I were in the confidence of the Duke, I 
 could scarcely be here with a knowledge of your plans." 
 
 Blanco's eyes blazed in sudden and well simulated 
 wrath. " I have no time to waste in argument. Choose 
 quickly. Shall I return to Louis and inform him that
 
 BENTON MUST DECIDE 127 
 
 you refuse to trust those he selects to bear his 
 orders ? " 
 
 For an instant the Spaniard stood contemptuously 
 regarding the other's terror, then with a disgusted 
 exclamation he turned on his heel and started to the 
 door of the kiosk. But Lapas was in a moment catch- 
 ing at his elbow and protesting himself convinced. He 
 led Blanco back to a seat. 
 
 " Listen." The Lieutenant sat at the crude table in 
 the center of the small room and talked rapidly, as one 
 rehearsing a well-learned lesson. 
 
 " The Fortress do Freres is stocked with explosives. 
 Karyl goes there with Von Ritz and others of his suite 
 to inspect the place with the view of turning it into a 
 prison. The Grand Duke, waiting at his hunting lodge, 
 is to receive by wireless the message from Jusseret and 
 Borttorff, who convey the verdict of Europe, as to 
 whether or not it is decided to recognize his Govern- 
 ment. If their message be favorable, he will raise the 
 Galavian flag on the west tower of the hunting lodge, 
 and I shall relay the message here with the flag at Look- 
 out Point. This flag-pole will be the signal to those 
 in the city whose fingers are on the key, and whose 
 key will explode the powder in do Freres. If the flag 
 which now flies from the flag-staff here is still flying 
 when the King enters the fortress, the cap will explode. 
 If the flag-staff is empty, the King's visit will be un-
 
 128 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 eventful. It will require fifteen minutes for the King 
 to go from the Palace to the Fortress. I must not re- 
 main here I must be where I can see." 
 
 Lapas rose and consulted his watch with nervous 
 haste. "You will excuse me?" he added. "I must 
 be at my post. Are you satisfied? " 
 
 Blanco also rose, bowing as he drew back the heavy 
 chair he had occupied. " I am quite satisfied," he ap- 
 proved. His hands were gripping the chairback and 
 when Lapas had taken two paces to the front, and 
 Blanco had appraised the distance between, the chair 
 left the floor. With the same lightning swiftness of 
 motion that had brought salvos of applause from the 
 bull-rings of Cadiz and Seville, he swung it above his 
 head and brought down its cumbersome weight in an 
 arc. 
 
 Lapas, his eyes fixed on the door, had no hint. A 
 picture of serene sky and steady mountains was blotted 
 from his brain. There was blackness instead and 
 unconsciousness. 
 
 A bleeding scalp told the toreador that the blow had 
 only cut and stunned. 
 
 Rapidly he bound and gagged his captive. Drag- 
 ging him back through the narrow room he made cer- 
 tainty doubly sure by tying him to the base of the 
 neglected telescope in the abandoned observatory. 
 
 A hundred yards below the rock, tucked out of sight
 
 BENTON MUST DECIDE 129 
 
 of the man at the flag-pole, stretched a ledge-like strip 
 of level ground, backed by the thick tangle of growth 
 which masked the slope. Beyond its edge of roughly 
 blocked and crevassed stone, the gorge fell away a 
 dizzy thousand feet. Out of the pines struggled the 
 half-overgrown path where once a road had led from 
 the castle. This way the earlier Lords of Galavia had 
 come to look across the backbone of the peninsula, to 
 the east. 
 
 As Benton paced the ledge impatiently, awaiting the 
 outcome of Blanco's reconnoiter, he noticed with a 
 nauseating sense of onrushing peril how the purpled 
 shadows of the mountains were lengthening across the 
 valley and beginning to creep up the other side. 
 
 Each time his pacing brought him to the edge of 
 the clearing he paused to look down at the sullen walls 
 of Karyl's castle. 
 
 A woman, flushed and breathless from the climb, 
 pushed through the scrub pines at the path's end and 
 stopped suddenly at the marge of the clearing. Her 
 slender girlish figure, clad in corduroy skirt and blue 
 jersey, was poised with lance-like straightness, and a 
 grace as free as a boy's. Her hands, cased in battered 
 gauntlets, went suddenly to her breast, as though she 
 would muffle the palpitant heart beneath the jersey. 
 She stood for a moment looking at the man and the 
 ultramarine of her eyes clouded slowly into gray. The
 
 130 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 pink flush of exercise died instantly to pallor in her 
 cheeks. 
 
 Then the lips overcame an impulse to quiver and 
 spoke slowly in an undertone and with marked effort. 
 " This is twice that I have seen you," she whispered, 
 " although you are three thousand miles away." 
 
 The man wheeled, not suddenly, but heavily and 
 slowly. " I am real," he answered simply. 
 
 Cara put out one hand like a sleep-walker, and came 
 forward, still incredulous. 
 
 " Gara, dearest one ! " he said impetuously. " You 
 must have known that I would be near you that I 
 would be standing by, even though I couldn't help ! " 
 
 She shook her head. " I have been having these hal- 
 lucinations, you know, of late." She explained as 
 though to herself. " I guess it's it's just missing 
 people so that does it." 
 
 She was close to him now, close, too, to the sheer drop 
 of the cliff, walking forward with eyes wide and fixed on 
 his face. He took a quick step forward and swept her 
 to him, crushing her against his breast. 
 
 She gave a glad exclamation of realization, and her 
 own arms closed impulsively around his neck. 
 
 " You are real ! You are real ! " she whispered, 
 looking into his eyes, her gauntleted hands holding his 
 face between them. 
 
 " Cara," he begged, " listen to me. It's my last
 
 BENTON MUST DECIDE 131 
 
 plea. You said in the letter I have in my pocket 
 there where your heart is beating that you could not 
 refuse me if I came again. Dear, this is * again.' The 
 I sis is a speck out there at sea awaiting a signal. Will 
 you go ? I have no throne to offer, but " 
 
 " Don't," she cried, holding a hand over his lips. 
 "For a minute just for a little golden minute 
 let us forget thrones." Then as the furrow came back 
 between her brows : " Oh, boy, it's my destiny to be 
 always strong enough to resist happiness when I might 
 have it by being less strong, and always too weak to 
 bear bravely what must be borne when it can't be 
 helped." 
 
 He stood silent. 
 
 After a moment she went on. " And I love you. 
 Ah, you know that well enough, but up there beyond 
 your head which I love, I see the green and white 
 and blue flag of Galavia which I hate, and destiny com- 
 mands me to be disloyal to you for loyalty to it. On 
 the eve of life imprisonment," she went on, clinging 
 to him, " I have stolen away to play truant perhaps for 
 the last time still craving freedom, longing for you ; 
 and now I find freedom, and you, just to lose you 
 again ! I can't I can't yes I can I will ! " 
 
 Suddenly he held her off at arms' length and looked 
 at her with a strange wide-eyed expression of discovery. 
 
 " But," he cried with the vehemence of a sudden
 
 132 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 thought, " you are up here safe ! Safe, whatever 
 happens down there ! Nothing that occurs there can 
 affect you ! " 
 
 " Safe, of course," she spoke wonderingly. " What 
 danger is there? " 
 
 The man turned. " For God's sake let me think 
 a moment ! " He dropped on the pine needles and 
 sat with his hands covering his face and his fingers 
 pressed into his temples. She came over. 
 
 "Does that prevent your thinking?" she softly 
 asked, dropping on her knees at his side and letting 
 one hand rest on his shoulder. 
 
 For moments, lengthening into minutes, he sat immov- 
 able, fighting back the agonized and torrential flood 
 of thought which burst upon him with unwarned tempta- 
 tion. The danger was not after all a danger to the 
 woman he loved, but a menace to his enemy. She was 
 safe three thousand feet above the threatening city. He 
 had only to hold his hand, perhaps, for a half-hour; 
 had only to keep her here and let matters follow their 
 course. 
 
 He was not entertaining the thought, except to assure 
 himself that he could not entertain it, but it was rack- 
 ing him with its suddenness. The King was there 
 in peril. She was here safe. Insistently these 
 two facts assaulted his brain. 
 
 " Pardon, Senor." Blanco broke noisily down
 
 BENTON MUST DECIDE 133 
 
 through the pines and halted where the path emerged. 
 For an instant he stood in bewildered surprise. 
 
 " Pardon, Your Highness " he exclaimed, bending 
 low; then, quenching the recognition in his eyes and 
 assuming mistake, he laughed. " Ah, I ask forgive- 
 ness, Senorita. I mistook you for the Princess. The 
 resemblance is strong. I see my error." 
 
 " Manuel ! " Benton rose unsteadily and stared at 
 the toreador with a face pallid as chalk. He spoke 
 wildly. " Quick, Manuel have you learned any- 
 thing? " 
 
 The Spaniard glanced inquiringly at the girl, and 
 as Benton nodded reassurance went on in a lowered 
 voice. Only fragments of his speech reached Cara's 
 ears. Her own thoughts left her too apathetic to listen. 
 
 " The plan is this. It is to happen at the Fortress 
 do Freres this afternoon while the King inspects the 
 arsenal. Now, in fifteen minutes ! " He pointed down 
 toward the city. " See, the cortege leaves the Palace ! 
 Lapas was to be here at the rock the blessed Saints 
 help him! He is hobbled to his telescope." Swiftly 
 he rehearsed the story as it had come from the lips of 
 Lapas. 
 
 Benton was studying the Duke's lodge with his 
 glasses. " There is a flag flying on the west tower," 
 he muttered. 
 
 He turned slowly toward the Princess. Outstanding
 
 134 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 veins were tracing cordlike lines on his temples. His 
 fingers trembled as he focused the glasses. 
 
 Blanco looked slowly from one to the other. Sud- 
 denly he threw back both shoulders and his eyes grew 
 bright in full comprehension of the situation he had 
 discovered. 
 
 " Senor! " he whispered. 
 
 " Yes ? " echoed the American in a dull voice. 
 
 " Senor suppose suppose I have confused the 
 signals ? " The tone was insinuating. 
 
 Benton's mind flashed back to a Sunday School class 
 of his childhood and his infantile horror for the tale of 
 a tempter on a high mountain offering the possession 
 of all the world if only if only 
 
 He took a step forward. Speech seemed to choke 
 him. 
 
 " In God's name ! " he cried, " you have not forgot- 
 ten? " 
 
 The Spaniard slowly shook his head and smiled. The 
 expression gave to his face a touch of the sinister. 
 " No but it is yet possible to forget, Senor. I serve 
 no King, I serve you. Sometimes a mistake is the 
 truest accuracy. Quien sabe? " 
 
 The Andalusian looked at the girl who stood puzzled 
 and waiting. " Sometimes in the Plaza de Toros, 
 Senor," he went on, speaking rapidly and tensely, " the 
 throngs cry, ' Bravo, matador! ' and toss coins into the
 
 BENTON MUST DECIDE 135 
 
 ring. Yet in a moment the same throngs may shout 
 until their throats are hoarse : * Bravo, toro! ' A 
 King is like a bull in the ring, Senor he has a fickle 
 fate. To me he is nothing if it pleases them it 
 is their King let them do as they wish." He 
 shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 Benton straightened. " Manuel," he said with a 
 strained tone, " the flag comes down." 
 
 The Andalusian smiled regretfully, and once more 
 shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " As you say, Senor, but are you sure you wish it 
 so?" 
 
 " Manuel, I mean that ! " said the American with 
 a steadied voice. "And for God's sake, Manuel," he 
 added wildly, " throw the rope over the gorge when you 
 have done it ! " 
 
 For a moment Benton stood rigid, his hands clenched 
 together at his back as he watched the quick step of 
 the Andalusian climbing to the flag-staff. At last he 
 turned dully and looked down where he could see the 
 royal cortege, not yet half-way along the road to the 
 fortress, then he went over to the girl's side. 
 
 " Cara," he said, " I have earned the right to kiss 
 you good-by." 
 
 " It's yours without the earning, but good-by ! " 
 She shuddered. "What does it all mean?" she asked 
 in bewilderment. " What was it you discussed? "
 
 136 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " Listen," he commanded. " Tell Von Ritz or Karyl 
 that Lapas is a traitor and a prisoner in the observa- 
 tory; that Louis is at his lodge and that the Countess 
 Astaride is a conspirator in a plot to assassinate the 
 King. Tell them that a percussion cap and key con- 
 nect the magazines of do Freres with the city." 
 
 The Princess looked at him with eyes that slowly 
 widened in amazed comprehension. " I understand," 
 she whispered. " And the flag see, it is coming down 
 that means? " 
 
 He dropped on one knee and lifted her fingers to his 
 lips. " It means that you are to be crowned Queen 
 in Galavia to-morrow," he answered with a groan. 
 " Long live the Queen ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 CONCERNING FAREWELLS AND WARNINGS 
 
 < <mO-MORROW!" repeated the girl with a shud- 
 A der. 
 
 Both stood silent under such a strain as cannot be 
 long sustained. At the crunch of branch underfoot 
 and the returning Blanco's, " Senor! Senor! " both 
 started violently. 
 
 "Look, Senor," exclaimed the Spaniard. "The 
 King has entered the fortress." Then, seeing that the 
 eyes of both man and girl turned at his words from 
 an intent gaze, not on the town but the opposite hills, 
 he added, half -apologetic : " I shall go, Senor, and look 
 to my prisoner. If you need me, I shall be there." 
 
 With the same stricken misery in her eyes that they 
 had worn as she passed in her carriage, Cara re- 
 mained motionless and silent. 
 
 The bottom of the valley grew cloudy with shadow. 
 The sun was kissing into rosy pink the snow caps of 
 the western ridge. A cavalcade of horsemen emerged 
 at last from do Freres and started at a smart trot for 
 the Palace. Cara pointed downward with one tremulous 
 finger. Benton nodded. 
 
 137
 
 138 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " Safe," he said, but without enthusiasm. 
 
 " I must go." Cara started down the path and the 
 man walked beside her as far as the battered gate which 
 hung awry from its broken columns. Over it now 
 clambered masses of vine richly purple with bougon- 
 villea. She broke off a branch and handed it to him. 
 " Purple," she said again, " is the color of mourning 
 and royalty." 
 
 Blanco noted the coming of evening and realized 
 that it would be well to reach the level of the city before 
 dark. He knew that if Lapas was to be turned over 
 to Karyl's authorities, steps to that end should be taken 
 before he was discovered and released by those of his 
 own faction. He accordingly made his way back to 
 the gate. 
 
 Benton was still standing, looking down the alley- 
 way which ran between the half ruined lines of 
 masonry. His shoulders unconsciously sagged. 
 
 The Spaniard approached quietly and stood for a 
 moment unwilling to interrupt, then in a low voice 
 touched with that affectionate note which men are not 
 ashamed to show even to other men in the Latin coun- 
 tries, he said : " Senor Benton ! " 
 
 The American turned and put out his hand, grasp- 
 ing that of the toreador. His grip said what his lips 
 left unworded. 
 
 " Dios mio! " exclaimed Blanco with a black scowl.
 
 FAREWELLS AND WARNINGS 139 
 
 " We saved the King, but we bought his life and his 
 throne too high ! He cost too dear ! " 
 
 "Blanco," Benton spoke with difficulty, "I have 
 brought you with me and you have asked no questions. 
 The story is not mine to tell." 
 
 The Andalusian raised a hand in protestation. 
 
 " It is not necessary that you tell me anything, 
 Senor. I have seen enough. And I know the King 
 was not worth the price." 
 
 Benton shook his head. " Are you going on with me, 
 now that you know what you know? " 
 
 " Senor, it grieves me that you should ask. I told 
 you I was at your disposition." The Spaniard went 
 on talking rapidly, talking with lips and eyes and 
 gesture. " When you came to Cadiz and took me with 
 you on the small steamer, I did not ask why. I thought 
 it was as Americans are interested in all things or 
 perhaps because the many million pesetas of the Senor's 
 fortune might be affected by changing the map of 
 Enrope. No matter. You were interested. It was 
 enough." 
 
 He swept both hands apart. 
 
 " But had I known then what to-day has taught me, 
 I should have held my tongue that evening when the 
 Pretender plotted in the cafe." 
 
 " To-morrow," said Benton slowly, " there will be 
 festivity. I can't be here then. I must leave to-night
 
 140 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 but you, amigo mio, you must stay and watch. If 
 Lapas is taken prisoner and silenced there will be no 
 one in Puntal who will suspect you. No one knew me 
 and if I leave at once, the Countess will hardly learn 
 who was the mysterious man to whom she gave a ring." 
 
 " But, Senor," Blanco was dubious " would it not 
 be better that I should be with you? " 
 
 " You can serve me better by remaining here. I 
 would rather have you near Her." 
 
 The man from Cadiz nodded and crossed himself. 
 
 " I am pledged, Senor," he asserted. 
 
 " Then," continued the American, " for a time we 
 must separate. The Isis will sail to-night." 
 
 The men walked together to the terminal station of 
 the small ratchet railway. When they parted the Span- 
 iard and the yachtsman had arranged a telegraph code 
 which might be used by the small but complete wireless 
 equipment of the Isis. An hour later the launch from 
 the yacht took him aboard at the ancient stone jetty, 
 where the fruit-venders and wine-sellers shouted their 
 jargon, and the seaweed clung to the landing stage. 
 
 When Karyl had returned to the Palace after the in- 
 spection of the Fortress do Freres, he had sent word 
 at once to that part of the Palace where Cara had her 
 suite. She was accompanied by her aunt, the Duchess 
 of Apsberg, and her English cousin, Lilian Carrowes,
 
 FAREWELLS AND WARNINGS 141 
 
 who also knew something of the life in America with the 
 Bristows. 
 
 The King craved an interview. He had not seen 
 her since morning and his request conveyed the desola- 
 tion occasioned by the long interval of empty time. 
 
 The girl, who in the more informal phases had con- 
 sistently defied the Court etiquette, sent an affirmative 
 reply, and Karyl, still in uniform and dust-stained, 
 came at once to the rooms where she was to receive him. 
 
 There was much to talk of, and the King came for- 
 ward eagerly, but the girl halted his protestations and 
 rapidly sketched for him the summary of all she had 
 learned that afternoon. 
 
 With growing astonishment Karyl listened, then 
 slowly his brows came together in a frown. 
 
 It was distasteful to him beyond expression to feel 
 that he owed his life and throne to Benton, but of 
 that he said nothing. Lapas had been, in the days of 
 his childhood, his playmate. He had been the recipient 
 of every possible favor, and Karyl, himself ingenuous 
 and loyal to his friends, felt with double bitterness that 
 not only had his enemy saved him, but, too, his friend 
 had betrayed him. 
 
 Then came a hurried message from Von Ritz, who 
 begged to see the King at once. The soldier must 
 have been only a step behind his messenger, for hardly 
 had his admittance been ordered when he appeared.
 
 14& THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 The officer looked from the King to the Princess, and 
 his eyes telegraphed a request for a moment of private 
 audience. 
 
 " You may as well speak here," said Karyl dryly. 
 " Her Highness knows what you are about to say." 
 
 " Lieutenant Lapas," began Von Ritz imperturba- 
 bly, " has not been seen at the Palace to-day. His 
 duties required his presence this evening. He was to be 
 near Your Majesty at the coronation to-morrow." 
 
 " Where is he? " demanded the King. 
 
 " That is what I should like to know," replied Von 
 Ritz. " I learn that last night the Count Borttorff was 
 in Puntal and that Lapas was with him. To-day the 
 Countess Astaride left Puntal, greatly agitated. I am 
 informed that from her window she watched do 
 Freres with glasses during Your Majesty's visit 
 there, and that when you left she swooned. Within 
 ten minutes she was on her way to the quay and boarded 
 the out-going steamer for Villefranche. These things 
 may spell grave danger." 
 
 So rarely had Karyl been able to anticipate Von Ritz 
 in even the smallest matter that now, despite his own 
 chagrin, he could not repress a cynical smile as he in- 
 quired: " What do you make of it? " 
 
 Von Ritz shook his head. " I shall report to Your 
 Majesty within an hour," he responded. 
 
 " That is not necessary," Karyl spoke coolly. " You
 
 FAREWELLS AND WARNINGS 143 
 
 will, I am informed, find Lieutenant Lapas bound to a 
 telescope at the Rock. You will find the explosives at 
 do Freres connected with a percussion cap which was 
 to have been touched while we were there this afternoon. 
 The Countess was disappointed because the percussion 
 cap was not exploded. Sometimes, when ladies are bit- 
 terly grieved, they swoon." 
 
 For a moment the older man studied the younger with 
 an expression of surprise, then the sphinx-like gravity 
 returned to his face. 
 
 " Your Majesty, may I inquire why the cap failed 
 to explode? " he asked, with pardonable curiosity. 
 
 "Because" Karyl's cheeks flushed hotly "an 
 American gentleman, who had been here a few hours, 
 intercepted the signal and reversed it." 
 
 For an instant Von Ritz looked fixedly into the face 
 of the King, then he bowed. 
 
 " In that case," he commented, " there are various 
 things to be done."
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 COUNTESS AND CABINET NOIR JOIN FORCES 
 
 Monsieur Frai^ois Jusseret, the cleverest 
 unattached ambassador of France's Cabinet 
 Noir, had first met the Countess Astaride, his sardonic 
 eyes had twinkled dry appreciation. 
 
 This meeting had seemed to be the result of a chance 
 introduction. It had in reality been carefully designed 
 by the French manipulator of underground wires. 
 Louis Delgado he already knew, and held in contempt, 
 yet Louis was the only possible instrument for use 
 in converting certain vague possibilities into definite 
 realities. Changing the nebulous into the concrete ; 
 shifting the dotted line of a frontier from here to there 
 on a map; changing the likeness that adorned a coin 
 or postage-stamp: these were things to which Mon- 
 sieur Jusseret lent himself with the same zest that 
 actuates the hunting dog and makes his work also 
 his passion. 
 
 If the vacillation of Louis Delgado could be com- 
 plemented by the strong ambition of a woman, per- 
 haps he might be almost as serviceable as though the 
 144
 
 COUNTESS AND CABINET NOIR 145 
 
 strength were inherent. And Paris knew that Louis 
 worshiped at the shrine of the Countess Astaride. 
 The Countess was therefore worth inspecting. 
 
 The presentation occurred in Paris, when the Duke 
 took his acquaintance to the charming apartments 
 overlooking the Arc de Triomphe, where the lady 
 poured tea for a small salon enlisted from that colony 
 of ambitious and broken-hearted men and women who 
 hold fanatically to the faith that some throne, occu- 
 pied by another, should be their own. Here with cere- 
 mony and stately etiquette foregathered Carlists and. 
 Bonapartists and exiled Dictators from South America. 
 Here one heard the gossip of large conspiracies that 
 come to nothing; of revolutions that go no farther 
 than talk. 
 
 In Paris the Duke Louis Delgado was nursing, with 
 lukewarm indignation, wrath against his royal uncle 
 of Galavia who had fixed upon him a sort of modified 
 exile. 
 
 Louis had only a languid interest in the feud between 
 his arm of the family and the reigning branch. He 
 would willingly enough have taken a scepter from the 
 hand of any King-maker who proffered it, but he would 
 certainly never, of his own incentive, have struck a 
 blow for a throne. 
 
 Sometimes, indeed, as he sat at a cafe table on the 
 Champs Ely sees when awakening dreams of Spring
 
 146 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 were in the air and a military band was playing in the 
 distance, dormant ambitions awoke. Sometimes when 
 he watched the opalescent gleam in his glass as the 
 garfon carefully dripped water over absinthe, he would 
 picture himself wresting from the incumbent, the Crown 
 of Galavia, and would hear throngs shouting " Long 
 live King Louis ! " At such moments his stimulated 
 spirit would indulge in large visions, and his half- 
 degenerate face would smile through its gentle but 
 dissipated languor. 
 
 Louis Delgado was a man of inaction. He had 
 that quality of personal daring which is not akin to 
 moral resoluteness. He was ready enough at a fancied 
 insult to exchange cards and meet his adversary on the 
 field, but a throne against which he plotted was as 
 safe, unless threatened by outside influences, as a throne 
 may ever be. 
 
 When Louis presented Jusseret to the Countess As- 
 taride there flashed between the woman of audacious 
 imagination and the master of intrigue a message of 
 kinship. The Frenchman bent low over her hand. 
 
 " That hand, Madame," he had whispered, " was 
 made to wield a scepter." 
 
 The Countess had laughed with the melodious zylo- 
 phone note that caressed the ear, and had flashed on 
 Jusseret her smile which was a magic thing of ivory 
 and flesh and sudden sunshine. She had held up the
 
 COUNTESS AND CABINET NOIR 147 
 
 slender fingers of the hand he had flattered, possibly a 
 trace pleased with the effect of the Duke's latest gift, 
 a huge emerald set about with small but remarkably 
 pure brilliants. She had contemplated it, critically, and 
 after a brief silence had let her eyes wander from its 
 jewels to the Frenchman's face. 
 
 " Wielding a scepter, Monsieur," she had suggested 
 smilingly, " is less difficult than seizing a scepter. I 
 fear I should need a stronger hand." 
 
 " Ah, but Madame," the Frenchman had hastened 
 to protest, " these are the days of the deft finger and 
 the deft brain. Even crowns to-day are not won in 
 tug-of-war." 
 
 The woman had looked at him half-seriously, half- 
 challengingly. 
 
 " I am told, Monsieur Jusseret," she said, " that no 
 government in Europe has a secret which you do not 
 know. I am told that you have changed a crown or 
 two from head to head in your career. Let me see your 
 hand." 
 
 Instantly he had held it out. The fastidiously mani- 
 cured fingers were as tapering and white as her own. 
 
 " Madame," he observed gravely, " you flatter me. 
 My hand has done nothing. But I do not attribute its 
 failure to its lack of brawn." 
 
 " Some day," murmured Delgado, from his inert 
 posture in the deep cushions of a divan, " when the
 
 148 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 time is ripe, I shall strike a decisive blow for the Throne 
 of Galavia." 
 
 Jusseret's lip had half-curled, then swiftly he had 
 turned and flashed a look of inquiry upon the woman. 
 Her eyes had been on Louis and she had not caught 
 the quick glint that came into the Frenchman's pupils, 
 or the thoughtful regard with which he studied her 
 and the Duke across the edge of his teacup. Later, 
 when he rose to make his adieux, she noted the thought- 
 ful expression on his face. 
 
 " Sometimes," he had said enigmatically, and had 
 paused to allow his meaning to sink in, " sometimes 
 a scepter stays where it is, not because the hand that 
 holds it is strong, but because the outstretched hand 
 is weak or inept. Your hand is suited." 
 
 She had searched his eyes with her own just long 
 enough to make him feel that in the give-and-take of 
 glances hers did not drop or evade, and he, trained in 
 the niceties of diplomatic warfare, had caught the 
 message. 
 
 So the Countess had been fired with ardent dreams 
 and later, when the time seemed ripe, it was to her that 
 Jusseret went, and with her that he made his secret alli- 
 ance. 
 
 The ambitions cherished by Marie Astaride to become 
 Louis' queen were secondary to a sincere devotion for 
 Louis himself.
 
 COUNTESS AND CABINET NOIR 149 
 
 When at the last he had weakened and threatened to 
 crumple, it was she who goaded him back to resolution. 
 When the Duke had gone half-heartedly to his lodge 
 to await the decision of the European Powers, it was 
 she who went to Puntal to direct the conspirators and 
 watch, from the windows of her hotel suite, the for- 
 tress on the jetty. 
 
 Her one deplorable error had been in mistaking Ben- 
 ton for Martin. This had been natural enough. 
 Though she had never met the " English Jackal," she 
 had once or twice seen him at a distance, and she had 
 been misled by a strong resemblance and an excessive 
 eagerness. 
 
 The afternoon she had spent on the balcony of her 
 suite, her eyes fixed on the Fortress do Freres. 
 
 At last, with a wildly beating heart she had seen the 
 King, Von Ritz and the escort ride up to the entrance 
 and disappear. She had waited waited waited, 
 her nerves set for the climax, until the continued silence 
 seemed an unendurable shock. 
 
 Then the King and escort emerged. She, sitting 
 pale and rigid, saw them mount and turn back un- 
 harmed toward the city. Her ears, eagerly set for the 
 detonation which should shake the town and reverberate 
 along the mountain sides, ached with the emptiness of 
 silence. 
 
 Across the street a soldier, off duty and in civilian
 
 150 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 clothes, sat on the sea-wall and whittled. Incidentally 
 he noticed that Madame the Countess was interested 
 beyond the usual in some matter. He was there to 
 notice Madame the Countess. His instructions from 
 Von Ritz had been to keep a record of her goings and 
 comings, and who came to see her or went away. 
 
 Therefore, when the King and his small retinue had 
 trotted past the window and when Madame the Countess 
 rose to go in, and when just as she crossed the low sill 
 of the window she suddenly caught up both hands to 
 her throat and fell heavily to the floor, the soldier, 
 whittling a small crucifix, made a record of that also. 
 When a moment later a gentleman whom he had not 
 seen in Puntal for months, but whom he knew as the 
 Count Borttorff, because that gentleman had formerly 
 been Major of his battalion, hurriedly left a closed 
 carriage and entered the place, the incident was noted. 
 When still later both Borttorff and the Countess emerged 
 and reentered the conveyance, driving rapidly away, 
 he likewise noted these things. Going from the pier 
 whither he had followed the closed carriage, he re- 
 ported his observations with soldierly dispatch to 
 Colonel Von Ritz. 
 
 The Grand Duke Louis meanwhile, waiting in great 
 anxiety, had received the message which had come by 
 the wireless mast. The words were in code, and being 
 translated they read: " France, Italy, Spain, Portu-
 
 COUNTESS AND CABINET NOIR 151 
 
 gal will recognize. Strike." The signature was " Jt.," 
 which Delgado knew for Jusseret. The Duke had been 
 greatly excited. He paced the room in a nervous 
 tremor. It was arranged that a small steamer, which 
 had stood a short distance offshore since yesterday to 
 relay the wireless message and make it doubly sure, 
 should pick the Duke up as soon as Lapas signaled 
 by a triple dip of the flag that the fortress had been 
 destroyed. The steamer was then to rush the Grand 
 Duke around the cape to Puntal, bringing him in as 
 though he had come from Spain. Those conspirators 
 who were in the capital, strengthened by those who 
 would declare for Louis, with Karyl dead and no other 
 heir existent, would proclaim him King. Lapas would 
 see that the royal salute was fired as the steamer en- 
 tered the harbor, and the Countess would either meet 
 him and explain all the details or would speak with 
 him by Marconi if she had left the town. 
 
 Louis spent the forenoon in an agony of anxiety 
 and impatience. All afternoon he watched through 
 binoculars the white and blue and green flag on the 
 rock above him. He was waiting for the triple dip 
 that should tell him the fortress had been scattered in 
 debris and with it the government. Evidently the 
 King was late going to the arsenal. 
 
 He had imagined it would be earlier. The hours 
 dragged interminably. Louis walked the stone buttress
 
 152 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 where the flag which he had raised in signal to Lapas 
 flapped and whipped against its staff. At last his 
 binoculars, fixed on the rock, caught the dip of the 
 colors there. With a great sigh of relief the Duke 
 watched to see them rise and dip, rise and dip again. 
 The flag came down the length of the pole and did 
 not go up. 
 
 Panic seized the Pretender. There was no way of 
 talking with the ridge three thousand feet above. It 
 was a climb of an hour and a half by the pass. Evi- 
 dently there had been a miscarriage. In the prear- 
 ranged code of flag signals the only provision for the 
 drooping of the colors on the hill was in the event that 
 it should be wished to stop the explosion. That would 
 be only in the event of refusal by the governments to 
 recognize; the governments had not refused! Possibly 
 Lapas had turned traitor ! 
 
 There had also been some unexplained delay seaward. 
 The little steamer, which should have remained near by, 
 was a speck on the horizon, and without her there was 
 no possibility of escape. Wildly Louis, the Dreamer, 
 hurried to his improvised Marconi station and called 
 the ship. Finally toward evening came a response 
 and with it a message from somewhere out at sea, re- 
 layed from ship to ship around the peninsula. 
 
 The message said simply in code : " Failure.
 
 COUNTESS AND CABINET NOIR 153 
 
 Make your escape." It was signed " M. A." Marie 
 Astaride. 
 
 Louis rushed, panic-stricken, down to the shore. He 
 and the few men with him paced the beach in the set- 
 tling twilight with desperate anxiety. The steamer 
 seemed to creep in, snail-like, over the smooth water. 
 Meanwhile binoculars fixed on the pass showed a 
 number of small specks sifting like ants through the 
 lofty opening. Troops were advancing. It was now 
 the life-and-death question of which would arrive first, 
 the boats from the ship that had stood off at sea a 
 bit too long, or the soldiers coming across the broken 
 backbone of the mountains. 
 
 At last the ship had drawn near, and circled under 
 full steam far enough out to get away to a flying 
 start as soon as the Ducal party had been taken on 
 board. Small boats were rushed toward the beach and 
 Louis, the Dreamer, with his party waded knee-deep 
 into the water to meet the rescuers. 
 
 At the same moment a bugle call announced the 
 coming of Karyl's soldiery. 
 
 As Louis Delgado went over the side, he turned 
 quickly back and, leaning over the rail, gazed through 
 the settling darkness toward shore. 
 
 " Do we make for Puntal, Your Majesty? " inquired 
 the captain, saluting.
 
 154 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Louis turned coldly. " No." 
 
 The officer looked at the Duke for a moment and 
 read defeat in his eyes. 
 
 " Where then Your Grace? " he inquired. 
 
 Louis winced under the quick amendment of title. 
 " Anywhere," he said shortly ; " anywhere except 
 Puntal."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE TOREADOR BECOMES AMBASSADOR 
 
 JV/TANUEL BLANCO was ubiquitous during the 
 ^ * first days following the coronation. He listened 
 to the fragments of talk that drifted along the 
 streets. He frequented the band concerts in the Public 
 Gardens and drank native vintages in the wine-shops. 
 He elbowed his way naively into chattering groups with 
 his ears primed for a careless word. Nowhere did he 
 catch a note hinting of intrigue or danger. It seemed 
 a sound conclusion that if the plotters had not en- 
 tirely surrendered their project for switching Kings in 
 Galavia, their conspiracies were being once more 
 fomented on foreign soil, just as the first plan had been 
 incubated in Cadiz. 
 
 One evening shortly after the dual celebration, a 
 steamer laden with tourists lay at anchor in the bay, 
 outlined in points of light like a set-piece of fireworks. 
 Hundreds of new sight-seeing faces swarmed along the 
 narrow, cobbled streets. This would be a great night 
 in the Strangers' Club and Blanco decided to spend an 
 hour there. 
 
 155
 
 156 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 In evening dress he moved through the gardens and 
 pavilions of the casino on the rock, where with the 
 coming of darkness the gayety of the town began to 
 focus and sparkle. 
 
 The coronation of Karyl had brought to an end 
 official mourning for the late King, and the crepe which 
 had palled the national insignia on all public buildings 
 had been cleared away. With this restoration of public 
 gayety came a liberal sprinkling of uniforms to the 
 throngs that crowded the ball-rooms, tea-gardens and 
 gambling halls. 
 
 Blanco was standing apart, looking on, when he felt 
 a light touch on his shoulder and turned to find a young 
 officer at his back who smilingly begged him for a 
 moment in the gardens. The Spaniard noticed that 
 the man who addressed him wore the epaulettes of a 
 Captain of Infantry and the added stripe and crown 
 of gold lace at the cuff which designated service in the 
 household of the reigning family. 
 
 He turned and accompanied the officer through the 
 wide door into the lantern-hung grounds, passing be- 
 tween the groups which clustered everywhere about 
 small wicker tea-tables. There were no quiet or se- 
 cluded spots in the gardens of the Strangers' Club 
 to-night, but after a brief glance right and left the 
 Captain led the way to a table in a shadowed niche 
 between two doors. The light there was more shadowed
 
 TOREADOR TURNS AMBASSADOR 157 
 
 and the tides of promenaders did not crowd so close 
 upon it as elsewhere. As the two came up a third 
 man rose from this table and Manuel found himself 
 looking into the flinty eyes of Colonel Von Ritz. 
 
 Von Ritz spoke briefly. If Senor Blanco could 
 spare the time, His Majesty wished to speak with him. 
 
 The younger officer turned back into the casino and 
 Von Ritz led the toreador through the front gardens, 
 where the tennis courts lay bare between the palms. 
 The acacias and sycamores were soft, dark spots against 
 the far-flung procession of the stars. 
 
 The street outside was crowded with fiacres and cabs. 
 Von Ritz signaled to a footman and in a moment more 
 Blanco and his escort had stepped into a closed car- 
 riage and were being driven toward the Palace. They 
 entered by a side passage and the Colonel conducted 
 him through several halls and chambers filled with 
 uniformed officers, and finally into a more remote part 
 of the building where they met only an occasional 
 servant. At last they came into a great room entirely 
 empty but for themselves. About the walls hung 
 ripened portraits. The decorations were of Arabesque 
 mosaics with fantastic panels of Moorish tiling. It 
 might have been a grandee's house in Seville, patterned 
 on the Alcazar. Evidently this was part of a private 
 suite. Heavy portieres were only partly drawn across 
 a wide window with the sill at the floor level, and
 
 158 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 through them Blanco dimly saw a balcony giving 
 out over a small garden, and commanding more dis- 
 tantly the harbor and town lights below. From 
 somewhere in the garden came the splashing of a small 
 fountain. 
 
 Here Von Ritz left his charge to himself, silently 
 departing with a bow. For a while the Spaniard re- 
 mained alone. The room was not so brightly illumi- 
 nated as many through which he had come on his way 
 across the Palace. Light filtered through swinging 
 lamps of wrought metal encrusted with prisms of green 
 and amber and garnet. The Moorish scheme depends 
 in part upon its shadows. Finally a gentleman en- 
 tered from a balcony. He was neither in uniform nor 
 in evening dress. His face was smooth-shaven and 
 pleasing. 
 
 Blanco fancied this was a secretary or attendant of 
 some sort, and was conscious of slight surprise that as 
 he entered the place he smoked a cigarette with a 
 freedom scarcely fitting the King's personal chambers. 
 At the window the gentleman halted and looked Blanco 
 over with a frank but not offensive curiosity. Manuel 
 returned the gaze, wondering where he had seen the 
 face before, yet unable to identify it. Then the new- 
 comer crossed and proffered the Spaniard a cigarette 
 from a gold case, which the toreador declined with a 
 shake of his head.
 
 TOREADOR TURNS AMBASSADOR 159 
 
 " Gracias, Senor" he said, " but I am waiting for 
 the King." 
 
 The other smiled, and the visitor noticed that even 
 in smiling his lips fell into lines of sadness. 
 
 " None the less," he said pleasantly, " a man may 
 as well have the solace of tobacco while he waits 
 even though he awaits a King." 
 
 The Andalusian once more shook his head, and the 
 other continued to study him with that undisguised 
 interest which his eyes had worn from the first. 
 
 " So you are one of the two men," he said, " who 
 learned what all the secret agents of the Throne failed 
 to unearth. Incidentally it is to you that the present 
 King owes not only his Crown, but his life as well." 
 He paused. 
 
 " After all," he went on, " it is neither your fault 
 nor Mr. Benton's that the King could have done very 
 well without either the Crown or his life. You re- 
 stored something which perhaps he held worthless. 
 . . . But that is his own misfortune." 
 
 Blanco's expressive face mirrored a shade of resent- 
 ment. He had come on summons from the King and 
 found himself listening to the familiar, even disrespect- 
 ful, chatter of some underling who laughed at his 
 Monarch and lightly appraised the value of his life 
 while he smoked cigarettes in the Royal apartments. 
 The Spaniard bowed stiffly..
 
 160 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " I observe you are in the confidence of the King," 
 he said, in a tone not untouched with disapproval. 
 
 The other man's lips curled in amusement. After 
 a moment he replied with simple gravity. 
 
 " I am the King." 
 
 Blanco stood gazing in astonishment. " You the 
 King ! " Then, recognizing that the shaving of a 
 mustache and the change into civilian clothes had made 
 the difference in a face and figure he had seen only on 
 the streets and though shifting crowds, he bowed with 
 belated deference. 
 
 Karyl once more held out his case. " Now perhaps 
 you will have a cigarette? " 
 
 The toreador took one and lighted it slowly. The 
 King went on. 
 
 " My sole pleasure is pretending that I am not a 
 Monarch. Between ourselves, I should prefer other em- 
 ployment. You, for example, I am told have won fame 
 in the bull ring and it was fame you earned for 
 yourself." 
 
 Blanco flushed, then, bethinking himself of the fact 
 that he had been brought here presumably with a pur- 
 pose, he ventured to suggest: "Your Majesty wished 
 to see me about some matter? " 
 
 The other shook his head. 
 
 " No," he said slowly, " it was not really I who 
 sent for you. It was Her Majesty, the Queen."
 
 TOREADOR TURNS AMBASSADOR 161 
 
 Before he had time for response the toreador caught 
 the sound of a shaken curtain behind him, but since 
 he stood facing the King he did not turn. 
 
 Karyl, however, looked up, and then swiftly crossed 
 the room. As he passed, Blanco wheeled to face him 
 and was in time to see him holding back the portieres 
 of a door for the Queen to enter. 
 
 She was gowned in black with the sparkle of passe- 
 menterie and jet, and at her breast she wore a single 
 red rose. As she stood for a moment on the threshold, 
 despite the majesty of her slender poise it appeared to 
 Blanco that her grace was rather that of something 
 wild and free and that the Palace seemed to cage her. 
 But that may have been because, as she paused, her 
 hands went to her breast and a furrow came between 
 her brows, while the corners of her lips drooped wist- 
 fully like a child's. 
 
 The King stooped to kiss her hand, and she turned 
 toward him with a smile which was pallid and which 
 did not dissipate the unhappiness of her face. Then 
 Karyl straightened and said to Blanco, who felt 
 himself suddenly grow awkward as a muleteer : " The 
 Queen." 
 
 Manuel dropped on one knee. At a gesture from 
 Cara he rose and waited for her to speak. Karyl him- 
 self halted at the door for a moment, then came slowly 
 back into the room. He picked up from a tabouret
 
 162 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 a decoration of the Star of Galavia, and, crossing over, 
 pinned it to the Spaniard's lapel. 
 
 " There ! " he said, with a good-humored laugh. 
 " You made me a somewhat valueless present a few days 
 back. You will find that equally useless, Sir Manuel. 
 You may tell Mr. Benton that I envy him such an 
 ally." 
 
 With a bow to the Queen, the King left the apart- 
 ment. 
 
 For a moment the girl stood at the door, with the 
 same expression and the same silence, unbroken by her 
 since her entrance, then she turned to the Spaniard and 
 spoke directly. Her voice held a tremor. 
 
 " How is he? " 
 
 " I have not seen him since the day on the mountain," 
 returned Manuel. 
 
 " He has, in you, a very true friend." 
 
 "Your Majesty, I am his servant," deprecated the 
 toreador. 
 
 " If I had friends like you," she smiled, " it would 
 matter little what they called themselves. And yet, 
 if there is but one like you, I had rather that that one 
 be with him. I want you to go to him now and re- 
 main with him." 
 
 " Your Majesty, Senor Benton left me here to watch 
 for recurring dangers. I am now satisfied that noth-
 
 TOREADOR TURNS AMBASSADOR 163 
 
 ing threatens, at least for the present. I might, as 
 Your Majesty suggests, better be with him." 
 
 " Yes yes with him ! " she eagerly agreed ; then 
 her voice took on the timbre of anxiety. " I am 
 afraid. Sometimes I am afraid for him. He is not a 
 coward, but there are times when we all become weak. 
 I appoint you, Sir Manuel " the girl smiled wanly 
 " I appoint you my Ambassador to be with him and 
 watch after him and, Sir Manuel " her voice shook 
 a little with very deep feeling " I am giving you the 
 office I had rather have than all the thrones in Chris- 
 tendom ! Will you accept it ? " 
 
 She held out her hand, and taking it reverently in 
 his own, the Andalusian bowed low over it. He did 
 not kneel, for now he was the Ambassador in the pres- 
 ence of his Sovereign. " With all the Saints for my 
 witnesses," he declared fervently, " I swear it to Your 
 Majesty." 
 
 There was gratitude in her eyes as they met the whole- 
 heartedness of the pledge in his. For a moment she 
 seemed unable to speak, though there was no dimness 
 of tear-mist in her pupils. She stood very upright 
 and silent, and her breathing was deep. Then slowly 
 her hands came up and loosened the flower at her 
 breast. 
 
 " The King has decorated you, Sir Manuel," she
 
 164 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 said. " I don't think Mr. Benton would care for knight- 
 hood and I could not confer it but sometime 
 not now some day after you have both departed 
 from Galavia, give him this. Tell him it may have 
 a message which I may not put in words. If he can 
 read the heart of a rose deeply enough, perhaps he 
 can find it there." 
 
 When Blanco had carefully folded the emblem of 
 his embassy in paper and deposited it in his breast 
 pocket, she gave him her hand again, and, turning, went 
 out through the same door that she had entered. 
 
 Back in the town, Blanco had certain investigations 
 to make. He knew Von Ritz's men had been too late 
 to capture the Duke, and that the Countess Astaride 
 had sailed by the steamer leaving for French and 
 Italian ports. Wherever these two conspirators should 
 meet would become the next point to watch. 
 
 Blanco felt sure that Louis would be willing to drop 
 back into the routine of his life in Paris, freshly stocked 
 with pessimistic memories of how a crown had slipped 
 through his fingers. It would take driving to prevent 
 him lagging into the inertia of sentimental brooding. 
 On the other hand, he knew that the Countess As- 
 taride, having gone so far, would never again relin- 
 quish her ambitions. He knew the temper of the 
 Countess's mind from various bits of gossip he had 
 heard and now also from what he had seen. He knew
 
 TOREADOR TURNS AMBASSADOR 165 
 
 that, while she was entirely willing to participate in 
 a murder plot to further her designs, she was not 
 fired solely by a lust for power. More deeply she 
 was actuated by her wish to make Louis Delgado a 
 man of potentiality because she loved Louis Delgado. 
 
 That love might evidence itself in savagery toward 
 men who obstructed the road which her lover must travel 
 to a crown, but it was a ferocity born of love for the 
 Pretender. 
 
 Since this was true it was not probable that she would 
 allow the matter to end where it stood. Even if she 
 were willing, it was more than certain that Jusseret had 
 not entered into the undertaking without some sufficient 
 end in view. Having entered it, he would not relinquish 
 it because the first attempt had been bungled. 
 
 That same night Manuel sent a message to the Isis, 
 saying that he was sailing the following morning by 
 the Genoa steamer and asking that the yacht meet the 
 ship and take him on board. Having done that much, 
 he went to the hotel where the Countess had stopped and 
 told the clerk that he had news of importance to com- 
 municate to Madame the Countess, and that he wished 
 to learn her present address. The clerk, like all Puntal, 
 was ignorant of what important matters had just missed 
 happening, but he had instructions from this lady to 
 assume ignorance as to her destination. Blanco, how- 
 ever, showed the seal ring which she had said would
 
 166 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 prove a passport to her presence and which Benton 
 had left with him. He was promptly informed that 
 she had taken passage for Villefranche, and had ordered 
 her mail forwarded there in care of the steamship 
 agency.
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 THE AMBASSADOR BECOMES ADMIRAL 
 
 TV/TORE suggestive of a stowaway than a million- 
 *'* aire, thought Blanco the following afternoon, 
 when he had come over the side of the Is'is and sought 
 out the owner of the yacht. Benton had turned hermit 
 and withdrawn to the most isolated space the vessel 
 provided. It was really not a deck at all only a 
 space between engine-room grating and tarpaulined life- 
 boats on what was properly the cabin roof. Here, re- 
 moved from the burnished and ship-shape perfection 
 of the yacht's appointment, he lay carelessly shaven 
 and more carelessly dressed. 
 
 The lazily undulating Mediterranean stretched un- 
 broken save for the yacht's stack, funnels and stan- 
 chions, in a sight-wide radius of blue. Overhead the 
 sky was serene. Here and there, in fitful humors, the 
 sea flowed in rifts of a different hue. 
 
 The sun was mellow and the breeze which purred 
 
 softly in the cables overhead came with the caressing 
 
 breath that blows off the orange groves of Southern 
 
 Spain. Ahead lay all the invitation of the south of 
 
 167
 
 168 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 France ; of the Riviera's white cities and vivid country- 
 side ; of Monte Carlo's casinos and Italy's villas. Be- 
 yond further horizons, waited the charm of Greece, but 
 the man lay on an old army blanket, clad in bagging 
 flannels and a blue army shirt open at the throat. 
 His arms were crossed above his eyes, and he was 
 motionless, except that the fingers which gripped his 
 elbows sometimes clenched themselves and the bare 
 throat above the open collar occasionally worked spas- 
 modically. 
 
 Blanco had come quietly, and his canvas shoes had 
 made no sound. For a time he did not announce him- 
 self. He was not sure that Benton was awake, so he 
 dropped noiselessly to the deck and sat with his hands 
 clasped about his knees, his eyes moodily measuring the 
 rise and fall of the glaringly white stanchions above 
 and below the sky-line. At frequent intervals they 
 swept back to the other man, who still lay motionless. 
 It was late afternoon and the smoke-stack shadows 
 pointed off in attenuated lines to the bow while the 
 sky, off behind the wake, brightened into the colors 
 of sunset. Finally Benton rose. The unexpected 
 sight of Blanco brought a start and an immediate mask- 
 ing of his face, but in the first momentary glimpse 
 the Andalusian caught a haggard distress which fright- 
 ened him.
 
 THE AMBASSADOR BECOMES ADMIRAL 169 
 
 " I didn't know you had come," said Benton quietly. 
 " How long have you been here? " 
 
 " I should say a half-hour, Senor," replied Manuel, 
 casually rolling a cigarette. 
 
 " Why didn't you rouse me? I'm not very amus- 
 ing, but even I could have relieved the dullness of sit- 
 ting there like a marooned man on a derelict." 
 
 " Dullness ? " inquired the toreador with a lazy lift 
 of the brows. " It is ease, Senor, and ease is desirable 
 at sea," 
 
 The American sat cross-legged on the deck and held 
 out his hand for a cigarette. When he asked a ques- 
 tion he spoke in matter-of-fact tones. He even laughed, 
 and the Andalusian chatted on in kind, but secretly and 
 narrowly he was watching the other, and when he had 
 finished his scrutiny he told himself that Benton had 
 been indulging in the dangerous pastime of brood- 
 ing. 
 
 " Tell me everything," urged the yacht-owner. 
 " What are the revolutionists doing and how is how 
 are things ? " Carefully he avoided directing any ques- 
 tion to the point on which his eagerness for news was 
 poignant hunger. 
 
 When Blanco told how Louis had left Galavia just 
 before the soldiers reached the lodge, Benton's face 
 darkened. " That was fatal blundering," he com-
 
 170 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 plained. " So long as Delgado is at large the Palace 
 is menaced. If they had taken him, and held him under 
 surveillance, the Cabinet Noir would be disarmed. Now 
 they will try again." 
 
 Blanco nodded. 
 
 " There is no charge they can make against him," 
 he mused. " They cannot bring him back because 
 the government cannot admit its peril. Outwardly his 
 bill of health is clean. Assuredly when they let him 
 slip, Senor, they committed a grave error." 
 
 Benton rose and paced the deck in deep reflection. 
 At last he halted and spread his hands in a gesture 
 half -despairing. 
 
 " My God! " he said in a low voice. " The anxiety 
 will drive me mad ! You saw their methods. An entire 
 cortege was to be blown into the air just to kill 
 Karyl. Next time, what wiU they attempt?" He 
 broke off with a shudder. 
 
 " I have seen the Queen," said Blanco slowly. 
 
 Benton wheeled. For an instant his face lighted, 
 then he leaned forward. He said nothing, but his 
 whole attitude was a question. 
 
 " You behold in me, Sir Manuel Blanco," began 
 the Andalusian grandly. Then, slipping his arm 
 through that of the other man, he began leading him 
 around the deck. When he had finished his narrative, 
 he said : " I begin my office as Ambassador by delivering
 
 THE AMBASSADOR BECOMES ADMIRAL 171 
 
 this packet." From his pocket he produced the paper- 
 wrapped rose. " I was instructed to give it to you 
 at some future time. Possibly, Senor, I am over- 
 prompt. Lawyers and diplomats should be delib- 
 erate." 
 
 The Mediterranean day had died slowly from east 
 to west while the men had talked, and the last shred 
 of glowing sky was darkening into the sea at the edge 
 of the world astern, when Benton greedily thrust out 
 his hand for the packet. 
 
 " Gracias," he said bluntly, and turning away went 
 precipitously to his cabin. 
 
 After dinner, when the Captain had betaken himself 
 to the bridge and the smoke from the Spaniard's ciga- 
 rettes and Benton's pipe had begun to wreathe clouds 
 against the ceiling-beams, Blanco broached his diplo- 
 macy. 
 
 In the dulled expressionlessness of the face opposite 
 him and the stoop of the shoulders, Manuel read a 
 need for an active antidote against the corrosive poison 
 of despair. 
 
 " Where are we going now, Senor? " 
 
 Benton shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " ' Quien sabe! ' as you say in Spain. We are simply 
 cruising, drifting, keeping out of sight of land." 
 
 " And drifting is the precise thing, Senor, which we 
 must not do. I have hitherto done without question
 
 172 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 what you have said. Now I hold a new dignity." 
 There was a momentary flash of teeth as he smiled. 
 " As Ambassador, I make a request. May I be per- 
 mitted to take entire control of affairs for a brief time? 
 Also, will you for a few days obey my instructions, 
 without question ? " 
 
 Benton looked across the table at the dark face half- 
 obscured behind a blue fog of cigarette smoke. After 
 a moment he smiled. 
 
 " Admiral," he said, " issue your orders." 
 
 " You will instruct the Captain," said Manuel 
 promptly, " to head at once for Yillef ranche. There 
 you, Senor, will leave the yacht, and I will go with it 
 to Monte Carlo. I wish to be as soon as possible in 
 the casino where the drone of the croupier and the 
 clink of outflowing louis d'or constitute the national 
 refrain." 
 
 Benton's eyes narrowed in perplexity. On his face 
 was written curiosity, but he had agreed to ask no 
 questions. He unhesitatingly put his finger on the 
 electric bell. 
 
 " Ask the Captain to come here as soon as he is at 
 leisure," he directed when the steward had responded to 
 the call. 
 
 " Good," commended Blanco. Then with a sorrowful 
 shake of his head he commiserated : " I am sorry that 
 you are to be denied the excitement of the rouge et nolr
 
 THE AMBASSADOR BECOMES ADMIRAL 173 
 
 and the trente et quarente of the gold table, Senor, but 
 if the Countess Astaride and Louis should meet there, 
 the lady would know you. I fancy that she will not 
 again mistake you for someone else. As for myself, 
 neither of them yet knows me." 
 
 "Are they at Monte Carlo?" Benton sat suddenly 
 upright, and Blanco had the first reward of his diplo- 
 macy, as he noted the quickening interest in the ques- 
 tioning eyes. 
 
 " I am only guessing, Senor. If the guess is good, 
 I may learn something. What is in my mind, may 
 fail. If you are willing to trust me I would rather 
 not reveal it now." 
 
 "And I?" questioned Benton. "Have I any part 
 to play in this, or do you go it alone ? " 
 
 Blanco leaned forward. 
 
 " It may be necessary to have someone near enough 
 to the Palace in Puntal to insure immediate action 
 action to be taken on the instant. . . . You 
 must return to the city, Senor. ... It will be 
 for only a few days. The Grand Palace Hotel is above 
 the town in large gardens. ... If you choose you 
 can remain there with your presence absolutely unknown, 
 so far as the city proper is concerned. Also, the 
 Marconi office has a station in the hotel grounds. With 
 a code which we have yet to arrange, I can keep in 
 touch with you. . . ."
 
 174 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 The next day Benton was a passenger by steamer 
 from Villefranche to Puntal. 
 
 The Grand Palace Hotel, dominating its own acres 
 of subtropical gardens, looks down on the city as one 
 seated on an eminence commands the common things 
 at his feet. Between its grounds and the scalloped 
 bay, run the huddled habitations of the town's water- 
 front, with its delicately tinted walls and riotously 
 colored gardens invading every crevice. 
 
 Following the semicircle of the bay, the eye commands 
 that other eminence where the King's Palace shuts it- 
 self in austerely at the very center of the arc. 
 Through the clustered, tea-sipping loungers on the 
 galleries and terraces Benton made his way several days 
 later, wearing the studiously affected unconcern of the 
 tourist; an unconcern which he found it desperately 
 difficult to assume in Puntal. 
 
 Driven by a growing and intense desire to put dis- 
 tance between himself and all alien humanity, he turned 
 into a narrow, steeply climbing street which ran twist- 
 ing between toy-houses and vine-cumbered garden- 
 walls, until at last it lost its right to be called a street 
 and became merely a narrow, trail-like path up the 
 mountain-side. The wanderer climbed interminably. 
 He took no thought of destination and satisfied him- 
 self with the physical exertion of the laborious going. 
 
 His heart pounded faster as he attained the altitude
 
 THE AMBASSADOR BECOMES ADMIRAL 175 
 
 of the pine woods where he seemed to have left humanity 
 behind him. Once or twice he saw a shy, half-wild 
 child who fled from its task of gathering fagots at 
 his approach, to gaze at him out of startled eyes from 
 a safe distance. 
 
 Occasionally he would stop to look down, from some 
 coign of vantage, at cascading threads of water tum- 
 bling into the gorge below, or at a chalet-like house 
 perched far beneath in its trim patch of agriculture. 
 Finally he stretched himself indolently on a carpet of 
 pine needles at the brink of a drop to the valley. Then, 
 with a sense of recognition, he saw the tumbled-down 
 gate of the King's driveway below him to the left, and 
 his face became set and miserable as memory began 
 its work of tearing open wounds not yet old. 
 
 Suddenly there drifted up a chorus of children's 
 laughter. He sat up suddenly and looked about, but no 
 one was in sight. Again he heard an unmistakable 
 peal of shrill, childish merriment, seemingly close at 
 hand. He lay flat and looked over the ledge, hold- 
 ing on to a root of a gnarled pine that grew far out 
 at the marge. 
 
 Under him, not more than twenty yards below, on 
 a similar natural platform, sat a circle of peasant chil- 
 dren, their eyes large with wonderment and interest. 
 In their center, also seated on the earth, was the 
 Queen of Gala via. She was dressed in a short walking
 
 176 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 skirt and a blue jersey, and as the man gripped the 
 pine root to which he held, and gazed over, she lifted 
 an outstretched finger of a gauntleted hand in illus- 
 tration of some particularly wonderful point of what 
 was palpably a particularly wonderful fairy story. A 
 third burst of delight came from the listening and re- 
 sponsive auditors, who had no idea by whom they were 
 being entertained. 
 
 The peasants of Galavia speak Portuguese. As Ben- 
 ton shifted his position so that he could eavesdrop 
 without being discovered, he found that he could catch 
 some of the words. 
 
 " Tell us another story " piped a high treble voice, 
 " a story about the beautiful Princess who married 
 the King." The demand was seconded by an immediate 
 clamor of eager voices. 
 
 The girl rose unsteadily and shook her head. For 
 a moment she stood looking off over the miles of sea 
 with her hands at her breast and her eyes clouded, 
 oblivious of the small companions of her truancy. She 
 stretched out both strong young arms toward the Medi- 
 terranean. 
 
 Then she heeded the children's clamor again and, 
 turning to them, she laughed. 
 
 " No, no ! " she teasingly answered, and the man 
 above realized for the first time that Portuguese is a 
 tongue of liquid music. " These are fairy stories with-
 
 THE AMBASSADOR BECOMES ADMIRAL 177 
 
 out Princesses. These are perfectly good fairy stories, 
 you know." Then with a sudden burst of confidence, 
 " In really-truly life, Princesses are not much good. 
 Don't any of you ever be a Princess if you can help 
 it ! " After planting this seed of treasonable ideas 
 she turned away, adding: "No, no, no! I've run 
 away and I must go back. To-morrow we will have a 
 wonderful story but no more to-day." 
 
 Slowly she made her way down to the old gate, stop- 
 ping twice to look out to the sea, and above her, 
 choking off the shout that clamored at his lips, the man 
 sat motionless and gave no intimation of his presence. 
 
 Finally he rose and made his way unsteadily back to 
 the city. He walked slowly down between the wine- 
 shops, noisy with laughter, to the road along the bay. 
 Immersed in reflection and forgetful of his resolution to 
 keep as much as possible out of sight, he went openly 
 and conspicuously along the street that overhangs the 
 water, where at sunset all Puntal promenades. It was 
 only when a detachment of soldiers in the familiar 
 opera-bouffe uniform went clanking by to change the 
 guard at the Palace gates that he remembered he was 
 to have remained inconspicuous. With a sense of 
 chagrin for his indiscretion, he turned into a side street 
 which sloped upward toward his hotel. This street was 
 so little used that between its cobble stones tender sprigs 
 of grass made the way as green as a turf course.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BENTON CALLS ON THE KING 
 
 THERE were several things to harrow Benton's 
 thoughts aside from the ingenious tortures of 
 memory. Blanco should have arrived at Monte Carlo 
 on the day of their separation. Benton himself had 
 proceeded slowly to Puntal and had now been an isolated 
 guest at the Grand Palace Hotel for two days, yet 
 he had heard nothing from Manuel. Still the man from 
 Cadiz had not been idly cruising. The Is is had duly 
 dropped her anchor in the ultramarine waters where the 
 rock of Monaco juts out like a beckoning finger, and 
 Monte Carlo spreads the marble display of its rococo 
 facades at the feet of the Maritime Alps. 
 
 That night, in the most detailed perfection of even- 
 ing dress, he wandered good-humoredly, yet aloof, 
 through the crowds. He haunted the groups that 
 swarmed about the busy wheels in the casino. He 
 mingled with the diners upon the terraces of the prin- 
 cipal hotels. He brushed elbows with the strollers 
 along the promenade and about the Cercle des Etrangers, 
 and all the while his studiously alert eyes wandered 
 178
 
 BENTON CALLS ON THE KING 179 
 
 with seeming vacancy of expression over the faces of 
 the men and women whom he passed. 
 
 Safe in the surety of being himself unknown, he 
 trained his countenance into the ennui of one who has 
 no object beyond killing the hour and contributing his 
 quota to the income of the syndicate. 
 
 The evening was wasted, together with a few louts, 
 and the next morning found the Spaniard scrutiniz- 
 ing every face along the Promenade des Anglais at 
 Nice. Then he searched Cannes and Mentone, but by 
 evening he was back again in the sacred City of Black 
 and Red. 
 
 As he disembarked from the yacht's launch and came 
 up the white stairs to the landing-stage, his eyes were 
 still indolently wandering, but before he reached the 
 level of the Boulevard de la Condamine, the expression 
 changed with the suddenness of discovery into a glint al- 
 most triumphant. It was only with strong effort that he 
 banished the satisfied light from his pupils and forced 
 them to wander absently again, along the glitter and 
 color of the palm-lined promenade. 
 
 For Manuel had seen a slender, well-groomed figure 
 leaning on the coping of the sea-wall and gazing out 
 with obvious amusement on the life of the harbor. Al- 
 though the Spaniard did not allow himself a second 
 glance, he knew that his search was ended. The atten- 
 tion of the man above was dreamily fixed on the bay
 
 180 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 where a dozen darting motor-boats cut swift courses 
 hither and thither. His attitude was graceful. His 
 bearing might have been almost noble except for a de- 
 plorable lack of frankness which spoiled otherwise fine 
 eyes, and a self-indulgent weakness which marred the 
 angle of the chin. 
 
 The Bay at Monte Carlo is a haven for luxurious 
 craft. Now the Prince of Monaco's yacht lay at anchor 
 and several others, hardly less handsome, rode snugly 
 offshore, but with the enthusiasm of a connoisseur the 
 tall gentleman disregarded all the rest and let his admir- 
 ing gaze dwell on the Isis. 
 
 The face was studiously altered. Where there had 
 been a full mustache there was now only a thinly 
 clipped line, waxed and uptilting in needle points. It 
 had been dark brown. Now it was black. The hair 
 formerly brushed straight back from the forehead now 
 showed beneath the hat-band. The Van Dyke which 
 had masked the receding tendency of the chin was 
 shaven away. Evidently the gentleman wished to pre- 
 sent a changed appearance to the world, but the vi- 
 sionary eyes were unmistakably those of Louis, the 
 Dreamer, and in lapses of thought the fingers of 
 the right hand nervously twisted and untwisted, after 
 the manner of an old personal trick. 
 
 As Blanco came up the stairs he brushed clumsily 
 against the stranger and paused to apologize.
 
 BENTON CALLS ON THE KING 181 
 
 " I am inexcusably awkward," he avowed with en- 
 gaging contriteness. 
 
 The Duke protested that it was not worth mention, 
 and added with a smile, " I noticed that you came from 
 that yacht. I think she is one of the most beautiful 
 little vessels I have ever seen." 
 
 " Thank you, Monsieur." Blanco was apparently 
 much flattered. " She is American built, and has some 
 appointments which I have not seen elsewhere." Then 
 smilingly, but in hot haste, he rushed away. 
 
 During the course of the evening the Andalusian 
 contrived to throw himself repeatedly across the Duke's 
 path. On each occasion he appeared to be in great 
 haste and under the necessity of immediate departure, 
 though he never left without a cordial word of recogni- 
 tion. He played his game so adroitly that at the end 
 of the evening the Duke felt as though he and the 
 stranger from the American-built yacht were old and 
 pleasant acquaintances. 
 
 It was as they stood watching the stiffer gambling 
 of the elect in the upper room of the Casino, after 
 the wheels below had ceased to spin, that the tall gentle- 
 man turned to Blanco. 
 
 " How do you say ? Would a cup of coffee or a 
 glass of wine go amiss?" 
 
 Without a trace of eagerness, the Andalusian assented 
 and a few minutes later he found himself across a
 
 182 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 cafe table at the Nouvel Hotel de Paris; listening to 
 Louis, the Dreamer's soft voice, and watching the slen- 
 der fingers which nervously toyed with a Sevres cup. 
 
 " She is extremely beautiful in her lines," Louis was 
 declaring. " I am fond of yachts that are properly 
 built. I am planning one myself, and each new vessel 
 holds for me a fresh interest." 
 
 "Ah, indeed!" The Spaniard was delighted. 
 " Then we have fallen upon a common enthusiasm. I 
 am never so happy as when talking to a keen yachts- 
 man." Yet so long as the conversation threatened 
 those nautical technicalities in which he was utterly de- 
 ficient, he managed to let the other do the talking. 
 
 Manuel at last set down his cup and, looking up with 
 a flash, as of sudden inspiration, suggested: "But 
 doubtless you will be stopping in Monte Carlo a day or 
 two? Possibly you will do me the honor of inspecting 
 the boat?" 
 
 The other protested that his friend was too good. 
 He regarded himself highly honored. He would be most 
 charmed. But apparently the idea was developing and 
 Blanco was conceiving even more extended notions of 
 hospitality. 
 
 " Stay ! " he suddenly exclaimed. " Why not break- 
 fast with me, on board, to-morrow at twelve? The 
 launch will be at the landing at eleven forty-five. I 
 could take you cruising for a few knots, and let
 
 BENTON CALLS ON THE KING 183 
 
 you test her sailing qualities, returning in abundant 
 time for dinner and the amusements of the even- 
 
 ing." 
 
 Louis gave the matter a moment's reflection, then 
 declared that the programme was delightful. He would 
 not be engaged until the evening. 
 
 Bknco laughed uproariously. " It is most amus- 
 ing," he declared. " I have had supper with you you 
 are to breakfast with me, and I have not yet told you 
 my name ! " He was searching for a card-case, which 
 seemingly he had misplaced. " I cannot find a card. 
 No matter, my name is Sir Manuel Blanco." 
 
 The Duke smiled as he rose from the table and took 
 up hat and cane. " I was equally forgetful," he said. 
 " My name is Monsieur Breuillard." 
 
 The following day had advanced well into the after- 
 noon, and Monsieur Breuillard had punctuated with 
 graceful compliment each point of excellence in the 
 equipment of the Isis, when Blanco led the way into 
 the small smoking saloon. 
 
 " Sailing qualities may not have been fairly tested," 
 admitted Sir Manuel, " since the sea was serene, the 
 sky brilliant, and the breeze insufficient to ruffle the 
 water." 
 
 " The more charming, Monsieur ! " exclaimed the 
 guest, whose mood after a pleasing day was mellow and 
 complacent.
 
 184 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Blanco waved Monsieur Breuillard to an easy chair 
 and pointed out cigars. As chance would have it, he 
 stood before the door, which he had just closed. 
 
 " By the way Your Grace " He broke off ab- 
 ruptly to mark the effect of the title on the other man. 
 Evidently he found it highly pleasing for he smiled as 
 the Dreamer winced and came violently to his feet, pale 
 and rigid, but as yet too astounded for speech. 
 
 " I did not tell you, did I," went on the Spaniard, 
 " that I have been Sir Manuel Blanco only a few days, 
 and that the title was conferred on me by your royal 
 kinsman, Karyl of Galavia, for a trifling service in 
 confounding his enemies? Before that I was a matador 
 in Andalusia." 
 
 Delgado stood petrified, his features livid and his 
 eyes blazing with rage. An instinct warned him that 
 to surrender to passion would be only to trap himself 
 more deeply. The man blocking the door filled its 
 breadth with his strong shoulders. Louis turned his 
 head and his eyes caught through the open porthole a 
 glimpse of the receding shore-line of the Riviera, 
 Blanco followed the glance and smiled. 
 
 " We shall be losing shore in a short time," he 
 calmly announced. " May I have the honor of show- 
 ing Your Grace to your stateroom? "
 
 BENTON CALLS ON THE KING 185 
 
 On the next evening Benton emerged from his rooms 
 at the Grand Palace Hotel in Puntal, and threading 
 his way through the loungers on the galleries, sought 
 out a remote corner of the garden, where, under a 
 blossom-freighted vine, he could hear the surge of the 
 sea, and, in a tempered softness, the Viennese waltz 
 of the hotel band. Under him the harbor mirrored 
 lights along the shore and those of ships at anchor. 
 At a distance the windows of the Palace could be seen. 
 
 " I beg your pardon " 
 
 Benton recognized the coldly modulated voice be- 
 fore he glanced up at the cloaked figure. 
 
 " Colonel Von Ritz," he said, " I am honored." 
 
 Von Ritz bowed. 
 
 " His Majesty requests that you will do him the honor 
 of coming to the Palace with me now." 
 
 Despite the form of request in which the summons 
 was couched, Von Ritz clothed it in a coldness that 
 brought to Benton's mind the implacable politeness of 1 
 an arrest. At the hint he stiffened. 
 
 " If His Majesty requests my presence," he replied 
 with some shortness, " it will be a pleasure to present 
 myself at once. If " he paused and looked at 
 the stiffly erect figure before him, " if the peremptory 
 tone you assume is a part of your instruction, I must 
 remind you that I am an American citizen, entirely
 
 186 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 free to accept or decline invitations even when they 
 come from the Palace." 
 
 Von Ritz replied with unruffled gravity. 
 
 " If it will add to your sense of security, Mr. Benton, 
 I shall be pleased to drive you to your Legation and 
 to have your government's representative accompany 
 us." 
 
 Benton flushed. " I was not speaking from any 
 sense of personal insecurity," he explained. " But I 
 wished you to understand the manner in which I prefer 
 to be approached." 
 
 The Colonel waited with perfect courtesy for the 
 American to finish, then he went on in the same dis- 
 tantly polite tone and manner. " I had not quite 
 finished delivering my message when you when you 
 began to speak. His Majesty instructs me to say that 
 if you will accompany me to the Palace he will re- 
 gard it as a courtesy and will be grateful. He com- 
 mands me to add that he does not send this message 
 officially or as coming from the Court. It is simply 
 that the Count Pagratide wishes to see you and that it 
 is obviously impossible for His Majesty for the 
 Count Pagratide to call on you here." 
 
 Benton was irritated with himself for his display of 
 temper, and more irritated with Von Ritz for his calm 
 superiority of manner. His murmured apology was 
 offered with no very good grace as he turned to follow
 
 BENTON CALLS ON THE KING 187 
 
 the other's lead. Opposite the hotel entrance he 
 stopped. 
 
 " Colonel," he said, " I have been awaiting news from 
 Manuel Blanco. He may send a message or come him- 
 self, and if so it may be vital for him to establish in- 
 stant communication with me." 
 
 " Certainly," agreed Von Ritz. " I would suggest 
 that you introduce my aide, who may be trusted, at 
 the hotel and that he be instructed to bring you any 
 message. By that means, Senor Blanco, or his news, 
 can follow you directly to the Palace and it does 
 not become necessary to take others into your confi- 
 dence." 
 
 The same young Captain who had summoned Blanco 
 in the Casino was left to act as messenger and Benton, 
 following the officer through a side gate and into a 
 side street, stepped into a closed carriage. 
 
 " I had not supposed that the Palace knew of my 
 presence in Puntal," commented the American as he 
 took his seat opposite the Colonel of Cavalry. 
 
 " You were seen on the promenade. It was reported 
 from several sources," Von Ritz made answer. " Also," 
 he added as an afterthought, " we knew of your ar- 
 rival two hours after you reached Puntal. You reg- 
 istered at the hotel under your own name." 
 
 " Does the Queen also know of my presence? " asked 
 Benton.
 
 188 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " No," was the brief reply. 
 
 For the remainder of the drive conversation died. 
 The two men sat mutely opposite each other as the 
 carriage jolted over the cobble-stoned streets, until the 
 driver turned into the castle gates. 
 
 Then Von Ritz again leaned forward. 
 
 " Mr. Benton," he explained, " it happens that this 
 evening a ball is being given at the Palace for the 
 members of the Diplomatic Corps. His Majesty, sup- 
 posing that you would desire a quiet reception, in- 
 structed me to take you to the gardens of his private 
 suite where he will shortly j oin you ; unless," added 
 Von Ritz courteously, " you prefer the Throne-room 
 and dancing sdlles? " 
 
 Benton's reply was prompt. 
 
 "I believe I am to see the Count Pagratide," he 
 answered. " I am grateful to the Count for arrang- 
 ing that I might be secluded." 
 
 Blanco had gone into some detail in describing the 
 chamber where he had met the King, and later the 
 Queen. Benton now recognized the place to which he 
 was conducted, from that description. As before, the 
 room was empty and the portieres of the wide windows 
 were partly drawn. Through the opening he could 
 see the small area perching on a space redeemed from 
 the solid rock. Dark masses against the sky marked 
 the palms of the garden, and through the window
 
 BENTON CALLS ON THE KING 189 
 
 drifted the splashing of a fountain mingled with the 
 distant strains of the same Viennese waltz that the 
 hotel band had been playing. That year you might 
 have heard it from the Golden Gate to Suez and back 
 again from Suez to the Golden Gate.
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 IN WHICH THE SPHINX BREAKS SILENCE 
 
 EFT alone, Benton spent ten minutes in the room, 
 * * then passed through the window to the balcony 
 and went down into the miniature garden. His face 
 was hot and his pulses heightened. The garden was 
 gratefully cool and quiet. 
 
 From the window, through which he had come, a 
 broad shaft of tempered luminance fell across the foun- 
 tain and laid a zone of soft light athwart the low stone 
 benches surrounding it. Then it caught, and faintly 
 edged with its glow, the granite balustrade at the shoul- 
 der of the cliff. Elsewhere the little garden was en- 
 veloped in the velvet blackness of the night, against 
 which the points of town and harbor lights, far below, 
 were splinters of emerald and ruby. The moon would 
 not rise until late. 
 
 The American strolled over to the shaded margin 
 which was unspoiled by the light. He brushed back the 
 hair from his forehead and let the sea breeze play on 
 his face. 
 
 Finally a light sound behind him called his atten- 
 190
 
 THE SPHINX BREAKS SILENCE 191 
 
 tion inward. The King and Von Ritz stood together 
 in the doorway. Both were in dress uniform. Karyl, 
 even at the side of the soldierly Von Ritz, was strik- 
 ing in the white and silver of Galavia's commanding 
 general. Across his breast glinted the decorations of 
 all the orders to which Royalty entitled him. 
 
 The King, with a deep breath not unlike a sigh, 
 came forward to the fountain. There he halted with 
 one booted foot on the margin of the basin and his 
 white-gauntleted hands clasped at his back. He had 
 not yet seen Benton, who now stepped out of the shadow 
 to present himself. As he came into view Karyl raised 
 his eyes and nodded with a smile. 
 
 " Ah, Benton," he said, " so you came ! Thank you." 
 
 The American bowed. He wished to observe every 
 proper amenity of Court etiquette. He was still 
 chagrined by the memory of his rudeness to Von Ritz, 
 yet he was determined that if Karyl had sent for him 
 as the Count Pagratide, he must receive him on equal 
 terms and without ceremony. 
 
 " Certainly," he replied. Then with a short laugh 
 he added : " I have never before been received by a 
 crowned head. If my etiquette proves faulty, you must 
 score it against my ignorance not my intention." 
 
 " I sent for you," said Karyl slowly, as the eyes 
 of the two men met in full directness, " and you were 
 good enough to come. I am a crowned head yes
 
 192 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 that is my damned ill-fortune. Let us, for God's sake, 
 in so far as we may, forget that! Benton, back there 
 " his voice suddenly rose and took on a passionate 
 tremor as he lifted one gauntleted hand in a sweep to- 
 ward the west " back there in your country, where 
 you were a grandee of finance and I an impecunious 
 foreigner, there was no ceremony between us. If we 
 can forget this livery " Karyl savagely struck his 
 breast " if you will try to forget that you are look- 
 ing at a toy King, fancifully trimmed from head to 
 heel in braid and medals then perhaps we can talk ! " 
 
 " Your Majesty " demurred Von Ritz in a tone of 
 deep protest. 
 
 The King swept his arm back as one who brushes 
 an unimportant intruder into the background. 
 
 " And we must talk," went on Karyl vehemently, 
 " as two men, not as one man and a puppet." 
 
 The American stood looking on at the violence of 
 the King's outburst with a sense of deep sympathy. 
 Again the Colonel stepped forward with an interposed 
 objection. 
 
 " If I may suggest " he began in an emotionless 
 inflection which fell in startling contrast with the sur- 
 charged vehemence of the other. Then he halted in 
 the midst of his sentence as Karyl wheeled passionately 
 to face him. 
 
 " My God, Colonel ! " cried the King. " There is not
 
 THE SPHINX BREAKS SILENCE 193 
 
 a debt of gratitude in life that I do not owe to you 
 I and my house ! I am crushed under my obliga- 
 tions to you. You have been our strength, our one 
 loyal support, and yet there are times when you madden 
 me ! " The officer stood waiting, respectful, impersonal, 
 until the flood of words should subside, but for a while 
 Karyl swept agitatedly on. 
 
 " You wear a sword, Von Ritz, which any monarch in 
 Europe would hire at your own price. Any govern- 
 ment would let you name what titles and honors you 
 wished in payment " 
 
 "Your Majesty!" 
 
 " Forgive me, I know your sword is not for sale. 
 I mean no such intimation. I mean only that it has 
 a value. I mean you are a man, and the game to you 
 is the large one of statecraft. It is really you who 
 rule this Kingdom. Ah, yes, you remonstrate, but I 
 tell you it is true, and the damnable shame is that it 
 is not a Kingdom worthy of your genius ! You, Von 
 Ritz, are the engine, the motive force but I in 
 God's holy name, what am I ? " 
 
 He raised his hands questioningly, appealingly. 
 
 " You," replied the older soldier calmly, " are the 
 King." 
 
 " Yes," Karyl caught up the words almost before 
 they had fallen from the lips of the other. "Yes, 
 I am the King. I am the miserable, gilded figure-
 
 194 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 head out on the prow, which serves no end and no 
 purpose. I am the ornamental symbol of a system 
 which the world is discarding! I am a medieval lay 
 figure upon which to hang these tinsel decorations, these 
 ribbons!" 
 
 " Your Majesty is excited." 
 
 " No, by God, I am only heartbroken and I am 
 through ! " The King's hands dropped at his sides. 
 The passion died out of his voice and eyes, leaving 
 them those of a man who is very tired. For a mo- 
 ment there was silence. It was broken by the Ameri- 
 can. 
 
 " Pagratide," he asked, " why did you send for me? " 
 
 The King stood rigid with the illuminating shaft 
 from the door touching into high-lights the polish of 
 his boots and the burnish of his accouterments. Finally 
 he turned and in a voice now deadly quiet countered 
 with another question. 
 
 " Benton, why did you save me ? " 
 
 The American answered with quiet candor. 
 
 " I went into it," he said, " because I feared the 
 danger might threaten Cara. Once in, only a murderer 
 could have turned back." 
 
 " So I thought." Karyl nodded his head, then he 
 turned and paced restively up and down the path be- 
 tween the fountain and the balcony. At last he halted 
 fronting the American.
 
 THE SPHINX BREAKS SILENCE 195 
 
 " I wish to God, Benton, you had let that traitor 
 Lapas and his constituents touch their damned button. 
 I wish to God you had let them lift me, amid the stones 
 of do Freres, into eternity ! But that wish is unchari- 
 table to Von Ritz and the others who must have gone 
 with me." The King broke off with a short laugh. 
 " After all," he added, " of course, as you say, you 
 couldn't do it." 
 
 Benton shook his head. " No," he said, " I couldn't 
 do it." 
 
 Again Karyl paced back and forth, and again he 
 stopped, facing the American. 
 
 " Benton, it is hard for two men to talk in this fash- 
 ion. Perhaps no two other men ever did. I find my- 
 self a jailer to the woman I love Oh, yes, I am also 
 imprisoned by Royalty but that does not alter matters." 
 The voice shook. The gauntleted hands were tightly 
 gripped, but the speaker went steadily on. " And you 
 love her!" 
 
 For an instant Benton looked at the other, hesitant. 
 Then realizing the unquestionable sincerity with which 
 the King spoke, he answered with equal frankness. 
 
 " Pagratide over there I thought I could enter 
 Paradise. I did look into Paradise. Then I had to 
 set my face back again to the desert and in the desert 
 one has only memory and hunger and thirst." 
 
 " Yours is hunger and thirst yes ! " exclaimed the
 
 196 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 King of Galavia. " But mine is the hunger and thirst 
 of Tantalus." 
 
 There was a low pained exclamation from the bal- 
 cony and both men wheeled in recognition of the voice 
 and the shadow that divided the band of light in the 
 doorway. 
 
 The Queen stood on the low sill and though her head 
 and figure were only sketched in shade against the 
 tempered luminance at her back her exclamation told 
 them that she had heard. She stood in the unbroken 
 sweep of her Court gown. Her slim hands gripped the 
 ermine which fell from her shoulders to the floor and 
 slowly crushed it between clenched fingers. About her 
 head the light touched her hair into a soft nimbus. 
 
 Karyl stepped impetuously forward and held out his 
 hand to lead her into the garden. Benton, who had in- 
 voluntarily started toward the balcony at the first sight 
 of her, caught his lip in his teeth and halted where he 
 stood. 
 
 The girl remained for a moment, astonished at the 
 sight of the two men, incredulous of what she had heard. 
 
 She had slipped away for a moment of respite from 
 the fatiguing requirements of the ball-room. She had 
 come here because she had felt sure that here she could 
 be alone. She had come, driven by the prompting of 
 her heart, to look out to the Mediterranean and wonder 
 where, between its gates at Gibraltar and Suez, Benton
 
 THE SPHINX BREAKS SILENCE 197 
 
 might at that moment be. And from the balcony she 
 had seen him In the garden and had heard a part of 
 this talk before the spell of her astounded muteness 
 broke into exclamation. 
 
 " You heard what we were saying." Karyl spoke 
 gently, deferentially. " And it seemed to you incredible 
 that we should be confidential on such a subject. It 
 would be so, except that we are both seeking the same 
 end your service " he paused, then added miser- 
 ably " and your happiness." 
 
 She listened in wonderment as she held out her hand 
 to Benton and watched trance-like his lowered head as 
 he bent his lips to her fingers. 
 
 " Cara ! " Karyl had stepped back and was leaning 
 over, his elbows resting on the stone back of one of the 
 low benches. His fingers tightly grasped the carved 
 ornaments at its top. His words were carefully chosen 
 and measuredly spoken. He knew that if he permitted 
 one expression to escape him unguardedly, with it would 
 slip away the command by which he was curbing muti- 
 nous emotions. 
 
 " Cara, I happened to be born a Prince, who should 
 one day develop into a King. It chanced that Nature 
 had a sense of humor so Nature paid me a droll com- 
 pliment. She gave me a futile ambition to be a man 
 me, whom she had decided was to be only a King ! " 
 
 The group stood silent and attentive in a strained
 
 198 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 tableau, except for Von Ritz, who paced back and forth 
 just beyond the fountain, as though respectfully repudi- 
 ating the whole unseemly episode. 
 
 " Then I fell in love with you," went on the King of 
 Galavia. " You married me because State reasons 
 demanded it. I could not win your love he did ! " 
 He turned toward Benton, and his voice, though it held 
 its slow control, was bitter. 
 
 " Benton, do you fancy this puny game amuses me? 
 Do I not know that you could buy a principality like 
 this for a souvenir of Europe if it happened to please 
 you? The one time I have been allowed to feel a man 
 was in your country, where we met as equal rivals. 
 . . . No, not equal even then, because you were the 
 winner, I the loser." 
 
 " Karyl," the Queen spoke in a low voice, " I can give 
 you loyalty, admiration, respect and my life to use as 
 you see fit to use it. I give as freely as I can. My 
 love I do not refuse it is just . . . just that it 
 is not mine to give." She spoke with unutterable weari- 
 ness. " I seem to bring only sorrow to those who love 
 me." 
 
 " You can give me all but love," Karyl repeated very 
 softly, leaning forward toward her, " and love is all 
 there is! Without it I take all else you give me as a 
 thief takes, without right. If being a King means 
 being your jailer, then I am done with being a King! "
 
 THE SPHINX BREAKS SILENCE 199 
 
 " Your Majesty," cut in Von Ritz sharply, " it is 
 time to terminate this talk. It has no end. It is aim- 
 less argument which comes only back to the starting 
 point." 
 
 The King wheeled and met the eyes of his adviser. 
 The studied self-control he had maintained since Cara's 
 arrival slipped from him and his voice broke out ex- 
 plosively. 
 
 " It has an end ! " he cried. " I will show you the 
 end. If I cannot build empire I can do something else. 
 I can throw this damnable little Kingdom down into the 
 chaos it deserves ! . . . I can abdicate to my cousin, 
 Louis Delgado, who wants the throne I don't wantl 
 
 . I can stamp on this tinseled trumpery. 
 I can break jail!" He turned with an impassioned 
 out-sweeping of his hands. Coming swiftly from be- 
 hind the bench, he halted tensely before Benton and 
 leaned defiantly forward. " Then I can free her and 
 by God I shall fight you for her on equal terms, inch 
 by inch, not holding her in duress, but fighting for her 
 free consent. She has been trapped by Fate into 
 marrying me and at heart she rebels. I shall set her 
 free and then by God I will win her back ! " 
 
 Von Ritz had stood by as the King rushed on in 
 climax after climax of heated words. Now he took one 
 swift stride forward. From his quiet face had fallen 
 every trace of impassiveness. When he spoke his voice
 
 200 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 trembled with the irresistible eloquence of power and 
 fire. 
 
 " My God, boy ! " He seized Karyl by his shoulders 
 and wheeled him so that they stood face to face. There 
 was in his manner nothing of deference, nothing of the 
 subordinate. Now he stood transformed, the man of 
 action ; the dominant, compelling force before whom 
 littler men must wither. This was no longer Von Ritz 
 the emotionless. It was Von Ritz the King-maker, 
 burning with vitalizing passion. 
 
 " My God, boy, are you mad? Do you think other 
 men have never loved and sacrificed themselves for duty 
 
 kept unuttered, locked in their hearts, things they 
 were hungry to say? . . . Do you think that your 
 hard task of Kingship is yours to play with to de- 
 sert? . . . Why, boy, I've taught you your man- 
 ual of arms, I've drilled you, trained you, watched you 
 grow from childhood. My heart has beaten with joy 
 because you were free of every degenerate trace that has 
 marked and scarred Europe's cancerous Royalty! I've 
 seen you come clean-hearted, straight-minded into man- 
 hood ; prepared you to show the world what a Kingdom 
 can be with a clean King a strong King ! I've fitted 
 you to bear a burden which only a man could bear to 
 remind the world that ' King ' means the Man Who Can 
 
 and I thought you could do it ! " He paused only 
 to draw a long breath, then hastened on again. " Yes,
 
 THE SPHINX BREAKS SILENCE 201 
 
 your task is thankless. Your Principality is small, but 
 it is a keystone in Europe's arch. It is such Prince- 
 lings as you who must send clean blood down to the 
 thrones of to-morrow. ... Is that not enough? 
 . Have I built a King, day by day, year by 
 year, idea by idea, only to see him wither and crumple 
 under the first blast? Go on with your task, in God's 
 name! Probably they will murder you . . . as- 
 sassination may at the end be your reward, but only the 
 coward fears the outcome! For God's sake, Karyl, 
 don't desert me under fire ! " 
 
 He paused with a gesture eloquent of appeal. When 
 next he spoke his voice was slow, deliberate. 
 
 "And the other picture! The cafe tables of Paris 
 are crowded with Royalty that has been ; with the miser- 
 able children of conquered and abdicated Kings ! " 
 
 The King dropped exhaustedly to the bench, his fore- 
 arms on his knees, his gloved fingers hanging limp. 
 After a moment he rose again and went to Cara. 
 
 " I want to fight for you," he said simply. " I want 
 to free you first then fight for you." 
 
 " Karyl," she answered gently, " if you do this, you 
 will enslave my soul, and my imprisonment will be only 
 harder. You will make me a wrecker of governments 
 a traitor to my duty." 
 
 The King turned and looked out to sea. 
 
 " I must think," he said in a tired voice. " Perhaps
 
 202 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 it is only a matter of time. Delgado is free. Per- 
 haps I shall not have to present him with my throne. 
 Conceivably he may come and take it." 
 
 Von Ritz approached again and took Karyl's hand. 
 To him a King was, at last analysis, only the best 
 product of the King-maker's craft. He was a King- 
 maker before him stood a tired boy whom he loved. 
 
 " You will fight," he said, " and you will fight with 
 hell's fury. The first step will be to recapture this 
 Pretender. With him in hand " 
 
 " Which is in itself impossible," retorted Karyl. 
 
 At the window appeared the young Captain who had 
 been left at the hotel. His hand was at his forehead 
 in salute: Von Ritz went to meet him and in a moment 
 returned for Benton. Together the two men went out. 
 Five minutes later they had come again into the garden. 
 With them came Manuel Blanco. 
 
 The bull fighter paused to bow low to the Queen, then 
 to the King. At last he spoke with some diffidence. 
 
 " I have taken the very great liberty," he said, " of 
 making the Duke Louis Delgado an enforced guest on 
 the yacht where he awaits Your Majesty's pleasure."
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 THE JACKAL TAKES THE TRAIL 
 
 the Duke allowed himself to be kid- 
 naped, he committed an error so grave that 
 it can hardly be overestimated." The speaker used 
 the last word as an afterthought. His first inclination 
 was to say, forgiven. 
 
 Monsieur Jusseret sat upright in the brougham, 
 scorning the supporting cushions at his back. His 
 small, shrewd eyes frowned his deep disapproval over 
 the roofs of Algiers outspread below him. He scowled 
 on the gaudy and tatterdemalion color of the native 
 city. He scowled on the smart brilliancy of the French 
 quarter basking along the Place du Government and the 
 Boulevard de la Republique. 
 
 The Countess Astaride leaned back and smiled from 
 the depths of the cushions. 
 
 " It is usually a mistake to be made a prisoner," she 
 smiled. 
 
 " But such a foolish mistake," quarreled Jusseret. 
 " To permit oneself to be lured into so palpable a trap. 
 It is most absurd."
 
 204 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " Now that it is done," inquired the woman, " is it 
 not almost as absurd to waste time deploring the spilled 
 milk? We must find a way to set him free." 
 
 " I have done all that could be done. I have sta- 
 tioned men whom I can trust throughout Puntal and 
 Galavia. They are men Karyl likewise thinks he can 
 trust. The distinction is that I know where he 
 merely thinks." 
 
 " And these men what have they done ? " The 
 Countess laid one gloved hand eagerly on the French- 
 man's coat-sleeve. 
 
 " These men have gradually and quietly reorganized 
 the army, the bureaucracy, the very palace Guard. 
 We have undermined the government's power, until 
 when the word is passed to strike the blow, a honey- 
 combed system will crumble under its own weight. 
 When Karyl calls on his troops, not one man will re- 
 spond. Well " Jusseret smiled dryly " perhaps I 
 overstate the case. Possibly one man will. I think we 
 will hardly convert Von Ritz." 
 
 " Ah, that is good news, Monsieur." The Countess 
 breathed the words with a tremor of enthusiasm. 
 
 " It is, however, all useless, Madame since His 
 Grace is unavailable. In captivity he is absolutely 
 valueless." 
 
 " In captivity he has a stronger claim upon our loy- 
 alty than in power ! "
 
 THE JACKAL TAKES THE TRAIL 205 
 
 The dark-room diplomat regarded her with a disap- 
 pointed smile. 
 
 " For a clever woman, Comptesse, who has heretofore 
 played the game so brilliantly, you have grown singu- 
 larly unobservant. I am not a crusader, liberating cap- 
 tive Christian knights. I am France's servant, playing 
 a somewhat guileful game which is as ancient as Ulys- 
 ses, and subject to certain definite rules." 
 
 "Yes, but" 
 
 " But, my dear lady, this revolution I have planted 
 nourished and cultivated to ripeness I cannot har- 
 vest it. Outside Europe must not appear interested in 
 this matter. If the Galavian people led by a member of 
 the Galavian Royal House revolts! Bien! More than 
 bien excellent ! " Jusseret spread his palms. " But 
 unless there is a leader, there can be no revolution. 
 No, no, Louis should have kept out of custody." 
 
 The Countess leaned forward with sudden eagerness. 
 
 " And if I free him? If I devise a way? " 
 
 The Frenchman turned quickly from contemplation 
 of the landscape to her face. 
 
 " Ah ! " he exclaimed. " Once more you are your- 
 self; the cleverest woman in Europe, as, always, you 
 are the most charming ! " 
 
 " Do you know where Monsieur Martin may be 
 found? 
 
 Jusseret looked at her in surprise.
 
 206 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " I supposed he was here, consulting with you. I 
 sent him to you with a letter recommending him as 
 a useful instrument." 
 
 " He was in Algiers, but I sent him away." The 
 Countess laughed. " He wanted money, always money, 
 until I wearied of furnishing his purse." 
 
 " Even if he were available he could hardly go to 
 Puntal, Madame," demurred Jusseret. " Von Ritz 
 knows him." 
 
 " True." The Countess sat for a time in deep 
 thought. 
 
 " There is one man in Puntal," said Jusseret with 
 sudden thought, " who might possibly be of assistance 
 to you. He is not legally a citizen of Galavia. He 
 even has a certain official connection with another gov- 
 ernment. He is a man I cannot myself approach." 
 Jusseret had been talking in a low tone, too low to 
 endanger being overheard by the cocher, but now with 
 excess of caution he leaned forward and whispered a 
 name. The name was Jose Reebeler. 
 
 It was June. Three months had passed since the 
 Grand Duke had steamed into Puntal Harbor as 
 Blanco's prisoner of war. The Duke had since that 
 day been a guest of the King. His goings and com- 
 ings were, however, guarded with strict solicitude. One 
 day he went after his custom for a stroll in the Palace
 
 THE JACKAL TAKES THE TRAIL 207 
 
 garden. He was accompanied by two officers of the 
 Palace Guard especially selected by Von Ritz for known 
 fidelity. At the garden gates stood picked sentinels. 
 That evening a fisherman's boat stole out of the harbor. 
 Neither Louis Delgado nor his guard returned. The 
 sentinels failed to respond at roll-call. 
 
 As the King and the Colonel listened to the report of 
 the escape, KaryPs face paled a little and the features 
 of Von Ritz hardened. Orders were given for an in- 
 stant dispatch in cipher, demanding from a secret agent 
 in Algiers all information obtainable as to the move- 
 ments of the Countess Astaride. The reply brought the 
 statement that the Countess had, several days before, 
 sailed for Alexandria and Cairo. 
 
 Von Ritz became preternaturally active, masking 
 every movement under his accustomed seeming of im- 
 perturbable calm. At last he brought his report to the 
 King. " It signifies one thing which I had not sus- 
 pected. Among the men whom I thought I could most 
 implicitly trust, there is treason. How deep that cancer 
 goes is a matter as to which we can only make guesses." 
 
 Karyl took a few turns across the floor. 
 
 " And by that you mean that we are over a volcano 
 which may break into eruption at any moment? " 
 
 Von Ritz nodded. 
 
 " And the Queen " began Karyl. 
 
 " I have been thinking of Her Majesty," said the
 
 208 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Colonel. " She should leave Puntal, but she will not 
 go, if it occurs to her that she is being sent away to 
 escape danger. Her Majesty's courage might almost 
 be called stubborn." 
 
 The King made no immediate response. He was 
 standing at a window, looking out at the serenity of sea 
 and sky. His forehead was drawn in thought. He 
 knew that Von Ritz was right. Had Cara hated him, 
 instead of merely finding herself unable to love him, he 
 knew that the first threat of danger would arouse the 
 ally in her, and that the suggestion of flight would 
 throw her into the attitude of determined resistance. 
 She was like the captain who goes down with his ship, 
 not because he loves the ship, but because his place is 
 on the bridge. 
 
 Von Ritz went on quietly. 
 
 " God grant that Your Majesty may be in no actual 
 danger. But we must face the situation open-eyed. 
 Your place is here. If by mischance you should fall, 
 there is no reason why " he hesitated, then added 
 " why the dynasty should end with you. In Galavia 
 there is no Salic law. Her Majesty could reign. Un- 
 doubtedly the Queen should be in some safer place." 
 
 The King dropped into a chair and sat for some min- 
 utes with his eyes thoughtfully on the floor. Abstract- 
 edly he puffed a cigarette. At last he raised his face. 
 It was pale, but stamped with determination.
 
 THE JACKAL TAKES THE TRAIL 209 
 
 " There is only one thing to do, Von Ritz. There is 
 one available refuge." 
 
 The soldier read the reluctant eyes of the other, and 
 spared him the necessary explanation with a question. 
 "Mr. Benton's yacht? " he inquired. 
 
 Karyl nodded. " The yacht." 
 
 " I, too, had thought of that, but how can you ar- 
 range it, Your Majesty? " 
 
 " We must persuade her that she requires a change 
 of scene and that this is the one way she can have 
 it without conspicuousness. It can be given out 
 that she has gone to Maritzburg, and I shall tell her " 
 Karyl smiled with a cynical humor " that I am 
 over-weary with this task of Kingship, and that I shall 
 join her within a few days for a brief truancy from the 
 cares of state." 
 
 " It may be the safest thing," reflected the officer. 
 " It at least frees our minds of a burdensome anxiety." 
 
 " I shall persuade her," declared Karyl. " She can 
 take several ladies-in-waiting and you can accompany 
 her to the yacht and explain to Benton. Direct him to 
 cruise within wireless call and to avoid cities where the 
 Queen might be in danger of recognition. She must 
 remain until we gain some hint as to when and where the 
 crater is apt to break into eruption." 
 
 Jusseret was busy. His agencies were at work over 
 the peninsula, It was the sort of conspiracy in which
 
 210 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 the Frenchman took the keenest delight purely a mil- 
 itary revolution. 
 
 The peasant on the mountains, the agriculturist in 
 his buttressed and terraced farm, the grape-grower in 
 his vineyard and the artisan and laborer in Puntal did 
 not know that there was dissatisfaction with the gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 But in the small army and the smaller bureaucracy 
 there was plotting and undermining. Subtle and de- 
 vious temptations were employed. Captains saw before 
 them the shoulder straps of the major, lieutenants the 
 insignia of the captain, privates the chevrons of the 
 sergeant. 
 
 Meanwhile, from a town in southerly Europe, near 
 the Galavian frontier, Monsieur Jusseret in person was 
 alertly watching. 
 
 Martin, the " English Jackal," much depleted in for- 
 tune, drifting before vagabond winds and hailing last 
 from Malta, learned of the Frenchman's seemingly 
 empty programme. Since his dismissal by the Countess, 
 there had been no employer for his unscrupulous talents. 
 Now he needed funds. Where Jusseret operated there 
 might be work in his particular line. He knew that when 
 this man seemed most idle he was often most busy. Mar- 
 tin had come to a near-by point by chance. He went on 
 to Jusseret's town, and then to his hotel, with the same 
 surety and motive that directs the vulture to its carrion.
 
 THE JACKAL TAKES THE TRAIL 211 
 
 The Jackal was ushered into the Frenchman's room in 
 the tattered and somewhat disheveled condition to which 
 his recent weeks of vagabondage had subjected him. 
 
 Jusseret looked his former ally over with scarcely 
 concealed contempt. Martin sustained the stare and 
 returned it with one coolly audacious. 
 
 " I daresay," he began, with something of insolence 
 in his drawl, " it's hardly necessary to explain why I'm 
 here. I'm looking for something to do, and in my 
 condition " he glanced deprecatingly down at his 
 faded tweeds " one can't be over nice in selecting one's 
 business associates." 
 
 Jusseret was secretly pleased. He divined that be- 
 fore the end came there might be use for Martin, though 
 no immediate need of him suggested itself. There were 
 so few men obtainable who would, without question, 
 undertake and execute intrigue or homicide equally well. 
 It might be expedient to hold this one in reserve. 
 
 "We will not quarrel, Monsieur Martin," he said 
 almost with a purr. " It is not even necessary to re- 
 turn the compliment. It is so well understood, why 
 one employs your capable services." 
 
 The Englishman flushed. To defend his reputation 
 would be a waste of time. 
 
 " Madame la Comptesse d'Astaride," explained 
 Jusseret, " has gone to Cairo. She may require your 
 wits as well as her own before the game is played out.
 
 212 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Join her there and take your instructions from her." 
 As he spoke the map-reviser began counting bills from 
 his well-supplied purse. Martin looked at them avidly, 
 then objected with a surly frown. 
 
 " She sent me away once, and I don't particularly 
 care for the Cairo idea." 
 
 " This time she will not send you away." Jusseret 
 glanced up with a bland smile. " And it seems I re- 
 member a season, not so many years gone, when you 
 were a rather prominent personage upon the terrace 
 of Shephard's. You were quite an engaging figure 
 of a man, Monsieur Martin, in flannels and Panama 
 hat, quite a smart figure ! " 
 
 The Englishman scowled. " You delight, Monsieur, 
 in touching the raw spots However, I daresay mat- 
 ters will go rippingly." He took the bills and counted 
 them into his own purse. " A chap can't afford to 
 be too sentimental or thin-skinned." He was thinking 
 of a couple of clubs in Cairo from which he had been 
 asked to resign. Then he laughed callously as he 
 added aloud: "You see there's a regiment stationed 
 there, just now, which I'd rather not meet. I used to 
 belong to its mess once upon a time." 
 
 Jusseret looked up at the renegade, then with a 
 cynical laugh he rose. 
 
 " These little matters are inconvenient," he admitted, 
 " but embarrassments beset one everywhere. If one
 
 THE JACKAL TAKES THE TRAIL 213 
 
 turns aside to avoid his old regiment, who knows but 
 he may meet his tailor insistent upon payment or the 
 lady who was once his wife ? " 
 
 He lighted a cigarette, then with the refined cruelty 
 that enjoyed torturing a victim who could not afford 
 to resent his brutality, he added: 
 
 " But these army regulations are extremely annoying, 
 I daresay these rules which proclaim it infamous 
 to recognize one who who has, under certain circum- 
 stances, ceased to be a brother-officer." 
 
 The Englishman was leaning across the table, his 
 cheek-bones red and his eyes dangerous. 
 
 " By God, Jusseret, don't go too far ! " he cautioned. 
 
 The Frenchman raised his hands in an apologetic 
 gesture, but his eyes still held a trace of the malevolent 
 smile. 
 
 "A thousand pardons, my dear Martin," he 
 begged. " I meant only to be sympathetic."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE DEATH OF ROMANCE IS DEPLORED 
 
 < * A ND yet," declared young Harcourt, " if there 
 *" still survives, anywhere in the world, a vestige 
 of Romance, this should be her refuge; her last stand 
 against the encroachments of the commonplace." 
 
 He spoke animatedly, with the double eagerness of 
 a boy and an artist, sweeping one hand outward in an 
 argumentative gesture. It was a gesture which seemed 
 to submit in evidence all the palpitating colors of Capri 
 sunning herself among her rocks: all the sparkle and 
 glitter of the Bay of Naples spreading away to the 
 nebulous line where Ischia bulked herself in mist against 
 the horizon: all the majesty of the cone where the 
 fires of Vesuvius lay sleeping. 
 
 Across the table Sir Manuel Blanco shrugged his 
 broad shoulders. 
 
 Benton lighted a cigarette, and a smile, scarcely in- 
 dicative of frank amusement, flickered in his eyes. 
 
 " Do you hold that Romance is on the run ? " he 
 queried. 
 
 " Where do you find it nowadays ? " demanded the 
 214-
 
 DEATH OF ROMANCE IS DEPLORED 215 
 
 boy in flannels. " There ! " With the violence of dis- 
 gust he slammed a Baedeker of Southern Italy down 
 upon the table. " That is the way we see the world 
 in these days ! We go back with souvenir postcards in- 
 stead of experiences, and when we get home we have 
 just been to a lot of tramped-over places. I'll wager 
 that a handful of this copper junk they call money 
 over here, would buy in a bull market all the real ad- 
 venture any of us will ever know." 
 
 The three had been lunching out-doors in a Capri 
 hotel with flagstones for a floor and overhanging vine- 
 trellises for a roof. Chance had thrown this young 
 stranger across their path, and luncheon had cemented 
 an acquaintanceship. 
 
 "Who can say?" suggested Benton. "Why hunt 
 Trouble under the alias of Romance? Vesuvius, across 
 there, is as vague and noiseless to-day as a wraith, but 
 to-morrow his demon may run amuck over all this end 
 of Italy ! And then " His laugh finished the specu- 
 lation. 
 
 "And yet," went on the boy, after a moment's 
 pause, " I was just thinking of a chap I met in Algiers 
 a while back and later on the boat to Malta. I ran 
 across him in one of those vile little twisting alleys in 
 the Kasbah quarter where dirty natives sit cross-legged 
 on shabby rugs and eye the ' Infidel dogs ' just as 
 spiders watch flies from loathsome webs ugh, you
 
 216 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 know the sort of place ! " He paused with a slight 
 shudder of reminiscent disgust. " I fancy he has had 
 adventures. We had a glass of wine later down at one 
 of the sidewalk cafes in the Boulevard de la Republique. 
 He showed me lots of things that a regular guide would 
 have omitted. The fellow was on his uppers, yet he 
 had been something else, and still knew genteel people. 
 Up on the driveway by the villas, where fashion parades, 
 he excused himself to speak with a magnificently dressed 
 woman in a brougham, and she chatted with him in a 
 manner almost confidential. He told me later she might 
 some day occupy a throne; I think her name was the 
 Countess Astaride." 
 
 Benton looked up quickly and his eyes met those of 
 the Spaniard with a swiftly flashed message which ex- 
 cluded Harcourt. 
 
 " This fellow and I were on the same boat coming 
 over to Valetta," continued the young tourist. " One 
 night in the smoke-room, the steward was filling the 
 glasses pretty frequently. At last he became confiden- 
 tial." 
 
 "Yes?" prompted Benton. 
 
 " Well, he told me he had once held a commission in 
 the British Army and had seen service in diplomacy as 
 military attache. Then he got cashiered. He didn't 
 go into particulars, and of course I didn't cross-ques- 
 tion. He recited some weird experiences. He had been
 
 DEATH OF ROMANCE IS DEPLORED 217 
 
 a cattle man in Australia and a horse-trader in Syria 
 and had served the Sultan in Turkey. There were lots 
 of things that would have made a good book." The 
 boy's voice took on a note of young ardor. " But the 
 great story was the one he told last. He had stood to 
 win a title of nobility in this two-by-four Kingdom of 
 Galavia, but it had slipped away from him just on the 
 verge of attainment." 
 
 Harcourt slowly drained his thin Capri wine and set 
 down the goblet. 
 
 " I must watch the time," he remembered at last, draw- 
 ing out his watch. " I do the Blue Grotto this after- 
 noon. . . . Well, to continue: This chap gave 
 the name Browne (he insisted that it be Browne with 
 an e), though while he was drunk he called himself 
 Martin. 
 
 " He told a long and complicated story of plans in 
 which a King was to lose his life and throne. He said 
 that the secret cabinets of several of the major Euro- 
 pean governments were interested, and that just as care- 
 fully prepared plans were about to be consummated 
 something happened something mysterious which 
 none of the cleverest agents of the governments had 
 been able to solve. In some unfathomable way someone 
 had discovered everything and stepped between and dis- 
 arranged. No upheaval followed and of course Browne 
 never won his title. They have never yet learned who
 
 218 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 saved that throne. Someone is working magic and 
 getting away with it under the eyes of Europe's clever- 
 est detectives." 
 
 The boy stopped and looked about to see if his re- 
 cital had aroused the proper wonderment. Both men 
 gave expression of deep interest. Flattered by the im- 
 pression he had made, Harcourt went on. " Now you 
 fellows are old travelers men of the world I am 
 a kid compared to you. Yet has either of you stumbled 
 on such a story as that? So you see wonderful things 
 do sometimes happen under the surface of affairs with 
 never a ripple at the top of the water. Browne or 
 Martin said that the Duke would reign yet oh, yes, 
 he said the Powers would see to that ! " 
 
 " Senor, what became of your friend?" inquired 
 Blanco. 
 
 " Oh ! " the boy hesitated for a moment, then broke 
 into a laugh. " I'm afraid that's an anti-climax. 
 They found that he was simply a nervy stowaway. He 
 had not booked his passage and so " 
 
 " They put him off? " 
 
 " Yes, at Malta. Meantime he was stripped to the 
 waist and armed with a shovel in the stoke-hold." 
 
 Benton laughed. 
 
 " There was another phase to it, though " began 
 the boy afresh.
 
 DEATH OF ROMANCE IS DEPLORED 219 
 
 At that moment the whistle of the small excursion 
 steamer below broke out in a shrill scream. Young Har- 
 court hurriedly pushed back his chair and grabbed for 
 his Panama hat. "Caesar!" he cried, "there's the 
 whistle. I shall miss my boat for the Grotto." And 
 he hastened off with a shout of summons to a crazy 
 victoria that was clattering by empty. 
 
 During a long silence Blanco studied the cone of 
 Vesuvius. 
 
 " Blanco ! " Benton leaned across the table with an 
 anxious frown and stretched out a hand which over- 
 turned the wine glasses. " There was one thing he said 
 that stuck in my memory. He said the Powers would 
 see that in the end Louis had his throne." 
 
 The Spaniard shook his head dubiously. 
 
 " The Powers have lost their instrument ! You for- 
 get, Senor, that this is underground diplomacy. It must 
 appear to work itself out and the new King must be 
 logical. With Louis a prisoner their meddling hands 
 are bound." 
 
 Benton rose and pushed back his chair. His com- 
 panion joined him and together they passed out through 
 the stone-flagged court and into the road. For fifteen 
 minutes they walked morosely and in silence through 
 the steep streets where the shops are tourist-traps, al- 
 luringly baited with corals and trinkets. Finally they
 
 220 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 came out on the beach where many fishing boats were 
 dragged up on the sand, and nets stretched, drying in 
 the sun. 
 
 Then Benton spoke. 
 
 " In God's name, Manuel, what do I care who oc- 
 cupies the throne of Gala via? No other man could so 
 block my path as Karyl." Then as one in the confes- 
 sional he declared shamefacedly : " I have never said it 
 to any man because it is too much like murder, but 
 sometimes I wish I had reached Cadiz one day later than 
 I did." He drew his handkerchief and wiped the 
 moisture from his forehead. 
 
 The Spaniard skillfully kindled a cigarette in the 
 spurt of a match, which the gusty sea-breeze made short- 
 lived. 
 
 " And now," he calmly suggested, " it is still possible 
 to let Europe play out her game alone. After all, 
 Senor, we are as the young touristo indicated only 
 amateurs." 
 
 "And yet, Manuel," the American smiled half- 
 quizzically, " yet we seem foreordained to play body- 
 guard to Karyl. Fate throws him on our hands." 
 
 " We might decline in future to accept the charge." 
 
 Benton halted so close to the water's edge that a bit 
 of sea-weed was washed up close to his feet. " Any 
 threat to the throne of Galavia now is also a threat to 
 Her. We must learn what these Powers purpose do-
 
 DEATH OF ROMANCE IS DEPLORED 221 
 
 ing." He threw back his shoulders and his step quick- 
 ened with the resolution of fresh action. 
 
 " Besides," he supplemented, " Delgado is a dream- 
 ing degenerate ! We must get back into the game." 
 
 The Spaniard laughed. " As you say, Senor. After 
 all, this mere cruising grows monotonous. Playing the 
 game is better." 
 
 When, at twilight that evening, the launch came 
 chugging back to the yacht with the mail from Naples, 
 Benton caught sight of a blue envelope in which he 
 recognized the form of the Italian telegraph. He tore 
 it open and his brows contracted in incredulous wonder- 
 ment as he read the message. 
 
 " Miss Carstow and two other ladies arrive Parker's 
 Hotel Naples Tuesday afternoon. Rely on your meet- 
 ing her with yacht. She will explain. Be ready to 
 sail immediately on arrival. Address reply Pagratide, 
 care Grand Palace Hotel." 
 
 Benton smiled almost happily as he scrawled, in re- 
 ply, " Isis and self at Miss Carstow's service. Waiting 
 under steam. Benton."
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 NAPLES ASSUMES NEW BEAUTY 
 
 E following day was Tuesday. It found Benton 
 nearer cheerfulness than he had been since the 
 Isls had in February pointed her bow eastward for the 
 run across the Atlantic, under sealed orders. 
 
 To Blanco the yachtsman announced that he would 
 lunch at Parker's, and evasively asked the Spaniard if 
 he would mind being left alone for the day. 
 
 As the coachman, hailed at random from the mob of 
 brigands by the Custom-house entrance, cracked his 
 whip over the bony stallion in the fiacre shafts, Benton 
 began to notice that Naples was altogether charming. 
 He found no refusals for the tatterdemalion vagabonds 
 who pattered alongside to thrust their violets over the 
 carriage door. 
 
 At last, as he paced one of the main parlors of the 
 hotel, his eyes riveted on the street entrance, he heard a 
 laugh behind him ; a laugh tempered with a vibrant mel- 
 lowness which was of a sort with no other laugh, and 
 which set him vibrating in turn, as promptly as a tun- 
 ing-fork answers to its note. 
 222
 
 NAPLES ASSUMES NEW BEAUTY 223 
 
 The sound brought him round in such electric haste 
 as almost resulted in collision with the girl behind him. 
 
 He was prepared, of course, to find in her incognita 
 no suggestion of Royalty, yet now when he met her 
 standing alone, and could take the hand she held out to 
 him with her heart-breaking, heart-recompensating 
 smile, he felt a distinct sense of astonishment. 
 
 " I'm having a holiday," she declared. " It's to be 
 the Queen's day off and you are being allowed to play 
 host with the Isis. Do you approve? " 
 
 With abandonment to the delight of mere propin- 
 quity, he laid away sorrow against the returning time of 
 her absence, as one lays away an umbrella until the next 
 shower. 
 
 "Approve?" he mocked. "It's like asking the 
 drowning man if he approves of being picked up." 
 
 For a moment her eyes clouded and a droop threat- 
 ened her lips. 
 
 " But," she said in a softer tone, " what if you've got 
 to be thrown back into the sea again?" Then she 
 added, " And, you see, I have. Probably I'm very fool- 
 ish to come. The prison will only be blacker, but I 
 couldn't stand it. I wanted " She looked at him 
 with the frankness which has nothing to conceal "I 
 wanted to forget it all for a little time." 
 
 With a frigid salutation, Colonel Von Ritz arrived. 
 As he addressed the American, despite his flawless
 
 224 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 courtesy, his voice still carried the undercurrent of an- 
 tagonism which no word of his had ever failed to convey 
 to Benton, since their first meeting in America. 
 
 " If Miss Carstow " he uttered the assumed name 
 with distaste " will excuse you," he suggested, " I 
 should like a word." 
 
 Von Ritz led the way out of doors and between the 
 tables and trellises of the garden until he came upon a 
 spot which seemed to promise the greatest possible de- 
 gree of privacy. There he stopped and stood looking 
 straight ahead of him. 
 
 " All that I now tell you, Mr. Benton " his voice 
 was even and polite to a nicety, yet distinctly icy " is 
 of course a message from the King." 
 
 " Meaning," Benton smiled with polite indifference, 
 " that your personal communications with me would be 
 few?" 
 
 " Meaning," corrected Von Ritz gravely, " that in 
 His Majesty's affairs, I speak only on His Majesty's 
 authority." 
 
 " Colonel, I am at your service." 
 
 " In the first place," began the Galavian at last, 
 " His Majesty wished me to explain why he has pre- 
 sumed on your further assistance. You are the only 
 man outside Galavia who understands and whom the 
 King may implicitly trust, trust even with the safety of 
 Her Majesty, the Queen."
 
 NAPLES ASSUMES NEW BEAUTY 225 
 
 " You will convey to the King my appreciation of 
 his confidence." Somehow, between the American and 
 this emissary of Karyl, there could never be any atti- 
 tude other than that of the utmost formality. 
 
 Von Ritz sketched the situation. 
 
 " It is important that the world should not know of 
 Her Majesty's departure. It would be an admission to 
 the conspirators that the King feels his weakness, and 
 would invite attack. For this reason she could not 
 leave in the ordinary way. Fortunately, it is not diffi- 
 cult for Her Majesty to escape recognition. She is 
 perhaps the one Queen in Europe whose published por- 
 traits would not make it impossible for her to go un- 
 known through the cities of the Continent. Her preju- 
 dice against photographs has given her that immunity. 
 She might walk through Paris unrecognized." 
 
 Benton looked narrowly at Von Ritz. " How much 
 does she know of the truth ? " 
 
 " Absolutely nothing. She has been persuaded to 
 regard the truancy as a break in the routine of Court 
 life, which " Von Ritz hesitated, then went on dog- 
 gedly " which she finds distasteful. She does not even 
 know that the Duke is free. That is as closely guarded 
 a secret as the fact that he was being held under duress." 
 
 The soldier paused, then went on. " The King has 
 told Her Majesty that he hopes to join her on your 
 yacht within a few days. You will please encourage
 
 226 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 that fiction. In point of fact," with a gesture of de- 
 spair, " if His Majesty were to leave now he would 
 never return, and if he remains now he may never again 
 leave. I must myself hasten back." 
 
 The two men went at some length over the details of 
 the situation. It was agreed that the simple name of 
 a town received by wireless should be a signal upon 
 which the Isis would proceed with all possible haste to 
 the place designated. If the necessity should arise for 
 Karyl's leaving Galavia, he might in this way take 
 refuge on the yacht. This, explained Von Ritz, was 
 only the final precaution of preparing for every exi- 
 gency. His Majesty was determined not to leave his 
 city alive, until he could leave it in the full security of 
 his established government. 
 
 The King also made another request. If Blanco 
 could be spared and would consent to come to Puntal, 
 his proven ability, together with his understanding of 
 the language and the fact that he was not generally 
 known in Puntal, would give him untold value. All 
 the government's secret agents were either under sus- 
 picion of treason or too well known to the conspirators 
 to be of great avail. If Blanco agreed to come, he 
 might return with Von Ritz, or follow him at once and 
 await instructions at his hotel, using care to avoid the 
 semblance of open communication with the Palace.
 
 NAPLES ASSUMES NEW BEAUTY 227 
 
 On his return to the parlors, Cara presented Benton 
 to her ladies-in-waiting, the Countess Fernandez and 
 the Countess Jaurez, who were to travel as Miss 
 Carstow's aunts. 
 
 When there is a three-quarter moon and an atmosphere 
 as subtle as perfume; when the walls of the city lose 
 their ragged lines and melt into soft shadow shapes, 
 relieved here and there by lights which the waters mir- 
 ror, night and the Bay of Naples are not bad. Then 
 the small boats which bob alongside are filled with 
 picturesque beggars raising huge bunches of violets on 
 bamboo poles to the deck rails, and the mingling of 
 singing voices with guitars sets it all to music. 
 
 On the forward deck Benton stood leaning on the 
 rail and looking toward the city. At his side was Cara 
 Carstow. She was silent, but she shook her head, and 
 the man's solicitous scrutiny caught the deepening 
 thought-furrow between her eyes, and the twitching of 
 her fingers. 
 
 He bent forward and spoke softly. ** Cara, what is 
 it? " She looked up and smiled. " I was remembering 
 that I stood just here, once before," she said. 
 
 " Do you think," he asked quietly, " that there has 
 been a moment since then that I have not remembered 
 it? That night you belonged to me and I to you."
 
 228 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " I guess," she said rather wearily, " we don't any of 
 us belong to ourselves or to those we love most. We 
 just belong to Fate." 
 
 " Cara ! " He gripped the rail tightly and his words 
 fell evenly. " Over there in America, you admitted to 
 me that you loved me. That was when you were not 
 yet Queen of Galavia." He brought himself up with a 
 sudden halt. She looked up as frankly as a child. 
 
 "I didn't admit it," she said. "We only admit 
 things against our will, don't we? I told you gladly." 
 
 "And now !" He held his breath as he looked 
 into her eyes. 
 
 " Now I am the Queen of a hideous little Kingdom," 
 she shuddered. " It wouldn't do for me to say it now, 
 would it?" 
 
 " Oh ! " The man leaned again heavily on the rail. 
 The monosyllable was eloquent. Impulsively she bent 
 toward him, then caught herself. For a moment she 
 looked out at the water undulating under the moon like 
 mother-of-pearl on a waving fan. " But it was all 
 right to say I loved you then," she went on reflectively, 
 after a pause. " I had a perfect right then to tell 
 you that I loved you better than all the small total of 
 the world beside, and " her voice faltered for a 
 moment " and," with a musical laugh, she illogic- 
 ally added, " I have nothing to take back of what I 
 then said, though of course I can't ever say it again."
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE SENTRY BOX ANSWERS THE KING'S QUERY 
 
 Q1EVERAL days later, Blanco arrived in Puntal 
 ^ shortly after the lazy noon hour. 
 
 Out of disconnected fragments of fact and memory 
 he had evolved a theory. It was a theory as yet imma- 
 ture and half-baked, but one upon which he resolved 
 to act, trusting to the lucky outcome of subsequent 
 events for the filling in of many gaps, and the making 
 good of many deficiencies. 
 
 Among the shreds of fragmentary information which 
 Manuel had previously stored away in his memory 
 was the fact that one Jose Reebeler was a capitalist. 
 This was not exclusive information. Every guide and 
 casual acquaintance hastened to sing for the newcomer 
 the saga of Reebeler's importance. One was informed 
 that this magnate owned the three tourist hotels and 
 their acres of vine-covered gardens ; that he controlled 
 the half -humorous pretense of a street-railway company 
 and that even the huge, dominating rock upon which 
 perched the pavilions and casino of the Strangers' 
 Club was his property. Still more significant, to
 
 230 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Blanco's reasoning, was the fact that Reebeler, though 
 Puntal-born, was of British parentage and that over 
 his house, in the Ruo do Consilhiero, floated both 
 British and American flags, while the double coat-of- 
 arms above his balcony proclaimed him the consular 
 agent of both governments. Here, reasoned Blanco, 
 was a man shielded behind the devices of two nations, 
 neither of which was engaged in petty Mediterranean 
 intrigue. He would be the last man in Puntal to 
 challenge a suspicious glance from the Palace, yet 
 as a man of moneyed enterprise his wish for conces- 
 sions might well give a political coloring to his thoughts. 
 Somewhere he had heard that the Strangers' Club 
 aspired to the establishment of a gambling Mecca which 
 should rival Monte Carlo in magnitude and that the 
 present impediment was the frown of the government 
 upon such a wholesale gambling enterprise. It was 
 quite unlikely that the Delgado government would dis- 
 courage a syndicate which could turn a munificent 
 revenue into its taxing coffers. 
 
 Through a shaded courtyard where a small fountain 
 tinkled, Blanco strolled to the Consular office and rapped 
 on the door. He was conducted by a native servant 
 to an inner room. Here, while a great blue-bottle fly 
 droned and thumped, Reebeler, a heavy Briton with 
 mild eyes, sprawled his length in a wicker chair and 
 poured brandy and soda. First Blanco represented
 
 THE SENTRY BOX ANSWERS 231 
 
 himself as an adoptive American, touring the world 
 and interested in natural resources. When his host had 
 exhausted the subject of the wine-grower's battle 
 against the ravages of " oidium Tuckeri " and ** phy- 
 loxera," Blanco picked up a stick of sealing-wax from 
 the table and commenced toying with it in a manner 
 of aimlessness. He struck match after match and 
 melted pellet after pellet of wax, then absently he took 
 from his pocket a gold seal-ring and made, with its 
 shield, several impressions on the wax. Reebeler's eyes 
 were half-closed as he gazed vacantly at the pigeons 
 cooing and strutting in his courtyard. 
 
 " See, I have at last got a good impression." The 
 Spaniard idly tossed over the scrap of paper upon 
 which he had stamped a half-dozen of Louis Del- 
 gado's crests from the die of the Comptessa Astaride's 
 ring. 
 
 The Consul took the fragment of paper with the 
 manner of one forced by politeness to assume an in- 
 terest in trivialities which bore him. 
 
 " See how clearly the device of His Grace stands out 
 in the last impression," casually suggested Blanco, then 
 with eyes narrowly bent on the other he saw the as- 
 tonished start as his vis-a-vis realized what device had 
 been imprinted on the paper. It was the sign for which 
 he had played. When Reebeler's eyes came up ques- 
 tioningly to his own, he, too, was looking off through
 
 232 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 the raised window where the limp curtain barely trem- 
 bled in the light breeze. 
 
 " The ring is interesting," suggested the Consul. 
 
 " The arms seem to be those of a family of Galavia 
 which is connected with Royalty. Did you pick it up 
 in a curio shop? If so, some servant must have stolen 
 it." 
 
 Blanco stood up. " We waste time fencing, Seftor 
 Reebeler," he said. " His Grace, Louis Delgado, was 
 held captive by the King until several days ago. He 
 then escaped. That escape has been kept secret by 
 the King. Only men in the Duke's confidence know 
 of it. I am in the service of His Grace and I report 
 to you. In these times we do not carry signed letters 
 of introduction those of us at least who are not 
 protected behind the insignia of Consular office." 
 
 There was a long silence. Reebeler, under the in- 
 fluence of brandy and perplexity, breathed heavily. 
 Blanco poured from a squat bottle and watched the 
 soda bubble in the glass. 
 
 Finally the Consul inquired with a show of indiffer- 
 ence : " Why do you assume that I know anything of 
 this matter? " 
 
 Blanco laughed. " I have already told you that I 
 come from His Grace. Naturally His Grace knew to 
 whom to commend me. I have frankly given myself 
 into vour hands by declaring my sentiments. On the
 
 THE SENTRY BOX ANSWERS 233 
 
 other hand, you decline a similar confidence. You are 
 discreet." He waved his hand. " Adios" 
 
 " Wait." The Consul stopped him at the door. He 
 paused, cleared his throat and then abruptly suggested: 
 " Suppose you return to-morrow at six." 
 
 The Spaniard bowed. " I only wish you to test me, 
 Senor." 
 
 That evening Blanco knew that he was being shad- 
 owed. The next day he had the same sense of being 
 incessantly watched. This was a thing which he had 
 expected and for which he was prepared. Promptly at 
 six o'clock he returned to the Rue do Consilkiero. 
 
 He knew that his greatest danger lay in the possi- 
 bility of communication by the conspirators with the 
 Duke or the Countess, but he had been assured that 
 Marie Astaride was in Cairo and it could safely be 
 assumed that Delgado would return to Galavia only at 
 the psychological moment. If either of these assump- 
 tions were false Louis would, of course, recognize the 
 description of his kidnapper. The Countess would 
 connect the episode of the ring with the former check- 
 mating of her plans. At all events, he must chance those 
 possibilities. 
 
 This time the Consulate was discreetly shut in by 
 drawn jealousies. Within, beside Reebeler himself, were 
 a number of men, all of whom narrowly scrutinized the 
 newcomer. Those who were not in uniform carried
 
 234 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 themselves with a cocky smartness that belied their civil- 
 ian clothes. The man from Cadiz returned their gaze 
 with the same imperturbable steadiness and the same 
 concealed wariness which he had employed when, in 
 the Plaza de Toros, he awaited the charge of the 
 bull. 
 
 For a time they allowed him to stand in silence under 
 the embarrassing batteries of their eyes, then an elderly 
 officer assumed the position of spokesman. 
 
 " If you are a spy your experience will be brief," 
 he announced. 
 
 Blanco smiled. 
 
 " That is as it should be, Senor. Spies are not en- 
 titled to an old age." 
 
 " We are going to test you," continued the officer. 
 " We have need of men of courage. If, as you claim, 
 the Duke sent you, he must have done so because he 
 regarded you as available. If you prove trustworthy, 
 all right. If not, it is your misfortune, because in the 
 place where we mean to use you you will have no 
 opportunity to betray us, and a very excellent oppor- 
 tunity of meeting death. We cannot now communicate 
 with His Grace for corroboration, so we shall let you 
 prove yourself. You seem to bear no message from 
 the Duke. That has the smell of suspicion." 
 
 "On the contrary," retorted the Spaniard, "the
 
 THE SENTRY BOX ANSWERS 235 
 
 Duke believed that a man who was a stranger might 
 prove of value. I was to take my instructions from 
 you." 
 
 Blanco wondered vaguely what the future held for 
 him. Evidently their acceptance of his services was 
 to bear a close resemblance to imprisonment. He could 
 see in the programme small opportunity to serve the 
 King. His instructions had been to win into their con- 
 fidence and do what he could. 
 
 Two weeks later, in the small garden giving off from 
 the King's private apartments, and perched half-way 
 up the buttressed side of the rock on which sat the 
 Palace, Karyl impatiently awaited the coming of 
 Colonel Von Ritz. Below he could hear a brass band 
 in the Botanical Gardens and out in the bay a German 
 war-ship, decorated for a dance, blazed like a set piece 
 in a pyrotechnic display. 
 
 There was peace, summer, perfume, in the moonlit 
 air and Karyl smiled ironically as he reflected that even 
 the bodyguard so carefully selected by Von Ritz might 
 at any moment enter the place and raise the shout of 
 " Long live King Louis ! " 
 
 Leaning over the parapet, he could see one of his 
 fantastically uniformed soldiery pacing back and forth 
 before a sentry-box, his musket jauntily shouldered,
 
 236 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 and a bayonet glinting at his belt. Karyl stood look- 
 ing, and his lips curled skeptically as he wondered 
 whether the man would repel or admit assassins. 
 
 Somewhat wearily the King turned and leaned on 
 the stone coping of the outer wall. He was at one 
 end where a shadow cloaked him, but he lighted a 
 cigarette and the match that flared up threw an orange- 
 red light on his face, showing eyes which were lusterless. 
 For a few moments he held the match in his hollowed 
 palms, coaxing its blaze in the breeze. Before it had 
 burned out there came a sharp report and Karyl heard 
 the spat of flattening lead on the masonry at his back. 
 The echo rattled along the rocky side of the hill. 
 One of the sentry-boxes had answered his unasked ques- 
 tion of loyalty. 
 
 He waited. There was no rush of feet. No medley 
 of anxiously inquiring voices. Others had heard the 
 report, of course, yet no one hastened to inquire and 
 investigate. The King, pacing farther back where 
 his silhouette was less clearly defined, laughed again, 
 very bitterly. 
 
 Finally Von Ritz came. " It seems that we can rely 
 on no one," he said. " The Palace Guard had been 
 picked from the few in whom I still believed. I had 
 hoped there was a trustworthy remnant." 
 
 *' One of them has just tried a shot at me with one 
 of my own muskets." The King spoke impersonally
 
 THE SENTRY BOX ANSWERS 237 
 
 as though the matter bore only on the psychic question 
 of trusting men. " The spot is there on the wall." 
 Then he added with bitter whimsicality : " It seems 
 to me, Colonel, that we have either very poor marksmen 
 in our service, or else we supply them with very poor 
 rifles." 
 
 For a moment Von Ritz almost smiled. " I was 
 passing the point as he touched the trigger, Your 
 Majesty," he replied with calmness. " I will per- 
 sonally vouch for his future harmlessness." 
 
 The lighted door, at the same moment, framed the 
 figure of an aide. " Your Majesty," he said with a 
 bow, " Monsieur Jusseret prays a brief audience." 
 
 Karyl turned to Von Ritz, his brows arching inter- 
 rogation. In answer the Colonel wheeled and addressed 
 the officer, who waited statuesquely : "His Majesty will 
 not receive Monsieur Jusseret. Any matters of in- 
 terest to France will receive His Majesty's attention 
 when they reach him through France's properly ac- 
 credited ambassador." 
 
 Yet five minutes later, Jusseret, escorted by several 
 officers in the Galavian uniform, entered the garden 
 through the door of the King's private suite. At the 
 monstrous insolence of this forbidden invasion of 
 Karyl's privacy, Von Ritz stepped forward. His voice 
 was even colder than usual with the chill of mortal 
 fury.
 
 238 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " You have evidently misunderstood. The King de- 
 clined to receive you " he began. 
 
 Karyl turned his head and looked curiously on. The 
 keen, dissipated eyes of the sub-rosa diplomat twinkled 
 humorously. For a moment the thin lips twisted into 
 a wry smile. 
 
 " The King is hardly in a position that warrants 
 declining to receive me," he announced with an iron- 
 ically ceremonious bow to Karyl. He was imperturba- 
 ble and impeccable from his patent-leather pumps to 
 the Legion of Honor ribbon in his lapel. 
 
 " I offer the King an opportunity to abdicate his 
 throne and retain his liberty. Not only do I offer 
 him his liberty, but also such an income as will make 
 the cafes of Paris possible, and the society of other 
 gentlemen who are also well, let us say retired 
 Royalties. I do this in the capacity of a private friend 
 of the Grand Duke Louis Delgado." His smile was 
 bland, suave, undisturbed. 
 
 Von Ritz took a step forward. 
 
 " Escort Monsieur Jusseret to the Palace gates ! " 
 he commanded, his eyes blazing on the Galavian offi- 
 cers. " The persons of even secret Ambassadors are 
 sacred otherwise " His voice failed him. 
 
 The officers cringed back under his glance, but stood 
 supine and inactive. 
 
 Karyl waited with a cold smile on his lips. His
 
 THE SENTRY BOX ANSWERS 239 
 
 face was pale but there was no touch of fear in the 
 expression. For a brief psychological moment there 
 was absolute silence, then the Frenchman spoke again. 
 " Gentlemen, you are my prisoners." Turning to the 
 Colonel, he added : " You have clung to the waning 
 dynasty, Von Ritz, until it fell, but your sword may 
 still find service in Galavia. I offer you the opportu- 
 nity. We have often crossed wits. Now, for the first 
 time, I win and offer amnesty." 
 
 For a moment Von Ritz stood white and trembling 
 with rage, then with his open hand he struck the smil- 
 ing face that seemed to float tauntingly before his eyes, 
 and drawing his sword, stepped between the King and 
 the suddenly concentrated group of officers who moved 
 frontward with a single accord, hands on swords. They 
 spread from a group into a line, and the line quickly 
 closed in a circle around the King and the one man who 
 remained loyal. 
 
 Karyl was himself unarmed. He raised a restrain- 
 ing hand to Von Ritz's shoulder, but before he could 
 speak his head sagged forward under the impact of 
 some sudden shock some blow from behind and 
 things went dark about him as he crumpled to his knees 
 and fell. 
 
 Von Ritz, struggling desperately with a broken blade 
 in his hand was slowly overwhelmed by seeming swarms 
 of men. Like a tiger caught in a net, his ferocity
 
 240 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 gradually waned until, bleeding from scratch-wounds 
 in a half-dozen places, he felt himself sinking into a 
 haze. His useless sword-hilt fell with a clatter to the 
 tiles. As his arms were pinioned by several of his cap- 
 tors, he was dreamily aware that music still floated up 
 from the Botanical Gardens and the German man-of- 
 war. Nearer at hand, Von Ritz heard or perhaps 
 dreamed through his stupor that he heard a voice 
 exclaiming: "Long live King Louis!" 
 
 There had been no noise which could have pene- 
 trated beyond the King's suite. Less than ten minutes 
 had elapsed since the sentinel had been pacing below. 
 Jusseret, passing unostentatiously out through the 
 Palace gate, glanced at his watch and smiled. It had 
 been excellently managed. 
 
 Later, Karyl recovered consciousness to find things 
 little changed. He was lying on a leather couch in his 
 own rooms. The windows on the small garden still 
 stood open and the moon, riding farther down the west, 
 bathed the outer world in shimmer of silver, but at each 
 door stood a sentinel. 
 
 Karyl remembered that during Louis Delgado's re- 
 cent captivity he had fared in precisely the same manner, 
 neither better nor worse. 
 
 The King rose, still a trifle unsteady from the blow 
 he had received, and went out into the garden. There 
 was no effort on the part of the saluting soldier to halt
 
 THE SENTRY BOX ANSWERS 24.1 
 
 him, and once outside he realized why this latitude was 
 allowed him. In addition to the man at the door, a 
 second walked back and forth by the outer wall. As 
 Karyl stepped into the moonlight this man, himself in 
 the shadow, saluted as his fellow had done. 
 
 " I have the honor to command the guard, Your 
 Grace," said the man in a respectful voice. " It is by 
 the order of His Majesty, King Louis." Something 
 in the enunciation puzzled Karyl with a hint of the 
 familiar. 
 
 " Why do you remain outside ? " he asked. 
 
 " Over this wall, any comparatively agile man might 
 make his way to the beach, if he succeeded in passing 
 the muskets of the sentry-boxes and there are boats 
 at the water's edge," explained the soldier with a short 
 laugh. " I am responsible for the guard, so I keep 
 this post myself. I believe myself incorruptible and 
 men with thrones at stake might make tempting offers." 
 
 Karyl smiled. " What would you regard as a tempt- 
 ing offer? " he suggested. 
 
 For answer the man came into the light and 
 lifted his cap. The King looked into the dark eyes 
 of Manuel Blanco. " I won into their confidence by 
 the hardest," he explained in a lowered tone, "but 
 after that, I had no opportunity to leave them or com- 
 municate with you. This was all I could do. As it 
 is, I shall be recognized as soon as the Duke arrives."
 
 242 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Blanco raised his voice again in casual conversation 
 and beckoned to the sentinel at the door. When the 
 man approached the Spaniard pointed over the wall. 
 " Do you see that rock? Is that a figure crouching 
 behind its shelter? " he demanded. As the man leaned 
 forward, Manuel suddenly struck him heavily at the 
 back of the neck with a loose stone caught up from the 
 masonry's coping. The soldier dropped without a 
 sound. 
 
 " Now, Your Majesty, we must risk it down the 
 rock," prompted the man from Cadiz, in hurried, low- 
 pitched words. " Moments are invaluable. . . . 
 It is only while I command the guard that there is 
 a chance of your escape. . . . An officer may come 
 at any instant on a round of inspection my dis- 
 covery as the Duke's kidnapper is a matter of minutes. 
 I have been watched and tested in a hundred 
 ways; it was only to-day that I convinced them of my 
 fanatic zeal." 
 
 Blanco hurriedly gave his cap and cape to the King, 
 donning himself the blouse of Karyl's undress uniform. 
 Then the two crept cautiously down the rifted face 
 of the cliff, holding the shadow of the crevices. One 
 sentry-box they passed safely, and finally they edged 
 by the second unnoticed. They had negotiated the 
 hundred feet of descent and stood pressed against the 
 bottom, hugging the black shadow. They were wait-
 
 THE SENTRY BOX ANSWERS 243 
 
 ing an opportunity to slip across a narrow sliver of 
 intervening moonlight to the beach and the boat which 
 lay at the water's edge. 
 
 Occasional lazy clouds drifted across the sky. The 
 two refugees, goaded by the realization that every 
 wasted second cut their desperate hope more and more 
 to a vanishing point, watched the fleecy scraps of mist 
 skim by the moon afar off without veiling its face. 
 Then for a short moment a shred of silver-tipped cloud 
 cut off the radiance. Blanco seized the King's arm 
 in a wordless signal. Karyl and the bull-fighter raced 
 across to the boat that lay at the water's edge. In a 
 moment more it was afloat and they were at the oars. 
 The moon emerged and at the same instant an outcry 
 came from above. The musket of the man in the 
 lower sentry-box barked with a blatant reverberation. 
 One of the figures in the boat drooped forward and 
 sagged limply over his oars. The other only re- 
 doubled his efforts. And then again, like the curtain 
 of a theater, a cloud dropped downward and quenched 
 the moon and the sea and the rock in impartial ob- 
 scurity.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 " SCABABS OF A DEAD DYNASTY " 
 
 INCE the anchor had been weighed at Naples, 
 the days had passed uneventfully for the indo- 
 lently cruising I sis with no word from Galavia. But 
 at last the operator caught his call and made ready 
 to receive. The message consisted of one word, and 
 the word was " Cairo." 
 
 Cara, with no suspicion of what was transpiring in 
 Puntal, beguiled by the spell of smooth seas and dolce- 
 far-niente softness of sky, was once more the frank 
 and charming companion of the American days. 
 
 The single word of the Marconigram had left the 
 American in perplexity. Evidently either Karyl or 
 Von Ritz was to meet them at Cairo. Probably Cairo 
 instead of Alexandria had been designated because the 
 King had taken -into consideration the possible danger 
 from the plague at the seaport. He told Cara only that 
 Karyl would join the vacation party there and kept 
 to himself the reservation that his coming probably 
 meant disaster. Yet when they reached Cairo there 
 was no news awaiting them. 
 
 244
 
 " SCARABS OF A DEAD DYNASTY " 245 
 
 It was the night of a confetti fete at Shephard's 
 Hotel. Among the trees of the gardens were ropes of 
 lights and the soft color-spots of Chinese lanterns. 
 Branches glittered with incandescent fruit of brilliant 
 colors. Flags hung between the fronds of the palms 
 and the plumes of the acacias, and among the pleasure- 
 seekers from East and West of Suez fell pelting 
 showers of confetti. 
 
 After dinner Cara and the ladies of her party had 
 withdrawn to their rooms to prepare for the gay war- 
 fare of the gardens. Benton, awaiting them in the 
 rotunda, lounged on one of the low divans which circle 
 the walls of the octagonal chamber, beneath carved lat- 
 tices and Moorish panels ; a cigarette between his fin- 
 gers and a small cup of black coffee on the low tabouret 
 at his elbow. 
 
 The place invited lazy ease, and Benton was as 
 indolent among his cushions as the spirit of brooding 
 Egypt, but his eyes, watching the stairs down which 
 she would come, remained alert. 
 
 Hearing his name called in a voice which rang 
 familiarly, he glanced up to recognize the smiling face 
 of young Harcourt, his chance acquaintance of Capri. 
 He set down the small Turkish cup and rose. 
 
 " Come back to the bar and fortify yourself against 
 the thin red line of British soldiery out there in the 
 gardens. You can get a ripping highball for eight
 
 246 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 piastres," laughed the newcomer. But Benton declined. 
 
 " I am waiting for ladies," he explained. " I'll see 
 you again." 
 
 " Sure you will." Harcourt paused. " I dash up 
 the Nile in the morning, going to do Karnak and 
 Luxor you know, the usual stunt. Been busy all day 
 buying scarabs and mummied cats, but I want to see 
 you sometime to-night. By the way, I've heard some- 
 thing" 
 
 " All right. See you later." Benton spoke hur- 
 riedly, for he had caught the flash of a slender figure 
 in white on the stairs. 
 
 In the war of the confetti, man makes war on woman 
 and woman on man, while over the field reigns a uni- 
 versal and democratic acquaintanceship. 
 
 Cara was on vacation, and a child bent on for- 
 getting that to-morrow must come. It was character- 
 istic of her that she should enter into the spirit of the 
 occasion with all the abandon it suggested. 
 
 Benton stood by as she gradually gave ground before 
 the attacks of a stout, gray-templed Briton, a General 
 of the Army of Occupation. She fought gallantly, but 
 he stood doggedly before her handfuls of confetti, 
 shaking the paper chips out of his eyes and mustache 
 like some invincible old St. Bernard, and her slender 
 Mandarin-coated figure retreated slowly before his red 
 and medal-decked jacket.
 
 " SCARABS OF A DEAD DYNASTY " 247 
 
 "Watch out!" cried Benton, who followed her re- 
 treat, forbidden by the rules of warfare from giving 
 aid, other than counsel. " The British Army is putting 
 you in a bad strategic position." 
 
 She had retreated across the flower-beds and stood 
 with her back to the rim of the fountain. Her box 
 of confetti was empty and Benton also was without 
 ordnance supplies. 
 
 Young Harcourt suddenly stepped forward from the 
 crowd. 
 
 " Here ! " he cried with a smile of frank worship, as 
 he tendered a fresh box of confetti. " Take this and 
 remember Bunker Hill ! " 
 
 The British officer bowed. 
 
 " I surrender," he said, " because you violate the 
 rules of war. Your confetti is not deadly and your 
 tactics are mediocre, but your eyes use lyddite." 
 
 Inside Cara went to her room to wrestle with the 
 tiny chips of multi-colored paper that covered her and 
 filled her hair. In the hall, Harcourt came again to 
 Benton. 
 
 " By Jove, she is a wonder," he said. Then he 
 slipped his arm through Benton's and led him aside. 
 The American followed supinely. 
 
 " Benton, do you remember the talk we had about 
 Romance ? " 
 
 Benton looked quickly up to forestall any possible
 
 248 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 personality to which he might object, but Harcourt 
 continued. 
 
 " Do you know that chap, Martin he doesn't call 
 himself Browne now has turned up again? He's 
 been here. Not ragged this time, but well groomed and 
 in high feather. To-day he left to go back to Galavia." 
 
 "Back to Galavia?" Benton repeated the words 
 in astonishment. " What do you mean ? " 
 
 Harcourt laughed. " The scales have turned and his 
 Grand Duke is to be King after all." 
 
 Benton seized the boy by the elbow and steered him 
 into one of the empty writing-rooms. 
 
 " Now, for God's sake, what do you mean ? " he 
 demanded. 
 
 " That's all," replied the young tourist. " They've 
 switched Kings. Oh, it was so quietly done that the 
 people of the city of Puntal don't know yet it's hap- 
 pened. The King died suddenly and Louis will ascend 
 his throne." 
 
 " The King died suddenly ! " Benton echoed the words 
 blankly. " I don't understand." 
 
 " Neither do I. But Martin said the King was taken 
 prisoner and tried to escape. He was shot." 
 
 " How did Martin know? " asked Benton slowly, try- 
 ing to realize the full import of the boy's chatter. 
 
 " The news hasn't reached here, generally speaking. 
 He said that the King's death has not even been made
 
 " SCARABS OF A DEAD DYNASTY " 249 
 
 public there, but the Countess Astaride has been stop- 
 ping here. Martin himself was in her party and he 
 helped her to decipher the news from the Duke's code- 
 telegram." He paused. " However," he added, " that 
 may not interest you. The story probably bored you 
 at first, but having told you the original tale, I had 
 to add the sequel. What I really wanted to ask you, 
 is to present me to the wonderful American girl. You 
 will, won't you? " 
 
 Benton's back was turned to the window. He wiped 
 his forehead with his handkerchief and stared at 
 nothing. 
 
 " You will, won't you ? " repeated the boy. 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course," Benton replied mechanically. 
 " I shall ask permission to do so." 
 
 Outside on the terraced veranda, where one sips tea 
 and overlooks one of the most varied human tides that 
 flows through any street of the world, Benton and Cara 
 sat at a table near the edge the man wondering how 
 he could tell her. Fakirs with spangled shawls from 
 Assouit, bead necklaces, ebony walking-sticks, scarabs 
 and souvenir postcards jostled on the sidewalk to pass 
 their wares over the railing. Fat Arab guides with 
 red fezes and the noisy jargon of half-mastered French 
 and English discussed to-morrow's journeys with indus- 
 trious globe-trotters. 
 
 On the tiles squatted a juggler from India. Under
 
 250 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 his white turban his glittering, beady eyes appraised 
 the generosity of his audience as he arranged his flat 
 baskets, his live rabbits and his hooded cobras for an 
 exhibition of mercenary magic. 
 
 Along the street, heralded with tom-toms, came a pro- 
 cession of lurching camels, jogging donkeys, rattling 
 carriages, acrobats leading dog-faced apes and trailing 
 Arabs in fezes the pomp and pageantry of a pilgrim 
 returning from Mecca. Motors, victorias, detachments 
 of cavalry swept by in unbroken and spectacular show. 
 
 Benton sat stiffly with his jaw muscles tightly drawn 
 and his eyes dazed, looking at the girl across the table. 
 
 She turned from the street, eyes still sparkling with 
 the reflected variety of the picture that hodge-podged 
 Occident and Orient, telescoping the dead ages with 
 to-day. 
 
 " Oh, I love things so," she laughed. " I'm as fool- 
 ish as a child about things that are new." 
 
 With another glance at the shifting tide, she added 
 seriously : " And every silly Oriental of them all is free 
 to go where he pleases to do what he pleases. I 
 would give everything for freedom, and they have it 
 and don't value it ! " 
 
 Then she saw the hard strain of his face. Slowly 
 her own eyes lost the glow of pleasurable interest and 
 saddened with the realization of being barred back from 
 life.
 
 " SCARABS OF A DEAD DYNASTY " 251 
 
 The man bent forward. His fingers tightened on 
 the edge of the table with a clutch which drove the 
 blood back under his nails. It was a hard fight to 
 retain his self-control. His question broke from him 
 in a low, almost savage voice. 
 
 " Cara ! " he demanded. " Cara, is there any price 
 too high to pay for happiness? " 
 
 "What do you mean?" The intensity of his eyes 
 held hers, and for a moment she feared for his reason. 
 Her own question was low and steadying, but he an- 
 swered in an unnatural voice. 
 
 " I hardly know perhaps I have less right to speak 
 now than ever perhaps more. I don't know. I only 
 know that I love you and that the world seems 
 reeling." 
 
 Something caught in his throat. 
 
 " I'm a cur to talk of it now. I want to think of 
 
 of something else. I ought to think only what a 
 splendid sort he was but I can realize only one thing 
 
 I love you." 
 
 "Only one thing," she repeated softly. Then as 
 she looked again into the feverishly bright eyes under 
 his scowl, the meaning which lay back of his words 
 broke suddenly upon her. 
 
 " Was! " she echoed in startled comprehension. 
 " Was! did you say was? " 
 
 The man remained silent.
 
 252 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 *' You mean that ? " she said the three words very 
 slowly and stopped, unable to go on. 
 
 " You mean that he ? " With a strong ef- 
 fort she added the one word, then gave up the effort 
 to shape the question. Her hand closed convulsively. 
 
 Benton slowly nodded his head. The girl leaned 
 f ofward tow r ard him. Her lips parted, her eyes widened. 
 
 The next instant they were misty with tears. Not 
 hypocritical tears for an unloved husband, but sincere 
 tears for a generous friend. 
 
 " Delgado escaped," he explained simply. " Karyl 
 was captured." Again he spoke in few words. It 
 seemed that he could not manage long sentences. 
 " Then he tried to escape," he added. 
 
 She pressed her fingers to her temples, and leaned 
 forward, speaking rapidly in a half -whisper that some- 
 times broke. 
 
 " Oh, it's not fair ! It's not fair ! I want to think 
 only how splendid he was how unselfish how brave ! 
 I want to think of him always as he deserves, lovingly, 
 fondly and I've got to remember forever how little 
 I could give him in return ! " 
 
 " Yes, I guess he was the whitest man " Benton 
 stopped, then blurted out like a boy. " Oh, what's the 
 use of my sitting here eulogizing him. I guess he 
 doesn't need my praises. I guess he can stand on his 
 own record."
 
 " SCARABS OF A DEAD DYNASTY " 253 
 
 " It's monstrous ! " she said, and then she, too, fell 
 back on silence. 
 
 Suddenly she rose to her feet, carried one hand to 
 her heart and swayed uncertainly for a moment, steady- 
 ing herself with one hand on the table. 
 
 The man turned, following her half-hypnotic gaze, 
 in time to see Colonel Von Ritz bending over her hand. 
 With recognition, Benton started up, then his jaw 
 dropped and, doubting his own sanity, he fell back into 
 his chair and sat gazing with blank eyes. 
 
 At Von Ritz's elbow stood Pagratide. 
 
 Slowly Benton came to his feet, his ears ringing. 
 Then as Karyl turned from the girl and held out his 
 hand to him, the American heard, as one listening 
 through the roaring of a fever, some question about 
 affairs in GaJavia. 
 
 He heard Karyl answer, and though the words seemed 
 to come from somewhere beyond Port Said, he recog- 
 nized that the former King tried to speak in a matter- 
 of-fact voice. 
 
 " I have no Kingdom. Louis took it." 
 
 Karyl had held out his left hand. The right was 
 bound down in a sling. But these things were all 
 vague to Benton because it seemed that the pilgrim's 
 tom-toms were beating inside his brain, and beating 
 out of time. He could see that Karyl's eyes also were 
 weary and lusterless.
 
 254 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Turning with an excuse for travel-stain to be re- 
 moved, Karyl halted. 
 
 "Benton," he said. There he fell silent. "Ben- 
 ton," he said again, forcing himself to speak in a voice 
 not far from the breaking point, " Blanco Blanco 
 is dead." 
 
 He turned on his heel and went into the hotel. 
 
 Blanco dead! For a moment Benton felt an insane 
 desire to rush after Karyl and demand his life for 
 Blanco's. Some delirious accusation that this man cost 
 him every dear thing in life seemed fighting for ex- 
 pression and reprisal, then he realized that the toreador 
 had won his way into Pagratide's affection as well as 
 his own. Tears came to his 63-68 for an instant. He 
 focused his gaze on a cigarette-shop across the street. 
 
 " Lady ! " 
 
 A grinning Egyptian face, surmounted by a red fez, 
 showed itself over the railing. The girl started vio- 
 lently and seemed for a moment on the edge of hys- 
 teria. She laughed unnaturally. Thus encouraged, 
 the Bedouin's grin broadened until it radiated good- 
 humor across the swarthy visage from cheek-bone to 
 cheek-bone. 
 
 " Nice scarabs, lady ! Only five piastres only 
 one shilling," he spieled. " Scarabs of a dead dynasty. 
 Tres antique"
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 IN WHICH KINGS AND COMMONERS DISCUSS LOVE 
 
 TN the gardens of the hotel, the paths lay ankle-deep 
 * in scattered confetti. Already the scores of lights 
 were going out and those that remained shone on the 
 wreckage of an entertainment ended. 
 
 Cara had gone to her rooms. In his own, at a win- 
 dow commanding the garden, Benton sat in an atti- 
 tude of lethargic dejection, staring down on the linger- 
 ing illuminations. His brain still swirled. A dozen 
 times he told himself that matters were precisely as they 
 had been; that the developments of the evening had 
 brought no change, save a momentary belief in a mis- 
 taken rumor and a few wild dreams. When he had 
 waited in the rotunda for Cara, he had known Karyl 
 to be living. He knew it now, yet it seemed as though 
 his life-rival had died and come again to life. It seemed, 
 too, as though his own prison doors had swung open, 
 and while he stood on the free threshold had slammed 
 inward upon him, sweeping him back, broken and bruised 
 with their clanging momentum. 
 
 To-morrow he must go away. 
 255
 
 256 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Benton looked at his watch. It was after four 
 o'clock. 
 
 Then a knock came on the door. Benton did not 
 respond. He feared that young Harcourt, belated 
 and flushed with brandy-and-soda, might have seen 
 the light of his transom and paused for gossip. The 
 thought he could not endure. Again he heard and 
 ignored the knock, then the door opened slowly, and 
 turning his head, he recognized Karyl on his threshold. 
 
 Just at that moment the American could not have 
 spoken. He had come to a point of pent-up emotion 
 which can move only by breaking dams. He pointed 
 to a chair, but Karyl shook his head. 
 
 For a while neither spoke. Karyl's hair was rum- 
 pled; his eyes darkly ringed, and the line of his lips 
 close set. Benton glanced out of his window. Across 
 the gardens the wall was growing blanker, as lighted 
 panes fell dark. One window, which he knew was 
 Cara's, still showed a parallelogram of light behind its 
 drawn shade. Karyl in passing followed the glance. 
 He, too, recognized the window. 
 
 At last the Galavian spoke. 
 
 " Can you spare me a half-hour ? " 
 
 Benton nodded. He would have preferred any other 
 time. He needed opportunity for self-collection. 
 
 Again Karyl spoke. 
 
 " Benton, I might as well be brief. There are two
 
 KINGS AND COMMONERS 257 
 
 of us. In this world there is room for only one. One 
 of us is an interloper." 
 
 The American felt the blood rush to his face ; he felt 
 it pound at the back of his eyeballs, at the base of his 
 brain. An instinct of fury, which was only half -sane, 
 flooded him. Red spots danced before his eyes. The 
 other had spoken slowly, almost gently, yet he could 
 read only challenge in the words, and the challenge was 
 one he hungered to accept. 
 
 He made a tremendous effort for self-mastery and 
 rose slowly, turning a white face on his visitor. 
 
 " You told me," he said, enunciating each word with 
 distinct deliberateness, " that you would fight me, when 
 your throne freed you. You begin promptly. I am 
 here, but " 
 
 " I think you misunderstand me," interrupted Karyl. 
 
 " But," went on Benton, ignoring the interruption, 
 " neither of us is free to fight. If we were, Pagratide, 
 you may guess how gladly I'd put it to the issue. 
 Good God, man, what could I lose? " 
 
 "Wait," said the late King of Galavia. "I have 
 come here to talk with you, Benton, in a way which 
 is unspeakably hard. Can you not make the same 
 effort to lay aside passion that I am making? " 
 
 The American turned and paced the floor. 
 
 For a moment more there was the same embarrassed 
 silence between them, then the Galavian continued,
 
 258 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 measuring his words, speaking with desperately studied 
 effort to eliminate the feeling that struggled to the sur- 
 face. 
 
 " You love my wife." 
 
 " And shall," replied the American in the same cal- 
 culated, colorless voice, " while I live." 
 
 "I, too," said Pagratide. "Therefore we must 
 talk." 
 
 " Wait." Benton raised a hand. " If we are to talk 
 at all along these lines, Pagratide, there is only one way 
 in which it can be done." 
 
 "And that is what?" 
 
 " That each of us, throughout, talks with only one 
 thought in mind : her happiness ; that one strip aside all 
 conventions and talk as two utterly naked souls might 
 talk." 
 
 " Of course," said Karyl simply. " Otherwise I 
 should not have suggested it." 
 
 " Then," began Benton, " up to this point we are 
 agreed." 
 
 The King, despite his pallor, smiled. 
 
 " I'm afraid you still don't understand me. I 
 haven't come to murder you, or to invite murder, Ben- 
 ton. It would not help." 
 
 " You have just said that one of us is an interloper. 
 Presumably you have come to decide which one it is." 
 
 Karyl shook his head.
 
 KINGS AND COMMONERS 259 
 
 " Benton, that point has been decided. Not by you 
 or me, but it is decided." 
 
 " I don't understand you," admitted the American. 
 
 His visitor studied the few remaining lights in the 
 garden beneath. 
 
 " I am no longer a King. I am an outcast. If I 
 ever had a claim before God, it passed with my Crown. 
 I could hold her now only by brutality. I told you I 
 would free her and fight for her, but I saw her eyes 
 to-night. . . . Benton, it is I who am the inter- 
 loper!" 
 
 No answer came to Benton's tongue. Pagratide did 
 not seem to expect one. After a moment he went on, 
 with the manner of one who had thought out what he 
 was to say, and who compels himself to go through with 
 the prepared recital. 
 
 " If there is no throne, I must eliminate myself. 
 . . . But for the time being I have given Von Ritz 
 my parole. . . . The game is not yet quite 
 played out. ... He and Cara agree that I must 
 play it to the end. After that there will be time to 
 remedy mistakes." He paused. 
 
 " Pagratide," said the American slowly, " you are 
 talking wildly. At all events, while everything im- 
 possible has happened to us, I think we can, after all 
 shake hands." 
 
 Karyl extended his own.
 
 260 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " I have spoken as I have," he went on, " because 
 it was necessary to be frank. Meanwhile I must ask 
 you to place me under yet another obligation. There 
 is one safe place for her. Will you take us with you 
 on the yacht, and cruise in unfrequented ports, until Von 
 Ritz reports to me ? " 
 
 "Where is Von Kit/?" 
 
 " Gone back to Alexandria. He still cherishes hopes 
 of a restoration. He wishes to return to Galavia." 
 
 " Can he return safely? " 
 
 Karyl shrugged his shoulders. " His conduct can 
 hardly be construed as a political offense. He will be 
 under suspicion, but all Europe would resent any in- 
 jury to Von Ritz." 
 
 " The Isls is, of course, at your command." 
 
 In the same rooms where Karyl and his father had 
 often consulted with Von Ritz on affairs of state, Louis 
 Delgado sat in conference with a foreigner, who had 
 no acknowledged position in the councils of any govern- 
 ment, yet whose mind and execution had affected many. 
 The foreigner was Monsieur Jusseret. 
 
 " Why," began the new Monarch testily, " do you be- 
 lieve that there should be delay in proclaiming myself? 
 I shall feel safer with the Crown actually upon my 
 head." 
 
 The Frenchman sat reflectively silent, his slim fingers
 
 KINGS AND COMMONERS 261 
 
 spread, tip to tip, his elbows on the arms of the chair 
 in which he lounged. 
 
 "Your Majesty is not a fisherman?" he suavely in- 
 quired. Louis rose impatiently. 
 
 " You know that I have no interest in such sports. 
 Why do you ask?" 
 
 "It is unfortunate," mused the Master Intriguer, 
 " since if Your Majesty were, you would realize the 
 inadvisability of an effort to land the game fish too 
 abruptly when he takes the hook. Your Majesty, how- 
 ever, realizes that it is wiser to eat ripe fruit than 
 green fruit." 
 
 The King poured himself a glass of wine, which he 
 gulped down nervously. 
 
 " You speak in riddles always in riddles. What is 
 unripe? The blow is struck. I am in possession. 
 What is to be gained by waiting? " 
 
 Jusseret raised his brows. 
 
 "What blow is struck, Your Majesty? You know 
 and I know that you occupy the Palace. Europe in 
 general supposes that you have been here for some time 
 as the guest of Karyl. Europe does not yet officially 
 know that Karyl has vacated the throne. The govern- 
 ments agreed to recognize you, but the governments 
 relied upon your adequately disposing of your royal 
 kinsman. Yet he is now at large." 
 
 The Pretender wheeled suddenly on the calm gentle-
 
 262 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 man sitting indolently in his chair. The Pretender's 
 face paled. 
 
 "Do you mean, Monsieur Jusseret, that after en- 
 ticing me into this mad enterprise you now purpose to 
 abandon me? " The coward's terror added excitement 
 to the questioning voice. 
 
 Jusseret smiled. 
 
 "By no means," he assured. "But Your Majesty 
 must now play your part. I merely counsel holding the 
 reins of government lightly as Regent until it is 
 logically advisable to grasp them tightly as King. 
 Karyl escaped. The man shot proves to be an unknown 
 who had changed coats with the King. Ostensibly, 
 His late Majesty is traveling. You are his representa- 
 tive. Now, if His Majesty and the Queen should fail 
 to return from their journeyings, your position would 
 be stronger." 
 
 Louis sank into a chair, deeply agitated. " I fear 
 this man Von Ritz more deeply than Karyl." 
 
 " Naturally," was Jusseret's dry comment. " But 
 Your Majesty will leave Von Ritz alone. I also, should 
 like to see him disposed of but leave him alone, or 
 you will incur Europe's displeasure." 
 
 "What shall I do?" The question came in a note 
 of plaintive helplessness. 
 
 The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " If you ask my counsel, I should say send for one
 
 KINGS AND COMMONERS 263 
 
 Martin. He has been of some service. He is a man 
 of action. He is called the English Jackal. I should 
 suggest " He paused. 
 
 "Yes, yes you would suggest what?" eagerly 
 prompted the new King. 
 
 " Really, Your Majesty, you should act more 
 promptly on hints. Diplomats cannot diagram their 
 suggestions. I should suggest that the English Jackal 
 also travel, with the understanding that if he should 
 return to Galavia after the death of the late King and 
 Queen and that shortly he may expect certain titles 
 and recognition at Court, but if he returns before their 
 death, he need expect nothing." Jusseret lighted a 
 cigarette. 
 
 The Pretender sat silent, frightened, vacillating. 
 
 " And," went on Jusseret calmly, " there was one 
 other suggestion which I shall make, if Your Majesty 
 will permit me the liberty." 
 
 " What? " 
 
 " Touching Your Majesty's marriage " 
 
 " Yes Marie is also in some hurry about that. 
 What is the devilish haste? One can be married at any 
 time." 
 
 Monsieur Jusseret rose and began drawing on his 
 gloves. 
 
 " Of course if Your Majesty sees fit, a morganatic 
 marriage with the Countess Astaride would be entirely
 
 264 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 advisable but for the Queen of Galavia, Europe will 
 insist on a stronger alliance ; on a union with more rcyal 
 blood." 
 
 Louis came to his feet in astonishment. 
 
 " You dare suggest that? " he -exclaimed. " You, 
 who have been her ally and used her aid ! " 
 
 " Pardon me I suggest nothing. I repeat to Your 
 Majesty, as the very humble mouthpiece of France, the 
 sentiment of the governments, without whose recog- 
 nition your dynasty can hardly stand."
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 ABDUL SAID BEY EFFECTS A RESCUE 
 
 MARTIN, tall and aggressively British, from the 
 black silk tassel on his red fez to the battered 
 puttees and brown boots that had once come out of 
 Bond Street, stood watching the Isis outlined against 
 the opposite walls of the Yildiz Kiosk. 
 
 Few pleasure-craft call at Constantinople. 
 
 " If you had not, as usual, been so damned late " 
 he turned with a gesture of raw impatience to the 
 heavy-faced Osmanli at his side " I could have pointed 
 them out to you on Galata Bridge. As it is, they have 
 returned to the yacht." 
 
 " May Heaven never again thwart your wish with 
 delay, Martin Effendi." The Turk spoke placidly, his 
 oily voice soft as a benediction. " I was delayed by 
 pigs, and sons of pigs ! Your annoyance is my deso- 
 lating sorrow, yet " he waved his hand with a bland 
 gesture "I am but the servant of His Majesty, the 
 Sultan whom Allah preserve and the official is fre- 
 quently detained." 
 
 "What is done, is done. Bismillah no matter!" 
 265
 
 266 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 The Englishman curbed his annoyance and spoke as one 
 resigned. " What now remains is this : We must see 
 them, and you must learn to recognize them. You un- 
 derstand? " 
 
 The other bowed in unperturbed assent. 
 
 " All Europeans," he suggested, " dine at the Pera 
 Palace Hotel it is the Mecca of their hunger." 
 
 To the white man's voice returned the ring of as- 
 perity. " And at the Pera Palace, we shall not only 
 see, but be seen. Likewise unless we have a care in 
 this enterprise, we shall not only eat, but be eaten. 
 A man may stare at whom he chooses on Galata 
 Bridge." 
 
 " When I dine in a public place " the Osmanli 
 smiled cunningly from the depths of small pig-like eyes 
 " I shield myself behind a screen. Thus may I ob- 
 serve unobserved." 
 
 The sun had set, but the yellow after-glow still lin- 
 gered in the sky behind Stamboul as the two men stood 
 looking toward Galata Bridge, where their quarry had 
 escaped them, and across the Golden Horn. 
 
 A pyramid of domes, flanked by a pair of slender 
 minarets, daintily proclaimed the Mosque Yeni-Djami 
 against the fading amber. On Galata Bridge itself, the 
 day-long tide of medleyed life was thinning. Where 
 there had been an eddying current of turbans and tar- 
 booshes, bespeaking all the tribes and styles which fore-
 
 ABDUL EFFECTS A RESCUE 267 
 
 gather at the meeting place of two Continents and two 
 seas, there were now only the belated few. 
 
 To the jaded imagination of Martin Effendt and 
 his companion, Abdul Said Bey, the falling of night 
 over the quadruple city, smothering more than a million 
 souls under a single blanket of blackness, made no ap- 
 peal. They were watching a yacht. 
 
 Over the Pera roofs swept flocks of crows to roost 
 in their garden rookeries at the center of the town. 
 Across the harbor water, now too gloomy to reveal its 
 thousands of jelly-fish, drifted the complaining cries of 
 the loons. Then as the occasional city lamps began to 
 twinkle, making the darkness murkier by their in- 
 adequacy, there arose from the twisting ways of Pera, 
 Galata and Stamboul the night howling of thirty thou- 
 sand dogs. 
 
 At length Martin held up the dial of his watch to 
 the uncertain light. 
 
 " I must be off," he announced. " Jusseret is wait- 
 ing at the Pera Palace. Don't fail us at seven- 
 thirty." 
 
 The tireless features of Abdul Said Bey once more 
 shaped themselves into a deliberate smile. " Of a 
 surety, Effendi. May your virtues ever find favor in 
 the sight of Allah." 
 
 For a moment the pig-like eyes followed the well- 
 knit figure of the Englishman as it went swinging along
 
 268 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 the street. Then the Turk turned and lost himself in 
 the darkness. 
 
 The Pera Palace Hotel stands in the European 
 quarter of the town. To its doors your steps are guided 
 by a trail of shop signs in English, French, German 
 and Greek, among which appear only occasional charac- 
 ters in the native Arabic. 
 
 Almost immediately after Cara, Pagratide and Ben- 
 ton had seated themselves in the dining-room that even- 
 ing, Arab servants secluded a corner table, close to 
 their own, behind mushrabieh screens. The party for 
 whom this distinguished aloofness had been arranged 
 made its entrance through an unseen door, but the 
 voices indicated that several were at table there. The 
 waiter who served this table apart might have testified 
 that one was an Englishman, wearing in addition to 
 European evening dress the native tarboosh, or fez. 
 Also, that against his white shirt-front glittered the 
 Star of Galavia. The second diner wore one of the 
 many elaborate uniforms that signify Ottoman offi- 
 cialdom. His eyes were small and pig-like, and as he 
 talked no feature or gesture at the table beyond es- 
 caped his appraising scrutiny. 
 
 There was one other behind the mushrabieh screens. 
 The niceties of his dress were Parisian, punctilious, 
 perfect. In his right lapel was the unostentatious 
 button of the Legion d'Honneur.
 
 ABDUL EFFECTS A RESCUE 269 
 
 The Englishman spoke. " Much of your story, 
 Monsieur Jusseret, is familiar to me. It will, however, 
 prove interesting in toto, I daresay, to our friend! 
 Abdul Said Bet/, whom Allah preserve." 
 
 There was a murmur of compliment from the Turk, 
 adding his assurance of interest, and the Frenchman 
 took up the thread of his narrative. 
 
 " We supposed that Karyl was dead the Throne 
 of Galavia clear for Delgado. Alas, we were in error ! " 
 The speaker shook his head in deep regret, as, turn- 
 ing to Martin, he added: 
 
 " It was a pardonable mistake. Let us hope the an- 
 nouncement was merely premature." He lifted his wine- 
 glass with the air of one proposing a toast. " It be- 
 comes our duty to make that statement true. Messieurs, 
 our success ! " 
 
 When the three glasses had been set down, the Eng- 
 lishman questioned : " How did it occur ? " 
 
 In the smooth manner of an after-dinner narrative, 
 Jusseret explained the occurrences of the night when 
 he had brought his plans to an almost successful ter- 
 mination. He told his story with charm of recital, verve 
 and humor, and gave it withal a touch of vivid realism, 
 so that even his auditors, long since graduated from the 
 stage where a tale of adventurous undertaking thrilled 
 them, yet listened with profound interest. 
 
 With the salad Jusseret sighed regretfully.
 
 270 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " I rather plume myself on one quality of my work, 
 Monsieur Martin. I rarely overlook an integral detail. 
 I, however, find myself growing alarmingly faulty of 
 judgment." 
 
 " Indeed ! " The Englishman was not greatly en- 
 grossed in the autobiographical phases of Jusseret's 
 diplomatic felonies. 
 
 " I regret to acknowledge it, but it is, alas, true. 
 I reflected that the world would resent harsh treatment 
 of a man like Von Ritz. He had committed no crime. 
 We could not charge treason against a government not 
 yet born. I opposed even exile. He immediately re- 
 joined his fleeing King and has since returned to 
 Puntal, where one can only surmise what mischief he 
 agitates. It may be as well to consider his future." 
 
 " And now," callously supplemented the Englishman, 
 " our new King feels an uncertainty of tenure so long 
 as the old King lives, and I am rushed after this refugee 
 Monarch with brief instructions to dispose of him." 
 
 There was a certain eloquence in the shrug of Jus- 
 seret's shoulders. " Messieurs, we have wrecked Karyl's 
 dynasty, but it still devolves upon us in workmanlike 
 fashion to clear away the debris." 
 
 Martin leaned forward and put his query like an 
 attorney cross-examining a witness. 
 
 " Where was this Queen when the King was taken? " 
 
 " That," replied Jusseret, " is a question to be put
 
 ABDUL EFFECTS A RESCUE 271 
 
 to Von Ritz or Karyl. It would appear that Von 
 Ritz suspected the end and, wise as he is in the cards 
 of diplomacy, resolved that should his King be taken, 
 he would still hold his Queen in reserve. That King- 
 dom does not hold to the Salic Law a Queen may 
 reign ! And so you see, my colleagues," he sum- 
 marized, " we, representing the plans of Europe, find 
 ourselves confronted with questions unanswered, and 
 with matters yet to do." 
 
 Martin's voice was matter-of-fact. " After all," he 
 observed, " what are the odds, where the King was or 
 where the Queen was at a given time in the past, so 
 long as we jolly well know where they are to-night? " 
 Turning to the Sultan's officer, he spoke rapidly. 
 " You understand what is expected? " He pointed one 
 hand to the party from the yacht. " The man nearest 
 us is the King who failed to remain dead. That failure 
 is curable if you play your game." He paused. " The 
 lady," he added, " has the misfortune to have been the 
 Queen of Galavia. You understand, my brother? " 
 
 The Turk rose, pushing back his chair. 
 
 " Your words are illuminating." He spoke with a 
 profound bow. " In serving you, I shall bring honor 
 to my children, and my children's children." With the 
 Turkish gesture of farewell, his fingers touching heart, 
 lips and forehead, he betook himself backward to the 
 door.
 
 272 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 Two hours later, alighting from a rickety victoria 
 by the landing-stage, Cara made her way between the 
 two men, toward the waiting launch from the Isis. 
 Filthy looking Arabs, to the number of a dozen, rose 
 out of the shadows and crowded about the trio, pleading 
 piteously for backshish in the name of Allah. The 
 party found itself forced back towards the carriage, 
 and Benton fingered the grip of the revolver in his 
 pocket as the other hand held the girl's arm. At the 
 same moment there was a sudden clamor of shouting and 
 the patter of running feet. Then the throng of 
 beggars dropped back under the pelting blows from 
 heavy ndboots in the hands of harasses. 
 
 An instant later a stout Turk in official uniform broke 
 through the confusion, shouting imprecations. 
 
 " Back, you children of swine ! " he declaimed. 
 " Back to your mires, you pigs ! Do you dare to af- 
 front the great Pashas? " Then, turning obsequiously, 
 he bowed with profound apology. " It is a bitter 
 sorrow that you should be annoyed," he assured them, 
 " but it is over." 
 
 " To whom have we the honor of expressing our 
 thanks? " smiled Pagratide. 
 
 The Osmanli responded with a deprecating gesture 
 of self-effacement. 
 
 " To one of the least of men," he said. " I am
 
 ABDUL EFFECTS A RESCUE 273 
 
 called Abdul Said Bey. I am the humble servant of 
 His Majesty, the Sultan whom Allah preserve." 
 
 As the launch put off, the elliptical figure of Abdul 
 Said Bey, on the lowest step of the landing, speeded its 
 departure with a gesture of ceremonious farewell 
 fingers sweeping heart, lips and forehead. " If you go 
 to shop in Stamboul," he shouted after them, " have a 
 care. The pigs will cheat you all save Mohammed 
 Abbas." 
 
 When the reflected lights of the launch shimmered in 
 vague downward shafts at a distance, he turned and 
 the scattered throng of beggars re gathered to group 
 themselves about him with no trace of fear. 
 
 " You will know them when you see them in the 
 bazaars ? " he demanded. " You shall be taught in time 
 what is expected likewise bastinadoed upon your 
 bare soles if you fail. Now you have only to remem- 
 ber the faces of the Infidels. Go!" He swept out 
 his hand and the Bedouins scattered like rats into a 
 dozen dark places. 
 
 If the panorama of Constantinople fades from a 
 lurid silhouette to a sooty monotone by night, it at least 
 makes amends by day. Then the sun, shining out of a 
 sky of intense blue, on water vividly green, catches the 
 tiled color-chips of the sprawling town ; glints on dome
 
 274 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 and minaret, and makes such a city as might be seen 
 in a kaleidoscope. 
 
 Her insatiable appetite for beauty had brought Cara 
 on deck early. The early shore-wind tossed unruly 
 brown curls into her eyes and across the delicate pink 
 of her cheeks. 
 
 When the yachtsman joined her, she read in his eyes 
 that he had been long awake and was deeply troubled. 
 In the shadow of the after-cabin she stopped him with 
 a light touch on his arm. 
 
 " Now tell me," she demanded, " what is the matter? " 
 
 His voice was quiet. " There is nothing in my 
 thoughts that you cannot read so " He lifted the 
 eyes in question, half-despairing despite the smile he 
 had schooled into them. " Why rehearse it all again ? " 
 
 Her face clouded. 
 
 He turned his gaze on the single dome and four 
 minarets of the Mosque of Suleyman. 
 
 " Besides," he added at length, speaking in a steady 
 monotone, " I couldn't tell it without saying things 
 that are forbidden." 
 
 When she spoke the dominant note in her voice was 
 weariness. 
 
 " My life," she said, " is a miserable serial of call- 
 ing on you and sending you away. Back there" 
 she waved her hand to the vague west " it is summer 
 wonderful American summer I The woods are thick
 
 ABDUL EFFECTS A RESCUE 215 
 
 and green. . . . The big rocks by the creek are 
 splotched yellow with the sun, and green with the 
 moss. ... I wonder who rides Spartan now, when 
 the hounds are out ! " She broke off suddenly, with a 
 sobbing catch in her throat, then she shook her head 
 sadly. " You see, you must go ! " she added. " You 
 will take my heart with you but that is better than 
 this." 
 
 She turned and led the way forward and for the length 
 of the deck he walked at her side in silence. 
 
 As they halted he demanded, very low: "And 
 you ? " 
 
 Her answering smile was pallid as she quoted, 
 " ' More than a little lonely ' " then, reverting to her 
 old name for him, she laughed with counterfeited gay- 
 ety " as, Sir Gray Eyes, people must be who try 
 to be good."
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 IN A CURIO SHOP IN STAMBOUL 
 
 E muezzvn had called the devout to their prayer- 
 rugs for the third time that day, when the' girl 
 and the two men turned from the Stamboul end of 
 Galata Bridge into the tawdry confusion of buildings 
 which cluster about the Mosque Yeni-Djami. They 
 were bound for the bazaars. 
 
 Along the twisting ways stretched the booths of 
 native merchants stocked with the thousand fascinating 
 trifles that the City of the Sultan markets to the jour- 
 neying world. Everywhere the crowd surged and 
 jostled. 
 
 On the side street where the shops are a trifle larger 
 than their neighbors, one Mohammed Abbas keeps his 
 curio bazaar. In such flowery Orientalism of appeal 
 did he couch his plea for an inspection of his wares, that 
 Cara was persuaded and turned into the shop. Cut off 
 by pressure of the crowd, Pagratide, who was follow- 
 ing, some paces back, caught a glimpse of her figure 
 in the door and fought his way to her side, but Benton, 
 276
 
 IN A CURIO SHOP IN STAMBOUL 277 
 
 having stopped to price a bracelet of antique silver set 
 with turquoises, lost sight of them. The girl had be- 
 come interested in a quaint, curved dagger thickly 
 studded with semi-precious stones. 
 
 Mohammed Abbas urged her to see the rarer and 
 choicer articles which he kept in an upper room. As 
 they talked, a half-dozen natives, swarthy and villainous 
 of face, drifted into the shop to be promptly ordered 
 out by the proprietor, who used for that purpose a vo- 
 cabulary of scope and vividness. The ruffians retreated 
 after a brief conversation in guttural Arabic, but not 
 by the street door through which they had come. In- 
 stead, they left by a low-arched exit to the rear, con- 
 cealed from view by the angle of the screening stair- 
 way. Abbas led his customers to an upper room which 
 they found dark except where he lighted it as he went 
 with hanging lamps. Its space was generous, broken 
 here and there by piles of ebony furniture, inlaid with 
 pearl; pieces of Saracenic armor, Damascened bucklers, 
 and all the gear too large for the narrow confines be- 
 low. 
 
 Half an hour's searching through the chaos of wares 
 failed to reveal the choice daggers which Mohammed 
 wished them to see, and with many apologies for added 
 annoyance he begged Monsieur and Madame to mount 
 yet another flight, and visit yet another store-room. 
 At the head of these stairs they encountered absolute
 
 278 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 darkness and the shopman, with his ever-ready apologies, 
 paused again to light lamps. 
 
 As Pagratide's pupils accustomed themselves to the 
 murk he realized that this last room was bare except 
 for tapestries hung flat against the wall, and that at 
 its farther side narrow slits of light showed along the 
 sills of two doors. Turning, he noted the darker 
 shadow of some recess in the wall, immediately to his 
 left. 
 
 Suddenly Mohammed Abbas closed the door upon the 
 stairs, and sharply clapped his hands. In all lands 
 where Allah is worshiped, clapping of the hands is 
 a signal of summons. Thrusting his hand into the 
 pocket where he had stored an automatic pistol, Karyl 
 found it empty, and remembered that on the stairway 
 the merchant had apologized for jostling him. Then 
 simultaneously the two opposite doors opened and 
 framed against their light a momentary picture of 
 crowding Arabs. 
 
 Outside, Benton had been searching. First he had 
 felt only annoyance for a chance separation, but when 
 ten minutes of futile wandering had lengthened to fif- 
 teen, annoyance gave way to fear, and fear to panic. 
 A dozen tragic stories of mysterious disappearances in 
 Stamboul crowded like nightmares upon his memory. 
 At last, standing bewildered in the street, he caught
 
 IN A CURIO SHOP IN STAMBOUL 279 
 
 sight of a familiar figure; a figure that filled him with 
 astonishment and delight. 
 
 Colonel Von Ritz had left Cairo to return to Puntal. 
 Now here he was in a crooked Stamboul street, ap- 
 pearing without warning, but with his almost uncanny 
 faculty for being at the right spot when needed. He 
 shouldered his way to the side of the officer. 
 
 Though the two men had parted several weeks be- 
 fore, the Galavian greeted the other only with a formal 
 bow, and an abrupt question. " Where are they? " 
 
 " I have lost them," replied Benton. He rapidly 
 sketched the events of the last half-hour, and con- 
 fessed his own apprehensions. 
 
 With evidence of neither anxiety nor interest, Von 
 Ritz listened, and replied with a second question. 
 " Have you seen Martin? " 
 
 Benton gave a palpable start. " Martin ! " he 
 ejaculated. " Is Martin in Constantinople? " 
 
 For reply Von Ritz permitted himself the rare in- 
 dulgence of a smile. 
 
 " Martin is here," he said briefly. 
 
 "And you ?" 
 
 As he spoke the figure of Martin himself emerged 
 from a shop a few paces ahead, and without a back- 
 ward glance cut diagonally across the narrow street to 
 disappear into the doorway of the curio shop which is 
 kept by Mohammed Abbas.
 
 280 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 When, after being cut off and delayed for some 
 minutes by a passing donkey train, Von Ritz and Benton 
 entered the place, they found it empty except for a 
 native salesman, but as the Galavian paused to make a 
 trivial purchase his listening ear caught a sound above. 
 Without hesitation, he wheeled and mounted the stairs 
 with Benton close at his heels. Behind him the shop- 
 clerk stood irresolute taken aback, with a vague con- 
 sciousness that he should have devised a way to stop this 
 gigantic Infidel. Assuredly the master would be angry. 
 Orders had been explicitly given to allow no one to 
 climb those steps to-day without permission. 
 
 While Cara and Karyl had been on the second floor, 
 a heavy Osmanli, wearing the Sultan's uniform, had 
 stood in the center of the room above, looking about 
 with keen, pig-like eyes, as he gave rapid commands to a 
 half dozen Arabs of villainous visage. 
 
 " You, Sayed Ayoub," he ordered, " take your pig 
 of a self and others like unto you into that doorway 
 by the stairs. Remain until you hear men enter from 
 these two doors, facing the Infidel dogs. Then come 
 upon them from behind. The man is to be bound, and 
 when evening comes -^ but that is later ! Still, if he 
 resists too much " The speaker shrugged his heavy 
 shoulders and made a certain gesture. 
 
 " And the woman? What of her? " The question 
 came from a gigantic Bedouin whose evil countenance
 
 IN A CURIO SHOP IN STAMBOUL 281 
 
 was made the more sinister by one closed and empty; 
 eye-socket. 
 
 Abdul Said Bey nodded. " She is to be tenderly 
 handled," he enjoined. " She, also, must disappear, 
 but that shall be my care. My harem is as silent as the 
 Bosphorus.'* 
 
 There were steps on the stairs, and instantaneously 
 the room emptied itself and became silently dark. 
 
 When Karyl heard the hand-clapping of the decoy 
 shopman, and saw the responding ruffians in the opposite 
 doors, he swiftly thrust the girl into the spot of blacker 
 shadow at his back, and seized the wrist of Mohammed 
 Abbas with a force and suddenness that wrung from 
 him a piteous wail. 
 
 Keeping the Turk before him, he backed toward the 
 shadowed recess, with the one idea of shielding Cara. 
 But the darker spot was the door behind which Sayed 
 Ayoub lay in ambuscade, and as Karyl reached it, it 
 swung open, showing them against a background as 
 bright as though they were painted on yellow canvas. 
 
 With his free arm he swept Cara into the doorway, 
 wheeling quickly in front of her, and sent Mohammed 
 Abbas lurching forward into the faces of the assailants 
 led by Sayed Ayoub. Instantly, however, his arms were 
 pinioned from behind by the reinforcements, and as 
 he frantically struggled to turn his face, in an effort 
 to see the girl, some thick fabric fell over his head,
 
 282 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 covering mouth and eyes, and he went down stifled and 
 garroted into insensibility. 
 
 Seeing the man overwhelmed and dragged through 
 the door, Cara stood rigidly upright, white in the in- 
 tensity of voiceless outrage, until the gigantic brute 
 with one sightless eye and a greasy tarboosh reached 
 out his grimy hand and seized her. Then she sickened 
 at the profaning shock of his touch, and fell uncon- 
 scious. 
 
 A few moments later the " English Jackal " stood 
 nonchalantly looking down at the bound figure of the 
 former King lying on the floor, shoulders propped 
 against the wall, head wrapped in a richly embroidered 
 shawl from Persia. Lamps had been kindled. The 
 head wrappings had already been somewhat loosened 
 and Karyl was stirring with the indication of return- 
 ing consciousness. 
 
 " Oh, damn it ! " remarked Martin in disgust. " He 
 doesn't need to be both trussed up and gagged, 
 you know. He's quite safe. Take off the head 
 cloths." 
 
 He stuffed tobacco into his blunt bull-dog pipe as 
 he supervised the undoing of the smothering fabric and 
 complacently looked at his prisoner. 
 
 Freed from the bandage, and drinking in again re- 
 viving breaths, Karyl awoke to the sense of his sur- 
 roundings. His eyes at once swept the place for Cara,
 
 IN A CURIO SHOP IN STAMBOUL 283 
 
 but he saw only the closed door of the room where 
 she was detained. 
 
 Martin looked down and as their eyes met he casually 
 nodded. 
 
 " Sorry to inconvenience you," he commented affably, 
 " but this is politics, you know. I happen to work for 
 the other chap, King Louis." As an afterthought he 
 added : " And the other chap thinks that you are, to put 
 it quite civilly, unnecessary." 
 
 He smoked meditatively, while Karyl, without reply, 
 scowled up into his face. The sense of futility left 
 Pagratide silent. He lay insanely furious like a 
 trapped wolf, able only to glare. 
 
 Suddenly the complacency deserted the Englishman's 
 features, for a startled expression. With a violent 
 malediction he bent forward listening. 
 
 KaryPs ears also caught the sound of feet on the 
 stairs, immediately followed by a crash upon the door. 
 
 Martin drew a heavy revolver from a holster under his 
 coat, and his voice ripped out orders with the sharp de- 
 cision which had survived the days when he wore a 
 British uniform. " Here, you beggars," he shouted, 
 "to that door!" 
 
 As the Bedouins swarmed forward there came a second 
 crash under which the panels fell in, precipitating Von 
 Ritz and Benton into a fierce swarm of human hornets. 
 
 Falling desperately upon the newcomers with swords,
 
 284* THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 knives and naboots, the bravos afforded them no time to 
 take breath after their climb of the stairs. 
 
 Martin, standing with his pipe clamped between his 
 teeth, took no part in the onslaught. He cast a glance 
 at the turmoil, then deliberately cocked his weapon and 
 leveled it at the breast of his captive. 
 
 Karyl realized that the Jackal was not to be led away 
 from his single purpose : that of execution. If he him- 
 self were to speak to his rescuers, he must do it quickly. 
 He raised his voice. 
 
 " Von Ritz ! To that door ! " he shouted loudly, but 
 the Galavian and his companion, fighting desperately to 
 hold their own, with the shouts and clamor of the 
 struggling Moslems in their ears, did not hear, and the 
 Englishman only smiled. 
 
 " They are quite busy, you know," he drawled in a 
 half-apologetic tone. " Give them a bit of time." 
 
 Von Ritz was fighting with the blade of his sword- 
 cane, while Benton, too closely pressed to make use of 
 his pistol, was relying upon his fists. Indeed, the two 
 white men owed their lives to the crowding which made 
 effective fighting impossible on either side. 
 
 At last the Turks gave back a few steps for a fresh 
 rush and Benton, taking instant advantage of the 
 widened space, fired into the crowd. They turned in 
 terror at the first report and went stampeding to the 
 several doors. Then for the first time the rescuers
 
 ml I! mm&^ 
 
 SLOWLY WILTING AT WAIST AND KNEES, HIS FK 
 HUDDLED NEA
 
 
 SLIPPED TO THE FLOOR AND LAY SHAPELESSLY 
 !VT OF KARYL.
 
 IN A CURIO SHOP IN STAMBOUL 285 
 
 caught sight of the Englishman standing guard over 
 the bound figure on the floor. 
 
 With the grim smile of one who, recognizing the end, 
 neither flinches nor dallies, Martin fired two shots from 
 his leveled revolver. 
 
 A half-second too late Benton's magazine pistol 
 ripped out in a frenzied series of spats. The Eng- 
 lishman swayed slightly, his face crimson with blood, 
 then, propping himself weakly against the wail, he fired 
 one ineffectual shot in reply. Slowly wilting at waist 
 and knees, his figure slipped to the floor and lay shape- 
 lessly huddled near that of Karyl. The stench of 
 powder filled the room. Twisting spirals of smoke 
 curled ceilingward. 
 
 Von Ritz and Benton, kneeling at the King's side, 
 raised him from the floor. The wounded man at- 
 tempted to speak. His eyes turned inquiringly toward 
 the door of the other room. Benton caught the 
 questioning look and nodded his head. Then Karyl 
 settled back against the officer's supporting shoulder 
 after the fashion of a reassured child. 
 
 " The King is dead," said Colonel Von Ritz quietly. 
 There was something very pathetic in the steady de- 
 spair of his voice. 
 
 A door opened, and several Bedouins retreated 
 shame-faced and cowed before a heavy Turk who wore 
 the Sultan's uniform. His small, pig-like eyes blazed
 
 286 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 with terrifying wrath. Looking about the room for a 
 moment, he volcanically reviled them. 
 
 " You dogs ! You pigs ! You serpents ! " he 
 shrieked. "Your hearts shall be thrown to the buz- 
 zards! Your children dishonored! You have dared to 
 attack the foreign Pashas, and you Mohammed Ab- 
 bas ! " The shopkeeper fell trembling to his knees. 
 *' Your filthy shop shall be pulled down about your ears. 
 You make it a trap your feet shall be bastinadoed 
 until you are a cripple for life ! " Then his rage choked 
 him, and, wheeling, he walked over to Benton, con- 
 temptuously kicking the prostrate body of Martin 
 Effendi as he went. 
 
 From every pore Abdul Said Bey exuded sympathy 
 and commiseration. Scenting liberal backshish, he 
 promised absolute secrecy for the affair, coupled with 
 soothing assurances of private vengeance upon the sur- 
 viving miscreants. Also, he bewailed the disgrace which 
 had fallen upon the Empire by reason of such infamy. 
 He presumed that the foreign gentlemen preferred secret 
 punishment of the malefactors to a public sensation. It 
 should be so. 
 
 In his anxiety for Cara, Benton left Von Ritz to ad- 
 just matters with the Turk, who with profound courtesy 
 and amazing promptness had closed carriages at a rear 
 door, and causexi his kavasses to clear the alley-way of 
 prying eyes.
 
 IN A CURIO SHOP IN STAMBOUL 287 
 
 When the American reached the room where Cara had 
 been left it was deserted by the assassin's guards. With 
 a sudden stopping of his heart, he saw her lying ap- 
 parently lifeless on a stacked-up pile of rugs. In a 
 terror that he scarcely dared to investigate, he laid his 
 ear hesitantly to her breast, then, reassured, he gave 
 thanks for the anesthetic of unconsciousness with which 
 nature had blinded her to the tragedy beyond the closed 
 door. 
 
 Two curtained carriages drove across Galata Bridge 
 and in the mysterious quiet of Stamboul there was no 
 ripple on the surface of affairs as other tourists haggled 
 over a few piastres in the curio shops of the bazaar.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 BENTON SAYS GOOD-BY 
 
 T GUIS DELGADO awaited Jusseret in an agony 
 *-^ of doubt and fear. 
 
 The Frenchman was late. A dispatch from the 
 frontier had announced his coming, but to the anxiety 
 of Delgado delays seemed numberless and intermina- 
 ble. 
 
 At last an aide ushered him into the apartment where 
 the new Monarch waited, his inevitable glass of Pernod 
 and anisette twisting in his fingers. Jusseret bowed. 
 
 " Where is Martin ? " inquired the King. 
 
 "Dead," said the newcomer briefly. The Pretender 
 paled palpably. Evidently the plan had gone awry. 
 Fear always stood near the fore, ready to rush out upon 
 Delgado's timid spirit. 
 
 " And being dead," resumed the Frenchman, " he is 
 much safer." 
 
 Louis gave a half-shuddering sigh of relief. He had 
 none of that righteous horror of crime which makes 
 the face of murder hideous, but in its place he had all 
 the terrors of the weak, and playing with life and death 
 gave him over to panic. 
 
 288
 
 BENTON SAYS GOOD-BY 289 
 
 " I should suggest an anouncement that King Karyl 
 had fled for a time from the cares of State and was 
 traveling as a private gentleman in strictest incognito, 
 when sudden death overtook him. There need be no 
 hint of violence. There must be a State funeral." 
 
 " Where is the body? " objected Louis. 
 
 Jusseret shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " That I cannot say. I can, however, assure you 
 that it is quite lifeless. Since the death occurred some 
 days ago the lying in State may be dispensed with. A 
 closed casket is sufficient." 
 
 "And his Queen?" 
 
 " That point is left unguarded, but from intima- 
 tions I have received, I believe the Queen will be satis- 
 fied with private life. If you announce her abdication, 
 she will hardly contradict you." 
 
 "And Von Ritz? " persisted Louis, with the manner 
 of one who wishes all the ghosts which terrify him laid 
 by someone stronger and less afraid of ghosts than 
 himself. 
 
 " Leave Von Ritz to me. He is no fool. Von Ritz 
 knows who instigated the murder of the King, but he 
 is without proof. The thing happened far beyond the 
 borders of Galavia." 
 
 Louis rose unsteadily from his chair. 
 
 " Jusseret," he began, " this interview with Marie 
 still confronts me and I dread it. Would it not be
 
 290 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 better for you to explain to her? You could persuade 
 her that Kings are not free in these matters, that 
 crowned heads from antiquity to Napoleon have been 
 compelled to obey the dictates of State." 
 
 The Frenchman stiffened. 
 
 "Your Majesty," he observed, "it is impossible. 
 Your attachment for the Countess Astaride is a personal 
 matter. I am concerned only in affairs of State. I 
 must even require of you, in respect to that confidence 
 which obtains between gentlemen, that you shall in 
 no wise intimate that this suggestion came from me." 
 
 The new incumbent, who had brought to the Throne 
 of Galavia all the libertine's irresoluteness, paced the 
 floor in perplexed distress. He feared Jusseret. He 
 dared not anger or disobey him. It appeared that being 
 a King was not what he had conceived it, as he sat 
 under the chestnut trees of the Paris boulevards and 
 listened to the band. 
 
 When Jusseret had left him to his thoughts he paused 
 three times with a tremulous finger on the call-bell, 
 unable to command the courage required to send a mes- 
 sage to the Countess Astaride. Finally he succeeded 
 and five minutes later stood shamefacedly in the presence 
 of the woman who had made him King. She was 
 more than usually beautiful, and as always her beauty 
 and personality dominated him, swayed his senses like 
 music. It was so easy to slip into the impetuous atti-
 
 BENTON SAYS GOOD-BY 291 
 
 tude of the lover; so difficult to maintain the austere 
 one of the Monarch. 
 
 Delgado nerved himself and began. 
 
 How he said it or what he said, he did not himself 
 know when the words had been spoken. He rushed 
 through the speech he had prepared like a frightened 
 child at recitation and waited for the outburst of her 
 anger. He waited in vain. 
 
 Marie Astaride had plotted, had consented to every 
 infamy which had been suggested as necessary to bring 
 the man she loved to the Crown. 
 
 Now she was silent. 
 
 The man looked up when he had waited a seeming 
 century for the expected torrent of reproach. 
 
 She was standing supporting herself upon her down- 
 ward stretched arms, her hands resting on the table. 
 Her face was pallid and her magnificent figure rigid. 
 The scarlet fullness of her lips had gone bloodless. Her 
 eyes were stupefied. 
 
 At length she straightened herself, let go her support 
 upon the table and went slowly like a sleep-walker from 
 the room. She had not spoken. She had not said 
 good-by, but Louis Delgado knew that she had walked 
 out of his life. 
 
 That evening Monsieur Jusseret of the French Cabi- 
 net Noir met, as if by chance, young Lieutenant Lapas,
 
 292 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 who was now high in the favor of the new government. 
 Jusseret knew that the lure which had drawn young 
 Lapas away from the confidence of Karyl to the un- 
 certain standard of Delgado had been the influence of 
 the Countess Astaride. He knew that Lapas loved her 
 hopelessly, willing even in her name to serve the greater 
 man who loved her more successfully. His attachment 
 was that of the boy for the woman who is mistress of 
 all the mature arts of charm. This love could be 
 turned into the fanatic's zeal; this boy could be led 
 to the extreme of martyrdom, if the strings of his char- 
 acterless nature were played upon with a skill sufficiently 
 consummate. Jusseret knew also a number of other 
 things. He knew that whereas he had, to all seeming, 
 brought a difficult task to completion, he was in reality 
 not yet half through. His own vision went farther 
 into the future, and recognized in the present only a 
 mile-post far from the ultimate. 
 
 He led Lapas to his own rooms. He was leaving for 
 Paris the following morning, he explained, and wished 
 a brief conference. 
 
 Jusseret could, when occasion demanded, be not only 
 calm and self-sufficient, but also emotional. Now he 
 was emotional. 
 
 " Rarely, indeed," he began, " do I permit personal 
 indignation to excite me. But this is so unspeakable
 
 BENTON SAYS GOOD-BY 293 
 
 that I wished to talk to you. You enjoy the confidence 
 of the Countess Astaride? " 
 
 " Only in a humble way," confessed young Lapas. 
 
 " But you are her friend ? If she were wronged and 
 had no other defender, you would assume her cause?" 
 
 " With my life," protested the officer, fervently. 
 
 " This matter," said Jusseret dubiously, " might cost 
 you your life. Possibly I should not tell you. As a 
 politician I can have nothing to do with it, but as a 
 man, I wish I were myself free to act." 
 
 " Who has offended the Countess? " demanded Lapas 
 hotly. 
 
 " Offended, my young friend ! This is not an of- 
 fense. It is the gravest indignity that can be shown 
 a woman. It is an insult to which a man must either 
 blind himself or punish with such means as can 
 ignore personal peril." 
 
 " For God's sake," insisted the other, " explain your- 
 self." 
 
 " Louis Delgado," began 'Jusseret quietly, " accepted 
 this woman's love: enjoyed it to the full. He sat and 
 dreamed over his absinthe futile dreams of power. He 
 was too weak to strike a blow too weak to raise a 
 hand. Then she took up his cause; intrigued, enlisted 
 our interests, raised his supine and powerless ambitions 
 to a throne. There he abandons her at the foot of
 
 294 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 the stairs by which he mounted; and refuses her his 
 Crown. He talks now of a more Royal alliance." Jus- 
 seret spread his hands in a gesture of disgust. 
 
 Lapas rose tensely from his chair. The veins on 
 his temples stood out corded and deep-lined. 
 
 " This cannot be true, sir," he argued. " There 
 must be some error. You wrong the King." 
 
 " Am I the man to wrong Louis ? " questioned the 
 Frenchman. " You have only to wait and see for your- 
 self. The matter rests with you. She and I have put 
 Louis on the throne. So much I did as the servant of 
 my government. What I say to you I say as a man, 
 and I had rather behold all my work undone than to 
 stand by and see it bear such fruit. Adieu." 
 
 He rose slowly and took his departure. Outside, he 
 smiled. 
 
 " I fancy," he told himself, " he wiU go to the Count- 
 ess. I fancy she will corroborate me and then ! " 
 He dismissed the matter with his habitual shrug. 
 
 Two weeks had passed since the tragedy in Stamboul, 
 and the Isis cruised aimlessly westward. The Mediter- 
 ranean stretched to the horizon, so placid that the froth 
 from, the wake washed languidly, almost lifelessly, on 
 the surface, and a single cloud hung stationary in the 
 softer blue of the sky. Wrapped in a steamer rug, 
 her figure, more slender in the simple lines of her black
 
 BENTON SAYS GOOD-BY 295 
 
 gown, Cara sat gazing toward the receding coast-line 
 of Malta. So she had spent most of the hours since 
 they had weighed anchor at Constantinople. On the 
 deck at her feet sat Benton. 
 
 At Piraeus Von Ritz had secured a copy of the 
 Figaro several days old, and the men had read its 
 report of the Regency of Louis in Puntal. Then the 
 yacht had called at Malta where the gray fortresses of 
 Valetta frown out to sea, and Von Ritz had once more 
 gone in quest of news. 
 
 That had been yesterday. By common consent the 
 two men refrained from allusions to State matters in 
 the girl's presence. Now the former adviser of the 
 King uneasily paced the deck. Over his usually: 
 sphinx-like face brooded the troubled expression of one 
 who confronts an unwelcome necessity. Suddenly he 
 halted before the girl's deck-chair, and, schooling hisi 
 voice with an apparent effort, spoke in his old-time even 
 modulation, but for once he found it difficult to meet 
 the eyes of the person he addressed. 
 
 " We have heretofore not spoken of things which 
 we would all give many years of life to forget," he 
 began. Then he added with feeling: " Only the sternest 
 necessity could force me to do so now." 
 
 As he paused for permission to continue, the girl 
 raised her eyes with a sad smile that had grown 
 habitual.
 
 296 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 " I have come," said Von Ritz, " to stand for an 
 implacable Nemesis to you, and yet I should wish to 
 be identified only with happiness in your thoughts. 
 To me one thing always comes first. The House of 
 Galavia is my gospel; has been my gospel since Karyl's 
 father mounted its throne." He paused and added 
 gravely : " Louis Delgado has reaped his reward he 
 is dead." 
 
 Benton's voice broke out in an explosive " Thank 
 God!" 
 
 Von Ritz stood a moment silent, then, dropping to one 
 knee, he took the fingers which fell listlessly over the 
 arm of Cara's steamer-chair and raised them to his lips. 
 
 " Your Majesty is Queen of Galavia." 
 
 The American came to his feet, his hands clenched, 
 but with quick self-mastery he stood back, breathing 
 heavily. 
 
 Cara sat for a moment only half-comprehending, 
 then with a low moan she leaned forward and covered 
 her face with both hands. 
 
 " Forgive me," said Von Ritz. " I am your 
 Nemesis." 
 
 Benton moved over silently and knelt beside her chair. 
 Neither spoke, but at last she raised her face and sat 
 looking out at the water, then slowly one hand came 
 out gropingly toward the American and both of his 
 own closed over it. Von Ritz stood waiting.
 
 BENTON SAYS GOOD-BY 297 
 
 When finally she spoke, her voice was almost child- 
 like, full of pleading. 
 
 " I thought," she said, " that all that was over. I 
 had thought that whatever is left of life belonged just 
 to me for my very own. I thought I could take it 
 away and try to mend it." 
 
 Von Ritz turned his head and his eyes traveled north- 
 ward and westward, where, somewhere beyond the hori- 
 zon, lay his country. 
 
 " Galavia needs you," he said with grave simplicity. 
 " Unless you come to her aid there must be ruin and 
 dismemberment. You will save your country." 
 
 But his words appeared to convert all her crushed 
 and pathetic misery into anger. " It is not my coun- 
 try!" she replied almost fiercely. "To me it means 
 only " 
 
 Von Ritz raised his hand supplicatingly. " It is my 
 country," he said sadly, " and your duty. Its fate 
 is m your hands." 
 
 The girl rose, swayed slightly, and putting out one 
 hand for support, stood with her black-gowned figure 
 sketched slenderly against the white of the cabin wall, 
 her eyes irresolute and distressed. 
 
 "I must have time to think," she begged. "Will 
 you leave me? " Von Ritz bowed and retired. 
 
 She dropped exhaustedly into the chair again and 
 for a long while sat silent. Finally she turned toward
 
 298 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 the man who, kneeling by her side, waited for her 
 decision through what seemed decades of suspense, and 
 her hands went out gropingly again toward him. 
 
 " Dear," she said in a voice hardly more than a 
 whisper, " whatever I do whatever I decide 
 always and always I love you ! " Impulsively her fingers 
 clutched at his, which rested clenched on her arm-chair. 
 
 " You must go ! " she said, after a long while. 
 " With you here there is nothing else in the world. 
 I can see only you." With a catch in her voice she 
 rushed on. " You must not only go, but I must not 
 know where you go. I must not be able to call you 
 back. You must give me your word of honor." 
 
 He attempted to speak, but she tightened her hold on 
 his hands and her hurried utterance checked his words. 
 
 "No!" she said. "Listen! This time I decide 
 forever. I must decide alone. You must not only be 
 out of my sight, but beyond recall. Three months 
 from to-day I shall write to you, but until then I 
 must not know your address. Three months from 
 to-day you may be at t Idle Times,' where I first told 
 you I loved you . . . where we told each other 
 ... if you still wish to be. Then, if I decide that 
 I am free, you will find my letter there. If I'm not 
 free, I had better not even write. I couldn't write with- 
 out calling you back. If I have to decide that way " 
 She broke off with a shudder. " Oh, you must go
 
 BENTON SAYS GOOD-BY 299 
 
 Dear ! you must go quickly ! It is the only way 
 you can help me." 
 
 A half-hour later, Benton turned to the approaching 
 Von Ritz. 
 
 " Colonel," he said steadily, " I sail for San Fran- 
 cisco by way of Suez from the first port we reach. 
 You will favor me by accepting the Isis as long as Her 
 Majesty can use it." 
 
 Von Ritz met his eyes in silence and held out his hand.
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 JUSSEUET MAKES A EEPORT 
 
 TN Paris a small party of gentlemen, among whom 
 * were represented all the national types of Southern 
 Europe, were engaged in an informal discussion of 
 very formal affairs. They occupied a private suite 
 in the Hotel Ritz overlooking the column of the Place 
 Vendome. Upon a table swept clean of draperies and 
 bric-a-brac lay an outstretched map of the Mediter- 
 ranean littoral, whereon a small peninsula had been 
 marked with certain experimental and revised boun- 
 daries in red and blue and black. The atmosphere 
 was thick with the smoke from cigars and cigarettes, 
 and through the veneering amenities of much courtesy 
 the gentlemen of Europe's Cabinets Noirs wrangled with 
 insistence. Finally Monsieur Jusseret took the floor, 
 and the others dropped respectfully into an attitude of 
 listening. 
 
 " It is hardly necessary," he began, " to discuss what 
 
 has been done in Galavia. That is long since a stale 
 
 story. Our governments, acting in concert, made it 
 
 possible to remove Karyl and crown Louis." He smiled 
 
 300
 
 JUSSERET MAKES A REPORT 301 
 
 quietly. " You know how short a reign Louis enjoyed 
 before death claimed him. Perhaps you do not know 
 that his death was not unforeseen by me." 
 
 There was an outburst of exclamations under which 
 France's representative remained unmoved. 
 
 " Our object," he explained coldly, " was the dis- 
 ruption of Galavia's integrity. In reducing this King- 
 dom to a province, the supplanting of Karyl with Louis 
 was essential only as an initial step. The instability 
 of that government had to be demonstrated to the 
 world by more continuous disorders. It was necessary 
 to show that the Kingdom had become incapable of self- 
 rule. It followed that the removal of Louis was equally 
 natural and imperative." 
 
 Don Alphonso Rodriguez, bearing the secret creden- 
 tials of Spain, came to his feet with the hauteur of 
 offended dignity. 
 
 " My government," he said, with austere delibera- 
 tion, " had the right to know what matters were being 
 transacted. France appears to have assumed exclusive 
 control. Is it too late to inquire of France " he 
 bent a chilling frown upon the smiling Jusseret 
 " what she now purposes? It appears that Spain knew 
 no more than the newspapers. Spain also believed that 
 Louis died by his own hand, and artlessly assumed the 
 motive of disappointment in his love for Marie Astaride. 
 We believed we were being frankly informed."
 
 302 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 The more accomplished diplomat lifted brows and 
 hands in a deprecating gesture. " M on ami," he re- 
 sponded with suavity, "you flatter me. What I have 
 done is nothing. I have only paved the way. Quite 
 possibly Louis did kill himself. If so it was a merito- 
 rious act, but whether he did so or whether some mad 
 young officer, infatuated and jealous, was the real 
 author of the result, the result stands and meets 
 our requirements. France does not care what flag flies 
 over the Governor-General's Palace in Puntal, pro- 
 vided it be the flag of a nation in concert with France. 
 France suggests that the Governor-General should be 
 a Galavian, and points to the one man conspicuously 
 capable who happens to be," he added with an 
 amused laugh, " my particular enemy." 
 
 " You mean Von Ritz? " The question came from 
 Italy's delegate. 
 
 Jusseret bowed his head. " Von Ritz," he affirmed. 
 
 Don Alphonso Rodriguez laughed with a note of in- 
 credulity. " And how do you propose," he demanded, 
 " to persuade this loyal adviser of Karyl to accept a 
 deputyship at the hands of Karyl's enemies? " 
 
 Again Jusseret smiled. " It will be Von Ritz or a 
 foreigner," he explained. " We must convince him that 
 his beloved Kingdom can henceforth be only a province 
 in any event that it may prosper under his guidance 
 or suffer under a more oppressive hand. That done,
 
 JUSSERET MAKES A REPORT 303 
 
 his patriotism will prove our ally. We have only to 
 convince him that no member of Karyl's house can 
 reign and live and that it must be himself or an 
 alien." 
 
 " It would have been as easy," demurred the Portu- 
 guese delegate, "to have persuaded Von Ritz that 
 Karyl himself should abdicate." 
 
 Jusseret felt the hostility of the other members. In 
 spite of the realization, or perhaps because of it, he 
 glanced from face to face with unruffled urbanity. 
 
 " Messieurs," he suggested, " you overlook the 
 hypotheses and in reaching conclusions hypotheses 
 are serviceable. You, gentlemen," he continued blandly, 
 " regarded the initial steps as impracticable. What I 
 volunteered to do, I have so far done. We have one 
 object. The insatiate ambition of that nation, which 
 we need not name, must not gain additional Mediter- 
 ranean foothold. Spain or Portugal, it is one to us, 
 may decide the matter of suzerainty between them- 
 selves." 
 
 "How do you mean to persuade Von Ritz?" in- 
 sisted Don Alphonso. 
 
 " In the young Queen, who is the sole elegible candi- 
 date for the Throne, we have at heart an unwilling heir. 
 Von Ritz distrusts France. Let the suggestion come 
 from Portugal, a friend who can speak persuasively 
 and convincingly. Let him see the inevitable result
 
 304 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 unless he consents. Let all which we have done be de- 
 nounced. Lead him to believe that he holds as stew- 
 ard " Jusseret raised his hands as he concluded 
 " for Karyl's heir, if there should be one. These things 
 are mere details." 
 
 Benton worked his way slowly to San Francisco 
 through the Far East. It is not difficult to avoid news- 
 papers between Ismai'lia and Manila, and with the 
 dogged determination to let the day set by Cara an- 
 swer all questions of his future, he had neither sought 
 nor received tidings from Galavia. 
 
 He had not permitted himself great indulgence in 
 hope. The past months had brought too many dis- 
 appointments, and he knew that they had all been but 
 episodes leading up to the climax which must come 
 with the day when he inquired for a letter at "Idle 
 Times." 
 
 He dreaded a return to " Idle Times " before the day 
 set for his inquiry. Bristow's place stood for too much 
 of memory, and the inevitable questions of his friend 
 loomed before him, as the trifle which a man who has 
 stood much more than trifles cannot bring himself to 
 face. Yet there was no danger of his being late. That 
 time was the one fixed point on the calendar of his 
 future. One day before his three months had come to 
 an end, he arrived, but he did not go to Van Bristow's
 
 JUSSERET MAKES A REPORT 305 
 
 house. He did not announce his coming. He went 
 by the less frequented streets of the near-by village 
 to its inadequate hotel, where he found only a drummer 
 for a New York shoe house and a gentleman traveling 
 " out of Chicago " with samples of ready-made cloth- 
 ing. 
 
 For a time he sat in the clingy parlor of the place 
 and listened to the jarring talk of the commercial trav- 
 elers. Already Galavia and the months which had been, 
 seemed receding into an improbable dream, but the 
 misery of their bequeathing was poignantly real. 
 
 He rose impatiently and made his way to the livery- 
 stable, where he hired a saddle horse. His idea was 
 merely to be alone. The reins hung on the neck of 
 his spiritless mount and the roads he went were the 
 roads it took of its own unguided selection. 
 
 Suddenly Benton looked up. He was in a lane be- 
 tween overarching trees; a lane which he remem- 
 bered. Off to the side were the hills bristling with 
 pines, raised against the sky like the lances of marching 
 troops. It was the road he had ridden with her on 
 that day when her horse fell at the fence and there, 
 on the side of the hill, stood a dilapidated cabin: the 
 cabin upon whose porch he had poured water over her 
 hands from a gourd dipper. 
 
 It was only the end of September, but an early frost 
 had flushed the woods and hillsides into a hint of the
 
 306 THE LIGHTED MATCH 
 
 crimson and gold they were soon to wear in more profli- 
 gate splendor. The fragrant,, blue mist of wood smoke 
 drifted over the fields at the foot of the knobs. The 
 hills were seen through a wash of purple. From some- 
 where to the far left drifted the mellowed music of 
 fox-hounds. Riding slowly, the man came at length 
 to the cabin gate. 
 
 The same farmer sat as indolently now as then, on 
 the top step. The setter dog started up to growl as 
 the horseman dismounted. 
 
 The man did not recognize him, but the proffer of 
 Benton's cigar-case proved a sufficient credential, and a 
 discussion of the weather appeared a satisfactory 
 reason for remaining. It was only a verbal and logical 
 step from weather to crops, and in ten minutes the 
 visitor was being shown over the place. When the 
 round of cribs and stables was completed it was time 
 for the host to feed his stock, and, saying good-by at 
 the barn, he left Benton to make his way alone to the 
 cabin. Passing through the house from the back, the 
 man halted suddenly and with abrupt wonderment at 
 the front door. 
 
 For upright and slim, with a small gauntleted hand 
 resting on one of the rude posts of the porch, gazing 
 off intently into the coloring west, stood an unmistak- 
 able figure in a black riding habit. Incredulous, sud- 
 denly stunned under the cumulative suspense of the
 
 JUSSERET MAKES A REPORT 307 
 
 past three months, he stood hesitant. Then the figure 
 slowly turned and, as the old heart-breaking, heart- 
 recompensing smile came to her lips and eyes, the girl 
 silently held out both arms to him. 
 
 Finally he found time to ask : " How long have you 
 been here? " 
 
 "Six weeks," she answered. "And it's been lone- 
 some." 
 
 " Your answer, Cara," he whispered. " What is your 
 answer? " 
 
 " I am here," she said. " Don't you see me? I'm 
 the answer." 
 
 THE END
 
 /MHDRS 
 S- 
 
 XMBHIM3 
 /OTHEM
 
 CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK
 
 CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK 
 
 HOUGH still a young man he has only just 
 passed his thirtieth year Charles Neville 
 Buck, the author of "The Lighted Match," has trav- 
 elled far and done much. Although it was as late as 
 January, 1909, that he first settled down to write for 
 the magazines, he has made already an established 
 reputation as a short story writer, and promises to 
 make an even greater name as a novelist. His first 
 novel, "The Key to Yesterday," was one of the suc- 
 cesses of the last publishing season, and we shall be 
 greatly surprised if "The Lighted Match" does not 
 prove still more popular. 
 
 Born in Louisville, Ky., he visited South America 
 with his father, the Hon. C. W. Buck, United States 
 Minister to Peru. Since then he has travelled in 
 Europe, covering the ground where he places the 
 scenes in "The Key to Yesterday" and "The Lighted 
 Match." 
 
 After graduation, Mr. Buck studied art, and for 
 a year was the chief cartoonist on Louisville's lead-
 
 CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK 
 
 ing daily paper. He then turned to editorial and 
 reportorial work, which brought him into close con- 
 tact with Kentucky politics and the mountain feuds. 
 In 1902, while still a reporter, he was admitted to 
 the Bar, but never practised. 
 
 Successful as he is at the short story, it is in the 
 novel that Mr. Buck does his finest work. The novel 
 rather than the short story gives scope for those 
 little touches which make for style and atmosphere, 
 and it is at these that Mr. Buck peculiarly excels. 
 The vivid interest of his plots is apt to blind the 
 reader to this merit, for Mr. Buck's novels have 
 what some consider the only virtue of a novel, that 
 they can be read for the story alone; but it is there, 
 nevertheless, and for some constitutes the greatest 
 charm of his work. In "The Lighted Match," even 
 more than in "The Key to Yesterday," is this artistic 
 finish noticeable. "The Lighted Match" is not only 
 a bully good story, it is literature as well.
 
 P. Q. WODKHOUBK
 
 PELHAM GRANVILLE WODEHOUSE 
 
 "P\URING the past year a phrase has been fre- 
 quently heard among magazine and book 
 men in New York when the name of Pelham Gran- 
 ville Wodehouse has been mentioned. This phrase 
 is "the logical successor to O. Henry" and it is mis- 
 leading. Any humorist who tried to follow in the 
 tracks of O. Henry would be merely an imitator and 
 the task would be as unwise as though O. Henry had 
 cramped his own freedom in an effort to walk in the 
 footprints of Mark Twain or any other predecessor 
 in the field of humor. 
 
 Wodehouse suggests O. Henry only in that he has 
 suddenly come into universal recognition as a re- 
 markable humorist. He wields a pen which com- 
 mands an uncommon power of satire, without the 
 suggestion of vitriol or bitterness. His humor has 
 a sparkle, effervesence and spontaniety which has put 
 him in an incredibly short time in the front rank of 
 writers, and since the materialistic barometer at least 
 records the opinion of the editors and since the
 
 PELHAM GRANVILLE WODEHOUSE 
 
 editors are supposed to know, has brought him into 
 that envied coterie whose rate per word in the maga- 
 zines has soared skyward. 
 
 P. G. Wodehouse was born in Guildford, Eng- 
 land, in 1 88 1, and while still an infant he accompanied 
 his parents to Hong Kong, where the elder Wode- 
 house was a judge. He is a cousin of the Earl of 
 Kimberley. In his school days he went in for cricket, 
 football and boxing, and made for himself a reputa- 
 tion in athletics. 
 
 For two years Mr. Wodehouse went into a Lon- 
 don bank and observed the passing parade from a 
 high stool, but this was not quite in keeping with his 
 tastes, and we find him next publishing a column of 
 humorous paragraphs in the London Globe, under 
 the head of "By the Way." Later he assumed the 
 editorship of this department, and many of his para- 
 graphs lived longer, than the few hours' existence 
 of most newspaper humor. Also since all writers 
 experimentally venture into the dramatic, he wrote 
 several vaudeville sketches which have had popular 
 English productions. 
 
 Three years ago P. G. Wodehouse came to New 
 York. He liked the American field and wanted to 
 see whether his humor would strike the American 
 fancy. It struck. Mr. Wodehouse had tried his 
 wings here only a few months when magazine editors
 
 PELHAM GRANVILLE WODEHOUSE 
 
 were bidding for his manuscripts. His short stories 
 have appeared generally in the magazines, and while 
 one often finds the delightful touch of pathos, there 
 is always an abundance of laughter. In Cosmopoli- 
 tan, Collier's Weekly, Ainslee's, and many other pub- 
 lications these stories appear as often as Mr. Wode- 
 house will contribute. 
 
 His novel, "The Intrusion of Jimmy," last year 
 was a decided success. In it Mr. Wodehouse demon- 
 strated his ability to hold his sprinting speed over a 
 Marathon distance. The book, after giving the 
 flattering returns of a large sale, found its second 
 production on the stage. In its dramatized version 
 with the title, "A Gentleman of Leisure," it has had 
 its tryout on the road and has proven a success. With 
 Douglas Fairbanks in the reading role, it will be one 
 of next Fall's elaborate productions on Broadway. 
 
 In personality Mr. Wodehouse is quite as inter- 
 esting as one might gather from his writings. Physi- 
 cally a man of splendid proportions and mentally a 
 fountain of spirited humor, he is, nevertheless, mod- 
 est to the point usually termed "retiring," and is well 
 known only after long acquaintanceship. He is fond 
 of all sports, and on reaching America became truly 
 the native in his enthusiasm for baseball. Mr. Wode- 
 house says that one epoch of his literary career dates 
 from his purchase of an automobile in 1907. The
 
 PELHAM GRANVILLE WODEHOUSE 
 
 purchase was an investment of considerable gravity 
 to a young writer just commencing to command an 
 entree. The automobile lasted some two weeks and 
 came to a violent end against a telephone pole. Mr. 
 Wodehouse thought out the major problems of life 
 sitting on the turf near the pole from a more or less 
 lacerated point of view. He decided, among other 
 things, that his forte was rather writing about motors 
 than riding about in motors. 
 
 Mr. Wodehouse's second novel will be an even 
 greater success than "The Intrusion of Jimmy." Mr. 
 Wodehouse spent last winter on the Riviera writing 
 this book, and his friends who have read the advance 
 pages, agree with the publishers that it will deserve 
 and receive even greater cordiality than the first. 
 The title will be "The Prince and Betty," and it will 
 be something for novel readers to look forward to.
 
 
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