“Your Majesty——”

The King waved his hand.

“You can leave that out, Brand. Speak to me plainly. You look as though you had something important to say.”

“I have indeed!” Brand answered.

He glanced around cautiously. They were in the chamber used for meetings of the Privy Council—a great room with stained glass windows, fluted pillars supporting a vaulted roof, stone walls, with here and there a covering of tapestry. A collection of ancient arms was hung over the great chimneypiece. In the centre of the floor stood a round table of solid oak. A bad room for confidences this, in which the slightest whisper awoke curious echoes. The King noticed Brand’s hesitation, and divined its cause.

“Come this way, Brand,” he directed. “Reist is close behind. He will keep out all intruders.”

They passed into the King’s private study, a small octagonal room on the ground floor of one of the towers. The King threw himself into an easy-chair, and pointed towards another, but Brand remained standing.

“Well?”

“Your Majesty, the kingdom of Theos is in danger!”

“I know it,” the King answered, calmly. “There are traitors in the city itself. I have felt sure of it for some time.”

“The danger is urgent!”

“Go on.”

“I have acquired a good deal of information during the last few days,” Brand said. “Some of it has come through a source which I may not reveal—piecemeal, and in disconnected fragments. You will have to take a good deal on trust.”

“I believe in you, Brand.”

“First of all, then,” Brand said, “you are aware of what has been going on in the Press all over Europe, in Russia, Germany, and France?”

The King nodded.

“A widespread conspiracy,” he said, “to vilify me and my methods and my government. I have been represented to Europe as a harebrained, scheming, military adventurer, idle, worthless, a drunkard, and heaps of other things. I know it, Brand. I know another thing, too. I know that one paper in England, through thick and thin, has been my friend. I do not deserve all the good which it has spoken of me. On the other hand, I shall always regard as one of my best friends the man who had the pluck to try and stem the tide.”

The slender fingers of the journalist found themselves suddenly within the brown, sinewy hand of the King. There was an instant’s silence—a man’s silence. Then Brand continued—

“Mr. Ellis, our Minister there, is your friend, but he is a weak, colourless creature, and he gives no weight or point to his reports. He tries hard to be honest, but he is wofully under the influence of the others. And the others——”

“I know,” the King interrupted. “Austria, Germany, and Russia have come to a secret understanding, and somehow I fancy that Turkey is involved in it. But what pretext they can find for movement against me, or from what quarter I am to expect the aggression I cannot say.”

“It is what I have just discovered,” Brand said.

The King’s eyes flashed. He was a brave man, but the cloud of doubt had been stupefying. It was this knowledge for which he craved.

“It is Russia who is the moving spirit,” Brand continued.

“Russia, of course,” the King exclaimed, bitterly. “An independent Theos has always been against her policy. She debauched the Republic, she tried—as you well know, Brand—to make my accession a virtual Russian protectorate.”

“And, further,” Brand said, “she has actually in London stooped to this. Our paper has been approached by an agent of the Russian government with a view to purchasing a cessation of our support of you. I myself, your Majesty, feel myself deeply to blame. Weeks ago I could have warned you that Domiloff was still in the capital plotting against you. I kept silent. I beg that you will not ask me why. The news which has brought me here now has come by cipher telegram from my chief. A secret treaty has been signed between Russia and Turkey. The terms I do not know, but Turkey is left free to attack you at once, and she is already moving troops and guns to the frontier.”

“Germany?” Ughtred asked, quickly.

“Is pledged to neutrality—also Austria. The only European country which has not come to terms with Russia is England.”

The King rose from his chair, and walked restlessly up and down the room. His eyes were flashing, and the lines about his mouth were hard and bitter.

“It’s a brave game—politics,” he cried. “To-day we read our ancient history, and thank the gods for civilization. It’s a huge fraud, Brand. What they did in those days with fire and the sword they do to-day by craft and secret treaties, by falsehood and deceit. It’s a world of rapine still. It is only the methods which have changed—and changed for the worse.”

Brand nodded slowly.

“Listen,” he said. “My chief has had an interview with one of our Cabinet Ministers. He has listened to all he had to say, and I believe that the state of affairs here will be fairly represented to the English Government. But, to be frank, I am afraid there will be no intervention from England. She may sympathize, but she will not deem her interests sufficiently involved to interfere.”

“Have you any idea,” Ughtred asked, “when there will be any movement on the part of Turkey, and what the casus belli will be?”

“The blow may be struck at any moment,” Brand answered. “I am afraid my warning comes too late to afford you time for preparations.”

The King smiled.

“I am not a child, my dear Brand,” he said. “Sooner or later I felt that the thing must come, and instinct seemed to tell me from what quarter. I will let you into a secret, my friend. If the Turks raid my three frontier villages they may possibly find themselves a little surprised.”

A smile illumined Brand’s serious face.

“You’ll make a fight for it, then?” he asked, eagerly.

Ughtred rose up. His eyes were lit with inward fire, and in his tone there trembled a note of splendid passion.

“A fight for it! Ay, we shall fight in such a way, my friend, that all Europe shall hide her face, and feel the shame of the carnage and misery for which her miserable selfishness is responsible. There is one thing about my people, Brand, which is divine, and, thank God, it is in my own blood, too, notwithstanding my years of exile. We love our country, our hills and mountains, our corn-fields and vineyards, our villages and our queer old towns. It’s a wonderful love, Brand, and I don’t believe you highly-civilized people in your rich, smoke-stained Western countries know what it means. I tell you it’s a passion here. We Thetians love our country as we love our womenkind. The footstep of the invader is seduction—when it comes there will be lit such a fire of passionate hate from the Balkans to the northern frontier that only death or victory will quench. You will see them come to arms, Brand, these children of mine, whom God protect, young and old, boys and their grandfathers! A fight for it, did you say? I promise you, man, that if this blow falls, and we are conquered, you shall come here afterwards, and you shall find an empty country, a blackened chaos of ruins.”

An answering flash of enthusiasm lit up Brand’s face for a moment. But the man was practical to the core.

“What number of trained men can you rely upon?” he asked.

“Fifteen thousand,” the King answered. “I know every village company. Every regiment I have drilled myself. They have old Martinis, but they are born shots, and born horsemen. Lately, too, we have gone through a course of carbine instruction. I could put five thousand mounted infantry into the field who could surprise you.”

“And artillery?”

The King groaned.

“We have done what we could,” he answered, “but as for heavy guns, we have none. Listen, I will give you a sketch of my idea for defending the Balkans.”

The King talked quickly and clearly. There was no more trace of the enthusiast, nor, indeed, did he betray again during all the anxious days to come that more passionate side of the man which Brand’s few words seemed to have quickened into life. He talked now as the cool and skilful strategist. Brand, who was something of an amateur soldier himself, listened with keen interest.

“And you?” the King asked at last.

Brand smiled.

“I am here to see that the things which are coming are fairly reported from one quarter, at least,” he answered. “I am going to stay, and if the trouble comes I am correspondent for the New York Herald, as well as the Daily Courier.”

“That is very good news,” the King said. “England and America are the champions of freedom throughout the world. I have fought for England, and if this wrong is done to me I shall appeal to her for justice.”

A knock at the door. A young officer on the King’s staff saluted.

“His Excellency the Turkish Ambassador craves the privilege of an immediate audience,” he announced.