How long have I been writing? I don't know. But there is Sergeant Young coming back.

"You had better get ready," he says, "there is going to be an attack. The Germans are coming over this way."

"Ah!" I answer quietly and begin preparing myself.

"I dare say," goes on the Sergeant, "that the Germans are very Hun-wise. It will be a Hun-pleasant job for them."

When he starts on those puns it is a sign that he is in a good temper.

"If they think that they will get Hun-perturbed into our trenches, they make a Hun-believable mistake. These trenches are Hun-approachable."

But time passes, ten minutes, twenty minutes, and no order comes. You cannot imagine how bored one is during the long hours of waiting between attacks, but the anxiety which precedes the moments of real danger makes up for these weary intervals.

"Have you written something more?" finally asks Charlie.

Silently I offer him the sheets, and he begins to read. Meanwhile I am thinking that I ought to write to dad and tell him that I cannot compose a march in the trenches because of the booming of the guns which will never keep time—and to mamma that nothing was easier than to avoid the shells; she need not know that they cannot always avoid us—and to Bean, that there was no reason for anxiety at all, war being only an exaggerated picnic and casualties some sort of indigestion.

"I say," declares Sergeant Young, who has read the chapter in less time than was necessary, "I say, your Miss Doblana behaves in a rather Hun-maidenly manner. To call in the middle of the night upon a young, Hun-married man, with her hair Hun-done! I am afraid the public will find it Hun-conventional and even Hun-pardonable. Of course, she was in love with the pretty Salzburg officer."

"You jump to conclusions. I do not think that anything in my story may have suggested that."

"In this case, what did you think of her visit?"

"I thought ... that she had been obliged to go across her father's room, and that she would not have done so without some necessity. Her fear had been great, to judge from her wide eyes and her paleness. Would she have undergone any risk if there had been some chance of avoiding it?"

"Of course—if it was Hun-avoidable! And what did you feel?"

"Perhaps you think that I felt very happy? Certainly, there was joy in my knowledge of having found her again. There was also, as I have written, a desire to kiss her beautiful hands. But, above all, above my surprise, my joy, and my desire, there was apprehension lest her father should have noticed her absence, lest her step, in spite of its lightness, should have been audible in the deep silence of the night. What would I have done if the door had opened and the sad, old man had appeared and reproached me with having violated his hospitality?"

"I see. You had a little chilliness, like when you heard the bullets whistling around you for the first time and felt the wind caused by the shells. It's a bit Hun-canny and one shivers a little, but one goes on. Did you?"

"I did. But it was not an easy affair. For, to begin with, the next morning our interview was spoiled. It was the first time since my arrival in his house that Doblana was to be absent for several hours. And, while on the two previous days he had left the door of his room open, this time he had locked his daughter in. I waited in the salon for a good while, in vain."

"It must have been Hun-comfortable."

"At last I heard a little noise at Mr. Doblana' s door, as though some small dog were scratching at it. And a piece of note paper was pushed through the split at the bottom of the door into the salon. At once I rushed forth to it. As I came to the door I heard a well-known voice, her voice, talking through the door."

"'Is that you Mr. Cooper?'—'Yes.'—'Are you alone?'—'Yes.'—'Can you open this door?'

"I tried. It was locked.

"'I cannot.'—'Nor can I. Take the letter I have pushed under the door. Read it and then destroy it. Good-bye.'

"I tried to talk more, but there was no answer. So I read the letter. It ran something like this:

'My father has locked me in. I can tell you nothing through the door. But you may trust Fanny. She will do anything for a tip. I have no money, but you have.'

And it was signed Mitzi D."

I look at the Sergeant. He seems no more interested in my story than if I were preaching a sermon in a Sunday School. Of course, I keep the sequel to myself, namely, how Fanny and I conspired to call in a locksmith who promised to make a key within two hours, but forgot to tell us that these two hours were to begin only three days later. Punctuality is a virtue of which no workman ever wishes to pride himself, not even in Austria.

The Sergeant has an air as though he were dreaming, an absent-minded air which he sometimes assumes. When he is visionary like that, nothing can make him follow other people's thoughts. But he makes no secrets of his ideas, and sooner or later we learn what is in his mind. So I wait in the respectful silence a Lance-Corporal owes to his superior officer.

Suddenly he jumps up.

"P.C.," he cries, "I firmly believe that I will get my commission to-day!"

It was about time he did get it! Thrice already he has purchased an officer's kit. Twice he has lost it. Let us hope that the third will serve.

"And whence does that belief come?" I ask him.

"I told you that I got a supplementary lot of hand grenades by blackmailing the Colonel. Well, it has occurred to me that I might try the same trick for obtaining my commission. Where protection, ability, and courage have failed, blackmailing might succeed."

"Yes," I answer somewhat doubtfully, "but how will you blackmail him?"

"That," he declares solemnly, "is of course a secret between him and me!"

Mr. Reader will understand me, if I state that I grew curious.

"Is there a woman at the bottom of it?"

You ought to have heard the Sergeant's fit of laughter. He does not laugh very often, our Charlie, but when he does, it is the noisiest laugh in the world. Develish we call it. It is indeed a terrific laughter, long and irresistible. Finally, however, he will be able to utter some words. This time he says:

"No! Dear me, no! There wasn't a woman at the bottom of it—no! There was something quite different!"

At this moment the order comes, the order which we had been waiting for during an hour. In single file we march through the communication trenches.

Now, if you think, impatient reader, that I will annoy you with a detailed description of the attack, you are greatly mistaken. Firstly, you have doubtless read many such descriptions in the papers and do not want another. Secondly, I could not depict the attack, because I had another business than that of observing, Lance-Corporals not being, generally, Special Correspondents. Finally, you have no idea how easily one forgets the details. They are rapidly dimmed in the fog of war.

Yet I remember the Germans coming very near us and being beaten back. And I remember, too, the following incidents:

On our way the Sergeant tells me that it is to-day two years since he saw Parsifal in London, which he declares being not only a Hun-palatable, tedious work, but also a Hun-Christian one mocking the Mass and acceptable only from the Hun's point of view, as Pan-Germanic propaganda. Whereupon we hear from somewhere the bells of the holy Grail ringing. It is Pringle, the ventriloquist, who provides them, of course.

Cotton, the chemist, who enjoys quite naturally the nickname Guncotton, and who habitually speaks a special language nobody can understand (for it is crammed with chemical formulas), starts a great sniffing performance. At last he declares that there is a distinct scent of H₂SO₄, and wonders, wonders, wonders.

Nor is his astonishment incomprehensible. H₂SO₄ is sulphuric acid, and what he smells is in reality cabbages being cooked somewhere in a neighbouring trench.

Later on I remember our throwing hand grenades. The Sergeant is very clever at that game, which he accompanies with fits of his devilish laughter. When a shell bursts near us without hurting anybody, he laughs again, rather imitating the laughter of Mephisto in the third act of Faust.

The Colonel is quite near us, and Charlie by his side. There is a periscope and the Colonel can see whatever we achieve.

The Sergeant throws another hand grenade.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!" he laughs, "one more Hun Hun-done!"

"That was a nice one," states the Colonel.

"What of my commission, Sir?" risks Charlie.

But he has no luck. In the same moment the Colonel's periscope is smashed by some unkind shell. Spontaneously Charles Young laughs.

The Colonel, who is no coward, at once climbs up the parapet.

"What are you doing there, sir?" cries Charlie.

No answer.

"You'll be killed in a jiffy!"

No answer.

"But that's madness! Come back!"

The Colonel shouts something which we cannot understand in the noise, probably "Shut up!" and stands there amidst the bullets which are immediately directed at him.

"You damn fool!" thunders Charlie, "will you come down?"

This time the Colonel turns round and shouts so strongly that I can hear the words:

"You will be court-martialled for that!"

But in the next instant Charlie runs up to him:

"I don't care! And if you don't come down at once I'll tell the company your secret."

He has caught the Colonel's arm and drags him down to relative safety. And another fit of laughter follows.

I wonder. Has he won his commission or decidedly lost it? But there is no time for wondering. A big shell, a Jack Johnson, falls in our trench. There is a terrific explosion, and I see Charlie thrown up into the air, three or four yards up, and coming back.

No one else is wounded, although we were all shaking a bit. Even the Colonel.

There he lies, my chum, my Charlie, quite pale, white as a corpse, save for the blood that covers his big nose. Somebody bends over him and says:

"Some water, quick!"

Off runs Guncotton shouting:

"H₂O!"

But after a minute he comes back with real water. Nobody utters a word while poor Charlie's nose is washed. At last the Colonel, much affected, says:

"He has finished swearing and laughing. Poor fellow, he has at last met his fate."

And solemnly—for he is a very religious man—he adds:

"May the Lord have mercy upon his soul."

Now, is it the Colonel's speech that rouses him, or is it the effect of the fresh water? But the answer comes at once:

"Nonsense!" says the Sergeant, "I am quite Hun-hurt!" and laughs once more. "Where am I? In hell?"

The Colonel takes flight, although, I repeat it, he is no coward.

---

I am back in my trench, and the time for being bored has come once more. So I return to Vienna and to Mitzi Doblana, with apologies to Bean in case of her ever reading this book.

I think you will have noticed the great difficulty I experienced in meeting Miss Mitzi. First I suffered from a closed door and then from a locksmith of remarkable punctuality. When at last I had secured the key, which was to be not only the means of opening that hostile door but also of solving a mystery, my landlord had no long rehearsal for another couple of days. Thus nearly a week had passed since I had had her promise of an interview, and in all these days there arose not the slightest opportunity of catching a glimpse of her.

Now, if you have the least idea of the peculiar qualities of a young man's heart, you will know that such waiting is the right thing to inflame it, namely, the heart. Therefore, when finally we met, fancy my joy as I saw her advancing towards me and presenting me one of those beautiful hands of hers with a sweet: "At last!"

Yes, at last! At last she let me kiss her hand—as was due to me since that Sunday evening when she had abandoned my bags and valises, and myself into the bargain. I need not tell you that I paid myself heartily and that, while I was kissing that loveable hand I kissed it thoroughly. It was an enchanting hand, with graceful nails and with a soft, fascinating skin. And, my word, what a soap she used, a bewitchingly scented soap.

Footnote by the gentle reader: P. C., go on with your story!

Well, I will. Yet it is not my, but Miss Mitzi's story!

By the way, Mitzi is a Viennese diminutive of Marie, and I ought to translate it by Pussy, for it is used equally for cats and girls, which proves that the Viennese have some trifling knowledge of psychology.

I began by telling her that there had been no danger of her father asking me questions about the Salzburg trip. How could he have guessed that we had travelled together from Salzburg to Vienna?

Her answer was that she never had feared such a thing. It was of me that she was afraid.

"For the present I am locked up, as you have noticed; but sooner or later I will be released. My father will then present us to each other, and I did not want you to exclaim at that moment: 'Oh! but we have met already.'"

"Be assured that I will not make the slightest blunder."

"Now," she went on, "I suppose that you wish to have an explanation."

"I cannot deny that I feel curious. But I will not be inquisitive...."

"And I will be candid. It is not in order to satisfy your curiosity that I am prepared to give you an explanation, but because I hope that you will help me. You are probably the only person who can."

I trust that my dear readers do not place so much confidence in Patrick Cooper as did Miss Doblana. I don't want to mislead anybody by insinuating that her belief in my capacities was in any way justified. But I must state one thing: My heart leaped up. Not only were we to share a secret, but I was to be allowed to help her! I accordingly promised what you may expect: discretion and help.

"I must begin at the beginning."

(Holy Sergeant Young, you will be pleased with this young lady who shares your principles.)

"I am taking singing lessons. People say I have a nice voice. It is not a strong one, but it is expressive. My aim is to become an operatic singer, though my father strongly objects. This is strange, as mother herself was a singer. Yet, strange as it may seem, there is a reason for it. When mother married she did not tell him that she was a sister of no lesser person than La Carina. Of course, you know La Carina?"

I did not, and I thought best to plead guilty.

"You do not know La Carina?" exclaimed Mitzi. "But then—then—then I must begin at the beginning."

(Holy Sergeant Young, etc., etc., as before.)

"La Carina was a celebrated dancer, exceedingly beautiful and clever, and famous for her charming, tiny feet as well as for...."

She hesitated.

"Well?" asked I, trying by my question to help her.

Miss Mitzi blushed and finished her sentence in a whisper:

"... As for her lover. It seems hardly believable that you never should have heard of her adventures with the Archduke Alphons Hector."

Now, distinguished reader, you—being endowed with a better brain than I—will, no doubt, remember that name Alphons Hector. And you will say: Alphons Hector, that is how the Herr Graf on the evening of Macbeth was called by Bischoff, the actor.

Readers are supposed to have good memories. I apparently have a bad one. When I heard Miss Mitzi pronouncing these two names "Alphons Hector" they did not bring any recollection to my brain.

"How my aunt Kathi—that was La Carina's real name—eloped with the Archduke, how he wanted to marry her, how the Emperor frustrated that plan, is a story which has been told so often that I am really surprised that you should not know it."

"Perhaps I was not allowed...."

"But was it not in the English papers?"

"English papers never meddle with things matrimonial, except when they reach the Divorce Court."

Miss Mitzi laughed.

"Well," she said, "this affair did not reach the Divorce Court, but it was scandalous enough. Still, my father would never have guessed our connexion with royalty, had not my mother when I was nine decided to send me to a certain high-class school, which could not be entered without protection. So mother wrote to aunt Kathi, whose daughter was being educated at that particular school."

I must have made a surprised face at the mention of the dancer's daughter, for Miss Mitzi added:

"Yes! the Archduke and aunt Kathi had two children, a boy and a girl, both older than I, the boy three years and the girl ten months. They were called Franz von Heidenbrunn and Augusta von Heidenbrunn. Their mother was Frau von Heidenbrunn, and their father was supposed to be a Graf von Heidenbrunn.

"I went to that school and made friends with Augusta. We soon became inseparable; nor did my father then object to our frequenting each other. By and by both families became acquainted, and father felt greatly pleased that an Archduke, although only under the incognito mask of a Count, should climb up into his modest apartment of the Karlsgasse. They—the Archduke and my father—became even friendly enough to collaborate in a ballet—it was called Fata Morgana—and I suspect that my aunt Kathi had a finger in the pie. However, what was bound to happen occurred when that ballet was performed. Up to that time my father had remained unaware of the relationship that existed between the two sisters. But on that particular evening somebody congratulated my father on having so influential a brother-in-law ... and, of course, the fat was in the fire.

"It is impossible to imagine my father's anger. That he should have been cheated, he, by his wife, in his own home! He forbade his door to my poor aunt and to her children, and if he did not act in the same way with the Archduke it was only because he had not the courage to do so. Yet the result was the same: the Archduke, too, ceased to visit us. And all our nice intercourse was over, save for Augusta and me, who remained friendly and became probably even friendlier than we had been before.

"Three years ago aunt Kathi died, and her children left Vienna for Salzburg...."

"Ah!" said I.

I leave to you to interpret this "Ah!" as it pleases you. Was it expressing my pleasure of finding my way through her story, or my sorrow at the discovery of who and what the pretty officer in Salzburg was?

"A little over a year ago," went on Miss Mitzi, "my mother followed her sister. On her death-bed she asked father to reconcile himself with the Archduke and his children. But he did not yield to her prayer, although I believe that he loved her dearly. The Archduke on his side made a step towards peace and proposed to father another collaboration. They are writing another ballet together, which they call Griseldis. Still, my father persists in not allowing me to see Augusta. He says that as a daughter of an Archduke she is too high-born for me, and as a daughter of La Carina too low."

"I see," I exclaimed, "I see what you were doing in Salzburg."

She looked at me wistfully, as if to say that a mere man would always be short-sighted.

"Not only was I separated from my dearest friend, but I was not allowed to frequent anybody belonging to the theatrical world. And if I am taking singing lessons it is on the understanding that I will never become a professional singer."

"How cruel!"

"Yes, cruel," repeated the dear girl, and the brims of her eyelids became very pink as though she were going to have a cry. If I had dared I would have taken her into my arms and would have told her ... I knew not what. One has to be rather experienced to know what to tell to a sweet creature who opens her heart, her sorrowful heart to you.

"Now," she went on, "among the people who think that I have some talent and could make a successful operatic singer, there is a theatrical agent, Mr. Maurus Giulay."

"I know him," I cried, "a fat Hungarian with diamonds on his fingers and...."

"Oh, yes!" said Miss Mitzi eagerly, "is he not a charming man? So full of wit, and so kind, and such a business man!"

The reader will do well to compare this appreciation of Mr. Giulay by Miss Doblana with my own, as reported in chapter three, and to judge whether I was right in having taken an immediate dislike to him.

"Mr. Giulay," continued Miss Mitzi, and I am sure that her eyes shone while she was speaking, "Mr. Giulay says I have a great talent not only as a singer but also as an actress."

And she added in a low voice, as though she were telling me a secret:

"He has seen me act."

She remained for one moment as in a dream, and then went on:

"Of course I am not supposed to know him at all. Now, on that Sunday morning when you saw me first, father was playing a concerto at Prague. The rehearsals were on the evenings of the Friday and Saturday before. So on the Friday morning he left for Prague. I accompanied him to the railway station to show him off. He did not know that he was leaving me alone in charge of the house; for Fanny had begged of me to let her go and see her dying mother. Each time she wants to see her young man her mother becomes gravely ill; and although I am well aware that her mother died a good many years ago I let Fanny depart, because otherwise she becomes intolerable. I was therefore quite alone, and, you may believe me, I did not enjoy it. A little singing, a little cooking, a little reading, and a good lot of being wearied, that was how nearly the whole day passed. But late in the afternoon something happened. A wire came. A wire for me. It came from Salzburg and ran thus:

'Splendid opportunity for you, meet me to-morrow evening six at Salzburg station. Giulay.'

"I had no money. It is one of father's peculiarities to leave me with as little money as possible. What do you think I did? I went out and pawned my ring. A nice ring my mother had given me. I am ashamed to tell you how little they gave me for it. It was not even enough for a return ticket; but never mind, Augusta would lend me my return fare. I was not going to Salzburg without seeing her."

"I passed the night in an undescribable state of excitement, and on the Saturday morning I went to the Western Station, took my ticket and departed. Now, imagine my feelings when on my arrival at Salzburg there was no Giulay!"

She made a pause. Probably she expected me to express my surprise; but I did not. I kept silent. If I had said anything it would have been to tell her that I was not astonished. I knew that I did not like him. But how to signify such an opinion to a girl who had just told me that she found him charming?

"I waited an hour, I waited two hours, and no Giulay came. So I went to my friends, where I passed the night, and the next day I returned home half angry and puzzled, and half amused at my childish eagerness. Surely Giulay would give me an explanation. Yet this explanation I never received for the same reason that prevented me from seeing you: I am locked up."

"But why?" I asked.

"That, my friend," (how sweet of her to call me friend!) "I don't know, and I want you to find out."

"But your father must have given you a reason."

"He has not."

"He is probably angry for your having gone to Salzburg."

"He does not know it."

"How is that?"

"When I came home, just in time, Fanny had arrived and was, of course, in great anxiety about me. I told her all, and I am sure that she has not betrayed me. A quarter of an hour later my father arrived. He had had a splendid success and seemed very happy. He kissed me and was absolutely as usual. We had some supper and I went to bed. Tired as I was I fell asleep at once. But after an hour or so father came into my room, pale and with distorted features.

"Mitzi," he called with a voice which I scarcely recognized. "Who called upon you during my absence?"

"I told him that nobody did. But he made a fearful scene, insisting that he knew all, while he evidently knew nothing, and that I would be confined to my room until I had told him the truth. And since that day I am here, and every morning he comes and asks me:

"'Will you confess?'

"And I really do not know what has happened, nor what he wants from me."

---

"P. C.," calls Guncotton. (I wonder whether that has any meaning in Chemistry.) "Here's a letter from Sergeant Young for you."

This is what Charlie writes:

"My nose is broken, but I don't care. Your humble servant has the honour of being mentioned in dispatches. I once had a brother called Friedrich Wilhelm. He was mentioned in dispatches during the Boer War and soon afterwards obtained his commission.

"Yours,

"Charlie."

There was never such faith as brave Sergeant Young's.

---