Once again Leopold of Lutha reddened.  For a moment he paced the room angrily to hide his emotion.  Then he turned once to Maenck.

“Escort the prisoner to the north tower,” he commanded, “and this insolent girl to the chambers next to ours.  Tomorrow we shall talk with her again.”

Outside the room Barney turned for a last look at the princess as he was being led in one direction and she in another.  A smile of encouragement was on his lips and cold hopelessness in his heart.  She answered the smile and her lips formed a silent “good-bye.”  They formed something else, too—­three words which he was sure he could not have mistaken, and then they parted, he for the death chamber and she for what fate she could but guess.

As his guard halted before a door at the far end of a long corridor Barney Custer sensed a sudden familiarity in his surroundings.  He was conscious of that sensation which is common to all of us—­of having lived through a scene at some former time, to each minutest detail.

As the door opened and he was pushed into the room he realized that there was excellent foundation for the impression—­he immediately recognized the apartment as the same in which he had once before been imprisoned.  At that time he had been mistaken for the mad king who had escaped from the clutches of Peter of Blentz.  The same king was now visiting as a guest the fortress in which he had spent ten bitter years as a prisoner.

“Say your prayers, my friend,” admonished Maenck, as he was about to leave him alone, “for at dawn you die—­and this time the firing squad will make a better job of it.”

Barney did not answer him, and the captain departed, locking the door after him and leaving two men on guard in the corridor.  Alone, Barney looked about the room.  It was in no wise changed since his former visit to it.  He recalled the incidents of the hour of his imprisonment here, thought of old Joseph who had aided his escape, looked at the paneled fireplace, whose secret, it was evident, not even the master of Blentz was familiar with—­and grinned.

“‘For at dawn you die!’” he repeated to himself, still smiling broadly.  Then he crossed quickly to the fireplace, running his fingers along the edge of one of the large tiled panels that hid the entrance to the well-like shaft that rose from the cellars beneath to the towers above and which opened through similar concealed exits upon each floor.  If the floor above should be untenanted he might be able to reach it as he and Joseph had done two years ago when they opened the secret panel in the fireplace and climbed a hidden ladder to the room overhead; and then by vacant corridors reached the far end of the castle above the suite in which the princess had been confined and near which Barney had every reason to believe she was now imprisoned.