The return to Lustadt after the battle was made through cheering troops and along streets choked with joy-mad citizenry.  The name of the soldier-king was upon every tongue.  Men went wild with enthusiasm as the tall figure rode slowly through the crowd toward the palace.

Von der Tann, grim and martial, found his lids damp with the moisture of a great happiness.  Even now with all the proofs of reality about him, it seemed impossible that this scene could be aught but the ephemeral vapors of a dream—­that Leopold of Lutha, the coward, the craven, could have become in a single day the heroic figure that had loomed so large upon the battlefield of Lustadt—­the simple, modest gentleman who received the plaudits of his subjects with bowed head and humble mien.

As Barney Custer rode up Margaretha Street toward the royal palace of the kings of Lutha, a dust-covered horseman in the uniform of an officer of the Horse Guards entered Lustadt from the south.  It was the young aide of Prince von der Tann’s staff, who had been sent to Blentz nearly a week earlier with a message for the king, and who had been captured and held by the Austrians.

During the battle before Lustadt all the Austrian troops had been withdrawn from Blentz and hurried to the front.  It was then that the aide had been transferred to the castle, from which he had escaped early that morning.  To reach Lustadt he had been compelled to circle the Austrian position, coming to Lustadt from the south.

Once within the city he rode straight to the palace, flung himself from his jaded mount, and entered the left wing of the building—­the wing in which the private apartments of the chancellor were located.

Here he inquired for the Princess Emma, learning with evident relief that she was there.  A moment later, white with dust, his face streamed with sweat, he was ushered into her presence.

“Your highness,” he blurted, “the king’s commands have been disregarded—­the American is to be shot tomorrow.  I have just escaped from Blentz.  Peter is furious.  He realizes that whether the Austrians win or lose, his standing with the king is gone forever.

“In a fit of rage he has ordered that Mr. Custer be sacrificed to his desire for revenge, in the hope that it will insure for him the favor of the Austrians.  Something must be done at once if he is to be saved.”

For a moment the girl swayed as though about to fall.  The young officer stepped quickly to support her, but before he reached her side she had regained complete mastery of herself.  From the street without there rose the blare of trumpets and the cheering of the populace.

Through senses numb with the cold of anguish the meaning of the tumult slowly filtered to her brain—­the king had come.  He was returning from the battlefield, covered with honors and flushed with glory—­the man who was to be her husband; but there was no rejoicing in the heart of the Princess Emma.