Leopold of Lutha spent two awful days a prisoner at Blentz, not knowing at what moment Prince Peter might see fit to carry out the verdict of the Austrian court martial.  He could convince no one that he was the king.  Peter would not even grant him an audience.  Upon the evening of the third day, word came that the Austrians had been defeated before Lustadt, and those that were not prisoners were retreating through Blentz toward the Austrian frontier.

The news filtered to Leopold’s prison room through the servant who brought him his scant and rough fare.  The king was utterly disheartened before this word reached him.  For the moment he seemed to see a ray of hope, for, since the impostor had been victorious, he would be in a position to force Peter of Blentz to give up the true king.

There was the chance that the American, flushed with success and power, might elect to hold the crown he had seized.  Who would guess the transfer that had been effected, or, guessing, would dare voice his suspicions in the face of the power and popularity that Leopold knew such a victory as the impostor had won must have given him in the hearts and minds of the people of Lutha?  Still, there was a bare possibility that the American would be as good as his word, and return the crown as he had promised.  Though he hated to admit it, the king had every reason to believe that the impostor was a man of honor, whose bare word was as good as another’s bond.

He was commencing, under this line of reasoning, to achieve a certain hopeful content when the door to his prison opened and Peter of Blentz, black and scowling, entered.  At his elbow was Captain Ernst Maenck.

“Leopold has defeated the Austrians,” announced the former.  “Until you returned to Lutha he considered the Austrians his best friends.  I do not know how you could have reached or influenced him.  It is to learn how you accomplished it that I am here.  The fact that he signed your pardon indicates that his attitude toward you changed suddenly—­almost within an hour.  There is something at the bottom of it all, and that something I must know.”

“I am Leopold!” cried the king.  “Don’t you recognize me, Prince Peter?  Look at me!  Maenck must know me.  It was I who wrote and signed the American’s pardon—­at the point of the American’s revolver.  He forced me to exchange clothing with him, and then he brought me here to this room and left me.”

The two men looked at the speaker and smiled.

“You bank too strongly, my friend,” said Peter of Blentz, “upon your resemblance to the king of Lutha.  I will admit that it is strong, but not so strong as to convince me of the truth of so improbable a story.  How in the world could the American have brought you through the castle, from one end to the other, unseen?  There was a guard before the king’s door and another before this.  No, Herr Custer, you will have to concoct a more plausible tale.