“You would really like to go home again, Rudolph?”

“Oh, very much, your majesty, if I only dared.”  Barney was silent for some time, thinking.  Possibly he could effect his own escape with the connivance of Rudolph, and at the same time free the boy.  The paltry ransom he could pay out of his own pocket and send to Yellow Franz later, so that the youth need not fear the brigand’s revenge.  It was worth thinking about, at any rate.

“How long do you imagine they will keep me, Rudolph?” he asked after a time.

“Yellow Franz has already sent Herman to Lustadt with a message for Prince Peter, telling him that you are being held for ransom, and demanding the payment of a huge sum for your release.  Day after tomorrow or the next day he should return with Prince Peter’s reply.

“If it is favorable, arrangements will be made to turn you over to Prince Peter’s agents, who will have to come to some distant meeting place with the money.  A week, perhaps, it will take, maybe longer.”

It was the second day before Herman returned from Lustadt.  He rode in just at dark, his pony lathered from hard going.

Barney and the boy saw him coming, and the youth ran forward with the others to learn the news that he had brought; but Yellow Franz and his messenger withdrew to a hut which the brigand chief reserved for his own use, nor would he permit any beside the messenger to accompany him to hear the report.

For half an hour Barney sat alone waiting for word from Yellow Franz that arrangements had been consummated for his release, and then out of the darkness came Rudolph, wide-eyed and trembling.

“Oh, my king?” he whispered.  “What shall we do?  Peter has refused to ransom you alive, but he has offered a great sum for unquestioned proof of your death.  Already he has caused a proclamation to be issued stating that you have been killed by bandits after escaping from Blentz, and ordering a period of national mourning.  In three weeks he is to be crowned king of Lutha.”

“When do they intend terminating my existence?” queried Barney.

There was a smile upon his lips, for even now he could scarce believe that in the twentieth century there could be any such medieval plotting against a king’s life, and yet, on second thought, had he not ample proof of the lengths to which Peter of Blentz was willing to go to obtain the crown of Lutha!

“I do not know, your majesty,” replied Rudolph, “when they will do it; but soon, doubtless, since the sooner it is done the sooner they can collect their pay.”

Further conversation was interrupted by the sound of footsteps without, and an instant later Yellow Franz entered the squalid apartment and the dim circle of light which flickered feebly from the smoky lantern that hung suspended from the rafters.

He stopped just within the doorway and stood eyeing the American with an ugly grin upon his vicious face.  Then his eyes fell upon the trembling Rudolph.