“Don’t dabble in prophecy, Hicks, unless you want to postpone that desirable time until the Greek Kalends. So poor Mansfield is tortured to make a pastime for me, is he? Well, it will be all made up to him. I intend him to marry my niece, and she takes after her father, and could not hurt any one’s feelings in cold blood to save her life.” “Is that so, Count? Well, Mr Mansfield will have earned his happiness,” said Mr Hicks drily. “But I guess you know some folks have figured it out that the young lady is to marry the King of Thracia? Old Prince Mirkovics is flying round putting the kingdom in order, and whispering the secret to most every one he meets. You are not in it, then?” “Scarcely. For one thing, I don’t think my niece would come into the scheme, and I am not so foolish as to undertake to marry her to any one against her will. And then, you see, I am retained, as I said, in Mansfield’s behalf.” CHAPTER XIV. NO PLACE OF REPENTANCE. The sojourn at Urtas, which had proved so irksome to Cyril, was not doomed to last much longer. As soon as the watchful Mr Hicks could be induced, against his better judgment, to allow him to travel, he was on the road again, riding whenever it was possible. When the country was so rough as to render horse exercise unsafe for a rider able only to use one hand, he was content to be conveyed ignominiously in the mule-litter. In his train followed Mr Hicks, acting both as surgeon and chronicler. Cyril was well pleased to keep the American supplied with exclusive information on points of general interest, since he found him prepared to exercise a wise discretion with regard to matters of real importance. Mr Hicks asked no more favourable treatment than this. He had been sent out to write up the Palestine question for the ‘Crier,’ and how could he do so better than by encamping continually, so to speak, close to the fountainhead of information on the subject? His retinue, added to Cyril’s, made an imposing cavalcade, and the local governors and petty sheikhs honoured with a visit were duly impressed.