One suspects here, of course, that Princess Louisa’s self-consciousness has impaired the exactitude of her recollections. She wants us to believe that the seal of mystery was imprinted, at an early age, on her own brow, and that the Man of Mystery among the Habsburgs recognised her, even in her childhood, as a kindred spirit. Perhaps he did, and perhaps he did not—it matters very little. What really matters is the impression which John Orth left behind him—the impression of a man with dark secrets and deep designs, which he hinted at but would not communicate; one who meant to evaporate like a subtle essence—to be materialised again when there once more was work for him to do in the flesh. That was how he impressed Countess Marie Larisch, when he kissed her hand and left her standing alone on that dark night in the Ring:— “I watched John of Tuscany as he passed into the fog and disappeared in the gloom of the night. And, when I read later that he had been drowned at sea, I thought of that evening in Vienna when he bade me farewell. Has he died without dying? I think so. And I believe that the Archduke, despite all evidence to the contrary, will return in his own good time.” But what became of him? The actual known facts are very few. The _Sainte-Marguerite_, navigated, not, as Princess Louisa says, by John Orth, but by Captain Sodich, set sail on March 26, 1890, and duly reached La Plata. There she took a fresh crew, and started, with John Orth himself in command and Milly Stübel on board, on a voyage to Valparaiso. Furious gales were raging round the Horn at the time of her passage; and she never reached her destination. The presumption that she had gone down, with her captain and all hands, was very strong; but still hope was not abandoned. There was just a chance that she might have been wrecked on one of the desolate islands off the coast of Chili—islands which have no harbours and no means of communication with the rest of the world. The thing had happened to other ships, and it was just possible that it might have happened to the _Sainte-Marguerite_. So Don Agostino Aroyo, Minister of the Argentine Republic at Vienna, argued; and Francis Joseph sent an Austrian cruiser to search the coast, in accordance with his suggestions. But without result. The cruiser searched diligently, and found nothing. The sea guarded its secret, and the mystery was as deep as ever. And then legend got to work, and refused to be stifled, alleging that John Orth was still alive.