We alighted at a small station. There were three or four anxious-looking men on its slender platform. They were dressed in the frock coat of ceremony. One man only was conspicuous in a gorgeous uniform. It reminded me of my own Havensea livery. I was preparing to be royally gracious to him when Hartzel whispered he was the station-master. It was a brilliant morning; the sun lay on the white caps of the mountain pass and glistened; big butterflies painted the field; the air was clear, rarified. I was in excellent spirits. The General watched the absurd little engine puff its way onward. Then he turned to me, took off his hat, knelt and kissed my hand. The spectacle of my man of granite kneeling, his honest, ugly face figured by emotion, struck me strangely. “To my God, my Country and my King are my life and my honor dedicated,” he said, the quaint old formula of allegiance in Ertaria. The frock coats went through the same performance. It lacked the earnestness of the General and had a note of anxiety. They looked as though they were expecting a troop of Cossacks over the edge of the pass and were nervous. But the ceremony marked a step in the game. Until then I was in a transition state. I was no longer Lord Havensea, but I had not yet become King until I had stepped out of my uncomfortable compartment into a kingdom. “Gentlemen,” I said in their own picturesque tongue, “you are the first of my subjects to welcome me. Not as King will I speak to you now, but as a fellow-worker, for my heart also is dedicated to God and Ertaria.” That struck some spark into their dull faces. “Seven centuries of liberty are in our hands,” said I. “The dead fathers of Ertaria have given us this heritage. It is that which I come to preserve—in peace if God wills, but if not, the history of Ertaria tells us how to act.” Bombast if you will, but it brought life, valor, strength into their faces. As for the man of granite, his eyes flashed. Ten minutes more and we were galloping up the white ribbon of a road toward Tsalburg, embarked upon as mad a mission as was ever enacted in this Balkan basin of mad missions. Our frock-coated friends remained behind. I kissed each on his scrubby cheek, and told him to guard our frontier. They swore to this with tears in their eyes. “Well,” said I, “we have played the first act of the farce.” “You have done well,” my mentor replied. “But this is no farce. It is a perilous game to play.” “You did not tell me so before, General. A spice of danger gives it a zest.” “You speak like a soldier.” “I was a soldier—that was before I became a peer and was a personage. Shall I pass muster? Will they perceive I am no King? Will the people be with me?” “Keep a brave heart and that will carry you through. The Russian Minister, of course, will know you are an impostor.” “The deuce he will!” “You must bluff him.”