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SOPHY OF KRAVONIA grooms came back from Volseni and buried it under a clump of trees by the side of the lane running down to Lake Talti. Their curses were the only words spoken over the grave; and they flattened the earth level with the ground again, that none might know where the man rested who had lifted his hand against their master.

The King was carried to Volseni sore stricken; they did not know whether he would live or die. He had a dangerous wound in the lungs, and, to make matters worse, the surgical skill available in Volseni was very primitive.

But in that regard fortune brought aid, and brought also to Sophy a strange conjuncture of the new life with the old. The landlord of the inn sent word to Lukovitch that two foreign gentlemen had arrived at his house that afternoon, and that the passport of one of them described him as a surgeon; the landlord had told him how things stood, and he was anxious to render help.

It was Basil Williamson. Dunstanbury and he, accompanied by Henry Brown, Dunst anbury's servant, had reached Volseni that day on their return from a tour in the Crimea and round the shores of the Sea of Azof.