Page:Roy Norton--The unknown Mr Kent.djvu/87

 but fluently, in seven different tongues, while Provarsk completed his manifesto.

"There," he said, as if highly satisfied, when his lieutenant returned. "I've added in the gentle appeal for peace and order. Also I've offered ten thousand pounds for old Von Glutz, dead or alive, five thousand for that fellow Paulo, and stated that we are making indefatigable efforts to recover the loot from the royal absconders and have hopes of getting it."

The new commander-in-chief was making mental calculations.

"About that fifteen thousand pounds" he said, abstractedly staring at the ceiling. "I didn't know you had found that much on tap. Let me see! Fifty men, and me getting ten shares makes sixty, and sixty goes into fifteen"

"You needn't badger your empty skull about that!" angrily remarked the usurper. "There isn't any fifteen thousand that I know of."

"But supposing somebody does catch the chancellor or Paulo?"

"Then we'll have the chancellor and Paulo killed in their cells, after which we'll accuse the fellows that claim the reward of murder and have them hanged publicly as proof of how lawful and orderly we are," cheerfully replied the baron. "Besides, either old Von Glutz or Paulo will be hard to catch. They'll not show up until long after [83]