The fifteen minutes had almost elapsed when there flut-tered from the tiny monoplane a paper parachute. It dropped for several hundred feet before it spread to the air pressure and floated more gently toward the earth and a moment later there burst from its basket a puff of white smoke. Two more parachutes followed the first and two more puffs of smoke. Then the machine darted rapidly off toward the northeast.
Barney turned to Prince von der Tann with a smile. "They are none too soon," he said.
The old prince bowed in acquiescence. He had been very happy for two days. Lutha might be defeated now, but she could never be subdued. She had a king at last--a real king. Gott! How he had changed. It reminded Prince von der Tann of the day he had ridden beside the imposter two years before in the battle with the forces of Peter of Blentz.
Many times he had caught himself scrutinizing the face of the monarch, searching for some proof that after all he was not Leopold.
"Direct the commanders of forts three and four to con-centrate their fire on the enemy's guns directly north of Fort No. 3," Barney directed an aide. "Simultaneously let the cavalry and Colonel Kazov's infantry make a determined as-sault on the Austrian trenches."
Then he turned his horse toward the left of his line, where, a little to the rear, lay the fresh troops that he had been holding in readiness against this very moment. As he gal-loped across the plain, his staff at his heels, shrapnel burst about them. Von der Tann spurred to his side.
"Sire," he cried, "it is unnecessary that you take such grave risks. Your staff is ready and willing to perform such service that you may be preserved to your people and your throne.""I believe the men fight better when they think their king is watching them," said the American simply.
"I know it, sire," replied Von der Tann, "but even so, Lutha could ill afford to lose you now. I thank God, your majesty, that I have lived to see this day--to see the last of the Rubinroths upholding the glorious traditions of the Rubinroth blood."Barney led the reserves slowly through the wood to the rear of the extreme left of his line. The attack upon the Austrian right center appeared to be meeting with much greater success than the American dared to hope for. Al-ready, through his glasses, he could see indications that the enemy was concentrating a larger force at this point to repulse the vicious assaults of the Luthanians. To do this they must be drawing from their reserves back of other por-tions of their line.
It was what Barney had desired. The three bombs from the aeroplane had told him that the Serbians had been sighted three miles away. Already they were engaging the Austrians. He could hear the rattle of rifles and quick-firers and the roar of cannon far to the northeast. And now he gave the word to the commander of the reserve.
At a rapid trot the men moved forward behind the ex-treme left end of the Luthanian left wing. They were almost upon the Austrians before they emerged from the shelter of the wood, and then with hoarse shouts and leveled bayonets they charged the enemy's position. The fight there was the bloodiest of the two long days. Back and forth the tide of battle surged. In the thick of it rode the false king en-couraging his men to greater effort. Slowly at last they bore the Austrians from their trenches. Back and back they bore them until retreat became a rout. The Austrian right was crumpled back upon its center!
Here the enemy made a determined stand; but just be-fore dark a great shouting arose from the heights to their left, where the bulk of their artillery was stationed. Both the Luthanian and Austrian troops engaged in the plain saw Austrian infantry and artillery running down the slopes in disorderly rout. Upon their heads came a cheering line of soldiers firing as they ran, and above them waved the battle-flag of Serbia.
A mighty shout rose from the Luthanian ranks--an an-swering groan from the throats of the Austrians. Hemmed in between the two lines of allies, the Austrians were help-less. Their artillery was captured, retreat cut off. There was but a single alternative to massacre--the white flag.
A few regiments between Lustadt and Blentz, but nearer the latter town, escaped back into Austria, the balance Bar-ney arranged with the Serbian minister to have taken back to Serbia as prisoners of war. The Luthanian army corps that the American had promised the Serbs was to be utilized along the Austrian frontier to prevent the passage of Austrian troops into Serbia through Lutha.
The return to Lustadt after the battle was made through cheering troops and along streets choked with joy-mad citizenry. The name of the soldier-king was upon every tongue. Men went wild with enthusiasm as the tall figure rode slowly through the crowd toward the palace.
Von der Tann, grim and martial, found his lids damp with the moisture of a great happiness. Even now with all the proofs of reality about him, it seemed impossible that this scene could be aught but the ephemeral vapors of a dream --that Leopold of Lutha, the coward, the craven, could have become in a single day the heroic figure that had loomed so large upon the battlefield of Lustadt--the simple, modest gentleman who received the plaudits of his subjects with bowed head and humble mien.
As Barney Custer rode up Margaretha Street toward the royal palace of the kings of Lutha, a dust-covered horseman in the uniform of an officer of the Horse Guards entered Lustadt from the south. It was the young aide of Prince von der Tann's staff, who had been sent to Blentz nearly a week earlier with a message for the king, and who had been captured and held by the Austrians.
During the battle before Lustadt all the Austrian troops had been withdrawn from Blentz and hurried to the front.
It was then that the aide had been transferred to the castle, from which he had escaped early that morning. To reach Lustadt he had been compelled to circle the Austrian posi-tion, coming to Lustadt from the south.
