succeed in rescuing her, but a very bare one, indeed.

"We must traverse a main corridor of the castle to reach her suite,
and then return by the same way. It will be a miracle if we are not
discovered; but the worst of it is that next to her apartments, and
between them and your majesty's, are the apartments of Captain
Maenck.

"He is sure to be there and officers and servants may be coming and
going throughout the entire night, for the man is a convivial
fellow, sitting at cards and drink until sunrise nearly every day."

"And when we have brought the princess in safety to my quarters,"
asked Barney, "what then? How shall we conduct her from the castle?
You have not told me that as yet."

The old man explained then the plan of escape. It seemed that one
of the two huge tile panels that flanked the fireplace on either
side was in reality a door hiding the entrance to a shaft that rose
from the vaults beneath the castle to the roof. At each floor there
was a similar secret door concealing the mouth of the passage. From
the vaults a corridor led through another secret panel to the tunnel
that wound downward to the cave in the hillside.

"Beyond that we shall find horses, your majesty," concluded the old
man. "They have been hidden in the woods since I came to Blentz.
Each day I go there to water and feed them."

During the servant's explanation Barney had been casting about in
his mind for some means of rescuing the princess without so great