table and hurled it full in his face. The missile struck him a
glancing blow, but the edge laid open the flesh of one cheek almost
to the jaw bone.

With a cry of pain and rage Captain Ernst Maenck leaped across the
table full upon the young girl. With vicious, murderous fingers he
seized upon her fair throat, shaking her as a terrier might shake a
rat. Futilely the girl struck at the hate-contorted features so
close to hers.

"Stop!" she cried. "You are killing me."

The fingers released their hold.

"No," muttered the man, and dragged the princess roughly across the
room.

Half a dozen steps he had taken when there came a sudden crash of
breaking glass from the window across the chamber. Both turned in
astonishment to see the figure of a man leap into the room, carrying
the shattered crystal and the casement with him. In one hand was a
naked sword.

"The king!" cried Emma von der Tann.

"The devil!" muttered Maenck, as, dropping the girl, he scurried
toward the great painting from behind which he had found ingress to
the chambers of the princess.

Maenck was a coward, and he had seen murder in the eyes of the man