A low rapping at the door leading to the small secret corridor
caused the archduke to pause and turn his eyes with a searching
expression to this door.

The rapping was repeated, more rapidly than before.

"It is Hormayr," exclaimed the archduke, joyfully; and he hastened
to the secret door and opened it quickly.

A tall young man, in the uniform of an Austrian superior officer,
appeared in the open door. The archduke grasped both his hands and
drew him hastily into the cabinet.

"Hormayr, my friend," he said, breathlessly, "you have returned from
the Tyrol? You have succeeded in fulfilling the mission with which I
intrusted you? You have carried my greetings to the Tyrolese? Oh,
speak, speak, my friend! What do my poor, deserted Tyrolese say?"

Baron von Hormayr fixed his flashing dark eyes with an expression of
joyful tenderness on the excited face of the archduke.

"The Tyrolese send greeting to the Archduke John," he said; "the
Tyrolese hope that the Archduke John will deliver them from the
hateful yoke of the Bavarians; the Tyrolese believe that the hour
has arrived, when they may recover their liberty; and to prove this-
-"

"To prove this?" asked the archduke, breathlessly, when Hormayr
paused a moment.