Experience Seamless Full Ebook Downloads for Every Genre at textbookfull.

com

Research and Advanced Technology for Digital

Libraries 19th International Conference on Theory
and Practice of Digital Libraries TPDL 2015 PoznaÅ
Sarantos Kapidakis
https://textbookfull.com/product/research-and-advanced-
technology-for-digital-libraries-19th-international-
conference-on-theory-and-practice-of-digital-libraries-
tpdl-2015-poznaa-sarantos-kapidakis/

OR CLICK BUTTON

DOWNLOAD NOW

Explore and download more ebook at https://textbookfull.com

 Recommended digital products (PDF, EPUB, MOBI) that
you can download immediately if you are interested.

Research and Advanced Technology for Digital Libraries

20th International Conference on Theory and Practice of
Digital Libraries TPDL 2016 Norbert Fuhr
https://textbookfull.com/product/research-and-advanced-technology-for-
digital-libraries-20th-international-conference-on-theory-and-
practice-of-digital-libraries-tpdl-2016-norbert-fuhr/
textboxfull.com

Digital Libraries for Open Knowledge 24th International

Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries
TPDL 2020 Lyon France August 25 27 2020 Proceedings Mark
Hall
https://textbookfull.com/product/digital-libraries-for-open-
knowledge-24th-international-conference-on-theory-and-practice-of-
digital-libraries-tpdl-2020-lyon-france-august-25-27-2020-proceedings-
mark-hall/
textboxfull.com

Digital Libraries: Data, Information, and Knowledge for

Digital Lives: 19th International Conference on Asia-
Pacific Digital Libraries, ICADL 2017, Bangkok, Thailand,
November 13-15, 2017, Proceedings 1st Edition Songphan
https://textbookfull.com/product/digital-libraries-data-information-
Choemprayong
and-knowledge-for-digital-lives-19th-international-conference-on-asia-
pacific-digital-libraries-icadl-2017-bangkok-thailand-
november-13-15-2017-proceedings/
textboxfull.com

Discover Digital Libraries. Theory and Practice 1st

Edition Iris Xie

https://textbookfull.com/product/discover-digital-libraries-theory-
and-practice-1st-edition-iris-xie/

textboxfull.com
Digital Libraries Supporting Open Science 15th Italian
Research Conference on Digital Libraries IRCDL 2019 Pisa
Italy January 31 February 1 2019 Proceedings Paolo Manghi
https://textbookfull.com/product/digital-libraries-supporting-open-
science-15th-italian-research-conference-on-digital-libraries-
ircdl-2019-pisa-italy-january-31-february-1-2019-proceedings-paolo-
manghi/
textboxfull.com

Digital Libraries at the Crossroads of Digital Information

for the Future 21st International Conference on Asia
Pacific Digital Libraries ICADL 2019 Kuala Lumpur Malaysia
November 4 7 2019 Proceedings Adam Jatowt
https://textbookfull.com/product/digital-libraries-at-the-crossroads-
of-digital-information-for-the-future-21st-international-conference-
on-asia-pacific-digital-libraries-icadl-2019-kuala-lumpur-malaysia-
november-4-7-2019-proceedings/
textboxfull.com

Maturity and Innovation in Digital Libraries 20th

International Conference on Asia Pacific Digital Libraries
ICADL 2018 Hamilton New Zealand November 19 22 2018
Proceedings Milena Dobreva
https://textbookfull.com/product/maturity-and-innovation-in-digital-
libraries-20th-international-conference-on-asia-pacific-digital-
libraries-icadl-2018-hamilton-new-zealand-
november-19-22-2018-proceedings-milena-dobreva/
textboxfull.com

Digital Libraries Social Media and Community Networks 15th

International Conference on Asia Pacific Digital Libraries
ICADL 2013 Bangalore India December 9 11 2013 Proceedings
1st Edition K. Saruladha
https://textbookfull.com/product/digital-libraries-social-media-and-
community-networks-15th-international-conference-on-asia-pacific-
digital-libraries-icadl-2013-bangalore-india-
december-9-11-2013-proceedings-1st-edition-k-saruladha/
textboxfull.com

Digital Libraries at Times of Massive Societal Transition

22nd International Conference on Asia Pacific Digital
Libraries ICADL 2020 Kyoto Japan November 30 December 1
2020 Proceedings Emi Ishita
https://textbookfull.com/product/digital-libraries-at-times-of-
massive-societal-transition-22nd-international-conference-on-asia-
pacific-digital-libraries-icadl-2020-kyoto-japan-
november-30-december-1-2020-proceedings-emi-ishita/
textboxfull.com
 Sarantos Kapidakis
Cezary Mazurek
Marcin Werla (Eds.)

Research and
LNCS 9316

Advanced Technology
for Digital Libraries
19th International Conference on Theory and Practice
of Digital Libraries, TPDL 2015
Poznań, Poland, September 14–18, 2015, Proceedings

123
Lecture Notes in Computer Science 9316
Commenced Publication in 1973
Founding and Former Series Editors:
Gerhard Goos, Juris Hartmanis, and Jan van Leeuwen

Editorial Board
David Hutchison
Lancaster University, Lancaster, UK
Takeo Kanade
Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA
Josef Kittler
University of Surrey, Guildford, UK
Jon M. Kleinberg
Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA
Friedemann Mattern
ETH Zurich, Zürich, Switzerland
John C. Mitchell
Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Moni Naor
Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
C. Pandu Rangan
Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India
Bernhard Steffen
TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany
Demetri Terzopoulos
University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA
Doug Tygar
University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA
Gerhard Weikum
Max Planck Institute for Informatics, Saarbrücken, Germany
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7409
Sarantos Kapidakis Cezary Mazurek
•

Marcin Werla (Eds.)

Research and
Advanced Technology
for Digital Libraries
19th International Conference on Theory and Practice
of Digital Libraries, TPDL 2015
Poznań, Poland, September 14–18, 2015
Proceedings

123
Editors
Sarantos Kapidakis Marcin Werla
Ionian University Poznań Supercomputing
Corfu and Networking Center
Greece Poznań
Poland
Cezary Mazurek
Poznań Supercomputing
and Networking Center
Poznań
Poland

ISSN 0302-9743 ISSN 1611-3349 (electronic)

Lecture Notes in Computer Science
ISBN 978-3-319-24591-1 ISBN 978-3-319-24592-8 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-24592-8

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015949408

LNCS Sublibrary: SL3 – Information Systems and Applications, incl. Internet/Web, and HCI

Springer Cham Heidelberg New York Dordrecht London

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the
material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are
believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors
give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or
omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media

(www.springer.com)
 Preface

We are proud to present the proceedings of TPDL 2015, the 19th International Con-
ference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, held in Poznań, Poland, during
September 14–18, 2015, organized by the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking
Center (PSNC).
The International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries (TPDL),
formerly known as European Conference on Research and Advanced Technology on
Digital Libraries (ECDL), constitutes a leading scientific forum on digital libraries that
brings together researchers, developers, content providers, and users in the field of
digital libraries. The advent of the technologies that enhance the exchange of infor-
mation with rich semantics is of particular interest in the community. Information
providers inter-link their metadata with user-contributed data and offer new services for
the development of a web of data and addressing the interoperability and long-term
preservation challenges.
TPDL 2015 had the general theme “Connecting Digital Collections” and
was focused on four major topics:
– Connecting digital libraries
– Practice of digital libraries
– Digital libraries in science
– Users, communities, personal data
There was also a special call for industry submissions, dedicating the “Systems and
Products” conference track for them.
There were 44 full paper and six short paper submissions in the main call. All
submissions were independently reviewed in a triple peer review process, initially by
four members of the Program Committee. A senior Program Committee member
subsequently coordinated a discussion among the four reviewers. The selection stage
that followed compared the paper evaluations and finalized the conference program. As
a result, 22 submissions were accepted as papers and some of the rest of the sub-
missions were redirected for evaluation as potential posters or demonstrations. These
redirected submissions were re-evaluated together with the 11 additional poster and
demonstration submissions. Finally, 15 poster/demo submissions were accepted. The
dedicated “Systems and Products” call brought an additional six accepted submissions,
which are not included in this proceedings volume, but published in a separate booklet
and distributed among conference participants.
The most popular topics of submissions were user interfaces and user experience,
user studies for and evaluation of digital library systems and applications, applications
of digital libraries, infrastructures supporting content processing, social–technical
perspectives of digital information, interoperability and information integration, and
digital humanities. Regarding the number of accepted papers, the top five countries of
authors were: USA, The Netherlands, Greece, Germany, and Brazil. Regarding the
VI Preface

number of submitted papers, the top five countries of authors were: Greece, Germany,
USA, New Zealand, and The Netherlands.
Beside submitted contributions, three keynote speakers were invited to present their
views on crucial aspects of digital libraries. The opening keynote, given by David
Giaretta, was focused on issues related to long-term data preservation. The second
keynote speaker, Joseph Cancellaro, showed the user perspective in the context of
retrieval of digital audio assets, and Costis Dallas in the closing keynote shared his
thoughts about the scholarly practice related to access and use of humanities data, in
light of his work conducted within the DARIAH-EU community. Another part of the
conference was a discussion panel organized by Vittore Casarosa aiming to discuss
open access to research data. Abstracts of all keynote speeches and the panel are
included in the conference proceedings.
Around the main conference several side activities were organized, together creating
a five-day long series of events focused on digital libraries. The overall program began
with five tutorials:
– Automatic Methods for Disambiguating Author Names in Bibliographic Data
Repositories
– Building Digital Library Collections with Greenstone 3
– Catmandu – A (Meta)Data Toolkit
– Dynamic Data Citation – Enabling Reproducibility in Evolving Environment
– Mappings, Application Profiles and Extensions for Cross-Domain Metadata in the
Europeana Context and Beyond
Following the main conference, several workshops were organized:
– 5th International Workshop on Semantic Digital Archives (SDA 2015)
– Cloud-based Services for Digital Libraries
– Extending, Mapping, and Focusing the CRM
– Kick-Off Workshop of the IMPACT-OPF MOOC on Digitization and Digital
Preservation
– Networked Knowledge Organization Systems and Services (NKOS)
In this context we are very grateful to the tutorial chairs, Giorgio Maria Di Nunzio
and Giannis Tsakonas, for their hard work on attracting and evaluating the proposed
tutorials. Also the workshop chairs, Trond Aalberg and Antoine Isaac, gave essential
feedback to the conference tutorials. We would also like to thank all members of the
conference Program Committee and especially the posters and demos chairs, José
Borbinha and Preben Hansen, who did great work in evaluating a significant number of
submissions and creating a very interesting program for the conference.
Of course the conference could not happen without proper publicity, which was
assured by the publicity chairs, Marcos Goncalves, Raul Palma, Shigeo Sugimoto and
Hussein Suleman, and by the conference media partners: Coalition for Networked
Information and Digital Meets Culture.
For the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center, the operator of the Polish
National Research and Education Network PIONIER and the main organizer of the
conference, it was a great occasion to actively support knowledge exchange and net-
working in the worldwide digital libraries research community. Within the broad range
 Preface VII

of PSNC research and development activities, those related to the digital libraries
domain have been very dynamic since 1999 and have resulted in a number of national
and international projects in which PSNC and its Digital Libraries and Knowledge
Platforms Department are continuously involved.
We hope that you will enjoy the proceedings and will be inspired to participate in
the following editions of the TPDL conference.

September 2015 Sarantos Kapidakis

Cezary Mazurek
Marcin Werla
 Organizations

General Chairs
Cezary Mazurek PSNC, Poland
Marcin Werla PSNC, Poland

Program Chair
Sarantos Kapidakis Ionian University, Greece

Organizing Chair
Damian Niemir PSNC, Poland

Workshops Chairs
Trond Aalberg Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Norway
Antoine Isaac VU University Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Posters and Demos Chairs

José Borbinha IST/INESC-ID, Portugal
Preben Hansen Stockholm University, Sweden

Tutorials Chairs
Giorgio Maria Di Nunzio University of Padova, Italy
Giannis Tsakonas University of Patras, Greece

Publicity Chairs
Marcos Goncalves Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Brazil
Raul Palma PSNC, Poland
Shigeo Sugimoto University of Tsukuba, Japan
Hussein Suleman University of Cape Town, South Africa

Senior Program Committee

Trond Aalberg Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Norway
X Organizations

Maristella Agosti University of Padua, Italy

Thomas Baker DCMI Ltd., USA
Janusz Bień University of Warsaw, Poland
Jose Borbinha IST/INESC-ID, Portugal
George Buchanan City University London, UK
Donatella Castelli CNR - ISTI, Italy
Stavros Christodoulakis Technical University of Crete, Greece
Panos Constantopoulos Athens University of Economics and Business, Greece
Sally Jo Cunningham Waikato University, New Zealand
Erik Duval K.U.Leuven, Belgium
Edward Fox Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University,
USA
Geneva Henry Rice University, USA
Martin Klein Los Alamos National Laboratory, USA
Stefanos Kollias NTUA, Greece
Laszlo Kovacs MTA SZTAKI
Carl Lagoze University of Michigan, USA
Ronald Larsen University of Pittsburgh, USA
Clifford Lynch CNI, USA
Carlo Meghini CNR - ISTI, Italy
Erich Neuhold University of Vienna, Austria
Christos Papatheodorou Ionian University, Greece
Andreas Rauber Vienna University of Technology, Austria
Thomas Risse L3S Research Center, Germany
Giannis Tsakonas University of Patras, Greece

Program Committee
Robert Allen Yonsei University, Korea
David Bainbridge University of Waikato, New Zealand
Christoph Becker University of Toronto, Canada
Maria Bielikova Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava,
Slovakia
Tobias Blanke University of Glasgow, UK
Pável Calado IST/INESC-ID, Portugal
José H. Canós Universitat Politècnica de València, Spain
Vittore Casarosa CNR - ISTI, Italy
Lillian Cassel Villanova University, USA
Fabio Crestani University of Lugano, Italy
Theodore Dalamagas IMIS-“Athena” R.C., Greece
Lois Delcambre Portland State University, USA
Giorgio Maria Di Nunzio University of Padua, Italy
Boris Dobrov Research Computing Center of Moscow State
University, Russia
J. Stephen Downie The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Fabien Duchateau Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 - LIRIS, France
 Organizations XI

Floriana Esposito Università Aldo Moro Bari, Italy

Pierluigi Feliciati Università degli studi di Macerata, Italy
Nicola Ferro University of Padua, Italy
Schubert Foo Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Nuno Freire The European Library, The Netherlands
Ingo Frommholz University of Bedfordshire, UK
Norbert Fuhr University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Richard Furuta Texas A&M University, USA
Emmanouel Garoufallou Alexander TEI of Thessaloniki, Greece
Manolis Gergatsoulis Ionian University, Greece
C. Lee Giles Pennsylvania State University, USA
Marcos Goncalves Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
Jane Greenberg Drexel University, USA
Preben Hansen Stockholm University, Sweden
Bernhard Haslhofer AIT, Austria
Annika Hinze University of Waikato, New Zealand
Nikos Houssos National Documentation Centre/National Hellenic
Research Foundation, Greece
Jane Hunter University of Queensland, Australia
Antoine Isaac Europeana and VU University Amsterdam,
The Netherlands
Adam Jatowt Kyoto University, Japan
Jaap Kamps University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Michael Khoo Drexel University, USA
Claus-Peter Klas GESIS, Germany
Alexandros Koulouris TEI of Athens, Greece
Michał Kozak Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center,
Poland
Alberto Laender Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil
Ray Larson University of California, Berkeley, USA
Fernando Loizides Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus
Zinaida Manžuch Vilnius University, Poland
Bruno Martins IST - Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal
Dana Mckay Swinburne University of Technology, Australia
Andras Micsik MTA SZTAKI, Hungary
Agnieszka Mykowiecka IPI PAN, Poland
Wolfgang Nejdl L3S and University of Hannover, Germany
Michael Nelson Old Dominion University, USA
David Nichols University of Waikato, New Zealand
Ragnar Nordlie Oslo and Akershus University College, Nowray
Kjetil Nørvåg Norwegian University of Science and Technology,
Norway
Pasquale Pagano CNR - ISTI, Italy
Raul Palma Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center,
Poland
Ioannis Papadakis Ionian University, Greece
XII Organizations

Maggy Pezeril University of Montpellier, France

Dimitris Plexousakis FORTH, Greece
Edie Rasmussen University of British Columbia, Canada
Laurent Romary Inria and HUB-ISDL, France
Mike Rosner UM, Malta
Seamus Ross University of Toronto, Canada
Raivo Ruusalepp National Library of Estonia
Heiko Schuldt University of Basel, Switzerland
Timos Sellis RMIT University, Australia
Michalis Sfakakis Ionian University, Greece
Frank Shipman Texas A&M University, USA
Nicolas Spyratos University of Paris South, France
Shigeo Sugimoto University of Tsukuba, Japan
Hussein Suleman University of Cape Town, South Africa
Tamara Sumner University of Colorado at Boulder, USA
Atsuhiro Takasu National Institute of Informatics, Japan
Manfred Thaller Universität zu Köln, Germany
Chrisa Tsinaraki European Union - Joint Research Center (EU - JRC),
Italy
Yannis Tzitzikas University of Crete and FORTH-ICS, Greece
Pertti Vakkari University of Tampere, Finland
Felisa Verdejo Universidad Nacional de Educacion a Distancia, Spain
Jan Weglarz Poznan University of Technology, Poland
Iris Xie University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA
Maja Žumer University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

Additional Reviewers

Assante, Massimiliano Kotzinos, Dimitri Stefanidis, Kostas

Bikakis, Nikos Manghi, Paolo Students, Threephd
Candela, Leonardo Manguinhas, Hugo Students, Twophd
Chandrasekar, Prashant Mckay, Dana Williams, Kyle
Coro, Gianpaolo Moro, Robert Wu, Jian
Fafalios, Pavlos Papadakis, Manos Zagganas, Kostis
Kalogeros, Eleftherios Papadakos, Panagiotis
Kanellos, Ilias Salem, Joseph
Outlines of Keynote Presentations
 Data - Unbound by Time or Discipline –
Challenges and New Skills Needed

David Giaretta

Giaretta Associates Ltd., Yetminster, Dorset, UK

[email protected]

Abstract. We live in an exciting information age, where the deluge of data

enables the 4th paradigm to be used by the greatest number of scientists who
have ever lived, able to connect to hundreds of thousands of sources of infor-
mation which are encoded digitally and used in an ever changing technological
network.
To take advantage of these opportunities presents challenges. The most
obvious involves simply coping with the volumes of data with which one has
some familiarity, from familiar sources.
However in order to combine data from multitudes of unfamiliar sources,
covering a variety of disciplines, created over timescales which are long com-
pared to technological and even many conceptual and terminological cycles
there are new challenges both for the researchers and the infrastructure needed to
support them.
This presentation will focus on these challenges raised by the need to ensure
we can deal with the unfamiliar and outline the resources, both human and
technical, which will be needed to address them.

1 Opportunities

The term “4th paradigm” was coined by Jim Gray and colleagues to express the idea
that in addition to the empirical, theoretical and computational paradigms we now have
data exploration enabled by the vast amount of data that is being produced. This has
been explored in the literature as a source for scientific progress. However there are far
broader opportunities which those who fund the research are interested in.
The Riding the Wave report provided a vision for 2030 which addressed the
question, as part of the EU Digital Agenda, “How Europe can gain from the rising tide
of scientific data”.
The starting point was the observation that “A fundamental characteristic of our age
is the raising tide of data – global, diverse, valuable and complex. In the realm of
science, this is both an opportunity and a challenge.”
The vision was of “a scientific e-Infrastructure that supports seamless access, use,
re-use and trust of data. In a sense, the physical and technical infrastructure becomes
invisible and the data themselves become the infrastructure – a valuable asset, on which
science, technology, the economy and society can advance.”
XVI Data - Unbound by Time or Discipline – Challenges and New Skills Needed

2 Challenges

An underlying challenge was sustaining the availability and usability of the digitally
encoded information across disciplines and over time. An associated, fundamental,
question was “who pays and why”. While data is newly created and of obvious use
there will be resources available, but as the Blue Ribbon Task Force pointed out, the
value of much data is potential – it may be useful in the future, but this is not certain.
Resources are needed to address the many V’s1 which are normally discussed in
terms of big data – but which are also relevant to small data, since as noted2 the real
revolution, which is the mass democratisation of the means of access, storage and
processing of data – small as well as big.
In this presentation I divide these Vs into two groups. The first consists of Volume,
Velocity, Variety and Volatility which are ones more related to data management – i.e.
issues which arise even if the data is being used by the researchers who created it and
over just a few years. The other group consists of Veracity, Validity and Value, which
this presentation will focus on for the following reasons.
Veracity, including Understandability and Authenticity, is vital for using data from
unfamiliar sources and with which the researcher is unfamiliar – otherwise how can a
researcher use the data and trust that it is what it is claimed to be? The challenge will be
exacerbated by the data management “Vs” noted previously, in particular scaling with
Variety.
Validity (including correctness, data quality and legality) is vital interest to
researchers if they wish to undertake scientifically useful work.
Value (or potential value) must be identified in order to justify keeping the data in
the long term – and even in the short term (related to Volatility) – because keeping data
requires resources. The minimum, relatively easily identified, costs are those for storage
which tends to scale with Volume and are very front-loaded. Other costs, which are less
obvious and more uncertain are those associated with maintaining Veracity and
Validity.

3 Solutions

The bulk of the presentation will look at practical solutions to the challenges presented
by the second group of V’s. These solutions involve underlying consistent concepts,
technology and widely agreed procedures, all supported by skilled and well trained
humans, across the whole lifecycle of data from conception through to and including
curation.
They will help put in place the data infrastructure which can be used across dis-
ciplines and across time for the benefit of science, technology, the economy and
society.

1
http://insidebigdata.com/2013/09/12/beyond-volume-variety-velocity-issue-big-data-veracity/
2
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/apr/25/forget-big-data-small-data-revolution
 Digital Audio Asset Archival and Retieval:
A Users Perspective

Joseph Cancellaro

Interactive Arts and Media Depatment

Columbia College Chicago
[email protected]

Abstract. Both academically and professionally, the problem of coding

and formatting audio for archiving and retrieval is constantly present.
Many factors weigh in on how to build naming conventions, search
criteria, and meta tags for audio assets, particularly in large scale non-
linear virtual environment productions. The tendency to build new
libraries for each project is most intensive but allows a user to constantly
be aware of the assets available and who created them. This requires
inventing or reusing a new data retrieval and archiving engine or plat-
form for each project. Needless to say, this approach is impractical and
inefficient. The music industry has solved some of these issues through
the convenience of having stylized “brands” of music to label. The user
can decide whether he/she likes the music and move on to the next piece
of similar character. Examples of engines like this include Pandora,
Rdio, Spotify and of course Apple and Google. These music streaming
automated music recommendation services function moderately well
until they don't. In sound effects, this solution is more complex. When
there are thousands of samples of differing footsteps, squeaks, knocks,
thumps, etc. to manage per category a more refined Content Management
System (CMS) is required. Again, the impractical issue of building from
scratch is introduced. One method being looked at is Fourier transform
based pattern recognition analysis and algorithms. This method uses
discrete Fourier transform based pattern classifiers, defined and corre-
lated by a designer, to map, or compare against a predefined data vector
specifying a particular sound pattern. This research has already been
experimented with but usually not in the form of a searchable library
tool. An added layer to this method includes the use of artificial intel-
ligent programming as part of a machine learning tool to help expedite
searching and filing of data assets. This is currently being experimented
with in the Interactive Arts and Media Department where students and
faculty are working on solutions to some of these problems. The land-
scape of audio, which includes music, sound and silence is massively
comprehensive in size and complexity. Methods and strategies for
XVIII Digital Audio Asset Archival and Retieval: A Users Perspective

solving for a universal identifying and archival tool are constantly on the
minds of composers, sound designers and all who deal with audio assets
in linear and non-linear environments. My discussion will raise some
of the issues surrounding classifying audio and storage as well as
problems encountered by sound designers and composers in the field.
 The Era of the Post-repository: Scholarly
Practice, Information and Systems
in the Digital Continuum

Costis Dallas

Abstract. Research in the arts and humanities is often associated with the world
of the solitary scholar, surrounded by dusty books, manuscripts, or artefacts. As
early as 1959, C.P. Snow lamented the “gulf of mutual incomprehension” sep-
arating humanities scholars from scientists. Yet, the wide-ranging changes in
scholarly practice associated with digital technology, the crisis of disciplinarity,
the rise of new methodological and theoretical frameworks, the increased risks to
the longevity of cultural resources, and the emergence of new fields of contes-
tation around their interpretation and value, casts a different light on Snow’s
notion of the “two cultures”, introducing new challenges and opportunities.
For information researchers and computer scientists engaged with the con-
ceptualization, design and development of digital infrastructures, tools and ser-
vices in the domain of the arts, humanities and cultural heritage, understanding the
nature and direction of these changes is of paramount importance. The advanced
field of digital humanities is only part of the story. In fact, humanists working with
big data, crafting their own schemas and encoding formalisms, engaging in
ontological modeling, and scripting their own analytical and representational tools
are but a small minority among an increasing number of scholars producing
influential, highly cited research merely facilitated by digital technology – what
may be called digitally-enabled humanists. As indicated by a survey conducted by
the Digital Methods and Practices Observatory Working Group of DARIAH-EU,
digitally-enabled humanists use frequently applications such as word processors
and spreadsheets besides repositories to organize and curate research resources,
controlled vocabularies and classification systems that are more often homegrown
than standard, and a variety of readily available online services and social media
for information discovery, collaboration and dissemination. And, in tandem with
changes in scholarly practice, the rise of computational intelligence and social and
participatory media, as well as the increasing availability of humanities and her-
itage resources in the networked and mobile digital environment at a time of
globalization, bring about new important stakeholders in their representation and
interpretation, such as descendant and source communities, amateurs engaging in
citizen science, and culture and heritage publics.
Established wisdom on digital infrastructures for the arts and humanities is
shaped by a notion of centralized custodial control, replicating the traditional
structures of the physical archive, library and museum: in other words, on the
notion that research resources can be curated and preserved in the future in large-
scale, centralized digital repositories. This becomes problematic as financial
means grow increasingly scarce, and as the cultural record broadens to include a
proliferation of born digital resources, grey literature, outcomes of independent
and commercial research, fruits of self-publication, remix and social media
interaction, and manifestations of community and personal memory. In fact,
XX The Era of the Post-repository

research on emerging digital research practices in a discipline such as archaeology

shows how the availability of multimodal, interactive, real time recording and
documentation technologies, and the plurality of research actors, interpretations
and uses of archaeological knowledge give rise to multiple kinds of densely
interconnected digital resources (e.g., GIS, LiDAR, formatted data, 3D models,
annotations, interpretive narratives, video documentation, blogs, and social media
interactions) and intertwine the ostensibly distinct processes of data recording and
interpretation. The shift towards a digital infrastructure for humanities and heri-
tage resources, in tandem with these changes, brings about a rising “curation
crisis” which calls for a radical reconsideration of priorities in the specification
and design of digital infrastructures.
Central to this reconsideration is the concept of the records continuum, orig-
inally advanced by Australian archival scholars to indicate the limits of a lifecycle
approach in dealing with the capabilities and challenges of digital information.
Criticizing the custodial notion of archives as data mortuaries, continuum thinking
calls for a unified approach to recordkeeping capable of attending to records from
the point of creation to their “pluralizing” interpretation and use by diverse
communities. It resonates with a call for a radical re-examination of the theory and
practice of digital curation, based on the recognition that curation of research
resources facilitated by ubiquitous pervasive digital technology takes place
increasingly “in the wild”, involves multiple stakeholders “exercising the archive”
beyond data custodians, concerns not merely information resources qua digital
objects but also their evolving epistemic content and context, and thus requires a
rethink of the requirements, affordances and priorities of digital infrastructures.
The promise of going beyond traditional repositories to deploy a digital
infrastructure which explicitly focuses on the provision of curation capabilities is
demonstrated by the Metadata and Object Repository (MORe), a system deployed
by the Digital Curation Unit, IMIS-Athena Research Centre to support the
dynamic evolution and continuous semantic enrichment of heterogeneous meta-
data and registry descriptions of arts and humanities resources and collections.
MORe has been used extensively for Europeana metadata aggregation in the
CARARE and LoCloud projects, supporting semi-automated and manual digital
curation activities, and leveraging workflows of external services such as historic
names gazeteers and SKOS vocabularies. It supports the curation of resources “in
the wild” such as Wikimedia assets, and connects with client systems, including
Omeka-based LoCloud Collections, and a Metadata Entry Tool that could support
“sheer curation” on a digital tablet at the point of creation.
Systems such as MORe herald a new approach to digital infrastructures,
beyond the architecture and functionalities of traditional repositories such as
Fedora or DSpace. Yet, a key challenge remains how to address the fact that arts
and humanities scholars, amateur researchers, memory institutions, collectors, and
online users and curators of digital information assets will continue to employ a
bricolage of digital tools and methods available “at hand”, some of which may be
imprisoned within technical or commercially-controlled silos. An overarching
vision for future infrastructures might thus call for a radically expanded version of
custodial repositories, combining open cloud storage of dynamic, potentially
intelligent and self-documenting information objects with curation-enabled, dis-
tributed information systems and orchestrated, user-configurable services acces-
sible to multiple interfaces of end-user tools and applications in the continuum.
 Open Access to Research Data: Is it a Solution
or a Problem?

Vittore Casarosa

CNR - ISTI, Italy

Panel held in connection with TPDL 2015

Panel Introduction

In the past few years, we have witnessed a (slow) paradigm shift about the way in
which research results are being published and disseminated. More and more we have
seen the push for publishing research results as Open Access (OA) “digital publica-
tions” and more recently the push (especially from the European Commission) towards
“Open Science”. This means not only the OA publication of research results, but also
the OA publication of the “input to research”, i.e. the raw material underlying the
research process, generically identified as Research Data.
The main argument in favour of Open Access is that most of research is being done
with public funds, with research results and research data being produced in the public
interest, and therefore they should remain publicly available. Availability should be
restricted only by legitimate reasons, such as privacy protection or intellectual copy-
right. Of course, Open Access does not prevent commercial exploitation and protection
of the research results and the research data, with patents and copyrights.
Following the recommendations of the European Commission, to ensure open
access, publication should be done either by self archiving the material in an online
repository, or by open access publication in peer-reviewed open access journals, which
very often charge “Article Processing Charges” to the authors, to offset the cost of
making the content of the journal freely available. The first alternative is commonly
indicated as “Green OA” and the second one as “Gold OA”. The diagram below,
borrowed from the European Commission, summarizes these concepts.
The push towards open access to research data has only increased the number of
issues generally encountered with open access to scientific publications. More than ten
years ago, a report from OECD [1] identified and categorized the main issues related to
Open Access.
• Technological issues: Broad access to research data, and their optimum exploita-
tion, requires appropriately designed technological infrastructure, broad interna-
tional agreement on interoperability, and effective data quality controls;
• Institutional and managerial issues: While the core open access principle applies to
all science communities, the diversity of the scientific enterprise suggests that a
variety of institutional models and tailored data management approaches are most
effective in meeting the needs of researchers;
XXII Open Access to Research Data: Is it a Solution or a Problem?

• Financial and budgetary issues: Scientific data infrastructure requires continued, and
dedicated, budgetary planning and appropriate financial support. The use of
research data cannot be maximized if access, management, and preservation costs
are an add-on or after-thought in research projects;
• Legal and policy issues: National laws and international agreements directly affect
data access and sharing practices, despite the fact that they are often adopted
without due consideration of the impact on the sharing of publicly funded research
data;
• Cultural and behavioural issues: Appropriate reward structures are a necessary
component for promoting data access and sharing practices. These apply to those
who produce and those who manage research data.

Panel Objectives

Given the breadth and depth of all the issues, it should be clear that the main objective
of the panel is not to solve the issues of Open Access. From one point of view, Open
Access to Research Data is the “solution” to achieve a “better and more efficient
science (Science 2.0)”. From another point of view, Open Access to Research Data
brings with it so many issues and problems that it might become an impediment to the
dissemination of research results. The panel will try to stimulate a discussion and an
exchange of ideas among the panellists, which is expected to trigger a wider discussion
with the audience, touching (some of) the benefits and issues mentioned before. The
panellists will bring to the table their experience in many of the issues mentioned
before, such as infrastructures and institutional repositories, data curation in libraries
and archives, long term preservation of data, education and training for data producers
and data curators, and so on.
As it is often the case in this type of events, most probably at the end of the panel
there will be even more questions than answers, but hopefully it will have contributed
 Open Access to Research Data: Is it a Solution or a Problem? XXIII

to gain a more global view and a better understanding of the issues related to the actual
implementation of Open Access to Research Data.

Panel coordinator
Vittore Casarosa (CNR-ISTI, Italy)
Panel participants
David Giaretta (Alliance for Permanent Access)
Steve Griffin (University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA)
Herbert Maschner (University of Southern Florida, Tampa, USA)
Cezary Mazurek (Poznan Supercomputing and Networking Center, Poznan,
Poland)
Andy Rauber (Technical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria)
Anna Maria Tammaro (University of Parma, Parma, Italy)

Reference
[1] Arzberger, P., et al.: Promoting access to public research data for scientific, economic, and
social development. Data Sci. J. 3 (2004)
 Contents

Interoperability and Information Integration

Web Archive Profiling Through CDX Summarization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Sawood Alam, Michael L. Nelson, Herbert Van de Sompel,
Lyudmila L. Balakireva, Harihar Shankar, and David S.H. Rosenthal

Quantifying Orphaned Annotations in Hypothes.is. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15

Mohamed Aturban, Michael L. Nelson, and Michele C. Weigle

Query Expansion for Survey Question Retrieval in the Social Sciences . . . . . 28

Nadine Dulisch, Andreas Oskar Kempf, and Philipp Schaer

Multimedia Information Management and Retrieval and Digital Curation

Practice-Oriented Evaluation of Unsupervised Labeling of Audiovisual

Content in an Archive Production Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
Victor de Boer, Roeland J.F. Ordelman, and Josefien Schuurman

Measuring Quality in Metadata Repositories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Dimitris Gavrilis, Dimitra-Nefeli Makri, Leonidas Papachristopoulos,
Stavros Angelis, Konstantinos Kravvaritis, Christos Papatheodorou,
and Panos Constantopoulos

Personal Information Management and Personal Digital Libraries

Memsy: Keeping Track of Personal Digital Resources Across Devices

and Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Matthias Geel and Moira C. Norrie

Digital News Resources: An Autoethnographic Study of News Encounters. . . 84

Sally Jo Cunningham, David M. Nichols, Annika Hinze, and Judy Bowen

Exploring Semantic Web and Linked Data

On a Linked Data Platform for Irish Historical Vital Records . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Christophe Debruyne, Oya Deniz Beyan, Rebecca Grant,
Sandra Collins, and Stefan Decker

Keywords-To-SPARQL Translation for RDF Data Search and Exploration. . . 111

Katerina Gkirtzou, Kostis Karozos, Vasilis Vassalos,
and Theodore Dalamagas
XXVI Contents

Author Profile Enrichment for Cross-Linking Digital Libraries . . . . . . . . . . . 124

Arben Hajra, Vladimir Radevski, and Klaus Tochtermann

User Studies for and Evaluation of Digital Library Systems and Applications

On the Impact of Academic Factors on Scholar Popularity:

A Cross-Area Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Pablo Figueira, Gabriel Pacheco, Jussara M. Almeida,
and Marcos A. Gonçalves

A Comparison of Offline Evaluations, Online Evaluations, and User

Studies in the Context of Research-Paper Recommender Systems . . . . . . . . . 153
Joeran Beel and Stefan Langer

Connecting Emotionally: Effectiveness and Acceptance of an Affective

Information Literacy Tutorial . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169
Yan Ru Guo and Dion Hoe-Lian Goh

Applications of Digital Libraries

A Survey of FRBRization Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185

Joffrey Decourselle, Fabien Duchateau, and Nicolas Lumineau

Are There Any Differences in Data Set Retrieval Compared to Well-Known

Literature Retrieval? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Dagmar Kern and Brigitte Mathiak

tc-index: A New Research Productivity Index Based on Evolving

Communities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Thiago H.P. Silva, Ana Paula Couto da Silva, and Mirella M. Moro

Digital Humanities

Detecting Off-Topic Pages in Web Archives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Yasmin AlNoamany, Michele C. Weigle, and Michael L. Nelson

Supporting Exploration of Historical Perspectives Across Collections . . . . . . 238

Daan Odijk, Cristina Gârbacea, Thomas Schoegje, Laura Hollink,
Victor de Boer, Kees Ribbens, and Jacco van Ossenbruggen

Impact Analysis of OCR Quality on Research Tasks in Digital Archives . . . . 252

Myriam C. Traub, Jacco van Ossenbruggen, and Lynda Hardman

Social-Technical Perspectives of Digital Information

Characteristics of Social Media Stories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 267

Yasmin AlNoamany, Michele C. Weigle, and Michael L. Nelson
 Contents XXVII

Tyranny of Distance: Understanding Academic Library Browsing

by Refining the Neighbour Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 280
Dana McKay, George Buchanan, and Shanton Chang

The Influence and Interrelationships Among Chinese Library

and Information Science Journals in Taiwan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295
Ya-Ning Chen, Hui-Hsin Yeh, and Po-Jui Lai

Poster and Demo Papers

An Experimental Evaluation of Collaborative Search Result

Division Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 309
Thilo Böhm, Claus-Peter Klas, and Matthias Hemmje

State-of-the-Art of Open Access Textbooks and Their Implications

for Information Provision . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 313
Ya-Ning Chen

Adaptive Information Retrieval Support for Multi-session

Information Tasks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317
Daniel Backhausen, Claus-Peter Klas, and Matthias Hemmje

Transformation of a Library Catalogue into RDA Linked Open Data . . . . . . . 321

Gustavo Candela, Pilar Escobar, Manuel Marco-Such,
and Rafael C. Carrasco

Segmenting Oral History Transcripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 326

Ryan Shaw

Digital Libraries Unfurled: Supporting the New Zealand Flag Debate . . . . . . 330
Brandon M. Thomas, Joanna M. Stewart, David Bainbridge,
David M. Nichols, William J. Rogers, and Geoff Holmes

Evaluating Auction Mechanisms for the Preservation of Cost-Aware Digital

Objects Under Constrained Digital Preservation Budgets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 334
Jose Antonio Olvera, Paulo Nicolás Carrillo, and Josep Lluis de la Rosa

Mobile Annotation of Geo-locations in Digital Books . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 338

Annika Hinze, Haley Littlewood, and David Bainbridge

Teaching Machine Learning: A Geometric View of Naïve Bayes . . . . . . . . . 343

Giorgio Maria Di Nunzio

Study About the Capes Portal of E-Journals Non-users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 347

Wesley Rodrigo Fernandes and Beatriz Valadares Cendón
XXVIII Contents

Czech Digital Library – Big Step to the Aggregation of Digital Content

in the Czech Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 351
Tomas Foltyn and Martin Lhotak

MirPub v2: Towards Ranking and Refining miRNA Publication

Search Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 355
Ilias Kanellos, Vasiliki Vlachokyriakou, Thanasis Vergoulis,
Georgios Georgakilas, Yannis Vassiliou, Artemis K. Hatzigeorgiou,
and Theodore Dalamagas

A Proposal for Autonomous Scientific Publishing Agent . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Adam Sofronijevic, Aleksandar Jerkov, and Dejana Kavaja Stanisic

Extracting a Topic Specific Dataset from a Twitter Archive . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

Clare Llewellyn, Claire Grover, Beatrice Alex, Jon Oberlander,
and Richard Tobin

Author Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 369

Interoperability and Information
Integration
 Web Archive Profiling Through CDX
Summarization

Sawood Alam1(B) , Michael L. Nelson1 , Herbert Van de Sompel2 ,

Lyudmila L. Balakireva2 , Harihar Shankar2 , and David S.H. Rosenthal3
1
Computer Science Department, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, USA
{salam,mln}@cs.odu.edu
2
Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA
{herbertv,ludab,harihar}@lanl.gov
3
Stanford University Libraries, Stanford, CA, USA
[email protected]

Abstract. With the proliferation of public web archives, it is becom-

ing more important to better profile their contents, both to understand
their immense holdings as well as support routing of requests in the
Memento aggregator. To save time, the Memento aggregator should only
poll the archives that are likely to have a copy of the requested URI.
Using the CDX files produced after crawling, we can generate profiles of
the archives that summarize their holdings and can be used to inform
routing of the Memento aggregator’s URI requests. Previous work in
profiling ranged from using full URIs (no false positives, but with large
profiles) to using only top-level domains (TLDs) (smaller profiles, but
with many false positives). This work explores strategies in between these
two extremes. In our experiments, we gained up to 22 % routing precision
with less than 5 % relative cost as compared to the complete knowledge
profile without any false negatives. With respect to the TLD-only pro-
file, the registered domain profile doubled the routing precision, while
complete hostname and one path segment gave a five fold increase in
routing precision.

Keywords: Web archives · Profiling · CDX Files · Memento

1 Introduction
The number of public web archives supporting the Memento protocol [17]
natively or through proxies continues to grow. The Memento Aggregator [12],
the Time Travel Service1 , and other services, both research and production, need
to know which archives to poll when a request for an archived version of a file
is received. In previous work, we showed that simple rules are insufficient to
accurately model a web archive’s holdings [3, 4]. For example, simply routing
requests for *.uk URIs to the UK National Archives is insufficient: many other
archives hold *.uk URIs, and the UK National Archives holds much more than
just *.uk URIs. This is true for the many other national web archives as well.
1
http://timetravel.mementoweb.org/.

c Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
S. Kapidakis et al. (Eds.): TPDL 2015, LNCS 9316, pp. 3–14, 2015.
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-24592-8 1
4 S. Alam et al.

In this paper we examine strategies for producing profiles of web archives.

The idea is that profiles are a light-weight description of an archive’s holdings to
support applications such as coordinated crawling between archives, visualiza-
tion of the archive’s holdings, or routing of requests to the Memento Aggregator.
It is the latter application that is the focus of this paper.
An archive profile has an inherent trade-off in its size vs. its ability to accu-
rately describe the holdings of the archive. If a profile records each individual
original URI (URI-R in Memento terminology) the size of the profile can grow
quite large and difficult to share, query, and update. On the other hand, an
aggregator making routing decisions will have perfect knowledge about whether
or not an archive holds archived copies of the page, or mementos (URI-Ms in
Memento terminology). On the other hand, if a profile contains just the sum-
maries of top-level domains (TLDs) of an archive the profile size will be small
but can result in many unnecessary queries being sent to the archive. For exam-
ple, the presence of a single memento of bbc.co.uk will result in the profile
advertising .uk holdings even though this may not be reflective of the archive’s
collection policy.
In this paper we examine various policies for generating profiles, from the
extremes of using the entire URI-R to just the TLD. Using the CDX files2 of
the UK Web Archive (covering 10 years and 0.5 TB) and the ODU copy of the
Archive-It (covering 14 years and 1.8 TB), we examine the trade-offs in profile
size and routing precision for three million URIs requests.

2 Related Work
Query routing is common practice in various fields including meta-searching
and search aggregation. Memento query routing was explored in the two efforts
described below, but they explored extreme cases of profiling. We believe that an
intermediate approach that gives flexibility with regards to balancing accuracy
and effort can result in better and more effective routing.
Sanderson et al. created exhaustive profiles [13] of various IIPC member
archives by collecting their CDX files and extracting URI-Rs from them (we
denote it as URIR Profile in this paper). This approach gave them complete
knowledge of the holdings in each participating archive, hence they can route
queries precisely to archives that have any mementos (URI-M) for the given URI-
R. It is a resource and time intensive task to generate such profiles and some
archives may be unwilling or unable to provide their CDX files. Such profiles
are so big in size (typically, a few billion URI-R keys) that they require special
infrastructure to support fast lookup. Acquiring fresh CDX files from various
archives and updating these profiles regularly is not easy.
Many web archives tend to limit their crawling and holdings to some specific
TLDs, for example, the British Library Web Archive prefers sites with .uk TLD.
AlSum et al. created profiles based on TLD [3, 4] in which they recorded URI-R
2
CDX files are created as an index of the WARC [10] files generated from the Heritrix
web crawler; see [8] for a description of the CDX file format.
Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content
 There was little time to spare, but there were one or two early customers
of Herr Krantz, who lent instant and unquestioning aid. These helped
Trafford told the narrow street till the landlord had set his oaken shutters in
front of the glass shop-front. Then, as the increasing pressure threatened to
overwhelm them, they darted into the shop, banged the door, and shot the
massive bolts. A rattle of blows resounded on the woodwork, and a chorus
of fierce cries came in strident chorus from the crowded lane. Krantz
switched up the electric light to relieve the darkness.

"I will telephone for the police," he said.

"No," said Trafford, who did not share his host's confidence in the
Weidenbruck constabulary. "Ring up the Palace."

Krantz retired to the telephone in the inner room, and the hammering on
door and shutters went on with redoubled violence.

"What is it that they want?" asked the inmates of the shop of Trafford.

"Me," replied the latter.

"Why?"

Trafford had but the vaguest idea, but he answered boldly:

"Because I am the Queen's friend."

"I have given a message that you are here and in danger," said Herr
Krantz, returning.

"Thanks. Are your shutters sound?"

"I believe so, Excellency."

"I am glad to hear it. I think we should be well advised to go to an upper

window and survey the prospect."

Krantz assented, and led the way up a dark and narrow stair to a room
on the first floor. Opening the double windows, Trafford surveyed a scene
of many heads; the confined thoroughfare was literally crammed with a sea
of human beings. All were shouting, and those whose position enabled them
to do so were banging against the defences with sticks and fists.

"I trust Herr Krantz's shutters are as sound as he thinks," he muttered

looking down on the surging mass of his enemies. "What an excitable folk
these good Weidenbruckers are! I suppose that cross-grained beast, Von
Hügelweiler, has been concocting some evil tale about me, and is egging
them on to pull me to pieces in revenge for his defeat on the Rundsee. But
he finds me in good fighting trim, and I will follow up that blow on the nose
with other attentions if I get half a chance."

He craned his head sideways, to take full stock of his adversaries, and as
he did so it came into contact with a huge icicle, one of the many that hung
like gigantic dragon's teeth from the over-hanging eaves. The slight shock
to his cranium instilled a fresh idea.

"Have you any snow on your roof, Herr Krantz?" he asked, drawing
back into the room.

"The pitch is steep and throws off the snow, Excellency, but there may
be a hundredweight or two."

"And can we get on to the roof?"

"If you will."

"We might create a diversion," pursued Trafford. "A little snow

distributed scientifically on the heads of these good people might have a
wonderfully cooling effect on their heated tempers."

Krantz doubted the wisdom of further infuriating the mob, but Trafford's
enthusiasm was infectious, and he won his way.

A steep ladder and a trap-door gave access to the tiled roof. A shovel
was procured, and in a few seconds a small avalanche was dislodged on to
the more aggressive bombarders of the oak shutters. The effect was
excellent, and a desire to edge away from the immediate proximity of the
wine-shop manifested itself. Trafford, however, was seen, and his image
served to increase the streperous chorus of execration below. He replied
with a mocking bow and a shovel-full of snow tossed lightly into the middle
of the throng. For the moment he held the advantage: curses were met with
jeers; threats with a polite obeisance; any symptom of action was countered
with a swift reprisal of hurtling snow. But the situation was not allowed to
remain definitely favourable. Among the crowd was someone with an
intelligent brain as well as an excitable nature. Von Hügelweiler at this time
was as full of the sentiment of human hate as an insulted and disappointed
egotist could be. The blow he had received had been the last straw. A bullet
in his breast or a sword through his arm would not have burned with such a
fire of shame as the crude, coarse shock of his rival's fist. All sense of
proportion, all notion of justice, let alone mercy, had long ago been
swamped by the bitter tide of maddening disappointment which poisoned
his best instincts. And now the lust of vengeance,—baulked for the moment
by his enemy's resource,—led him to do rather a clever thing. There was a
small fire-station hard by Krantz's brasserie, and this, with the assistance of
his chosen followers, Von Hügelweiler raided. A few minutes later, helmet
on head and axe in hand, he and some half-dozen desperadoes returned
hopefully to the attack.

As the first axe-blow crashed into the oaken woodwork, Trafford sent a
mass of snow on to the assailant. The man shook under the weight, but his
helmet protected him, and he went on with his work undeterred.

In vain Trafford and his companions shovelled their crystalline

ammunition on to the heads and shoulders of their attackers; they delayed
the work of irruption, but delayed it immaterially. It was the crowd's turn to
jeer now, for the axes were playing havoc with the stout shutters, and it
seemed a matter of minutes only before oak yielded to steel, and the
inevitable rush of furious humanity flooded the beer-house.

"We are undone," said one of Trafford's companions; "we must try and
escape over the roofs."

"One moment," said Trafford, sprawling at full length on the tiles, his
head hanging over the eaves. "Herr Krantz, sit on my legs."
 The proprietor, a man of weight, did as he was bid.

With the hilt of his sword Trafford banged at the base of one of the huge
icicles that fringed the overhanging cornice. At the third blow it parted—
four feet of glistening ice pointed to dagger fineness descended like a
javelin on to the back of one of the storming party. The man fell without a
sound. A snarl, half horror and half rage, burst from the crowd. His
comrades raised his limp and lifeless body from the snow, and bore it from
the danger zone.

"Forward again!" cried Von Hügelweiler, furiously rushing against the

shop and burying his hatchet in the splintering shutter.

But Trafford was busy dislodging another icicle of even more

formidable dimensions, and when that was used there were a score of
others. The men drew back; one traitor's life was not worth the risk, and
Von Hügelweiler, finding himself unsupported, withdrew too.

Whether caution would have prevailed, or whether the spirited harangue

which Von Hügelweiler now addressed to his followers would have had its
effect, can never be known. A diversion, more serious than hurtling snow or
crashing icicle, occurred to change men's moods. A troop of horse,
cuirassed, high-booted, armed with naked swords, was making its slow but
irresistible way down the congested thoroughfare; and in the midst, with
black slouch hat and sable uniform, rode the grimly smiling person of
Father Bernhardt. A cheer greeted him, for his errand was unknown, and he
might have come, for all they knew, to help in taking the traitor. If that was
their idea, however, they were soon undeceived. The ex-priest's quick eye
detected Von Hügelweiler, and the latter, reading its sinister message,
commenced a hasty retreat.

"Two hundred kronen to the man who brings me Von Hügelweiler, dead
or alive!" called out Bernhardt.

There was a movement in the crowd, and in it the late Captain of the
Guard was lost to view.
 "Good-morning, Father Bernhardt!" cried Trafford from the roof. "You
arrive at an opportune moment; her Majesty's lieges were getting
troublesome. At first I contented myself with snow-balling them, but they
turned nasty and I had to despatch an icicle. I am afraid one liege was rather
hurt."

Bernhardt's smile widened as he took in the situation.

"A pity it wasn't Von Hügelweiler," he said. "But you'd better let me
escort you to your rooms. For the moment you seem to have fallen out of
favour with the plebs."

"I fear so," replied the American, "and had it not been for good Herr
Krantz, I might have fared badly at the hands of these gentlemen."

"Herr Krantz shall be rewarded," said Bernhardt. "His loyalty is well

known and appreciated in the highest quarter. And as for these 'gentlemen,'
as you call them," he went on, turning to the mob, "I've a good mind to give
them an experience of a cavalry charge in a narrow lane."

The suggestion was taken literally by the mob, and something of a panic
began in the neighbourhood of the steel-clad troopers. But Bernhardt
checked the movement with a quick shout.

"Stop, you fools!" he cried, rising in his stirrups and letting his great
voice ring out. "Stop, and listen to me before you go about your business—
or your idling! What do you mean by this breach of the peace? Has there
not been trouble enough in the city of late? Are you men or wolves, that you
hunt a man through the streets, and pull down the doorway of a peaceful
citizen?"

"He is a traitor!" cried one. "He freed Karl!" cried another, and a babel
of tongues broke out in an eager flood of accusation.

For a moment Bernhardt let them speak. Then he raised his hand and
won instant silence.
 "He is not a traitor," he said with slow emphasis. "He rescued me from
the Strafeburg. Was that the act of a traitor? Had it not been for this brave
and resourceful American I should now be rotting in a dungeon, and you
still beneath the yoke of Karl. It is true that Karl has fled to Weissheim, but
that was a mistake due to no fault of Trafford's. And the fault, whosoever's
it was, he will undo, for he accompanies me to Weissheim, sworn to win
back the Marienkastel from the Queen's enemies."

The quiet force of his words carried conviction to his hearers. They
feared the grim, black figure as a pack of dogs fears its master, but there
was a certain canine affection in their debased regard. Bernhardt was a
superior being, one whose word was law. They heard and believed, and
even began to feel self-reproachful.

"For shame on you, men of Weidenbruck!" went on the ex-priest in

upraised tones. "Shame on you, I say, compassing harm against the man
who delivered you from tyranny! This loyal friend of mine, whose courage
and craft you have just experienced to your own hurt, joins an expedition to
Weissheim as my right-hand man. A foreigner, he endures hardships and
dangers for your sake and that of your noble young Queen. 'Traitor,' you
called him! Hero and liberator would be better titles, I think, for such as he.
With his help there is no fear but that we shall capture Weissheim from our
enemies, and bring back Karl a prisoner to the capital. What reward will
you have then for Trafford, the deliverer? Will you hunt him through your
streets like a mad dog? Or will you strew garlands in his path, acclaim him
from your housetops—aye, and give him the highest in your land to wife!"

Assuredly if the power of words is a wonderful thing, the power of

personality is infinitely greater. Bernhardt had spoken with a certain ready
eloquence, a certain skill of pleading in his client's cause; but another might
have spoken with twice his skill and twice his oratory, and have failed
completely. It was not that he followed the temper of the mob and adapted
himself to their moods; rather, he made their moods for them, and used
them to his own sweet will. When he reasoned they followed and were
convinced, when he lashed they cringed, when he reproached they suffered
agonies of shame; and at the end he raised their enthusiasm for the object of
their late malice, with the ease of a consummate master of men, and his last
question was met with a ringing cry of "Long live the American! Long live
Gloria of Grimland!" The ex-priest's smile was more of a sneer than
anything—so cheap did he hold his triumph over the flaccid minds of the
shifty horde; but his eye wandered to the roof where Trafford stood, shovel
in hand, cheering himself and his secretly-married wife.

"We will escort you to your hotel," Bernhardt called out.

"It is not necessary," replied the American. "Bernhardt the Magician has
effected my metamorphosis—he has changed me from a fox to a lion."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE "BOB" RUN

In the far north of Grimland, seemingly secure in its snow-blocked

passes and its improvised fortifications, the mountain town of Weissheim
basked serenely in the unclouded sunshine of its exalted plateau. The life of
the place went on, little affected outwardly by the rude shocks of a
revolution that had unseated a dynasty at Weidenbruck, and incidentally
horrified the sober-minded people of Europe. The railway was cut that
connected Weissheim with the capital, and the telegraph wires were
drooping, limp and useless, from their stark poles. The foreign contingent,
—the English and American visitors of the "Pariserhof,"—pursued their life
of unadulterated pleasure-seeking as thoroughly and unconcernedly as was
their wont. Each morning found the curling rink well filled with
knickerbockered mortals, bearing brooms, and hurling granite bowls over
the perfect ice, and using weird expressions of Scottish origin tempered
with Anglo-Saxon profanity. The snows of the hillsides were scarred with
the double-tracked impressions of innumerable ski-runners, and the great
toboggan run—the Kastel run—found its daily complement of votaries for
its dangerous attractions. Each night the thermometer showed its zero frost,
and each day the winter sun proclaimed its potency with no uncertain ray.
Nature was as serenely unconscious of politics as the guests of the
Pariserhof were of the series of fogs that was at that time choking the streets
of London with obfuscating blackness. This winter, indeed, was singularly
like other winters at this ideal resort of athletic and convalescent humanity.
It is true that horrible tales of rioting and violence had come through from
Weidenbruck,—but similar reports had been transmitted many times
previously,—and if the present rumours were rather more highly-coloured
and substantial than heretofore, that was no reason why able-bodied men
and women should not skate and ski, and play innumerable rubbers of
bridge over cups of hot chocolate and cream-stuffed éclairs au café. It was
true that bands of swarthy men in uniform, and armed with shovels, were
perpetually throwing up snow-works on the surrounding bluffs, but they
respected the skating-rinks and the toboggan-runs—which was all the
visitors cared about. Moreover, they furnished rather a picturesque note as
they dragged their grim pieces of ordnance over the steep snow slopes, and
slowly hauled them into position in the aforementioned snow-works. What
the guests of the Pariserhof failed to appreciate was, that a miracle was
taking place. Weissheim was loyal! Weissheim,—for years the home of
sedition and intrigue,—was all for Karl! Just as in the days of his prosperity
it had turned against him, so now in the hour of his discomfiture it rallied to
him as one man. The troubles of 1904 had taught the good Weissheimers
that they had a man for a Sovereign, that the tall, good-natured, sunburnt
gentleman in spectacles had a hard fist inside his fur-lined gloves, and a
stout heart under his Jäeger cardigan. And the fact that Weidenbruck had
cast him out was a good enough reason for their taking him in. The men of
the mountain despised the dwellers of the plain. Rough, cruel, mutable as
they were, there were still certain primitive virtues among the hardy hill-
folk, and when one day Karl and the ever-popular Saunders turned up
unexpectedly at Weissheim with their tale of woe, they let loose an
enthusiasm that had never yet been accorded to Grimland's legitimate
Sovereign. So, contrary to his fears, Meyer's task had been an easy one. A
more than capable engineer, he soon put the place on as sound a footing of
defence as shovel and energy directed by German book-lore and Jewish
brains could put it. Within a week of his arrival the whole plateau was
secure in its well-planned redoubts and in the excellent temper of the civil
and military population.
 On the twentieth of January, eight days after the King's arrival, the race
for the Cobham Cup took place on the bob-sleigh run. For this event bob-
sleigh crews had foregathered from far and near, for the Weissheim "bob"
run is acknowledged to be the fastest, the most difficult, and the most
sporting in the world. A bob-sleigh,—let me explain for the benefit of the
uninitiated,—is a very long toboggan capable of holding half a dozen
persons. Unlike an ordinary toboggan, it is steered from the front by ropes,
or, in the most up-to-date "bobs," by a wheel. The rearmost man
manipulates a brake with a lever on either hand, and he awaits the
commands of the steersman, who sees the curves coming and realises when
the pace must be checked to avert disaster. Originally, the "bobbing" was
done along the high road, but this was so dangerous to horse-sleighs and
pedestrians, and resulted in such fearful accidents, that a special track was
constructed every winter, avoiding the town and ultimately joining the
highway somewhere near Riefinsdorf. The winning-post was now at this
junction, but for ordinary pleasure "bobbing," crews sometimes continued
their course along the road itself, the constant declivity permitting the craft
to travel at a great speed almost as far as Wallen, ten miles distant, or by
branching to the left, to descend the Rylvio Pass into Austria. The difficulty
of dragging the "bob" back made these distant expeditions events of some
rarity, and, indeed, the first part of the course was so much more exciting
than the roadway, that it was mainly on this portion that practising for the
cup took place.

Imagine a track some six feet in width, formed of snow turned to ice by
the process of constant watering, and so smooth and slippery that a
burnished mirror would be rough and dull in comparison. Imagine this track
inclined at a steep angle, walled in on both sides with low ice-banks, and
trailing a long and sinuous course for a length of over a mile! Here we have
the potentialities of speed when we remember that racing "bobs" are just
low frameworks of wood whose steel runners glide over the polished track
with as little friction as a flash of lightning traversing a thunder-cloud.
When we add that the bends of the course are sharp, and often flanked by
sheer precipices, and that to negotiate these bends at high speed requires the
greatest nerve and skill for all concerned, it is hardly necessary to add that
the sport is one which appeals to wandering foreigners in search of
sensations.
 "It is a pity you have not got a crew," said Karl to Saunders, who, with
his wife, General Meyer, and Frau von Bilderbaum, were seated in a
wooden shelter erected at one of the most exciting bends of the course.
"With your skill at the brake and Mrs. Saunders' skill at the wheel, you
would have stood a fine chance of securing Lady Cobham's trophy."

"It is always a pity when politics interfere with sport," replied Saunders.
"We manage these things better in England. When the shooting season
commences politicians take a rest."

"Here," said Meyer, "the shooting season commences when the

politicians are most active. Only we don't shoot grouse in Grimland—only
kings and councillors."

Karl laughed.

"I should like to have seen Saunders take his crew down the run in
approved style," he said; "I'd have wagered my forest lands to a frost-bite
that he'd have done the best time."

"I should have liked nothing better," said Saunders, "but it is impossible
to do oneself credit without practice. And I have been busy in other ways: I
have been studying Meyer's treatise on Winter War, and I am not sure that
the possibilities it holds forth are not more exhilarating even than the
competition for Lady Cobham's cup."

"We are likely to have that statement verified, if what I hear is true,"
said the Commander-in-Chief quietly.

"And what you hear generally is true," muttered Karl.

"In this case I have no doubts," said Meyer. "A large military expedition
left Weidenbruck the day before yesterday; its destination and object are not
difficult to surmise."

"I am glad," said Frau von Bilderbaum truculently. "If blows are to be
struck, the sooner the better; we are ready for them."
 There was a sound of cheering from the direction of the starting point,
signifying that the first crew was launched on its downward course.

It was morning—10.30 A.M., to be precise—for the race had to be run

before the sun's power waxed hot enough to affect the surface of the track.
And the scene was a gay one: blue and white flags were flying from poles at
every hundred yards of the course, and from the crowded stands erected at
the several points of vantage.

And the day was a typical Weissheim day: the sky was of a deep and
ever-deepening blue. Not a breath of air stirred over the snow-veiled face of
the country. The sun had risen above the shoulder of the mighty Klauigberg,
and had turned the myriad crystals into a sparkling ocean of unbelievable
whiteness. To draw breath was to fill one's lungs with perfect air and one's
heart with ecstasy. To gaze at the shimmering panorama of towering peaks
and snowy buttresses was to behold the finest view in central Europe.

"Here they come!" ejaculated Karl excitedly, as a "bob" came into view,
accompanied by a slight scraping sound, as the runners slithered over the
adamantine track.

All held their breath, for the speed of the descending craft was
absolutely terrifying. At the prow was a goggled figure in a white sweater,
with a red dragon—the badge of his crew—worked on his chest. Behind
him was a young girl, and behind her again four men, all similarly attired.
With the exception of the steersman, who crouched forward,—a tense thing
of staring eyes and straining muscles,—all were leaning back as far as
possible to minimise wind pressure.

"Too fast!" was Saunders' comment.

Suddenly, in response to a hoarse cry from the steersman, the crew

swung their bodies to the left and simultaneously flung out their arms in the
same direction. The manœuvre was designed to bring the "bob" round the
corner without checking the pace by applying the brake. The result was
unsatisfactory. The prow of the "bob" struck the counter-bank violently,
there was a gasp from a hundred throats, and a feathery cloud of snow rose,
in which the limbs of half a dozen human beings were whirling in an
intricate and inextricable confusion. No one, fortunately, was damaged, and
in a few seconds the crew had sorted themselves and resumed their
chequered career.

"Heroism and no brake!" muttered Karl. "How like our friend the
American!"

"May his fall be as harmless!" said Saunders.

Frau Bilderbaum snorted.

"I should like to see him go over the precipice!" she exclaimed.

"You probably will—metaphorically speaking," said Meyer. "He is

accompanying this expedition against us, and he has outwitted me twice."

A minute later another "bob" was making its nerve-shattering descent of

the lightning run. This time its crew,—a well-drilled sextet in blue jerseys
bearing the facetious badge of a tortoise,—swept round the dangerous bend
without mishap.

"Well done, Miss Reeve-Thompson!" cried Mrs. Saunders, naming the

lady who was steering the successful craft.

"That's done me good," sighed Karl in a note of satisfaction. "God's sky

and the best of sports! Clean snow and the champagne air of Weissheim,
and what care I for the rabble of the plains."

And so the morning wore on, with cheers for the skilful, gasps for the
rash, and murmurs of pity for the unfortunate. There were more spills, of
course, but fortunately no disasters of magnitude, and at mid-day the great
competition was over. The "times" were added up and checked, and
ultimately Miss Reeve-Thompson's crew were adjudged the winners, and
accompanied by a cheering throng they received the cup from Lady
Cobham at the Pariserhof.

The royal party waited till the crowd of onlookers had dispersed, and
then wended their way back to the Brunvarad—the Winter Palace—on foot.
As they followed the track that bordered the run they fell in with General
von Bilderbaum, struggling up the hill in a great grey overcoat, very moist
and red of face.

"Well," said Karl, "how are the new forts looking?"

"Very workmanlike, sire. We have got two new quick-firers on to the

south escarpment of redoubt A, and some old but serviceable mitraileuses
in position in the long fosse between redoubts C and D."

"Excellent," drawled Meyer. "And our dear, loyal gunners—are they

continuing to make good practice at the ice-targets?"

"I am sorry for anything they get sight of within two kilometres,"
responded the General.

"I am well served," said Karl. "Herr Saunders here has developed into a
student of minor tactics, and I fancy would handle a brigade as well as a
Moltke or a Kuroki."

At this moment they reached the point of the path where it crosses the
bob-sleigh run, and the races being over and the track closed, a wooden
plank had been laid across the glassy surface to afford secure foothold. The
men halted to allow the ladies,—Mrs. Saunders and Frau Generalin von
Bilderbaum,—to pass first. But the latter,—a lady, as the reader knows, of
somewhat egregious proportions,—was not gifted by nature with a rapid
gait through trampled snow. Holding high her green skirt, and planting her
cumbrous snow-boots with deliberate precision, she advanced puffing and
panting like a mountain engine in a snow-drift. Before, however, she had
come up with the others, a strange man accosted the royal party from the
opposite direction. The individual in question was wearing skis, and looked
fatigued and travel-stained, as though he had come fast and far. A black
slouch hat was pressed over his forehead, and it was not till he was quite
close that Karl and his companions recognised the features as those of Von
Hügelweiler.

The Captain's salutation was as abrupt as his appearance.

 "Hail! King of half a country," he said.

Quietly, swiftly, and without ostentation, Saunders and Meyer covered

the newcomer with their revolvers.

"Hands up when you speak to his Majesty," said the latter.

Von Hügelweiler dropped his ski-ing pole and held up his hands.

"I have a weapon in my breast," he said, "but it is not for any here."

Meyer quietly inserted his hand into the Captain's breast pocket, and
drew out a revolver. It was of the Grimland army pattern, and loaded in all
its chambers. He swiftly extracted the cartridges and transferred them to his
own person, and then,—having satisfied himself that the Captain had no
further munitions of war,—replaced the unloaded weapon in its original
position.

"Now you may talk without the inconvenience of holding your hands in
that fatiguing posture," he said. "What is it?"

"I come from Weidenbruck," said Von Hügelweiler, "and I bring news.
The day before yesterday an expedition left the capital for Weissheim."

Meyer nodded.

"That is so," he agreed; "we get to know things, even in this charmingly
remote district. Still, details are always agreeable. What does the force
consist of?"

"The whole brigade of Guards, two battalions of Guides, and the

Kurdeburg Sharpshooters."

"They do me honour," said the King. "But they will find the railway
somewhat disorganised. You see, we have dynamited the principal viaducts,
to say nothing of the two-mile tunnel under the Kahberg—and these things
are not easy to repair when the snow is down."
 "The railway is open as far as Eselbruck," the Captain returned, "and
from thence they will come over the passes on skis. They will come quicker
than they would in the summer."

"That is true enough," agreed Meyer. "And who is in command of this

imposing force?"

"Bernhardt."

"Indeed! And the second in command?"

"A cursed American."

Meyer smiled.

"That describes Herr Trafford admirably," he said. "But how about

yourself, Von Hügelweiler? How is it you are not occupying a distinguished
position in this amiable field-force?"

"Because there are limits even to my dishonour," retorted Von

Hügelweiler fiercely. "In transferring my services from his Majesty King
Karl to her Majesty Queen Gloria, I knew I was sinking, but I only learned
a little while ago to what great depths."

"You are the man who was sent to hold the Strafeburg for me," said Karl
sternly, "and who handed it over to the mob rather than risk your skin."

"I did not yield to fear," retorted the Captain, turning almost savagely on
his sovereign. "I yielded to an even more odious thing—passion. The
Princess pleaded with me, balancing her woman's grace against my loyalty.
I could face the fury of the multitude, but I succumbed to the blandishments
of a wanton!"

The word drew an exclamation of surprise and indignation from

Saunders.

"And you had your reward!" he said with a sneer.

 "Aye, I have had my reward," was the bitter answer. "Love such as mine
always has its reward. I learned who it was upon whom the fickle Gloria
had bestowed her worthless heart. Who was it, do you think? A nobleman, a
great soldier, a Prince? No! She was conducting a guilty intrigue with the
schweinhund Trafford—the man who betrayed his party by immuring the
enemy in a spikeless Eisenmädchen.

"Yes, that's true enough," said Karl. "The schweinhund Trafford, as you
call him, possesses some rudimentary ideas of humanity, despite his absurd
predilection for anarchy. I may remember that when my time comes."

"It was an act of folly and weakness," said the Captain recklessly, "an
act of treachery to the side he had espoused. As soon as I heard of it I
hastened to Bernhardt's chambers with the news."

"And he said?" asked Karl.

"He said he loved and hated you," replied the Captain.

Karl nodded thoughtfully.

"I believe that expresses his mental attitude towards me very well," he
said.

"It was the mad paradox of an absintheur," Von Hügelweiler

interrupted. "He was half drunk and wholly dangerous, and I left him. I
roused the people against Trafford, but the scoundrel defended himself
cunningly, and in the end the devil-ridden Bernhardt turned up and rescued
him with a troop of Dragoons."

"And why are you here?" asked General Bilderbaum.

"For one thing, there are two hundred kronen on my head in

Weidenbruck," replied Von Hügelweiler. "That makes the place unhealthy.
Neither do I desire to serve that delightful trinity, the wanton Queen, the
dipsomaniac priest, and the verdomte American."
 "But why come here?" persisted Bilderbaum, growing, if possible, still
redder in the face.

Von Hügelweiler ignored the speaker, and turned to Karl.

"I have no claim on your trust," he said to his late sovereign, "no claim
on your mercy—but my services may be useful. I ask no high command, I
merely crave to be put somewhere in the firing-line, where I can put a bullet
into the heart of the cursed American."

A silence followed this savage request. Then Karl turned to General

Bilderbaum.

"What say you, General?" he asked. "Do you like the look of your new
recruit?"

"No, sire," said the old soldier bluntly. "I have some blackguards in my
command, but no double-dyed traitor such as this."

"What!" Von Hügelweiler's nerves,—never well under control,—were

raw and ragged from his recent bitter experience, and by no means
improved by the forced and hasty journey he had undertaken to Weissheim.
With a cry of rage and indignation he swung round on the plain-spoken old
General, maddened at the insult, and raising his fist as though to avenge it
with a blow. But, as on a previous occasion, the General's wife was near at
hand to protect the sacred person of her lord and master. Boiling with
indignation, she hurled her ample person at the mutinous captain. Von
Hügelweiler gave ground—he would have been a Samson had he not done
so. And he stepped, not on to the snow, not on to the plank that crossed the
run, but on to the surface of the bob-sleigh track itself. He might have
trodden on a cloud or a trembling bog for all the foothold it afforded, and
with a cry he fell, the Frau von Bilderbaum falling heavily and
incontinently on him. Hands were stretched out, but too late. Before the
General could clutch the skirt of his devoted partner, the ill-assorted pair,—
struggling, writhing, uttering noises of wrath and fear,—had commenced
the descent of the "bob" run. Nothing could stop their downward progress.
Swifter and swifter the terrified twain glided, impotent hands clutched at
the frictionless banks, and impotent heels were pressed fiercely and
fruitlessly on to the glassy surface of the track. Down they went, the
Captain struggling and swearing, the woman struggling and bellowing. The
pace grew. They became disengaged. Von Hügelweiler slithered swiftly on
his side, Frau von Bilderbaum rotated slowly in a sitting posture,
descending with ever-growing momentum. Up a banked curve she swung,
fat arms were raised frantically, a roar of pathetic discomfort shook the
frosty air, and the devoted woman disappeared from view round a bend of
the track.

Much of the colour had left General Bilderbaum's face. No one laughed,
for the ludicrous mishap might well be a prelude to a serious, even fatal,
accident. Saunders climbed up a high mound of piled snow, from which the
further bends of the track might be visible.

"There are some men at work lower down sweeping the course," he
said, speaking clearly for all to hear. "They have heard the cries and they
are preparing to stop them. Two have put their brooms across the track—but
the speed is gathering. They have stopped her—no! the impetus was too
great—the sweepers are rolling backwards in the snow. Wait! the pace is
checked—others are helping. They've got her. Now—ah! Hügelweiler's on
the top of them! What a collision! She's up, unhurt! It's all right, General;
your good lady is safe and sound of limb. She's had a shaking, but her
nerves are good, or I'm no judge of physiology. Go down and look after
her."

"Aye, and after Hügelweiler, too," spluttered the veteran. "I've a heavy
reckoning with that young scoundrel that will take some paying, or I'm not
the son of Karl Bilderbaum the Fierce."

"I wonder,"—said Karl, as soon as General Bilderbaum had left to

recover his hapless spouse,—"I wonder whether this man Von Hügelweiler
might not prove a valuable addition to our force. He seems to have the
enemy's discomfiture, if not our interests, very much at heart."

"Where would you put him?" asked Saunders.

"I should put him where David put Uriah the Hittite," said Meyer.
"Where he has himself asked to be put—in the firing line."
 CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

RIVAL INFLUENCES

Von Hügelweiler had spoken true when he said that the expedition had
started against Weissheim. Two days after Trafford had so narrowly escaped
the violence of the Weidenbruck mob the various regiments were entrained
at the great terminus in the Bahnhofstrasse. The sight of men being
despatched to kill their fellow-men always rouses enthusiasm in the human
breast, and there was abundance of flaunting banners, martial melody, and
sounding cheers from the stay-at-homes. And in the rolling of drums and
the reverberation of cheers Gloria herself seemed to have forgotten her
original prejudice against the campaign. And as the engine screeched and
the royal train, decked with the green and yellow bunting of her House,
moved slowly from the station, she felt a Queen going forth to re-conquer a
rebellious province, a just instrument of picturesque vengeance, rather than
the player of the unwelcome role of blood-guilty adventuress. She put her
head out of the window, and bowed and smiled and waved her hand, a thing
of girlish excitement with the minutest appreciation of the underlying
grimness of the situation.

That day they steamed to Eselbruck. At this point the railway was cut.
The great stone viaduct that spanned the deep ravine was a thing of
shattered piers and broken arches, an interesting problem for the engineer,
and an object-lesson in the effective use of detonating cartridges. At this
point, therefore, the units were derailed, a depôt formed, and on the next
morning the whole force,—shod with skis and in full marching order,—set
itself in motion towards Weissheim. During the march Trafford neither saw
nor heard from Gloria. He was not unhappy. The fine air, the healthy
exercise, the splendid uplands through which they were passing, won him to
a mood of strong content. Something had lit a fire in his heart that no wind
of disfavour or adversity could extinguish. He knew that he was a living
man again, moving among creatures of flesh and blood; not a spiritless
mechanism in a world of automata. He had seen, or fancied he had seen, a
spark of human love in the young Queen's heart, and that spark he swore to
kindle into flame by deeds of reckless heroism. And the great energy that
was his birthright,—stimulated to its highest capacity by the bracing air of
the snow-clad passes and the extraordinary beauty of the land,—filled his
spirit with a vast and comforting hopefulness.

In the course of the afternoon he found Bernhardt by his side. Trafford

began to thank him for his rescue from the mob, but Bernhardt interrupted
him.

"I know about your secret marriage," he said, "and though I think it
folly, it is the sort of folly I admire. Von Hügelweiler told me about it. To
the people he told another story,—a less respectable story without ring or
sacrament."

"So I gather. But I can fight calumny as I can fight other enemies of my
Queen."

Bernhardt nodded approvingly.

"They breed men in your country," he said, and then asked: "Are you
tired?"

"It is impossible to be tired in such air," was the reply.

"Ski-running is a new sport to you, and you are in love."

Trafford laughed lightly.

"I am in love with Grimland," he said. "Weidenbruck is a villainous

place; but these gorgeous mountains, with their great, sombre forests and
limitless snow-fields, make up a picture I shall never forget. I should like to
be king of such a country."

"One never knows," said Bernhardt. "A great and striking victory, and
your dream may be realised. But for the present, remember that you are a
soldier, not a consort. Our friend Von Hügelweiler has an evil tongue, and
he has spread cruel slanders about you and the Queen. Evil things win quick
credence in Grimland, and the only way to give them the lie is for you and
Gloria to see nothing of each other at present."

"That is a little rough on a newly-married man."

"Your marriage is nothing. The Grimlander, who is fickleness

personified,—and who would like a change of dynasty once a week,—is
never a Republican. He would not tolerate the idea of his sovereign mating
with a commoner. The only possible chance of such a step being accepted is
for you to do something quite out of the ordinary in this campaign. It will
hardly be wise even then—but we might chance it."

"I believe in fate," said Trafford stubbornly.

"Comfort yourself your own way," said Bernhardt. "I, for my part, wish
you well. There is a dash of the devil about you that wins my best wishes.
But I have no further time to waste discussing your affairs. I am wanted
here, there, and everywhere, and the time is one of war, not of love. Only,
remember my command, my advice if you prefer it; keep your mind fixed
on your military duties, and avoid her gracious Majesty Gloria as you
would the plague."

That night they encamped at Schafers-stadt—a quaint old town lying in

a sunless valley between precipitous hills. Next day they started early,
reaching Wallen, a mountain village within easy striking distance of
Weissheim, shortly after sunset. Here accommodation was somehow found
for the considerable force under Bernhardt's command. Shelter had to be
obtained for all, for to sleep out of doors at such an altitude during the
winter months meant awakening in another world. Food had also to be
provided on a large scale, for the force was what is called a "flying
column"; that is to say, it was proceeding across country in the most direct
line to its objective, and not relying on road or railway for a continuance of
supplies.

The only transport accompanying the force was of a grimmer nature. A

number of pieces of ordnance were being conveyed on flat-bottomed
sleighs, specially constructed for the purpose. And these had to be drawn,
with infinite labour, by men on skis, for the way lay over a countryside
many feet deep in snow, and horses would have been absolutely useless for
such a purpose. Trafford, therefore, was busy on his arrival unearthing
cheeses and loaves, wine-casks and other fascinating objects, from the
cellars of the more or less hospitable Walleners. Whilst so employed he
was, approached by a private of the Guards with a note.

"Come to the big house in the Market Square—the one with the carved
escutcheon over the door—at 6.30, and I will give you dinner.—Gloria R."

"I will write an answer," said Trafford.

"There is no answer, Excellency," said the man, and with a salute he was
gone.

Trafford rubbed his hand thoughtfully up and down the back of his
neck. Bernhardt had been quite definite in his command to him not to see
the Queen, and though the order was little to his liking, he approved its
prudence. But the letter in his hand was also a command, and it came from
a higher source than even Bernhardt's dictum.

Accordingly, at half-past six he presented himself at a big balconied

house in the Market Square. A simple meal was spread for two in the
dining-room,—a low pitched apartment panelled from floor to ceiling in
dark pine, and garnished with a wealth of cumbrous, antique furniture.

He waited alone for a few moments, cheered by a most appetising and

savoury odour of cooking, and then Gloria entered, smiling, cordial,
eminently composed.

"I am so glad you have come," she began.

He took her outstretched hand and kissed it.

 "I am a soldier, and I obey," he said.

"When it pleases you," she laughed. "And I hope it does please you to
dine tête-à-tête with me."

"I can conceive no greater felicity."

"None?"

"None," he answered. "I have the excitement of a military campaign,

my eyes are continually feasted with magnificent scenery, and my lungs
with matchless air. Then, on the top of a day of most exhilarating exercise
comes an invitation from the lady who is my wife on paper, and whom I
have sworn to make my wife in the sight of all men."

Gloria looked him fully in the face and pressed a small hand-bell that
reposed on the table at her side.

"Gaspar," she said to the orderly who had entered, "bring in the dinner.
You know that our friend Bernhardt has forbidden us to meet," Gloria
continued, after a dish of yungfernbraten—roast pork and juniper berries—
had been set before them.

"I know," said Trafford, "and he was right."

"Why?"

Trafford hesitated.

"Von Hügelweiler seems to have coupled our names in an unpleasant

manner," he said at length.

Gloria flushed.

"Then you should not have come," she said.

"You gave me no option. As your husband I might have refused. As

your officer I had to obey."
 "You might have exercised your discretion."

"I might if I had any," he replied. "But I am a most indiscreet man. To-
morrow, so I understand, I am going into action. I may win fame or I may
be shot through the head. As the latter alternative is not unlikely, I am
anxious to spend what may be my last evening on earth with the one
woman whom I really——"

A forcible ring from Gloria interrupted the sentence's conclusion.

"Gaspar, fill this gentleman's glass. As you were remarking, Captain,

Grimland is a very beautiful country."

"It is a very cold country," Trafford growled, plunging his fork into the
steaming viands.

"To-morrow night I shall be sleeping in my ancestral home—the

Marienkastel," Gloria pursued, as the orderly withdrew. "It is a fine old
place, and Karl forfeited it when my father failed to carry out his projects in
1904."

"That is the place you wish me to win back for you?"

"If you will be so kind?"

"And suppose I am killed in the process, will you think kindly of me?"

"Very."

The callousness of the affirmation horrified him.

"I believe you were right when you said you had no heart!" he cried
indignantly.

"That is what I want you to believe," she returned calmly.

"And that if I am killed," he went on bitterly, "you will welcome the

termination of an impossible situation."
 Gloria gave an almost imperceptible shrug.

"You keep harping on death," she protested, "surely you are not afraid?"

He turned fiercely on her, but restrained his voice to a level tone.

"From what you know of me," he asked, "am I the sort of man who is
likely to be afraid?"

"No," she admitted readily. "The night of the revolution you were
heroism personified. Also I have heard of your exploit in Herr Krantz's
wine-shop, and it—it sounded very typical of you."

"Thank you," he said, meeting her gaze; and an instant later, he added:
"There is no such thing as fear in the world for me."

"Why?" she asked.

He answered her question with a reckless bang on the table.

"Because I have lived!" he cried. "If a bullet finds its way to my heart it
will have warm lodging. I am a happy man, and my happiness stands high
above the accidents of life and death. Eternity has no terrors but solitude,
and for me there will never be such a thing as solitude again, because I have
met my second self."

A hand was stretched out towards the bell, but Trafford intercepted it,
and the bell was swept off the table on to the floor.

Gloria rose with flashing eyes.

"I asked you here in a spirit of camaraderie," she said haughtily.

"Because I owe much to you and am conscious of the debt, I risked
angering Bernhardt and smirching my own fair name. But you abuse my
confidence. You know, as I know, that the present is no time for love-
making. And yet——" She stopped abruptly, for Trafford had risen, and,
picking up the bell, he put it on the table before her.

"Ring," he said.
 "Can I not trust you?"

"No!" he retorted. "You gave me the right to love you, not by your
promise to go through the ceremony of marriage with me, not by the
fulfilment of that promise, but by a certain light that shone in your eyes for
a few brief seconds in the chapel of the Neptunburg. I am exercising that
right to-night."

She drew in her breath sharply.

"You said just now that I was heartless," she said.

"That is the usual lover's lie," he retorted; "the reproach that is only
justified by its manifest untruth. But I am a gentleman, as you vaguely
surmise, and I will not persist in an attention which is unwelcome to you. I
came to make an appeal. You have but to command, and I will leave
without another word."

"What is the appeal?"

"Do you wish me to make it?" he countered.

"You have said so much you had best go on."

Trafford drew back the curtain of the mullioned window and gazed at
the shining pageantry of the frosty skies. For a full minute he stood gazing,
and then he dropped the tapestry and faced his royal hostess.

"I said I was content with things as they are," he began, "and to a point
that is so, for they are better than they might have been. But with the eye of
faith I see something nobler than this struggle for a kingdom we have no
right to possess. Something has made me wise these past few days:
something has taught me that the love of excitement can be very cruel, and
that the harrying of a brave man is not necessarily a more elevating sport
than bull-baiting."

"You wish me to abandon this expedition against Karl?"

 "Oh, it is an absurd, impossible demand, I know," he said, "and I don't
ask you for a moment to consider it. There are a hundred reasons why we
should go on, and there is only one reason why we should not; and that
reason does not seem to weigh with you at all. But I am a madman, a
visionary, and, like Bernhardt, I see things. And in my hallucinations I see a
woman who is Queen, not of Grimland, but of an even more delectable
country. And the woman I see has but one subject, and she is content with
him alone, because her sway over him is so paramount."

Gloria stood very, very still. Only her fingers moved as they plucked the
fur trimming of her dress.

"If I asked you to give up Grimland and fly with me to America, would
you do it?" he cried passionately.

"No—but I should like to hear you ask it." A smile, the slowest smile
that ever was, bent the extreme corners of the fascinating lips, and
ultimately broke in a burst of sunshine illuminating the whole face. Its
arrival found him by her side, his hand on her arm, and a look in his eyes
that sought for something with an almost pathetic intensity.

"I do ask you to come to America with me," he said. "Will you come—
come to New York, the great, bright city, where the people do not do the
horrible things they do in Grimland and other out-of-the-way corners of
Europe?" He waited a moment, and then added: "Of course, we shall always
keep this beautiful country in our hearts—a land of rocky spires and
splintered crags, a land of swelling snow-fields and amazingly blue skies; a
land where the air is sweet and keen and pine-laden, and the face of Nature
stands bold and true, crisp-cut from the chisel of the Master-mason."

There was no answer. His hand trembled on her arm like a vibrant note
of interrogation; his eyes strained to catch the light he longed for, the light
he had seen, or fancied he had seen, in the gloom of the Chapel Royal.

"Will you come?" he breathed; and for a pregnant second the world of
things material rolled back from his consciousness, and left him standing
alone in space with his fate. For the strange brain was playing tricks with
him,—as big, uncontrolled brains do with impulsive, ill-balanced people.
His five senses were in abeyance, or warped beyond all present usefulness.
He saw a pair of eyes as points of light in a world of darkness, but all sense
of reality had utterly deserted him. He was as he had been in the Chapel
Royal when his bride had made her hesitating avowal of a half-passion. A
sheet of flame seemed to be passing through his body, a roseate glow
suffused his vision; he never realised that he was uttering a beloved name in
a voice of thunder and grasping a beloved object with no little strength. But
ecstatic entrancements, however subliminal, yield ultimately to rude
physical shocks, and dimly and slowly the world of dreams vanished and he
became conscious that someone was hitting him violently on the back.
Turning round with half-dazed eyes, he found himself confronted with the
stern lineaments of Father Bernhardt. The ex-priest, clad in a military
overcoat and high leggings, and powdered with still unmelted snow, carried
mingled wrath and astonishment in his countenance.

"Sunde und Siechheit!" he cried. "Are you, too, an absintheur, Captain

Trafford?"

For the moment Trafford had not the vaguest idea what an absintheur
might be, but he replied vaguely in the negative.

Bernhardt uttered an oath.

"I called you three times by name," he said, "and I struck you three
times on the back before you would condescend to pay me any attention."

"I apologise," said Trafford; "I was thinking of other things."

"You were in a delirium," retorted Bernhardt. "The fiend of Tobit——"

"Oh, hang the fiend of Tobit!" interrupted Trafford hotly. "I may be a
lunatic, Bernhardt, but I'm a healthy-minded lunatic, if there is such a thing.
I was making love, and we'll leave it at that, if you please, and drop all talk
of delirium and fiends."

"I was finding an excuse for you."

 "I don't need one, thank you." Trafford, as is the way with interrupted
lovers, was in an irritable mood, and being so did not notice that Bernhardt
was really angry.

"Indeed you do!" retorted the ex-priest. "I forbade you expressly to see
the Queen, and I find you dining alone with her, and making violent love to
her in addition."

"I received a command to dine."

"And a command to make love?" sneered Bernhardt.

"That is my affair."

Bernhardt turned from the irate American to the confused Gloria, and
there was little deference in his regard.

"Your Majesty does not value your reputation too highly," he said. "As
long as you play at being a maid it is as well to act like a maid."

"My reputation can look after itself," she retorted with dignity.

"We are five thousand feet above sea level," put in Trafford, "and at
least two thousand above the level of perpetual convention. What was a
wise precaution at Weidenbruck becomes sheer timidity at Wallen. But if
you still think my presence is infectious to the Queen's honour, I will
withdraw. The question I came to ask has been answered, and answered
well."

Bernhardt turned a pair of piercing eyes on the intrepid American.

Trafford met the look without flinching.

"You are a very strange person, Herr Trafford," said the ex-priest
slowly; "you are not afraid of me. I believe you and Saunders are the only
two men in Grimland who are capable of standing up to me in my wrath.
But tell me before you go, what was this question you put and what was its
answer."
 "I asked her Majesty if she wished to continue this expedition against
Karl, and she answered, 'No.'"

"She answered 'No!'" Bernhardt gasped.

"If you do not believe me, ask her yourself."

Again Bernhardt turned to the young Queen.

"Is it true?" he demanded.

Gloria passed her hand across her forehead, as if she was just recovering
from a condition of unconsciousness. When she spoke it was in jerky,
consequent sentences.

"Karl is a brave man; he is not a bad man. It is cruel to harry people—

loyal, brave people. He is the lawful sovereign of Grimland. I don't wish to
cause suffering. I——"

"There speaks a Schattenberg!" interrupted Bernhardt with a mocking

laugh. "The man who killed your father is entrenched within two leagues of
you. Your house, the historic Marienkastel, home of the Schattenbergs for
centuries, is his appanage. You have six thousand men at your back to win
you back your heritage; but the old, heroic fire is burning low, the fierce old
blood is running thin—the Schattenbergs are bred out!"

The man's calculated scorn, his splendid insolence, filled Trafford with
admiration; and it was plain that his caustic speech was not without its
effect on the sensitive Gloria. She seemed to be emerging from a stupor
which still drugged her senses.

"I would like the Marienkastel," she conceded; "it is the home of my
childhood; its walls are very dear to me. It should be mine by right."

"Say rather by might," retorted Bernhardt. "You like the Marienkastel,

but you do not like the withering fire that decimates the storming party. Its
walls are dear to you, but the forlorn hope, the scaling ladders, and the
Welcome to our website – the ideal destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. With a mission to inspire endlessly, we offer a
vast collection of books, ranging from classic literary works to
specialized publications, self-development books, and children's
literature. Each book is a new journey of discovery, expanding
knowledge and enriching the soul of the reade

Our website is not just a platform for buying books, but a bridge
connecting readers to the timeless values of culture and wisdom. With
an elegant, user-friendly interface and an intelligent search system,
we are committed to providing a quick and convenient shopping
experience. Additionally, our special promotions and home delivery
services ensure that you save time and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Let us accompany you on the journey of exploring knowledge and

personal growth!

textbookfull.com