he Nineteenth (grandfather of the Twenty-First, the Phantom of our day) was known as the strongest of all the Phantoms. His son, the Twentieth, recalled seeing his father lift a horse and carry it across a brook.
In 1908, the Nineteenth went to Castle Vacul in Carpatia, at the request of the descendants of the Count of Carpatia. A previous Phantom (the Seventeenth) had marked the castle with his Good Mark in 1875, so the Nineteenth was bound by honor to make good his promise of protection.
The Count had been murdered by a brigand named Black Boris,