Vienna, sometime around 1680: Augustin makes fun of Leopold I mistress and in doing so, stirs up the passions of the people against the luxury-enjoying rulers, who neglect their people. He is arrested and sent to prison. When the plague breaks out, he manages to get out of prison, but accidentally ends up in a mass grave for victims of the plague
This is the war and everybody in Germany should beware : the enemy is listening. One family in particular had better be even more careful than the average citizen of the Reich : the Kettwigs. Indeed they own an armament factory and their engineers, technicians, workers and of course themselves belong to a highly sensitive sector. They are under the constant scrutiny of those who want to get hold of the secret weapons devised in the plant, notably of a wire which, when attached to a balloon, may become the most effective anti-aircraft ever. For sure, they should distrust everybody. Isn't Nolte, the waiter, an enemy agent? Should young Bernd Kettwig allow himself to be seduced by this pretty woman ? As for Bernd's secretary, is she right when she lets this handsome man woo her?
Viktoria is a Hungarian countess who believes her Hussar captain husband was killed in World War I. She marries an American and resettles at the American consulate in Tokyo. Her first husband reappears, alive; and the American generously releases Viktoria from their union.
"The Secret Power" - Hardly anyone who strays into the emigrant's restaurant "Strange Bird" would suspect that the porter once was a general, the waiter a prince and the cook an admiral, and that the lady at the bar is actually the princess Sinaide forced was leaving their home.
As Madsen and Maud explore the city of Ophir, they witness an ancient ritual performed by the residents. The two are discovered, and with strangers desecrating the city's sacred ground, Maud is to be sacrificed to the goddess Ophirs, while Madsen is taken to the Sabytes, an enslaved native tribe.
Through the plan hidden in Astarte's jewelry, Maud Gregaards, Kien-Lung and Consul Madsen get on the trail of the Queen of Sheba's treasure. Their search takes them to Africa, where they want to know from King Makombe the location of the Fire Mountain, near which the legendary city of Ophir, the center of the Astarte cult, is said to be.
Together with Kien-Lung and the Consul Madsen, Maud travels to Kuan-Fu to learn from the old rabbi where the treasures of the Queen of Sheba are hidden. The dying rabbi entrusts Madsen with the jewelery of Astarte, who carries the plan for the treasure's hiding place.
Maud Gregaards tells her rescuer, the Chinese Dr. Kien-Lung, her life: Her father was an archivist in the Foreign Office who was run by the unscrupulous Dr. Frohner was blackmailed into giving him a secret Chinese treaty.
Maud Gregaards travels to China in search of a fabled treasure said to have belonged to the Queen of Sheba. Once there, she is taken captive by an evil man and nearly killed in the belief she is a witch.
After the Jewish Mordecai refuses to bow down to Haman, the king's minister, Haman plots to have all of the Jewish population of the kingdom killed. Mordecai places his hopes on his young and beautiful ward Esther to save their people by ingratiating herself with the king.