Chapter 9

MUTTERINGS OF STORM

Before Joan's carriage had traveled a hundred yards it was halted by a loud command. An officer, galloping at the head of a detachment of cavalry, sought news of the King, and an escorted vehicle coming from the upper end of Fürst Michaelstrasse promised developments. Joan was startled back into consciousness by the sudden stoppage. The excited babble going on without was incomprehensible and therefore alarming, nor did the polite assurances of the officer, as he bent in the saddle and peered in at the window while he aired his best French, serve to still this fresh tumult in her veins.

"What is he saying?" she asked Felix, turning her frightened eyes from the urbane personage on horseback to Poluski's intent face.

"He was sent to rescue the King," was the explanation. "He says the bodyguard received warning less than two minutes ago."

"Tell him the King is safe now."

"Oh, he knows that already. What puzzled him is the fact that the troops at the War Ministry, which lies beyond the President's house, should have reached there before him."

"What does it matter, since help came in time? Please bid the coachman go on. I--I would like to be the first to let Princess Delgrado know that her son has escaped from those horrid men. Who were they? Why should they want to kill Alec?"

Felix did not obey her bequest instantly. He exchanged some hasty words with the strange officer, who chanced to be Drakovitch, and answered Joan's questions only when the cab resumed its journey. "Have you forgotten the part played by the Seventh Regiment in the recent history of Delgratz?" he cried.

"I remember something about them. Alec disbanded them. Oh--they were the soldiers who revolted and murdered the late King and Queen."

"Exactly. Do women ever read the newspapers intelligently, I wonder? You state a most remarkable fact, considering that this is Delgratz and your future capital, as coolly as if it had happened in Kamchatka."

"But still I do not understand why they should turn against Alec. I have at least sufficient intelligence to recall the avowed object of their crime,--the restoration of the Delgrado line."

Felix smiled. If Joan was able to defend herself, she was certainly making a rapid recovery. "That is a mere hazy recollection of their afterthought. Of all despotisms, save me from a military one, and soldiers who slay Kings are the worst of despots. If there were no Kings, there would be few soldiers, Joan. Put that valuable truism away among the other wise saws that govern your life. You will appreciate its truth, and the even greater truth of its converse, when you are a Queen. But soldiers are stupid creatures, obviously so, since killing is no argument, or the word philosopher would mean a man armed with a bludgeon. If they do away with a tyrant and elect his successor, they are apt to acquire the habit. Soldiers are meant to obey, not to rule, and these Kosnovian Kingmakers were not patriots but cutthroats."

Joan buried her face in her hands. The thought came unbidden that in some inexplicable way she shared with the infamous Seventh Regiment a large measure of responsibility for Alec's dangerous kingship.

"Mademoiselle is ill. Why trouble her with your silly chatter?" demanded Pauline angrily.

"Eh, what the deuce? My name isn't Balaam," retorted Felix.

"Nor am I a donkey, monsieur. If it wasn't for you, miladi would now be happy in her little apartment in the Place de la Sorbonne. I keep my ears open, me!"

"I said nothing about your ears, Madame Pauline," tittered Felix.

The Frenchwoman's homely features reddened, and a vitriolic reply was only half averted by the lurching of the carriage through a gateway. Joan looked out, and her eyes were moist.

"I possess two good friends in Delgratz, and I hope they will not quarrel on my account," she said, with a piteous smile that silenced the woman. Poluski's mouth twisted.

"We are not quarreling, my belle," he cried. "Pauline thinks I brought you here, whereas your presence is clearly an act of Providence. Being a modest person, I naturally protested."

If Joan was not utterly bewildered by the whirligig of events, and more than ever unnerved now at the near prospect of meeting Prince and Princess Delgrado in the perhaps unwelcome guise of their son's affianced wife, she would certainly have discovered that Felix was saying the first thing that came uppermost in his mind. The outcome must have been a quick mental review of the day's incidents in order to hit upon the special item he was trying to conceal, though it is probable that no girl of Joan's candid nature would ever guess the suspicion rapidly maturing to a settled belief in the Pole's acute brain.

For Captain Drakovitch, the officer who led the bodyguard in their belated ride to the King's aid, had told him that a waiter, John Sobieski by name, had arrived breathless at the President's house many minutes before the actual alarm was given. Sobieski had sobbed out some incoherent words about the King, and the Seventh Regiment; but Prince Michael, who was in the courtyard, snapped up the man immediately, bidding him hold his tongue, and hurrying him inside the building. Once there, Sobieski became more confused than ever. Prince Michael obviously regarded him as a crazy rumor-monger until Nesimir appeared. The latter, by reason of his local knowledge, instantly appreciated the true significance of an attack on the King in a crowded thoroughfare by a gang whom Sobieski was sure he had identified correctly.

Nevertheless, precious time had been consumed by the elder Delgrado's interference. The President acted with promptitude; but the outcome was clear. If it had not been for Bosko, the King must have fallen.

"Gods!" vowed Drakovitch in his emphatic story to Felix, "there were we lounging about smoking cigarettes while his Majesty was in a fair way to be cut in pieces! A nice state of affairs! If some one had not warned Stampoff, we might have been too late!"

"Better not mention it in public," was Poluski's advice. "The mere notion of the resultant disaster would make Prince Michael seriously