PART III

KRAVONIA

I

THE NAME-DAY OF THE KING

The ancient city of Slavna, for a thousand years or more and under many dynasties the capital of Kravonia, is an island set in a plain. It lies in the broad valley of the Krath, which at this point flows due east. Immediately above the city the river divides into two branches, known as the North and the South rivers; Slavna is clasped in the embrace of these channels. Conditioned by their course, its form is not circular, but pear-shaped, for they bend out in gradual broad curves to their greatest distance from one another, reapproaching quickly after that point is passed till they meet again at the end--or, rather, what was originally the end--of the city to the east; the single reunited river may stand for the stalk of the pear.

In old days the position was a strong one; nowadays it is obviously much less defensible; and those in power had recognized this fact in two ways--first by allocating money for a new and scientific system of fortifications; secondly by destroying almost entirely the ancient and out-of-date walls which had once been the protection of the city. Part of the wall on the north side, indeed, still stood, but where it had escaped ruin it was encumbered and built over with warehouses and wharves; for the North River is the channel of commerce and the medium of trade with the country round about. To the south the wall has been entirely demolished, its site being occupied by a boulevard, onto which faces a line of handsome modern residences--for as the North River is for trade, so the South is for pleasure--and this boulevard has been carried across the stream and on beyond the old limits of the city, and runs for a mile or farther on the right bank of the reunited Krath, forming a delightful and well-shaded promenade where the citizens are accustomed to take their various forms of exercise.

Opposite to it, on the left bank, lies the park attached to the Palace. That building itself, dating from 1820 and regrettably typical of the style of its period, faces the river on the left bank just where the stream takes a broad sweep to the south, giving a rounded margin to the King's pleasure-grounds. Below the Palace there soon comes open country on both banks. The boulevard merges in the main post-road to Volseni and to the mountains which form the eastern frontier of the kingdom. At this date, and for a considerable number of years afterwards, the only railway line in Kravonia did not follow the course of the Krath (which itself afforded facilities for traffic and intercourse), but ran down from the north, having its terminus on the left bank of the North River, whence a carriage-bridge gave access to the city.

To vote money is one thing, to raise it another, and to spend it on the designated objects a third. Not a stone nor a sod of the new forts was yet in place, and Slavna's solitary defence was the ancient castle which stood on the left bank of the river just at the point of bisection, facing the casino and botanical gardens on the opposite bank. Suleiman's Tower, a relic of Turkish rule, is built on a simple plan--a square curtain, with a bastion at each corner, encloses a massive circular tower. The gate faces the North River, and a bridge, which admits of being raised and lowered, connects this outwork with the north wall of the city, which at this point is in good preservation. The fort is roomy; two or three hundred men could find quarters there; and although it is, under modern conditions, of little use against an enemy from without, it occupies a position of considerable strength with regard to the city itself. It formed at this time the headquarters and residence of the Commandant of the garrison, a post held by the heir to the throne, the Prince of Slavna.

In spite of the flatness of the surrounding country, the appearance of Slavna is not unpicturesque. Time and the hand of man (the people are a color-loving race) have given many tints, soft and bright, to the roofs, gables, and walls of the old quarter in the north town, over which Suleiman's Tower broods with an antique impressiveness. Behind the pleasant residences which border on the southern boulevard lie handsome streets of commercial buildings and shops, these last again glowing with diversified and gaudy colors. In the centre of the city, where, but for its bisection, we may imagine the Krath would have run, a pretty little canal has been made by abstracting water from the river and conducting it through the streets. On either side of this stream a broad road runs. Almost exactly midway through the city the roads broaden and open into the spacious Square of St. Michael, containing the cathedral, the fine old city hall, several good town-houses dating two or three hundred years back, barracks, and the modern but not unsightly Government offices. Through this square and the streets leading to it from west and east there now runs an excellent service of electric cars; but at the date with which we are concerned a crazy fiacre or a crazier omnibus was the only public means of conveyance. Not a few good private equipages were, however, to be seen, for the Kravonians have been from of old lovers of horses. The city has a population bordering on a hundred thousand, and, besides being the principal depot and centre of distribution for a rich pastoral and agricultural country, it transacts a respectable export trade in hides and timber. It was possible for a careful man to grow rich in Slavna, even though he were not a politician nor a Government official.

Two or three years earlier, an enterprising Frenchman of the name of Rousseau had determined to provide Slavna with a first-rate modern hotel and _café_. Nothing could have consorted better with the views of King Alexis Stefanovitch, and Monsieur Rousseau obtained, on very favorable terms, a large site at the southeast end of the city, just where the North and South rivers reunite. Here he built his hostelry and named it _pietatis causâ_, the Hôtel de Paris. A fine terrace ran along the front of the house, abutting on the boulevard and affording a pleasant view of the royal park and the Palace in the distance on the opposite bank.

On this terrace, it being a fine October morning, sat Sophy, drinking a cup of chocolate.

The scene before her, if not quite living up to the name of the hotel, was yet animated enough. A score of handsome carriages drove by, some containing gayly dressed ladies, some officers in smart uniforms. Other officers rode or walked by; civil functionaries, journalists, and a straggling line of onlookers swelled the stream which set towards the Palace. Awaking from a reverie to mark the unwonted stir, Sophy saw the leaders of the informal procession crossing the ornamental iron bridge which spanned the Krath, a quarter of a mile from where she sat, and gave access to the King's demesne on the left bank.

"Right bank--left bank! It sounds like home!" she thought to herself, smiling perhaps rather bitterly. "Home!" Her home now was a single room over a goldsmith's shop, whither she had removed to relieve Marie Zerkovitch from a hospitality too burdensome, as Sophy feared, for her existing resources to sustain.

The reverie bore breaking; it had been none too pleasant; in it sad memories disputed place with present difficulties. Some third or so remained of Lady Meg's hundred-pound note. Necessity had forced a use of the money at any cost to pride. When all was gone, Sophy would have to depend on what is so often a last and so often a vain refuge--the teaching of French; it was the only subject which she could claim to teach. Verily, it was a poor prospect; it was better to look at the officers and the ladies than to think of it--ay, better than to think of Casimir and of what lay in the past. With her strong will she strove to steel herself alike against recollection and against apprehension.

The _café_ was nearly deserted; the hour was too early for the citizens, and Sophy's own chocolate had been merely an excuse to sit down. Yet presently a young officer in a hussar uniform stopped his horse opposite the door, and, giving over the reins to an orderly who attended him, nimbly dismounted. Tall and fair, with a pleasant, open face, he wore his finery with a dashing air, and caressed a delicate, upturned mustache as he glanced round, choosing his seat. The next moment he advanced towards Sophy; giving her a polite salute, he indicated the little table next to hers.

"Mademoiselle permits?" he asked. "She has, I fear, forgotten, but I have the honor to be an acquaintance of hers."

"I remember," smiled Sophy. "Captain Markart? We met at Madame Zerkovitch's."

"Oh, that's pleasant of you!" he cried. "I hate being clean forgotten. But I fear you remember me only because I sang so badly!"

"I remember best that you said you wanted to go and help France, but your General wouldn't let you."

"Ah, I know why you remember that--you especially! Forgive me--our friend Marie Zerkovitch told me." He turned away for a moment to give an order to the waiter.

"What's going on to-day?" asked Sophy. "Where's everybody going?"

"Why, you are a stranger, mademoiselle!" he laughed. "It's the King's name-day, and we all go and congratulate him."

"Is that it? Are you going?"

"Certainly; in attendance on my General--General Stenovics. My lodgings are near here, his house at the other end of the boulevard, so he gave me leave to meet him here. I thought I would come early and fortify myself a little for the ordeal. To mademoiselle's good health!" He looked at her with openly admiring eyes, to which tribute Sophy accorded a lazy, unembarrassed smile. She leaned her chin on her hand, turning her right cheek towards him. Sophy was never disdainful, never neglectful; her pose now was good.

"What sort of a man is the King?" she asked.

"The King is most emphatically a very good sort of fellow--a very good old fellow. I only wish his son was like him! The Prince is a Tartar. Has he gone by yet?"

"I don't think so. I suppose he'd have an escort, wouldn't he? I don't know him by sight yet. Does everybody call the King a good fellow?"

"Some people are so extremely righteous!" pleaded Markart, ruefully. "And, anyhow, he has reformed now."

"Because he's old?"

"Fifty-nine! Is that so very old? No; I rather attribute it--you're discreet, I hope? I'm putting my fortunes in your hands--to Madame la Comtesse."

"The Countess Ellenburg? Marie has told me something about her."

"Ah! Madame Zerkovitch is a friend of hers?"

"Not intimate, I think. And is the Countess oppressively respectable, Captain Markart?"

"Women in her position always are," said the Captain, with an affected sigh: his round, chubby face was wrinkled with merriment. "You see, a morganatic marriage isn't such a well-established institution here as in some other countries. Oh, it's legal enough, no doubt, if it's agreed to on that basis. But the Stefanovitches have in the past often made non-royal marriages--with their own subjects generally. Well, there was nobody else for them to marry! Alexis got promotion in his first marriage--an Italian Bourbon, which is always respectable, if not very brilliant. That gave us a position, and it couldn't be thrown away. So the second marriage had to be morganatic. Only--well, women are ambitious, and she has a young son who bears the King's name--a boy twelve years old."

He looked reflectively at his polished boots. Sophy sat in thoughtful silence. A jingle of swords and the clatter of hoofs roused them. A troop of soldiers rode by. Their uniform was the same smart tunic of light blue, with black facings, as adorned Captain Markart's shapely person.

"Ah, here's the Prince!" said Markart, rising briskly to his feet. Sophy followed his example, though more in curiosity than respect.

The young man at the head of the troop returned Markart's salute, but was apparently unconscious of the individual from whom it proceeded. He rode by without turning his head or giving a glance in the direction of the _café_ terrace. Sophy saw a refined profile, with a straight nose, rather short, and a pale cheek: there was little trace of the Bourbon side of the pedigree.

"He's on his promotion, too," continued the loquacious and irreverent Captain, as he resumed his seat. "They want a big fish for him--something German, with a resounding name. Poor fellow!"

"Well, it's his duty," said Sophy.

"Somebody who'll keep the Countess in order, eh?" smiled Markart, twirling his mustache. "That's about the size of it, I expect, though naturally the General doesn't show me his hand. I only tell you common gossip."

"I think you hardly do yourself justice. You've been very interesting, Captain Markart."

"I tell you what," he said, with an engaging candor, "I believe that somehow the General makes me chatter just to the extent he wants me to, and then stops me. I don't know how he does it; it's quite unconscious on my part. I seem to say just what I like!"

They laughed together over this puzzle. "You mean General Stenovics?" asked Sophy.

"Yes, General Stenovics. Ah, here he is!" He sprang up again and made a low bow to Sophy. "Au revoir, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks!"

He saluted her and hurried to the side of the pavement. General Stenovics rode up, with two orderlies behind him. Saluting again, Markart mounted his horse. The General brought his to a stand and waited the necessary moment or two with a good-humored smile. His eye wandered from the young officer to the presumable cause of his lack of vigilance. Sophy felt the glance rest on her face. In her turn she saw a stout, stumpy figure, clad in a rather ugly dark-green uniform, and a heavy, olive-tinted face adorned with a black mustache and a stubbly gray beard. General Stenovics, President of the Council of Ministers, was not an imposing personage to the outward view. But Sophy returned the regard of his prominent pale-blue eyes (which sorted oddly with the complexion of his face) with vivid attention. The General rode on, Markart following, but turning in his saddle to salute once more and to wave his hand in friendly farewell.

For the first time since her arrival in Slavna, Sophy was conscious of a stir of excitement. Life had been dull and heavy; the mind had enjoyed little food save the diet of sad memories. To-day she seemed to be brought into sight of living interests again. They were far off, but they were there; Markart's talk had made a link between them and her. She sat on for a long while, watching the junction of the streams and the broad current which flowed onward past the Palace, on its long journey to the sea. Then she rose with a sigh; the time drew near for a French lesson. Marie Zerkovitch had already got her two pupils.

When General Stenovics had ridden three or four hundred yards, he beckoned his aide-de-camp and secretary--for Markart's functions were both military and civil--to his side.

"We're last of all, I suppose?" he asked.

"Pretty nearly, sir."

"That must be his Royal Highness just crossing the bridge?"

"Yes, sir, that's his escort."

"Ah, well, we shall just do it! And who, pray"--the General turned round to his companion--"is that remarkable-looking young woman you've managed to pick up?"

Markart told what he knew of Mademoiselle de Gruche; it was not much.

"A friend of the Zerkovitches? That's good. A nice fellow, Zerkovitch--and his wife's quite charming. And your friend--?"

"I can hardly call her that, General."

"Tut, tut! You're irresistible, I know. Your friend--what did you tell her?"

"Nothing, on my honor." The young man colored and looked a trifle alarmed. But Stenovics's manner was one of friendly amusement.

"For an example of your 'nothing,'" he went on, "you told her that the King was an amiable man?"

"Oh, possibly, General."

"That the Countess was a little--just a little--too scrupulous?"

"It was nothing, surely, to say that?"

"That we all wanted the Prince to marry?"

"I made only the most general reference to that, sir."

"That--" he looked harder at his young friend--"the Prince is not popular with the army?"

"On my honor, no!"

"Think, think, Markart."

Markart searched his memory; under interrogation it accused him; his face grew rueful.

"I did wish he was more like his Majesty. I--I did say he was a Tartar."

Stenovics chuckled in apparent satisfaction at his own perspicacity. But his only comment was: "Then your remarkably handsome young friend knows something about us already. You're an admirable cicerone to a stranger, Markart."

"I hope you're not annoyed, sir. I--I didn't tell any secrets?"

"Certainly not, Markart. Three bits of gossip and one lie don't make up a secret between them. Come, we must get along."

Markart's face cleared; but he observed that the General did not tell him which was the lie.

This day Sophy began the diary; the first entry is dated that afternoon. Her prescience--or presentiment--was not at fault. From to-day events moved fast, and she was strangely caught up in the revolutions of the wheel.

II

AT THE GOLDEN LION

It was the evening of the King's name-day. There was a banquet at the Palace, and the lights in its windows twinkled in sympathetic response to the illuminations which blazed on the public buildings and principal residences of Slavna. Everywhere feasting and revelry filled the night. The restaurant of the Hôtel de Paris was crowded, every seat on its terrace occupied; the old Inn of the Golden Lion, opposite the barracks in the Square of St. Michael, a favorite resort of the officers of the garrison, did a trade no less good; humbler hostelries were full of private soldiers, and the streets themselves of revellers male and female, military and civil, honest and dishonest, drunk and sober. Slavna had given itself up to a frolic; for, first, a _fête_ is a _fête_, no matter what its origin; secondly, King Alexis was the most popular man in his dominions, though he never did a decent day's work for them; lastly, there is often no better way to show how much you hate one man than by making a disproportionate fuss about another. It was well understood that by thus honoring King Alexis, its Monarch, by thus vociferously and untiringly wishing him the longest of reigns, Slavna was giving a stinging back-hander to Prince Sergius, its titular Prince and Commandant. You would see the difference when the Prince's day came round! When General Stenovics pointed to the lights gleaming across the Krath from the Palace windows and congratulated his Royal Highness on the splendid popularity of the reigning House, the Prince's smile may well have been ironical.

"I shall go and see all this merriment for myself at close quarters presently, General," said he. "I think the Commandant had best return to the city to-night as early as the King will allow."

"An admirable devotion to duty, sir," answered the General gravely, and without any effort to dissuade the zealous Prince.

But even in this gay city there was one spot of gloom, one place where sullen rancor had not been ousted by malicious merriment. The first company of his Majesty's Guards was confined to its barracks in the Square of St. Michael by order of the Commandant of Slavna; this by reason of high military misdemeanors--slackness when on duty, rioting and drunkenness when on leave; nor were the officers any better than the men. "You are men of war in the streets, men of peace in the ranks," said the Commandant to them that morning in issuing his decree. "You shall have a quiet evening to think over your short-comings." The order was reported to the King; he sighed, smiled, shook his head, said that, after all, discipline must be vindicated, and looked at his son with mingled admiration and pity. Such a faculty for making himself, other people, and things in general uncomfortable! But, of course, discipline! The Commandant looked stern, and his father ventured on no opposition or appeal. General Stenovics offered no remonstrance either, although he had good friends in the offending company. "He must do as he likes--so long as he's Commandant," he said to Markart.

"May I go and see them and cheer them up a bit, sir, instead of coming with you to the Palace?" asked that good-natured young man.

"If his Royal Highness gives you leave, certainly," agreed the General.

The Commandant liked Markart. "Yes--and tell them what fools they are," he said, with a smile.

Markart found the imprisoned officers at wine after their dinner; the men had resigned themselves to fate and gone to bed. Markart delivered his message with his usual urbane simplicity. Lieutenant Rastatz giggled uneasily--he had a high falsetto laugh. Lieutenant Sterkoff frowned peevishly. Captain Mistitch rapped out a vicious oath and brought his great fist down on the table. "The evening isn't finished yet," he said. "But for this cursed fellow I should have been dining with Vera at the Hôtel de Paris to-night!"

Whereupon proper condolences were offered to their Captain by his subalterns, who, in fact, held him in no small degree of fear. He was a huge fellow, six feet three and broad as a door; a great bruiser and a duellist of fame; his nickname was Hercules. His florid face was flushed now with hot anger, and he drank his wine in big gulps.

"How long are we to stand it?" he growled. "Are we school-girls?"

"Come, come, it's only for one evening," pleaded Markart. "One quiet evening won't hurt even Captain Hercules!"

The subalterns backed him with a laugh, but Mistitch would have none of it. He sat glowering and drinking still, not to be soothed and decidedly dangerous. From across the square came the sound of music and singing from the Golden Lion. Again Mistitch banged the table.

"Listen there!" he said. "That's pleasant hearing while we're shut up like rats in a trap--and all Slavna laughing at us!"

Markart shrugged his shoulders and smoked in silence; to argue with the man was to court a quarrel; he began to repent of his well-meant visit. Mistitch drained his glass.

"But some of us have a bit of spirit left, and so Master Sergius shall see," he went on. He put out a great hand on either side and caught Sterkoff and Rastatz by their wrists. "We're the fellows to show him!" he cried.

Sterkoff seemed no bad choice for such an enterprise--a wiry, active fellow, with a determined, if disagreeable, face, and a nasty squint in his right eye. But Rastatz, with his slim figure, weak mouth, and high laugh, promised no great help; yet in him fear of Mistitch might overcome all other fear.

"Yes, we three'll show him! And now"--he rose to his feet, dragging the pair up with him--"for a song and a bottle at the Golden Lion!"

Rastatz gasped, even Sterkoff started. Markart laughed: it could be nothing more than a mad joke. Cashiering was the least punishment which would await the act.

"Yes, we three together!" He released them for a moment and caught up his sword and cap. Then he seized Rastatz's wrist again and squeezed it savagely. "Come out of your trap with me, you rat!" he growled, in savage amusement at the young man's frightened face.

Sterkoff gained courage. "I'm with you, Hercules!" he cried. "I'm for to-night--the devil take to-morrow morning!"

"You're all drunk," said Markart, in despairing resignation.

"We'll be drunker before the night's out," snarled Mistitch. "And if I meet that fellow when I'm drunk, God help him!" He laughed loudly. "Then there might be a chance for young Alexis, after all!"

The words alarmed Markart. Young Count Alexis was the King's son by Countess Ellenburg. A chance for young Alexis!

"For Heaven's sake, go to bed!" he implored.

Mistitch turned on him. "I don't want to quarrel with anybody in Slavna to-night, unless I meet one man. But you can't stop me, Markart, and you'll only do mischief by trying. Now, my boys!"

They were with him--Sterkoff with a gleam in his squinting eye, Rastatz with a forced, uneasy giggle and shaking knees. Mistitch clapped them on the back.

"Another bottle apiece and we'll all be heroes!" he cried. "Markart, you go home to your mamma!"

Though given in no friendly way, this advice was wise beneath its metaphor. But Markart did not at once obey it. He had no more authority than power to interfere; Mistitch was his senior officer, and he had no special orders to act. But he followed the three in a fascinated interest, and with the hope that a very brief proof of his freedom would content the Captain. Out from the barracks the three marched. The sentry at the gate presented arms, but tried to bar their progress. With a guffaw and a mighty push Mistitch sent him sprawling. "The Commandant wants us, you fool!" he cried--and the three were in the square.

"What the devil will come of this business?" thought Markart, as he followed them over the little bridge which spanned the canal, and thence to the door of the Golden Lion. Behind them still he passed the seats on the pavement and entered the great saloon. As Mistitch and his companions came in, three-fourths of the company sprang to their feet and returned the salute of the new-comers; so strongly military in composition was the company--officers on one side of a six-feet-high glass screen which cut the room in two, sergeants and their inferiors on the other. A moment's silence succeeded the salute. Then a young officer cried: "The King has interfered?" It did not occur to anybody that the Commandant might have changed his mind and reversed his decree; for good or evil, they knew him too well to think of that.

"The King interfered?" Mistitch echoed, in his sonorous, rolling, thick voice. "No; we've interfered ourselves, and walked out! Does any one object?"

He glared a challenge round. There were officers present of superior rank--they drank their beer or wine discreetly. The juniors broke into a ringing cheer; it was taken up and echoed back from behind the glass screen, to which a hundred faces were in an instant glued, over which, here and there, the head of some soldier more than common tall suddenly projected.

"A table here!" cried Mistitch. "And champagne! Quick! Sit down, my boys!"

A strange silence followed the impulsive cheers. Men were thinking. Cheers first, thoughts afterwards, was the order in Slavna as in many other cities. Now they recognized the nature of this thing, the fateful change from sullen obedience to open defiance. Was it only a drunken frolic--or, besides that, was it a summons to each man to choose his side? Choosing his side might well mean staking his life.

A girl in a low-necked dress and short petticoats began a song from a raised platform at the end of the room. She was popular, and the song a favorite. Nobody seemed to listen; when she ended, nobody applauded. Mistitch had been whispering with Sterkoff, Rastatz sitting silent, tugging his slender, fair mustache. But none of the three had omitted to pay their duty to the bottle; even Rastatz's chalky face bore a patch of red on either cheek. Mistitch rose from his chair, glass in hand.

"Long life to the King!" he shouted. "That's loyal, isn't it? Ay, immortal life!"

The cheers broke out again, mingled with laughter. A voice cried: "Hard on his heir, Captain Hercules!"

"Ay!" Mistitch roared back. "Hard as he is on us, my friend!"

Another burst of cheering--and again that conscience-smitten silence.

Markart had found a seat, near the door and a good way from the redoubtable Mistitch and his companions. He looked at his watch--it was nearly ten; in half an hour General Stenovics would be leaving the Palace, and it was meet that he should know of all this as soon as possible. Markart made up his mind that he would slip away soon; but still the interest of the scene, the fascination of this prelude--such it seemed to him--held his steps bound.

Suddenly a young man of aristocratic appearance rose from a table at the end of the room, where he had been seated in company with a pretty and smartly dressed girl. A graceful gesture excused him to his fair companion, and he threaded his way deftly between the jostling tables to where Mistitch sat. He wore Court dress and a decoration. Markart recognized in the young man Baron von Hollbrandt, junior Secretary of the German Legation in Slavna.

Hollbrandt bowed to Mistitch, with whom he was acquainted, then bent over the giant's burly back and whispered in his ear.

"Take a friend's advice, Captain," he said. "I've been at the Palace, and I know the Prince had permission to withdraw at half-past nine. He was to return to Slavna then--to duty. Come, go back. You've had your spree."

"By the Lord, I'm obliged to you!" cried Mistitch. "Lads, we're obliged to Baron von Hollbrandt! Could you tell me the street he means to come by? Because"--he rose to his feet again--"we'll go and meet him!"

Half the hall heard him, and the speech was soon passed on to any out of hearing. A sparse cheer sputtered here and there, but most were silent. Rastatz gasped again, while Sterkoff frowned and squinted villanously. Hollbrandt whispered once more, then stood erect, shrugged his shoulders, bowed, and walked back to his pretty friend. He sat down and squeezed her hand in apology; the pair broke into laughter a moment later. Baron von Hollbrandt felt that he at least had done his duty.

The three had drunk and drunk; Rastatz was silly, Sterkoff vicious, the giant Mistitch jovially and cruelly reckless, exalted not only by liquor but with the sense of the part he played. Suddenly from behind the glass screen rose a mighty roar:

"Long live Mistitch! Down with tyrants! Long live Captain Hercules!"

It was fuel to the flames. Mistitch drained his glass and hurled it on the floor.

"Well, who follows me?" he cried.

Half the men started to their feet; the other half pulled them down. Contending currents of feeling ran through the crowd; a man was reckless this moment, timid the next; to one his neighbor gave warning, to another instigation. They seemed poised on the point of a great decision. Yet what was it they were deciding? They could not tell.

Markart suddenly forgot his caution. He rushed to Mistitch, with his hands out and "For God's sake!" loud on his lips.

"You!" cried Mistitch. "By Heaven! what else does your General want? What else does Matthias Stenovics want? Tell me that!"

A silence followed--of dread suspense. Men looked at one another in fear and doubt. Was that true which Mistitch said? They felt as ordinary men feel when the edge of the curtain is lifted from before high schemes or on intrigues of the great.

"If I should meet the Prince to-night, wouldn't there be news for Stenovics?" cried Mistitch, with a roar of laughter.

If he should meet the Prince! The men at the tables could not make up their minds to that. Mistitch they admired and feared, but they feared the proud Prince, too; they had many of them felt the weight of his anger. Those who had stood up sank back in their places. One pot-bellied fellow raised a shout of hysterical laughter round him by rubbing his fat face with a napkin and calling out: "I should like just one minute to think about that meeting, Captain Hercules!"

Markart had shrunk back, but Mistitch hurled a taunt at him and at all the throng.

"You're curs, one and all! But I'll put a heart in you yet! And now"--he burst into a new guffaw--"my young friends and I are going for a walk. What, aren't the streets of Slavna free to gentlemen? My friends and I are going for a walk. If we meet anybody on the pavement--well, he must take to the road. We're going for a walk."

Amid a dead silence he went out, his two henchmen after him. He and Sterkoff walked firm and true--Rastatz lurched in his gait. A thousand eyes followed their exit, and from five hundred throats went up a long sigh of relief that they were gone. But what had they gone to do? The company decided that it was just as well for them, whether collectively or as individuals, not to know too much about that. Let it be hoped that the cool air outside would have a sobering effect and send them home to bed! Yet from behind the glass screen there soon arose again a busy murmur of voices, like the hum of a beehive threatened with danger.

"A diplomatic career is really full of interest, ma chère," observed Baron von Hollbrandt to his fair companion. "It would be difficult to see anything so dramatic in Berlin!"

His friend's pretty blue eyes lit up with an eager intensity as she took the cigarette from between her lips. Her voice was full of joyful excitement:

"Yes, it's to death between that big Mistitch and the Prince--the blood of one or both of them, you'll see!"

"You are too deliciously Kravonian," said Hollbrandt, with a laugh.

Outside, big Mistitch had crossed the canal and come to the corner where the Street of the Fountain opens on to St. Michael's Square. "What say you to a call at the Hôtel de Paris, lads?" he said.

"Hist!" Sterkoff whispered. "Do you hear that step--coming up the street there?"

The illuminations burned still in the Square and sent a path of light down the narrow street. The three stopped and turned their heads. Sterkoff pointed. Mistitch looked--and smacked his ponderous thigh.

III

THE VIRGIN WITH THE LAMP

Whatever Marie Zerkovitch's feelings might be, Fate had its hand on her and turned her to its uses. It was she who had directed Sophy's steps to the old house ten doors down the Street of the Fountain from St. Michael's Square. It was no more than half a mile from her own villa on the south boulevard (from which the Street ran to the Square), and she had long known the decent old couple--German Jews--who lived and carried on their trade in the house over whose front hung the sign of the Silver Cock. The face of the building was covered with carved timbers of great age; the door of the shop stood far back within a black and ancient porch. Behind the shop were a couple of rooms where Meyerstein and his wife lived; above it one large room, with a window which jutted far out over the narrow street. In this room, which was reached by a separate door in the left side of the porch and a crazy flight of a dozen winding stairs, lived Sophy, and thence she sallied out daily to give her lessons to her two pupils.

By the window she sat on the night of the King's name-day, on a low chair. The heavy figure of a girl carrying a lamp--a specimen of her landlord's superfluous stock--stood unemployed on the window-sill. The room was dark, for the path of light from the illuminations, which made the roadway below white, threw hardly a gleam on to its sombre walls; but Sophy had no need of a lamp and every need to save her money. She sat in the gloom, busy in thought, the fresh evening air breathing soft and cool on her brow from the open window.

Swift to build on slenderest foundations, avid to pile imagination on imagination till the unsubstantial structure reached the skies, her mind was at work to-night. The life and stir, the heat and tumult, of the city, were fuel to her dreams. Chances and happenings were all about her; they seemed to lie, like the water for Tantalus, just beyond the reach of her finger-tips; her eyes pierced to the vision of them through the dusky blackness of the ancient room. In response to the confused yet clamorous cry of the life around her, her spirit awoke. Dead were the dear dead; but Sophy was alive. But to be a starving French mistress at Slavna--was that a chance? Yes, a better than being cook-maid at Morpingham; and even in the kitchen at Morpingham Fortune had found her and played with her awhile. For such frolics and such favor, however fickle, however hazardous, Sophy Grouch of Morpingham was ever ready. Dunstanbury had come to Morpingham--and Lady Meg. Paris had brought the sweet hours and the gracious memory of Casimir de Savres. Should Slavna lag behind? Who would come now? Ever the highest for Sophy Grouch! The vision of the royal escort and its pale young leader flashed in the darkness before her eagerly attendant eyes.

Suddenly she raised her head. There was a wild, quick volley of cheering; it came from the Golden Lion, whose lights across the Square a sideways craning of her neck enabled her to see. Then there was silence for minutes. Again the sound broke forth, and with it confused shoutings of a name she could not make out. Yes--what was it? Mistitch--Mistitch! That was her first hearing of the name.

Silence fell again, and she sank back into her chair. The lights, the stir, the revelry were not for her, nor the cheers nor the shouts. A moment of reaction and lassitude came on her, a moment when the present, the actual, lapped her round with its dim, muddy flood of vulgar necessity and sordid needs. With a sob she bowed her head to meet her hands--a sob that moaned a famine of life, of light, of love. "Go back to your scullery, Sophy Grouch!" What voice had said that? She sprang to her feet with fists clinched, and whispered to the darkness: "No!"

In the street below, Mistitch slapped his thigh.

Sophy pushed her hair back from her heated forehead and looked out of the window. To the right, some twenty yards away and just at the end of the street, she saw the figures of three men. In the middle was one who bulked like a young Falstaff--Falstaff with his paunch not grown; he was flanked by two lean fellows who looked small beside him. She could not see the faces plainly, since the light from the Square was behind them. They seemed to be standing there and looking past the sign of the Silver Cock along the street.

A measured, military footfall sounded on her left. Turning her head, she saw a young man walking with head bent down and arms behind him. The line of light struck full on him, he was plain to see as by broadest day. He wore a costume strange to her eyes--a black sheepskin cap, a sheepskin tunic, leather breeches, and high, unpolished boots--a rough, plain dress; yet a broad, red ribbon crossed it, and a star glittered on the breast; the only weapon was a short, curved scimitar. It was the ancient costume of the Bailiff of Volseni, the head of that clan of shepherds who pastured their flocks on the uplands. The Prince of Slavna held the venerable office, and had been to Court in the dress appropriate to it. He had refused to use his carriage, sending his aides-de-camp home in it, and walked now through the streets of the city which he had in charge. It was constantly his habit thus to walk; his friends praised his vigilance; his foes reviled his prowling, spying tricks; of neither blame nor praise did he take heed.

Sophy did not know the dress, but the face she knew; it had been but lately before her dreaming eyes; she had seen it in the flesh that morning from the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris.

The three came on from her right, one of the lean men hanging back, lurking a little behind. They were under her window now. The Prince was but a few yards away. Suddenly he looked up with a start--he had become aware of their approach. But before he saw them the three had melted to one. With a shrill cry of consternation--of uneasy courage oozing out--Rastatz turned and fled back to the Square, heading at his top speed for the Golden Lion. In the end he was unequal to the encounter. Sterkoff, too, disappeared; but Sophy knew the meaning of that; he had slipped into the shelter of the porch. Her faculties were alert now; she would not forget where Sterkoff was! Mistitch stood alone in the centre of the narrow street, his huge frame barely leaving room for a man to pass on either side.

For a moment the Prince stood still, looking at the giant. Incredulity had seemed to show first in his eyes; it changed now to a cold anger as he recognized the Captain. He stepped briskly forward, and Sophy heard his clear, incisive tones cut the air:

"What extraordinary emergency has compelled you to disobey my orders, Captain Mistitch?"

"I wanted a breath of fresh air," Mistitch answered, in an easy, insolent tone.

The Prince looked again; he seemed even more disgusted than angry now. He thought Mistitch drunk--more drunk than in truth he was.

"Return to barracks at once and report yourself under stringent arrest. I will deal with you to-morrow."

"And not to-night, Sergius Stefanovitch?" At least he was being as good as his word, he was acting up to the vaunts he had thrown out so boldly in the great hall of the Golden Lion.

"To-morrow we shall both be cooler." He was almost up to Mistitch now. "Stand out of my way, sir."

Mistitch did not budge. "There's room for you to pass by," he said. "I won't hurt you. But the middle of the road belongs to me to-night."

His voice seemed to grow clearer with every word; the critical encounter was sobering him. Yet with sobriety came no diminution of defiance. Doubtless he saw that he was in for the worst now, that forward was the word, and retreat impossible. Probably from this moment he did not intend the Prince to pass alive. Well, what he intended was the wish of many; he would not lack shelter, friends, or partisans if he dared the desperate venture. Be it said for him that there were few things he did not dare. He dared now, growing sober, to stand by what the fumes of wine had fired his tongue to.

For a moment after the big man's taunt the Prince stood motionless. Then he drew his scimitar. It looked a poor, weak weapon against the sword which sprang in answer from Mistitch's scabbard.

"A duel between gentlemen!" the Captain cried.

The Prince gave a short laugh. "You shall have no such plea at the court-martial," he said. "Gentlemen don't waylay one another in the streets. Stand aside!"

Mistitch laughed, and in an instant the Prince sprang at him. Sophy heard the blades meet. Strong as death was the fascination for her eyes--ay, for her ears, too, for she heard the quick-moving feet and the quicker breathing of a mortal combat. But she would not look--she tried not even to listen. Her eyes were for a man she could not see, her ears for a man she could not hear. She remembered the lean fellow hidden in the porch, straight under her window. She dared not call to warn the Prince of him; a turn of the head, a moment of inattention, would cost either combatant his life. She took the man in the porch for her own adversary, his undoing for her share in the fight.

Very cautiously, making no sound, she took the heavy lamp--the massive bronze figure of the girl--raised it painfully in both her hands, and poised it half-way over the window-sill. Then she turned her eyes down again to watch the mouth of the porch. Her rat was in that hole! Yet suddenly the Prince came into her view; he circled half-way round Mistitch, then sank on one knee; she heard him guard the Captain's lunges with lightning-quick movements of his nimble scimitar. He was trying the old trick they had practised for hundreds of years at Volseni--to follow his parry with an upward-ripping stroke under the adversary's sword, to strike the inner side of his forearm and cut the tendons of the wrist. This trick big Captain Mistitch, a man of the plains, did not know.

A jangle--a slither--a bellow of pain, of rage! The Prince had made his stroke, the hill-men of Volseni were justified of their pupil. Mistitch's big sword clattered on the flags. Facing his enemy, with his back to the porch, the Prince crouched motionless on his knee; but it was death to Mistitch to try to reach the sword with his unmaimed hand.

It was Sophy's minute; the message that it had come ran fierce through all her veins. Straining to the weight, she raised the figure in her hands and leaned out of the window. Yes, a lean hand with a long knife, a narrow head, a spare, long back, crept out of the darkness of the porch--crept silently. The body drew itself together for a fatal spring on the unconscious Prince, for a fatal thrust. It would be death--and to Mistitch salvation torn from the jaws of ruin.

"Surrender yourself, Captain Mistitch," said the Prince.

Mistitch's eyes went by his conqueror and saw a shadow on the path beside the porch.

"I surrender, sir," he said.

"Then walk before me to the barracks." Mistitch did not turn. "At once, sir!"

"Now!" Mistitch roared.

The crouching figure sprang--and with a hideous cry fell stricken on the flags. Just below the neck, full on the spine, had crashed the Virgin with the lamp. Sterkoff lay very still, save that his fingers scratched the flags. Turning, the Prince saw a bronze figure at his feet, a bronze figure holding a broken lamp. Looking up, he saw dimly a woman's white face at a window.

Then the street was on a sudden full of men. Rastatz had burst into the Golden Lion, all undone--nerves, courage, almost senses gone. He could stammer no more than: "They'll fight!" and could not say who. But he had gone out with Mistitch--and whom had they gone to meet?

A dozen officers were round him in an instant, crying: "Where? Where?" He broke into frightened sobs, hiding his face in his hands. It was Max von Hollbrandt who made him speak. Forgetting his pretty friend, he sprang in among the officers, caught Rastatz by the throat, and put a revolver to his head. "Where? In ten seconds--where?" Terror beat terror. "The Street of the Fountain--by the Silver Cock!" the cur stammered, and fell to his blubbering again.

The dozen officers, and more, were across the Square almost before he had finished; Max von Hollbrandt, with half the now lessened company in the inn, was hot on their heels.

For that night all was at an end. Sterkoff was picked up, unconscious now. Sullen, but never cringing, Mistitch was marched off to the guard-room and the surgeon's ministrations. Every soldier was ordered to his quarters, the townsfolk slunk off to their homes. The street grew empty, the glare of the illuminations was quenched. But of all this Sophy saw nothing. She had sunk down in her chair by the window, and lay there, save for her tumultuous breathing, still as death.

The Commandant had no fear, and would have his way. He stood alone now in the street, looking from the dark splash of Mistitch's blood to the Virgin with her broken lamp, and up to the window of the Silver Cock, whence had come salvation.

IV

THE MESSAGE OF THE NIGHT

The last of the transparencies died out; the dim and infrequent oil-lamps alone lit up the Street of the Fountain and St. Michael's Square. They revelled still down at the Hôtel de Paris, whither Max von Hollbrandt and a dozen others had hurried with the news of the evening's great event. But here, on the borders of the old north quarter, all grew still--the Golden Lion empty, the townsmen to their beds, the soldiers to barracks, full of talk and fears and threats. Yet a light burned still in the round room in the keep of Suleiman's Tower, and the Commandant's servant still expected his royal master. Peter Vassip, a sturdy son of Volseni, had no apprehensions--but he was very sleepy, and he and the sentries were the only men awake. "One might as well be a soldier at once!" he grumbled--for the men of the hills did not esteem the Regular Army so high as it rated itself.

The Commandant lingered in the Street of the Fountain. Sergius Stefanovitch was half a Bourbon, but it was the intellectual half. He had the strong, concentrated, rather narrow mind of a Bourbon of before the family decadence; on it his training at Vienna had grafted a military precision, perhaps a pedantry, and no little added scorn of what men called liberty and citizens called civil rights. What rights had a man against his country? His country was in his King--and to the King the Army was his supreme instrument. So ran his public creed, his statesman's instinct. But beside the Bourbon mother was the Kravonian father, and behind him the long line of mingled and vacillating fortunes which drew descent from Stefan, Lord of Praslok, and famous reiver of lowland herds. In that stock the temperament was different: indolent to excess sometimes, ardent to madness at others, moderate seldom. When the blood ran hot, it ran a veritable fire in the veins.

And for any young man the fight in the fantastically illuminated night, the Virgin with the broken lamp, a near touch of the scythe of death, and a girl's white face at the window? Behind the Commandant's stern wrath--nay, beside--and soon before it--for the moment dazzling his angry eyes--came the bright gleams of romance.

He knew who lodged at the sign of the Silver Cock. Marie Zerkovitch was his friend, Zerkovitch his zealous follower. The journalist was back now from the battle-fields of France and was writing articles for _The Patriot_, a leading paper of Slavna. He was deep in the Prince's confidence, and his little house on the south boulevard often received this distinguished guest. The Prince had been keen to hear from Zerkovitch of the battles, from Marie of the life in Paris; with Marie's tale came the name, and what she knew of the story, of Sophie de Gruche. Yet always, in spite of her praises of her friend, Marie had avoided any opportunity of presenting her to the Prince. Excuse on excuse she made, for his curiosity ranged round Casimir de Savres's bereaved lover. "Oh, I shall meet her some day all the same," he had said, laughing; and Marie doubted whether her reluctance--a reluctance to herself strange--had not missed its mark, inflaming an interest which it had meant to balk. Why this strange reluctance? So far it was proved baseless. His first encounter with the Lady of the Red Star--Casimir's poetical sobriquet had passed Marie's lips--had been supremely fortunate.

From the splash of blood to the broken Virgin, from the broken Virgin to the open window and the dark room behind, his restless glances sped. Then came swift, impulsive decision. He caught up the bronze figure and entered the porch. He knew Meyerstein's shop, and that from it no staircase led to the upper floor. The other door was his mark, and he knocked on it, raising first with a cautious touch, then more resolutely, the old brass hand with hospitably beckoning finger which served for knocker. Then he listened for a footstep on the stairs. If she came not, the venturesome night went ungraced by its crowning adventure. He must kiss the hand that saved him before he slept.

The door opened softly. In the deep shadow of the porch, on the winding, windowless staircase of the old house, it was pitch dark. He felt a hand put in his and heard a low voice saying: "Come, Monseigneur." From first to last, both in speech and in writing, she called him by that title and by none other. Without a word he followed her, picking his steps, till they reached her room. She led him to the chair by the window; the darkness was somewhat less dense there. He stood by the chair.

"The lamp's broken--and there's only one match in the box!" said Sophy, with a low laugh. "Shall we use it now--or when you go, Monseigneur?"

"Light it now. My memory, rather than my imagination!"

She struck the match; her face came upon him white in the darkness, with the mark on her cheek a dull red; but her eyes glittered. The match flared and died down.

"It is enough. I shall remember."

"Did I kill him?"

"I don't know whether he's killed--he's badly hurt. This lady here is pretty heavy."

"Give her to me. I'll put her in her place." She took the figure and set it again on the window-sill. "And the big man who attacked you?"

"Mistitch? He'll be shot."

"Yes," she agreed with calm, unquestioning emphasis.

"You know what you did to-night?"

"I had the sense to think of the man in the porch."

"You saved my life."

Sophy gave a laugh of triumph. "What will Marie Zerkovitch say to that?"

"She's my friend, too, and she's told me all about you. But she didn't want us to meet."

"She thinks I bring bad luck."

"She'll have to renounce that heresy now." He felt for the chair and sat down, Sophy leaning against the window-sill.

"Why did they attack you?"

He told her of the special grudge which Mistitch and his company had against him, and added: "But they all hate me, except my own fellows from Volseni. I have a hundred of them in Suleiman's Tower, and they're stanch enough."

"Why do they hate you?"

"Oh, I'm their school-master--and a very strict one, I suppose. Or, if you like, the pruning-knife--and that's not popular with the rotten twigs."

"There are many rotten twigs?"

She heard his hands fall on the wooden arms of the chair and pictured his look of despair. "All--almost all. It's not their fault. What can you expect? They're encouraged to laziness and to riot. They have no good rifles. The city is left defenceless. I have no big guns." He broke suddenly into a low laugh. "There--that's what Zerkovitch calls my fixed idea; he declares it's written on my heart--big guns!"

"If you had them, you'd be--master?"

"I could make some attempt at a defence anyhow; at least we could cover a retreat to the hills, if war came." He paused. "And in peace--yes, I should be master of Slavna. I'd bring men from Volseni to serve the guns." His voice had grown vindictive. "Stenovics knows that, I think." He roused himself again and spoke to her earnestly. "Listen. This fellow Mistitch is a great hero with the soldiers and the mob. When I have him shot, as I shall--not on my own account, I could have killed him to-night, but for the sake of discipline--there will very likely be a disturbance. What you did to-night will be all over the city by to-morrow morning. If you see any signs of disturbance, if any people gather round here, go to Zerkovitch's at once--or, if that's not possible or safe, come to me in Suleiman's Tower, and I'll send for Marie Zerkovitch too. Will you promise? You must run no risk."

"I'll come if I'm afraid."

"Or if you ought to be?" he insisted, laughing again.

"Well, then--or if I ought to be," she promised, joining in his laugh. "But the King--isn't he with you?"

"My father likes me; we're good friends. But 'like father, unlike son' they say of the Stefanovitches. I'm a martinet, they tell me; well, he--isn't. Nero fiddled--you remember? The King goes fishing. He's remarkably fond of fishing, and his advisers don't discourage him. I tell you all this because you're committed to our side now."

"Yes, I'm committed to your side. Who else is with you?"

"In Slavna? Nobody! Well, the Zerkovitches, and my hundred in Suleiman's Tower. And perhaps some old men who have seen war. But at Volseni and among the hills they're with me." Again he seemed to muse as he reviewed his scanty forces.

"I wish we had another match. I want to see your face close," said Sophy. He rose with a laugh and leaned his head forward to the window. "Oh no; you're nothing but a blur still!" she exclaimed impatiently.

Yet, though Sophy sighed for light, the darkness had its glamour. To each the other's presence, seeming in some sense impalpable, seemed also diffused through the room and all around; the world besides was non-existent since unseen; they two alone lived and moved and spoke in the dead silence and the blackness. An agitation stirred Sophy's heart--forerunner of the coming storm. That night she had given him life; he seemed to be giving back life to her life that night. How should the hour not seem pregnant with destiny, a herald of the march of Fate?

But suddenly the Prince awoke from his reverie--perhaps from a dream. To Sophy he gave the impression--as he was to give it more than once again--of a man pulling himself up, tightening the rein, drawing back into himself. He stood erect, his words became more formal, and his voice restrained.

"I linger too long," he said. "My duty lies at the Tower yonder. I've thanked you badly; but what thanks can a man give for his life? We shall meet again--I'll arrange that with Marie Zerkovitch. You'll remember what I've told you to do in case of danger? You'll act on it?"

"Yes, Monseigneur."

He sought her hand, kissed it, and then groped his way to the stairs. Sophy followed and went with him down to the porch.

"Be careful to lock your door," he enjoined her, "and don't go out to-morrow unless the streets are quite quiet."

"Oh, but I've a French lesson to give at ten o'clock," she remonstrated with a smile.

"You have to do that?"

"I have to make my living, Monseigneur."

"Ah, yes," he said, meditatively. "Well, slip out quietly--and wear a veil."

"Nobody knows my face."

"Wear a veil. People notice a face like yours. Again thanks, and good-night."

Sophy peeped out from the porch and watched his quick, soldierly march up the street to St. Michael's Square. The night had lightened a little, and she could make out his figure, although dimly, until he turned the corner and was lost to sight. She lingered for a moment before turning to go back to her room--lingered musing on the evening's history.

Down the street, from the Square, there came a woman--young or old, pretty or ugly, fine dame or drudge, it was too dark to tell. But it was a woman, and she wept as though her heart were broken. For whom and for what did she weep like that? Was she mother, or wife, or sweetheart? Perhaps she wept for Sterkoff, who lay in peril of death. Perhaps she loved big Mistitch, over whom hovered the shadow of swift and relentless doom. Or maybe her sorrow was remote from all that touched them or touched the girl who listened to her sobs--the bitter sobs which she did not seek to check, which filled the night with a dirge of immeasurable sadness. In the darkness, and to Sophy's ignorance of anything individual about her, the woman was like a picture or a sculpture--some type or monument of human woe--a figure of embodied sorrow, crying that all joy ends in tears--in tears--in tears.

She went by, not seeing her watcher. The sound of her sobbing softened with distance, till it died down to a faint, far-off moan. Sophy herself gave one choked sob. Then fell the silence of the night again. Was that its last message--the last comment on what had passed? Tears--and then silence? Was that the end?

Sophy never learned aught of the woman--who she was or why she wept. But her memory retained the vision. It had come as the last impression of a night no moment of which could ever be forgotten. What had it to say of all the rest of the night's happenings? Sophy's exaltation fell from her; but her courage stood--against darkness, solitude, and the unutterable sadness of that forlorn wailing. Dauntlessly she looked forward and upward still, yet with a new insight for the cost.

So for Sophy passed the name-day of King Alexis.

V

A QUESTION OF MEMORY

King Alexis was minded that all proper recognition should be made of Sophy's service to his family. It had been her fortune to protect a life very precious in his eyes. Alien from his son in temperament and pursuits, he had, none the less, considerable affection for him. But there was more than this. With the Prince was bound up the one strong feeling of a nature otherwise easy and careless. The King might go fishing on most lawful days, but it was always a Stefanovitch who fished--a prince who had married a princess of a great house, and had felt able to offer Countess Ellenburg no more than a morganatic union. The work his marriage had begun his son's was to complete. The royal house of Kravonia was still on its promotion; it lay with the Prince to make its rank acknowledged and secure.

Thus Sophy's action loomed large in the King's eyes, and he was indolently indifferent to the view taken of it in the barrack-rooms and the drinking-shops of Slavna. Two days after Mistitch's attempt, he received Sophy at the Palace with every circumstance of compliment. The Prince was not present--he made military duty an excuse--but Countess Ellenburg and her little son were in the room, and General Stenovics, with Markart in attendance, stood beside the King's chair.

Sophy saw a tall, handsome, elderly man with thick, iron-gray hair, most artfully arranged. (The care of it was no small part of the duty of Lepage, the King's French body-servant.) His Majesty's manners were dignified, but not formal. The warmth of greeting which he had prepared for Sophy was evidently increased by the impression her appearance made on him. He thanked her in terms of almost overwhelming gratitude.

"You have preserved the future of my family and of our dynasty," he said.

Countess Ellenburg closed her long, narrow eyes. Everything about her was long and narrow, from her eyes to her views, taking in, on the way, her nose and her chin. Stenovics glanced at her with a smile of uneasy propitiation. It was so particularly important to be gracious just now--gracious both over the preservation of the dynasty and over its preserver.

"No gratitude can be too great for such a service, and no mark of gratitude too high." He glanced round to Markart, and called good-humoredly, "You, Markart there, a chair for this lady!"

Markart got a chair. Stenovics took it from him and himself prepared to offer it to Sophy. But the King rose, took it, and with a low bow presented it to the favored object of his gratitude. Sophy courtesied low, the King waited till she sat. Countess Ellenburg bestowed on her a smile of wintry congratulation.

"But for you, these fellows might--or rather would, I think--have killed my son in their blind drunkenness; it detracts in no way from your service that they did not know whom they were attacking."

There was a moment's silence. Sophy was still nervous in such company; she was also uneasily conscious of a most intense gaze directed at her by General Stenovics. But she spoke out.

"They knew perfectly well, sir," she said.

"They knew the Prince?" he asked sharply. "Why do you say that? It was dark."

"Not in the street, sir. The illuminations lit it up."

"But they were very drunk."

"They may have been drunk, but they knew the Prince. Captain Mistitch called him by his name."

"Stenovics!" The King's voice was full of surprise and question as he turned to his Minister. The General was surprised, too, but very suave.

"I can only say that I hear Mademoiselle de Gruche's words with astonishment. Our accounts are not consistent with what she says. We don't, of course, lay too much stress on the protestations of the two prisoners, but Lieutenant Rastatz is clear that the street was decidedly dark, and that they all three believed the man they encountered to be Colonel Stafnitz of the Hussars. That officer much resembles his Royal Highness in height and figure. In the dark the difference of uniform would not be noticed--especially by men in their condition." He addressed Sophy: "Mistitch had an old quarrel with Stafnitz; that's the true origin of the affair." He turned to the King again. "That is Rastatz's story, sir, as well as Mistitch's own--though Mistitch is, of course, quite aware that his most unseemly, and indeed criminal, talk at the Golden Lion seriously prejudices his case. But we have no reason to distrust Rastatz."

"Lieutenant Rastatz ran away only because he was afraid," Sophy remarked.

"He ran to bring help, mademoiselle," Stenovics corrected her, with a look of gentle reproach. "You were naturally excited," he went on. "Isn't it possible that your memory has played you a trick? Think carefully. Two men's lives may depend on it."

"I heard Captain Mistitch call the Prince 'Sergius Stefanovitch,'" said Sophy.

"This lady will be a most important witness," observed the King.

"Very, sir," Stenovics assented dryly.

Sophy had grown eager. "Doesn't the Prince say they knew him?"

"His Royal Highness hasn't been asked for any account at present," Stenovics answered.

"If they knew who it was, they must die," said the King in evident concern and excitement.

Stenovics contented himself with a bow of obedience. The King rose and gave Sophy his hand.

"We shall hope to see you again soon," he said, very graciously. "Meanwhile, General Stenovics has something to say to you in my name which will, I trust, prove agreeable to you." His eyes dwelt on her face for a moment as she took her leave.

Stenovics made his communication later in the day, paying Sophy the high compliment of a personal call at the sign of the Silver Cock for that purpose. His manner was most cordial. Sophy was to receive an honorary appointment in the Royal Household at an annual salary of ten thousand paras, or some four hundred pounds.

"It isn't riches--we aren't very rich in Kravonia--but it will, I hope, make you comfortable and relieve you from the tiresome lessons which Markart tells me you're now burdened with."

Sophy was duly grateful, and asked what her appointment was.

"It's purely honorary," he smiled. "You are to be Keeper of the Tapestries."

"I know nothing about tapestries," said Sophy, "but I dare say I can learn; it'll be very interesting."

Stenovics leaned back in his chair with an amused smile.

"There aren't any tapestries," he said. "They were sold a good many years ago."

"Then why do you keep a--"

"When you're older in the royal service, you'll see that it's convenient to have a few sinecures," he told her, with a good-humored laugh. "See how handy this one is now!"

"But I shall feel rather an impostor."

"Merely the novelty of it," he assured her consolingly.

Sophy began to laugh, and the General joined in heartily. "Well, that's settled," said he. "You make three or four appearances at Court, and nothing more will be necessary. I hope you like your appointment?"

Sophy laughed delightedly. "It's charming--and very amusing," she said. "I'm getting very much interested in your country, General."

"My country is returning your kind compliment, I can assure you," he replied. His tone had grown dry, and he seemed to be watching her now. She waved her hands towards the Virgin with the lamp: the massive figure stood in its old place by the window.

"What a lot I owe to her!" she cried.

"We all owe much," said Stenovics.

"The Prince thought some people might be angry with me--because Captain Mistitch is a favorite."

"Very possible, I'm afraid, very possible. But in this world we must do our duty, and--"

"Risk the consequences? Yes!"

"If we can't control them, Mademoiselle de Gruche." He paused a moment, and then went on: "The court-martial on Mistitch is convened for Saturday. Sterkoff won't be well enough to be tried for another two or three weeks."

"I'm glad he's not dead, though if he recovers only to be shot--! Still, I'm glad I didn't kill him."

"Not by your hand," said Stenovics.

"But you mean in effect? Well, I'm not ashamed. Surely they deserve death."

"Undoubtedly--if Rastatz is wrong--and your memory right."

"The Prince's own story?"

"He isn't committed to any story yet."

Sophy rested her chin on her hand, and regarded her companion closely. He did not avoid her glance.

"You're wondering what I mean?--what I'm after?" he asked her, smiling quietly. "Oh yes, I see you are. Go on wondering, thinking, watching things about you for a day or two--there are three days between now and Saturday. You'll see me again before Saturday--and I've no doubt you'll see the Prince."

"If Rastatz were right--and my memory wrong--?"

He smiled still. "The offence against discipline would be so much less serious. The Prince is a disciplinarian. To speak with all respect, he forgets sometimes that discipline is, in the last analysis, only a part of policy--a means, not an end. The end is always the safety and tranquillity of the State." He spoke with weighty emphasis.

"The offence against discipline! An attempt to assassinate--!"

"I see you cling to your own memory--you won't have anything to say to Rastatz!" He rose and bowed over her hand. "Much may happen between now and Saturday. Look about you, watch, and think!"

The General's final injunction, at least, Sophy lost no time in obeying; and on the slightest thought three things were obvious: the King was very grateful to her; Stenovics wished at any rate to appear very grateful to her; and, for some reason or another, Stenovics wished her memory to be wrong, to the end that the life of Mistitch and his companion (the greater included the less) might be spared. Why did he wish that?

Presumably--his words about the relation of discipline to policy supported the conclusion--to avoid that disturbance which the Prince had forecasted as the result of Mistitch's being put to death. But the Prince was not afraid of the disturbance--why should Stenovics be? The Commandant was all confidence--was the Minister afraid? In some sense he was afraid. That she accepted. But she hesitated to believe that he was afraid in the common sense that he was either lacking in nerve or overburdened with humanity, that he either feared fighting or would shrink from a salutary severity in repressing tumult. If he feared, he feared neither for his own skin nor for the skin of others; he feared for his policy or his ambition.

These things were nothing to her; she was for the Prince, for his policy and his ambition. Were they the same as Stenovics's? Even a novice at the game could see that this by no means followed of necessity. The King was elderly, and went a-fishing. The Prince was young, and a martinet. In age, Stenovics was between the two--nearly twenty years younger than the King, a dozen or so older than the Prince. Under the present régime he had matters almost entirely his own way. At first sight there was, of a certainty, no reason why his ambitions should coincide precisely with those of the Prince. Fifty-nine, forty-one, twenty-eight--the ages of the three men in themselves illuminated the situation--that is, if forty-one could manage fifty-nine, but had no such power over twenty-eight.

New to such meditations, yet with a native pleasure in them, taking to the troubled waters as though born a swimmer, Sophy thought, and watched, and looked about. As to her own part she was clear. Whether Rastatz was right--whether that most vivid and indelible memory of hers was wrong--were questions which awaited the sole determination of the Prince of Slavna.

Her attitude would have been unchanged, but her knowledge much increased, could she have been present at a certain meeting on the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris that same evening. Markart was there--and little Rastatz, whose timely flight and accommodating memory rendered him to-day not only a free man but a personage of value. But neither did more than wait on the words of the third member of the party--that Colonel Stafnitz of the Hussars who had an old feud with Mistitch, for whom Mistitch had mistaken the Prince of Slavna. A most magnanimous, forgiving gentleman, apparently, this spare, slim-built man with thoughtful eyes; his whole concern was to get Mistitch out of the mess! The feud he seemed to remember not at all; it was a feud of convenience, a feud to swear to at the court-martial. He was as ready to accommodate Stenovics with the use of his name as Rastatz was to offer the requisite modifications of his memory. But there--with that supply of a convenient fiction--his pliability stopped. He spoke to Markart, using him as a conduit-pipe--the words would flow through to General Stenovics.

"If the General doesn't want to see me now--and I can understand that he mustn't be caught confabbing with any supposed parties to the affair--you must make it plain to him how matters stand. Somehow and by some means our dear Hercules must be saved. Hercules is an ass; but so are most of the men--and all the rowdies of Slavna. They love their Hercules, and they won't let him die without a fight--and a very big fight. In that fight what might happen to his Royal Highness the Commandant? And if anything did happen to him, what might happen to General Stenovics? I don't know that either, but it seems to me that he'd be in an awkward place. The King wouldn't be pleased with him; and we here in Slavna--are we going to trouble ourselves about the man who couldn't save our Hercules?"

Round-faced Markart nodded in a perplexed fashion. Stafnitz clapped him on the shoulder with a laugh.

"For Heaven's sake don't think about it or you'll get it all mixed! Just try to remember it. Your only business is to report what I say to the General."

Rastatz sniggered shrilly. When the wine was not in him, he was a cunning little rogue--a useful tool in any matter which did not ask for courage.

"If I'd been here, Mistitch wouldn't have done the thing at all--or done it better. But what's done is done. And we expect the General to stand by us. If he won't, we must act for ourselves--for there'll be no bearing our dear Commandant if we sit down under the death of Mistitch. In short, the men won't stand it." He tapped Markart's arm. "The General must release unto us Barabbas!"

The man's easy self-confidence, his air of authority, surprised neither of his companions. If there were a good soldier besides the Commandant in Slavna, Stafnitz was the man; if there were a head in Kravonia cooler than Stenovics's, it was on the shoulders of Stafnitz. He was the brain to Mistitch's body--the mind behind Captain Hercules's loud voice and brawny fist.

"Tell him not to play his big stake on a bad hand. Mind you tell him that."

"His big stake, Colonel?" asked Markart. "What do I understand by that?"

"Nothing; and you weren't meant to. But tell Stenovics--he'll understand."

Rastatz laughed his rickety giggle again.

"Rastatz does that to make you think he understands better than you do. Be comforted--he doesn't." Rastatz's laugh broke out again, but now forced and uneasy. "And the girl who knocked Sterkoff out of time--I wish she'd killed the stupid brute--what about her, Markart?"

"She's--er--a very remarkable person, Colonel."

"Er--is she? I must make her acquaintance. Good-bye, Markart."

Markart had meant to stay for half an hour, but he went.

"Good-bye, Rastatz."

Rastatz had just ordered another _liqueur_; but, without waiting to drink it, he too went. Stafnitz sat on alone, smoking his cigar. There were no signs of care on his face. Though not gay, it was calm and smooth; no wrinkles witnessed to worry, nor marred the comely remains of youth which had survived his five and thirty years.

He finished his cigar, drank his coffee, and rose to go. Then he looked carefully round the terrace, distinguished the prettiest woman with a momentarily lingering look, made his salute to a brother officer, and strolled away along the boulevard.

Before he reached the barracks in St. Michael's Square he met a woman whose figure pleased him; she was tall and lithe, moving with a free grace. But over her face she wore a thick veil. The veil no doubt annoyed him; but he was to have other opportunities of seeing Sophy's face.

VI

"IMPOSSIBLE" OR "IMMEDIATE"?

Stenovics was indeed in a quandary. Mistitch had precipitated an unwelcome and premature crisis. The Minister's deliberate, slow-moving game was brought to a sudden issue which he was not ready to face. It had been an essential feature--a governing rule--of his campaign to avoid any open conflict with the Prince of Slavna until an occasion arose on which both the army and the King would be on his side. The King was a power not merely by reason of his cheaply won popularity, but also because he was, while he lived, the only man who could crown Stenovics's operations with the consummation to which the Minister and his ally, Countess Ellenburg, looked forward with distant yet sanguine hope. The army was with him now, but the other factor was lacking. The King's pride, as well as his affection, was enlisted in his son's interest. Moreover, this occasion was very bad.

Mistitch was no better than an assassin; to take up arms on his behalf was to fight in a cause plainly disgraceful--one which would make success very difficult and smirch it forever and beyond remedy, even if it came. It was no cause in which to fight both Prince and King. That would be playing the big stake on a bad hand--as Stafnitz put it.

Yet the alternative? Stafnitz, again, had put that clearly. The army would have no more to do with the man who could not help it at the pinch, who could not save its favorite, who could not release Barabbas.

The Prince seemed to be in his most unyielding mood--the Bourbon in him was peeping out. For the honor of the Royal House, and for the sake of discipline, Mistitch must die. He had packed his court-martial with the few trustworthy friends he had among the officers, using the justification which jury-packers always use--and sometimes have. He had no fear of the verdict--and no heed for its unpopularity. He knew the danger--Stenovics made no secret about that--but said plainly that he would sooner be beaten by a mutiny than yield to the threat of one. The first meant for him defeat, perhaps death, but not dishonor, nor ignominy. The more Stenovics prophesied--or threatened--a revolt of the troops, the more the Commandant stiffened his neck.

Meanwhile, Slavna waited in ominous, sullen quiet, and the atmosphere was so stormy that King Alexis had no heart for fishing.

On Friday morning--the day before that appointed for Mistitch's trial--the names of the members of the Court were published; the list met with the reception which was, no doubt, anticipated even by the Prince himself. The streets began to fill with loiterers, talkers, and watchers; barrack-rooms were vociferous with grumbling and with speculation. Stafnitz, with Rastatz always at his heels, was busy with many interviews; Stenovics sat in his room, moodily staring before him, seeking a road out of his blind alley; and a carriage drew up before the sign of the Silver Cock as the Cathedral bells chimed noon. It was empty inside, but by the driver sat Peter Vassip, the Prince's personal attendant, wearing the sheepskin coat, leather breeches, and high boots that the men of the hills wore. His business was to summon Sophy to Suleiman's Tower.

The Square of St. Michael was full of life and bustle, the Golden Lion did a fine trade. But the centre of interest was on the north wall and the adjacent quays, under the shadow of Suleiman's Tower. Within those walls were the two protagonists. Thence the Prince issued his orders; thither Mistitch had been secretly conveyed the night before by a party of the Prince's own guard, trustworthy Volsenians.

A crowd of citizens and soldiers was chattering and staring at the Tower when Sophy's carriage drew up at the entrance of the bridge which, crossing the North River, gave access to the fort. The mouth of the bridge was guarded by fifty of those same Volsenians. They had but to retreat and raise the bridge behind them, and Mistitch was safe in the trap. Only--and the crowd was quick enough to understand the situation--the prisoner's trap could be made a snare for his jailer, too. Unless provisions could be obtained from the country round, it would be impossible to hold the Tower for long against an enemy controlling the butchers' and bakers' shops of Slavna. Yet it could be held long enough to settle the business of Captain Hercules.

The shadow of the weeping woman had passed from Sophy's spirit; the sad impression was never the lasting one with her. An hour of crisis always found her gay. She entered the time-worn walls of Suleiman's Tower with a thrill of pleasure, and followed Peter Vassip up the narrow stair with a delighted curiosity. The Prince received her in the large round room, which constituted the first floor of the central tower. Its furniture was simple, almost rude, its massive walls quite bare save for some pieces of ancient armor. Narrow slits, deep-set in the masonry, served for windows and gave a view of the city and of the country round on every side; they showed the seething throng on the north wall and on the quays; the distant sound of a thousand voices struck the ear.

Zerkovitch and his wife were with the Prince, seated over a simple meal, at which Sophy joined them. Marie had watched Sophy's entrance and the Prince's greeting closely; she marked Sophy's excitement betrayed in the familiar signal on her cheek. But the journalist was too excited on his own account to notice other people. He was talking feverishly, throwing his lean body about, and dashing his hands up and down; he hardly paused to welcome the newcomer. He had a thousand plans by which the Prince was to overcome and hold down Slavna. One and all, they had the same defect; they supposed the absence of the danger which they were contrived to meet. They assumed that the soldiers would obey the Commandant, even with the sound of the rifles which had shot Mistitch fresh in their ears.

The Prince listened good-humoredly to his enthusiastic but highly unpractical adherent; but his mind did not follow the talk. Sophy hearkened with the eagerness of a novice--and he watched her face. Marie watched his, remembering how she had prayed Sophy not to come to Slavna. Sophy was here--and Fate had thrown her across the Prince's path. With a woman's preference for the personal, Marie was more occupied with this situation than with the temper of the capital or the measures of the Prince.

At last their host roused himself, and patted Zerkovitch's shoulder indulgently.

"Well, it's good not to fear," he said. "We didn't fear the other night, Mademoiselle de Gruche and I. And all ended well!"

"Ended?" Marie murmured, half under her breath.

The Prince laughed. "You sha'n't make me afraid," he told her, "any more than Zerkovitch shall make me trust Colonel Stafnitz. I can't say more than that." He turned to Sophy. "I think you'd better stay here till we see what's going to happen to-night--and our friends here will do the same. If all's quiet, you can go home to sleep. If not, we can give you quarters--rough ones, I'm afraid." He rose from the table and went to a window. "The crowd's thinner; they've gone off to eat and drink. We shall have one quiet hour, at all events."

An orderly entered and gave him a letter.

He read it, and said: "Tell General Stenovics I will receive him here at two o'clock." When the messenger had gone, he turned round towards the table. "A last appeal, I suppose! With all the old arguments! But the General has nothing to give in exchange for Mistitch. My price would be very high."

"No price! no price!" cried fiery Zerkovitch. "He raised his sword against you! He must die!"

"Yes, he must die." He turned to the window again. Sophy rose from the table and joined him there, looking over the city. Directly beneath was the great gate, flanked on either side by broad, massive walls, which seemed to grow out of the waters of the river. He was aware of her movement, though he had not looked round at her. "I've brought you, too, into this trouble--you, a stranger," he said.

"You don't think I'm sorry for that?"

"No. But it makes my impotence worse." He waved his arm towards the city. "There it is--here am I! And yet--I'm powerless!"

Sophy followed his gesture, and understood what was passing in his mind--the pang of the soldier without his armament, the workman without his tools. Their midnight talk flashed back into recollection. She remembered his bitter complaint. Under her breath, and with a sigh, she whispered: "If you had the big guns now!"

Low as the whisper was, he heard it--and it seemed to shoot through his brain. He turned sharply round on her and gazed full into her eyes. So he stood a moment, then quickly returned to the table and sat down. Sophy followed, her gaze fixed on his face. Zerkovitch ceased writing--he had been drawing up another plan; both he and Marie now watched the Prince. Moments went by in silence.

At last the Prince spoke--in a low voice, almost dreamy. "My guns for Mistitch! Mistitch against my guns! That would be a price--a fair price!"

The three sat silent. The Zerkovitches, too, had heard him talk of the guns: how on them hung the tranquillity of the city, and how on them might hang the country's honor and existence. Stenovics could give them, if he would, in return for Mistitch. But to give up Mistitch was a great surrender. Sophy's whisper, almost involuntary, the voicing of a regret, hardly even of a distant aspiration, had raised a problem of conduct, a question of high policy. The Prince's brain was busy with it, and his mind perplexed. Sophy sat watching him, not thinking now, but waiting, conscious only that by what seemed almost chance a new face had, through her, been put on the situation.

Suddenly Zerkovitch brought his clinched fist down on the table. "No!" he almost shouted. "They'll think you're afraid!"

"Yes, they'll think that--but not all of them. Stenovics will know better--and Stafnitz, too. They'll know I do it, not because I'm afraid, but in order that I never need be."

"Then Stenovics won't give them!" cried Marie.

"I think he must give anything or everything for Mistitch." He rose and paced restlessly about the room. Sophy still followed him with her eyes, but she alone of the three offered no argument and made no suggestion. The Prince stood still for a moment in deep thought. Then his face cleared. He came quickly up to Sophy, took her hand, and kissed it.

"Thank you," he said. "I don't know how it will turn out for me; the case is too difficult for me to be able to foresee that. For me it may be mastery--I always thought it would mean that. Or perhaps, somehow, it may turn to ruin." He pressed Sophy's hand now and smiled at her. She understood and returned his smile. "But the question isn't one of my interest. My duty is plain."

He walked quickly to his writing-table and unlocked a drawer. He returned to the table with an envelope in his hand, and sat down between Marie and Zerkovitch.

The orderly entered again, announcing Stenovics. "Let him come in here," said the Prince. His manner grew lighter, and the smile which had comforted Sophy remained on his face.

Stenovics came in; his air was nervous, and he looked at the Prince's three companions with a visible access of embarrassment. At a nod from the Prince, the orderly placed a chair for the General, and withdrew.

"The same matter we discussed last night, General?"

"There can be but one matter in the thoughts of all of us now, sir. Pardon me--I understood your Royal Highness would receive me alone."

The Prince gave a low laugh. "When one bargains, shouldn't one have witnesses?"

In an instant Stenovics laid hold of the significant word; it made him forget his request for privacy. An eager light came into his eyes.

"Bargains? You're ready now to--?"

"_La nuit porte conseil._" He drew a paper from the envelope, unfolded it, and handed it across the table. "You remember that--a memorandum I sent to you three months ago--in my capacity as Commandant?"

Stenovics looked at the paper. "I remember, sir."

"It's indorsed in your hand?"

"Yes."

"The indorsement runs: 'Impossible.' Rather curt, General!"

"The note was for my private use, but your Royal Highness particularly pressed for the return of the document."

"I did. And, after all, why use more words than necessary? One will still be enough--but not that one."

"I'm not following you, sir," said Stenovics.

The Prince leaned across the table to him. "In our conversation, last night, you asked me to do a very remarkable thing, and to get this lady here" (he indicated Sophy) "to do it, too. You remember? We were to think that, at night, in the Street of the Fountain, in the light of the illuminations, Sergius Stefanovitch and Nikolas Stafnitz looked--and sounded--just the same. I didn't see my way to that, and I didn't think this lady would see hers. It seemed so difficult."

Stenovics was in a strain of close attention. The paper from the envelope crackled under the trembling of his hand.

"Now, if we had such a memory as Lieutenant Rastatz is happy enough to possess!" the Prince pursued. "Or if Colonel Stafnitz had taken us into his confidence about his quarrel with Captain Mistitch! All that was not so last night. Consequently, Captain Mistitch must be tried and shot, instead of suffering some not very severe disciplinary punishment, for brawling in the street and having a quarrel with his superior officer."

Stenovics marked every word, and understood the implied offer. The offer was good enough; Stafnitz himself would not and could not ask that no notice whatever should be taken. The trifling nature of the punishment would in itself be a great victory. But the price? He was to hear that in a moment.

"Sergius Stefanovitch--Nikolas Stafnitz! Which was it, General? It's only changing two words, yet what a difference it makes!"

"The difference of peace to-night or--" Stenovics waved his hand towards the city. But the Prince interrupted him.

"Never mind that," he said, rather sharply. "That's not first in my mind, or I should have left the matter where it rested last night. I was thinking of the difference to Captain Mistitch--and perhaps to you, General."

He looked full at Stenovics, and the General's eyes fell. The Prince pointed his finger across the table at the paper under Stenovics's hand.

"I'm a liberal bargainer," he said, "and I offer you a good margin of profit. I'll change two words if you'll change one--two for you against one for me! 'Sergius Stefanovitch' becomes 'Nikolas Stafnitz' if 'Impossible' becomes 'Immediate.'"

Stenovics gave one slight start, then leaned back in his chair and looked past the Prince out of the window opposite to him.

"Make that change, and we'll settle details afterwards. I must have full guarantees. I must see the order sent, and the money deposited in my name and at my disposal."

"This afternoon, sir?"

"Wouldn't it be well to release Captain Mistitch from Suleiman's Tower before to-night?"

"The money is difficult to-day."

"The release will be impossible to-morrow."

Again Stenovics's eyes wandered to the window, and a silence followed. Perhaps he saw the big guns already in position, dominating the city; perhaps he listened to the hum of voices which again began to swell in volume from the wall and from the quays. There are times when a man must buy the present with a mortgage on the future, however onerous the terms may be. It was danger against destruction. He put out his hand and took from Zerkovitch a quill which the journalist was twiddling in his fingers. He made a scratch and a scribble on the paper which the Prince had taken from the envelope.

"'Impossible' has become 'Immediate,' sir."

"And 'Sergius Stefanovitch' 'Nikolas Stafnitz,'" said the Prince. He looked at Sophy for confirmation, and she softly clapped her hands.

VII

THE BARONESS GOES TO COURT

The troops of the garrison and their allies, the scum of the streets, thought that they had scored a great victory and inflicted deep humiliation on the unpopular martinet who ruled and harried them. They celebrated the event with noisy but harmless revels, and when Captain Hercules was seen about again (he submitted to a fortnight's confinement to barracks with feelings in which thankfulness, though not gratitude, predominated), he found his popularity with them greater than ever. But in the higher circles--the inner ring--of the party he served, his reception was not so cordial. Stenovics would not see him; Stafnitz saw him only to express a most uncompromising judgment on his conduct.

Yielding in appearance, in point of substance the Prince of Slavna had scored heavily. The big guns were ordered from Germany. The Prince had the money to pay for them, and they were to be consigned to him; these were the guarantees which he had asked from Stenovics. When the guns came--and he had agreed to make an extra payment for early delivery--his situation would be very different. With trusty men behind them, it would go hard with him if he were not master of Slavna, and he had already obtained the King's sanction to raise and train a force of artillery from among his own men in Volseni and its neighborhood. The men of Volseni were proof against Mistitch's bragging and the subtle indulgence by which Stafnitz held his power over the rank and file of the army. They were true to the Prince.

The idle King's family pride was touched; it was the one thing which could rouse him. At his son's express request--and at that only--he acquiesced in the release of Mistitch and his satellite Sterkoff; but he was determined to make his own attitude clear and to do what he could to restore the prestige of his family. The Prince said dryly that the prestige would profit best of all by the big guns; the King was minded to supplement their effect by something more ornate. He created a new Order, and made his son Grand Master of it. There was no harm in that, and Stenovics readily consented. He declared that something more must be done for the lady to whom his son owed his life; to be made Keeper of the Tapestries might be a convenient recompense, but was not honor enough. Stenovics declared that any mark of favor which His Majesty designed for Mademoiselle de Gruche might most properly be hers. Finally, the King instructed Stenovics to concentrate all his energies on the matrimonial negotiations. A splendid marriage would enhance and strengthen the prestige more than anything else. Stenovics promised zealous obedience, and withdrew full of thought. The Order was an easy matter, and honors for Sophy did no harm. The marriage was ground much more delicate. It touched the "big stake" which Colonel Stafnitz had so emphatically warned the General not to play on the bad hand dealt to him by Mistitch's blundering. But with the big guns in position, and the sturdy men of Volseni behind them--would a good hand ever come?

There were but three in the inner secret of the scheme, but they were three of the longest heads in Kravonia. Countess Ellenburg was a pious woman and of exemplary demeanor; but (as Markart told Sophy) women are ambitious, and she had borne the King a son. Stenovics saw himself cast aside like an old glove if Prince Sergius came to the throne. Stafnitz was a born fisher in troubled waters, and threw a skilful net. Twice before in the country's history, intrigue had made revolution, and changed the order of succession in the House of Stefanovitch. The three waited on chance, but the chance was not yet. If the King were at enmity with his son, or if there were a demise of the Crown while the Prince was not on the spot to look after his interests, there might lie the opportunity. But now the King was all cordiality for his Heir Apparent, the Prince was on the spot; the guns and their Volsenian gunners threatened to be on the spot, too, ere long. It was not now the moment for the big stake.

King Alexis was delighted with his new Order, and the Grand Master's insignia were very handsome. In the centre of a five-pointed star St. Michael slew the Dragon--a symbol, perhaps, of Captain Mistitch! The broad ribbon was of virgin white; it would show up well against either the black sheepskin of the Volsenian tunic or the bright blue of the Prince's hussar uniform. There were, some day, to be five other Knights; with the Grand Master and the Sovereign himself the mystic number Seven would be reached--but it would never be exceeded; the Order would be most select. All this the King explained in a florid speech, gleeful with his new toy, while the serious folks listened with a respectful deference and a secret smile. "If he would make order, instead of Orders!" thought the Prince; and probably Colonel Stafnitz, in attendance as his Majesty's aide-de-camp, had thoughts not very different. Yet, even toys take on a significance when grown-up people play with them. Countess Ellenburg was not pleased that only one appointment should be made to the Order of St. Michael. Was it not time that the pretty boy Alexis wore a Star?

The King had not done yet; there was honor for the Prince's friends, too; men should know that service to the Royal House was meritorious in proportion to the illustrious position of that House. Zerkovitch stood forward and was made Chevalier of the Cross of Kravonia. The occasion cost Zerkovitch the price of a Court suit, but for Marie's sake he bore the outlay patiently. Then the King, having refreshed himself with a draught which his valet Lepage brought him, turned to his most pleasing task. The Keeper of the Tapestries was called from her place in the circle beside Marie Zerkovitch. Colonel Stafnitz had not noticed her standing there, but now he gave a little start; the figure seemed familiar. He turned his head round to Markart, who was just behind him. "Yes, that's her," Markart whispered in answer to the question in the Colonel's eyes. The eyes flew back to Sophy instantly. There, too, was set the gaze of Countess Ellenburg. For Sophy was in full beauty that day. She, too, loved toys; and her ancient hatred of the name to which she had been born must be remembered. Her eyes glowed, and the Red Star glowed on her cheek. All her air was triumphant as she courtesied to the King, and then stood, erect and proud, to hear his gracious words.

Gracious his words were for her deed, and gracious his smile for her comely beauty. He could at least look a king--no man denied him that--and speak in kingly phrases. "A service unmatched in courage, and immeasurable in importance to us and our Royal House, the preservation of our dearly loved son and only Heir." (Countess Ellenburg looked down her nose at that!) For such an act did he confer a patent of nobility on Sophy, and for greater honor gave her, as title the name of one of his own estates, together with a charge on its revenues equal to her new dignity.

He ended and sank back in his chair. Her Prince came forward and kissed her hand before them all. Countess Ellenburg bowed condescendingly. A decorous murmur of applause filled the hall as, with shining eyes, Sophia, Baroness Dobrava, courtesied again very low.

So, as Sophy Grouch had gone, went Sophie de Gruche!

"She's delighted--poor child!" whispered Marie Zerkovitch; but only Julia Robins, in England far away, heard the full torrent of Sophy's simple, child-like exultation. Such a letter went to her that night!--but there was stuff in it besides the Baroness's pæan.

Suddenly a childish voice rang out clear through the hall--a fearless, eager little voice.

"What's that you've got on your cheek?" asked young Alexis, with engaging candor; his finger pointed at Sophy's face.

So quaint an interruption to the stately formality of the scene struck people's sense of humor. Everybody laughed--even Countess Ellenburg. Sophy's own laugh rose rich and merry. Her ignorance or carelessness of etiquette betrayed itself; she darted at the pretty boy, caught him in her arms, and kissed him, answering: "That's my luck--my Red Star."

The boy touched the mark with his finger; a look of childish awe came into his blue eyes.

"Your luck!" he said, softly, and continued to look at the mysterious sign after Sophy had set him down again. The little scene was told all over Slavna before night--and men and women talked, according to their temper, of the nature and the meaning of the Red Star. If only the foolish think about such things, even the wise talk.

The King left his chair and mingled with his guests. His movement was the signal for a general relaxation of ceremony. The Prince came across the room and joined Sophy, who had returned to Marie Zerkovitch's side. He offered the Baroness his congratulations, but in somewhat constrained tones. His mind seemed to be on something else; once or twice he looked inquiringly at Marie, who in her turn showed signs of restlessness or distress. A silence followed on Sophy's expression of her acknowledgments. The Prince glanced again at Marie and made up his mind to speak.

"You've done me the kindness I asked?" he inquired of Marie.

Marie picked at the feathers of her fan in unhappy embarrassment. "No, sir, I haven't. I--I couldn't."

"But why not?" he asked in surprise.

"I--I couldn't," repeated Marie, flushing.

He looked at her gravely for a moment, then smiled. "Then I must plead my own cause," he said, and turned to Sophy. "Next week I'm leaving Slavna and going to my Castle of Praslok. It's near Volseni, you know, and I want to raise and train my gunners at Volseni. We must be ready for our guns when they come, mustn't we?"

His eyes met hers--eager glance exchanged for glance as eager. "Our guns!" whispered Sophy under her breath.

"Marie here and Zerkovitch have promised to come with me. He'll write what ought to be written, and she'll cook the dinners." He laughed. "Oh, well, we do live very simply at Praslok. We shall be there three months at least. I asked Marie to persuade you to come with her and to stay as long as you could. But she's disappointed me. I must plead for myself."

The changing expressions of Sophy's eyes had marked every sentence of his speech, and Marie marked every expression of the eyes. They had grown forlorn and apprehensive when he spoke of leaving Slavna; a sudden joy leaped into them at his invitation to Praslok.

"You'll come for a little? The scenery is very fine, and the people interesting."

Sophy gave a low laugh. "Since the scenery is fine and the people interesting--yes, Monseigneur."

Their eyes met again, and he echoed back her laugh. Marie Zerkovitch drew in her breath sharply. With swift insight she saw--and foresaw. She remembered the presentiment, under whose influence she had begged Sophy not to come to Kravonia. But fate had weighted the scales heavily against her. The Baroness Dobrava was here.

The Prince turned to Marie with a puzzled look. Sophy was lost in glad anticipations. Marie met the Prince's look with a deprecating imploring glance. He frowned a little--not in anger, but in puzzle; what she foresaw he himself had not yet divined; he was feeling the joy without understanding it.

"At any rate you're not responsible now if we do freeze her to death with our mountain snows," he said in a jest which veiled friendly reproach.

"No, at least I'm not responsible," Marie answered.

There was a note in her voice now which commanded even Sophy's pre-engaged attention. She looked sharply at her friend--and perhaps she understood. But she did not yield to the suggestion. She drew herself up proudly. "I'm not afraid of what may happen to me at Praslok, Monseigneur," she said.

A simultaneous exclamation of many voices broke across their talk. At the other end of the room, men and women pressed into a circle round some point of interest which could not be seen by Sophy and her companions. A loud voice rang out in authoritative tones: "Stand back! Stand back--and open all the windows!"

"That's Natcheff's voice," said the Prince. Natcheff was the leading physician of Slavna. "Somebody's fainted, I suppose. Well, the place is stuffy enough!"

Markart emerged from the circle, which had widened out in obedience to the physician's orders. As he hurried past the Prince, he said: "The King has fainted, sir. I'm going to fetch Lepage." Two or three other men ran and opened the windows.

"The King fainted! I never knew him do that before."

He hastened to where his father lay, the subject of Natcheff's ministrations. Sophy and Marie followed in his wake through the opening which the onlookers made for him. The King showed signs of recovering, but Natcheff's face was grave beyond even the requirements of his profession or of his patient's rank. The next moment Lepage came up. This man, the King's body-servant, was a small, plump person, who had generally a weary, impassive, uninterested manner. He looked rather uninterested even now, but his walk was very quick, and he was soon aiding Natcheff with deft and nimble fingers.

"This is strange, Lepage," said Natcheff.

Lepage did not look up from his task.

"Has it ever happened before?"

Then Lepage did look up. He appeared to consider and to hesitate. He glanced once at the King before he answered.

"It's the third attack in two months," he said, at last.

"You never told me!" The words shot sharp from Natcheff's lips.

"That was by His Majesty's peremptory orders. He'll be angry that I've told you now."

"Clear the room!" ordered Natcheff, shortly.

Slavna had plenty to talk about that night. Besides the Baroness Dobrava's Red Star, there was the fainting fit of King Alexis! The evening bulletin was entirely favorable; the King had quite recovered. But many had heard Lepage's confession and seen the look that it brought to Natcheff's face.

Stenovics and Stafnitz rode back from the Palace to the city side by side. The General was silent, immersed in deep thought. Stafnitz smoked his cigarette with a light, rather mocking smile. At last, when they were almost opposite the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris, Stenovics spoke.

"It looks like the handwriting on the wall," he said.

"Quite so, General," Stafnitz agreed, cheerfully. "But at present there's no evidence to show to whom, besides the King himself, the message is addressed."

"Or what it says?"

"I think that's plain enough, General. I think it says that the time is short."

He watched his companion's face closely now. But Stenovics's mask was stolid and unmoved; he said nothing; he contented himself with a sullen grunt.

"Short for the King!" pursued Stafnitz, with a shake of his head. "Short for the Prince, perhaps! And certainly, General, uncomfortably short for us!"

Stenovics grunted again, and then rode on some while in silence. At last, just as he was about to part from his companion, he made one observation:

"Fortunately Natcheff is a friend of mine; we shall get the best possible information."

"That might become of importance, no doubt, General," said Stafnitz, smiling still.

VIII

MONSEIGNEUR'S UNIFORM

Dr. Natcheff amply reassured public opinion. What information he gave to General Stenovics, his friend, is another matter, and remained locked in that statesman's heart. Publicly and to everybody else, from the Prince of Slavna downward, he declared that there was no ground for apprehension, and that the King merely needed rest and change; after a few days of the former it was proposed to seek the latter by moving the Court to His Majesty's country-seat at Dobrava--that estate from which Sophy had been graciously bidden to choose her title. Meanwhile, there was no reason why the Prince should not carry out his intention, and proceed to the Castle of Praslok.

Below Slavna, the main post-road--as has already been stated, there was no railway at this time--follows the course of the River Krath for about five miles in a southeasterly direction. It is then carried across the stream (which continues to trend to the south) by an ancient wooden bridge, and runs northeast for another fifteen miles, through flat country, and past prosperous agricultural and pastoral villages, till it reaches the marshy land bordering Lake Talti. The lake, extending from this point to the spurs of the mountain-range which forms the frontier, bars its farther direct progress, and it divides into two branches. The right prong of the fork continues on the level till it reaches Dobrava, eight miles from the point of bisection; here it inclines to the northeast again, and, after some ten miles of steady ascent, crosses the mountains by St. Peter's Pass, the one carriage-road over the range and over the frontier. The left prong becomes a steep ascent directly the bisection has occurred, rising sharply for five miles to the hill on which the Castle of Praslok stands. Then it runs for another five miles on a high plateau till it ends at the hill city of Volseni, which stands on the edge of the plateau, looking down on Lake Talti and across to Dobrava in the plain opposite.

Beyond Volseni there is no road in the proper sense, but only cart or bridle-tracks. Of these the principal and most frequented runs diagonally across the valley in which Lake Talti lies, is interrupted by the lake (at that point about a mile and a half wide), and then meets the road from Dobrava half-way up St. Peter's Pass, and about twenty miles across-country from Volseni. It thus forms the base of a rough and irregular triangle of country, with the point where the Slavna road bisects, the Pass and Volseni marking its three angles. Lake Talti is set in the middle, backed by a chain of hills continuous everywhere except at the indentation of the Pass.

Though so near to Slavna in actual distance, the country is very different from the fertile river-valley which surrounds the capital; it is bleak and rough, a land of hill pastures and mountain woods. Its natural features are reflected in the character of the inhabitants. The men who count Volseni a local capital are hardier than the men of Slavna, less given to luxury, less addicted to quarrels and riots, but considerably more formidable opponents if once they take up arms. For this reason, no less than on account of their devotion to him, the Prince did well to choose this country as the recruiting-ground for his new force of gunners.

The Prince had been at Praslok for a week when Sophy set out to join him there. At the last moment, Zerkovitch decided to remain in Slavna, at least until the Court made its promised move to Dobrava: reassuring as Dr. Natcheff was, it would do no harm to have a friendly pair of eyes and ears in the capital so long as the King remained in residence. Thus the two ladies were accompanied only by Peter Vassip, whom the Prince had sent to escort them. They set out in a heavy travelling-carriage at ten in the morning, reckoning to reach the Castle before evening fell; their progress would never be rapid, and for the last five miles exceedingly slow. They left the capital in complete tranquillity, and when Sophy settled her bill at the sign of the Silver Cock, and bade farewell to old Meyerstein, her landlord, he expressed the hope that she would soon be back, though, indeed, his poor house was, he feared, no fit quarters for the Baroness Dobrava.

"I don't know whether I shall come back here, but I can never forget your house. I shall always love it in my memory," said Sophy.

Max von Hollbrandt had obtained leave of absence from his Legation, and had accompanied the Prince to Praslok. The two were friends, having many tastes in common, and not least the taste for soldiering. Besides having the pleasure of his company, the Prince looked to obtain valuable aid from Max in the task on which he was engaged. The young German was amused and delighted with his expedition. Praslok is a primitive old place. It stands on an abrupt mound, or knob, of ground by the road-side. So steep and sudden is the ascent, that it was necessary to build a massive causeway of wood--an inclined plane--to lead up from the road to the gate of the square tower which forms the front of the building; the causeway has cross-bars at short intervals, to give foothold to the horses which, in old days, were stabled within the walls. Recently, however, modern stables had been built on the other side of the road, and it had become the custom to mount the causeway and enter the Castle on foot.

Within, the arrangements were quaint and very simple. Besides the tower already mentioned, which contained the dining-room and two bedrooms above it, the whole building, strictly conditioned by the shape of the hill on which it stood, consisted of three rows of small rooms on the ground-floor. In one row lived the Prince and his male guests, in the second the servants, in the third the guard. The ladies were to be accommodated in the tower above the dining-room. The rows of rooms opened on a covered walk or cloister, which ran round the inner court of the Castle. The whole was solidly built of gray stone--a business-like old hill-fortress, strong by reason of its massive masonry and of the position in which it stood. Considered as a modern residence--it had to be treated humorously--so Max declared, and found much pleasure in it from that point of view. The Prince, always indifferent to physical comfort, and ever averse from luxury, probably did not realize how much his ancestral stronghold demanded of his guests' indulgence. Old Vassip, Peter's father, was major-domo--always in his sheepskin coat and high boots. His old wife was cook. Half a dozen servants completed the establishment, and of these three were grooms. The horses, in fact, seemed to Max the only creatures whose comforts were at all on a modern footing. But the Prince was entirely satisfied, and never so happy anywhere as at Praslok. He loved the simple, hardy life; he loved even more, though perhaps less consciously, the sense of being among friends. He would not yield an inch to court popularity in Slavna; but his heart went out to meet the unsought devotion of Volseni, the mountain town, and its surrounding villages. Distant and self-restrained in Slavna, here he was open, gay, and full of an almost boyish ardor.

"It's worth coming here, just to see its effect on you," Max told him, as the two rode back together from Volseni on the day of Sophy's arrival. They had been at work, and the recruiting promised well.

The Prince laughed gayly. "Coming here from Slavna is like fresh air after an oven," he said. "No need to watch your tongue--or other people's! You can laugh when you like, and frown when you like, without a dozen people asking what's your motive for doing it."

"But, really, you shouldn't have chosen a diplomatist for your companion, sir, if you feel like that."

"I haven't," he smiled. "I've left the diplomatist down there and brought the soldier up. And now that the ladies are coming--"

"Ah, now we must watch our tongues a little bit! Madame Zerkovitch is very pretty--and the Baroness might make me absolutely poetical!"

Least prying of men, yet Max von Hollbrandt could not resist sending with this speech a glance at his companion--the visit of the Baroness compelled this much tribute to curiosity. But the Prince's face was a picture of unembarrassed pleasure.

"Then be poetical! We'll all be poetical!" he cried, merrily. "In the intervals of drilling, be it understood!" he added, with a laugh.

Into this atmosphere, physical and moral--the exhilaration of keen mountain breezes, the brightness of a winter sun, the play of high hopes and of high spirit--came Sophy, with all her power of enjoying and her ardor in imagining. Her mind leaped from the sad embraces of the past, to fly to the arms of the present, to beckon gladly to the future. No more than this had yet emerged into consciousness; she was not yet asking how, for good or evil, she stood or was to stand towards the Prince. Fortune had done wonderful things for her, and was doing more yet. That was enough, and beyond that, for the moment, she was not driven.

The mixture of poetry and drilling suited her to perfection. She got both when she rode over to Volseni with the Prince. Crisp snow covered the ground, and covered, too, the roofs of the old, gray, hill-side city--long, sloping roofs, with here and there a round-tower with a snow-clad extinguisher atop. The town was no more than one long street, which bayed out at the farther end into a market-place. It stood with its back against a mountain-side, defended on the other three sides by a sturdy wall, which only now, after five centuries, began to crumble away at the top.

At the city-gate bread and salt were brought to the Bailiff and his companion, and she and he rode side by side down the long street to the market-place. Here were two or three hundred, tall, fine fellows, waiting their leader. Drill had not yet brought formality; on the sight of him they gave a cheer and ran to form a ring about him. Many caught his hand and pressed or kissed it. But Sophy, too, claimed their eyes. It was very cold; she wore a short jacket of sable over her habit, and a round cap of the same fur--gifts of Lady Meg's in the days of her benevolence. She was at the pitch of pleasure and excitement.

In a moment, a quick-witted fellow divined who she was. "The lady who saved him! The lady who saved him!" he cried, at the full pitch of his voice. The Prince drew himself up in the saddle and saluted her. "Yes, the lady who saved me," he said. Sophy had the cheers now, and they mounted to her head with fumes of intoxication. It may be guessed how the Red Star glowed!

"And you'll save him, if need be?" she cried--quite indiscreetly. The Prince smiled and shook his head, but the answer was an enraptured cheer. The hatred of Slavna was a recommendation to Volseni's increased regard, the hint of danger a match to its fiery enthusiasm.

"A favor, Bailiff, a favor!" cried a young man of distinguished appearance. He seemed to be well known and to carry weight, for there were shouts of "Hear Lukovitch! Hear Lukovitch!"--and one called, with a laugh: "Ay, listen to the Wolf!"

"What is it, Lukovitch?" asked the Prince.

"Make the lady of our company, Bailiff." New cheers were raised. "Make her a lieutenant of our artillery."

Sophy laughed gayly.

"I have His Majesty's authority to choose my officers," said the Prince, smiling. "Baroness, will you be a lieutenant, and wear our sheepskins in place of your sables there?"

"It is your uniform, Monseigneur," Sophy answered, bowing her head.

Lukovitch sprang forward and kissed her hand.

"For our Bailiff's preserver as for our Bailiff, men of Volseni!" he cried, loudly. The answering cheer brought tears to Sophy's sparkling eyes. For a moment she could not see her Prince nor the men who thus took her to their hearts.

Suddenly, in the midst of her exultation, she saw a face on the outskirts of the throng. A small, spare man stood there, dressed in unobtrusive tweeds, but making no effort to conceal himself; he was just looking on, a stranger to the town, interested in the picturesque little scene. The face was that of Lieutenant Rastatz.

She watched the drilling of the gunners, and then rode back with the Prince, escorted beyond the gates by a cheering throng, which had now been joined by many women. Dusk was falling, and the old, gray city took on a ghostly look; the glory of the sunshine had departed. Sophy shivered a little beneath her furs.

"Monseigneur, did you see Rastatz?" she asked.

"No, I didn't see him; but I knew he was here. Lukovitch told me yesterday."

"And not in uniform!"

"He has leave, no doubt, and his uniform wouldn't make his stay in Volseni any more pleasant."

"What's he there for?" she asked, fretfully.

"Ah, Baroness, you must inquire of those who sent him, I think." His tone was light and merry.

"To spy on you, I suppose! I hate his being there. He--he isn't worthy to be in dear Volseni."

"You and Volseni have fallen in love with each other, I see! As for spying, all I'm doing I do openly, and all I shall do. But I don't blame Stenovics for keeping an eye on me, or Stafnitz either. I do my best to keep an eye on them, you know. We needn't be afraid of Rastatz, we who have beaten Hercules Mistitch in open fight!"

"Oh, well, away with him!" cried Sophy. "The snow's not frozen--shall we canter home, Monseigneur?"

Merrily they cantered through the fast falling evening, side by side. Rastatz was out of mind now; all was out of mind save the fascination of the crisp air, the silent suggestion of gathering night, her Prince who rode beside her. The dark mass of the tower of Praslok rose too soon before her unwilling eyes. She drew rein, sighing.

"If life were just all that and nothing else!" she said, as he helped her to dismount and the grooms took the horses. She stopped half-way up the steep wooden causeway and turned to look back towards Volseni. The Prince stood close by her.

"That's good, but life has better things," he said, softly. "To ride together is good, and to play together. But to work together is better still, Baroness."

For a moment Sophy was silent. Then she laughed in joy.

"Well, I'm to wear your uniform henceforth, Monseigneur!"

He took her hand and kissed it. Very slowly and gradually she drew it away, her eyes meeting his as he raised his head. The heavy door at the top of the causeway opened; Marie Zerkovitch stood there, holding a lamp high in her hand; the sudden light flooded their faces. For a moment more he looked at her, then went down again on his way to the stables. Sophy ran up to where Marie Zerkovitch stood.

"You heard our horses?" she asked, gayly.

But there was no responsive smile on Marie's lips. For her, too, the light had shone on those two faces, and she was sorely troubled.

The next day again they rode together, and the next. On the third day, Sophy rode into Volseni in the sheepskin cap and tunic, a short habit of blue hiding her leather breeches and coming half-way over her long boots. The Prince gave her his hand as they rode into the market-place.

Marie Zerkovitch trembled, Max von Hollbrandt shrugged his shoulders with a laugh--and little Rastatz drove back to Slavna through the night. He thought that he had seen enough for his purposes; his report might be useful in the city on the Krath.

IX

COUNTESS ELLENBURG PRAYS

In Slavna, Dr. Natcheff continued his reassuring reports until the public at large was so reassured as to ask for no more reports even of the most optimistic description. But the state of mind of the few people behind the scenes was very different. Stafnitz's conclusion held sway there. The time was short! That was the ruling thought and the governing fact. It might be very short; and the end might come without warning. The secret was well kept, but to those to whom he spoke at all Natcheff spoke openly. The King's life hung on a thread, which the least accident might break. With perfect quiet and tranquillity he might live a year, possibly two years; any shock or overstrain would precipitate the end. Countess Ellenburg and her confidential friends knew this, the King knew it himself, and Lepage his valet, knew it. There the possession of the secret stopped.

The King was gay and courageous; courage, at least, he had never lacked. He seemed almost indifferent. The best years were over, he said, and why not an end? An end swift, without pain, without waiting! There was much to be said for it. Lepage agreed with his master and told him so in his usual blunt fashion; they agreed together not to cry about it, and the King went fishing still. But the time was short, and he pushed on his one great idea with a zeal and an earnestness foreign to his earlier habit. He would see his son married, or at least betrothed, before he died; he would see the great marriage in train--the marriage which was to establish forever the rank and prestige of the House of Stefanovitch. The Prince of Slavna must set forth on his travels, seeking a wife; the King even designated a Princess of most unquestionable exaltedness, as the first object of his son's attentions or pursuit. With an unusual peremptoriness, and an unusual independence, he sent Stenovics orders to communicate his wishes directly to the Prince. Stenovics received the royal memorandum on the day on which Lieutenant Rastatz returned to Slavna with the fruits of his observation at Volseni in his hand.

At first sight the King's commands were totally at variance with the interests of the Ellenburg coterie, and with the progress of their great plan. They did not want the House of Stefanovitch strengthened and glorified in the person of its present Heir Apparent. But the matter was more complicated than a first glance showed. There were the guns to be considered as well--and the gunners training at Volseni; these would be sources of strength and prestige to the Prince, not less valuable, more tangible, than even a great match. And now the Prince was on the spot. Send him on his travels! The time was short; when the short time ended, he might be far away. Finally, he might go and yet take nothing by his journey; the exalted Princess would be hard to win; the King's family pride might defeat itself by making him pitch his hopes and his claims too high.

On the whole the matter was difficult. The three chief conspirators showed their conviction of this in their characteristic ways. Countess Ellenburg became more pious than ever; General Stenovics more silent--at least more prone to restrict his conversation to grunts; Colonel Stafnitz more gay and interested in life; he, too, was fishing, and in his favorite waters, and he had hopes of a big rise.

There was one contingency impossible to overlook. In spite of his father's orders, the Prince might refuse to go. A knowledge of the state of the King's health would afford him a very strong excuse, a suspicion of the plans of the coterie an overpowering motive. The King himself had foreseen the former danger and feared its effect on his dominant hopes; by his express command the Prince was kept in ignorance; he had been amply reassured by Dr. Natcheff. On the latter point the coterie had, they flattered themselves, nothing to fear. On what ground, then, could the Prince justify a refusal? His gunners? That would be unwarrantable; the King would not accept the plea. Did Rastatz's report suggest any other ground for refusal? If it did, it was one which, to the King's mind, would seem more unwarrantable still.

There is no big game without its risk; but after full consideration, Stenovics and Stafnitz decided that the King's wishes were in their interest, and should be communicated to the Prince without delay. They had more chances for them than against them. If their game had its dangers--well, the time might be very short.

In these days Countess Ellenburg made a practice of shutting herself up in her private rooms for as much as two additional hours every day. She told the King that she sought a quiet time for meditation and prayer. King Alexis shrugged his shoulders; meditation wouldn't help matters, and, in face of Dr. Natcheff's diagnosis of the condition of his heart, he must confess to a serious doubt even about prayer. He had outlived his love for the Countess, but to the end he found in her a source of whimsical amusement; divining, if not her ambitions, at least her regrets; understanding how these regrets, when they became very acute, had to be met by an access of piety. Naturally they would be acute now, in view of Natcheff's diagnosis. He thanked her for her concern, and bade her by all means go and pray.

What was the stuff of her prayers--the stuff behind the words? No doubt she prayed for her husband's life. No doubt she prayed for her son's well-being. Very likely she even prayed that she might not be led into temptation, or to do anything wrong, by her love for her son; for it was her theory that the Prince himself would ruin his own chances, and throw the Crown away. It is not easy always to be sure of conscious insincerity.

Yet the devil's advocate would have had small difficulty in placing a fresh face on her prayers, in exhibiting what lay below the words, in suggesting how it was that she came forth from her secret devotions, not happy and tranquillized, but with weary eyes, and her narrow lips close-set in stern self-control. Her prayer that she might do nothing wrong was a prayer that the Prince might do nothing right. If that prayer were granted, sin on her part would become superfluous. She prayed not to be led into temptation--that sounded quite orthodox; was she to presume to suggest to Heaven the means by which temptation should be avoided?

Stenovics skilfully humored this shade of hypocrisy. When he spoke to her, there were in his mouth no such words as plans or schemes or hopes or ambitions--no, nor claims nor rights. It was always, "the possibilities we are compelled to contemplate"--"the steps we may be forced into taking"--"the necessities of mere self-defence"--"the interests of the kingdom"--"the supreme evil of civil strife"--which last most respectable phrase meant that it was much better to jockey the Prince out of his throne than to fight him for it. Colonel Stafnitz bit his lip and gnawed his mustache during these interviews. The Countess saw--and hated him. She turned back to Stenovics's church-going phrases and impassive face. Throughout the whole affair the General probably never once mentioned to her in plain language the one and only object of all their hopes and efforts. In the result business took rather longer to transact--the church-going phrases ran to many syllables; but concessions must be made to piety. Nor was the Countess so singular; we should often forego what we like best if we were obliged to define it accurately and aloud.

After one of these conferences the Countess always prayed; it may be presumed that she prayed against the misfortune of a cast-iron terminology. Probably she also urged her views--for prayer is in many books and mouths more of an argument than a petition--that all marriages were on one and the same footing, and that Heaven knew naught of a particular variety named in some countries morganatic. Of the keeping of contracts, made contrary to the presumed views of Heaven, we are all aware that Churches--and sometimes States, too--are apt to know or count nothing.

Such were the woman and her mind. Some pity may go out to her. In the end, behind all her prayers, and inspiring them--nay, driving her to her knees in fear--was the conviction that she risked her soul. When she felt that, she pleaded that it was for her son's sake. Yet there lay years between her son and man's estate; the power was for some one during those years.

"If I had the Countess's views and temperament, I should grow potatoes--and, if possible, grow them worse than my neighbors," said Colonel Stafnitz. "If I lived dully, I should at least die in peace!"

The King held a very confidential conference. It was to sign his will. The Countess was there; the little boy, who moved in happy unconsciousness of all the schemes which centred round him, was sent into the next room to play with Lepage. Stenovics and Stafnitz were present as witnesses, and Markart as secretary. The King touched lightly on his state of health, and went on to express his conviction of the Prince of Slavna's distinguished consideration for Countess Ellenburg and fraternal affection for little Alexis. "I go the happier for being sure of this, gentlemen," he said, to his two counsellors. "But in any case the Countess and my son are well secured. There will be enough for you, Charlotte, to live in suitable style, here or abroad, as you please. My son I wish to stay here and enter my army. I've settled on him the estate of Dobrava, and he will have means equal to his station. It's well to have this arranged; from day to day I am in the hands of God."

As with another King, nothing in life became him like the leaving of it. There was little more work to do--he had but to wait with courage and with dignity. The demand now was on what he had in abundance, not on a faculty which he had always lacked. He signed the document, and bade the General and Stafnitz witness it. In silence they obeyed him, meaning to make waste-paper of the thing to which they set their names.

That business done--and the King alone seemed happy in the doing of it (even Stafnitz had frowned)--the King turned suddenly to Stenovics.

"I should like to see Baroness Dobrava. Pray let her be sent for this afternoon."

The shock was sudden, but Stenovics's answer came steady, if slow.

"Your Majesty desires her presence?"

"I want to thank her once again, Stenovics. She's done much for us."

"The Baroness is not in Slavna, sir, but I can send for her."

"Not in Slavna? Where is she, then?"

He asked what the whole kingdom knew. Save himself, nobody was ignorant of Sophy's whereabouts.

"She is on a visit to his Royal Highness at Praslok, sir." Stenovics's voice was a triumph of neutrality.

"On a visit to the Prince?" Surprise sounded in his voice.

"Madame Zerkovitch is there too, sir," Stenovics added. "The ladies have been there during the whole of the Prince of Slavna's stay."

The King shot a glance at Countess Ellenburg; she was looking prim and grim. He looked, also, at Stafnitz, who bit his mustache, without quite hiding an intentional but apparently irrepressible smile. The King did not look too grave--and most of his gravity was for Countess Ellenburg.

"Is that--hum--at this moment, quite desirable?" he asked.

His question met with silence; the air of all three intimated that the matter was purely one for His Majesty. The King sat a moment with a frown on his brow--the frown which just supplants a smile when a thing, generally amusing and not unnatural, happens by chance to occur inconveniently.

Across this silence came a loud voice from the next room--Lepage's voice. "Take care, take care! You'll upset the flowers, Prince!"

The King started; he looked round at his companions. Then he struck a hand-bell on the table before him. Lepage appeared.

"Lepage, whom did you address as 'Prince' just now?"

"Count Alexis, sir."

"Why?"

"The Count insisted."

"Don't do it again. It's absurd! Go away!"

A dull red patched Countess Ellenburg's cheeks. Lids brooded low over the eyes of Stafnitz and of Stenovics. It was a very awkward little scene--the King's irritation had got the better of him for the moment. What would the kindred of the exalted Princess have said? The King turned to Countess Ellenburg and forced a smile.

"The question of reproof is one for you, Countess," he said, frigidly. "And now about the Baroness--No, I mean, I wanted to ask if my wishes have been communicated to the Prince of Slavna."

"The Prince has received them, sir. He read them in the presence of my messenger, and requested leave to send his answer in writing, unless he might wait on Your Majesty."

"There are reasons why I had better not see him just now. Ask him to write--but very soon. The matter isn't one for delay." The King rose from his seat.

"Your Majesty still wishes me to send for Baroness Dobrava?"

The King reflected for a moment, and answered simply: "No."

His brief word broke up the conference--it had already lasted longer than suave and reassuring Dr. Natcheff would have advised. The men went away with a smile, all of them--the King, Stenovics, Stafnitz, round-faced Markart--each smiling according to the quality of each, their smiles answering to Max von Hollbrandt's shrug of the shoulders. There are things which bring men to what painful youth was taught to call the least common denominator. A horse-race does it, a prize-fight, a cricket-match, a battle, too, in some sort. Equally efficacious, very often, though it is to be recorded with reluctance, is a strong flirtation with no proper issue obvious.

The matter was grave, yet all the men laughed. The matter was grave, and Countess Ellenburg did not laugh. Was that what Stafnitz called her views and her temperament? In part, no doubt. Besides, men will laugh at the side-issues of the gravest affairs; it is not generally the case with woman. Added again to this, perhaps Countess Ellenburg knew more, or divined more. Among glaring diversity there was, perhaps, something--an atom--of similarity between her and Sophy--not the something which refuses, but the something which couples high conditions with assent. The thousandth chance is to most men negligible; to most women it is no worse than the tenth; their sense of mathematical odds is sorely--and sometimes magnificently--imperfect.

It had flashed across Countess Ellenburg's mind that maybe Sophy, too, played for a big stake--or, rather, lived for it and so would die. The men had not thought of that; to them, the violent flirtation had its obvious end and its passing inconvenience. It might delay the Prince's departure for a while; it might make his marriage more entirely an affair of duty and of state. With this idea they smiled and shrugged; the whole business came under the head which, in their thoughts and their confidential conversations, they would style nonsense.

It was not so with the Countess. Disconcerted by that episode of Lepage and young Alexis, more moved by the sudden appearance of Baroness Dobrava as a factor in the game, she returned to prayer.

What now was the form and matter of her prayer? The form must go unformulated--and the words unconjectured. Yet she prayed so long that she must have succeeded in putting a good face on her petitions. Without a plausible plea nobody could have rested on their knees so long.

It is probable that she prayed for others as she prayed for herself--she prayed that the Prince of Slavna and the Baroness Dobrava might escape temptation.

Or that, if they fell--? Again it was not for her to dictate to Heaven. Heaven had its ways of dealing with such sinners.

Yet through all her prayers must have echoed the words: "It's absurd!" She prayed again, most likely, against being suspected of wishing that the man who uttered them--her husband--might soon be dead.

The King dead--and the Prince a slave to love--to the idle hours of an unprofitable love! It was a fine vision, and needed a vast deal of covering with the veil of prayer.

X

THE SOUND OF A TRUMPET

The Prince of Slavna's answer to the intimation of his father's wishes was dutiful, courteous, and discreetly diplomatic. The Prince was much occupied with his drills and other occupations; he availed himself of Max von Hollbrandt's practised pen--the guest was glad to do his royal host this favor.

They talked over the sense of the reply; Max then draughted it. The Prince did no more than amend certain expressions which the young diplomatist had used. Max wrote that the Prince cordially sympathized with the King's wishes; the Prince amended to the effect that he thoroughly understood them. Max wrote that the Prince was prepared cordially and energetically to co-operate in their realization; the Prince preferred to be prepared to consider them in a benevolent spirit. Max suggested that two or three months' postponement of the suggested journey would not in itself be fatal; the Prince insisted that such a delay was essential, in order that negotiations might be set on foot to ensure his being welcomed with due _empressement_. Max added that the later date would have an incidental advantage, since it would obviate the necessity of the Prince's interrupting the important labors on which he was engaged; the Prince said instead that, in his judgment, it was essential, in the interests of the kingdom, that the task of training the artillery should not be interfered with by any other object, however well worthy of consideration that object might be.

In the result, the draught as amended, though not less courteous or dutiful than Max's original, was noticeably more stiff. Translate them both into the terse and abrupt speech of every-day life, and one said: "I'd rather not, please," while the other came at least very near to a blank "I won't!" Max's was acquiescence, coupled with a prayer for postponement; the Prince's was postponement first, with an accompanying assurance of respectful consideration.

Max was not hurt, but he felt a professional disapproval; the Prince had said more, and shown more of his mind, than was needful; it was throwing more cards on the table than the rules of the game demanded.

"Mine would have done just as well," he complained to Marie Zerkovitch. "If mine had been rejected, his could have followed. As it is, he's wasted one or other of them. Very foolish, since just now time's his main object!" He did not mean saving time, but protracting it.

Marie did no more than toss her head peevishly. The author of the original draught persevered.

"Don't you think mine would have been much wiser--to begin with?"

"I don't see much difference. There's little enough truth in either of them!" she snapped.

Max looked at her with an amused and tolerant smile. He knew quite well what she meant. He shook his head at her with a humorous twinkle. "Oh, come, come, don't be exacting, madame! There's a very fair allowance of truth. Quite half the truth, I should think. He is really very anxious about the gunners!"

"And about what else?"

Max spread out his hands with a shrug, but passed the question by. "So much truth, in fact, that it would have served amply for at least two letters," he remarked, returning to his own special point of complaint.

Marie might well amuse the easy-going, yet observant and curious, young man; he loved to watch his fellow-creatures under the stress of feelings from which he himself was free, and found in the opportunities afforded him in this line the chief interest both of his life and of his profession.

But Marie had gradually risen to a high, nervous tension. She was no puritan--puritans were not common in Kravonia, nor had Paris grafted such a slip onto her nature. Had she thought as the men in the Palace thought when they smiled, had she thought that and no more, it is scarcely likely that she would have thus disturbed herself; after all, such cases are generally treated as in some sense outside the common rules; exceptional allowances are, in fact, whether properly or not, made for exceptional situations. Another feeling was in her mind--an obsession which had come almost wholly to possess her. The fateful foreboding which had attacked her from the first had now full dominion over her; its rule was riveted more closely on her spirit day by day, as day by day the Prince and Sophy drew closer together. Even that Sophy had once saved his life could now no longer shake Marie's doleful prepossession. Unusual and unlooked-for things take color from the mind of the spectator; the strange train of events which had brought Sophy to Praslok borrowed ominous shadows from a nervous, apprehensive temperament.

No such gloom brooded over Sophy. She gave herself up to the hour: the past forgotten, the future never thought of. It was the great time of her life. Her feelings, while not less spontaneous and fresh, were more mature and more fully satisfied than when Casimir de Savres poured his love at her feet. A cry of happiness almost lyrical runs through her scanty record of these days--there was little leisure for diary or letters.

Winter was melting into spring, snow dwelled only on the hill-tops, Lake Talti was unbound and sparkled in the sun; the days grew longer, yet were far too short. To ride with him to Volseni, to hear the cheers, to see the love they bore him, to watch him at work, to seem to share the labor and the love--then to shake off the kindly clinging friends and take to a mountain-path, or wander, the reins on the horses' necks, by the margin of the lake, and come home through the late dusk, talking often, silent often, always together in thought as in bodily presence--was not this enough? "If I had to die in a month, I should owe life a tremendous debt already"--that is her own summing up; it is pleasant to remember.

It would be enough to say--love; enough with a nature ardent as hers. Yet, with love much else conspired. There was the thought of what she had done, of the things to which she was a party; there was the sense of power, the satisfaction of ambition, a promise of more things; there was the applause of Volseni as well as the devotion of the Prince; there was, too--it persisted all through her life--the funny, half-childish, and (to a severe eye) urchin-like pleasure in the feeling that these were fine doings for Sophy Grouch, of Morpingham in Essex! "Fancy _me_!" is the indefensibly primitive form in which this delight shows in one of the few letters bearing date from the Castle of Praslok.

Yet it is possible to find this simple, gracious surprise at Fortune's fancies worthy of love. Her own courage, her own catching at Fortune's forelock, seem to have been always unconscious and instinctive. These she never hints at, nor even begins to analyze. Of her love for the Prince she speaks once or twice--and once in reference to what she had felt for Casimir. "I loved him most when he left me, and when he died," she writes. "I love him not less now because I love Monseigneur. But I can love Monseigneur more for having loved Casimir. God bade the dear dead die, but He bade me live, and death helped to teach me how to do it." Again she reflects: "How wonderfully everything is _worth while_--even sorrows!" Following which reflection, in the very next line (she is writing to Julia Robins), comes the naïve outburst: "I look just splendid in my sheepskin tunic--and he's given me the sweetest toy of a revolver; that's in case they ever charge, and try and cut us up behind our guns!" She is laughing at herself, but the laugh is charged with an infectious enjoyment. So she lived, loved, and laughed through those unequalled days, trying to soothe Marie Zerkovitch, bantering Max von Hollbrandt, giving her masculine mind and her feminine soul wholly to her Prince. "She was like a singularly able and energetic sunbeam," Max says quaintly, himself obviously not untouched by her attractions.

The Prince's mind was simple. He was quite sincere about his guns; he had no wish to go on his travels until they had arrived, and he could deliver them into the safe custody of his trained and trusty Volsenians, and of Lukovitch their captain. Less than that was not safety, with Stenovics in office and Colonel Stafnitz on duty at the capital. But Marie Zerkovitch was right, too, even though over-exacting, as Max had told her. The letter to the King held but half the truth, and that half not the more significant. He could not go from Sophy's side to seek a wife. The desire of his heart and the delight of his eyes--she was here in Praslok.

Her charm was not only for his heart and eyes, her fascination not solely for his passion; on his intellect also she laid her powerful hold, opening the narrow confines of his mind to broader views, and softening the rigor of his ideals. He had seen himself only as the stern master, the just chastiser of a turbulent capital and an unruly soldiery. But was there not a higher aim? Might he not be loved in the plains as on the hills, at Slavna as at Volseni?

By himself he could not achieve that; his pride--nay, his obstinacy--forbade the first step. But what his sensitive dignity rejected for himself, he could see her sunny graciousness accomplish without loss of self-respect, naturally, all spontaneously. He was a soldier; hers were the powers of peace, of that instinctive statesmanship of the emotions by which hearts are won and kingdoms knit together by a tie stronger than the sword. Because in his mind's eye he saw her doing this, the idea at which the men in the Palace had smiled, and which even Marie Zerkovitch would have accepted as the lesser evil, never came into his head. In the future years she was to be openly at his side, doing these things for him and for the land of his love and labor. Would she not be a better partner than some stranger, to whom he must go cap in hand, to whom his country would be a place of exile and his countrymen seem half-barbarians, whose life with him would be one long tale of forced and unwilling condescension? A pride more subtle than his father's rose in revolt.

If he could make the King see that! There stood the difficulty. Right in the way of his darling hope was the one thing on which the King insisted. The pride of family--the great alliance--the single point whereon the easy King was an obstacle so formidable! Yet had he despaired, he would have been no such lover as he was.

His answer had gone to the King; there was no news of its reception yet. But on the next day, in the evening, great tidings came from Slavna, forwarded by Zerkovitch, who was in charge of the Prince's affairs there. The Prince burst eagerly into the dining-room in the tower of Praslok, where Sophy sat alone. He seemed full of triumphant excitement, almost boyish in his glee. It is at such moments that hesitations are forgotten and the last reserves broken down.

"My guns!" he cried. "My guns! They've started on their way. They're due in Slavna in a month!"

"In a month!" she murmured softly. "Ah, then--"

"Our company will be ready, too. We'll march down to Slavna and meet the guns!" He laughed. "Oh, I'll be very pleasant to Slavna now--just as you advise me. We'll meet them with smiles on our faces." He came up to her and laid his hand on hers. "You've done this for me," he said, smiling still, yet growing more grave.

"It'll be the end of this wonderful time, of this our time together!"

"Of our time at Praslok--not of our time together. What, won't Lieutenant Baroness Dobrava march with her battery?"

She smiled doubtfully, gently shaking her head. "Perhaps! But when we get to Slavna--? Oh, I'm sorry that this time's so nearly done!"

He looked at her gravely for a few moments, making, perhaps, a last quick calculation--undergoing, perhaps, a last short struggle. But the Red Star glowed against the pallor of her face; her eyes were gleaming beacons.

"Neither the guns, nor the men, nor Slavna--no, nor the Crown, when that time comes--without you!" he said.

She rose slowly, tremblingly, from her chair, and stretched out her hands in an instinctive protest: "Monseigneur!" Then she clasped her hands, setting her eyes on his, and whispering again, yet lower: "Monseigneur!"

"Marie Zerkovitch says Fate sent you to Kravonia. I think she's right. Fate did--my fate. I think it's fated that we are to be together to the end, Sophy."

A step creaked on the old stairs. Marie Zerkovitch was coming down from her room on the floor above. The door of the dining-room stood open, but neither of them heard the step; they were engrossed, and the sound passed unheeded.

Standing there with hands still clasped, and eyes still bound to his, she spoke again--and Marie Zerkovitch stood by the door and heard the quick yet clear words, herself fascinated, unable to move or speak.

"I've meant nothing of it. I've thought nothing of it. I seem to have done nothing towards it. It has just come to me." Her tone took on a touch of entreaty, whether it were to him, or to some unseen power which ruled her life, and to which she might have to render an account.

"Yet it is welcome?" he asked quietly. She was long in answering; he waited without impatience, in a confidence devoid of doubt. She seemed to seek for the whole truth and to give it to him in gravest, fullest words.

"It is life, Monseigneur," she said. "I can't see life without it now."

He held out his hands, and very slowly she laid hers in them.

"It is enough--and nothing less could have been enough from you to me and from me to you," he said gently. "Unless we live it together, I think it can be no life for us now."

The chain which had held Marie Zerkovitch motionless suddenly snapped. She rushed into the room, and, forgetful of everything in her agitation, seized the Prince by the arm.

"What do you mean?" she cried. "What do you mean? Are you mad?"

He was very fond of little Marie. He looked down at her now with an affectionate, indulgent smile.

"Come, you've heard what I said, I suppose--though it wasn't meant for your ears, you know! Well, then, I mean just what I said, Marie."

"But what do you mean by it?" she persisted in a feverish, almost childish, excitement. She turned on Sophy, too. "And what do you mean by it, Sophy?" she cried.

Sophy passed a hand across her brow. A slow smile relieved the enchanted tension of her face; she seemed to smile in a whimsical surprise at herself. Her answer to Marie came vague and almost dreamy. "I--I thought of nothing, dear Marie," she said; then with a sudden low murmur of delighted laughter she laid her hands in the Prince's again. She had thought of nothing but of that life together and their love.

"She'll share my life, Marie, and, when the time comes, my throne," the Prince said softly: he tried to persuade and soothe her with his gentle tones.

Marie Zerkovitch would not have it. Possessed by her old fear, her old foreboding, she flung away the arm she held with an angry gesture. "It's ruin!" she cried. "Ruin, ruin!" Her voice rang out through the old room and seemed to fill all the Castle of Praslok with its dirgeful note.

"No," said he firmly. "Ruin will not come through me, nor through her. It may be that ruin--what you call ruin--will come. It may be that I shall lose my life or my throne." He smiled a little. "Such changes and chances come as nothing new to a Stefanovitch. I have clever and bold men against me. Let them try! We'll try, too. But ruin will not be by her fault, nor through this. And if it were, don't I owe her my life already? Should I refuse to risk for her the life she has given?" He dropped his voice to homelier, more familiar tones, and ended, with a half-laugh: "Come, little friend, you mustn't try to frighten Sergius Stefanovitch. It's better the House should end than live on in a coward, you know."

The plea was not perfect--there was wisdom as well as courage in question. Yet he would have maintained himself to be right in point of wisdom, too, had Marie pressed him on it. But her force was spent; her violence ended, and with it her expostulations. But not her terror and dismay. She threw herself into a chair and covered her face with her hands, sobbing bitterly.

The Prince gently caressed her shaking shoulder, but he raised his eyes to Sophy, who had stood quiet through the scene.

"Are you ready for what comes, Sophy?" he asked.

"Monseigneur, I am ready," she said, with head erect and her face set. But the next instant she broke into a low yet rich and ringing laugh; it mingled strangely with Marie's sobs, which were gradually dying away, yet sounded still, an undertone of discord with Sophy's mirth. She stretched out her hands towards him again, whispering in an amused pity: "Poor child--she thought that we should be afraid!"

Out from the dusk of the quiet evening came suddenly the blare of a trumpet, blown from Volseni by a favoring breeze. It sounded every evening, at nightfall, to warn the herdsmen in the hills of the closing of the gates, and had so sounded from time beyond man's memory.

The Prince raised his hand to bid her listen.

"In good Volseni there is watch and ward for us!"

The echoes of the blast rang for an instant round the hills.

"And there is watch and ward, and the glad sound of a trumpet, in my heart, Monseigneur," she said.

The sobs were still, laughter was hushed, the echoes died away. In utter silence their hands and their eyes met. Only in their hearts love's clarion rang indomitable and marvellously glad.

XI

M. ZERKOVITCH'S BEDROOM FIRE

Often there are clever brains about us of whose workings we care nothing, save so far as they serve to the defter moving of our dishes or the more scientific brushing and folding of our clothes. Humorists and philosophers have described or conjectured or caricatured the world of those who wait on us, inviting us to consider how we may appear to the inward gaze of the eyes which are so obediently cast down before ours or so dutifully alert to anticipate our orders. As a rule, we decline the invitation; the task seems at once difficult and unnecessary. Enough to remember that the owners of the eyes have ears and mouths also! A small leak, left unstanched, will empty the largest cask at last; it is well to keep that in mind both in private concerns and in affairs of public magnitude.

The King's body-servant, Emile Lepage, had been set a-thinking. This was the result of the various and profuse scoldings which he had undergone for calling young Count Alexis "Prince." The King's brief, sharp words at the conference had been elaborated into a reproof both longer and sterner than his Majesty was wont to trouble himself to administer; he had been very strong on the utter folly of putting such ideas into the boy's head. Lepage was pretty clear that the idea had come from the boy's head into his, but he said nothing more of that. The boy himself scolded Lepage--first for having been overheard, secondly (and, as Lepage guessed, after being scolded himself very roundly) for using the offending title at all. Meekly Lepage bore this cross also--indeed, with some amusement, and a certain touch of pity for young Alexis, who was not a prince and obviously could not make out why: in the books a king's sons were always princes, even though there were (as in those glorious days there often were) fifty or threescore of them.

Then Countess Ellenburg scolded him: the King's "It's absurd!" was rankling sorely in her mind. Her scolding was in her heaviest manner--very religious: she called Heaven to witness that never, by word or deed, had she done anything to give her boy such a notion. The days are gone by when Heaven makes overt present answer; nothing happened! She roundly charged Lepage with fostering the idea for his own purposes; he wanted to set the Prince of Slavna against his little brother, she supposed, and to curry favor with the rising sun at the poor child's cost.

She was very effective, but she angered Lepage almost beyond endurance. By disposition he was thoroughly good-natured, if sardonic and impassive; he could not suffer the accusation of injuring the pretty boy for his own ends; it was both odious and absurd. He snapped back smartly at her: "I hope nobody will do more to put wrong ideas in his head than I have done, Madame la Comtesse." In a fury she drove him from the room. But she had started ever so slightly. Lepage's alert brain jumped at the signal.

Finally, Stenovics himself had a lecture for poor, much-lectured Lepage. It was one of the miscalculations to which an over-cautious cunning is prone. Stenovics was gentle and considerate, but he was very urgent--urgent, above all, that nothing should be said about the episode, neither about it, nor about the other reprimands. Silence, silence, silence was his burden. Lepage thought more and more. It is better to put up with gossip than to give the idea that the least gossip would be a serious offence. People gossip without thinking, it's easy come and gone, easy speaking and easy forgetting; but stringent injunctions not to talk are apt to make men think. References to the rising sun, also, may breed reflection in the satellites of a setting orb. Neither Countess Ellenburg nor General Stenovics had been as well advised as usual in this essentially trumpery matter.

In short, nervousness had been betrayed. Whence came it? What did it mean? If it meant anything, could Lepage turn that thing to account? The King's favorite attendant was no favorite with Countess Ellenburg. For Lepage, too, the time might be very short! He would not injure the boy, as the angry mother had believed, or at least suggested; but, without question of that, there was no harm in a man's looking out for himself; or if there were, Lepage was clear in thinking that the Countess and the General were not fit preachers of such a highly exacting gospel.

Lepage concluded that he had something to sell. His wares were a suspicion and a fact. Selling the suspicion wronged nobody--he would give no warranty with it--_Caveat emptor_. Selling the fact was disobedience to the King his master. "Disobedience, yes; injury, no," said Lepage with a bit of casuistry. Besides, the King, too, had scolded him.

Moreover, the Prince of Slavna had always treated Monsieur Emile Lepage with distinguished consideration. The Bourbon blood, no doubt, stretched out hands to _la belle France_ in Monsieur Lepage's person.

Something to sell! Who was his buyer? Whose interest could be won by his suspicion, whose friendship bought with his fact? The ultimate buyer was plain enough. But Lepage could not go to Praslok, and he did not approve of correspondence, especially with Colonel Stafnitz in practical control of the Household. He sought a go-between--and a personal interview. At least he could take a walk; the servants were not prisoners. Even conspirators must stop somewhere--on pain of doing their own cooking and the rest! At a quarter past eight in the evening, having given the King his dinner and made him comfortable for the next two hours, Lepage sallied forth and took the road to Slavna. He was very carefully dressed, wore a flower in his buttonhole, and had dropped a discreet hint about a lady, in conversation with his peers. If ladies often demand excuses, they may furnish them too; present seriousness invoked aid from bygone frivolity.

At ten o'clock he returned, still most spruce and orderly, and with a well satisfied air about him. He had found a purchaser for his suspicion and his fact. His pocket was the better lined, and he had received flattering expressions of gratitude and assurances of favor. He felt that he had raised a buttress against future assaults of Fortune. He entered the King's dressing-room in his usual noiseless and unobtrusive manner. He was not aware that General Stenovics had quitted it just a quarter of an hour before, bearing in his hand a document which he had submitted for his Majesty's signature. The King had signed it and endorsed the cover "_Urgent_."

"Ah, Lepage, where have you been?" asked the King.

"Just to get a little air and drink a glass at the Golden Lion."

"You look gayer than that!" smiled the King. Evidently his anger had passed; perhaps he wished to show as much to an old servant whom he liked and valued.

Conscience-stricken--or so appearing--Lepage tore the flower from his coat. "I beg Your Majesty's pardon. I ought to have removed it before entering your Majesty's presence. But I was told you wished to retire at once, sir, so I hurried here immediately."

The King gave a weary yawn. "Yes, I'll go to bed at once, Lepage; and let me sleep as long as I can. This fag-end of life isn't very amusing." He passed his hand wearily across his brow. "My head aches. Isn't the room very close, Lepage? Open the window."

"It has begun to rain, sir."

"Never mind, let's have the rain, too. At least, it's fresh."

Lepage opened a window which looked over the Krath. The King rose: Lepage hastened to offer his arm, which his Majesty accepted. They went together to the window. A sudden storm had gathered; rain was pelting down in big drops.

"It looks like being a rough night," remarked the King.

"I'm afraid it does, sir," Lepage agreed.

"We're lucky to be going to our beds."

"Very, sir," answered Lepage, wondering whose opposite fate his Majesty was pitying.

"I shouldn't care, even if I were a young man and a sound one, to ride to Praslok to-night."

"To Praslok, sir?" There was surprise in Lepage's voice. He could not help it. Luckily it sounded quite natural to the King. It was certainly not a night to ride five and twenty miles, and into the hills, unless your business was very urgent.

"Yes, to Praslok. I've had my breath of air--you can shut the window, Lepage."

The King returned to the fireplace and stood warming himself. Lepage closed the window, drew the curtains, and came to the middle of the room, where he stood in respectful readiness--and, underneath that, a very lively curiosity.

"Yes," said the King slowly, "Captain Markart goes to Praslok to-night--with a despatch for his Royal Highness, you know. Business, Lepage, urgent business! Everything must yield to that." The King enunciated this virtuous maxim as though it had been the rule of his life. "No time to lose, Lepage, so the Captain goes to-night. But I'm afraid he'll have a rough ride--very rough."

"I'm afraid so, sir," said Lepage, and added, strictly in his thoughts: "And so will Monsieur Zerkovitch!"

Captain Markart was entirely of his Majesty's opinion as he set out on his journey to Praslok. His ride would be rough, dark, and solitary--the last by Stenovics's order. Markart was not afraid, he was well armed; but he expected to be very bored, and knew that he would be very wet, by the time he reached the Castle. He breathed a fervent curse on the necessities of State, of which the Minister had informed him, as he buttoned up his heavy cavalry overcoat, and rode across the bridge on to the main road on the right bank, an hour before midnight.

Going was very heavy, so was the rain, so was the darkness; he and his horse made a blurred, laboring shape on the murky face of night. But his orders were to hasten, and he pushed on at a sharp trot and soon covered his first stage, the five miles to the old wooden bridge, where the road leaves the course of the Krath, is carried over the river, and strikes northeast, towards the hills.

At this point he received the first intimation that his journey was not to be so solitary as he had supposed. When he was half-way across the bridge, he heard what sounded like an echo of the beat of his horse's hoofs on the timbers behind him. The thing seemed odd. He halted a moment to listen. The sound of his horse's hoofs stopped--but the echo went on. It was no echo, then; he was not the only traveller that way! He pricked his horse with the spur; regaining the road, he heard the timbers of the bridge still sounding. He touched his horse again and went forward briskly. He had no reason to associate his fellow-traveller's errand with his own, but he was sure that when General Stenovics ordered despatch, he would not be pleased to learn that his messenger had been passed by another wayfarer on the road.

But the stranger, too, was in a hurry, it seemed; Markart could not shake him off. On the contrary, he drew nearer. The road was still broad and good. Markart tried a canter. The stranger broke into a canter. "At any rate, it makes for good time," thought Markart, smiling uneasily. In fact, the two found themselves drawn into a sort of race. On they went, covering the miles at a quick, sustained trot, exhilarating to the men, but rather a strain on their horses. Both were well mounted. Markart wondered who the stranger with such a good horse was. He turned his head, but could see only the same sort of blur as he himself made; part of the blur, however, seemed of a lighter color than his dark overcoat and bay horse produced.

Markart's horse pecked; his rider awoke to the fact that he was pounding his mount without doing much good to himself. He would see whether the unknown meant to pass him or was content to keep on equal terms. His pace fell to a gentle trot--so did the stranger's. Markart walked his horse for half a mile--so did the stranger. Thenceforward they went easily, each keeping his position, till Markart came to where the road forked--on the right to Dobrava, on the left to Praslok and Volseni. Markart drew rein and waited; he might just as well see where the stranger was going.

The stranger came up--and Markart started violently. The lighter tinge of the blur was explained. The stranger rode a white horse. It flashed on Markart that the Prince rode a white charger, and that the animal had been in Slavna the day before--he had seen it being exercised. He peered into the darkness, trying to see the man's face; the effort was of no avail. The stranger came to a stand beside him, and for a few moments neither moved. Then the stranger turned his horse's head to the left: he was for Praslok or Volseni, then! Markart followed his example. He knew why he did not speak to the stranger, but he was wondering why on earth the stranger did not speak to him. He went on wondering till it occurred to him that, perhaps, the stranger was in exactly the same state of mind.

There was no question of cantering, or even of trotting, now. The road rose steeply; it was loose and founderous from heavy rain; great stones lay about, dangerous traps for a careless rider. The horses labored. At the same moment, with the same instinct, Markart and the stranger dismounted. The next three miles were done on foot, and there before them, in deeper black, rose the gate-tower of the Castle of Praslok. The stranger had fallen a little behind again; now he drew level. They were almost opposite the Castle.

A dog barked from the stables. Another answered from the Castle. Two more took up the tune from the stables; the Castle guardian redoubled his responsive efforts. A man came running out from the stables with a lantern; a light flashed in the doorway of the Castle. Both Markart and the stranger came to a stand-still. The man with the lantern raised it high in the air, to see the faces of the travellers.

They saw each other's faces, too. The first result was to send them into a fit of laughter--a relief from tension, a recognition of the absurdity into which their diplomatic caution had led them.

"By the powers, Captain Markart!"

"Monsieur Zerkovitch, by Heaven!"

They laughed again.

"Ah, and we might have had a pleasant ride together!"

"I should have rejoiced in the solace of your conversation!"

But neither asked the other why he had behaved in such a ridiculous manner.

"And our destination is the same?" asked Zerkovitch. "You stop here at the Castle?"

"Yes, yes, Monsieur Zerkovitch. And you?"

"Yes, Captain, yes; my journey ends at the Castle."

The men led away their horses, which sorely needed tending, and they mounted the wooden causeway side by side, both feeling foolish, yet sure they had done right. In the doorway stood Peter Vassip with his lantern.

"Your business, gentlemen?" he said. It was between two and three in the morning.

They looked at each other; Zerkovitch was quicker, and with a courteous gesture invited his companion to take precedence.

"Private and urgent--with his Royal Highness."

"So is mine, Peter," said Zerkovitch.

Markart's humor was touched again; he began to laugh. Zerkovitch laughed, too, but there was a touch of excitement and nervousness in his mirth.

"His Royal Highness went to bed an hour ago," said Peter Vassip.

"I'm afraid you must rouse him. My business is immediate," said Markart. "And I suppose yours is too, Monsieur Zerkovitch?" he added jokingly.

"That it is," said Zerkovitch.

"I'll rouse the Prince. Will you follow me, gentlemen?"

Peter closed and barred the gate, and they followed him through the court-yard. A couple of sentries were pacing it; for the rest, all was still. Peter led them into a small room, where a fire was burning, and left them together. Side by side they stood close to the fire; each flung away his coat and tried to dry his boots and breeches at the comforting blaze.

"We must keep this story a secret, or we shall be laughed at by all Slavna, Monsieur Zerkovitch."

Zerkovitch gave him a sharp glance. "I should think you would report your discreet conduct to your superiors, Captain. Orders are orders, secrecy is secrecy, even though it turns out that there was no need for it."

Markart was about to reply with a joke when the Prince entered. He greeted both cordially, showing, of course, in Markart's presence, no surprise at Zerkovitch's arrival.

"There will be rooms and food and wine ready for you, gentlemen, in a few minutes. Captain Markart, you must rest here for to-night, for your horse's sake as well as your own. I suppose your business will wait till the morning?"

"My orders were to lose not a moment in communicating it to you, sir."

"Very well. You're from his Majesty?"

"Yes, sir."

"The King comes first--and I dare say your affair will wait, Zerkovitch?"

Zerkovitch protested with an eagerness by no means discreet in the presence of a third party--an aide-de-camp to Stenovics!--"No, sir, no--it can't wait an--"

The Prince interrupted. "Nonsense, man, nonsense! Now go to your room. I'll come in and bid you 'Good-night.'" He pushed his over-zealous friend from the room, calling to Peter Vassip to guide him to the apartment he was to occupy. Then he came back to Markart. "Now, Captain!"

Markart took out his letter and presented it with a salute. "Sit down while I read it," said the Prince, seating himself at the table.

The Prince read his letter, and sat playing with it in his fingers for half a minute or so. Then a thought seemed to strike him. "Heavens, I never told Peter to light fires! I hope he has. You're wet--and Zerkovitch is terribly liable to take cold." He jumped up. "Excuse me; we have no bells in this old place, you know." He ran out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Markart sprang to the door. He did not dare to open it, but he listened to the Prince's footsteps. They sounded to the left--one, two, three, four, five, six paces. They stopped--a door opened and shut. Markart made a mental note and went back to the fire, smiling. He thought that idea of his really would please General Stenovics.

In three minutes the Prince returned. "I did Peter injustice--Zerkovitch's fire is all right," he said. "And there's a good one in your room, too, he tells me. And now, Captain Markart, to our business. You know the contents of the letter you carried?"

"Yes, sir. They were communicated to me, in view of their urgency, and in case of accident to the letter."

"As a matter of form, repeat the gist to me."

"General Stenovics has to inform your Royal Highness on the King's behalf that his Majesty sees no need of a personal interview, as his mind is irrevocably fixed, and he orders your Royal Highness to set out for Germany within three days from the receipt of this letter. No pretext is to delay your Royal Highness's departure."

"Perfectly correct, Captain. To-morrow I shall give you an answer addressed directly to the King. But I wish now to give you a message to General Stenovics. I shall ask the King for an audience. Unless he appoints a time within two days, I shall conclude that he has not had the letter, or--pray mark this--has not enjoyed an opportunity of considering it independently. General Stenovics must consider what a responsibility he undertakes if he advises the King to refuse to see his son. I shall await his Majesty's answer here. That is the message. You understand?"

"Perfectly, sir."

"Just repeat it. The terms are important."

Markart obeyed. The Prince nodded his head. "You shall have the letter for the King early in the morning. Now for bed! I'll show you to your room."

They went out and turned to the left. Markart counted their paces. At six paces they came to a door--and passed it. Four farther on, the Prince ushered him into the room where he was to sleep. It was evident that the Prince had made personal inspection of the state of Monsieur Zerkovitch's fire!

"Good-night, Captain. By-the-way, the King continues well?"

"Dr. Natcheff says, sir, that he doesn't think his Majesty was ever better in his life."

The Prince looked at him for just a moment with a reflective smile. "Ah, and a trustworthy man, Natcheff! Good-night!"

Markart did not see much reason to think that the question, the look, the smile, and the comment had any significance. But there would be no harm in submitting the point to General Stenovics. Pondering over this, he forgot to count the Prince's paces this time. If he had counted, the sum would have been just four. Monsieur Zerkovitch's fire needed another royal inspection--it needed it almost till the break of day.

"The King's life hangs by a hair, and your Crown by a thread." That was the warning which Lepage had given and Zerkovitch had carried through the night.

XII

JOYFUL OF HEART

The storm had passed; day broke calm and radiant over the Castle of Praslok; sunshine played caressingly on the lake and on the hills.

Markart had breakfasted and paid a visit to his horse; he wanted to be off by nine o'clock, and waited only for the Prince's letter. He was returning from the stables, sniffing the morning air with a vivid enjoyment of the change of weather, when he saw Sophy coming along the road. She had been for a walk. Her eyes and cheeks glowed with exhilaration. She wore her sheepskin tunic, her sheepskin cap with its red cockade, and her short, blue skirt over high boots. She walked as though on the clouds of heaven, a wonderful lightness in her tread; the Red Star signalled the exaltation of her spirit; the glad sound of the trumpet rang in her heart.

Her cordial greeting to Markart was spiced with raillery, to which he responded as well as his ignorance allowed; he was uncertain how much she knew of the real situation. But if his tongue was embarrassed, his eyes spoke freely. He could not keep them from her face; to him she seemed a queen of life and joy that glorious morning.

"You've recovered from your fright?" she asked. "Poor Monsieur Zerkovitch is still sleeping his off, I suppose! Oh, the story's all over the Castle!"

"It'll be all over the country soon," said Markart with a rueful smile.

"Well, after all, Monsieur Zerkovitch is a journalist, and journalists don't spare even themselves, you know. And you're not a reticent person, are you? Don't you remember all the information you gave me once?"

"Ah, on the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris! Much has happened since then, Baroness."

"Much always happens, if you keep your eyes open," said Sophy.

"If you keep yours open, nothing happens for me but looking at them."

She laughed merrily; a compliment never displeased Sophy, and she could bear it very downright.

"But if I were to shut my eyes, what would you do then?"

He looked doubtfully at her mocking face; she meant a little more than the idle words naturally carried.

"I don't think you'll give me the chance of considering, Baroness." He indicated her costume with a gesture of his hand. "You've entered the service, I see?"

"Yes, Captain Markart, the King's service. We are brethren--you serve him, too?"

"I have that honor." Markart flushed under her laughing scrutiny.

"We fight shoulder to shoulder then. Well, not quite. I'm a gunner, you see."

"Minus your guns, at present!"

"Not for long!" She turned round and swept her arms out towards the lake and the hills. "It's a day to think of nothing--just to go riding, riding, riding!" Her laugh rang out in merry longing.

"What prevents you?"

"My military duties, perhaps, Captain," she answered. "You're lucky--you have a long ride; don't spoil it by thinking!"

"I think? Oh no, Baroness! I only obey my orders."

"And they never make you think?" Her glance was quick at him for an instant.

"There's danger in thinking too much, even for ladies," he told her.

She looked at him more gravely, for his eyes were on her now with a kindly, perhaps a remorseful, look.

"You mean that for me?" she asked. "But if I, too, only obey my orders?"

"With all my heart I hope they may lead you into no danger," he said.

"There's only one danger in all the world--losing what you love."

"Not, sometimes, gaining it?" he asked quickly.

"Still, the only danger would be of losing it again."

"There's life, too," he remarked with a shrug.

"Sir, we're soldiers!" she cried in merry reproof.

"That doesn't prevent me from prizing your life, Baroness, in the interests of a world not too rich in what you contribute to it."

Sophy looked at him, a subtle merriment in her eyes. "I think, Captain Markart, that, if you were my doctor, you'd advise me to try--a change of air! Praslok is too exciting, is that it? But I found Slavna--well, far from relaxing, you know!"

"The Kravonian climate as a whole, Baroness--"

"Oh no, no, that's too much!" she interrupted. Then she said: "It's very kind of you--yes, I mean that--and it's probably--I don't know--but probably against your orders. So I thank you. But I can face even the rigors of Kravonia."

She held out her hand; he bent and kissed it. "In fact, I hadn't the least right to say it," he confessed. "Not the least from any point of view. It's your fault, though, Baroness."

"Since I'm party to the crime, I'll keep the secret," she promised with a decidedly kindly glance. To Sophy, admiration of herself always argued something good in a man; she had none of that ungracious scorn which often disfigures the smile of beauty. She gave a little sigh, followed quickly by a smile.

"We've said all we possibly can to one another, you and I; more than we could, perhaps! And now--to duty!" She pointed to the door of the Castle.

The Prince was coming down the wooden causeway. He, too, wore the Volseni sheepskins. In his hand he carried a sealed letter. Almost at the same moment a groom led Markart's horse from the stables. The Prince joined them and, after a bow to Sophy, handed the letter to Markart.

"For his Majesty. And you remember my message to General Stenovics?"

"Accurately, sir."

"Good!" He gave Markart his hand. "Good-bye--a pleasant ride to you, Captain--pleasanter than last night's." His grave face broke into a smile.

"I'm not to have Monsieur Zerkovitch's company this time, sir?"

"Why, no, Captain. You see, Zerkovitch left the Castle soon after six o'clock. Rather a short night, yes, but he was in a hurry."

Sophy burst into a laugh at the dismay on Markart's face. "We neither of us knew that, Captain Markart, did we?" she cried. "We thought he was sleeping off the fright you'd given him!"

"Your Royal Highness gives me leave--?" stammered Markart, his eye on his horse.

"Certainly, Captain. But don't be vexed, there will be no invidious comparisons. Zerkovitch doesn't propose to report himself to General Stenovics immediately on his arrival."

Good-natured Markart joined in the laugh at his own expense. "I'm hardly awake yet; he must be made of iron, that Zerkovitch!"

"Quicksilver!" smiled the Prince. As Markart mounted, he added: "Au revoir!"

Markart left the two standing side by side--the Prince's serious face lit up with a rare smile, Sophy's beauty radiant in merriment. His own face fell as he rode away. "I half wish I was in the other camp," he grumbled. But Stenovics's power held him--and the fear of Stafnitz. He went back to a work in which his heart no longer was; for his heart had felt Sophy's spell.

"You can have had next to no sleep all night, Monseigneur," said Sophy in reproach mingled with commiseration.

"I don't need it; the sight of your face refreshes me. We must talk. Zerkovitch brought news."

In low, grave tones he told her the tidings, and the steps which he and Zerkovitch had taken.

"I understand my father's reasons for keeping me in the dark; he meant it well, but he was blinded by this idea about my marriage. But I see, too, how it fitted in with Stenovics's ideas. I think it's war between us now--and I'm ready."

Sophy was almost dazed. The King's life was not to be relied on for a week--for a day--no, not for an hour! But she listened attentively. Zerkovitch had gone back to Slavna on a fresh horse and at top speed; he would have more than two hours' lead of Markart. His first duty was to open communications with Lepage and arrange that the valet should send to him all the information which came to his ears, and any impressions which he was able to gather in the Palace. Zerkovitch would forward the reports to Praslok immediately, so long as the Prince remained at the Castle. But the Prince was persuaded that his father would not refuse to see him, now that he knew the true state of the case. "My father is really attached to me," he said, "and if I see him, I'm confident that I can persuade him of the inexpediency of my leaving the kingdom just now. A hint of my suspicions with regard to the Countess and Stenovics would do it; but I'm reluctant to risk giving him such a shock. I think I can persuade him without."

"But is it safe for you to trust yourself at Slavna--in the Palace? And alone?"

"I must risk the Palace alone--and I'm not much afraid. Stenovics might go to war with me, but I don't think he'd favor assassination. And to Slavna I sha'n't go alone. Our gunners will go with us, Sophy. We have news of the guns being on the way; there will be nothing strange in my marching the gunners down to meet them. They're only half-trained, even in drill, but they're brave fellows. We'll take up our quarters with them in Suleiman's Tower. I don't fear all Slavna if I hold Suleiman's Tower with three hundred Volsenians. Stafnitz may do his worst!"

"Yes, I see," she answered, thoughtfully. "I can't come with you to Suleiman's Tower, though."

"Only if there are signs of danger. Then you and Marie must come; if all is quiet, you can stay in her house. We can meet often--as often as possible. For the rest, we must wait."

She saw that they must wait. It was impossible to approach the King on the matter of Sophy. It cut dead at the heart of his ambition; it would be a shock as great as the discovery of Countess Ellenburg's ambitions. It could not be risked.

"But if, under Stenovics's influence, the King does refuse to see you?" she asked--"Refuses to see you, and repeats his orders?"

The Prince's face grew very grave, but his voice was firm.

"Not even the King--not even my father--can bid me throw away the inheritance which is mine. The hand would be the King's, but the voice the voice of Stenovics. I shouldn't obey; they'd have to come to Volseni and take me."

Sophy's eyes kindled. "Yes, that's right!" she said. "And for to-day?"

"Nothing will happen to-day--unless, by chance, the thing which we now know may happen any day; and of that we shouldn't hear till evening. And there's no drill even. I sent the men to their homes on forty-eight hours' furlough yesterday morning." His face relaxed in a smile. "I think to-day we can have a holiday, Sophy."

She clapped her hands in glee. "Oh, Monseigneur, a holiday!"

"It may be the last for a long time," he said; "so we must enjoy it."

This day--this holiday which might be the last--passed in a fine carelessness and a rich joy in living. The cloudless sky and the glittering waters of Lake Talti were parties to their pleasure, whether as they rode far along the shore, or sat and ate a simple meal on the rock-strewn margin. Hopes and fears, dangers and stern resolves, were forgotten; even of the happier issues which the future promised, or dangled before their eyes, there was little thought or speech. The blood of youth flowed briskly, the heart of youth rose high. The grave Prince joked, jested, and paid his court; Sophy's eyes gleamed with the fun as not even the most exalted and perilous adventure could make them sparkle.

"Oh, it's good," she cried--"good to live and see the sun! Monseigneur, I believe I'm a pagan--a sun-worshipper! When he's good enough to warm me through, and to make the water glitter for me, and shadows dance in such a cunning pattern on the hills, then I think I've done something that he likes, and that he's pleased with me!" She sprang to her feet and stretched out her hands towards the sun. "In the grave, I believe, I shall remember the glorious light; my memory of that could surely never die!"

His was the holiday mood, too. He fell in with her extravagance, meeting it with banter.

"It's only a lamp," he said, "just a lamp; and it's hung there for the sole purpose of showing Sophy's eyes. When she's not there, they put it out--for what's the use of it?"

"They put it out when I'm not there?"

"I've noticed it happen a dozen times of late."

"It lights up again when I come, Monseigneur?"

"Ah, then I forget to look!"

"You get very little sun anyhow, then!"

"I've something so much better."

It is pathetic to read--pathetic that she should have set it down as though every word of it were precious--set it down as minutely as she chronicled the details of the critical hours to which fate was soon to call her.

Yet, was she wrong? Days of idleness are not always the emptiest; life may justify its halts; our spirits may mount to their sublimest pitch in hours of play. At least, the temper of that holiday, and her eager prizing and recording of it, show well the manner of woman that she was--her passionate love of beauty, her eager stretching out to all that makes life beautiful, her spirit, sensitive to all around, taking color from this and that, reflecting back every ray which the bounty of nature or of man poured upon it, her great faculty of living. She wasted no days or hours. Ever receiving, ever giving, she spent her sojourn in a world that for her did much, yet never could do enough, to which she gave a great love, yet never seemed to herself to be able to give enough. Perhaps she was not wrong when she called herself a pagan. She was of the religion of joy; her kindest thought of the grave was that haply through some chink in its dark walls there might creep one tiny sunbeam of memory.

They rode home together as the sun was setting--a sun of ruddy gold, behind it one bright, purple cloud, the sky beyond blue, deepening almost into black. When Praslok came in sight, she laid her hand on his with a long-drawn sigh.

"We have been together to-day," she said. "That will be there always. Yes, the sun and the world were made for us this day--and we have been worthy."

He pressed her hand. "You were sent to teach me what joy is--the worth of the world to men who live in it. You're the angel of joy, Sophy. Before you came, I had missed that lesson."

"I'm very glad"--thus she ends her own record of this day of glory--"that I've brought joy to Monseigneur. He faces his fight joyful of heart." And then, with one of her absurd, deplorable, irresistible lapses into the merest ordinary feminine, she adds: "That red badge is just the touch my sheepskin cap wanted!"

Oh, Sophy, Sophy, what of that for a final reflection on the eve of Monseigneur's fight?

XIII

A DELICATE DUTY

There was a stir in Slavna; excitement was gradually growing, not unmixed with uneasiness; gossip was busy at the Hôtel de Paris and at the Golden Lion. Men clustered in groups and talked, while their wives said that they would be better at home, minding their business and letting politics alone. Knowledge was far to seek; rumors were plentiful. Dr. Natcheff might be as reassuring as he pleased--but he had spent the night at the Palace! All was quiet in the city, but news came of the force that was being raised in Volseni, and the size of the force lost nothing as the report passed from mouth to mouth. Little as Slavna loved the Prince, it was not eager to fight him. A certain reaction in his favor set in. If they did not love him, they held him in sincere respect; if he meant to fight, then they were not sure that they did!

Baroness Dobrava's name, too, was much on men's lips; stories about Sophy were bandied to and fro; people began to remember that they had from the beginning thought her very remarkable--a force to be reckoned with. The superstitious ideas about her made their first definite appearance now. She had bewitched the Prince, they said, and the men of the hills, too; the whole mountain country would rise at her bidding and sweep down on Slavna in rude warfare and mad bravery. The Sheepskins would come, following the Red Star!

The citizens of Slavna did not relish the prospect; at the best it would be very bad for trade; at the worst it would mean blood and death let loose in the streets. A stern ruler was better than civil war. The troops of the garrison were no longer such favorites as they had been; even Captain Hercules subdued his demeanor (which, indeed, had never quite recovered from the chastisement of the Prince's sword) to a self-effacing discretion. He, too, in his heart, and in his heavy, primitive brain, had an uneasy feeling about the witch with the Red Star; had she not been the beginning of trouble? But for her, Sterkoff's long knife would have set an end to the whole chapter long ago!

The time was short and the omens doubtful. It was the moment for a bold stroke, for a forcing game. The waverers must be shown where power lay, whose was the winning side.

Captain Markart arrived at Slavna at one o'clock. Zerkovitch had used his start well and reached the city nearly three hours earlier. When Markart told Stenovics (he reported himself at once to the General) how he had been outwitted, Stenovics smiled, saying: "I know, and I know what he has done since he got here. They stole a march on you, but not on me, Captain. And now--your story!" He listened to Markart's tale with a frowning brow, and then dismissed him, saying: "You will meet me at the Palace. We meet the King in conference at four o'clock." But the General himself went to the Palace long before four, and he and Stafnitz were closeted with Countess Ellenburg. Lepage, returning from a walk to the city at two o'clock, saw the General arrive on horseback. Lieutenant Rastatz saw Lepage arrive--ay, and had seen him set out, and marked all his goings; but of this Lepage was unconscious. The little lieutenant was not much of a soldier, but he was an excellent spy. Lepage had been with Zerkovitch.

The King was confined to his apartments, a suite of six rooms on the first floor, facing the river. Here he had his own sitting-room, dressing, and bedrooms. Besides these there were the little cupboard Lepage slept in, and a spare room, which at present accommodated Dr. Natcheff. The sixth room was occupied by odds and ends, including the tackle, rods, and other implements of his Majesty's favorite pastime. The council was held in the sitting-room. Natcheff and Lepage were not present, but each was in his own room, ready for any possible call on his services. Markart was there, first to tell his story and deliver his letter, secondly in his capacity as secretary to General Stenovics. The Countess and Stafnitz completed the party.

The King was anxious, worried, obviously unwell; his voice trembled as he read aloud his son's letter. It was brief but dutiful, and even affectionate. After a slight reproach that he should have been kept in ignorance of the apprehensions entertained about the King's health, the Prince requested an audience within the next two days; he had considerations which it was his duty to lay before his Majesty, and he firmly but respectfully claimed the right of confidential communication with his father; that was essential to his Majesty's obtaining a true appreciation of his views. The hit at Stenovics was plain enough, and the Prince did not labor it. The letter ended there, with an expression of earnest concern for the King's health. There was no word in it about starting on his journey.

Then Markart told his story--not that he had much to tell. In essence he added only that the Prince proposed to await the King's answer at Praslok. Neither to him had the Prince said a word about starting on his journey.

On this point Stenovics seized, pursuant, no doubt, to the plan devised in that preliminary discussion with the other two members of the little _coterie_.

"It is remarkable, sir--even more than remarkable--that his Royal Highness makes no reference at all to the direct command which your Majesty was pleased to issue to him," he observed.

The King listened, puzzled and rather distressed. "Yes, it isn't proper, it isn't respectful. But now that my son knows of the state of my health, I think I must see him. It seems unnatural to refuse. After all, it may be the last time--since he's going on this journey."

"But is the Prince going on his journey, sir?" asked Stenovics. "Does the studied silence of his letter augur well for his obedience? Doesn't he seek an interview in order to persuade your Majesty against your better judgment? I must be pardoned freedom of speech. Great interests are at stake." The last words were true enough, though not in the sense in which the King was meant to understand them.

"My son knows how near this matter is to my heart. I shall be able to persuade him to do his duty," said the King.

The first round of the fight was going against the _coterie_. They did not want the King to see his son. Danger lay there. The Prince's was the stronger character; it might well prevail; and they were no longer certain that the Prince knew or guessed nothing of their hopes and intentions; how much news had Zerkovitch carried to Praslok the night before? Stenovics addressed the King again.

"Captain Markart gathered that the Prince was reluctant to interrupt the military training on which he is engaged at Volseni, sir."

"A very excellent thing, that; but the other matter is more urgent. I shouldn't change my mind on account of that."

"A personal interview might be trying to your Majesty."

The King looked annoyed, possibly a little suspicious. "You've no other objection than that to urge, General Stenovics?"

Stenovics had none other which he could produce. "No, sir," he said.

"While I'm here I must do my duty--and I shall induce my son to do his. I'll receive the Prince of Slavna in private audience to-morrow or next day. I'll fix the precise time later, and I'll write the letter myself."

The decision was final--and it was defeat so far. There was a moment's silence. Markart saw Colonel Stafnitz nod his head, almost imperceptibly, towards Countess Ellenburg. The need and the moment for reinforcements had come; the Colonel was calling them up. The order of battle had been well considered in Countess Ellenburg's apartments! The second line came into action. The Countess began with a question, put with a sneer:

"Did no other reason for the Prince's unwillingness to set out on his journey suggest itself to Captain Markart from what he saw at Praslok?"

The King turned sharply round to her, then to Markart. "Well?" he asked the latter.

Markart was sadly embarrassed.

"Who was at Praslok?" asked the Countess.

"Madame Zerkovitch, and her husband for one night, and Baroness Dobrava."

"Yes, Baroness Dobrava!"

"She's still there?" asked the King. He looked perplexed, even vexed, but again he smiled. He looked at Stenovics and Stafnitz, but this time he found no responsive smiles. Their faces were deadly serious. "Oh, come, well--well, that's not serious. Natural, perhaps, but--the Prince has a sense of duty. He'll see that that won't do. And we'll send the Baroness a hint--we'll tell her how much we miss her at Slavna." He tried to make them answer his smile and accept his smoothing away of the difficulty. It was all a failure.

"I'm bound to say, sir, that I consider Baroness Dobrava a serious obstacle to his Royal Highness's obeying your wishes--a serious obstacle," said Stenovics.

"Then we must get her away, General."

"Will he let her go?" snapped the Countess.

"I must order it, if it comes to that," said the King. "These little--er--affairs--these--what?--holiday flirtations--"

The Countess lost--or appeared to lose--control of herself suddenly. "Little affairs! Holiday flirtations! If it were only that, it would be beneath your notice, sir, and beneath mine. It's more than that!"

The King started and leaned forward, looking at her. She rose to her feet, crying: "More than that! While we sit talking here, he may be marrying that woman!"

"Marrying her?" cried the King; his face turned red, and then, as the blood ebbed again, became very pale.

"That's what she means--yes, and what he means, too!"

The King was aghast. The second assault struck home--struck at his dearest hopes and wounded his most intimate ambitions. But he was still incredulous. He spread out trembling hands, turning from the vehement woman to his two counsellors.

"Gentlemen!" he said, imploringly, with out-stretched hands.

They were silent--grave and silent.

"Captain Markart, you--you saw anything to suggest this--this terrible idea?"

The fire was hot on poor Markart again. He stammered and stuttered.

"The--the Baroness seemed to have much influence, sir; to--to hold a very high position in the Prince's regard; to--to be in his confidence--"

"Yes!" struck in the Countess. "She wears the uniform of his artillery! Isn't that a compliment usually reserved for ladies of royal rank? I appeal to you, Colonel Stafnitz!"

"In most services it is so, I believe, Countess," the Colonel answered gravely.

"But I should never allow it--and without my consent--"

"It might be invalid, sir, though there's some doubt about that. But it would be a fatal bar to our German project. Even an influence short of actual marriage--"

"She means marriage, I say, marriage!" The Countess was quite rudely impatient of her ally--which was very artistic. "An ambitious and dangerous woman! She has taken advantage of the favor the King showed her."

"And if I died?" asked the King.

Stenovics shrugged his shoulders. "Of course, there would be no control then," said he.

The King looked round. "We must get her away from Praslok."

"Will she come?" jeered the Countess. "Not she! Will he let her go? Not he!"

The King passed his hand weakly across his brow. Then he rang a bell on the table. Lepage entered, and the King bade him bring him the draught which Natcheff had prescribed for his nerves. Well might the unfortunate man feel the need of it, between the Countess's open eruption and the not less formidable calm of Stenovics and Stafnitz! And all his favorite dreams in danger!

"She won't leave him--or he'll follow her. The woman has infatuated him!" the Countess persisted.

"Pray, madame, let me think," said the harassed and sick King. "We must open communications with Baroness Dobrava."

"May I suggest that the matter might prove urgent, sir?" said Stenovics.

"Every hour is full of danger," declared the Countess.

The King held up his hand for silence. Then he took paper and pen, and wrote with his own hand some lines. He signed the document and folded it. His face was now firm and calmer. The peril to his greatest hopes--perhaps a sense of the precarious tenure of his power--seemed to impart to him a new promptness, a decision alien to his normal character. "Colonel Stafnitz!" he said in a tone of command.

The Colonel rose to his feet and saluted. From an adviser in council he became in a moment a soldier on duty.

"I am about to entrust to you a duty of great delicacy. I choose you because, short of General Stenovics himself, there is no man in whom I have such confidence. To-morrow morning you will go to Praslok and inform his Royal Highness that you have a communication from me for Baroness Dobrava. If the Prince is absent, you will see the Baroness herself. If she is absent, you will follow her and find her. The matter is urgent. You will tell her that it is my request that she at once accompany you back here to the Palace, where I shall receive her and acquaint her with my further wishes. If she asks of these, say that you are not empowered to tell her anything; she must learn them from myself. If she makes any demur about accompanying you immediately, or if demur is made or delay suggested from any quarter, you will say that my request is a command. If that is not sufficient, you will produce this paper. It is an order under my hand, addressed to you and directing you to arrest Baroness Dobrava and escort her here to my presence, notwithstanding any objection or resistance, which any person whatever will offer at his peril. You will be back here by to-morrow evening, with the Baroness in your charge. Do it without employing the order for arrest if possible, but do it anyhow and at all costs. Do you understand?"

"Perfectly, sir. Am I to take an escort?"

The answer to that question was anxiously considered--and awaited anxiously.

"Yes," said the King, "you will. The precise force I leave to your discretion. It should be large enough to make you secure from hinderance by any act short of open and armed resistance to my commands."

Stafnitz saluted again, and at a sign from the King resumed his seat. The King's manner relaxed as he turned to Stenovics. "When we've got her here, we'll reason with her--she'll hear reason--and persuade her that her health will benefit by a foreign trip. If necessary, I shall cause her to be deported. She must be out of Kravonia in three days unless she can clear herself from all suspicion. I'll arrange that the Prince sha'n't come for his audience until she is well out of Slavna. It is, of course, absolutely essential that no word of this should pass the walls of this room. If once a hint of it reached Praslok, the task of laying our hands on the Baroness might become infinitely more difficult."

The three were well pleased. They had come to fear Sophy, and on that score alone would be right glad to see the last of her. And when she had gone, there was a fairer chance that the Prince, too, would go on his travels; whether he went after her or not they cared little, so that he went, and the recruiting and training at Volseni were interrupted.

Again, she was to go before the audience. That was another point. The peril of the audience remained, but they had improved their chances. Perhaps Stafnitz's brain was already busy with the possibilities of his mission and his escort. The latter was to be large enough to make him secure from hinderance by any act short of open and armed resistance to the King's commands. If it were impossible (as his Majesty obviously considered) to contemplate such resistance, it was evidently no less impossible to reckon what might happen as a consequence of it.

The King rang his bell impatiently. "I want my draught again. I'm very tired. Is there anything else which need detain us to-day?"

As he spoke, before Stenovics could answer, Lepage came in with the draught. The valet wore an even unusually demure and uninterested expression.

"There is one other matter, sir," said Stenovics.

The King paused in the act of drinking and listened with his glass in his hand, Lepage standing beside him.

"Your Majesty just now impressed on us the need of secrecy as to what passes between these walls. I think, sir, you would insist on the same thing with all who serve you confidentially. You haven't asked, sir, how the Prince became aware of the state of your Majesty's health."

The King started a little. "No, I forgot that. It was against my direct orders. How was it?"

Stenovics kept his eyes on the King; Markart and Stafnitz allowed themselves to study Lepage's features; he stood the scrutiny well.

"The news, sir, was betrayed by a man within these walls--a man in close touch with your Majesty."

"Natcheff!" exclaimed the King.

"Certainly not, sir. Another. This man, of whom I had suspicions, and whom I caused to be watched, went by night to the house of Monsieur Zerkovitch, who is, as you are aware, a close friend and (if I may use the word) an adherent of the Prince of Slavna. Their interview took place between nine and ten last night. At eleven Zerkovitch, having borrowed a horse from the Prince's stables, set out for Praslok. He rode hard through the night and reached the Castle, as Captain Markart has told us, in the small hours of the morning. There he had an interview with the Prince. He left Praslok between six and seven in the morning and arrived at his house on the south boulevard by eleven. At half-past eleven he walked up the Street of the Fountain, crossed St. Michael's Square, and entered a small inn in a little alley behind the Cathedral. Here the man I speak of was waiting for him. They were together half an hour. Zerkovitch then left. The man remained till one, then came out, and returned to the Palace by a circuitous route, arriving here about two o'clock. I venture to say that the meaning of all this is quite clear. This man is in communication with Praslok, using Zerkovitch as his intermediary. It's for your Majesty to say how far his disobedience in regard to acquainting the Prince with your condition is a serious offence. As to that I say nothing. But it will be obvious that this man should know nothing of any private measures undertaken or contemplated."

The King had listened carefully. "The case seems clear," he said. "This fellow's a traitor. He's done harm already, and may do more. What do you ask, General?"

"We might be content to let him know nothing. But who can be quite certain of insuring that? Sir, you have just arrived at a very important decision--to take certain action. Absolute secrecy is essential to its success. I've no wish to press hardly on this man, but I feel bound to urge that he should be put under arrest and kept in the charge of a person who is beyond suspicion until the action to which I refer has been successfully carried out."

"The precaution is an obvious one, and the punishment hardly sufficient." The King rose. "Do as you say, General. I leave you full discretion. And now I'll go to my room and rest. I'm very tired. Give me your arm, Lepage, and come and make me comfortable."

Lepage did not offer his arm. He was not looking at the King, nor listening to him; his eyes and his ears were for General Stenovics. Stenovics rose now and pointed his finger at Lepage.

"That, sir, is the man," said he.

"Lepage!" cried the King, and sank heavily into his seat with a bewildered face. Lepage--his familiar--the man he trusted!

XIV

HIS MAJESTY DIES--TO-MORROW!

The King's ambition and pride had quivered under the threat of a cruel blow; the charge against Lepage wounded him hardly less deeply. He regarded his body-servant with the trustful affection which grows on an indolent man in course of years--of countless days of consulting, trusting, relying on one ever present, ever ready, always trustworthy. Lepage had been with him nearly thirty years; there was hardly a secret of the King's manhood which he had not known and kept. At last had he turned traitor?

Stenovics had failed to allow for this human side of the matter; how much more alone the revelation would make the King feel, how much more exposed and helpless--just, moreover, when sickness made his invaluable servant more indispensable still. A forlorn dignity filled the King's simple question: "Is it true, Lepage?"

Lepage's impassivity vanished. He, too, was deeply moved. The sense of guilt was on him--of guilt against his master; it drove him on, beyond itself, to a fierce rage against those who had goaded him into his disobedience, whose action and plans had made his disobedience right. For right now he believed and felt it; his talks with Zerkovitch had crystallized his suspicions into confident certainty. He was carried beyond thinking of what effect his outburst might have on his own fortunes or how it might distress the already harassed King. He struck back fiercely at his accuser, all his national quickness of passion finding vent in the torrent of words he poured forth in excuse or justification. He spoke his native French, very quickly, one word jostling over another, his arms flying like windmills, and his hair bristling, as it seemed, with defiance.

"Yes, it's true, sir. I disobeyed your Majesty--for the first time in thirty years! For the first time in my life, sir, I did it! And why? Because it was right; because it was for honor. I was angry, yes! I had been scolded because Count Alexis bade me call him 'Prince,' and you heard me do it. Yes, I was angry. Was it my fault? Had I told him he was a prince? No! Who had told him he was a prince? Don't ask me, sir. Ask somebody else. For my part, I know well the difference between one who is a prince and one who is not. Oh, I'm not ignorant of that! I know, too, the difference between one who is a queen and one who is not--oh, with the utmost respect to Madame la Comtesse! But I know it--and I remember it. Does everybody else remember it?"

He stopped for a moment and clutched at his stiff, tight collar, as though to wrench it away from his neck, and let the stream of his words flow even more freely. While he paused, nobody spoke. Stenovics's heavy gaze was on the King, Stafnitz's eyes discreetly on the ceiling; the Countess looked scared. Had they made a mistake? Would it have been better to run the risk of what Lepage could do? The King's hands were on the table in front of him; they trembled where they lay.

"Why wasn't the Prince to know? Because then he wouldn't go on his journey! His journey after the German princess!" He faced Stenovics now, boldly and defiantly, pointing a forefinger at him. "Yes, they wanted him to go. Yes, they did! Why, sir? To marry a princess--a great princess? Was that what they wanted? Eh, but it would have been little use for Count Alexis to ask me to call him a prince then! And Madame la Comtesse--with the utmost respect to Madame la Comtesse--she wanted a great princess here? Oh, she wanted that mightily, to be sure!"

The King stirred uneasily in his chair.

"Sir, will you listen to him?" the Countess broke in.

His answer was cold: "I listen to every man before I order him to be punished."

"Yes, they wanted him to go. Yes, certainly! For he trains his men at Volseni, trains them for his big guns. When the men are trained and the guns have come--well, who'll call Count Alexis a prince then? Will even they who taught him to think himself a prince? Oh yes; they wanted him to go. And he wouldn't go if he knew your Majesty was ill. He loves your Majesty. Yes! But if he hated you, still would he go?" With a sudden turn he was round on Stenovics again, and threw out his arms as though to embrace a picture. "Look! The Prince is away, the guns are come, the King dies! Who commands in the Palace? Who governs Slavna?" He was back to the King with another swift turn. "May I answer, sir? May I tell you? The mother of Prince Alexis commands in the Palace; Slavna is ruled by the friends of Captain Mistitch!" His voice fell to an ironical murmur. "And the Prince is far off--seeking a great princess! Sir, do you see the picture?"

Stafnitz suddenly lowered his eyes from the ceiling and looked at the gesticulating little man with a smile.

"Such imagination in the servants' hall!" he murmured half under his breath.

The King neither rebuked his levity nor endorsed the insinuated satire. He took no notice at all. His eyes were fixed on his still trembling hands.

Stenovics spoke in a calm, smooth voice. "Absolutely, sir, I believe the man's honest!" he said, with an inflection of good-humored surprise. "One sees how he got the idea! I'm sure he's genuinely devoted to your Majesty, and to the Prince--as we all are. He sees something going on which he doesn't understand; he knows something more is going on that he's ignorant of. He knows the unfortunate condition of your Majesty's health. He's like a nurse--forgive me--in charge of a sick child; he thinks everybody but himself has designs on his charge. It's really natural, however absurd--but it surely makes the precaution I suggested even more necessary? If he went about spreading a tale like this!"

The line was clever--cleverer far than the Countess's rage, cleverer than Stafnitz's airily bitter sneer. But of it, too, the King took no notice. Lepage took no more than lay in a very scornful smile. He leaned down towards the motionless, dull-faced King, and said in his ear:

"They wanted him to go, yes! Did they want him to come back again, sir?" He bent a little lower, and almost whispered: "How long would his journey have taken, sir? How long would it have taken him to get back if--in case of need?" One more question he did not ask in words; but it was plain enough without them: "How long can your Majesty count on living?"

At last the King raised his head and looked round on them. His eyes were heavy and glassy.

"This man has been my trusted servant for many, many years. You, General Stenovics, have been my right hand, my other self. Colonel Stafnitz is high in my confidence. And Lepage is only my servant."

"I seek to stand no higher than any other of your Majesty's servants, except in so far as the nature of my services gives me a claim," said Stenovics.

"But there's one here who stands far nearer to me than any one, who stands nearer to me than any living being. She must know of this thing, if it's true; if it's being done, her hand must be foremost among the hands that are doing it." His eyes fixed themselves on the Countess's face. "Is it true?" he asked.

"Sir, how can you ask? How can you listen? True! It's a malignant invention. He's angry because I reproved him."

"Yes, I'm angry. I said so. But it's true for all that."

"Silence, Lepage! Am I to take your word against the Countess's?"

Markart, a silent listener to all this scene, thought that Lepage's game was up. Who could doubt what the Countess's word would be? Probably Lepage, too, thought that he was beaten, that he was a ruined man. For he played a desperate card--the last throw of a bankrupt player. Yet it was guided by shrewdness, and by the intimate knowledge which his years of residence in the Palace had given him. He knew the King well; and he knew Countess Ellenburg hardly less thoroughly.

"I speak truth, sir, as I believe it. But I can't expect you to take my word against the Countess's. I have too much respect for Madame la Comtesse to ask that."

Again he bent down towards the King; the King looked up at him; Stenovics's simile came back into the mind. In a low, soothing tone Lepage made his throw--his last suggestion. "Madame la Comtesse is of great piety. If Madame la Comtesse will take a solemn oath--well, then I'm content! I'll say I was mistaken--honest, I declare, sir, but mistaken."

Stenovics raised his head with a sharp jerk. Stafnitz smiled scornfully; he was thinking that Lepage was not, after all, a very resourceful fellow. An oath! Great Heavens! Oaths were in the day's work when you put your hand to affairs like this. But here Stenovics was wiser--and Lepage was shrewder. Stafnitz generalized from an experience rather one-sided; the other two knew the special case. When oaths were mentioned--solemn oaths--Stenovics scented danger.

The King knew his wife, too; and he was profoundly affected, convulsed to the depths of his mind. The thing sounded true--it had a horrible sound of truth. He craved the Countess's denial, solemn as it could be framed. That would restore the confidence which was crumbling from beneath his tormented, bewildered mind.

"Can anybody object to that," he asked slowly, "if I say it will relieve my mind?" He smiled apologetically. "I'm a sick man, you know. If it will relieve a sick man's mind, banish a sick man's fancies? If I shall sleep a little better--and old Lepage here be ashamed of himself?"

None of them dared to object. None could plausibly, unless the Countess herself--and she dared not. In his present mood the King would not accept the plea of her dignity; against it he would set the indulgence due to a sick man's rebellious fancies; could she, for her dignity's sake, deny him what would make him sleep?

He looked at her; something in her face appeared to strike him as strange. A sort of quiver ran through his body; he seemed to pull himself together with an effort; as he spoke to her, his voice sounded faint and ever so slightly blurred.

"You've heard Lepage, and I know that you'll speak the truth to me on your oath--the truth about the thing nearest to the heart of a dying man--nearest to the heart of your dying husband. You wouldn't lie on oath to a dying man, your husband and your King. For I am dying. You have years still; but they'll end. You believe that some day you and I will stand together before the Throne. As you shall answer to Heaven in that day, is this true? Was it in your heart, and in the heart of these men, to keep my son, the heir of my House, from his throne? Is it true? As you shall answer to God for your soul, is there any truth in it?"

The woman went gray in the face--a sheet of gray paper seemed drawn over her cheeks; her narrow lips showed a pale red streak across it. Her prayers--those laborious, ingenious, plausible prayers--helped her nothing here.

"I protest! At this time, sir! The Countess will be upset!"

Stenovics had been driven to this; he feared greatly. Not a soul heeded him; every eye now was on the woman. She struggled--she struggled to lie; she struggled to do what she believed would bring perdition to her soul. Her voice was forced and harsh when at last she broke silence.

"As I shall answer in that day--"

"As you shall answer to God for your soul in that day--" the King repeated.

She gave a wild glance at Stenovics, seeking succor, finding no refuge. Her eyes came back to the King's face. "As I shall answer--" Every word came forth by its own self, with its separate birth-pang--"As I shall answer to God for my soul--"

She stopped. There was silence while a man might count ten. She threw her hands above her head and broke into a violent torrent of sobs. "I can't! I can't!" they heard her say through her tumultuous weeping.

The King suddenly started back in his chair as though somebody had offered to strike him. "You--you--you, my wife! You, Stenovics! You, whom I trusted--trusted--trusted like--! Ah, is that you, Lepage? Did I hear rightly--wouldn't she swear?"

"With the utmost respect to Madame la Comtesse, she could not swear, sir."

The King sprang to his feet. "Go!" he cried.

They all rose--the Countess shaken with unconquerable sobs. But the next moment the King made a quick in-drawing of the breath, like a man suddenly pricked by some sharp thing. He dropped back in his chair; his head fell to meet his hands on the table in front. The hands were palms downward, and his forehead rested on his knuckles.

There was a moment's pause. Then Lepage darted from the room, crying: "Dr. Natcheff! Dr. Natcheff!" Stenovics wiped his brow. Stafnitz raised his head with a queer look at the King, and his mouth shaped for a whistle. The Countess's sobs seemed as though frozen, her whole frame was rigid. The King did not move.

Natcheff came rushing in; Lepage, who followed closely, shut the door after him. They both went to the King. There was silence while Natcheff made his examination. In a couple of minutes he turned round to them.

"Something has caused his Majesty strong agitation?"

"Yes," answered Stenovics.

"Yes!" said Natcheff. He cleared his throat and glanced doubtfully at the Countess.

"Well?" asked Stenovics.

Natcheff threw out his hands, shrugging his shoulders ever so slightly:

"I regret to say that the effect is the worst possible. His Majesty is dead."

Silence again--a silence strangely broken. Stafnitz sprang across the room with a bound like a cat's, and caught the physician by the shoulder.

"No!" he said. "Not for twenty-four hours yet! His Majesty dies--to-morrow!"

XV

A JOB FOR CAPTAIN HERCULES

"His Majesty dies--to-morrow!"

Stafnitz's words seemed to freeze them all stiff where they stood; even Countess Ellenburg's sobs, which had threatened to break forth again, were arrested in their flow.

"Markart, lock the door leading to the King's apartments. Natcheff and Lepage, carry the King into his bedroom; lay him on the bed; stay there till I call you. Countess, General, I invite your earnest attention."

Stenovics's mind excelled in the waiting game, the slow, tortuous approach, the inch-by-inch advance of leisurely diplomacy. For him this crisis was at first too sudden. The swift and daring intellect of Stafnitz naturally and inevitably took the lead; his strong will fascinated his confederates.

"Is this to be the beginning or the end?" he asked. "For us and our friends--which? If we send a courier to Praslok to call King Sergius to his capital--what then? For you, Countess, and your son, oblivion and obscurity at Dobrava--for all the rest of your life, just that! For you, General, and for me, and our friends--yes, you too, Markart!--our _congé_, more or less civilly given. There won't be more insignificant men in all Slavna on the day King Sergius enters. But there's no King Sergius yet!"

Stenovics was regaining the use of his brain; his eyes grew distant in deep meditation. Countess Ellenburg looked eager and grim; her lips could not swear a false oath--well, she was not asked to swear any oath now. Markart could not think; he stood staring at Stafnitz.

"In half an hour that courier must start for Praslok, if he starts at all. Of all things, we mustn't hesitate."

He had painted the result to them of the coming of King Sergius; it meant the defeat of years of effort; it entailed the end of hopes, of place, of power or influence. There was no future for those three in Kravonia if King Sergius came. And Markart, of course, seemed no more than one of Stenovics's train.

"And if the courier doesn't start?" asked Stenovics. He took out and lit a cigar, asking no leave of the Countess; probably he hardly knew that he was smoking it.

Stafnitz looked at his watch. "Five o'clock! We have twenty-four hours--it would be risky to keep the secret longer. There's not much time; we must be prompt. But we mustn't sacrifice anything to hurry. For instance, it would look odd to present the King's orders to Baroness Dobrava in the middle of the night! She'd smell a rat, if she's as clever as they say. And so would the Prince, I think. I could have a hundred men at Praslok by midnight, but I shouldn't propose to have them there before eleven o'clock to-morrow. Well, they could be back here by five in the afternoon! In the course of the day we'll occupy all the important points of the city with troops we can trust. Then, in the evening--as soon as we see how matters have gone at Praslok--we proclaim King Alexis!"

The Countess gave a little shiver--whether of fear or of eagerness it was impossible to tell. Stenovics drummed his fingers on the table and turned his cigar quickly round and round in his mouth. Markart had recovered his clearness of mind and closely watched all the scene.

The Countess rose suddenly--in strong agitation. "I--I can't bear it," she said. "With him lying there! Let me go! Presently--presently you shall tell me--anything."

Stenovics laid down his cigar and went to her. "Wait in there"--he pointed to Natcheff's room--"till you're quite composed. Then go to your own room and wait till I come. Mind, Countess, no sign of agitation!" He led her out. Stafnitz shrugged his shoulders.

"She'll be all right," he said to Markart with a passing smile.

"I think she was fond of the King," said Markart.

Stenovics returned. "Now!" he said, seating himself again and resuming his cigar. "You suggest that we still use that order--for the arrest of Baroness Dobrava?"

"It's signed 'Alexis,' and King Alexis lives till five to-morrow. Moreover, if all goes well, King Alexis lives again for many years after that."

Stenovics nodded slightly. "The Baroness comes willingly--or you bring her? At any rate, one way or the other, she's in our hands by this time to-morrow?"

"Exactly, General. I fail to perceive that this lamentable event"--he waved his hand towards the King's empty chair--"alters the case as regards the Baroness one jot."

"Not the least--unless you consider that risking our heads on the throw has any such effect," replied Stenovics; and for the first time he smiled.

"Once you wanted to play the big stake on a bad hand, General. Won't you put it on the table now, when you've a good one?"

"I'm thinking of a certain strong card in the other hand which you haven't mentioned yet. Baroness Dobrava is to be in our power by this time to-morrow. But what will the Prince of Slavna be doing? Still drilling his men at Volseni, still waiting for his guns?"

Stafnitz looked him full in the face. "No," he said. "The Prince had better not still be drilling his men at Volseni, nor waiting for his guns."

"I think not, too," Stenovics agreed, twisting his cigar round again.

"General, do you think the Prince will let Baroness Dobrava come to Slavna without him?"

"I don't know. He might have confidence enough in you; he wouldn't wish to annoy or agitate the King. He might await his summons to an audience. On the whole, I think he would submit--and rely on being able to induce the King to alter his mind when they met. I'm not sure he wouldn't advise her to go with you."

"Well, yes, I confess that struck me, too, as rather likely--or at least possible."

"If it happened, it wouldn't be convenient," said Stenovics, with a patient sigh. "Because he would come after her in a day or two."

"But if I were detained by urgent business in Slavna--and we've agreed that there's work to be done to-morrow in Slavna--another officer would go to Praslok. The order, which I have here, mentions no name, although the King designated me by word of mouth."

"The order mentions no name?"

"No; it directs the Baroness to accompany the bearer. True, at the foot my name is written--'Entrusted to Colonel Stafnitz.' But with care and a pair of scissors--!" He smiled at Markart again, as though taking him into the joke.

"Well, well, suppose another officer goes to Praslok--why shouldn't the Prince trust the Baroness to the care of that officer as readily as to you? You don't--how shall I put it?--monopolize his confidence, Colonel."

Stafnitz still wore his easy, confidential smile, as he answered with an air of innocent slyness: "Suppose the officer were--Captain Mistitch? I think it's just the job for Captain Hercules!"

Even Stenovics started a little at that. He laid down his cigar and looked at his friend the Colonel for some seconds. Then he looked at Markart, smiling, seeming to ponder, to watch how Markart was taking it, even to sympathize with Markart on having to consider a rather startling proposal, on having, possibly, to do some little violence to his feelings. Certainly Captain Markart gathered the impression that Stenovics was doubtful how he would stand this somewhat staggering suggestion. At last the General turned his eyes back to Stafnitz again.

"That's as ingenious a bit of deviltry as I ever heard, Colonel," he remarked quietly.

"Captain Mistitch is restored to duty. He's of proper rank to perform such a service, and to command an escort of a hundred men. After all, an officer of my rank made a certain concession in accepting so small a command."

"Of course, if the Prince knew you as I do, my dear Colonel, he'd trust her to a thousand Mistitches sooner than to you--"

"But then--he doesn't!" the Colonel smiled.

"He'd regard the sending of Mistitch as a deliberate insult."

"I'm afraid he would."

"He's hot-tempered. He'd probably say as much."

"Yes. And Mistitch is hot-tempered. He'd probably resent the observation. But you'll remember, General, that the escort is to be large enough to make the officer commanding it secure against hinderance by any act short of open and armed resistance to the King's command."

"He'll never believe the King would send Mistitch!"

"Will that make his peaceable obedience more likely?"

"In a moment they'd be at each other's--" He stopped. "Markart, go and see if they need anything in there." He pointed to the King's bedroom, where Natcheff and Lepage were.

Markart rose and obeyed. His head was swimming; he hardly yet understood how very ingenious the ingenious deviltry was, how the one man was to be sent whose directions the Prince could not submit to, whose presence was an insult, to whom it was impossible to entrust Baroness Dobrava. He was very glad to get out of the room. The last he saw was Stafnitz drawing his chair close up to Stenovics and engaging in low-voiced, earnest talk.

The King's body lay on the bed, decently disposed, and covered with a large fur rug. Lepage sat on a chair near by, Natcheff on another in the window. Both looked up for a moment as Markart entered, but neither spoke. Markart found a third chair and sat down. Nobody said anything; the three were as silent and almost as still as the fourth on the bed. A low murmur of voices came from the next room; the words were indistinguishable. So passed full half an hour--a strange and terrible half-hour it seemed to Markart.

The door opened, and Stafnitz called Natcheff. The physician rose and followed him. Another twenty minutes went by, still in silence; but once Markart, looking for a moment at his mute companion, saw a tear rolling slowly down Lepage's wrinkled cheek. Lepage saw him looking and broke the silence:

"I suppose I helped to kill him!"

Markart shrugged his shoulders helplessly. Silence came again. Very long it seemed; but, on looking at his watch, Markart found that it was not yet half-past six.

Again the door opened, and Stafnitz called to them both. They followed him into the next room. Stenovics was sitting at the table with his hands clasped on it in front of him. Stafnitz took up a position by his side, standing as though on duty. Natcheff had disappeared. Stenovics spoke in calm, deliberate tones; he seemed to have assumed command of the operations again.

"Captain Markart, I'm about to entrust to you an important and responsible duty. For the next twenty-four hours, and afterwards until relieved by my orders, you will be in charge of this man Lepage, and will detain him in these apartments. His own room and this room will be at the disposal of yourself and your prisoner, but you must not let the prisoner out of your sight. Dr. Natcheff remains in his room. He will have access to the King's room when he desires, but he will not leave the suite of apartments. Beyond seeing to this, you will have no responsibility for him. The door leading to the suite will be locked by me, and will be opened only by me, or by my orders. I remain at the Palace to-night; under me Captain Sterkoff will be the officer on guard. He will himself supply you with any meals or other refreshments which you may require. Ring this hand-bell on the table--no other bell, mind--and he will be with you immediately. Do you understand your orders?"

Markart understood them very well; there was no need of Stafnitz's mocking little smile to point the meaning. Markart was to be Lepage's jailer, Sterkoff was to be his. Under the most civil and considerate form he was made as close a prisoner as the man he guarded. Evidently, Stenovics had come to the conclusion that he could not ask Markart to put too great a strain on his conscience! The General, however, seemed very kindly disposed towards him, and was, indeed, almost apologetic:

"I've every hope that this responsible and, I fear, very irksome duty may last only the few hours I mentioned. You put me under a personal obligation by undertaking it, my dear Markart."

In the absence of any choice, Markart saluted and answered: "I understand my orders, General."

Stafnitz interposed: "Captain Sterkoff is also aware of their purport."

Stenovics looked vexed. "Yes, yes, but I'm sure Markart himself is quite enough." It seems odd that, in the midst of such a transaction as that in which he was now engaged, Stenovics should have found leisure--or heart--to care about Markart's feeling. Yet so it was--a curiously human touch creeping in! He shut Markart up only under the strongest sense of necessity and with great reluctance. Probably Stafnitz had insisted, in the private conversation which they had held together: Markart had shown such evident signs of jibbing over the job proposed for Captain Hercules!

Lepage's heart was wrung, but his spirit was not broken. Stafnitz's ironical smile called an answering one to his lips.

"It would console my feelings if I also were put in charge of somebody, General," he said. "Shall I, in my turn, keep an eye on Dr. Natcheff, or report if the Captain here is remiss in the duty of keeping himself a prisoner?"

"I don't think you need trouble yourself, Monsieur Lepage. Captain Sterkoff will relieve you of responsibility." To Lepage, too, Stenovics was gentle, urbane, almost apologetic.

"And how long am I to live, General?"

"You're in the enviable position, Monsieur Lepage, of being able, subject to our common mortality, to settle that for yourself. Come, come, we'll discuss matters again to-morrow night or the following morning. There are many men who prefer not to do things, but will accept a thing when it's done. They're not necessarily unwise. I've done no worse to you than give you the opportunity of being one of them. I think you'll be prudent to take it. Anyhow, don't be angry; you must remember that you've given us a good deal of trouble."

"Between us we have killed the King."

Stenovics waved his hands in a commiserating way. "Practical men mustn't spend time in lamenting the past," he said.

"Nor in mere conversation, however pleasant," Stafnitz broke in with a laugh. "Captain Markart, march your prisoner to his quarters."

His smile made the order a mockery. Markart felt it, and a hatred of the man rose in him. But he could do nothing. He did not lead Lepage to his quarters, but followed sheepishly in his prisoner's wake. They went together into the little room where Lepage slept.

"Close quarters too, Captain!" said the valet. "There is but one chair--let me put it at your service." He himself sat down on the bed, took out his tobacco, and began to roll himself a cigarette.

Markart shut the door and then threw himself on the solitary chair, in a heavy despondency of spirit and a confused conflict of feelings. He was glad to be out of the work, yet he resented the manner in which he was put aside. There were things going on in which it was well to have no hand. Yet was there not a thing going on in which every man ought to have a hand, on one side or the other? Not to do it, but to be ready to accept it when done! He was enough of a soldier to feel that there lay the worst, the meanest thing of all. Not to dare to do it, but to profit by the doing! Stenovics had used the words to Lepage, his prisoner. By making him in effect a prisoner, too, the General showed that he applied them to the Captain also. Anything seemed better than that--ay, it would be better to ride to Praslok behind Captain Hercules! In that adventure a man might, at least, risk his life!

"An odd world!" said the valet, puffing out his cigarette smoke. "Honest men for prisoners, and murderers for jailers! Are you a prisoner or a jailer, Captain Markart?"

XVI

A FRENCHMAN AND A MATTRESS

To say the truth, the word "murderers" seemed to Captain Markart more than a little harsh. To use it was to apply to Kravonian affairs the sterner standards of more steady-going, squeamish countries. A _coup d'état_ may well involve fighting; fighting naturally includes killing. But are the promoters of the _coup_ therefore murderers? Murderers with a difference, anyhow, according to Kravonian ideas, which Captain Markart was inclined to share. Moreover, a _coup d'état_ is war; the suppression of information is legitimate in war. If the Prince of Slavna could not find out for himself what had happened in the Palace, were his opponents bound to tell him? In fact, given that an attempt to change the succession in your own interest was not a crime, but a legitimate political enterprise, the rest followed.

Except Mistitch! It was difficult to swallow Mistitch. There was a mixture of ingenuity and brutality about that move which not even Kravonian notions could easily accept. If Stafnitz had gone--nay, if he himself had been sent--probably Markart's conscience would not have rebelled. But to send Captain Hercules--that was cogging the dice! Yet he was very angry that Stenovics should have divined his feelings and shut him up. The General distrusted his courage as well as his conscience--there lay the deepest hurt to Markart's vanity; it was all the deeper because in his heart he had to own that Stenovics read him right. Not only the brazen conscience was lacking, but also the iron nerve.

Getting no answer to his unpleasantly pointed question, Lepage relapsed into silence. He stood by the window, looking out on the lawn which sloped down to the Krath. Beyond the river the lights of Slavna glowed in the darkening sky. Things would be happening in Slavna soon; Lepage might well look at the city thoughtfully. As a fact, however, his mind was occupied with one problem only--where was Zerkovitch and how could he get at him? For Lepage did not waver--he had taken his line.

Presently, however, his professional instincts seemed to reassert themselves. He opened a cupboard in the room and brought out a clean pair of sheets, which he proceeded to arrange on the bed. Busy at this task, he paused to smile at Markart and say: "We must do the best we can, Captain. After all, we have both camped, I expect! Here's the bed for you--you'll do finely." He went back to the cupboard and lugged out a mattress. "And this is for me--the shake-down on the floor which I use when I sleep in the King's room--or did use, I should say. In my judgment, Captain, it's comfortable to go to bed on the floor--at least, one can't fall."

It was eight o'clock. They heard the outer door of the suite of rooms open and shut. A man was moving about in the next room; if they could judge by the sound of his steps, he also paid Dr. Natcheff a brief visit. They heard the clink of dishes and of glass.

"Dinner!" said Lepage. "Ah, that's not unwelcome! Have I permission?" Markart nodded, and he opened the door. On the table in the sitting-room was a savory dish, bread, and two bottles of wine. Captain Sterkoff was just surveying the board he had spread, with his head on one side. There was nothing peculiar in that; his head was permanently stuck on one side--a list to starboard--since the Virgin with the lamp had injured the vertebræ of his neck. But the attitude, together with his beaked nose, made him look like a particularly vicious parrot. Markart saw him through the open door and could not get the resemblance out of his mind.

"Supper, gentlemen!" said Sterkoff with malevolent mirth. "The Doctor can't join you. He's a little upset and keeps his bed. A good appetite! I trust not to be obliged to disturb you again to-night."

Markart had come in by now, but he was too surly and sore to speak. Without a word he plumped down into a chair by the table and rested his chin on his hands, staring at the cloth. It was left to Lepage to bow to Sterkoff, and to express their joint thanks. This task he performed with sufficient urbanity. Then he broke into a laugh.

"They must think it odd to see you carrying dishes and bottles about the Palace, Captain?"

"Possibly," agreed Sterkoff. "But you see, my friend, what they think in the Palace doesn't matter very much, so long as none of them can get outside."

"Oh, they none of them spend the evening out?"

"Would they wish to, when the King has an attack of influenza, and Dr. Natcheff is in attendance? It would be unfeeling, Lepage!"

"Horribly, Captain! Probably even the sentries would object?"

"It's possible they would," Sterkoff agreed again. He drew himself up and saluted Markart, who did not move or pay any attention. "Good-night, Lepage." He turned to the door; his head seemed more cocked on one side than ever. Lepage bade him "Good-night" very respectfully; but as the key turned in the door, he murmured longingly: "Ah, if I could knock that ugly mug the rest of the way off his shoulders!"

He treated Markart with no less respect than he had accorded to Sterkoff; he would not hear of sitting down at table with an officer, but insisted on handing the dish and uncorking the wine. Markart accepted his attentions and began to eat languidly, with utter want of appetite.

"Some wine, Captain, some wine to cheer you up in this tiresome duty of guarding me!" cried Lepage, picking up a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other. "Oh, but that wry-necked fellow has brought you a dirty glass! A moment, Captain! I'll wash it." And off he bounded--not even waiting to set down the bottle--into the little room beyond.

His brain was working hard now, marshalling his resources against his difficulties. The difficulties were thirty feet to fall, Sterkoff's sentries, the broad, swift current of the Krath--for even in normal times there was always a sentry on the bridge--then the search for Zerkovitch in Slavna. His resources were a mattress, a spare pair of sheets, and a phial half full of the draught which Dr. Natcheff had prescribed for the King.

"It's very unfortunate, but I've not the least notion how much would kill him," thought Lepage, as he poured the medicine--presumably a strong sedative--into the wine-glass and filled up with wine from the bottle Sterkoff had provided. He came back, holding the glass aloft with a satisfied air. "Now it's fit for a gentleman to drink out of," said he, as he set it down by Markart's hand. The Captain took it up and swallowed it at a draught.

"Ugh! Corked, I think! Beastly, anyhow!" said he.

"They poison us as well as shut us up!" cried Lepage in burlesque anger. "Try the other bottle, Captain!"

The other bottle was better, said Markart, and he drank pretty well the whole of it, Lepage standing by and watching him with keen interest. It was distressing not to know how much of the King's draught would kill; it had been necessary to err on the safe side--the side safe for Lepage, that is.

Captain Markart thought he would smoke his cigar in the little room, lying on the bed; he was tired and sleepy--very sleepy, there was no denying it. Lepage sat down and ate and drank; he found no fault with the wine in the first bottle. Then he went and looked at Markart. The Captain lay in his shirt, breeches, and boots. He was sound asleep and breathing heavily; his cigar had fallen on the sheet, but apparently had been out before it fell. Lepage regarded him with pursed lips, shrugged his shoulders, and slipped the Captain's revolver into his pocket. The Captain's recovery must be left to Fate.

For the next hour he worked at his pair of sheets, slicing, twisting, and splicing. In the end he found himself possessed of a fairly stout rope twelve or thirteen feet long, but he could find nothing solid to tie it to near the window, except the bed, and that was a yard away. He would still have a fall of some twenty feet, and the ground was hard with a spring frost. There would be need of the mattress. He put out all the lights in the room and cautiously raised the window.

The night was dark, he could not see the ground. He stood there ten minutes. Then he heard a measured tramp; a dark figure, just distinguishable, came round the corner of the Palace, walked past the window to the end of the building, turned, walked back, and disappeared. Hurriedly Lepage struck a match and took the time. Again he waited, again the figure came. Again he struck a light and took the time. He went through this process five times before he felt reasonably sure that he could rely on having ten minutes to himself if he started the moment Sterkoff's sentry had gone round the corner of the building.

He pulled the mattress up onto the sill of the window and waited. There was no sound now but of Markart's stertorous breathing. But presently the measured tramp below came, passed, turned, and passed away. Lepage gave a last tug at the fastenings of his rope, threw the end out of window, took the mattress, and dropped it very carefully as straight down as he could.

The next moment, in spite of Sterkoff, somebody had left the Palace. Why not? The runaway was aware that the King was not really suffering from influenza--he could spend an evening in Slavna without reproach!

"I wish I knew the safest way to fall!" thought Lepage, dangling at the end of his rope. It swayed about terribly; he waited awhile for it to steady itself--he feared to miss the mattress; but he could not wait long, or that measured tramp and that dark figure would come. There would be a sudden spurt of light, and a report--and what of Lepage then? He gathered his legs up behind his knees, took a long breath--and fell. As luck would have it, though he landed on the very edge of the mattress, yet he did land on it, and tumbled forward on his face, shaken, but with bones intact. There was a numb feeling above his knees--nothing worse than that.

He drew another long breath. Heavy bodies--and even mattresses--fall quickly; he must have seven or eight minutes yet!

But no! Heavy bodies, even mattresses, falling quickly, make a noise. Lepage, too, had come down with a thud, squashing hidden air out of the interstices of the mattress. The silence of night will give resonance to gentler sounds than that, which was as though a giant had squeezed his mighty sponge. Lepage, on his numb knees, listened. The steps came, not measured now, but running. The dark figure came running round the corner. What next? Next the challenge--then the spurt of light and the report! What of Lepage then? Nothing--so far as Lepage and the rest of humanity for certainty knew.

Of that nothing--actual or possible--Lepage did not approve. He hitched the mattress onto his back, bent himself nearly double, and, thus both burdened and protected, made for the river. He must have looked like a turtle scurrying to the sea, lest he should be turned over--and so left for soup in due season.

"Who goes there? Halt! Halt!"

The turtle scurried on; it was no moment to stop and discuss matters.

The spurt of light, the report! There was a hole in the mattress, but well above Lepage's head. Indeed, if hit at all, he was not most likely to be hit in the head; that vital portion of him was tucked away too carefully. He presented a broader aim; but the mattress masked him nobly.

There was another shot--the northwest corner of the mattress this time. But the mattress was on the river's edge. The next instant it was floating on the current of the Krath, and Sterkoff's sentry was indulging in some very pretty practice at it. He hit it every time, until the swift current carried it round the bend and out of sight.

The whole thing seemed strange and rather uncanny to the sentry. He grounded his rifle and wiped his brow. It had looked like a carpet taking a walk on its own account--and then a swim! Superior officers might be accustomed to such strange phenomena. The sentry was not. He set off at a round pace to the guard-room; he did not even stay to notice the white rope which dangled in the air from a first-floor window. Had he stopped, he would have heard Markart's invincible, drug-laden snoring.

Lepage had separated himself from his good friend and ally, the mattress, and dived under water while the sentry blazed away. He welcomed the current which bore him rapidly from the dangerous neighborhood of the Palace. He came to the surface fifty feet down stream and made for the other side. He could manage no more than a very slanting course, but he was a strong swimmer, lightly dressed, with an in-door man's light kid shoes. He felt no distress; rather a vivid, almost gleeful, excitement came upon him as he battled with the strong, cold stream. He began to plume himself on the mattress. Only a Frenchman would have thought of that! A Slavna man would have ran away with unguarded flanks. A Volsenian would have stayed to kill the sentry, and be shot down by Sterkoff's guard. Only a Frenchman would have thought of the mattress!

He made land a quarter of a mile below the Palace. Ah, it was colder on the road there than struggling with the cold water! But his spirit was not quenched. He laughed again--a trifle hysterically, perhaps. In spite of Sterkoff he was spending the evening out! He set his feet for Slavna--briskly, too! Nay, he ran, for warmth's sake, and because of what the sentry might even now be reporting to Sterkoff, and, through him, to General Stenovics. The thought brought him to a stand-still again; there might be a cordon of sentries across the road! After a moment's hesitation he broke away from the main road, struck due south, and so ran when he could, walked when he must, two miles.

He was getting terribly tired now, but not cold--rather he was feverishly hot inside his clammy garments. He turned along a country cross-road which ran west, and passed through a village, leaving the Hôtel de Paris on the main road far to his right. At last he reached the main road south and turned up it, heading again for Slavna and for the bridge which crossed the South River. He passed the bridge without being challenged as the Cathedral clock struck midnight from St. Michael's Square. The worst of his task was accomplished. If now he could find Zerkovitch!

But he was sore spent; running was out of the question now; he slunk slowly and painfully along the south boulevard, clinging close to the fences of the gardens, seeking the shelter of the trees which overhung them.

Draggled, hatless, dirty, infinitely weary, at last he reached Zerkovitch's house at the corner where the boulevard and the Street of the Fountain meet. He opened the garden gate and walked in. Spent as he was, he breathed a "Bravo!" when he saw a light burning in the hall. He staggered on, rang the bell, and fairly fell in a lump outside the door.

He had done well; he, a man of peace, busy with clothes--he had done well that night! But he was finished. When Zerkovitch opened the door, he found little more than a heap of dank and dirty raiment; he hauled it in and shut the door. He supported Lepage into the study, sat him down by the fire, and got brandy for him to drink, pouring out full half a tumbler. Lepage took it and drank the better part of it at a gulp.

"The King died at five o'clock, Monsieur Zerkovitch," he said. He drank the rest, let the tumbler fall with a crash in the fender, buried his head on his breast, and fell into blank unconsciousness.

He was out of the battle--as much as Markart, who slept the clock round in spite of Stenovics's shakings and Dr. Natcheff's rubbings and stimulants. But he had done his part. It was for Zerkovitch to do his now.

The King had died at five o'clock? It was certainly odd, that story, because Zerkovitch had just returned from the offices of _The Patriot_; and, immediately before he left, he had sent down to the foreman-printer an official _communiqué_, to be inserted in his paper. It was to the effect that Captain Mistitch and a guard of honor of fifty men would leave Slavna next morning at seven o'clock for Dobrava, to be in readiness to receive the King, who had made magnificent progress, and was about to proceed to his country seat to complete his convalescence.

Captain Mistitch and a guard of honor for Dobrava! Zerkovitch decided that he would, if possible, ride ahead of them to Dobrava--that is, part of the way. But first he called his old housekeeper and told her to put Lepage to bed.

"Don't worry about anything he says. He's raving," he added thoughtfully.

But poor Lepage raved no more that night. He did not speak again till all was over. He had done his part.

At five o'clock in the morning, Zerkovitch left Slavna, hidden under a sack in a carrier's cart. He obtained a horse at a high price from a farmer three miles along the road, and thence set out for the Castle at his best speed. At six, Captain Mistitch, charged with Stafnitz's careful instructions, set out with his guard of honor along the same road--going to Dobrava to await the arrival of the King, who lay dead in the Palace on the Krath!

But since they started at six, and not at seven, as the official _communiqué_ led Zerkovitch to suppose, he had an hour less to spare than he thought. Moreover, they went not fifty strong, but one hundred.

These two changes--of the hour and the force--were made as soon as Stenovics and Stafnitz learned of Lepage's escape. A large force and a midnight march would have aroused suspicion in Slavna. The General did what he could safely do to meet the danger which the escape suggested--the danger that news of the King's death might be carried to Praslok before Mistitch and his escort got there.

XVII

INGENIOUS COLONEL STAFNITZ

After his happy holiday the Prince slept well, and rose in a cheerful mood--still joyful of heart. He anticipated that the day would bring him a summons from his father; he had little doubt that in the course of a personal interview he could persuade the King to agree to a postponement of his journey. Of Sophy he meant to say nothing--by a reservation necessary and not inexcusable. It was impossible not to take into account the knowledge he had acquired of the state of the King's health. The result of that condition was that his provision must, in all likelihood, be for months only, and not for years. The task for the months was to avoid disturbing the King's mind, so long as this course was consistent with the maintenance of his own favorable position. It must be remembered that no man in the kingdom built more on this latter object than the King himself; no man was less a partisan of Countess Ellenburg and of young Alexis than the husband of the one and the father of the other. The royal line--the line which boasted Bourbon blood--was for the King the only line of Stefanovitch.

Of the attack prepared against him the Prince knew nothing--nothing even of the King's mind having been turned against the Baroness Dobrava, whom so short a time ago he had delighted to honor; nothing, of course, of Stafnitz's audacious _coup_, nor of the secret plan which Stenovics and the Colonel had made, and of which Mistitch was to be the instrument. Of all the salient features of the situation, then, he was ignorant, and his ignorance was shared by those about his person. On the other hand, Stenovics had his finger on every thread save one--the Lepage-Zerkovitch thread, if it may so be called. That was important, but its importance might be nullified if Mistitch made good speed.

On the whole, the odds were much in favor of the coterie. If by any means they could prevent the King from coming alive and free to Slavna, the game would be theirs. If he did come alive and free, their game would probably be up. His presence would mean a hard fight--or a surrender; and Slavna had no stomach for such a fight--though it would be piously thankful to be rid of Sergius, whether as Prince or King, without the necessity of an ordeal so severe.

As a preliminary to the summons he anticipated, and to a possible stay of some days with his father at Slavna, the Prince had details to discuss and routine business to transact with Lukovitch, the captain of his battery in Volseni. He was early on horseback; Sophy and Max von Hollbrandt (Max's stay at the Castle was to end the next day) rode with him as far as the gates of the city; there they left him and turned down into the plain, to enjoy a canter on the banks of Lake Talti. The three were to meet again for the mid-day meal at Praslok. Marie Zerkovitch had been ailing, and kept her bed in the morning. The Prince's mounted guard rode behind him and his friends to Volseni, for the sake of exercising their horses. In the Castle there were left only Marie Zerkovitch and the servants. The Prince did not anticipate that any message would come from the Palace before noon at the earliest.

Morning avocations pursued their usual peaceful and simple course at the Castle; old Vassip, his wife, and the maids did their cleaning; Peter Vassip saw to his master's clothes, and then, to save his father labor, began to sluice the wooden causeway; the stablemen groomed their horses--they had been warned that the Prince might want another mount later in the day. Marie Zerkovitch lay in her bed, sleeping soundly after a restless night. There seemed no hint of trouble in the air. It must be confessed that up to now it looked as though Praslok would be caught napping.

It was Peter Vassip, busy on the causeway, who first saw Zerkovitch. He rested and leaned on his mop to watch the head which rose over the hill, the body that followed, the farm-horse lumbering along in a slow, clumsy, unwilling gallop. The man was using stick and spur--he was riding mercilessly. Peter ran down to the road and waited. A groom came across from the stables and joined him.

"He's got no call to treat the horse like that, whoever he is," the groom observed.

"Not unless he's on urgent business," said Peter, twirling the water from his mop.

Zerkovitch was up to them; he leaped from his horse. "I must see the Prince," he cried, "and immediately!"

"The Prince is at Volseni, sir; he rode over to see Captain Lukovitch."

"When will he be back?"

"We don't expect him till twelve o'clock."

Zerkovitch snatched out his watch.

"There's nobody here but Madame Zerkovitch, sir; she's still in bed, not very well, sir."

"Twelve o'clock!" muttered Zerkovitch, paying no heed to the news about his wife.

"The Baroness and Baron von Hollbrandt are out riding--"

"Can you give me a fresh horse? I must ride on and find the Prince at Volseni."

"Oh yes, sir." He signed to the groom. "And hurry up!" he added.

"The guard's here, of course?"

"No, sir. They've gone with the Prince."

Zerkovitch twitched his head irritably and again looked at his watch. "There must be time," he said. "They can't be here at soonest for an hour and a half."

Peter Vassip did not understand him, but neither did he venture to ask questions.

"Your horse 'll be here in a minute, sir. I think you'll find the Prince in his office over the city gate. He went to do business, not to drill, this morning."

Zerkovitch looked at him for a moment, wondering, perhaps, whether he would be wise to tell his news. But what was the use of telling Peter Vassip? Or his own wife? What could she do? It was for the Prince to say who should be told. The one thing was to find the Prince. There was time--at the very least an hour and a half.

The groom brought the fresh horse, and Zerkovitch began to mount.

"A glass of wine, sir?" Peter Vassip suggested. He had marked Zerkovitch's pale face and strained air; he had wondered to see his clothes sprinkled with whitey-brown fibres--traces of the sack under whose cover he had slid out of Slavna.

Zerkovitch was in the saddle. "No," he answered. "But a bumper, Peter, when I've found the Prince!" He set spurs to his horse and was off at a gallop for Volseni; the road, though high on the hills, was nearly level now.

Peter scratched his head as he looked after him for a moment; then he returned to his mop.

He was just finishing his task, some twenty minutes later, when he heard Sophy's laugh. She and Hollbrandt came from a lane which led up from the lake and joined the main road a hundred yards along towards Volseni. Peter ran and took their horses, and they mounted the causeway in leisurely, pleasant chat. Sophy was in her sheepskin uniform; her cheeks were pale, but the Star glowed. The world seemed good to her that morning.

"And that is, roughly, the story of my life," she said with a laugh, as she reached the top of the causeway and leaned against the rude balustrade which ran up the side of it.

"A very interesting one--even very remarkable," he said, returning her laugh. "But much more remains to be written, I don't doubt, Baroness."

"Something, perhaps," said Sophy.

"A good deal, I imagine!"

She shot a mischievous glance at him: she knew that he was trying to lure from her an avowal of her secret. "Who can tell? It all seems like a dream sometimes, and dreams end in sudden awakenings, you know."

"If it's a dream, you make an excellent dream-lady, Baroness."

Peter Vassip put his mop and pail down by the stables, and came up and stood beside them.

"Did the mare carry you well to-day, sir?" he asked Max.

"Admirably, Peter. We had a splendid ride--at least I thought so. I hope the Baroness--?"

Sophy threw out her arms as though to embrace the gracious world. "I thought it beautiful; I think everything beautiful to-day. I think you beautiful, Baron von Hollbrandt--and Peter is beautiful--and so is your mother, and so is your father, Peter. And I half believe that, just this morning--this one splendid morning--I'm beautiful myself. Yes, in spite of this horrible mark on my cheek!"

"I hear something," said Peter Vassip.

"Just this morning--this one splendid morning--I agree with you," laughed Max. "Not even the mark shall change my mind! Come, you love the mark--the Red Star--don't you?"

"Well, yes," said Sophy, with a little, confidential nod and smile.

"I hear something," said Peter Vassip, with his hand to his ear.

Sophy turned to him, smiling. "What do you hear, Peter?"

He gave a sudden start of recollection. "Ah, has that anything to do with Monsieur Zerkovitch?"

"Monsieur Zerkovitch?" broke from them both.

"He's been here; he's ridden at a gallop on to Volseni--to find the Prince." He added briefly all there was to add--his hand at his ear all the time.

"Hum! That looks like news," said Max. "What can it be?"

"He didn't stop even to tell Marie! It must be urgent."

They looked in one another's faces. "Can there be--be anything wrong in Slavna?"

"You mean--the troops?"

"I had thought of that."

"I can think of nothing but that. If it were anything from the Palace, it would come by a royal courier sooner than by any other hand."

"I can hear plainly now," said Peter Vassip. "Listen!"

They obeyed him, but their ears were not so well trained. A dull, indefinite sound was all they could distinguish.

"Horses--a number of them. Mounted men it must be--the hoofs are so regular. Cavalry!"

"It's the Prince coming back from Volseni!" cried Sophy.

"No, it's from the other direction; and, besides, there are too many for that."

Mounted men on the Slavna road--and too many to be the Prince's guard!

"What can it be?" asked Sophy in a low voice.

"I don't know. Zerkovitch's arrival must be connected with the same thing, I think."

"There! There are their shakoes coming over the rise of the hill!" cried Peter Vassip.

The next moment showed the company. They rode in fours, with sergeants on the flanks. The officer in command was behind--the three on the causeway could not see him yet. They were Hussars of the King's Guard, the best regiment in the army. The Prince of Slavna had made them good soldiers--they hated him for it. But Stafnitz was their colonel. On they came; in their blue tunics and silver braid they made a brave show in the sunshine.

The three watched now without word or motion. The sudden sight held them spellbound. Not one of them thought of sending to warn the Prince. If they had, the thought would have been useless, unless it had chimed in with Mistitch's will. Twenty men could have been on them before there was time to saddle a horse. If the expedition were a hostile one, the Castle was caught napping in very truth!

Sophy stood forward a pace in front of her companions; her hand rested on the little revolver which Monseigneur had given her.

On came the company; the foremost file reached within twenty yards of the causeway. There they halted. Half of them dismounted, each man as he did so intrusting his horse to his next fellow. Half of the fifty thus left mounted repeated this operation, leaving the remaining twenty-five in charge of all the horses. The seventy-five took position, four deep, on the road. They separated, lining either side.

The figure of their commander now appeared. He rode to the foot of the causeway, then dismounted, and gave his horse to the sergeant who attended him. His men followed and drew up in the road, blocking the approach to the Castle. Big Mistitch began to ascend the causeway, a broad smile on his face. It was a great moment for Captain Hercules--the day of revenge for which he had waited in forced patience and discreet unobtrusiveness. It was a critical day, also, in view of the instructions he had. To do him justice, he was not afraid.

Sophy saw and knew. This must have been the news that Zerkovitch carried, that he had galloped on to tell to the Prince at Volseni. Some event--some unknown and untoward turn of fortune--had loosed Mistitch on them! That was all she had time to realize before Mistitch saluted her and spoke.

"I have the honor of addressing the Baroness Dobrava?"

"You know me well, I think, Captain Mistitch, and I know you."

"Our journey together will be all the pleasanter for that."

"Your business with me, please?"

"I have it in command from his Majesty to escort you to Slavna--to the Palace and into his presence. The King himself will then acquaint you with his wishes."

"You're a strange messenger to send."

"That's a point to put to my superior officer, Colonel Stafnitz, who sent me, Baroness."

Sophy pointed at his men. "You ride strongly supported!"

"Again the Colonel's orders, Baroness. I confess the precautions seemed to me excessive. I had no doubt you would willingly obey his Majesty's commands. Here, by-the-way, is the written order." He produced the order the King had signed before his death.

Sophy had been thinking. Neither her courage nor her cunning forsook her. She waved the document away. "I can take your word, Captain? You're making no mistake to-day?--I really am Baroness Dobrava--not somebody else with whom you have a feud?" She laughed at him gayly and went on: "Well, I'm ready. I'm dressed for a ride--and I'll ride with you immediately. In two minutes we'll be off." She saw a groom in the road staring at the troopers, and called to him to bring her a horse.

This prompt obedience by no means suited Mistitch's book. It forced him either to show his hand or to ride off with Sophy, leaving the Prince to his devices--and, in a little while, to his revenge.

"I mustn't hurry you. You have some preparations--?"

"None," said Sophy. Her horse was led out into the road.

"You'll at least desire to acquaint his Royal Highness--?"

"Not at all necessary. Baron von Hollbrandt can do that later on."

Mistitch looked puzzled. Sophy smiled; her intuition had been right. The attack on her was a feint, her arrest a blind; the Prince was the real object of the move. She stepped down towards Mistitch.

"I see my horse is ready. We can start at once, Captain," she said.

"I'm instructed to express to the Prince regret that it should be necessary--"

"The regret will be conveyed to him. Come, Captain!"

But Mistitch barred her way.

"His Royal Highness is in the Castle?" he asked. His voice grew angry now; he feared the great stroke had failed; he saw that Sophy played with him. How would he and his escort look riding back to Slavna with nothing to show for their journey save the capture of one unresisting woman--a woman whom they dared not harm while the Prince remained free, and might become all-powerful?

"If he had been, you'd have known it by now, I think," smiled Sophy. "No, the Prince isn't at the Castle."

"I'll see that for myself!" Mistitch cried, taking a step forward.

With a low laugh Sophy drew aside, passed him, and ran down the causeway. In an instant she darted between the ranks of Mistitch's men and reached her horse. The groom mounted her. She looked up to Mistitch and called to him gayly:

"Now for Slavna, Captain! And hurry, or you'll be left behind!"

Her wit was too quick for him. Max von Hollbrandt burst out laughing; Peter Vassip grinned.

"What are you waiting for, Captain?" asked Max. "Your prisoner's only too anxious to go with you, you see!"

"I'll search the Castle first!" he cried in a rage which made him forget his part.

Peter Vassip sprang forward and barred the way. Mistitch raised his mighty arm. But Sophy's voice rang out gayly:

"Nonsense, Peter! There's nothing to conceal. Let the Captain pass!"

Her words stopped Mistitch--he feared a trap. Max saw it and mocked him. "Don't be afraid, Captain--take fifty men in with you. The garrison consists of a lady in bed, an old man, and five female servants."

Sophy heard and laughed. Even the troopers began to laugh now. Mistitch stood on the top of the causeway, irresolute, baffled, furious.

But behind his stupidity lay the cunning astuteness of Stafnitz, the ingenious bit of devilry. Mistitch's name availed where his brain could not. For the moment the Prince made little of the Crown which had become his; when he heard Zerkovitch's news, his overpowering thought was that the woman he loved might be exposed to the power and the insults of Mistitch. Sophy was playing a skilful game for him, but he did not know it.

"I hear something," said Peter Vassip again, whispering to Max von Hollbrandt.

Yes, there was the galloping of horses on the Volseni road!

Colonel Stafnitz had not miscalculated.

Now Mistitch heard the sound. His heavy face brightened. He ran down the causeway, loudly ordering his men to mount. He was no longer at a loss. He had his cue now--the cue Stafnitz had given him.

XVIII

TO THE FAITHFUL CITY

The King had died yesterday--yet none had told his heir! Mistitch had set out for Dobrava with fifty men to wait for the King--who was dead! The dead King would never go to Dobrava--and no messenger came to the new King at Praslok!

Zerkovitch's news was enough to raise the anger of a King--and Sergius blazed with it. But more potent still was his wrathful fear as he thought of Sophy at Praslok, in the power of Captain Hercules.

He had his guard of twenty mounted men with him. With these he at once set forth, bidding Lukovitch collect all the men he could and follow him as speedily as possible. If Mistitch had really gone to Dobrava, then he would find him there and have the truth out of him. But if, as the Prince hardly doubted, he was making for Praslok, there was time to intercept him, time to carry off Sophy and the other inmates of the Castle, send them back to safety within the walls of Volseni, and himself ride on to meet Mistitch with his mind at ease.

Relying on Zerkovitch's information, he assumed that the troopers had not started from Slavna till seven in the morning. They had started at six. He reckoned also on Zerkovitch's statement, that they were but fifty strong. They were a hundred. Yet, had he known the truth, he could not have used more haste--and he would not have waited for another man! He stayed to tell no man in Volseni the news about his father--except Lukovitch. But as his twenty rode out of the gate behind him, he turned his head to Zerkovitch, who trotted beside him--for Zerkovitch neither could nor would rest till the game was played--and said: "Tell them that the King is dead, and that I reign." Zerkovitch whispered the news to the man next him, and it ran along the line. A low, stern cheer, hardly more than a murmured assurance of loyalty and service, came from the lips of the men in sheepskins.

Mistitch saw them coming, and turned to his troop; he had time for a little speech--and Stafnitz had taught him what to say: "Men, you are servants of the King, and of the King only. Not even the Prince of Slavna can command you against the King's orders. The King's orders are that we take Baroness Dobrava to Slavna, no matter who resists. If need be, these orders stand even against the Prince."

Stafnitz's soldiers--the men he petted, the men who had felt the Prince's stern hand--were only too glad to hear it. To strike for the King and yet against the hated Prince--it was a luxury, a happy and unlooked-for harmonizing of their duty and their pleasure. Their answering cheer was loud and fierce.

It struck harsh on the ears of the advancing Prince. His face grew hard and strained as he heard the shouts and saw the solid body of men across his path, barring access to his own castle. And within a yard or two of their ranks, by the side of the road, sat the figure which he knew so well and so well loved.

Now Mistitch played his card--that move in the game which Sophy's cool submission to his demand had for the moment thwarted, but to which the Prince's headlong anger and fear now gave an opening--the opening which Stafnitz had from the first foreseen. It would need little to make the fiery Prince forget prudence when he was face to face with Mistitch. It was not a safe game for Mistitch personally--both Stafnitz and he knew that. But Captain Hercules was confident. He would not be caught twice by the Volseni trick of sword! The satisfaction of his revenge, and the unstinted rewards that his Colonel offered, made it worth his while to accept the risk, and rendered it grateful to his heart.

Sophy sat smiling. She would fain have averted the encounter, and had shaped her manoeuvres to that end. It was not to be so, it seemed. Now, she did not doubt Monseigneur's success. But she wished that Zerkovitch had not reached Volseni so quickly, that the Prince had stayed behind his walls till his plans were ready; and that she was going a prisoner to Slavna to see the King, trusting to her face, her tongue, her courage, and the star of her own fortune. Never had her buoyant self-confidence run higher.

On the top of the causeway, Max von Hollbrandt looked to his revolver, Peter Vassip loosened his knife in its leather sheath. A window above the gate opened, and Marie Zerkovitch's frightened face looked out. The women-servants jostled old Vassip in the doorway. The grooms stood outside the stables. No one moved--only the Prince's little troop came on. When they were fifty yards away, Mistitch cried to his men: "Draw swords!" and himself pricked his horse with his spur and rode up to where Sophy was.

Mistitch drew his horse up parallel to Sophy's, head to tail, on her right side, between her and the approaching force. With the instinct of hatred she shrank away from him; it had all been foreseen and rehearsed in Stafnitz's mind! Mistitch cried loudly: "In the King's name, Baroness Dobrava!" He leaned from the saddle and caught her right wrist in his huge hand: he had the justification that, at his first attempt to touch her, Sophy's hand had flown to her little revolver and held it now. Mistitch crushed her wrist--the revolver fell to the ground. Sophy gave one cry of pain. Mistitch dropped her wrist and reached his arm about her waist. He was pulling her from her horse, while again he cried out: "In the King's name! On guard!"

It was a high jump from the top of the causeway, but two men took it side by side--Max von Hollbrandt, revolver in hand, Peter Vassip with knife unsheathed.

As they leaped, another shout rang out: "Long live King Sergius!"

The Prince rode his fastest, but faster still rode Zerkovitch. He outpaced the Prince and rode right in among Mistitch's men, crying loudly again and again, unceasingly: "The King is dead! The King is dead! The King is dead!"

Then came the Prince; he rode full at Mistitch. His men followed him, and dashed with a shock against the troopers of Mistitch's escort. As they rode, they cried: "Long live King Sergius!" They had unhorsed a dozen men and wounded four or five before they realized that they met with no resistance. Mistitch's men were paralyzed. The King was dead--they were to fight against the King! The magic of the name worked. They dropped the points of their swords. The Volsenians, hesitating to strike men who did not defend themselves, puzzled and in doubt, turned to their Bailiff--their King--for his orders.

As the Prince came up, Mistitch hurled Sophy from him; she fell from her horse, but fell on the soft, grassy road-side, and sprang up unhurt save for a cruel pain in her crushed wrist. She turned her eyes whither all eyes were turned now. The general battle was stayed, but not the single combat. For a moment none moved save the two who were now to engage.

The fight of the Street of the Fountain fell to be fought again. For when Peter Vassip was darting forward, knife in hand, with a spring like a mountain goat's, his master's voice called: "Mine, Peter, mine!" It was the old cry when they shot wild-boar in the woods about Dobrava, and it brought Peter Vassip to a stand. Max von Hollbrandt, too, lowered his pointed revolver. Who should stand between his quarry and the King, between Sophy's lover and the man who had so outraged her? Big Mistitch was the King's game, and the King's only, that day.

Mistitch's chance was gone, and he must have known it. Where was the sergeant who had undertaken to cover him? He had turned tail. Where was the enveloping rush of his men, which should have engulfed and paralyzed the enemy? Paralysis was on his men themselves; they believed Zerkovitch, and lacked appetite for the killing of a King. Where was his triumphant return to Slavna, his laurels, his rewards, his wonderful swaggerings at the Golden Lion? They were all gone. Even though he killed the King, there were two dozen men vowed to have his life. They must have it--but at what price? His savage valor set the figure high.

It was the old fight again, but not in the old manner. There was no delicate sword-play, no fluctuating fortunes in the fray. It was all stem and short. The King had not drawn his sword, Mistitch did not seek to draw his. Two shots rang out sharply--that was all. The King reeled in his saddle, but maintained his seat. Big Mistitch threw his hands above his head with a loud cry and fell with a mighty crash on the road, shot through the head. Peter Vassip ran to the King and helped him to dismount, while Max von Hollbrandt held his horse. Sophy hurried to where they laid him by the road-side.

"Disarm these fellows!" cried Zerkovitch.

But Mistitch's escort were in no mood to wait for this operation; nor to stay and suffer the anger of the King. With their leader's fall the last of heart was out of them. Wrenching themselves free from such of the Volsenians as sought to arrest their flight, they turned their horses' heads and fled, one and all, for Slavna. The King's men attempted no pursuit; they clustered round the spot where he lay.

"I'm hit," he said to Sophy, "but not badly, I think."

From the Castle door, down the causeway, came Marie Zerkovitch, weeping passionately, wringing her hands. The soldiers parted their close ranks to let her through. She came to the road-side where Sophy supported Monseigneur's head upon her knees. Sophy looked up and saw her. Marie did not speak. She stood there sobbing and wringing her hands over Sophy and the wounded King.

That afternoon--an hour after the first of the straggling rout of Mistitch's escort came in--King Alexis died suddenly! So ran the official notice, endorsed by Dr. Natcheff's high authority. The coterie were in up to their necks; they could not go back now; they must go through with it. Countess Ellenburg took to her knees; Stenovics and Stafnitz held long conversations. Every point of tactical importance in the city was occupied by troops. Slavna was silent, expectant, curious.

Markart awoke at five o'clock, heavy of head, dry in the mouth, sick and