ill. He found himself no longer in the King's suite, but in one of the

apartments which Stafnitz had occupied. He was all alone; the door stood open. He understood that he was no more a prisoner; he knew that the King was dead!

But who else was dead--and who alive--and who King in Slavna?

He forced himself to rise, and hurried through the corridors of the Palace. They were deserted; there was nobody to hinder him, nobody of whom to ask a question. He saw a decanter of brandy standing near the door of one room, and drank freely of it. Then he made his way into the garden. He saw men streaming over the bridge towards Slavna, and hastened after them as quickly as he could. His head was still in a maze; he remembered nothing after drinking the glass of wine which Lepage the valet had given him. But he was possessed by a strong excitement, and he followed obstinately in the wake of the throng which set from the Palace and the suburbs into Slavna.

The streets were quiet; soldiers occupied the corners of the ways; they looked curiously at Markart's pale face and disordered uniform. A dull roar came from the direction of St. Michael's Square, and thither Markart aimed his course. He found all one side of the Square full of a dense crowd, swaying, jostling, talking. On the other side troops were massed; in an open space in front of the troops, facing the crowd, was Colonel Stafnitz, and by his side a little boy on a white pony.

Markart was too far off to hear what Stafnitz said when he began to speak--nay, the cheers of the troops behind the Colonel came so sharp on his words as almost to drown them; and after a moment's hesitation (as it seemed to Markart), the crowd of people on the other side of the Square echoed back the acclamations of the soldiers.

All Countess Ellenburg's ambitions were at stake; for Stenovics and Stafnitz it was a matter of life itself now, so daringly had they raised their hands against King Sergius. Countess Ellenburg had indeed prayed--and now prayed all alone in a deserted Palace--but not one of the three had hesitated. At the head of a united army, in the name of a united people, Stafnitz had demanded the proclamation of young Alexis as King. For an hour Stenovics had made a show of demurring; then he bowed to the national will. That night young Alexis enjoyed more honor than he had asked of Lepage the valet--he was called not Prince, but Majesty. He was King in Slavna, and the first work to which they set his childish hand was the proclamation of a state of siege.

Slavna chose him willingly--or because it must at the bidding of the soldiers. But Volseni was of another mind. They would not have the German woman's son to reign over them. Into that faithful city the wounded King threw himself with all his friends.

The body of Mistitch lay all day and all night by the wayside. Next morning at dawn the King's grooms came back from Volseni and buried it under a clump of trees by the side of the lane running down to Lake Talti. Their curses were the only words spoken over the grave; and they flattened the earth level with the ground again, that none might know where the man rested who had lifted his hand against their master.

The King was carried to Volseni sore stricken; they did not know whether he would live or die. He had a dangerous wound in the lungs, and, to make matters worse, the surgical skill available in Volseni was very primitive.

But in that regard fortune brought aid, and brought also to Sophy a strange conjuncture of the new life with the old. The landlord of the inn sent word to Lukovitch that two foreign gentlemen had arrived at his house that afternoon, and that the passport of one of them described him as a surgeon; the landlord had told him how things stood, and he was anxious to render help.

It was Basil Williamson. Dunstanbury and he, accompanied by Henry Brown, Dunstanbury's servant, had reached Volseni that day on their return from a tour in the Crimea and round the shores of the Sea of Azof.

XIX

THE SILVER RING

It was late at night, and quiet reigned in Volseni--the quiet not of security, but of ordered vigilance. A light burned in every house; men lined the time-worn walls and camped in the market-place; there were scouts out on the road as far as Praslok. No news came from outside, and no news yet from the room in the guard-house where the wounded King lay. The street on which the room looked was empty, save for one man, who walked patiently up and down, smoking a cigar. Dunstanbury waited for Basil Williamson, who was in attendance on the King and was to pronounce to Volseni whether he could live or must die.

Dunstanbury had been glad that Basil could be of use, but for the rest he had listened to the story which Zerkovitch told him with an amused, rather contemptuous indifference--with an Englishman's wonder why other countries cannot manage their affairs better, and something of a traveller's pleasure at coming in for a bit of such vivid, almost blazing "local color" in the course of his journey. But whether Alexis reigned, or Sergius, mattered nothing to him, and, in his opinion, very little to anybody else.

Nor had he given much thought to the lady whose name figured so prominently in Zerkovitch's narrative, the Baroness Dobrava. Such a personage seemed no less appropriate to the surroundings than the rest of the story--no less appropriate and certainly not a whit more important. Of course he hoped Basil would make a good report, but his mind was not disturbed; his chief hope was that the claims of humanity would not prolong his stay in Volseni beyond a few days. It was a picturesque little place, but not one for a long visit; and in any case he was homeward bound now, rather eager for the pleasures of the London season after his winter journey--the third he had made in the interests of a book on Russia which he had in contemplation, a book designed to recommend him as an expert student of foreign affairs. He could hardly consider that these goings-on in Kravonia came within the purview of a serious study of his subject. But it was a pleasant, moonlit night, the old street was very quaint, the crisis he had happened on bizarre and amusing. He smoked his cigar and waited for Basil without impatience.

He had strolled a hundred yards away and just turned to loiter back, when he saw a figure come out of the guard-house, pause for a moment, and then advance slowly towards him. The sheepskin cap and tunic made him think at first that the stranger was one of the Volsenian levy; the next moment he saw the skirt. At once he guessed that he was in the presence of Baroness Dobrava, the heroine of the piece, as he had called her in his own mind and with a smile.

Evidently she meant to speak to him; he threw away his cigar and walked to meet her. As they drew near to each other he raised his hat. Sophy bowed gravely. Thus they met for the first time since Sophy washed her lettuces in the scullery at Morpingham, and, at the young lord's bidding, fetched Lorenzo the Magnificent a bone. This meeting was, however remotely, the result of that. Dunstanbury had started her career on the road which had led her to where she was.

"I've seen Mr. Williamson," she said, "and he knows me now. But you don't yet, do you, Lord Dunstanbury? And anyhow, perhaps, you wouldn't remember."

She had been a slip of a girl when he saw her last, in a print frock, washing lettuces. With a smile and a deprecatory gesture he confessed his ignorance and his surprise. "Really, I'm afraid I--I don't. I've been such a traveller, and meet so many--" An acquaintance with Baroness Dobrava was among the last with which he would have credited himself--or perhaps (to speak his true thoughts), charged his reputation.

"Mr. Williamson knew me almost directly--the moment I reminded him of my mark." She touched her cheek. Dunstanbury looked more closely at her, a vague recollection stirring in him. Sophy's face was very sad, yet she smiled just a little as she added: "I remember you so well--and your dog Lorenzo. I'm Sophy Grouch of Morpingham, and I became Lady Meg's companion. Now do you remember?"

He stepped quickly up to her, peered into her eyes, and saw the Red Star.

"Good Heavens!" he said, smiling at her in an almost helpless way. "Well, that is curious!" he added. "Sophy Grouch! And you are--Baroness Dobrava?"

"There's nothing much in that," said Sophy. "I'll tell you all about that soon, if we have time. To-night I can think of nothing but Monseigneur. Mr. Williamson has extracted the bullet, but I'm afraid he's very bad. You won't take Mr. Williamson away until--until it's settled--one way or the other, will you?"

"Neither Basil nor I will leave so long as we can be of the least service to you," he told her.

With a sudden impulse she put her hands in his. "It's strangely good to find you here to-night--so strange and so good! It gives me strength, and I want strength. Oh, my friends are brave men, but you--well, there's something in home and the same blood, I suppose."

Dunstanbury thought that there was certainly something in having two Englishmen about, instead of Kravonians only, but such a blunt sentiment might not be acceptable. He pressed her hands as he released them.

"I rejoice at the chance that brings us here. You can have every confidence in Basil. He's a first-rate man. But tell me about yourself. We have time now, haven't we?"

"Really, I suppose we have! Monseigneur has been put to sleep. But I couldn't sleep. Come, we'll go up on the wall."

They mounted on to the city wall, just by the gate, and leaned against the mouldering parapets. Below lay Lake Talti in the moonlight, and beyond it the masses of the mountains. Yet while Sophy talked, Dunstanbury's eyes seldom left her face; nay, once or twice he caught himself not listening, but only looking, tracing how she had grown from Sophy Grouch in her scullery to this. He had never forgotten the strange girl: once or twice he and Basil had talked of her; he had resented Lady Meg's brusque and unceremonious dismissal of her protégée; in his memory, half-overgrown, had lain the mark on Sophy's cheek. Now here she was, in Kravonia, of all places--Baroness Dobrava, of all people! And what else, who knew? The train of events which had brought this about was strange; yet his greater wonder was for the woman herself.

"And here we are!" she ended with a woful smile. "If Monseigneur lives, I think we shall win. For the moment we can do no more than hold Volseni; I think we can do that. But presently, when he's better and can lead us, we shall attack. Down in Slavna they won't like being ruled by the Countess and Stenovics as much as they expect. Little by little we shall grow stronger." Her voice rose a little. "At last Monseigneur will sit firm on his throne," she said. "Then we'll see what we can do for Kravonia. It's a fine country, and rich, Lord Dunstanbury, and outside Slavna the people are good material. We shall be able to make it very different--if Monseigneur lives."

"And if not?" he asked, in a low voice.

"What is it to me except for Monseigneur? If he dies--!" Her hands thrown wide in a gesture of despair ended her sentence.

If she lived and worked for Kravonia, it was for Monseigneur's sake. Without him, what was Kravonia to her? Such was her mood; plainly she took no pains to conceal it from Dunstanbury. The next moment she turned to him with a smile. "You think I talk strangely, saying: 'We'll do this and that'? Yes, you must, and it's suddenly become strange to me to say it--to say it to you, because you've brought back the old things to my mind, and all this is so out of keeping with the old things--with Sophy Grouch, and Julia Robins, and Morpingham! But until you came it didn't seem strange. Everything that has happened since I came to this country seemed to lead up to it--to bring it about naturally and irresistibly. I forgot till just now how funny it must sound to you--and how--how bad, I suppose. Well, you must accustom yourself to Kravonia. It's not Essex, you know."

"If the King lives?" he asked.

"I shall be with Monseigneur if he lives," she answered.

Yes, it was very strange; yet already, even now--when he had known her again for half an hour, had seen her and talked to her--gradually and insidiously it began to seem less strange, less fantastic, more natural. Dunstanbury had to give himself a mental shake to get back to Essex and to Sophy Grouch. Volseni set old and gray amid the hills, the King whose breath struggled with his blood for life, the beautiful woman who would be with the King if and so long as he lived--these were the present realities he saw in vivid immediate vision; they made the shadows of the past seem not indeed dim--they kept all their distinctness of outline in memory--but in their turn fantastic, and in no relation to the actual. Was that the air of Kravonia working on him? Or was it a woman's voice, the pallid pride of a woman's face?

"In Slavna they call me a witch," she said, "and tell terrible tales about this little mark--my Red Star. But here in Volseni they like me--yes, and I can win over Slavna, too, if I get the opportunity. No, I sha'n't be a weakness to Monseigneur if he lives."

"You'll be--?"

"His wife?" she interrupted. "Yes." She smiled again--nay, almost laughed. "That seems worst of all--worse than anything else?"

Dunstanbury allowed himself to smile too. "Well, yes, of course that's true," he said. "Out of Kravonia, anyhow. What's true in Kravonia I really don't know yet."

"I suppose it's true in Kravonia too. But what I tell you is Monseigneur's will about me."

He looked hard at her. "You love him?" he asked.

"As my life, and more," said Sophy, simply.

At last Dunstanbury ceased to look at her; he laid his elbows on the battlements and stood there, his eyes roaming over the lake in the valley to the mountains beyond. Sophy left his side, and began to walk slowly up and down the rugged, uneven, overgrown surface of the walls.

The moon was sinking in the sky; there would be three or four dark hours before the dawn. A man galloped up to the gate and gave a countersign in return to a challenge; the heavy gates rolled open; he rode in; another rode out and cantered off along the road towards Praslok. There was watch and ward--Volseni was not to be caught napping as Praslok had been. Whether the King lived or died, his Volsenians were on guard. Dunstanbury turned his back on the hills and came up to Sophy.

"We Essex folk ought to stand by one another," he said. "It's the merest chance that has brought me here, but I'm glad of the chance now. And it's beginning to feel not the least strange. So long as you've need of help, count me among your soldiers."

"But you oughtn't to mix yourself up--"

"Did you act on that principle when you came to Kravonia?"

With a smile Sophy gave him her hand. "So be it. I accept your service--for Monseigneur."

"I give it to you," he persisted.

"Yes--and all that is mine I give to Monseigneur," said Sophy.

Any man who meets, or after an interval of time meets again, an attractive woman, only to find that her thoughts are pre-empted and totally preoccupied, suffers an annoyance not the less real because he sees the absurdity of it; it is to find shut a gate which with better luck might have been open. The unusual circumstances of his new encounter with Sophy did not save Dunstanbury from this common form of chagrin; the tragic element in her situation gave it a rather uncommon flavor. He would fain have appeared as the knight-errant to rescue such beauty in such distress; but the nature of the distress did not seem favorable to the proper romantic sequel.

He made his offer of service to her; she assigned him to the service of Monseigneur! He laughed at his own annoyance--and determined to serve Monseigneur as well as he could. At the same time, while conceding most amply--nay, even feeling--Monseigneur's excuse, he could not admire his policy in the choice of a bride. That was doubtless a sample of how things were done in Kravonia! He lived to feel the excuse more strongly--and to pronounce the judgment with greater hesitation.

Sophy had given him her hand again as she accepted his offer in Monseigneur's name.--He had not yet released it when she was called from the street below in a woman's voice--a voice full of haste and alarm.

"Marie Zerkovitch calls me! I must go at once," she said. "I expect Monseigneur is awake." She hurried off with a nod of farewell.

Dunstanbury stayed a little while on the wall, smoking a cigarette, and then went down into the street. The door of the guard-house was shut; all was very quiet as he passed along to the market-place where the inn was situated. He went up to his room overlooking the street, and, taking off his coat only, flung himself on the bed. He was minded thus to await Basil Williamson's return with news of the King. But the excitement of the day had wearied him; in ten minutes he was sound asleep.

He was aroused by Basil Williamson's hand on his shoulder. The young doctor, a slim-built, dark, wiry fellow, looked very weary and sad.

"How has it gone?" asked Dunstanbury, sitting up.

"It's been a terrible night. I'm glad you've had some sleep. He awoke after an hour; the hemorrhage had set in again. I had to tell him it was a thousand to one against him. He sent for her, and made me leave them alone together. There was only one other room, and I waited there with a little woman--a Madame Zerkovitch--who cried terribly. Then he sent for Lukovitch, who seems to be the chief man in the place. Presently Lukovitch went away, and I went back to the King. I found him terribly exhausted; she was there, sitting by him and whispering to him now and then; she seemed calm. Presently Lukovitch came back; the Zerkovitches and the German man came too. They all came in--the King would not hear my objections--and with them came a priest. And then and there the King married her! She spoke to nobody except to me before the service began, and then she only said: 'Monseigneur wishes it.' I waited till the service was done, but I could bear no more. I went outside while they shrived him. But I was called back hurriedly. Then the end came very soon--in less than half an hour. He sent everybody away except her and me, and when I had done all that was possible, I went as far off as I could--into the corner of the room. I came back at a call from her just before he died. The man was looking extraordinarily happy, Dunstanbury."

"They were married?"

"Oh yes. It's all right, I suppose--not that it seems to matter much now, does it? Put on your coat and come to the window. You'll see a sight you'll remember, I think."

Together they went to the window. The sun had risen from behind the mountains and flooded the city with light; the morning air was crisp and fragrant. The market-place was thronged with people--men in line in front, women, girls, and boys in a mass behind. They were all absolutely quiet and silent. Opposite where they were was a raised platform of wood, reached by steps from the ground; it was a rostrum for the use of those who sold goods by auction in the market. A board on trestles had been laid on this, and on the board was stretched the body of the King. At his feet stood Lukovitch; behind were Max von Hollbrandt, Zerkovitch, and Marie. At the King's head stood Sophy, and Peter Vassip knelt on the ground beside her. She stood like a statue, white and still; but Dunstanbury could see the Red Star glowing.

Lukovitch seemed to have been speaking, although the sound of his voice had not reached them through the closed window of the topmost room in the inn. He spoke again now--not loudly, but in a very clear voice.

"The King lies dead through treachery," he said. "In Slavna the German woman rules, and her son, and the men who killed the King. Will you have them to rule over you, men of Volseni?"

A shout of "No!" rang out, followed again by absolute silence. Lukovitch drew the curved sword that he wore and raised it in the air. All the armed men followed his example; the rest, with the women and young people, raised their right hands. It was their custom in calling Heaven to witness.

"God hears us!" said Lukovitch, and all the people repeated the words after him.

Dunstanbury whispered to Basil: "Do they mean to fight?" An eagerness stirred in his voice.

"Listen! He's speaking again."

"Whom then will you have for your King, men of Volseni?" asked Lukovitch. "There is one on whose finger the King has put the silver ring of the Bailiffs of Volseni. With his own hand he set it there before he died--he set it there when he made her his Queen, as you have heard. Will you have the Bailiff of Volseni for your King?"

A great shout of "Yes!" answered him.

"You will have Sophia for your King?"

"Sophia for our King!" they cried.

Lukovitch raised his sword again; all raised swords or hands. The solemn words "God hears us!" were spoken from every mouth. Lukovitch turned to Sophy and handed his drawn sword to her. She took it. Then she knelt down and kissed the King's lips. Rising to her feet again, she stood for a moment silent, looking over the thronged market-square; yet she seemed hardly to see; her eyes were vacant. At last she raised the sword to her lips, kissed it, and then held it high in the air.

"It was Monseigneur's wish. Let us avenge him! God hears me!"

"God hears you!" came all the voices.

The ceremony was finished. Six men took up the board on which the King lay, carried it down from the rostrum, and along the street to the guard-house. Sophy followed, and her friends walked after her. Still she seemed as though in a dream; her voice had sounded absent, almost unconscious. She was pale as death, save for the Red Star.

Following her dead, she passed out of sight. Immediately the crowd began to disperse, though most of the men with arms gathered round Lukovitch and seemed to await his orders.

Basil Williamson moved away from the window with a heavy sigh and a gesture of dejection.

"I wish we could get her safe out of it," he said. "Isn't it wonderful, her being here?"

"Yes--but I'd forgotten that." Dunstanbury was still by the window; he had been thinking that his service now would not be to Monseigneur. Yet no doubt Basil had mentioned the wisest form of service. Sophy's own few words--the words for which she cited Heaven's witness--hinted at another.

But Basil had recalled his mind to the marvel. Moved as he had been by his talk with Sophy, and even more by the scene which had just been enacted before his eyes, his face lit up with a smile as he looked across to Basil.

"Yes, old fellow, wonderful! Sophy Grouch! Queen of Kravonia! It beats Macbeth hollow!"

"It's pretty nearly as dreary!" said Basil, with a discontented grunt.

"I find it pretty nearly as exciting," Dunstanbury said. "And I hope for a happier ending. Meanwhile"--he buckled the leather belt which held his revolver round his waist--"I'm for some breakfast, and then I shall go and ask that tall fellow who did all the talking if there's anything I can do for King Sophia. By Jove! wouldn't Cousin Meg open her eyes?"

"You'll end by getting yourself stuck up against the wall and shot," Basil grumbled.

"If I do, I'm quite sure of one thing, old fellow--and that is that your wooden old mug will be next in the line, or thereabouts."

"I say, Dunstanbury, I wish I could have saved him!"

"So do I. Did you notice her face?"

Williamson gave a scornful toss of his head.

"Well, yes, I was an ass to ask that!" Dunstanbury admitted, candidly. It would certainly not have been easy to avoid noticing Sophy's face.

At six o'clock that morning Max von Hollbrandt took horse for Slavna. His diplomatic character at once made it proper for him to rejoin his Legation and enabled him to act as a messenger with safety to himself. He carried the tidings of the death of the King and of the proclamation--of Sophy. There was no concealment. Volseni's defiance to Slavna was open and avowed. Volseni held that there was no true Stefanovitch left, and cited the will of the last of the Royal House as warrant for its choice. The gauntlet was thrown down with a royal air.

It was well for Max to get back to his post. The diplomatists in Slavna, and their chiefs at home, were soon to be busy with the affairs of Kravonia. Mistitch had struck at the life of even more than his King--that was to become evident before many days had passed.

XX

THEY HAVE COLDS IN SLAVNA

It is permissible to turn with some relief--although of a kind more congenial to the cynic than to an admirer of humanity--from the tragedy of love in Volseni to the comedy of politics which began to develop itself in Slavna from the hour of the proclamation of young Alexis.

The first result of this auspicious event, following so closely on the issue of Captain Mistitch's expedition, was to give all the diplomatists bad colds. Some took to their beds, others went for a change of air; but one and all had such colds as would certainly prevent them from accepting royal invitations or being present at State functions. Young Alexis had a cold, too, and was consequently unable to issue royal invitations or take his part in State functions. Countess Ellenburg was even more affected--she had lumbago; and even General Stenovics was advised to keep quite quiet for a few days.

Only Colonel Stafnitz's health seemed proof against the prevailing epidemic. He was constantly to be seen about, very busy at the barracks, very busy at Suleiman's Tower, very gay and cheerful on the terrace of the Hôtel de Paris. But then he, of course, had been in no way responsible for recent events. He was a soldier, and had only obeyed orders; naturally his health was less affected. He was, in fact, in very good spirits, and in very good temper except when he touched on poor Captain Hercules's blundering, violent ways. "Not the man for a delicate mission," he said, decisively, to Captain Markart. The Captain forbore to remind him how it was that Mistitch had been sent on one. The way in which the Colonel expressed his opinion made it clear that such a reminder would not be welcome.

The coterie which had engineered the revolution was set at sixes and sevens by its success. The destruction of their common enemy was also the removal of their common interest. Sophy at Volseni did not seem a peril real enough or near enough to bind them together. Countess Ellenburg wanted to be Regent; Stenovics was for a Council, with himself in the chair. Stafnitz thought himself the obvious man to be Commandant of Slavna; Stenovics would have agreed--only it was necessary to keep an eye on Volseni! Now if he were to be Commandant, while the Colonel took the field with a small but picked force! The Colonel screwed up his mouth at that. "Make Praslok your headquarters, and you'll soon bring the Sheepskins to their senses," Stenovics advised insidiously. Stafnitz preferred headquarters in Suleiman's Tower! He was not sure that coming back from Praslok with a small force, however picked, would be quite as easy as going there.

In the back of both men's minds there was a bit of news which had just come to hand. The big guns had been delivered, and were on their way to Slavna, coming down the Krath in barges. They were consigned to the Commandant. Who was that important officer now to be?

When thieves fall out, honest men come by their own. The venerable saying involves one postulate--that there shall be honest men to do it. In high places in Slavna this seemed to be a difficulty, and it is not so certain that Kravonia's two great neighbors, to east and west, quite filled the gap. These Powers were exchanging views now. They were mightily shocked at the way Kravonia had been going on. Their Ministers had worse colds than any of the other Ministers, and their Press had a great deal to say about civilization and such like topics. Kravonia was a rich country, and its geographical position was important. The history of the world seems to show that the standard of civilization and morality demanded of a country depends largely on its richness and the importance of its geographical position.

The neighbor on the west had plenty of mountains, but wanted some fertile plains. The neighbor on the east had fertile plains adjacent to the Kravonian frontier, and would like to hold the mountain line as a protection to them. A far-seeing statesman would have discerned how important correct behavior was to the interests of Kravonia! The great neighbors began to move in the matter, but they moved slowly. They had to see that their own keen sense of morality was not opposed to the keen sense of morality of other great nations. The right to feel specially outraged is a matter for diplomatic negotiations, often, no doubt, of great delicacy.

So in the mean time Slavna was left to its own devices for a little longer--to amuse itself in its light-hearted, unremorseful, extremely unconscientious way, and to frown and shake a distant fist at grim, gray, sad little Volseni in the hills. With the stern and faithful band who mourned the dead Prince neither Stenovics nor Stafnitz seemed for the moment inclined to try conclusions, though each would have been very glad to see the other undertake the enterprise. In a military regard, moreover, they were right. The obvious thing, if Sophy still held out, was to wait for the big guns. When once these were in position, the old battlements of Volseni could stand scarcely longer than the walls of Jericho. And the guns were at the head of navigation on the Krath now, waiting for an escort to convoy them to Slavna. Max von Hollbrandt--too insignificant a person to feel called upon to have a cold--moved about Slavna, much amused with the situation, and highly gratified that the fruit which the coterie had plucked looked like turning bitter in their mouths.

Within the Palace on the river-bank young Alexis was strutting his brief hour, vastly pleased; but Countess Ellenburg was at her prayers again, praying rather indiscriminately against everybody who might be dangerous--against Sophy at Volseni; against the big neighbors, whose designs began to be whispered; against Stenovics, who was fighting so hard for himself that he gave little heed to her or to her dignity; against Stafnitz, who might leave her the dignity, such as it was, but certainly, if he established his own supremacy, would not leave her a shred of power. Perhaps there were spectres also against whose accusing shades she raised her petition--the man she had deluded, the man she had helped to kill; but that theme seems too dark for the comedy of Slavna in these days. The most practical step she took, so far as this world goes, was to send a very solid sum of money to a bank in Dresden: it was not the first remittance she had made from Slavna.

Matters stood thus--young Alexis having been on the throne in Slavna, and Sophy in Volseni, for one week--when Lepage ventured out from Zerkovitch's sheltering roof. He had suffered from a chill by no means purely diplomatic; but, apart from that, he had been in no hurry to show himself; he feared to see Rastatz's rat-face peering for him. But all was quiet. Sterkoff and Rastatz were busy with their Colonel in Suleiman's Tower. In fact, nobody took any notice of Lepage; his secret, once so vital, was now gossip of the market-place. He was secure--but he was also out of a situation.

He walked somewhat forlornly into St. Michael's Square, and as luck would have it--Lepage thought it very bad luck--the first man he ran against was Captain Markart. Uneasy in his conscience, Lepage tried to evade the encounter, but the Captain was of another mind. His head was sound again, and, on cool reflection, he was glad to have slept through the events of what Stenovics's proclamation had styled "the auspicious day." He seized little Lepage by the arm, greeted him with cordiality, and carried him off to drink at the Golden Lion. Without imputing any serious lack of sobriety to his companion, Lepage thought that this refreshment was not the first of which the good-humored Captain had partaken that forenoon; his manner was so very cordial, his talk so very free.

"Well, here we are!" he said. "We did our best, you and I, Lepage; our consciences are clear. As loyal subjects, we have now to accept the existing régime."

"What is it?" asked Lepage. "I've been in-doors a week."

"It's Alexis--still Alexis! Long live Alexis!" said Markart, with a laugh. "You surely don't take Baroness Dobrava into account?"

"I just wanted to know," said Lepage, drinking thoughtfully. "And--er--Captain--behind Alexis? Guiding the youthful King? Countess Ellenburg?"

"No doubt, no doubt. Behind him his very pious mother, Lepage."

"And behind her?" persisted Lepage.

Markart laughed, but cast a glance round and shook his head.

"Come, come, Captain, don't leave an old friend in the dark--just where information would be useful!"

"An old friend! Oh, when I remember my aching head! You think me very forgiving, Monsieur Lepage."

"If you knew the night I spent, you'd forgive me anything," said Lepage, with a shudder of reminiscence.

"Ah, well," said Markart, after another draught, "I'm a soldier--I shall obey my orders."

"Perfect, Captain! And who will give them to you, do you think?"

"That's exactly what I'm waiting to see. Oh, I've turned prudent! No more adventures for me!"

"I'm quite of your mind; but it's so difficult to be prudent when one doesn't know which is the strongest side."

"You wouldn't go to Volseni?" laughed Markart.

"Perhaps not; but there are difficulties nearer home. If you went out of this door and turned to the left, you would come to the offices of the Council of Ministers. If you turned to the right, and thence to the right again, and on to the north wall, you would come, Captain, to Suleiman's Tower. Now, as I understand, Colonel Stafnitz--"

"Is at the Tower, and the General at the offices, eh?"

"Precisely. Which turn do you mean to take?"

Markart looked round again. "I shall sit here for a bit longer," he said. He finished his liquor, thereby, perhaps, adding just the touch of openness lacking to his advice, and, leaning forward, touched Lepage on the arm.

"Do you remember the Prince's guns--the guns for which he bartered Captain Hercules?"

"Ay, well!" said Lepage.

"They're on the river, up at Kolskoï, now. I should keep my eye on them! They're to be brought to Slavna. Who do you think'll bring them? Keep your eye on that!"

"They're both scoundrels," said Lepage, rising to go.

Markart shrugged his shoulders. "The fruit lies on the ground for the man who can pick it up! Why not? There's nobody who's got any right to it now."

He expressed exactly the view of the two great neighbors, though by no means in the language which their official communications adopted.

Stenovics knew their views very well. He had also received a pretty plain intimation from Stafnitz that the Colonel considered the escorting of the guns to Slavna as a purely military task, appertaining not to the Ministry of State, but to the officer commanding the garrison in the capital. Stafnitz was that officer, and he proposed himself to go to Kolskoï. Suleiman's Tower, he added, would be left in the trustworthy hands of Captain Sterkoff. Again Stenovics fully understood; indeed, the Colonel was almost brutally candid. His letter was nothing less than plain word that power lay with the sword, and that the sword was in his own hand. Stenovics had got rid of King Sergius only to fall under the rule of Dictator Stafnitz! Was that to be the end of it?

Stenovics preferred any other issue. The ideal thing was his own rule in the name of young Alexis, with such diplomatic honoring and humoring of Countess Ellenburg as might prove necessary. That was plainly impossible so long as Stafnitz was master of the army; it would become finally hopeless if Sterkoff held Suleiman's Tower till Stafnitz brought the guns to Slavna. What, then, was Stenovics's alternative? For he was not yet brought to giving up the game as totally lost. His name stood high, though his real power tottered on a most insecure foundation. He could get good terms for his assistance: there was time to make friends with the mammon of unrighteousness.

Privately, as became invalids, without the knowledge of any one outside their confidential _entourage_, the representatives of the two great neighbors received General Stenovics. They are believed to have convinced him that, in the event of any further disorders in Kravonia, intervention could not be avoided; troops were on either frontier, ready for such an emergency; a joint occupation would be forced on the Allies. With a great deal of sorrow, no doubt, the General felt himself driven to accept this conclusion.

He at once requested Stafnitz to fetch the guns to Slavna; he left the Colonel full discretion in the matter. His only desire was to insure the tranquillity of the capital, and to show Volseni how hopeless it was to maintain the fanciful and absurd claims of Baroness Dobrava. The representatives, it must be supposed, approved this attitude, and wished the General all success; at a later date his efforts to secure order, and to avoid the inevitable but regrettable result of any new disturbance, were handsomely acknowledged by both Powers. General Stenovics had not Stafnitz's nerve and dash, but he was a man of considerable resource.

A man of good feeling, too, to judge from another step he took--whether with the cognizance of the representatives or entirely of his own motion has never become known. He waited till Colonel Stafnitz, who returned a civil and almost effusive reply to his communication, had set off to fetch the guns--which, as has been seen, had been unloaded from the railway and lay at Kolskoï, three days' journey up the Krath; then he entered into communication with Volseni. He sent Volseni a private and friendly warning. What was the use of Volseni holding out when the big guns were coming? It could mean only hopeless resistance, more disorder, more blood-shed. Let Volseni and the lady whose claims it supported consider that, be warned in time, and acknowledge King Alexis!

This letter he addressed to Zerkovitch. There were insuperable diplomatic difficulties in the way of addressing it to Sophy directly. "Madam I may not call you, and Mistress I am loath to call you," said Queen Elizabeth to the Archbishop's wife: it was just a case of that sort of difficulty. He could not call her Queen of Kravonia, and she would be offended if he called her Baroness Dobrava. So the letter went to Zerkovitch, and it went by the hand of one of Zerkovitch's friends--so anxious was the General to be as friendly and conciliatory as circumstances permitted.

Much to his surprise, considerably to his alarm, Lepage was sent for to the General's private residence on the evening of the day on which Colonel Stafnitz set out for Kolskoï to fetch the guns.

Stenovics greeted him cordially, smoothed away his apprehension, acquainted him with the nature of his mission and with the gist of the letter which he was to carry. Stenovics seemed more placid to-night than for some time back--possibly because he had got Stafnitz quietly out of Slavna.

"Beg Monsieur Zerkovitch to give the letter to Baroness Dobrava (he called her that to Lepage) as soon as possible, and to urge her to listen to it. Add that we shall be ready to treat her with every consideration--any title in reason, and any provision in reason, too. It's all in my letter, but repeat it on my behalf, Lepage."

"I shouldn't think she'd take either title or money, General," said Lepage, bluntly.

"You think she's disinterested? No doubt, no doubt! She'll be the more ready to see the uselessness of prolonging her present attitude." He grew almost vehement, as he laid his hand on a large map which was spread out on the table in front of him. "Look here, Lepage. This is Monday. By Wednesday evening Colonel Stafnitz will be at Kolskoï--here!" He put his finger by the spot. "On Thursday morning he'll start back. The barges travel well, and--yes--I think he'll have his guns here by Sunday; less than a week from now! Yes, on Thursday night he ought to reach Evena, on Friday Rapska, on Saturday the lock at Miklevni. Yes, on Saturday the lock at Miklevni! That would bring him here on Sunday. Yes, the lock at Miklevni on Saturday, I think." He looked up at Lepage almost imploringly. "If she hesitates, show her that. They're bound to be here in less than a week!"

Lepage cocked his head on one side and looked at the Minister thoughtfully. It all sounded very convincing. Colonel Stafnitz would be at the lock at Miklevni on Saturday, and on Sunday with the guns at Slavna. And, of course, arduous though the transport would be, they could be before Volseni in two or three days more. It was really no use resisting!

Stenovics passed a purse over to Lepage. "For your necessary expenses," he said. Lepage took up the purse, which felt well filled, and pocketed it. "The Baroness mayn't fully appreciate what I've been saying," added Stenovics. "But Lukovitch knows every inch of the river--he'll make it quite plain, if she asks him about it. And present her with my sincere respects and sympathy--my sympathy with her as a private person, of course. You mustn't commit me in any way, Lepage."

"I think," said Lepage, "that you're capable of looking after that department yourself, General. But aren't you making the Colonel go a little too fast?"

"No, no; the barges will do about that."

"But he has a large force to move, I suppose?"

"Oh, dear, no! A large force? No, no! Only a company--just about a hundred strong, Lepage." He rose. "Just about a hundred, I think."

"Ah, then he might keep time!" Lepage agreed, still very thoughtfully.

"You'll start at once?" the General asked.

"Within an hour."

"That's right. We must run no unnecessary risks; delay might mean new troubles."

He held out his hand and shook Lepage's warmly. "You must believe that I respect and share your grief at the King's death."

"Which King, General?"

"Oh! oh! King Alexis, of course! We must listen to the voice of the nation. Our new King lives and reigns. The voice of the nation, Lepage!"

"Ah!" said Lepage, dryly. "I'd been suspecting some ventriloquists!"

General Stenovics honored the sally with a broad smile. He thought the representatives with colds would be amused if he repeated it. The pat on the shoulder which he gave Lepage was a congratulation. "The animal is so very inarticulate of itself," he said.

XXI

ON SATURDAY AT MIKLEVNI!

Though not remote in distance, yet Volseni was apart and isolated from all that was happening. Not only was nothing known of the two great neighbors--nothing reached men in Volseni of the state of affairs in Slavna itself. They did not know that the thieves were quarrelling about the plunder, nor that the diplomatists had taken cold; they had not bethought them of how the art of the ventriloquists would be at work. They knew only that young Alexis reigned in Slavna by reason of their King's murder and against the will of him who was dead; only that they had chosen Sophia for their Queen because she had been the dead King's wife and his chosen successor.

All the men who could be spared from labor came into the city; they collected what few horses they could; they filled their little fortress with provisions. They could not go to Slavna, but they awaited with confidence the day when Slavna should dare to move against them into the hills. Slavna had never been able to beat them in their own hills yet; the bolder spirits even implored Lukovitch to lead them down in a raid on the plains.

Lukovitch would sanction no more than a scouting party, to see whether any movement were in progress from the other side. Peter Vassip rode down with his men to within a few miles of Slavna. For result of the expedition he brought back the news of the guns: the great guns, rumor said, had reached Kravonia and were to be in Slavna in a week.

The rank and file hardly understood what that meant; anger that their destined and darling guns should fall into hostile hands was the feeling uppermost. But the tidings struck their leaders home to the heart. Lukovitch knew what it meant. Dunstanbury, who had served three years in the army at home, knew very well. Covered by such a force as Stafnitz could bring up, the guns could pound Volseni to pieces--and Volseni could strike back not a single blow.

"And it's all through her that the guns are here at all!" said Zerkovitch, with a sigh for the irony of it.

Dunstanbury laid his hand on Lukovitch's shoulder. "It's no use," he said. "We must tell her so, and we must make the men understand. She can't let them have their homes battered to pieces--the town with the women and children in it--and all for nothing!"

"We can't desert her," Lukovitch protested.

"No; we must get her safely away, and then submit."

Since Dunstanbury had offered his services to Sophy, he had assumed a leading part. His military training and his knowledge of the world gave him an influence over the rude, simple men. Lukovitch looked to him for guidance; he had much to say in the primitive preparations for defence. But now he declared defence to be impossible.

"Who'll tell her so?" asked Basil Williamson.

"We must get her across the frontier," said Dunstanbury. "There--by St. Peter's Pass--the way we came, Basil. It's an easy journey, and I don't suppose they'll try to intercept us. You can send twenty or thirty well-mounted men with us, can't you, Lukovitch? A small party well mounted is what we shall want."

Lukovitch waved his hands sadly. "With the guns against us it would be a mere massacre! If it must be, let it be as you say, my lord." His heart was very heavy; after generations of defiance, Volseni must bow to Slavna, and his dead Lord's will go for nothing! All this was the doing of the great guns.

Dunstanbury's argument was sound, but he argued from his heart as well as his head. He was convinced that the best service he could render to Sophy was to get her safely out of the country; his heart urged that her safety was the one and only thing to consider. As she went to and fro among them now, pale and silent, yet always accessible, always ready to listen, to consider, and to answer, she moved him with an infinite pity and a growing attraction. Her life was as though dead or frozen; it seemed to him as though all Kravonia must be to her the tomb of him whose grave in the little hill-side church of Volseni she visited so often. An ardent and overpowering desire rose in him to rescue her, to drag her forth from these dim cold shades into the sunlight of life again. Then the spell of this frozen grief might be broken; then should her drooping glories revive and bloom again. Kravonia and who ruled there--ay, in his heart, even the fate of the gallant little city which harbored them, and whose interest he pleaded--were nothing to him beside Sophy. On her his thoughts were centred.

Sophy's own mind in these days can be gathered only from what others saw. She made no record of it. Fallen in an hour from heights of love and hope and exaltation, she lay stunned in the abyss. In intellect calm and collected, she seems to have been as one numbed in feeling, too maimed for pain, suffering as though from a mortification of the heart. The simple men and women of Volseni looked on her with awe, and chattered fearfully of the Red Star: how that its wearer had been predestined to high enterprise, but foredoomed to mighty reverses of fortune. Amidst all their pity for her, they spoke of the Evil Eye; some whispered that she had come to bring ruin on Volseni: had not the man who loved her lost both Crown and life?

And it was she through whom the guns had come! The meaning of the guns had spread now to every hearth; what had once been hailed as an achievement second only to her exploit in the Street of the Fountain served now to point more finely the sharpening fears of superstition. The men held by her still, but their wives were grumbling at them in their homes. Was she not, after all, a stranger? Must Volseni lie in the dust for her sake, for the sake of her who wore that ominous, inexplicable Star?

Dunstanbury knew all this; Lukovitch hardly sought to deny it, though he was full of scorn for it; and Marie Zerkovitch had by heart the tales of many wise old beldams who had prophesied this and that from the first moment that they saw the Red Star. Surely and not slowly the enthusiasm which had crowned Sophy was turning into a fear which made the people shrink from her even while they pitied, even while they did not cease to love. The hand of heaven was against her and against those who were near her, said the women. The men still feigned not to hear; had they not taken Heaven to witness that they would serve her and avenge the King? Alas, their simple vow was too primitive for days like these--too primitive for the days of the great guns which lay on the bosom of the Krath!

Dunstanbury had an interview with Sophy early on the Tuesday morning, the day after Stafnitz had started for Kolskoï. He put his case with the bluntness and honesty native to him. In his devotion to her safety he did not spare her the truth. She listened with the smile devoid of happiness which her face now wore so often.

"I know it all," she said. "They begin to look differently at me as I walk through the street--when I go to the church. If I stay here long enough, they'll all call me a witch! But didn't they swear? And I--haven't I sworn? Are we to do nothing for Monseigneur's memory?"

"What can we do against the guns? The men can die, and the walls be tumbled down! And there are the women and children!"

"Yes, I suppose we can do nothing. But it goes to my heart that they should have Monseigneur's guns."

"Your guns!" Dunstanbury reminded her with a smile of whimsical sympathy.

"That's what they say in the city, too?" she asked.

"The old hags, who are clever at the weather and other mysteries. And, of course, Madame Zerkovitch!"

Sophy's smile broadened a little. "Oh, of course, poor little Marie Zerkovitch!" she exclaimed. "She's been sure I'm a witch ever since she's known me."

"I want you to come over the frontier with me--and Basil Williamson. I've some influence, and I can insure your getting through all right."

"And then?"

"Whatever you like. I shall be utterly at your orders."

She leaned her head against the high chair in which she sat, a chair of old oak, black as her hair; she fixed her profound eyes on his.

"I wish I could stay here--in the little church--with Monseigneur," she said.

"By Heavens, no!" he cried, startled into sudden and untimely vehemence.

"All my life is there," she went on, paying no heed to his outburst.

"Give life another chance. You're very young."

"You can't count life by years, any more than hours by minutes. You reckon the journey not by the clock, but by the stages you have passed. Once before I loved a man--and he was killed in battle. But that was different. I was very hurt, but I wasn't maimed. I'm maimed now by the death of Monseigneur."

"You can't bring ruin on these folk, and you can't give yourself up to Stenovics." He could not trust himself to speak more of her feelings nor of the future; he came back to the present needs of the case.

"It's true--and yet we swore!" She leaned forward to him. "And you--aren't you afraid of the Red Star?"

"We Essex men aren't afraid, we haven't enough imagination," he answered, smiling again.

She threw herself back, crying low: "Ah, if we could strike one blow--just one--for the oath we swore and for Monseigneur! Then perhaps I should be content."

"To go with me?"

"Perhaps--if, in striking it, what I should think best didn't come to me."

"You must run no danger, anyhow," he cried, hastily and eagerly.

"My friend," she said, gently, "for such as I am to-day there's no such thing as danger. Don't think I value my position here or the title they've given me, poor men! I have loved titles"--for a moment she smiled--"and I should have loved this one, if Monseigneur had lived. I should have been proud as a child of it. If I could have borne it by his side for even a few weeks, a few days! But now it's barren and bitter--bitter and barren to me."

He followed the thoughts at which her words hinted; they seemed to him infinitely piteous.

"Now, as things have fallen out, what am I in this country? A waif and stray! I belong to nobody, and nobody to me."

"Then come away!" he burst out again.

Her deep eyes were set on his face once more. "Yes, that's the conclusion," she said, very mournfully. "We Essex people are sensible, aren't we? And we have no imagination. Did you laugh when you saw me proclaimed and heard us swear?"

"Good Heavens, no!"

"Then think how my oath and my love call me to strike one blow for Monseigneur!" She hid her eyes behind her hand for a moment. "Aren't there fifty--thirty--twenty, who would count their lives well risked? For what are men's lives given them?"

"There's one at least, if you will have it so," Dunstanbury answered.

There was a knock on the door, and without waiting for a bidding Zerkovitch came quickly in; Lukovitch was behind, and with him Lepage. Ten minutes before, the valet had ridden up to the city gates, waving his handkerchief above his head.

Sophy gave a cry of pleasure at seeing him. "A brave man, who loved his King and served Monseigneur!" she said, as she darted forward and clasped his hand.

Zerkovitch was as excited and hurried as ever. He thrust a letter into her hand. "From Stenovics, madame, for you to read," he said.

She took it, saying to Lepage with a touch of reproach: "Are you General Stenovics's messenger now, Monsieur Lepage?"

"Read it, madame," said he.

She obeyed, and then signed to Lukovitch to take it, and to Dunstanbury to read it also. "It's just what you've been saying," she told him with a faint smile, as she sank back in the high oaken seat.

"I am to add, madame," said Lepage, "that you will be treated with every consideration--any title in reason, any provision in reason, too."

"So the General's letter says."

"But I was told to repeat it," persisted the little man. He looked round on them. Lukovitch and Dunstanbury had finished reading the letter and were listening, too. "If you still hesitated, I was to impress upon you that the guns would certainly be in Slavna in less than a week--almost certainly on Sunday. You know the course of the river well, madame?"

"Not very well above Slavna, no."

"In that case, which General Stenovics didn't omit to consider, I was to remind you that Captain Lukovitch probably knew every inch of it."

"I know it intimately," said Lukovitch. "I spent two years on the timber-barges of the Krath."

"Then you, sir, will understand that the guns will certainly reach Slavna not later than Sunday." He paused for a moment, seeming to collect his memory. "By Wednesday evening Colonel Stafnitz will be at Kolskoï. On Thursday morning he'll start back. On that evening he ought to reach Evena, on Friday Rapska." Lukovitch nodded at each name. Lepage went on methodically. "On Saturday the lock at Miklevni. Yes, on Saturday the lock at Miklevni!" He paused again and looked straight at Lukovitch.

"Exactly--the lock at Miklevni," said that officer, with another nod.

"Yes, the lock at Miklevni on Saturday. You see, it's not as if the Colonel had a large force to move. That might take longer. He'll be able to move his company as quick as the barges travel."

"The stream's very strong, they travel pretty well," said Lukovitch.

"But a hundred men--it's nothing to move, Captain Lukovitch." He looked round on them again, and then turned back to Sophy. "That's all my message, madame," he said.

There was a silence.

"So it's evident the guns will be in Slavna by Sunday," Lepage concluded.

"If they reach Miklevni on Saturday--any time on Saturday--they will," said Lukovitch. "And up here very soon after!"

"The General intimated that also, Captain Lukovitch."

"The General gives us very careful information," observed Dunstanbury, looking rather puzzled. He was not so well versed in Stenovics's methods as the rest. Lukovitch smiled broadly, and even Zerkovitch gave a little laugh.

"How are things in Slavna, Monsieur Lepage?" the last named asked.

Lepage smiled a little, too. "General Stenovics is in full control of the city--during Colonel Stafnitz's absence, sir," he answered.

"They've quarrelled?" cried Lukovitch.

"Oh no, sir. Possibly General Stenovics is afraid they might." He spoke again to Sophy. "Madame, do you still blame me for being the General's messenger?"

"No, Monsieur Lepage; but there's much to consider in the message. Captain Lukovitch, if Monseigneur had read this message, what would he have thought the General meant?"

Lukovitch's face was full of excitement as he answered her:

"The Prince wouldn't have cared what General Stenovics meant. He would have said that the guns would be three days on the river before they came to Slavna, that the barges would take the best part of an hour to get through Miklevni lock, that there was good cover within a quarter of a mile of the lock--"

Sophy leaned forward eagerly. "Yes, yes?" she whispered.

"And that an escort of a hundred men was--well, might be--not enough!"

"And that riding from Volseni--?"

"One might easily be at Miklevni before Colonel Stafnitz and the guns could arrive there!"

Dunstanbury gave a start, Zerkovitch a chuckle, Lepage a quiet smile. Sophy rose to her feet; the Star glowed, there was even color in her cheeks besides.

"If there are fifty, or thirty, or twenty," she said, her eyes set on Dunstanbury, "who would count their lives well risked, we may yet strike one blow for Monseigneur and for the guns he loved."

Dunstanbury looked round. "There are three here," he said.

"Four!" called Basil Williamson from the doorway, where he had stood unobserved.

"Five!" cried Sophy, and, for the first time since Monseigneur died, she laughed.

"Five times five, and more, if we can get good horses enough!" said Captain Lukovitch.

"I should like to join you, but I must go back and tell General Stenovics that you will consider his message, madame," smiled Lepage.

XXII

JEALOUS OF DEATH

In the end they started thirty strong, including Sophy herself. There were the three Englishmen, Dunstanbury, Basil Williamson, and Henry Brown, Dunstanbury's servant, an old soldier, a good rider and shot. The rest were sturdy young men of Volseni, once destined for the ranks of the Prince of Slavna's artillery; Lukovitch and Peter Vassip led them. Not a married man was among them, for, to his intense indignation, Zerkovitch was left behind in command of the city. Sophy would have this so, and nothing would move her; she would not risk causing Marie Zerkovitch to weep more and to harbor fresh fears of her. So they rode, "without encumbrances," as Dunstanbury said, laughing--his spirits rose inexpressibly as the moment of action came.

Their horses were all that could be mustered in Volseni of a mettle equal to the dash. The little band paraded in the market-place on Friday afternoon; there they were joined by Sophy, who had been to pay a last visit to Monseigneur's grave; she came among them sad, yet seeming more serene. Her spirit was the happier for striking a blow in Monseigneur's name. The rest of them were in high feather; the prospect of the expedition went far to blot out the tragedy of the past and to veil the threatening face of the future. As dusk fell, they rode out of the city gate.

Miklevni lies twenty miles up the course of the river from Slavna; but the river flows there nearly from north to south, turning to the east only four or five miles above the capital. You ride, then, from Volseni to Miklevni almost in a straight line, leaving Slavna away on the left. It is a distance of no more than thirty-five miles or thereabouts, but the first ten consist of a precipitous and rugged descent by a bridle-path from the hills to the valley of the Krath. No pace beyond a walk was possible at any point here, and for the greater part of the way it was necessary to lead the horses. When once the plain was reached, there was good going, sometimes over country roads, sometimes over grass, to Miklevni.

It was plain that the expedition could easily be intercepted by a force issuing from Slavna and placing itself astride the route; but then they did not expect a force to issue from Slavna. That would be done only by the orders of General Stenovics, and Lepage had gone back to Slavna to tell the General that his message was being considered--very carefully considered--in Volseni. General Stenovics, if they understood him rightly, would not move till he heard more. For the rest, risks must be run. If all went well, they hoped to reach Miklevni before dawn on Saturday. There they were to lie in wait for Stafnitz--and for the big guns which were coming down the Krath from Kolskoï to Slavna.

Lukovitch was the guide, and had no lack of counsel from lads who knew the hills as well as their sweethearts' faces. He rode first, and, while they were on the bridle-path, they followed in single file, walking their horses or leading them. Sophy and Dunstanbury rode behind, with Basil Williamson and Henry Brown just in front of them. In advance, some hundreds of yards, Peter Vassip acted as scout, coming back from time to time to advise Lukovitch that the way was clear. The night fell fine and fresh, but it was very dark. That did not matter; the men of Volseni were like cats for seeing in the dark.

The first ten miles passed slowly and tediously, but without mistake or mishap. They halted on the edge of the plain an hour before midnight and took rest and food--each man carried provisions for two days. Behind them now rose the steep hills whence they had come, before them stretched the wide plain; away on their left was Slavna, straight ahead Miklevni, the goal of their pilgrimage. Lukovitch moved about, seeing that every man gave heed to his horse and had his equipment and his weapons in good order. Then came the word to remount, and between twelve and one, with a cheer hastily suppressed, the troop set forth at a good trot over the level ground. Now Williamson and Henry Brown fell to the rear with three or four Volsenians, lest by any chance or accident Sophy should lose or be cut off from the main body. Lukovitch and Peter Vassip rode together at the head.

To Dunstanbury that ride by night, through the spreading plain, was wonderful--a thing sufficient in itself, without regard to its object or its issue. He had seen some service before--and there was the joy of that. He had known the comradeship of a bold enterprise--there was the exaltation of that. He had taken great risks before--there was the excitement of that. The night had ere now called him to the saddle--and it called now with all its fascination. His blood tingled and burned with all these things. But there was more. Beside him all the way was the figure of Sophy dim in the darkness, and the dim silhouette of her face--dim, yet, as it seemed, hardly blurred; its pallor stood out even in the night. She engrossed his thoughts and spurred his speculations.

What thoughts dwelt in her? Did she ride to death, and was it a death she herself courted? If so, he was sworn in his soul to thwart her, even to his own death. She was not food for death, his soul cried, passionately protesting against that loss, that impoverishment of the world. Why had they let her come? She was not a woman of whom that could be asked; therefore it was that his mind so hung on her, with an attraction, a fascination, an overbearing curiosity. The men of Volseni seemed to think it natural that she should come. They knew her, then, better than he did!

Save for the exchange of a few words now and then about the road, they had not talked; he had respected her silence. But she spoke now, and to his great pleasure less sadly than he had expected. Her tone was light, and witnessed to a whimsical enjoyment which not even memory could altogether quench.

"This is my first war, Lord Dunstanbury," she said. "The first time I've taken the field in person at the head of my men!"

"Yes, your Majesty's first campaign. May it be glorious!" he answered, suiting his tone to hers.

"My first and my last, I suppose. Well, I could hardly have looked to have even one--in those old days you know of--could I?"

"Frankly, I never expected to hold my commission as an officer from you," he laughed. "As it is, I'm breaking all the laws in the world, I suppose. Perhaps they'll never hear of it in England, though."

"Where there are no laws left, you can break none," she said. "There are none left in Kravonia now. There's but one crime--to be weak; and but one penalty--death."

"Neither the crime nor the penalty for us to-night!" he cried, gayly. "Queen Sophia's star shines to-night!"

"Can you see it?" she asked, touching her cheek a moment.

"No, I can't," he laughed. "I forgot--I spoke metaphorically."

"When people speak of my star, I always think of this. So my star shines to-night? Yes, I think so--shines brightly before it sets! I wonder if Kravonia's star, too, will have a setting soon--a stormy setting!"

"Well, we're not helping to make it more tranquil," said Dunstanbury.

He saw her turn her head suddenly and sharply towards him; she spoke quickly and low.

"I'm seeking a man's life in this expedition," she said. "It's his or mine before we part."

"I don't blame you for that."

"Oh no!" The reply sounded almost contemptuous; at least it showed plainly that her conscience was not troubled. "And he won't blame me either. When he sees me, he'll know what it means."

"And, in fact, I intend to help. So do we all, I think."

"It was our oath in Volseni," she answered. "They think Monseigneur will sleep the better for it. But I know well that nothing troubles Monseigneur's sleep. And I'm so selfish that I wish he could be troubled--yes, troubled about me; that he could be riding in the spirit with us to-night, hoping for our victory; yet very anxious, very anxious about me; that I could still bring him joy and sorrow, grief and delight. I can't desire that Monseigneur should sleep so well. They're kinder to him--his own folk of Volseni. They aren't jealous of his sleep--not jealous of the peace of death. But I'm very jealous of it. I'm to him now just as all the rest are; I, too, am nothing to Monseigneur now."

"Who knows? Who can know?" said Dunstanbury, softly.

His attempted consolation, his invoking of the old persistent hope, the saving doubt, did not reach her heart. In her great love of life, the best she could ask of the tomb was a little memory there. So she had told Monseigneur; such was the thought in her heart to-night. She was jealous and forlorn because of the silent darkness which had wrapt her lover from her sight and so enveloped him. He could not even ride with her in the spirit on the night when she went forth to avenge the death she mourned!

The night broke towards dawn, the horizon grew gray. Lukovitch drew in his rein, and the party fell to a gentle trot. Their journey was almost done. Presently they halted for a few minutes, while Lukovitch and Peter Vassip held a consultation. Then they jogged on again in the same order, save that now Sophy and Dunstanbury rode with Lukovitch at the head of the party. In another half-hour, the heavens lightening yet more, they could discern the double row of low trees which marked, at irregular intervals, the course of the river across the plain. At the same moment a row of squat buildings rose in murky white between them and the river-bank. Lukovitch pointed to it with his hand.

"There we are, madame," he said. "That's the farm-house at the right end, and the barn at the left--within a hundred yards of the lock. There's our shelter till the Colonel comes."

"What of the farmer?" asked Dunstanbury.

"We shall catch him in his bed--him and his wife," said Lukovitch. "There's only the pair of them. They keep the lock, and have a few acres of pastureland to eke out their living. They'll give us no trouble. If they do, we can lock them in and turn the key. Then we can lie quiet in the barn; with a bit of close packing, it'll take us all. Peter Vassip and I will be lock-keepers if anything comes by; we know the work--eh, Peter?"

"Ay, Captain; and the man--Peter's his name too, by-the-way--must give us something to hide our sheepskins."

Sophy turned to Dunstanbury. She was smiling now.

"It sounds very simple, doesn't it?" she asked.

"Then we watch our chance for a dash--when the Colonel's off his guard," Lukovitch went on.

"But if he won't oblige us in that way?" asked Dunstanbury, with a laugh.

"Then he shall have the reward of his virtue in a better fight for the guns," said Lukovitch. "Now, lads, ready! Listen! I'm going forward with Peter Vassip here and four more. We'll secure the man and his wife; there might be a servant-girl on the premises too, perhaps. When you hear my whistle, the rest of you will follow. You'll take command, my lord?" He turned to Sophy. "Madame, will you come with me or stay here?"

"I'll follow with Lord Dunstanbury," she said. "We ought all to be in the barn before it's light?"

"Surely! A barge might come up or down the river, you see, and it wouldn't do for the men on board to see anybody but Vassip and me, who are to be the lock-keepers."

He and Peter Vassip rode off with their party of four, and the rest waited in a field a couple of hundred yards from the barn--a dip in the ground afforded fair cover. Some of the men began to dismount, but Dunstanbury stopped them. "It's just that one never knows," he said; "and it's better to be on your horse than off it in case any trouble does come, you know."

"There oughtn't to be much trouble with the lock-keeper and his wife--or even with the servant-girl," said Basil Williamson.

"Girls can make a difference sometimes," Sophy said, with a smile. "I did once, in the Street of the Fountain over in Slavna there!"

Dunstanbury's precaution was amply justified, for, to their astonishment, the next instant a shot rang through the air, and, the moment after, a loud cry. A riderless horse galloped wildly past them; the sheepskin rug across the saddle marked it as belonging to a Volsenian.

"By Heaven, have they got there before us?" whispered Dunstanbury.

"I hope so; we sha'n't have to wait," said Sophy.

But they did wait there a moment. Then came a confused noise from the long, low barn. Then a clatter of hoofs, and Lukovitch was with them again; but his comrades were four men now, not five.

"Hush! Silence! Keep cover!" he panted breathlessly. "Stafnitz is here already; at least, there are men in the barn, and horses tethered outside, and the barges are on the river, just above the lock. The sentry saw us. He challenged and fired, and one of us dropped. It must be Stafnitz!"

Stafnitz it was. General Stenovics had failed to allow for the respect which his colleague entertained for his abilities. If Stenovics expected him back at Slavna with his guns on the Sunday, Stafnitz was quite clear that he had better arrive on Saturday. To this end he had strained every nerve. The stream was with him, flowing strong, but the wind was contrary; his barges had not made very good progress. He had pressed the horses of his company into service on the towing-path. Stenovics had not thought of that. His rest at Rapska had been only long enough to give his men and beasts an hour's rest and food and drink. To his pride and exultation, he had reached the lock at Miklevni at nightfall on Friday, almost exactly at the hour when Sophy's expedition set out on its ride to intercept him. Men and horses might be weary now; Stafnitz could afford to be indifferent to that. He could give them a good rest, and yet, starting at seven the next morning, be in Slavna with them and the guns in the course of the afternoon. There might be nothing wrong, of course--but it was no harm to forestall any close and clever calculation of the General's.

"The sentry?" whispered Dunstanbury.

"I had to cut him down. Shall we be at them, my lord?"

"No, not yet. They're in the barn, aren't they?"

"Yes. Don't you hear them? Listen! That's the door opened. Shall we charge?"

"No, no, not yet. They'd retreat inside, and it would be the devil then. They'd have the pull of us. Wait for them to come out. They must send to look for the sentry. Tell the men to lean right down in their saddles--close down--close! Then the ground covers us. And now--silence till I give the word!"

Silence fell again for a few moments. They were waiting for a movement from Stafnitz's men in the barn. Only Dunstanbury, bareheaded, risked a look over the hillock which protected them from view.

A single man had come out of the barn, and was looking about him for the sentry who had fired. He seemed to suspect no other presence. Stafnitz must have been caught in a sound nap this time.

The searcher found his man and dropped on his knees by him for a moment. Then he rose and ran hurriedly towards the barn, crying: "Colonel! Colonel!"

"Now!" whispered impetuous Lukovitch.

But Dunstanbury pressed him down again, saying: "Not yet. Not yet."

Sophy laid her hand on his arm. "Half of us to the barges," she said.

In their eagerness for the fight, Lukovitch and Dunstanbury had forgotten the main object of it. But the guns were what Monseigneur would have thought of first--what Stafnitz must first think of too--the centre of contest and the guerdon of victory.

XXIII

A WOMAN AND A GHOST

For the history of this night from the enemy's side, thanks are due to the memory, and to the unabashed courtesy, of Lieutenant Rastatz, who came alive, if not with a whole skin, out of the encounter, and lived to reach middle age under a new _régime_ so unappreciative of his services that it cashiered him for getting drunk within a year from this date. He ended his days as a billiard-marker at the Golden Lion--a fact agreeable to poetic justice, but not otherwise material. While occupying that capacity, he was always ready to open his mouth to talk, provided he were afforded also a better reason for opening it.

Stafnitz and his men felt that their hard work was done; they were within touch of Slavna, and they had no reason, as they supposed, to fear any attack. The Colonel had indulged them in something approaching to a carouse. Songs had been sung, and speeches made; congratulations were freely offered to the Colonel; allusions were thrown out, not too carefully veiled, to the predicament in which Stenovics found himself. Hard work, a good supper, and plentiful wine had their effect. Save the sentries, all were asleep at ten o'clock, and game to sleep till the reveille sounded at six.

Their presence was a surprise to their assailants, who had, perhaps, approached in too rash a confidence that they were first on the ground; but the greater surprise befell those who had now to defend the barges and the guns. When the man who had found the dead sentry ran back and told his tale, all of them, from Stafnitz downward, conceived that the attack must come from Stenovics; none thought of Sophy and her Volsenians. There they were, packed in the barn, separated from their horses, and with their carbines laid aside. The carbines were easily caught up; the horses not so easily reached, supposing an active, skilful enemy at hand outside.

For themselves, their position was good to stand a siege. But Stafnitz could not afford that. His mind flew where Sophy's had. Throughout, and on both sides, the guns were the factor which dominated the tactics of the fight. It was no use for Stafnitz to stay snug in the barn while the enemy overpowered the bargees (supposing they tried to fight), disposed of the sentry stationed on each deck, and captured the guns. Let the assailant carry them off, and the Colonel's game was up! Whoever the foe was, the fight was for the guns--and for one other thing, no doubt--for the Colonel's life.

"We felt in the deuce of a mess," Rastatz related, "for we didn't know how many they were, and we couldn't see one of them. The Colonel walked out of the barn, cool as a cucumber, and looked and listened. He called to me to go with him, and so I did, keeping as much behind his back as possible. Nothing was to be seen, nothing to be heard. He pointed to the rising ground opposite. 'That must hide them,' he said. Back he went and called the first half-company. 'You'll follow me in single file out of the barn and round to the back of it; let there be a foot between each of you--room enough to miss. When once you get in rear of the barn, make for the barges. Never mind the horses. The second half-company will cover the horses with their fire. Rastatz, see my detachment round, and then follow. We'll leave the sergeant-major in command here. Now, quick, follow me!'

"Out he went, and the men began to follow in their order. I had to stand in the doorway and regulate the distance between man and man. I hadn't been there two seconds before a dozen heads came over the hill, and a dozen rifles cracked. Luckily the Colonel was just round the corner. Down went the heads again, but they'd bagged two of our fellows. I shouted to more to come out, and at the same time ordered the sergeant-major to send a file forward to answer the fire. Up came the heads again, and they bagged three more. Our fellows blazed away in reply, but they'd dropped too quickly--I don't think we got one.

"Well, we didn't mind so much about keeping our exact distances after that--and I wouldn't swear that the whole fifty of us faced the fire; it was devilish disconcerting, you know; but in a few minutes thirty or five-and-thirty of us got round the side of the barn somehow, and for the moment out of harm's way. We heard the fire going on still in front, but only in a desultory way. They weren't trying to rush us--and I don't think we had any idea of rushing them. For all we knew, they might be two hundred--or they might be a dozen. At any rate, with the advantage of position, they were enough to bottle our men up in the barn, for the moment at all events."

This account makes what had happened pretty plain. Half of Sophy's force had been left to hold the enemy, or as many of them as possible, in the barn. They had dismounted, and, well covered by the hill, could make good practice without much danger to themselves. Lukovitch was in command of this section of the little troop. Sophy, Dunstanbury, and Peter Vassip, also on foot (the horses' hoofs would have betrayed them), were stealing round, intent on getting between the barges and any men whom Stafnitz tried to place in position for their defence. After leaving men for the containing party, and three to look after the horses, this detachment was no more than a dozen strong. But they had started before Stafnitz's men had got out of the barn, and, despite the smaller distance the latter had to traverse, could make a good race of it for the barges. They had all kept together, too, while the enemy straggled round to the rear of the barn in single file. And they had one great, perhaps decisive, advantage, of whose existence Peter Vassip, their guide, was well aware.

Forty yards beyond the farm a small ditch ran down to the Krath; on the side near the farm it had a high, overhanging bank, the other side being nearly level with the adjoining meadow. Thus it formed a natural trench and led straight down to where the first of the barges lay. It would have been open to an enfilade from the river, but Stafnitz had only one sentry on each barge, and these men were occupied in staring at their advancing companions and calling out to know what was the matter. As for the bargees, they had wisely declared neutrality, deeming the matter no business of theirs; shots were not within the terms of a contract for transport. Stafnitz, not dreaming of an attack, had not reconnoitred his ground. But Lukovitch knew every inch of it (had not General Stenovics remembered that?), and so did Peter Vassip. The surprise of Praslok was to be avenged.

Rastatz takes up the tale again; his narrative has one or two touches vivid with a local color.

"When I got round to the rear of the barn, I found our fellows scattered about on their bellies. The Colonel was in front on his belly, with his head just raised from the ground, looking about him. I lay down, too, getting my head behind a stone which chanced to be near me. I looked about me too, when it seemed safe. And it did seem safe at first, for we could hear nothing, and deuce a man could we see! But it wasn't very pleasant, because we knew that, sure enough, they must be pretty near us somewhere. Presently the Colonel came crawling back to me. 'What do you make of it, Rastatz?' he whispered. Before I could answer, we heard a brisk exchange of fire in front of the barn. 'I don't like it,' I said. 'I can't see them, and I've a notion they can see me, Colonel, and that's not the pleasantest way to fight, is it?' 'Gad, you're right!' said he, 'but they won't see me any the better for a cigarette'--and then and there he lit one.

"Well, he'd just thrown away his match when a young fellow--quite a lad he was--a couple of yards from us, suddenly jumped from his belly on to his knees and called out quite loud--it seemed to me he'd got a sort of panic--quite loud, he called out: 'Sheepskins! Sheepskins!' I jumped myself, and I saw the Colonel start. But, by Jove, it was true! When you took a sniff, you could smell them. Of course I don't mean what the better class wear--you couldn't have smelt the tunic our lamented Prince wore, nor the one the witch decked herself out in--but you could smell a common fellow's sheepskin twenty yards off--ay, against the wind, unless the wind was mighty strong.

"'Sheepskins it is!' said the Colonel with a sniff. 'Volsenians, by gad! It's Mistress Sophia, Rastatz, or some of her friends, anyhow.' Then he swore worthily: 'Stenovics must have put them up to this! And where the devil are they, Rastatz?' He raised his head as he spoke, and got his answer. A bullet came singing along and went right through his shako; it came from the line of the ditch. He lay down again, laughed a little, and took a puff at his cigarette before he threw it away. Just then one of our sentries bellowed from the first barge: 'In the ditch! In the ditch!' 'I wish you'd spoken a bit sooner,' says the Colonel, laughing again."

While this was passing on Stafnitz's side, Sophy and her party were working quietly and cautiously down the course of the ditch. Under the shelter of its bank they had been able to hold a brief and hurried consultation. What they feared was that Stafnitz would make a dash for the barges. Their fire might drop half his men, but the survivors, when once on board--and the barges were drawn up to the edge of the stream--would still be as numerous as themselves, and would command the course of the ditch, which was at present their great resource and protection. But if they could get on board before the enemy, they believed they could hold their own; the decks were covered with _impedimenta_ of one sort or another which would afford them cover, while any party which tried to board must expose itself to fire to a serious and probably fatal extent.

So they worked down the ditch--except two of them. Little as they could spare even two, it was judged well to leave these; their instructions were to fire at short intervals, whether there was much chance of hitting anybody or not. Dunstanbury hoped by this trick to make Stafnitz believe that the whole detachment was stationary in the ditch thirty yards or more from the point where it joined the river. Only ten strong now--and one of them a woman--they made their way towards the mouth of the ditch and towards the barges which held the prize they sought.

But a diversion, and a very effective one, was soon to come from the front of the barn. Fearing that the party under Sophy and Dunstanbury might be overpowered, Lukovitch determined on a bold step--that of enticing the holders of the barn from their shelter. He directed his men to keep up a brisk fire at the door; he himself and another man--one Ossip Yensko--disregarding the risk, made a rapid dash across the line of fire from the barn, for the spot where the horses were. The fire directed at the door successfully covered their daring movement; they were among the horses in a moment, and hard at work cutting the bands with which they were tethered; the animals were half mad with fright, and the task was one of great danger.

But the manoeuvre was eminently successful. A cry of "The horses! The horses!" went up from the barn. Men appeared in the doorway; the sergeant-major in command himself ran out. Half the horses were loose, and stampeded along the towing-path down the river. "The horses! The horses!" The defenders surged out of the barn, in deadly fear of being caught there in a trap. They preferred the chances of the fire, and streamed out in a disorderly throng. Lukovitch and Yensko cut loose as many more horses as they dared wait to release; then, as the defenders rushed forward, retreated, flying for their lives. Lukovitch came off with a ball in his arm; Yensko dropped, shot through the heart. The men behind the hill riddled the defenders with their fire. But now they were by their horses--such as were left of them--nearer twenty than ten dotted the grass outside the barn-door. And the survivors were demoralized; their leader, the sergeant-major, lay dead. They released the remaining horses, mounted, and with one parting volley fled down the river. With a cry of triumph, Lukovitch collected the remainder of his men and dashed round the side of the barn. The next moment Colonel Stafnitz found himself attacked in his rear as well as held in check from the ditch in his front.

"For a moment we thought it was our own men," said Rastatz, continuing his account, "and the Colonel shouted: 'Don't fire, you fools!' But then they cheered, and we knew the Volsenian accent--curse them! 'Sheepskins again!' said the Colonel, with a wry kind of smile. He didn't hesitate then; he jumped up, crying: 'To the barges! To the barges! Follow me!'

"We all followed: it was just as safe to go with him as to stay where you were! We made a dash for it and got to the bank of the river. Then they rose out of the ditch in front of us--and they were at us behind, too--with steel now; they daren't shoot, for fear of hitting their own people in our front. But the idea of a knife in your back isn't pleasant, and in the end more of our men turned to meet them than went on with the Colonel. I went on with him, though. I'm always for the safest place, if there's one safer than another. But here there wasn't, so I thought I might as well do the proper thing. We met them right by the water's-edge, and the first I made out was the witch herself, in sheepskins like the rest of them, white as a sheet, but with that infernal mark absolutely blazing. She was between Peter Vassip and a tall man I didn't know--I found out afterwards that he was the Englishman Dunstanbury--and the three came straight at us. She cried: 'The King! the King!' and behind us we heard Lukovitch and his lot crying: 'The King! the King!'

"Our fellows didn't like it, that's the truth. They were uneasy in their minds about that job of poor old Mistitch's, and they feared the witch like the devil. The heart was out of them; one lad near me burst out crying. A witch and a ghost didn't seem pleasant things to fight. Oh, it was all nonsense, but you know what fellows like that are. Their cry of 'The King!' and the sight of the woman caused a moment's hesitation. It was enough to give them the drop on us. But the Colonel never hesitated; he flung himself straight at her, and fired as he sprang. I just saw what happened before I got a crack on the crown of the head from the butt-end of a rifle, which knocked me out of time. As the Colonel fired, Peter Vassip flung himself in front of her, and took the bullet in his own body. Dunstanbury jumped right on the Colonel, cut him on the arm so that he dropped his revolver, and grappled with him. Dunstanbury dropped his sword, and the Colonel's wasn't drawn. It was just a tussle. They were tussling when the blood came flowing down into my eyes from the wound on my head; I couldn't see anything more; I fainted. Just as I went off I heard somebody cry: 'Hands up!' and I imagined the fighting was pretty well over."

The fighting was over. One scene remained which Rastatz did not see. When Colonel Stafnitz, too, heard the call "Hands up!" when the firing stopped and all became quiet, he ceased to struggle. Dunstanbury found him suddenly changed to a log beneath him; his hands were already on the Colonel's throat, and he could have strangled him now without difficulty. But when Stafnitz no longer tried to defend himself, he loosed his hold, got up, and stood over him with his hand on the revolver in his belt. The Colonel fingered his throat a minute, sat up, looked round, and rose to his feet. He saw Sophy standing before him; by her side Peter Vassip lay on the ground, tended by Basil Williamson and one of his comrades. Colonel Stafnitz bowed to Sophy with a smile.

"I forgot you, madame," said Stafnitz.

"I didn't forget Monseigneur," she answered.

He looked round him again, shrugged his shoulders, and seemed to think for a moment. There was an absolute stillness--a contrast to the preceding turmoil. But the silence made uncomfortable men whom the fight had not shaken. Their eyes were set on Stafnitz.

"The Prince died in fair fight," he said.

"No; you sent Mistitch to murder him," Sophy replied. Her eyes were relentless; and Stafnitz was ringed round with enemies.

"I apologize for this embarrassment. I really ought to have been killed--it's just a mistake," he said, with a smile. He turned quickly to Dunstanbury: "You seem to be a gentleman, sir. Pray come with me; I need a witness." He pointed with his unwounded hand to the barn.

Dunstanbury bowed assent. The Colonel, in his turn, bowed to Sophy, and the two of them turned and walked off towards the barn. Sophy stood motionless, watching them until they turned the corner; then she fell on her knees and began to talk soothingly to Peter Vassip, who was hard hit, but, in Basil Williamson's opinion, promised to do well. Sophy was talking to the poor fellow when the sound of a revolver shot--a single shot--came from the barn. Colonel Stafnitz had corrected the mistake. Sophy did not raise her head. A moment later Dunstanbury came back and rejoined them. He exchanged a look with Sophy, inclining his head as a man does in answering "Yes." Then she rose.

"Now for the barges and the guns," she said.

They could not carry the guns back to Volseni; nor, indeed, was there any use for them there now. But neither were Monseigneur's guns for the enemies of Monseigneur. Under Lukovitch's skilled directions (his wound proved slight) the big guns were so disabled as to remain of little value, and the barges taken out into mid-stream and there scuttled with their cargoes. While one party pursued this work, Dunstanbury made the prisoners collect their wounded and dead, place them on a wagon, and set out on their march to Slavna. Then his men placed their dead on horses--they had lost three. Five were wounded besides Peter Vassip, but none of them severely--all could ride. For Peter they took a cart from the farm to convey him as far as the ascent to the hills; up that he would have to be carried by his comrades.

It was noon before all their work was done. The barges were settling in the water. As they started to ride back to Volseni, the first sank; the second was soon to follow it.

"We have done our work," said Lukovitch.

And Sophy answered, "Yes."

But Stafnitz's men had not carried the body of their commander back. They left it in the barn, cursing him for the trap he had led them into. Later in the day, the panic-stricken lock-keeper stole out from the cellar where he had hidden himself, and found it in the barn. He and his wife lifted it with cursings, bore it to the river, and flung it in. It was carried over the weir, and floated down to Slavna. They fished it out with a boat-hook just opposite Suleiman's Tower. The hint to Captain Sterkoff was a broad one. He reported a vacancy in the command, and sent the keys of the fort to General Stenovics. It was Sunday morning.

"The Colonel has got back just when he said he would. But where are the guns?" asked General Stenovics of Captain Markart. The Captain had by now made up his mind which turn to take.

But no power ensued to Stenovics. At the best his fate was a soft fall--a fall on to a cushioned shelf. The cup of Kravonia's iniquity, full with the Prince's murder, brimmed over with the punishment of the man who had caused it. The fight by the lock of Miklevni sealed Kravonia's fate. Civilization must be vindicated! Long columns of flat-capped soldiers begin to wind, like a great snake, over the summit of St. Peter's Pass. Sophy watched them through a telescope from the old wall of Volseni.

"Our work is done. Monseigneur has mightier avengers," she said.

XXIV

TRUE TO HER LOVE

Volseni forgave Sophy its dead and wounded sons. Her popularity blazed up in a last fierce, flickering fire. The guns were taken; they would not go to Slavna; they would never batter the walls of Volseni into fragments. Slavna might be defied again. That was the great thing to Volseni, and it made little account of the snakelike line which crawled over St. Peter's Pass, and down to Dobrava, and on to Slavna. Let Slavna--hated Slavna--reckon with that! And if the snake--or another like it--came to Volseni? Well, that was better than knuckling down to Slavna. To-night King Sergius was avenged, and Queen Sophia had returned in victory!

For the first time since the King's death the bell of the ancient church rang joyously, and men sang and feasted in the gray city of the hills. Thirty from Volseni had beaten a hundred from Slavna; the guns were at the bottom of the Krath; it was enough. If Sophy had bidden them, they would have streamed down on Slavna that night in one of those fierce raids in which their forefathers of the Middle Ages had loved to swoop upon the plain.

But Sophy had no delusions. She saw her Crown--that fleeting phantom ornament, fitly foreseen in the visions of a charlatan--passing from her brow without a sigh. She had not needed Dunstanbury's arguments to prove to her that there was no place for her left in Kravonia. She was content to have it so; she had done enough. Sorrow had not passed from her face, but serenity had come upon it in fuller measure. She had struck for Monseigneur, and the blow was witness to her love. It was enough in her, and enough in little Volseni. Let the mightier avengers do the rest!

She had allowed Dunstanbury to leave her after supper in order to make preparations for a start to the frontier at dawn. "You must certainly go," she had said, "and perhaps I'll come with you."

She went at night up on to the wall--always her favorite place; she loved the spaciousness of air and open country before her there. Basil Williamson found her deep in thought when he came to tell her of the progress of the wounded.

"They're all doing well, and Peter Vassip will live. Dunstanbury has made him promise to come to him when he's recovered, so you'll meet him again at all events. And Marie Zerkovitch and her husband talk of settling in Paris. You won't lose all your Kravonian friends."

"You assume that I'm coming with you to-morrow morning?"

"I'm quite safe in assuming that Dunstanbury won't go unless you do," he answered, smiling. "We can't leave you alone here, you know."

"I shouldn't stay here, anyhow," she said. "Or, at any rate, I should be where nobody could hurt me." She pointed at a dim lantern, fastened to the gate-tower by an iron clamp, then waved her hand towards the surrounding darkness. "That's life, isn't it?" she asked. "If I believed that I could go to Monseigneur, I would go to-night--nay, I would have gone at Miklevni; it was only putting my head out of that ditch a minute sooner! If I believed even that I could lie in the church there and know that he was near! If I believed even that I could lie there quietly and remember and think of him! You're a man of science--you're not a peasant's child, as I am. What do you think? You mustn't wonder that I've had my thoughts, too. At Lady Meg's we did little else than try to find out whether we were going on anywhere else. That's all she cared about. And if she does ever get to a next world, she won't care about that; she'll only go on trying to find out whether there's still another beyond. What do you think?"

"I hardly expected to find you so philosophically inclined," he said.

"It's a practical question with me now. On its answer depends whether I come with you or stay here--by Monseigneur in the church."

Basil said something professional--something about nerves and temporary strain. But he performed this homage to medical etiquette in a rather perfunctory fashion. He had never seen a woman more composed or more obviously and perfectly healthy. Sophy smiled and went on:

"But if I live, I'm sure at least of being able to think and able to remember. It comes to a gamble, doesn't it? It's just possible I might get more; it's quite likely--I think it's probable--I should lose even what I have now."

"I think you're probably right about the chances of the gamble," he told her, "though no doubt certainty is out of place--or at least one doesn't talk about it. Shall I tell you what science says?"

"No," said Sophy, smiling faintly. "Science thinks in multitudes--and I'm thinking of the individual to-night. Even Lady Meg never made much of science, you know."

"Do you remember the day when I heard you your Catechism in the avenue at Morpingham?"

"Yes, I remember. Does the Catechism hold good in Kravonia, though?"

"It continues, anyhow, a valuable document in its bearing on this life. You remember the mistake you made, I dare say?"

"I've never forgotten it. It's had something to do with it all," said Sophy. "That's how you, as well as Lord Dunstanbury, come in at the beginning as you do at the end."

"Has it nothing to do with the question now--putting it in any particular phraseology you like?" In his turn he pointed at the smoky lantern. "That's not life," he said, growing more earnest, yet smiling. "That's now--just here and now--and, yes, it's very smoky." He waved his hand over the darkness. "That's life. Dark? Yes, but the night will lift, the darkness pass away; valley and sparkling lake will be there, and the summit of the heaven-kissing hills. Life cries to you with a sweet voice."

"Yes," she murmured, "with a sweet voice. And perhaps some day there would be light on the hills. But, ah, I'm torn in sunder this night. I wish I had died there at Miklevni while my blood was hot." She paused a long while in thought. Then she went on: "If I go, I must go while it's still dark, and while these good people sleep. Go and tell Lord Dunstanbury to be ready to start an hour before dawn; and do you and he come then to the door of the church. If I'm not waiting for you there, come inside and find me."

He started towards her with an eager gesture of protest. She raised her hand and checked him.

"No, I've decided nothing. I can't tell yet," she said. She turned and left him; he heard her steps descending the old winding stair which led from the top of the wall down into the street. He did not know whether he would see her alive again--and with her message of such ambiguous meaning he went to Dunstanbury. Yet curiously, though he had pleaded so urgently with her, though to him her death would mean the loss of one of the beautiful things from out the earth, he was in no distress for her and did not dream of attempting any constraint. She knew her strength--she would choose right. If life were tolerable, she would take up the burden. If not, she would let it lie unlifted at her quiet feet.

His mood could not be Dunstanbury's, who had come to count her presence as the light of the life that was his. Yet Dunstanbury heard the message quietly, and quietly made every preparation in obedience to her bidding. That done, he sat in the little room of the inn and smoked his pipe with Basil. Henry Brown waited his word to take the horses to the door of the church. Basil Williamson had divined his friend's feeling for Sophy, and wondered at his calmness.

"If I felt the doubt that you do, I shouldn't be calm," said Dunstanbury. "But I know her. She will be true to her love."

He could not be speaking of that love of hers which was finished, whose end she was now mourning in the little church. It must be of another love that he spoke--of one bred in her nature, the outcome of her temperament and of her being the woman that she was. The spirit which had brought her to Slavna had made her play her part there, had welcomed and caught at every change and chance of fortune, had never laid down the sword till the blow was struck--that spirit would preserve her and give her back to life now--and some day give life back to her.

He was right. When they came to the door of the church, she was there. For the first time since Monseigneur had died, her eyes were red with weeping; but her face was calm. She gave her hand to Dunstanbury.

"Come, let us mount," she said. "I have said 'Good-bye.'"

Lukovitch knew Dunstanbury's plans. He was waiting for them at the gate, his arm in a sling, and with him were the Zerkovitches. These last they would see again; it was probably farewell forever to gallant Lukovitch. He kissed the silver ring on Sophy's finger.

"I brought nothing into Kravonia," she said, "and I carry nothing out, except this ring which Monseigneur put on my finger--the ring of the Bailiffs of Volseni."

"Keep it," said Lukovitch. "I think there will be no more Bailiffs of Volseni--or some Prince, not of our choosing, will take the title by his own will. He will not be our Bailiff, as Monseigneur was. You will be our Bailiff, though our eyes never see you, and you never see our old gray walls again. Madame, have a kindly place in your heart for Volseni. We sha'n't forget you nor the blow we struck under your leadership. The fight at Miklevni may well be the last that we shall fight as free men."

"Volseni is written on my heart," she answered. "I shall not forget."

She bade her friends farewell, and then ordered Lukovitch to throw open the gate. She and the three Englishmen rode through, Henry Brown leading the pack-horse by the bridle. The mountains were growing gray with the first approaches of dawn.

As she rode through, Sophy paused a moment, leaned sideways in her saddle, and kissed the ancient lintel of the door.

"Peace be on this place," she said, "and peace to the tomb where Monseigneur lies buried!"

"Peace be on thy head and fortune with thee!" answered Lukovitch in the traditional words of farewell. He kissed her hand again, and they departed.

It was high morning when they rode up the ascent to St. Peter's Pass and came to the spot where their cross-track joined the main road over the pass from Dobrava and the capital. In silence they mounted to the summit. The road under their horses' feet was trampled with the march of the thousands of men who had passed over it in an irresistible advance on Slavna.

At the summit of the pass they stopped, and Sophy turned to look back. She sat there for a long while in silence.

"I have loved this land," at last she said. "It has given me much, and very much it has taken away. Now the face of it is to be changed. But in my heart the memory of it will not change." She looked across the valley, across the sparkling face of Lake Talti, to the gray walls of Volseni, and kissed her hand. "Farewell, Monseigneur!" she whispered, very low.

The day of Kravonia was done. The head of the great snake had reached Slavna. Countess Ellenburg and young Alexis were in flight. Stenovics took orders where he had looked to rule. The death of Monseigneur was indeed avenged. But there was no place for Sophy, the Queen of a tempestuous hour.

They set their horses' heads towards the frontier. They began the descent on the other side. The lake was gone, the familiar hills vanished; only in the eye of memory stood old Volseni still set in its gray mountains. Sophy rode forth from Kravonia in her sheepskins and her silver ring--the last Queen of Kravonia, the last Bailiff of Volseni, the last chosen leader of the mountain men. But the memory of the Red Star lived after her--how she loved Monseigneur and avenged him, how her face was fairer than the face of other women, and more pale--and how the Red Star glowed in sorrow and in joy, in love and in clash of arms, promising to some glory and to others death. In the street of Volseni and in the cabins among the hills you may hear the tale of the Red Star yet.

As she passed the border of the land which was so great in her life, by a freak of memory Sophy recalled a picture till now forgotten--a woman, unknown, untraced, unreckoned, who had passed down the Street of the Fountain, weeping bitterly--an obscure symbol of great woes, of the tribute life pays to its unresting enemies.

Yet to the unconquerable heart life stands unconquered. What danger had not shaken not even sorrow could overthrow. She rode into the future with Dunstanbury on her right hand--patience in his mind, and in his heart hope. Some day the sun would shine on the summit of heaven-kissing hills.

THE END