AT the announcement that the shabby man with the sparkling and speaking
eyes and the soft and melodious voice was Frederick of Prussia, the
greatest captain of the age, the two men concealed in the closet
grew rigid with astonishment. They did not need his careless, but
confirmatory nod to be convinced of his identity; but when he spoke it
was to say:
“Yes, I am the King of Prussia. A great many people know me by
sight--more do not. You are evidently one of the latter class.”
Madame Ziska remained standing respectfully, and answered Frederick’s
last speech by saying:
“Your Majesty will not think me a flatterer when I say I knew from the
moment you entered this room that you were no ordinary man.”
“And I knew,” said Frederick, with a faint smile, which transfigured
his whole face, “that you were no ordinary woman when you faced half
a dozen strange men as you did. I should like to have a regiment of
men as cool as you are. How they would stand fire! Pray be seated. War
is a tiresome business,” he continued, after Madame Ziska had resumed
her chair. “But it is my trade, and a man must work at his trade.
However, I like my tools--my soldiers.” Then, throwing himself back
in his chair, he kept on, as if merely thinking aloud. “I am like the
bourgeois--of whom I have no great opinion--I am absorbed in my trade.
Time was when I had tastes; now ’tis nothing but whether I can beat
Prince Charles as I did Marshal Soubise the other day. I like the work
less as time goes on; but I like other things less still.”
“You still like music, your Majesty.”
“How do you know that?”
Madame Ziska rose, and stepping lightly up to him, with the utmost
grace and quickness drew the pieces of a flute out of the pocket of
his surtout, and deftly screwed them together, evidently knowing all
about it. Then, putting the flute to her rosy lips, she played a little
French air, to which Frederick listened enraptured.
“Ah!” he cried; “that carries me back to my peaceful days at Ruppin,
when my flute was my only company for days together.”
Madame Ziska, seeing that she had found something in which he was
interested, went to the harpsichord, and seating herself, sang a French
song in a sweet, agreeable voice.
Frederick was charmed.
“Madame, have you any other accomplishments?” he cried. “I have not
sunk so far into the savage as I thought, if music can still give me
such pleasure.”
Madame Ziska hesitated, a roguish smile playing over her face.
“Did your Majesty say you played the little air I tried just now on the
flute?”
“Yes, yes. My sister, the Margravine of Baireuth, first taught it to
me, and accompanied me on the harpsichord.”
He seized the flute and began playing, and Madame Ziska, with the
greatest coolness in the world, picking up her skirts, executed a
_pas de seul_ that was a wonder of skill and grace. The intricacy of
her steps was marvellous; she sprung into the air and alighted on the
point of her toe, and then spun around with dazzling dexterity; her
arms, used with exquisite effect, seemed to have the power of wings to
support her; but when, with a final bound and a sinking to the floor,
and rising with consummate grace, she was about to conclude her dance,
a knock came at the door. Madame Ziska, with lightning quickness,
seated herself demurely, while the King, not to be behindhand, put his
flute behind him, and called out petulantly:
“Come in.”
An officer entered and, saluting, said:
“Did your Majesty call?”
“No,” tartly responded the King. “Did you not hear me playing on my
flute? A man must have some recreation, and because I do not puff smoke
by the hour, nor gamble, nor make a beast of myself with wine, I am not
thereby without tastes.”
The officer was so taken aback by this onslaught that he hastily closed
the door.
The effect of Madame Ziska’s dance was not less electrifying to the two
men in the closet than on the King. St. Arnaud was somewhat surprised,
but Gavin’s eyes were nearly starting out of his head, and St. Arnaud
could scarcely keep from laughing, although a laugh then would have
cost him his life.
“There, madame!” said Frederick, when the officer had hastily shut the
door. “You see one of the disadvantages of my calling. It would not
surprise my military family in the least if I were to be guilty of
crimes and call them amusements; but that I should occasionally play
the flute never fails to astonish them. Bah! But tell me this,” he
resumed, as Madame Ziska, panting after her exercise, fanned herself.
“How comes it that a woman who dances in a manner worthy of the Grand
Opera at Paris should speak so well? Pardon my bluntness; I have fallen
into it, because the women I see are chiefly court ladies who never
would have done talking, when once they begun, if I did not use a
little _brusquerie_ with them occasionally.”
Madame Ziska laughed a singularly pleasant and honest laugh. “I do
myself not know,” she replied, “except that as soon as I learned to
read I wished to put it to practice. I come of the very bourgeoisie
you were abusing just now; but circumstances placed me with a certain
person in particular who was above me in station and highly educated,
and, naturally, I strove to raise myself to a higher level than a mere
dancer.”
“Humph! Where are you going now?”
“I am on my way to Vienna. Your Majesty has fluted so to the Austrians
and French that they are always dancing--but not of my kind. And I am
going where I can find people who will think of some one else than
your Majesty long enough to let a poor artist make a living.”
“You may see the Empress Queen at Vienna, but not exactly as you see
me--ha! ha! However, I will give you some tangible proof that you have
seen me.”
He fumbled in his pockets and brought out a plain silver snuff-box with
the royal cipher on it. Then taking a penknife from his pocket, he
scratched on the lid, “Frédéric,” adding: “I, and only I, so write my
name.”
Madame Ziska’s conduct on receiving this was quite different from what
might have been expected from her previous debonair behaviour. Her eyes
filled with tears, and she clasped her hands in gratitude.
Within the closet, St. Arnaud and Gavin remained breathless and
noiseless as they thought. But those clear, limpid eyes of Frederick’s
saw more than was apparent. He rose and, carelessly approaching the
door, raised the hilt of his sword, and bringing it down with a
thundering crash, the glass door was shivered, the green silk torn
apart, and the two French officers stood revealed.
Gavin Hamilton thought afterward: “There is something in being trained
as an officer, after all,” for, although as brave a man as St. Arnaud,
he involuntarily shrunk back into the closet when discovered; but St.
Arnaud, deliberately stepping out, bowed to the ground and said with
the utmost suavity:
“Thanks, your Majesty. It was warm in there; but we did not think of
breaking the glass for air!”
At this Frederick burst into a hearty laugh; the coolness of St. Arnaud
amused him. Madame Ziska turned pale, but at the King’s ringing laugh
she recovered herself, and said, smiling roguishly:
“We are three to one, but we will spare your Majesty!”
Frederick laughed again at this, and seeing Gavin still trying to make
himself small against the wall of the closet, the King leant in, and
taking him by the collar, dragged him out, Gavin looking very sheepish
and blushing furiously. And then the great King and the French officer,
the private soldier and the dancer all laughed together.
“Madame and messieurs,” cried Frederick, “you may claim each to have
conferred a great favour on the King of Prussia; for I tell you I have
not laughed so heartily this year. I thought I had forgotten how. Nor
did I ever take a prisoner before with my own hand; and, gentlemen,
each one of you is more than a match for me, and a younger man beside.”
“Your Majesty has reason to boast of your prowess,” returned St.
Arnaud, while Gavin, suddenly remembering that he must act up to his
character as an officer, said with the utmost naturalness:
“Sire, if only I had kept my wits about me, I would have knocked your
Majesty down and jumped out of the window. But I never spoke with
a king before, and I was so taken aback--faith! a baby might have
captured me.”
“Don’t try the window, my fine fellow,” said Frederick gayly, but with
a warning note in his voice; “you do not suppose I am here without any
escort? The fact is, however, I did not think there was a Frenchman or
an Austrian in a hundred miles. What is your name and rank?” to St.
Arnaud.
“Captain St. Arnaud, of the regiment of Dufour, and this is
Sublieutenant Hamilton” (which he pronounced no better than Gavin) “of
my regiment. We have been running away from you ever since Rosbach, and
now, presto! you catch us like a couple of chickens in a barnyard.”
[Illustration: THE KING DRAGGED GAVIN OUT OF THE CLOSET]
“And I broke up your little evening party with this lady. I suspected
her of being a spy, but she charmed me so with her music and dancing
that I forgot to ask her a word, and gave her the only thing of value
I had about me--my snuff-box. But I must let my staff know that,
single-handed, I captured a couple of tall Frenchmen.” Then calling
loudly in his clear, musical voice “Steiner!” a young officer opened
the door as quickly as if he had sprung from the ground. When he saw
St. Arnaud and Gavin he started with amazement.
“Taken with my own hand,” said Frederick with a wave of his arm. “My
compliments to the chief and the other gentlemen of my staff, and say
I will not rejoin them to-night, but I shall be ready to start at
daylight in the morning, and to keep a good lookout. There may be more
than two Frenchmen about. You, Steiner, I will have to attend me; and
keep the others well off in the other part of the house. We may have a
little music while the rest are having their pipes and beer. And bring
my writing-desk with you; I shall have work to do presently.”
Steiner disappeared, and Madame Ziska, St. Arnaud, and Gavin, as if
realizing that they were in the presence of the greatest king of his
age, remained silent and standing.
“Pray be seated,” said Frederick, with the charming manner he
possessed, but did not always use. “It is not often I have either
leisure or pleasure--the business of being a king requires a man to
work like a galley-slave--but to-night I will indulge myself. I will
imagine myself as I was twenty years ago, when, so far from fighting
the French, I loved all that was French. Come, Madame, one more song.”
Madame Ziska rose, and going to the harpsichord, sang a little French
chansonnette. Frederick seemed delighted with it. As he truly said, it
was as if he had gone back twenty years, when music and literature made
up his life, and the future great captain was the gentle and studious
Crown Prince.
“And he sings,” said Madame Ziska, pointing to St. Arnaud as she rose.
In obedience to a look from Frederick, St. Arnaud went to the
harpsichord and sang; and then it was Steiner’s turn, who roared
out a German drinking song. Unlike the rest, Steiner was not at his
ease before his King, although he tried hard to assume the air of
unembarrassed gayety which prevailed among the rest. But it was not a
great success. He knew the King too well to suppose that the graceful
abandon of any evening spent in unexpectedly novel and agreeable
company was a fair sample of his usual moods and methods. The rest,
though, naturally pleased themselves with the notion that they would
be extremely favoured by the King. Madame Ziska had already received a
valuable mark of his good-will in the silver snuff-box, and expected to
be sent rejoicing upon her journey. Gavin’s visions were so brilliant
that he almost came to regard their capture as a lucky accident. He
kept thinking to himself: “Yesterday I was a private soldier. To-night
I sit with a king. Surely, that means a turn of good fortune.”
St. Arnaud, who knew more of kings than any of them, was not so
sanguine, but even he would rather have been taken prisoner by
Frederick than any other man in the Prussian army.
The evening passed delightfully. Frederick seemed to return to his
early love for the French, and nothing could exceed the grace of his
allusions to “my brother of France,” French literature, art, and all
that pertained to them. The extent and variety of his information were
extraordinary, and the charm of his voice and manner could not have
been excelled. Gavin had the good sense to remain in the background;
Madame Ziska’s manner, of respect, without obsequiousness, was as
perfect as St. Arnaud’s, who had learned many things at courts. At last
one o’clock came. The King, looking at his watch, rose, and Madame
Ziska, immediately taking the hint, left the room. The King said: “It
is time to go to work,” and Steiner picked up the writing-desk and
prepared to move. “The worst of pleasant things is their ending. This
room is yours gentlemen, for the night; and, as you see, you will have
company outside the window and in the corridors. And I am prepared to
accept your parole.”
An awkward silence ensued. Both Gavin and St. Arnaud remembered at the
same moment that Gavin, not being an officer, was not entitled to his
parole; while there were so few Prussian officers, if any, in the hands
of the French, that St. Arnaud’s exchange would be a matter of time and
difficulty. After a moment he said, with a profound bow:
“I am much indebted to your Majesty, but I prefer to take my chances as
a prisoner of war.”
Gavin, who had determined to do as St. Arnaud did, bowed and said:
“Sire, so do I.”
Frederick scowled--kings are easily offended, even when they play at
Haroun al-Raschid--and then said coldly:
“I shall then refer you to my chief of staff. I am under obligations
to you for a pleasant evening. Good-night.” And he walked out,
obsequiously preceded by Steiner.
St. Arnaud and Gavin were left alone. They had, however, seen a soldier
standing in the corridor upon which the room opened, and outside they
heard the steady tramp of the sentry’s feet upon the frozen snow, as he
marched up and down. The candles were burnt to their sockets, and the
darkness was only illumined by the red glow of the stove. In silence
they wrapped themselves in their pelisses, and lay down, not to sleep,
but to discuss in whispers their chances.
“Why did you not accept your parole?” whispered Gavin.
“Because I believed our chances better as prisoners of war, and,
besides, there was a question as to your parole. All this may be
known some day,” replied St. Arnaud in the same low whisper. “And
you forget--Madame Ziska. No doubt we will be carried to Glatz, and
she will be taken with us that far. I do not fear a very strict
imprisonment--and a woman can contrive wonderful things.”
“Some women can, like my mother, for example,” replied Gavin.
“Very well. Madame Ziska is a loyal and devoted woman--something
assures me of that; and, after all, we are not more than three hundred
miles from Prince Charles at this very moment. Go to sleep.”
Gavin remained quiet for five minutes. Then he whispered:
“Have you any money?”
“Only a little, but half of it is yours.”
Gavin nudged St. Arnaud with his elbow as a sign of gratitude, and was
again quiet for five minutes, when he murmured: “We are much better
off, even as prisoners, than we were last night.”
“Yes.”
“And,” again whispered Gavin diffidently, “how did I act the officer?”
“Admirably. All you needed was a sword.”
“I can capture one from the enemy in time. Do you think His Majesty
will be as pleasant to us in the morning?”
“Not if he is like the kings I have known. The more friendly and
companionable the night before, the more surly the next morning--to
keep us from presuming, I suppose.”
A silence followed, and the deep and heavy breathing, which showed they
had laid aside all their perplexities for that night.
About half an hour afterward, so Gavin imagined, he was awakened by St.
Arnaud stirring about the room, but it was nearly daybreak. Like a true
soldier, Gavin waked with all his wits about him. He saw St. Arnaud,
after lighting a candle, produce a kettle from the closet in which they
had been shut up, and, filling it with water, he put it on the stove,
which was still glowing hot. As soon as the water boiled St. Arnaud,
again going to the closet, fished out a basin, and proceeded to enjoy a
thorough bath. He then produced his silver-mounted razor and, standing
before a mirror, removed the beard which had appeared upon his face
during the last twenty-four hours. Then, completely washed and shaved,
he looked ready for a promenade in Paris. Gavin watched him closely,
thinking to himself:
“He will see that I bathe and shave as carefully as he.”
St. Arnaud’s toilet finished, he shook Gavin, who got up and made
rather ostentatiously a toilet, if anything, more careful than
St. Arnaud’s. When it was over the two men were perfect pictures
of officer-like neatness. And as for good looks, St. Arnaud was
exquisitely handsome, while Gavin, by his noble figure, his brilliant
complexion, and his frank and winning expression, made up for his want
of regular beauty.
The tread of the sentry outside of the window was still heard, and
men were passing back and forth in the corridors, and up and down
the stairs. Scarcely was the gray dawn visible when their door was
unceremoniously opened, and a trooper appeared, and, pointing with his
sword toward the hall, St. Arnaud and Gavin went out. Awaiting them
they found some bread and coffee for breakfast, and the Prussians fared
no better.
On what had once been a well-kept pleasure ground, with a fish-pond
in the middle, the King’s staff and escort were assembled--over two
hundred mounted men. A trooper held the bridles of the prisoners’
horses, and Madame Ziska’s comfortable travelling calash was drawn up
in the centre of the cavalcade.
In another moment Madame Ziska appeared, a Prussian officer leading her
down the steps. She nodded to St. Arnaud and Gavin, saying gayly:
“I know not where we are going, but, being captives to His Majesty,
we will neither starve nor freeze, of which there was great danger
yesterday.”
Down the steps presently came Frederick. He wore the shabby surtout
of the night before, and his hat was a captain’s cocked hat, with a
tarnished silver buckle. His face was pale and his eyes heavy, as if
he had spent the night awake. Behind him walked poor Steiner, carrying
a large bundle of dispatches, and almost yawning in the King’s face
from sleeplessness. Immediately the King’s horse was brought, and he
mounted. His staff assembled around him, and the order was given to
start. All this time he had not bestowed a word or a look upon Madame
Ziska in her calash or the two prisoners. On passing them, however,
he recognized their salutes by an absent-minded bow. Gavin, who was
totally unprepared for this change, muttered to St. Arnaud:
“Nice behaviour, that; I suppose His Majesty has quite forgotten that
he pulled me out of the closet last night, and he laughed like a
schoolboy at it!”
“Put not your trust in princes,” was St. Arnaud’s whispered reply.
They then put forward rapidly and in silence. The morning was clear
and cold, and they traveled fast. Shortly after sunrise they reached
a place where the highroad branched in two. A halt was made, and
Frederick, who had been riding ahead, stopped, and a part of the escort
defiled before him. When Madame Ziska’s calash approached, behind which
rode St. Arnaud and Gavin, Frederick rode up to them. His eyes were
sparkling, his figure was erect, and the agreeable voice for which he
was celebrated rang out musically.
“We part here, madame and messieurs,” he said. “Gentlemen, you are
for Glatz. Madame for anywhere she likes. I to meet Prince Charles of
Lorraine wherever I can find him. I have to thank you for a pleasant
evening. _Bon jour!_” And putting spurs to his horse, and followed by a
dozen officers, he was gone.
“What strange creatures are kings!” was Gavin’s comment to St. Arnaud,
who, in his time, had seen much of royalty. “Glatz! A terrible place to
be imprisoned in!”
“There is a way out of every place to which there is a way in,” was St.
Arnaud’s reply.
That night they stopped at a village where Prussians were much in
evidence; and three days afterward, at nightfall, they found themselves
at the main entrance of the fortress of Glatz.
Madame Ziska was still with them, but her behaviour during their three
days of journeying had surprised and disgusted Gavin. She seemed rather
to avoid them, and was hand and glove with the Prussians. Gavin had
mentioned it several times to St. Arnaud, who only smiled and said:
“Women go by contraries sometimes, my lad.”
When the moment came, before the gate of the citadel of Glatz, that
the two were to part from her, she stepped from her carriage lightly,
and said good-by with a gayety which seemed to Gavin quite heartless.
It was a bright moonlight evening, and the lights in the town shone
cheerfully. But before them loomed the fortress, black and forbidding.
For the first time Gavin’s heart sank; it sank lower still when this
woman, whom he had credited with the utmost generosity of heart, showed
such indifference to their fate.
“I will remain here a day or two,” she said, “until I can get
post-horses. I wish I could do something for you; perhaps I may be able
to send you some delicacies for your table. We may hope to meet again;
I, an actress, singer, and dancer, go up and down the world earning my
living, and I meet everybody in the world at least once, and sometimes
twice. I shall not soon forget that evening we spent as the King’s
prisoners. Remember me. Adieu.”
The two prisoners were taken before the commandant of the fortress,
General Kollnitz, who received them courteously as prisoners of war,
and invited them to supper with him. He was of unwieldy bulk, but
clear-eyed and clear-headed, and, evidently, a capable man. The only
other guest at the table was the adjutant, Pfels, whom St. Arnaud and
Gavin found an amiable and soldierly young man.
Gavin by that time had grown so used to sitting at the table with
officers, that he felt not only as if he really were an officer, but as
if he had always been an officer. He could not rally, however, from his
depression. The falsity, as he thought, of Madame Ziska affected him
strangely. Naturally, he took his mother as the standard of all women,
and he looked for high courage and unswerving loyalty from them all.
True, they had no claim on Madame Ziska, but he thought her a brave and
honest woman, and St. Arnaud had hinted at chances of assistance from
her which had impressed the idea upon him that they might look to her
for succour. So he ate his supper silently, while St. Arnaud spared
no pains in making himself agreeable to the commandant. He told the
story of their capture inimitably, and had the fat general and the slim
adjutant both laughing at it, especially at Gavin’s assertion that if
only he had kept his wits about him he would have knocked the King down.
At last, supper being over, they were shown two communicating cells
high up in the tower of the fortress. A candle was given them, the
door locked, and they were left alone. St. Arnaud at once blew out the
candle, hid it, and the two, sitting on Gavin’s bed, with the moonlight
streaming through a narrow, barred window, realized that they were
prisoners. And in the very first hour of their real captivity they
began to plan for their escape. Gavin’s first words were: “You counted
on Madame Ziska; what think you now?”
“I think,” responded St. Arnaud, with a smile, “that an honest woman
like her is more to be trusted than the great ones of earth. Look at
our friend the King--singing and drinking with us at night, parting
from us in the morning, without asking us if we were in want, or if he
could do the smallest thing for us.”
“Humph! Madame Ziska offered to send us something to eat if she had
time and could remember it. And she hardly spoke to us after we started
on the journey.”
“Did you expect her to set all eyes to watching us by promising us
eternal friendship? Now hear me: Madame Ziska’s manner convinced me
that she meant to help us substantially; and her coldness to us was
intended to throw the rest off the scent. I can tell you this much: I
shall very carefully examine any provender that Madame Ziska may chance
to remember to send us. I knew a woman once who sent a jewel in an
orange. They are, after all, much cleverer than we. Think about that
until you go to sleep.”