Wogan closed the window cautiously. The snow had drifted through and lay
melting in a heap beneath the sill. He drew the curtain across the
embrasure, and then he crossed to the bedroom door.
"Jenny," he whispered, "are you in bed?"
"Yes."
"Lie close! Do not show your face nor speak. Only groan, and groan most
delicately, or we are lost."
He closed the door upon Jenny, and turning about came face to face with
the Princess-mother. She stood confronting him, a finger on her lips,
and terror in her eyes; and he heard the street-door open and clang to
below.
"The magistrate!" she whispered.
"Courage, your Highness. Keep them from the bed! Say that her eyes are
weak and cannot bear the light."
He slipped behind the curtain into the embrasure, picturing to himself
the disposition of the room, lest he should have left behind a trifle to
betray him. He had in a supreme degree that gift of recollection which
takes the form of a mental vision. He did not have to count over the
details of the room; he summoned a picture of it to his mind, and saw
it and its contents from corner to corner. And thus while the footsteps
yet sounded on the stair, he saw Clementina's bundle lying forgotten on
a couch. He darted from his hiding-place, seized it, and ran back. He
had just sufficient and not a second more time, for the curtain had not
ceased to swing when the magistrate knocked, and without waiting for an
answer entered. He was followed by two soldiers, and these he ordered to
wait without the door.
"Your Highness," he said in a polite voice, and stopped abruptly. It
seemed to Wogan behind the curtain that his heart stopped at the same
moment and with no less abruptness. There was no evidence of
Clementina's flight to justify that sudden silence. Then he grew faint,
as it occurred to him that he had made Lady Featherstone's
mistake,--that his boot protruded into the room. He clenched his teeth,
expecting a swift step and the curtain to be torn aside. The window was
shut; he would never have time to open it and leap out and take his
chance with the sentry underneath. He was caught in a trap, and
Clementina waited for him in the avenue, under the fourth tree. All was
lost, it seemed, and by his own folly, his own confidence. Had he only
told her of the tavern under the city wall, where the carriage stood
with its horses harnessed in the shafts, she might still have escaped,
though he was trapped. The sweat passed down his face. Yet no swift step
was taken, nor was the curtain torn aside.
For within the room the magistrate, a kindly citizen of Innspruck who
had no liking for this addition to his duties, stood gazing at the
Princess-mother with a respectful pity. It was the sight of her
tear-stained face which had checked his words. For two days Clementina
had kept her bed, and the mother's tears alarmed him.
"Her Highness, your daughter, suffers so much?" said he.
"Sir, it is little to be wondered at."
The magistrate bowed. That question was not one with which he had a mind
to meddle.
"She still lies in bed?" said he, and he crossed to the door. The mother
flung herself in the way.
"She lies in pain, and you would disturb her; you would flash your
lanterns in her eyes, that if perchance she sleeps, she may wake into a
world of pain. Sir, you will not."
"Your Highness--"
"It is the mother who beseeches you. Sir, would you have me on my
knees?"
Wogan, but this moment recovered from his alarm, became again uneasy.
Her Highness protested too much; she played her part in the comedy too
strenuously. He judged by the ear; the magistrate had the quivering,
terror-stricken face before his eyes, and his pity deepened.
"Your Highness," he said, "I must pray you to let me pass. I have
General Heister's orders to obey."
The Princess-mother now gave Wogan reason to applaud her. She saw that
the magistrate, for all his politeness, was quite inflexible.
"Go, then," she said with a quiet dignity which once before she had
shown that evening. "Since there is no humiliation to be spared us, take
a candle, sir, and count the marks of suffering in my daughter's face;"
and with her own hand she opened the bedroom door and stood aside.
"Madam, I would not press my duty an inch beyond its limits," said the
magistrate. "I will stand in the doorway, and do you bid your daughter
speak."
The Princess-mother did not move from her position.
"My child," she said.
Jenny in the bedroom groaned and turned from one side to the other.
"You are in pain?"
Jenny groaned again. The magistrate himself closed the door.
"Believe me," said he, "no one could more regret than I the incivilities
to which I am compelled."
He crossed the room. Wogan heard him and his men descending the stairs.
He heard the door open and shut; he heard Chateaudoux draw the bolts.
Then he stepped out from the curtain.
"Your Highness, that was bravely done," said he, and kneeling he kissed
her hand. He went back into the embrasure, slipped the bundle over his
arm, and opened the window very silently. He saw the snow was still
falling, the wind still moaning about the crannies and roaring along
the streets. He set his knee upon the window-ledge, climbed out, and
drew the window to behind him.
The Princess-mother waited in the room with her hand upon her heart. She
waited, it seemed to her, for an eternity. Then she heard the sound of a
heavy fall, and the clang of a musket against the wall of the villa. But
she heard no cry. She ran to the window and looked out. But strain her
eyes as she might, she could distinguish nothing in that blinding storm.
She could not see the sentinel; nor was this strange, for the sentinel
lay senseless on the snow against the house-wall, and Mr. Wogan was
already running down the avenue.
Under the fourth tree he found Clementina; she took his arm, and they
set off together, wrestling with the wind, wading through the snow. It
seemed to Clementina that her companion was possessed by some new fear.
He said no single word to her; he dragged her with a fierce grip upon
her wrist; if she stumbled, he jerked her roughly to her feet. She set
her teeth and kept pace with him. Only once did she speak. They had come
to a depression in the road where the melted snow had made a wide pool.
Wogan leaped across it and said,--
"Give me your hand! There's a white stone midway where you can set your
foot."
The Princess stepped as he bade her. The stone yielded beneath her tread
and she stood ankle-deep in the water. Wogan sprang to her side and
lifted her out. She had uttered no cry, and now she only laughed as she
stood shivering on the further edge. It was that low musical,
good-humoured laugh to which Wogan had never listened without a thrill
of gladness, but it waked no response in him now.
"You told me of a white stone on which I might safely set my foot," she
said. "Well, sir, your white stone was straw."
They were both to remember these words afterwards and to make of them a
parable, but it seemed that Wogan barely heard them now. "Come!" he
said, and taking her arm he set off running again.
Clementina understood that something inopportune, something terrible,
had happened since she had left the villa. She asked no questions; she
trusted herself without reserve to these true friends who had striven at
such risks for her, she desired to prove to them that she was what they
would have her be,--a girl who did not pester them with inconvenient
chatter, but who could keep silence when silence was helpful, and face
hardships with a buoyant heart.
They crossed the bridge and stopped before a pair of high folding doors.
They were the doors of the tavern. Wogan drew a breath of relief, pulled
the bobbin, and pushed the doors open. Clementina slipped through, and
in darkness she took a step forward and bruised herself against the
wheels of a carriage. Wogan closed the door and ran to her side.
"This way," said he, and held out his hand. He guided Clementina round
the carriage to a steep narrow stairway--it was more a ladder than a
stair--fixed against the inner wall. At the top of this stairway shone a
horizontal line of yellow light. Wogan led the Princess up the stairs.
The line of light shone out beneath a door. Wogan opened the door and
stood aside. Clementina passed into a small bare room lighted by a
single candle, where Mrs. Misset, Gaydon, and O'Toole waited for her
coming. Not a word was said; but their eyes spoke their admiration of
the woman, their knees expressed their homage to the Queen. There was a
fire blazing on the hearth, Mrs. Misset had a dry change of clothes
ready and warm. Wogan laid the Princess's bundle on a chair, and with
Gaydon and O'Toole went down the stairs.
"The horses?" he asked.
"I have ordered them," said Gaydon, "at the post-house. I will fetch
them;" and he hurried off upon his errand.
Wogan turned to O'Toole.
"And the bill?"
"I have paid it."
"There is no one awake in the house?"
"No one but the landlady."
"Good! Can you keep her engaged until we are ready?"
"To be sure I can. She shall never give a thought to any man of you but
myself."
O'Toole passed through a door at the bottom of the staircase into the
common-room of the inn. Wogan gently opened the big doors and dragged
the carriage out into the road. Gaydon with the horses galloped
silently up through the snow, and together the two men feverishly
harnessed them to the carriage. There were six for the carriage, and a
seventh for O'Toole to ride. The expedition which Wogan and Gaydon
showed was matched by the Princess. For while they were fastening the
last buckles, the door at the top of the stairs opened, and again that
night Clementina whispered,--
"I am ready."
"Come!" replied Wogan. She wore a scarlet cloak upon her shoulders, and
muffling it about her head she ran down with Mrs. Misset. Wogan opened
the lower door of the inn and called for O'Toole. O'Toole came running
out before Wogan had ended his words, and sprang into his saddle. Gaydon
was already on the box with the reins gathered in his hand. Wogan had
the carriage door open before Clementina had reached the foot of the
stairs; it was shut upon her and her companion almost before they were
aware they were within it; the carriage started almost before the door
was shut. Yet when it did start, Wogan was beside Gaydon upon the box.
Their movements, indeed, occurred with so exact a rapidity, that though
the hostess at once followed O'Toole to bid her guests farewell, when
she reached the big doors she saw only the back of the carriage lurching
through the ruts of snow.
"Quick!" cried Wogan; "we have lost too much time."
"A bare twenty minutes," said Gaydon.
"A good twelve hours," said Wogan.
Gaydon lashed the horses into a gallop, the horses strained at their
collars, the carriage raced out of the town and up the slopes of the
Brenner. The princess Clementina had been rescued from her prison.
"But we must keep her free!" cried Wogan, as he blew through his gloves
upon his frozen fingers. "Faster! Faster!"
The incline was steep, the snow clogged the wheels, the horses sank deep
in it. Gaydon might ply his whip as he would, the carriage might lurch
and leap from side to side; the pace was all too slow for Wogan.
"We have lost twelve hours," he cried. "Oh, would to God we were come to
Italy!" And turning backwards he strained his eyes down through the
darkness and snow to the hidden roofs of Innspruck, almost fearing to
see the windows from one end of the town to the other leap to a blaze of
light, and to hear a roar of many voices warn him that the escape was
discovered. But the only cry that he heard came from the lips of Mrs.
Misset, who put her head from the carriage and bade him stop.
Gaydon brought the horses to a standstill three miles out of Innspruck.