‘I should have done better to remain in Paris, I perceive,’ I said
sullenly.
‘On the contrary, dear Andrea, I, who know you so well, know that you
have the heroism of soul to save the man you hate at the prayer of
the woman you love.’
I stood thunderstruck, while she crossed the room into the adjoining
bedchamber, and sounded a silver bell.
‘Inform his Majesty that I desire to see him very particularly as
soon as possible.’
The servant who had answered the bell bowed and withdrew, with
startled looks, from which I was inclined to suspect that he was in
the pay of the assassins. Fortunately, he had not been able to see me
where I stood.
The Queen now began hurriedly to change her dress for one more
suitable for the emergency. Meanwhile there was no sign that her
message had reached Alexander.
‘You have been betrayed, madam,’ I observed at last. ‘That servant
was a traitor. I saw it in his face.’
Draga uttered a cry of despair.
‘You, Anna, you go and bring the King here at all costs.’
Anna darted out of the room.
The Queen, too terribly anxious to go on with her own preparations
for flight, paced the room like a lioness listening for the approach
of the hunters.
Five minutes passed--ten minutes--a quarter of a year! Then a step
was heard in the adjoining room, and the young King of Servia, his
dark face flushed with wrath, strode in.
‘What is all this? Are you trying to frighten me, Draga?’
He saw me and stopped, at the same time putting his hand to his side
where his sword should have been. The weapon was missing, perhaps by
accident.
‘This is our best friend, Alexander. He has come to save us. The
assassins have changed their plans, and will be here to-night. A
special train has been got ready, and if you can leave the Palace in
disguise, all will be well.’
The ascendency of a powerful intellect in the moment of danger made
itself felt. Alexander looked about him, half-dazed, as the poor
youth well might be, by the ghastly imminence of the peril.
‘What disguise can I wear?’ he demanded, in a choked voice.
‘Change clothes with your valet,’ the Queen replied, with
feminine quickness. ‘This gentleman affirms that he is one of the
conspirators.’
‘Constantine! Impossible! I do not believe it.’
Draga wrung her hands.
‘I cannot save him. He is obstinate!’ she sobbed.
The sob conquered the stubborn narrow mind which would have resisted
all argument. Alexander darted into his dressing-room, from which the
valet was just trying to escape.
Seizing the man by the throat, Alexander dealt him a blow on the
temple which deprived him of his senses. I had followed his Majesty,
and I now stripped the valet while the King hastily undressed. While
the King was assuming the disguise thus provided for him, I carried
the insensible man into the bedroom, and placed him between the royal
sheets.
At this moment the white face of Anna Petrovitch appeared in the
doorway beyond.
‘They are coming! I see them outside in the courtyard.’
‘Quick, quick!’ burst from the lips of Queen Draga, whose
self-possession seemed almost unnatural. And she pushed her husband
towards the door of his own dressing-room.
‘This way?’ he exclaimed, his mind unable to keep pace with hers.
‘Yes. You are Constantine. You are in the plot, remember. You must
let them in to kill your master, who is asleep.’
I shuddered. My suspicion--for it was hardly more--was going to be
fatal to the valet.
‘Go with him,’ Queen Draga added, turning to me. ‘I am safe. I
need neither protection nor guidance. He needs both. I adjure you,
Andrea!’
Swept away by the torrent of her impetuosity, I followed Alexander to
the dressing-room.
Draga herself came to the door, and closed it softly after us.
We were just in time to meet a party of a dozen soldiers, headed by
Colonel Masileff himself.
Stepping past the young King, who was shaking like a leaf, I
whispered in Masileff’s ear--
‘Be quiet, or you will awake him. He is lying on the bed, drunk.’
The soldiers filed in past us, not one casting so much as a glance at
our faces, shrouded by the darkness.
The moment the last man had stepped across the threshold of the
dressing-room, I took Alexander by the arm and drew, or rather
dragged, him out into the corridor, and down the great staircase of
the Palace.
We passed out unquestioned. It did not occur to one of the men whom
we found outside that Masileff could have missed his prey.
My uniform was enough to disarm suspicion, for it was that of a
regiment in which every man had sworn on the Gospel not to let
Alexander escape alive. My agent had served me well.
We found him at the station. The special train was ready, with steam
up, waiting for the signal to place us in safety on the soil of
Austria.
I made Alexander take his seat in the meanest compartment, while I
waited outside the station for the appearance of the two women.