Miss Braithwaite was asleep on the couch in her sitting-room, deeply
asleep, so that when Prince Ferdinand William Otto changed the cold
cloth on her head, she did not even move. The Countess Loschek had
brought her some medicine.
“It cured her very quickly,” said the Crown Prince, shuffling the cards
with clumsy fingers. He and Nikky were playing a game in which matches
represented money. The Crown Prince had won nearly all of them and was
quite pink with excitement. “It’s my deal, it? When she goes to sleep
like that, she nearly always wakens up much better. She’s very sound
asleep.”
Nikky played absently, and lost the game. The Crown Prince triumphantly
scooped up the rest of the matches. “We’ve had rather a nice day,” he
observed, “even if we didn’t go out. Shall we divide them again, and
start all over?”
Nikky, however, proclaimed himself hopelessly beaten and a bad loser. So
the Crown Prince put away the cards, which belonged to Miss Braithwaite,
and with which she played solitaire in the evenings. Then he lounged to
the window, his hands in his pockets. There was something on his mind
which the Chancellor’s reference to Hedwig’s picture had recalled.
Something he wished to say to Nikky, without looking at him.
So he clearer throat, and looked out the window, and said, very
casually:
“Hilda says that Hedwig is going to get married.”
“So I hear, Highness.”
“She doesn’t seem to be very happy about it. She’s crying, most of the
time.”
It was Nikky’s turn to clear his throat. “Marriage is a serious matter,”
he said. “It is not to be gone into lightly.”
“Once, when I asked you about marriage, you said marriage was when two
people loved each other, and wanted to be together the rest of their
lives.”
“Well,” hedged Nikky, “that is the idea, rather.”
“I should think,” said Prince Ferdinand William Otto, slightly red,
“that you would marry her yourself.”
Nikky, being beyond speech for an instant and looking, had His Royal
Highness but seen him, very tragic and somewhat rigid, the Crown Prince
went on:
“She’s a very nice girl,” he said; “I think she would make a good wife.”
There was something of reproach in his tone. He had confidently planned
that Nikky would marry Hedwig, and that they could all live on forever
in the Palace. But, the way things were going, Nikky might marry
anybody, and go away to live, and he would lose him.
“Yes,” said Nikky, in a strange voice, “she--I am sure she would make a
good wife.”
At which Prince Ferdinand William Otto turned and looked at him. “I
wish you would marry her yourself,” he said with his nearest approach to
impatience. “I think she’d be willing. I’ll ask her, if you want me to.”
Half-past three, then, and Nikky trying to explain, within the limits
of the boy’s understanding of life, his position. Members of royal
families, he said, looking far away, over the child’s head, had to do
many things for the good of the country. And marrying was one of them.
Something of old Mettlich’s creed of prosperity for the land he gave,
something of his own hopelessness, too, without knowing it. He sat, bent
forward, his hands swung between his knees, and tried to visualize,
for Otto’s understanding and his own heartache, the results of such a
marriage.
Some of it the boy grasped. A navy, ships, a railroad to the sea--those
he could understand. Treaties were beyond his comprehension. And, with a
child’s singleness of idea, he returned to the marriage.
“I’m sure she doesn’t care about it,” he said at last. “If I were King
I would not let her do it. And”--he sat very erect and swung his short
legs--“when I grow up, I shall fight for a navy, if I want one, and I
shall marry whoever I like.”
At a quarter to four Olga Loschek was announced. She made the curtsy
inside the door that Palace ceremonial demanded and inquired for the
governess. Prince Ferdinand William Otto, who had risen at her entrance,
offered to see if she still slept.
“I think you are a very good doctor,” he said, smiling, and went out to
Miss Braithwaite’s sitting room.
It was then that Olga Loschek played the last card, and won. She moved
quickly to Nikky’s side.
“I have a message for you,” she said.
A light leaped into Nikky’s eyes. “For me?”
“Do you know where my boudoir is?”
“I--yes, Countess.”
“If you will go there at once and wait, some one will see you there as
soon as possible.” She put her hand on his arm. “Don’t be foolish
and proud,” she said. “She is sorry about last night, and she is very
unhappy.”
The light faded out of Nikky’s eyes. She was unhappy and he could do
nothing. They had a way, in the Palace, of binding one’s hands and
leaving one helpless. He could not even go to her.
“I cannot go, Countess,” he said. “She must understand. To-day, of all
days--”
“You mean that you cannot leave the Crown Prince?” She shrugged her
shoulders. “You, too! Never have I seen so many faint hearts, such
rolling eyes, such shaking knees! And for what! Because a few timid
souls see a danger that does not exist.”
“I think it does exist,” said Nikky obstinately.
“I am to take the word to her, then, that you will not come?”
“That I cannot.”
“You are a very foolish boy,” said the Countess, watching him. “And
since you are so fearful, I myself will remain here. There are sentries
at the doors, and a double guard everywhere. What, in the name of all
that is absurd, can possibly happen?”
That was when she won. For Nikky, who has never been, in all this
history, anything of a hero, and all of the romantic and loving
boy,--Nikky wavered and fell.
When Prince Ferdinand William Otto returned, it was with the word that
Miss Braithwaite still slept, and that she looked very comfortable,
Nikky was gone, and the Countess stood by a window, holding to the sill
to support her shaking body.
It was done. The boy was in her hands. There was left only to deliver
him to those who, even now, were on the way. Nikky was safe. He would
wait in her boudoir, and Hedwig would not come. She had sent no message.
She was, indeed, at that moment a part of one of those melancholy family
groups which, the world over, in palace or peasant’s hut, await the
coming of death.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto chatted. He got out the picture-frame
for Hedwig, which was finished now, with the exception of burning his
initials in the lower left-hand corner. After inquiring politely if
the smell of burning would annoy her, the Crown Prince drew a rather
broken-backed “F,” a weak-kneed “W,” and an irregular “O” in the corner
and proceeded to burn them in. He sat bent over the desk, the very tip
of his tongue protruding, and worked conscientiously and carefully.
Between each letter he burned a dot.
Suddenly, Olga Loschek became panic-stricken. She could not stay, and
see this thing out. Let them follow her and punish her. She could not.
She had done her part. The governess lay in, a drugged sleep. A turn of
the key, and the door to the passage beyond which Oskar waited would be
closed off. Let follow what must, she would not see it.
The boy still bent over his work. She wandered about the room, casually,
as if examining the pictures on the wall. She stopped, for a bitter
moment, before Hedwig’s photograph, and, for a shaken one, before those
of Prince Hubert and his wife. Then she turned the key, and shut Oskar
safely away.
“Highness,” she said, “Lieutenant Larisch will be here in a moment. Will
you permit me to go?”
Otto was off his chair in an instant. “Certainly,” he said, his mind
still on the “O” which he was shading.
Old habit was strong in the Countess. Although the boy’s rank was
numbered by moments, although his life was possibly to be counted by
hours, she turned at the doorway and swept him a curtsy. Then she went
out, and closed the door behind her.
The two sentries stood outside. They were of the Terrorists. She knew,
and they knew she knew. But neither one made a sign. They stared ahead,
and Olga Loschek went out between them.
Now the psychology of the small boy is a curious thing. It is, for one
thing, retentive. Ideas become, given time, obsessions. And obsessions
are likely to lead to action.
The Crown Prince Ferdinand William Otto was only a small boy, for all
his title and dignity. And suddenly he felt lonely. Left alone, he
returned to his expectations for the day, and compared them with the
facts. He remembered other carnivals, with his carriage moving through
the streets, and people showering him with fresh flowers. He rather
glowed at the memory. Then he recalled that the Chancellor had said he
needed fresh air.
Something occurred to him, something which combined fresh air
with action, yet kept to the letter of his promise--or was there a
promise?--not to leave the Palace.
The idea pleased him. It set him to smiling, and his bright hair to
quivering with excitement. It was nothing less than to go up on the roof
and find the ball. Nikky would be surprised, having failed himself. He
would have to be very careful, having in mind the fate of that unlucky
child at the Crystal Palace. And he would have to hurry. Nikky would be
sure to return soon.
He opened the door on to the great corridor, and stepped out, saluting
the sentries, as he always did.
“I’ll be back in a moment,” he informed them. He was always on terms of
great friendliness with the guard, and he knew these men by sight. “Are
you going to be stationed here now?” he inquired pleasantly.
The two guards were at a loss. But one of them, who had a son of his
own, and hated the whole business, saluted and replied that he knew not.
“I hope you are,” said Ferdinand William Otto, and went on.
The sentries regarded one another. “Let him go!” said the one who was a
father.
The other one moved uneasily. “Our orders cover no such contingency,”
he muttered. “And, besides, he will come back.” He bore a strong
resemblance to the boy, who, in the riding-school, had dusted the royal
hearse. “I hope to God he does not come back,” he said stonily.
Five minutes to four.
The Crown Prince hurried. The corridors were almost empty. Here and
there he met servants, who stood stiff against the wall until he had
passed. On the marble staircase, leading up, he met no one, nor on
the upper floor. He was quite warm with running and he paused in his
father’s suite to mop his face. Then he opened a window and went out
on the roof. It seemed very large and empty now, and the afternoon sun,
sinking low, threw shadows across it.
Also, from the balustrade, it looked extremely far to the ground.
Nevertheless, although his heart beat a trifle fast, he was still
determined. A climb which Nikky with his long legs had achieved in a
leap, took him up to a chimney. Below--it seemed a long way below was
the gutter. There was a very considerable slant. If one sat down, like
Nikky, and slid, and did not slide over the edge, one should fetch up in
the gutter.
He felt a trifle dizzy. But Nikky’s theory was, that if one is afraid to
do a thing, better to do it and get over being afraid.
“I was terribly afraid of a bayonet attack,” Nikky had observed, “until
I was in one. The next one I rather enjoyed!”
So the Crown Prince sat down on the sloping roof behind the chimney, and
gathered his legs under him for a slide.
Then he heard a door open, and footsteps. Very careful footsteps. He was
quite certain Nikky had followed him. But there were cautious voices,
too, and neither was Nikky’s. It occurred to Prince Ferdinand William
Otto that a good many people, certainly including Miss Braithwaite,
would not approve of either his situation or his position. Miss
Braithwaite was particularly particular about positions.
So he sat still beside the chimney, well shielded by the evergreens in
tubs, until the voices and the footsteps were gone. Then he took all his
courage in his hands, and slid. Well for him that the ancient builders
of the Palace had been reckless with lead, that the gutter was both
wide and deep. Well for Nikky, too, waiting in the boudoir below and
hard-driven between love and anxiety.
The Crown Prince, unaccustomed to tiles, turned over halfway down,
and rolled. He brought up with a jerk in the gutter, quite safe, but
extremely frightened. And the horrid memory of the Crystal Palace child
filled his mind, to the exclusion of everything else. He sat there for
quite a few minutes. There was no ball in sight, and the roof looked
even steeper from this point.
Being completely self-engrossed, therefore, he did not see that the roof
had another visitor. Had two visitors, as a matter of fact. One of them
wore a blanket with a white “O” over a white “X” on it, and the other
wore a mask, and considerable kitchen cutlery fastened to his belt. They
had come out of a small door in the turret and were very much at ease.
They leaned over the parapet and admired the view. They strutted about
the flat roof, and sang, at least one of them sang a very strange
refrain, which was something about
“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest;
Yo-ho-ho and a bottle of rum.”
And then they climbed on one of the garden chairs and looked over the
expanse of the roof, which was when they saw Prince Ferdinand William
Otto, and gazed at him.
“Gee whiz!” said the larger pirate, through his mask. “What are you
doing there?”
The Crown Prince started, and stared. “I am sitting here,” explained the
Crown Prince, trying to look as though he usually sat in lead gutters.
“I am looking for a ball.”
“You’re looking for a fall, I guess,” observed the pirate. “You don’t
remember me, kid, do you?”
“I can’t see your face, but I know your voice.” His voice trembled with
excitement.
“Lemme give you a hand,” said the pirate, whipping off his mask. “You
make me nervous, sitting there. You’ve got a nerve, you have.”
The Crown Prince looked gratified. “I don’t need any assistance, thank
you,” he said. “Perhaps, now I’m here, I’d better look for the ball.”
“I wouldn’t bother about the old ball,” said the pirate, rather
nervously for an old sea-dog. “You better get back to a safe place. Say,
what made you pretend that our Railway made you nervous?”
Prince Ferdinand William Otto climbed up the tiles, trying to look as
though tiles were his native habitat. The pirates both regarded him with
admiration, as he dropped beside them.
“How did you happen to come here?” asked the Crown Prince. “Did you lose
your aeroplane up here?”
“We came on business,” said the pirate importantly. “Two of the enemy
entered our cave. We were guarding it from the underbrush, and saw them
go in. We trailed them. They must die!”
“Really--die?”
“Of course. Death to those who defy us.”
“Death to those who defy us!” repeated the Crown Prince, enjoying
himself hugely, and quite ready for bloodshed.
“Look here, Dick Deadeye,” said the larger pirate to the smaller, who
stood gravely at attention, “I think he belongs to our crew. What say,
old pal?”
Dick Deadeye wagged his tail.
Some two minutes later, the Crown Prince of Livonia, having sworn the
pirate oath of no quarter, except to women and children, was on his way
to the pirate cave.
He was not running away. He was not disobedient. He was breaking no
promises. Because, from the moment he saw the two confederates, and
particularly from the moment he swore the delightful oath, his past was
wiped away. There was, in his consciousness, no Palace, no grandfather,
no Miss Braithwaite, even no Nikky. There was only a boy and a dog, and
a pirate den awaiting him.