In the far north of Grimland, seemingly secure in its snow-blocked
passes and its improvised fortifications, the mountain town of
Weissheim basked serenely in the unclouded sunshine of its exalted
plateau. The life of the place went on, little affected outwardly by
the rude shocks of a revolution that had unseated a dynasty at
Weidenbruck, and incidentally horrified the sober-minded people of
Europe. The railway was cut that connected Weissheim with the
capital, and the telegraph wires were drooping, limp and useless,
from their stark poles. The foreign contingent,--the English and
American visitors of the "Pariserhof,"--pursued their life of
unadulterated pleasure-seeking as thoroughly and unconcernedly as was
their wont. Each morning found the curling rink well filled with
knickerbockered mortals, bearing brooms, and hurling granite bowls
over the perfect ice, and using weird expressions of Scottish origin
tempered with Anglo-Saxon profanity. The snows of the hillsides were
scarred with the double-tracked impressions of innumerable
ski-runners, and the great toboggan run--the Kastel run--found its
daily complement of votaries for its dangerous attractions. Each
night the thermometer showed its zero frost, and each day the winter
sun proclaimed its potency with no uncertain ray. Nature was as
serenely unconscious of politics as the guests of the Pariserhof were
of the series of fogs that was at that time choking the streets of
London with obfuscating blackness. This winter, indeed, was
singularly like other winters at this ideal resort of athletic and
convalescent humanity. It is true that horrible tales of rioting and
violence had come through from Weidenbruck,--but similar reports had
been transmitted many times previously,--and if the present rumours
were rather more highly-coloured and substantial than heretofore,
that was no reason why able-bodied men and women should not skate and
ski, and play innumerable rubbers of bridge over cups of hot
chocolate and cream-stuffed _éclairs au café_. It was true that
bands of swarthy men in uniform, and armed with shovels, were
perpetually throwing up snow-works on the surrounding bluffs, but
they respected the skating-rinks and the toboggan-runs--which was all
the visitors cared about. Moreover, they furnished rather a
picturesque note as they dragged their grim pieces of ordnance over
the steep snow slopes, and slowly hauled them into position in the
aforementioned snow-works. What the guests of the Pariserhof failed
to appreciate was, that a miracle was taking place. Weissheim was
loyal! Weissheim,--for years the home of sedition and intrigue,--was
all for Karl! Just as in the days of his prosperity it had turned
against him, so now in the hour of his discomfiture it rallied to him
as one man. The troubles of 1904 had taught the good Weissheimers
that they had a man for a Sovereign, that the tall, good-natured,
sunburnt gentleman in spectacles had a hard fist inside his fur-lined
gloves, and a stout heart under his Jäeger cardigan. And the fact
that Weidenbruck had cast him out was a good enough reason for their
taking him in. The men of the mountain despised the dwellers of the
plain. Rough, cruel, mutable as they were, there were still certain
primitive virtues among the hardy hill-folk, and when one day Karl
and the ever-popular Saunders turned up unexpectedly at Weissheim
with their tale of woe, they let loose an enthusiasm that had never
yet been accorded to Grimland's legitimate Sovereign. So, contrary
to his fears, Meyer's task had been an easy one. A more than capable
engineer, he soon put the place on as sound a footing of defence as
shovel and energy directed by German book-lore and Jewish brains
could put it. Within a week of his arrival the whole plateau was
secure in its well-planned redoubts and in the excellent temper of
the civil and military population.
On the twentieth of January, eight days after the King's arrival, the
race for the Cobham Cup took place on the bob-sleigh run. For this
event bob-sleigh crews had foregathered from far and near, for the
Weissheim "bob" run is acknowledged to be the fastest, the most
difficult, and the most sporting in the world. A bob-sleigh,--let me
explain for the benefit of the uninitiated,--is a very long toboggan
capable of holding half a dozen persons. Unlike an ordinary
toboggan, it is steered from the front by ropes, or, in the most
up-to-date "bobs," by a wheel. The rearmost man manipulates a brake
with a lever on either hand, and he awaits the commands of the
steersman, who sees the curves coming and realises when the pace must
be checked to avert disaster. Originally, the "bobbing" was done
along the high road, but this was so dangerous to horse-sleighs and
pedestrians, and resulted in such fearful accidents, that a special
track was constructed every winter, avoiding the town and ultimately
joining the highway somewhere near Riefinsdorf. The winning-post was
now at this junction, but for ordinary pleasure "bobbing," crews
sometimes continued their course along the road itself, the constant
declivity permitting the craft to travel at a great speed almost as
far as Wallen, ten miles distant, or by branching to the left, to
descend the Rylvio Pass into Austria. The difficulty of dragging the
"bob" back made these distant expeditions events of some rarity, and,
indeed, the first part of the course was so much more exciting than
the roadway, that it was mainly on this portion that practising for
the cup took place.
Imagine a track some six feet in width, formed of snow turned to ice
by the process of constant watering, and so smooth and slippery that
a burnished mirror would be rough and dull in comparison. Imagine
this track inclined at a steep angle, walled in on both sides with
low ice-banks, and trailing a long and sinuous course for a length of
over a mile! Here we have the potentialities of speed when we
remember that racing "bobs" are just low frameworks of wood whose
steel runners glide over the polished track with as little friction
as a flash of lightning traversing a thunder-cloud. When we add that
the bends of the course are sharp, and often flanked by sheer
precipices, and that to negotiate these bends at high speed requires
the greatest nerve and skill for all concerned, it is hardly
necessary to add that the sport is one which appeals to wandering
foreigners in search of sensations.
"It is a pity you have not got a crew," said Karl to Saunders, who,
with his wife, General Meyer, and Frau von Bilderbaum, were seated in
a wooden shelter erected at one of the most exciting bends of the
course. "With your skill at the brake and Mrs. Saunders' skill at
the wheel, you would have stood a fine chance of securing Lady
Cobham's trophy."
"It is always a pity when politics interfere with sport," replied
Saunders. "We manage these things better in England. When the
shooting season commences politicians take a rest."
"Here," said Meyer, "the shooting season commences when the
politicians are most active. Only we don't shoot grouse in
Grimland--only kings and councillors."
Karl laughed.
"I should like to have seen Saunders take his crew down the run in
approved style," he said; "I'd have wagered my forest lands to a
frost-bite that he'd have done the best time."
"I should have liked nothing better," said Saunders, "but it is
impossible to do oneself credit without practice. And I have been
busy in other ways: I have been studying Meyer's treatise on Winter
War, and I am not sure that the possibilities it holds forth are not
more exhilarating even than the competition for Lady Cobham's cup."
"We are likely to have that statement verified, if what I hear is
true," said the Commander-in-Chief quietly.
"And what you hear generally is true," muttered Karl.
"In this case I have no doubts," said Meyer. "A large military
expedition left Weidenbruck the day before yesterday; its destination
and object are not difficult to surmise."
"I am glad," said Frau von Bilderbaum truculently. "If blows are to
be struck, the sooner the better; we are ready for them."
There was a sound of cheering from the direction of the starting
point, signifying that the first crew was launched on its downward
course.
It was morning--10.30 A.M., to be precise--for the race had to be run
before the sun's power waxed hot enough to affect the surface of the
track. And the scene was a gay one: blue and white flags were flying
from poles at every hundred yards of the course, and from the crowded
stands erected at the several points of vantage.
And the day was a typical Weissheim day: the sky was of a deep and
ever-deepening blue. Not a breath of air stirred over the
snow-veiled face of the country. The sun had risen above the
shoulder of the mighty Klauigberg, and had turned the myriad crystals
into a sparkling ocean of unbelievable whiteness. To draw breath was
to fill one's lungs with perfect air and one's heart with ecstasy.
To gaze at the shimmering panorama of towering peaks and snowy
buttresses was to behold the finest view in central Europe.
"Here they come!" ejaculated Karl excitedly, as a "bob" came into
view, accompanied by a slight scraping sound, as the runners
slithered over the adamantine track.
All held their breath, for the speed of the descending craft was
absolutely terrifying. At the prow was a goggled figure in a white
sweater, with a red dragon--the badge of his crew--worked on his
chest. Behind him was a young girl, and behind her again four men,
all similarly attired. With the exception of the steersman, who
crouched forward,--a tense thing of staring eyes and straining
muscles,--all were leaning back as far as possible to minimise wind
pressure.
"Too fast!" was Saunders' comment.
Suddenly, in response to a hoarse cry from the steersman, the crew
swung their bodies to the left and simultaneously flung out their
arms in the same direction. The manœuvre was designed to bring
the "bob" round the corner without checking the pace by applying the
brake. The result was unsatisfactory. The prow of the "bob" struck
the counter-bank violently, there was a gasp from a hundred throats,
and a feathery cloud of snow rose, in which the limbs of half a dozen
human beings were whirling in an intricate and inextricable
confusion. No one, fortunately, was damaged, and in a few seconds
the crew had sorted themselves and resumed their chequered career.
"Heroism and no brake!" muttered Karl. "How like our friend the
American!"
"May his fall be as harmless!" said Saunders.
Frau Bilderbaum snorted.
"I should like to see him go over the precipice!" she exclaimed.
"You probably will--metaphorically speaking," said Meyer. "He is
accompanying this expedition against us, and he has outwitted me
twice."
A minute later another "bob" was making its nerve-shattering descent
of the lightning run. This time its crew,--a well-drilled sextet in
blue jerseys bearing the facetious badge of a tortoise,--swept round
the dangerous bend without mishap.
"Well done, Miss Reeve-Thompson!" cried Mrs. Saunders, naming the
lady who was steering the successful craft.
"That's done me good," sighed Karl in a note of satisfaction. "God's
sky and the best of sports! Clean snow and the champagne air of
Weissheim, and what care I for the rabble of the plains."
And so the morning wore on, with cheers for the skilful, gasps for
the rash, and murmurs of pity for the unfortunate. There were more
spills, of course, but fortunately no disasters of magnitude, and at
mid-day the great competition was over. The "times" were added up
and checked, and ultimately Miss Reeve-Thompson's crew were adjudged
the winners, and accompanied by a cheering throng they received the
cup from Lady Cobham at the Pariserhof.
The royal party waited till the crowd of onlookers had dispersed, and
then wended their way back to the Brunvarad--the Winter Palace--on
foot. As they followed the track that bordered the run they fell in
with General von Bilderbaum, struggling up the hill in a great grey
overcoat, very moist and red of face.
"Well," said Karl, "how are the new forts looking?"
"Very workmanlike, sire. We have got two new quick-firers on to the
south escarpment of redoubt A, and some old but serviceable
_mitraileuses_ in position in the long fosse between redoubts C and
D."
"Excellent," drawled Meyer. "And our dear, loyal gunners--are they
continuing to make good practice at the ice-targets?"
"I am sorry for anything they get sight of within two kilometres,"
responded the General.
"I am well served," said Karl. "Herr Saunders here has developed
into a student of minor tactics, and I fancy would handle a brigade
as well as a Moltke or a Kuroki."
At this moment they reached the point of the path where it crosses
the bob-sleigh run, and the races being over and the track closed, a
wooden plank had been laid across the glassy surface to afford secure
foothold. The men halted to allow the ladies,--Mrs. Saunders and
Frau Generalin von Bilderbaum,--to pass first. But the latter,--a
lady, as the reader knows, of somewhat egregious proportions,--was
not gifted by nature with a rapid gait through trampled snow.
Holding high her green skirt, and planting her cumbrous snow-boots
with deliberate precision, she advanced puffing and panting like a
mountain engine in a snow-drift. Before, however, she had come up
with the others, a strange man accosted the royal party from the
opposite direction. The individual in question was wearing skis, and
looked fatigued and travel-stained, as though he had come fast and
far. A black slouch hat was pressed over his forehead, and it was
not till he was quite close that Karl and his companions recognised
the features as those of Von Hügelweiler.
The Captain's salutation was as abrupt as his appearance.
"Hail! King of half a country," he said.
Quietly, swiftly, and without ostentation, Saunders and Meyer covered
the newcomer with their revolvers.
"Hands up when you speak to his Majesty," said the latter.
Von Hügelweiler dropped his ski-ing pole and held up his hands.
"I have a weapon in my breast," he said, "but it is not for any here."
Meyer quietly inserted his hand into the Captain's breast pocket, and
drew out a revolver. It was of the Grimland army pattern, and loaded
in all its chambers. He swiftly extracted the cartridges and
transferred them to his own person, and then,--having satisfied
himself that the Captain had no further munitions of war,--replaced
the unloaded weapon in its original position.
"Now you may talk without the inconvenience of holding your hands in
that fatiguing posture," he said. "What is it?"
"I come from Weidenbruck," said Von Hügelweiler, "and I bring news.
The day before yesterday an expedition left the capital for
Weissheim."
Meyer nodded.
"That is so," he agreed; "we get to know things, even in this
charmingly remote district. Still, details are always agreeable.
What does the force consist of?"
"The whole brigade of Guards, two battalions of Guides, and the
Kurdeburg Sharpshooters."
"They do me honour," said the King. "But they will find the railway
somewhat disorganised. You see, we have dynamited the principal
viaducts, to say nothing of the two-mile tunnel under the
Kahberg--and these things are not easy to repair when the snow is
down."
"The railway is open as far as Eselbruck," the Captain returned, "and
from thence they will come over the passes on skis. They will come
quicker than they would in the summer."
"That is true enough," agreed Meyer. "And who is in command of this
imposing force?"
"Bernhardt."
"Indeed! And the second in command?"
"A cursed American."
Meyer smiled.
"That describes Herr Trafford admirably," he said. "But how about
yourself, Von Hügelweiler? How is it you are not occupying a
distinguished position in this amiable field-force?"
"Because there are limits even to my dishonour," retorted Von
Hügelweiler fiercely. "In transferring my services from his Majesty
King Karl to her Majesty Queen Gloria, I knew I was sinking, but I
only learned a little while ago to what great depths."
"You are the man who was sent to hold the Strafeburg for me," said
Karl sternly, "and who handed it over to the mob rather than risk
your skin."
"I did not yield to fear," retorted the Captain, turning almost
savagely on his sovereign. "I yielded to an even more odious
thing--passion. The Princess pleaded with me, balancing her woman's
grace against my loyalty. I could face the fury of the multitude,
but I succumbed to the blandishments of a wanton!"
The word drew an exclamation of surprise and indignation from
Saunders.
"And you had your reward!" he said with a sneer.
"Aye, I have had my reward," was the bitter answer. "Love such as
mine always has its reward. I learned who it was upon whom the
fickle Gloria had bestowed her worthless heart. Who was it, do you
think? A nobleman, a great soldier, a Prince? No! She was
conducting a guilty intrigue with the schweinhund Trafford--the man
who betrayed his party by immuring the enemy in a spikeless
_Eisenmädchen_.
"Yes, that's true enough," said Karl. "The schweinhund Trafford, as
you call him, possesses some rudimentary ideas of humanity, despite
his absurd predilection for anarchy. I may remember that when my
time comes."
"It was an act of folly and weakness," said the Captain recklessly,
"an act of treachery to the side he had espoused. As soon as I heard
of it I hastened to Bernhardt's chambers with the news."
"And he said?" asked Karl.
"He said he loved and hated you," replied the Captain.
Karl nodded thoughtfully.
"I believe that expresses his mental attitude towards me very well,"
he said.
"It was the mad paradox of an _absintheur_," Von Hügelweiler
interrupted. "He was half drunk and wholly dangerous, and I left
him. I roused the people against Trafford, but the scoundrel
defended himself cunningly, and in the end the devil-ridden Bernhardt
turned up and rescued him with a troop of Dragoons."
"And why are you here?" asked General Bilderbaum.
"For one thing, there are two hundred kronen on my head in
Weidenbruck," replied Von Hügelweiler. "That makes the place
unhealthy. Neither do I desire to serve that delightful trinity, the
wanton Queen, the dipsomaniac priest, and the _verdomte_ American."
"But why come here?" persisted Bilderbaum, growing, if possible,
still redder in the face.
Von Hügelweiler ignored the speaker, and turned to Karl.
"I have no claim on your trust," he said to his late sovereign, "no
claim on your mercy--but my services may be useful. I ask no high
command, I merely crave to be put somewhere in the firing-line, where
I can put a bullet into the heart of the cursed American."
A silence followed this savage request. Then Karl turned to General
Bilderbaum.
"What say you, General?" he asked. "Do you like the look of your new
recruit?"
"No, sire," said the old soldier bluntly. "I have some blackguards
in my command, but no double-dyed traitor such as this."
"What!" Von Hügelweiler's nerves,--never well under control,--were
raw and ragged from his recent bitter experience, and by no means
improved by the forced and hasty journey he had undertaken to
Weissheim. With a cry of rage and indignation he swung round on the
plain-spoken old General, maddened at the insult, and raising his
fist as though to avenge it with a blow. But, as on a previous
occasion, the General's wife was near at hand to protect the sacred
person of her lord and master. Boiling with indignation, she hurled
her ample person at the mutinous captain. Von Hügelweiler gave
ground--he would have been a Samson had he not done so. And he
stepped, not on to the snow, not on to the plank that crossed the
run, but on to the surface of the bob-sleigh track itself. He might
have trodden on a cloud or a trembling bog for all the foothold it
afforded, and with a cry he fell, the Frau von Bilderbaum falling
heavily and incontinently on him. Hands were stretched out, but too
late. Before the General could clutch the skirt of his devoted
partner, the ill-assorted pair,--struggling, writhing, uttering
noises of wrath and fear,--had commenced the descent of the "bob"
run. Nothing could stop their downward progress. Swifter and
swifter the terrified twain glided, impotent hands clutched at the
frictionless banks, and impotent heels were pressed fiercely and
fruitlessly on to the glassy surface of the track. Down they went,
the Captain struggling and swearing, the woman struggling and
bellowing. The pace grew. They became disengaged. Von Hügelweiler
slithered swiftly on his side, Frau von Bilderbaum rotated slowly in
a sitting posture, descending with ever-growing momentum. Up a
banked curve she swung, fat arms were raised frantically, a roar of
pathetic discomfort shook the frosty air, and the devoted woman
disappeared from view round a bend of the track.
Much of the colour had left General Bilderbaum's face. No one
laughed, for the ludicrous mishap might well be a prelude to a
serious, even fatal, accident. Saunders climbed up a high mound of
piled snow, from which the further bends of the track might be
visible.
"There are some men at work lower down sweeping the course," he said,
speaking clearly for all to hear. "They have heard the cries and
they are preparing to stop them. Two have put their brooms across
the track--but the speed is gathering. They have stopped her--no!
the impetus was too great--the sweepers are rolling backwards in the
snow. Wait! the pace is checked--others are helping. They've got
her. Now--ah! Hügelweiler's on the top of them! What a collision!
She's up, unhurt! It's all right, General; your good lady is safe
and sound of limb. She's had a shaking, but her nerves are good, or
I'm no judge of physiology. Go down and look after her."
"Aye, and after Hügelweiler, too," spluttered the veteran. "I've a
heavy reckoning with that young scoundrel that will take some paying,
or I'm not the son of Karl Bilderbaum the Fierce."
"I wonder,"--said Karl, as soon as General Bilderbaum had left to
recover his hapless spouse,--"I wonder whether this man Von
Hügelweiler might not prove a valuable addition to our force. He
seems to have the enemy's discomfiture, if not our interests, very
much at heart."
"Where would you put him?" asked Saunders.
"I should put him where David put Uriah the Hittite," said Meyer.
"Where he has himself asked to be put--in the firing line."