In the small hours of the morning, a party of half a dozen men on
skis issued from the courtyard of the Brunvarad. They were
weary-looking folk, dull-eyed and taciturn, and without a word they
set themselves in motion along the road to Riefinsdorf. The remains
of a huge bonfire glowed dully by the roadside, and a pillar of black
smoke streamed straight up into the windless air. Where the snow had
thawed in a circle round the once festive blaze it had frozen again
into lumps of discoloured ice. Dark, recumbent forms showed here and
there in the snow, heavy breathing wretches who had gone to sleep,
warmed with abundant wine and the glowing flames, but who would wake
in the morn to the misery of frost-bite and its attendant horrors.
But the little group of ski-ers had no thought for such as these, and
they passed them by with scarce a glance. Onward they went without a
word, till Meyer tripped up over a sleeping form in the roadway, and
broke the silence with a bitter curse, as he dragged himself to his
feet.
"Why don't you go home, Meyer?" suggested Saunders, "you are fagged
out, and we may have to sprint later on."
"If Bilderbaum can go on, I can go on," said the Commander-in-Chief
irritably. "He is ten years older than I am."
"Five," corrected the General snappishly.
"The pursuit is farcical," said Meyer. "It would have been useless
if we had undertaken it at once. At this hour it is a piece of
ludicrous folly."
"You need not come," snapped Saunders, who, like the others, seemed
to be in the worst of humours.
"Thanks," retorted Meyer. "We must play the game to its weary end.
We have shown ourselves fools, and the least part of our penalty is a
sleepless night after a restless day."
"We may overtake them yet," said Captain Lexa, who, with two of his
riflemen, made up the little party.
"Impossibilities seem possibilities only to geniuses and fools," said
Meyer rudely. "It is hardly necessary to state to which category we
belong."
"While there is life there is hope," maintained Lexa stubbornly.
Meyer made an exclamation of contempt.
"Supposing the miracle is realised," he said, "and the slower catches
the swifter, even then they will certainly outwit us again. In the
proverb the tortoise caught the hare--but then the tortoise had
brains."
Meyer's sarcasm had anything but a cheering effect on the dismal
spirits of the company.
"To think of our never recognising them!" said Saunders bitterly.
"To think of Trafford fooling us----"
"Oh, Trafford has imagination and initiative, in strong
contradistinction to ourselves!" interrupted Meyer. "He has fooled
us before and he would fool us again twenty times if twenty
opportunities were offered him. We are not very clever people, my
dear Saunders."
"If we are ever to catch them," said Lexa, "it must be by taking
every short cut that offers itself. The road to Wallen winds round
in and out of the mountains, and our only chance of overtaking the
fugitives is to go straight up hill and down dale, no matter how
steep and difficult the track."
Meyer groaned. His legs were aching intolerably, and the thought of
breasting a steep ascent on skis almost overwhelmed his flagging
spirit. No one, however, answered his groan with another suggestion
that he should go back. The Jew had expressed his determination to
go on to the bitter end, and nothing but complete physical collapse
would stop him. They glissaded swiftly and almost recklessly down
the hillside, and the rush of keen air somewhat quickened their
flagging energies.
"Bend to the left!" called out Saunders, himself executing a fine
"Christiania swing," and thereby just saving himself from charging
the snow-wall that banked the bob-sleigh run. The others swung round
at his call, and for a time proceeded parallel to the track at a
reduced speed.
"Man ahead!" called out Saunders presently; and true enough a dark
object was advancing slowly towards them up the path bordering the
run. The two soldiers cuddled their rifles suggestively, and the
others proceeded at an even pace towards the strange walker of the
night.
"A wounded soldier finding his way back," suggested Lexa.
"He may be able to give us information," said Von Bilderbaum.
"Or he may be going to shoot us," said Meyer, prepared as usual for
the worst. "Hands up, man," he called nervously, "or we fire!"
The man slowly raised his hands above his head, and continued to plod
wearily up the path towards them. In the vague moonlight the
newcomer seemed of gigantic stature, and his soundless footsteps
suggested a being from another world. On he came with upraised arms
and bent head, and then suddenly he lifted his face so that the rays
of the sinking moon fell full upon it.
Lexa uttered a cry, but the others stood still in frozen silence,
believing they dreamed. Then old Bilderbaum called out hoarsely to
the soldiers, "Present arms!" and himself stood stiffly at the salute.
"Must I continue to hold my hands in the air?" asked Karl. "I am
very tired."
"Your Majesty!" gasped Saunders.
"Good-evening, gentlemen," said the King, at length lowering his
arms. "This is an unexpected pleasure. You are indefatigable."
"Pardon me," said Meyer yawning; "we are exceedingly tired. But as I
have been constantly reminding my comrades,--almost to the point of
boredom,--we are a pack of fools and must pay for our folly by the
inconvenience of a night in the snow."
"If you are fools," said Karl, "I am the king of fools. But at least
there is something noble in your folly, if it leads you from warmth
and shelter to a hopeless search over a snow-bound countryside."
"But you have escaped, sire?" said Bilderbaum.
"Yes and no," replied Karl. "When the grand coup occurred on the
bob-sleigh run I was partially stupefied by the fumes of chloroform.
I quickly recovered, however, from its effects, and was even
beginning to appreciate the fascinations of a moonlight abduction
when an accident occurred to the sleigh."
"You were hurt?" inquired Saunders anxiously.
"No; I fell on my head--which is vastly harder than the snow."
"What happened, sire?" asked Lexa.
And then the King went on to tell that when Trafford enfiladed
Saunders' trench with curling-stones he had won the first trick in
the game and unwittingly lost the last. That the stones went gaily
down the bob-sleigh run en route for Riefinsdorf, and might have gone
Heaven knows where had not a subsidence of snow, caused doubtless by
the reverberation of the guns, blocked the track. "The snow held the
stones up," he concluded, "and the Providence, which manages the
unstable affairs of kings and tobogganers, arranged that our runners
should strike a large pink stone with a blue ribbon on it."
"Splendid!" cried Bilderbaum enthusiastically. "The 'bob' was
wrecked, and the Princess and Trafford being stunned or disabled, you
escaped from their clutches."
"Your imagination does you infinite credit, General," said Karl
dryly, "but it outruns fact. No one was stunned or disabled; of the
three, I was distinctly the most shaken."
"But how----"
"The situation was simple," said Karl. "The 'bob,' as you surmise,
was wrecked. My abduction, therefore, was rendered abortive. There
were only two courses open to my enemies--to kill me and make their
way on foot to Wallen, where their friends were awaiting them, or to
set me free and themselves fly the country. Those of you who know
Trafford and his charming wife----"
"Wife!" interrupted Saunders.
"Yes," affirmed Karl; "the Princess Gloria was secretly married some
days ago to your friend Trafford in the Chapel Royal of the
Neptunburg. They are a healthy-minded couple, and they refused to
entertain seriously the idea of murder."
"They set you free!" ejaculated Saunders. "Well done, Nervy
Trafford! I am not so ashamed of my friend after all."
"He is a splendid fellow," said Karl, "and incidentally, my cousin by
marriage. I assure you I for my part am not ashamed of the
relationship."
"But where are they now?" asked Meyer.
"They are--where they are. They are free to leave the country
without let or hindrance. When things are quieted down and I am
firmly in the saddle again, they can come back in their true
capacity--as my friends."
"We shall not have to wait long, sire," said Meyer with an unwonted
note of jubilation in his voice. "Even before yesterday's battle the
tide was running strongly for you at the capital. Henceforth
Weidenbruck and the whole country will be loyal. Long live Karl the
Twenty-second of Grimland!"
"Long live Karl!" echoed Saunders, Von Bilderbaum, and Lexa. "Long
live Karl!" reiterated the riflemen, raising their shakos aloft on
their musket barrels.
Karl stood still, with eyes that swam. He began to speak, but ended
with a shake of his head, as if something had choked him.
"To-morrow, dear friends," he muttered very low. "To-morrow.
To-night I am tired, very tired and very happy. Long live George
Trafford and his beautiful bride!" he said in stronger tones. "God
bless them! God bless our poor country! God help me to rule"--but
his voice had sunk again to a whisper and as he spoke he reeled
against Saunders.
The latter held the massive but limp frame from falling, while
someone produced brandy from a flask and poured a generous measure
down the King's throat. Then the soldiers made a seat of their
crossed weapons, and shoulder-high and supported by willing arms,
Karl of Grimland was borne, half-fainting with exposure and fatigue,
but serene of mind, to the winter palace of his beloved Weissheim.