A BOY DISAPPEARS
This startling announcement threw the company into the greatest
excitement. Baldos ran down the steps and to the side of the astonished
princess.
"Prince Dantan!" she cried, unbelieving.
He pushed the boyish figure aside and whispered earnestly into Yetive's
ear. She smiled warmly in response, and her eyes sparkled.
"And this, your highness, is his sister, the Princess Candace," he
announced aloud, bowing low before the girl. At that instant she ceased
to be the timid, cringing boy. Her chin went up in truly regal state as
she calmly, even haughtily, responded to the dazed, half-earnest salutes
of the men. With a rare smile--a knowing one in which mischief was
paramount--she spoke to Baldos, giving him her hand to kiss.
"Ah, dear Baldos, you have achieved your sweetest triumph--the
theatrical climax to all this time of plotting. My brother's sister
loves you for all this. Your highness," and she turned to Yetive with a
captivating smile, "is the luckless sister of Dantan welcome in your
castle? May I rest here in peace? It has been a bitterly long year, this
past week," she sighed. Fatigue shot back into her sweet face, and
Yetive's love went out to her unreservedly. As she drew the slight
figure up the steps she turned and said to her ministers:
"I shall be glad to receive Prince Dantan in the throne-room, without
delay. I am going to put the princess to bed."
"Your highness," said Baldos from below, "may I be the first to announce
to you that there will be no war with Dawsbergen?"
This was too much. Even Marlanx looked at his enemy with something like
collapse in his eyes.
"What do you mean?" cried Lorry, seizing him by the arm.
"I mean that Prince Dantan is here to announce the recapture of Gabriel,
his half-brother. Before the hour is past your own men from the dungeon
in the mountains will come to report the return of the fugitive. This
announcement may explain in a measure the conduct that has earned for me
the accusation which confronts me. The men who have retaken Gabriel are
the members of that little band you have heard so much about. Once I was
its captain, Prince Dantan's chief of staff--the commander of his ragged
army of twelve. Miss Calhoun and fate brought me into Edelweiss, but my
loyalty to the object espoused by our glorious little army has never
wavered. Without me they have succeeded in tricking and trapping
Gabriel. It is more than the great army of Graustark could do. Your
highness will pardon the boast under the circumstances?"
"If this Is true, you have accomplished a miracle," exclaimed Lorry,
profoundly agitated. "But can it be true? I can't believe it. It is too
good. It is too utterly improbable. Is that really Prince Dantan?"
"Assuming that it is Dantan, Grenfall," said Yetive, "I fancy it is not
courteous in us to let him stand over there all alone and ignored. Go to
him, please." With that she passed through the doors, accompanied by
Beverly and the young princess. Lorry and others went to greet the
emaciated visitor in rags and tags. Colonel Quinnox and Baron Dangloss
looked at one another in doubt and uncertainty. What were they to do
with Baldos, the prisoner?
"You are asking yourself what is to be done with me," said Baldos
easily. "The order is for my arrest. Only the princess can annul it. She
has retired on a mission of love and tenderness. I would not have her
disturbed. There is nothing left for you to do but to place me in a
cell. I am quite ready, Colonel Quinnox. You will be wise to put me in a
place where I cannot hoodwink you further. You do not bear me a grudge?"
He laughed so buoyantly, so fearlessly that Quinnox forgave him
everything. Dangloss chuckled, an unheard-of condescension on his
part. "We shall meet again, Count Marlanx. You were not far wrong in
your accusations against me, but you have much to account for in another
direction."
"This is all a clever trick," cried the Iron Count. "But you shall find
me ready to accommodate you when the time comes."
At this juncture Lorry and Count Halfont came up with Ravone. Baldos
would have knelt before his ruler had not the worn, sickly young man
restrained him.
"Your hand, Captain Baldos," he said. "Most loyal of friends. You have
won far more than the honor and love I can bestow upon you. They tell me
you are a prisoner, a suspected traitor. It shall be my duty and joy to
explain your motives and your actions. Have no fear. The hour will be
short and the fruit much the sweeter for the bitterness."
"Thunder!" muttered Harry Anguish. "You don't intend to slap him into a
cell, do you, Gren?" Baldos overheard the remark.
"I prefer that course, sir, until it has been clearly established that
all I have said to you is the truth. Count Marlanx must be satisfied,"
said he.
"And, Baldos, is all well with her?" asked the one we have known as
Ravone.
"She is being put to bed," said Baldos, with a laugh so jolly that
Ravone's lean face was wreathed in a sympathetic smile. "I am ready,
gentlemen." He marched gallantly away between the guards, followed by
Dangloss and Colonel Quinnox.
Naturally the Graustark leaders were cautious, even skeptical. They
awaited confirmation of the glorious news with varying emotions. The
shock produced by the appearance of Prince Dantan in the person of the
ascetic Ravone was almost stupefying. Even Beverly, who knew the
vagabond better than all the others, had not dreamed of Ravone as the
fugitive prince. Secretly she had hoped as long as she could that Baldos
would prove, after all, to be no other than Dantan. This hope had
dwindled to nothing, however, and she was quite prepared for the
revelation. She now saw that he was just what he professed to be--a
brave but humble friend of the young sovereign; and she was happy in the
knowledge that she loved him for what he was and not for what he might
have been.
"He is my truest friend," said Ravone, as they led Baldos away. "I am
called Ravone, gentlemen, and I am content to be known by that name
until better fortune gives me the right to use another. You can hardly
expect a thing in rags to be called a prince. There is much to be
accomplished, much to be forgiven, before there is a Prince Dantan of
Dawsbergen again."
"You are faint and week," said Lorry, suddenly perceiving his
plight. "The hospitality of the castle is yours. The promise we made a
few days ago holds good. Her highness will be proud to receive you when
you are ready to come to the throne-room. I am Grenfall Lorry. Come,
sir; rest and refresh yourself in our gladdened home. An hour ago we
were making ready to rush into battle; but your astonishing but welcome
news is calculated to change every plan we have made."
"Undoubtedly, sir, it will. Dawsbergen hardly will make a fight to
release Gabriel. He is safe in your dungeons. If they want him now, they
must come to your strongholds. They will not do it, believe me," said
Ravone simply. "Alas, I am faint and sore, as you suspect. May I lie
down for an hour or two? In that time you will have heard from your
wardens and my story will be substantiated. Then I shall be ready to
accept your hospitality as it is proffered. Outside your city gates my
humble followers lie starving. My only prayer is that you will send them
cheer and succor."
No time was lost in sending to the gates for the strollers who had
accomplished the marvel of the day. The news of Gabriel's capture was
kept from the city's inhabitants until verification came from the proper
sources, but those in control of the affairs of state were certain that
Ravone's story was true. All operations came to a standstill. The
movements of the army were checked. Everything lay quiescent under the
shock of this startling climax.
"Hang it," growled Anguish, with a quizzical grin, as Ravone departed
under the guidance of Count Halfont himself, "this knocks me
galley-west. I'd like to have had a hand in it. It must have been
great. How the devil do you think that miserable little gang of tramps
pulled it off?"
"Harry," said Lorry disgustedly, "they taught us a trick or two."
While the young princess was being cared for by Yetive's own maids in
one of the daintiest bedchambers of the castle, Beverly was engaged in
writing a brief but pointed letter to her Aunt Josephine, who was still
in St. Petersburg. She had persistently refused to visit Edelweiss, but
had written many imperative letters commanding her niece to return to
the Russian capital. Beverly now was recalling her scattered wits in the
effort to appease her aunt and her father at the same time. Major
Calhoun emphatically had ordered her to rejoin her aunt and start for
America at once. Yesterday Beverly would have begun packing for the trip
home. Now she was eager to remain in Graustark indefinitely. She was so
thrilled by joy and excitement that she scarcely could hold the pen.
"Father says the United States papers are full of awful war scares from
the Balkans. Are we a part of the Balkans, Yetive?" she asked of Yetive,
with a puzzled frown, emphasizing the pronoun unconsciously. "He says
I'm to come right off home. Says he'll not pay a nickel of ransom if the
brigands catch me, as they did Miss Stone and that woman who had the
baby. He says mother is worried half to death. I'm just going to cable
him that it's all off. Because he says if war breaks out he's going to
send my brother Dan over here to get me. I'm having Aunt Josephine send
him this cablegram from St. Petersburg: 'They never fight in
Balkans. Just scare each other. Skip headlines, father dear. Will be
home soon. Beverly.' How does that sound? It will cost a lot, but he
brought it upon his own head. And we're not in the Balkans, anyway. Aunt
Joe will have a fit. Please call an A. D. T. boy, princess. I want to
send this message to St. Petersburg."
When Candace entered the princess's boudoir half an hour later, she was
far from being the timid youth who first came to the notice of the
Graustark cabinet. She was now attired in one of Beverly's gowns, and it
was most becoming to her. Her short curly brown hair was done up
properly; her pink and white complexion was as clear as cream, now that
the dust of the road was gone; her dark eyes were glowing with the
wonder and interest of nineteen years, and she was, all in all, a most
enticing bit of femininity.
"You are much more of a princess now than when I first saw you," smiled
Yetive, drawing her down upon the cushions of the window-seat beside
her. Candace was shy and diffident, despite her proper habiliments.
"But she was such a pretty boy," protested Dagmar. "You don't know how
attractive you were in those--"
Candace blushed. "Oh, they were awful, but they were comfortable. One
has to wear trousers if one intends to be a vagabond. I wore them for
more than a week."
"You shall tell us all about it," said Yetive, holding the girl's hand
in hers. "It must have been a most interesting week for you."
"Oh, there is not much to tell, your highness," said Candace, suddenly
reticent and shy. "My step-brother--oh, how I hate him--had condemned
me to die because he thought I was helping Dantan. And I _was_
helping him, too,--all that I could. Old Bappo, master of the stables,
who has loved me for a hundred years, he says, helped me to escape from
the palace at night. They were to have seized me the next morning. Bappo
has been master of the stables for more than forty years. Dear old
Bappo! He procured the boy's clothing for me and his two sons
accompanied me to the hills, where I soon found my brother and his
men. We saw your scouts and talked to them a day or two after I became a
member of the band. Bappo's boys are with the band now. But my brother
Dantan shall tell you of that. I was so frightened I could not tell what
was going am. I have lived in the open air for a week, but I love it.
Dantan's friends are all heroes. You will love them. Yesterday old Franz
brought a message into the castle grounds. It told Captain Baldos of the
plan to seize Gabriel, who was in the hills near your city. Didn't you
know of that? Oh, we knew it two days ago. Baldos knew it yesterday. He
met us at four o'clock this morning;--that is part of us. I was sent on
with Franz so that I should not see bloodshed if it came to the
worst. We were near the city gates Baldos came straight to us. Isn't it
funny that you never knew all these things? Then at daybreak Baldos
insisted on bringing me here to await the news from the pass. It was
safer, and besides, he said he had another object in coming back at
once."
Beverly flushed warmly. The three women were crowding about the
narrator, eagerly drinking in her naive story.
"We came in through one of the big gates and not through the underground
passage. That was a fib," said Candace, looking from one to the other
with a perfectly delicious twinkle in her eye. The conspirators gulped
and smiled guiltily. "Baldos says there is a very mean old man here who
is tormenting the fairy princess--not the real princess, you know. He
came back to protect her, which was very brave of him, I am sure. Where
is my brother?" she asked, suddenly anxious.
"He is with friends. Don't be alarmed, dear," said Yetive.
"He is changing clothes, too? He needs clothes worse than I needed
these. Does he say positively that Gabriel has been captured?"
"Yes. Did you not know of it?"
"I was sure it would happen. You know I was not with them in the pass."
Yetive was reflecting, a soft smile in her eyes.
"I was thinking of the time when I wore men's clothes," she
said. "Unlike yours, mine were most uncomfortable. It was when I aided
Mr. Lorry in escaping from the tower. I wore a guard's uniform and rode
miles with him in a dark carriage before he discovered the truth." She
blushed at the remembrance of that trying hour.
"And I wore boy's clothes at a girl's party once--my brother Dan's,"
said Beverly. "The hostess's brothers came home unexpectedly and I had
to sit behind a bookcase for an hour. I didn't see much fun in boy's
clothes."
"You ought to wear them for a week," said Candace, wise in
experience. "They are not so bad when you become accustomed to
them--that is, if they're strong and not so tight that they--"
"You all love Baldos, don't you?" interrupted Yetive. It was with
difficulty that the listeners suppressed their smiles.
"Better than anyone else. He is our idol. Oh, your highness, if what he
says is true that old man must be a fiend. Baldos a spy! Why, he has not
slept day or night for fear that we would not capture Gabriel so that he
might be cleared of the charge without appealing to--to my brother. He
has always been loyal to you," the girl said with eager eloquence.
"I know, dear, and I have known all along. He will be honorably
acquitted. Count Marlanx was overzealous. He has not been wholly wrong,
I must say in justice to him--"
"How can you uphold him, Yetive, after what he has said about me?" cried
Beverly, with blazing eyes.
"Beverly, Beverly, you know I don't mean that. He has been a cowardly
villain so far as you are concerned and he shall be punished, never
fear. I cannot condone that one amazing piece of wickedness on his
part."
"You, then, are the girl Baldos talks so much about?" cried Candace
eagerly. "You are Miss Calhoun, the fairy princess? I am so glad to know
you." The young princess clasped Beverly's hand and looked into her eyes
with admiration and approval. Beverly could have crushed her in her
arms.
The sounds of shouting came up to the windows from below. Outside, men
were rushing to and fro and there were signs of mighty demonstrations at
the gates.
"The people have heard of the capture," said Candace, as calmly as
though she were asking one to have a cup of tea.
There was a pounding at the boudoir door. It flew open unceremoniously
and in rushed Lorry, followed by Anguish. In the hallway beyond a group
of noblemen conversed excitedly with the women of the castle.
"The report from the dungeons, Yetive," cried Lorry joyously. "The
warden says that Gabriel is in his cell again! Here's to Prince Dantan!"
Ravone was standing in the door. Candace ran over and leaped into his
arms.