Franz Joseph, the aged Emperor of Austria-Hungary--whose life history
is one of the most tragic of all contemporary royalty--tossed uneasily
as he slumbered on the great four-posted bed, around which heavy damask
curtains had been drawn, shutting off all view of the bed chamber. The
Emperor had fled here to his Chateau Schoenbrunn for at least a day or
so of quiet and ease from the heavy cares of state.
“Go, your Imperial Highness, and sleep in peace,” his trusted friend
the Grand Chancellor had told him. “For the time being I will take the
burden from your shoulders.”
“There are couriers waiting there in the ante-room, from Plotz
and the army at Lublin. There is a messenger from the routed army
before Belgrade. There is yet another ultimatum from Bulgaria to be
considered,” said the aged monarch doubtfully, passing a listless hand
across his careworn brow.
“Highness, cannot I attend to all that?”
The Emperor, broken in spirit and body, acquiesced weakly.
“_Rest!_” he murmured, as if invoking a saint, “undisturbed slumbers
and a few hours in which to forget a bleeding, beaten nation that cries
out for the help I cannot give.”
Thus it was that Franz Joseph came to go to Schoenbrunn, but
forgetfulness did not come to him with the darkening of the lights
around his bed. The whole sad picture of his reign passed in review
before him like a horrid nightmare--murdered relatives, degenerate
heirs who had disgraced his name, and, finally, apparitions of
the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and the Duchess of Hohenberg, whose
assassination by Serbs at Sarajevo had been used as the excuse for the
war now convulsing the world.
There stood the ghastly shades of the Emperor’s dearly beloved son and
his wife whom Franz Joseph never would recognize. They extended bloody,
mutilated hands to the old man and seemed to say:
“See, we are come to take you with us to where countless thousands of
our countrymen lately have gone. Come, Franz Joseph!”
With a strangling cry of terror, the aged Emperor awoke and half
started up in his bed. At that instant there came quick, catlike
footfalls in the outer rooms, a gurgling shout that ended in a groan
from the halberdiers who kept watch by the door, and then the heavy
curtains screening the bed were wrenched violently aside and a terrible
figure towered over the palsied Emperor.
It was Black-beard, his huge, knotty hands working spasmodically as if
already strangling the poor old man in imagination. Behind him appeared
the villainous visage of the Twisted Mouth. A knife in his hand was
stained red to the hilt with the life-blood of the door guard whom they
had caught unawares. Behind the pair the window was open and the upper
rungs of a ladder showed above the sill.
Fate was upon him. The Emperor knew that, and in that crucial moment
when his life seemed worth but a farthing, the noble bearing of his
forbears came suddenly to him, straightening the bowed shoulders,
throwing back the bent head and putting the truly regal blaze of eleven
generations of Hapsburgs into his watery eyes.
“Dogs! what do you here in our presence unannounced?” Franz Joseph
thundered, and even the pajamas covering his wasted form did not
detract from the impressiveness of his mien. “Begone!”
The Emperor pointed one long forefinger from the wretches to the door.
Neither assassin vouchsafed a word in reply. Black-beard crouched to
hurl himself upon his defenseless victim when--
_Crash!_ the whip-like report of a revolver sounded from the doorway
and through the drifting smoke the figure of him they had called the
“count” was visible.
“Perdition!” groaned Black-beard, half-rising from the floor. “You have
killed me, Polnychek!”
Twisted Mouth had dodged in amazed terror behind the table, whence he
now flourished his knife uncertainly.
Pandemonium had broken loose below stairs. Cries of alarm, screams,
curses, stentorian commands mingled with a thunderous fusillade of
shots. The staircase resounded with the rush of many feet upon it. The
treacherous Grand Chancellor burst wildly into the room. He took in the
scene with one sweeping glance.
“What is the meaning of this, Polnychek?” he cried threateningly. “Are
you playing us false?”
In answer, the “count” dramatically threw aside the familiar cape and
hat which had up to this time concealed his face. A ferocious curse
burst from the astounded Chancellor.
[Illustration: _The Mysterious Man in the Cloak._]
Instead of facing Count Polnychek, he was confronted by the glinting
muzzle of a revolver in the hands of _Ned Napier_!
What followed thereafter happened far more swiftly than it can be told.
Seeing the entire plot crumbling about him, and lacking the moral
courage to fight it out, the Chancellor sprang to an open window and
cast himself headlong down into space. They later found him lying with
his neck broken in the gardens. Twisted Mouth threw up his hands and
surrendered as Ned advanced upon him.
Meanwhile the sound of Ned’s shot had awakened the entire household
downstairs. Weapons were quickly seized and haste was made to secure
the safety of the Emperor. The faithless servants were among the
loudest in proclaiming their horror of the attempted assassination.
Alan, Bob and Captain von Schleinitz had attacked the nine conspirators
skulking down stairs the moment Ned’s shot rang out, and, although the
trapped men fought with unparalleled ferocity, they were driven
at bay against one wall of the building and forced to yield to their
intrepid assailants who were by then reinforced by thirty or more
domestics and imperial guardsmen.
Owing to the already disturbed conditions in Vienna it was the
Emperor’s wish that all news of this dastardly attempt on his life be
kept absolutely secret. He rode back along the Ring Strasse, the main
boulevard encircling the city, in state the next morning and made it a
point to rise up and bow frequently in acknowledgment of the cheering
sidewalk crowds. This effectually counteracted any premature stories
of his death which might have been circulated in preparation for the
plotted revolution.
The Airship Boys were given a formal audience in his private reception
chamber of the Hofburg on the following afternoon and Captain von
Schleinitz also was ordered to be present. The grateful emperor
conferred the Order of St. Stepan upon his faithful officer and
promoted him to the rank of lieutenant colonel of the Imperial Aviation
Corps. To the smiling boys Franz Joseph said:
“It is a matter of difficulty for me to decide how best to acknowledge
my life-long indebtedness to you young gentlemen. The fact that you
are not of the nobility nor yet soldiers precludes my decorating you
with any of the Orders of Merit in my power. So, gentlemen, I am going
to leave it for you yourselves to say how I best may please you.”
Of course all of the boys blushed and were much embarrassed by such a
gracious reception. None of them knew exactly what to say until Buck
blurted out:
“Why, we wouldn’t think of taking any rewards ourselves for a thing
that it was our plain duty to do, sir, but we have a favor that we’d
like to ask for a friend who, by the way, happens to be a subject of
yours.”
“Your request is already granted--even though the man be one of those
implicated in the conspiracy,” said the Emperor kindly.
“While we were in Przemysl,” continued Buck, “we met an infantry
officer, one Lieutenant Racoszky, who lay dying in the hospital for
lack of proper attention to his wounds. He is one of your most devoted
subjects.”
Then Buck went on to tell how the lieutenant had married above his
station in life and of his subsequent misfortunes as a result of the
old count’s brutal enmity.
“We want you to intercede with the count on Racoszky’s behalf and bring
the young couple and their child together again,” Buck concluded.
“Mr. Stewart hasn’t told you the entire story yet, though,” Ned here
interrupted. “It seems that Count Polnychek was one of the moving
spirits in this plot. While trailing him down, I fell into his power
and probably would have been murdered had it not been for his brave
daughter, Racoszky’s wife, who forced him at a revolver’s muzzle to
liberate me.
“Armed with the weapon she had given me, I forced him to reveal the
full details of the conspiracy and now have him bound and locked there
in his daughter’s room. She agreed to stand guard over him while I
impersonated him at the conspirators’ rendezvous. The lady has asked
that I beg leniency for her parent in view of her own great services on
your behalf.”
The Emperor paced the room thoughtfully for a few moments. Then he said:
“Young gentlemen, you shall have both of your wishes. Lieutenant
Racoszky need no longer dread separation from his family, and Count
Polnychek shall not be accorded the sentence he so richly deserves. But
he must leave Austria at once, and the first time that he ever again
sets foot across our boundaries shall be the signal for his arrest.”
Thus the happiness of Racoszky was assured and the boys were left once
more free to pursue their way.