“Read this when none of the people of the house are with you. Some of them suspect us, and we must escape to-night. Put on the Thracian dresses you have bought, and lie down in your clothes. Get some sleep if you can; we will inform you when it is time to start. Carry your boots in your hands when we call you, and bring your own clothes in a bundle, as well as the luggage you brought. Don’t be frightened; there are friends even here. The girl Olga and her mother are to be trusted.”
“Read this when none of the people of the house are with you. Some of them suspect us, and we must escape to-night. Put on the Thracian dresses you have bought, and lie down in your clothes. Get some sleep if you can; we will inform you when it is time to start. Carry your boots in your hands when we call you, and bring your own clothes in a bundle, as well as the luggage you brought. Don’t be frightened; there are friends even here. The girl Olga and her mother are to be trusted.”
He folded up the paper, and passed it in through the crack of the door, accompanied by a coin or two. He heard the girl’s gasp of delight, and a sudden swift rustle as she crept from her hiding-place; then a quick whisper reached him as she remembered something and turned back.
“When you are over the wall, don’t take the cart-road by which you came, but the right-hand one. It will lead you into the highroad a good deal farther on; and on the opposite side you will see a wood, where they have been cutting down trees lately. You might take shelter among the stacked wood until daylight. My mother feels sure that she can keep them from discovering your escape until seven o’clock.”
Then she was gone, and although Cyril caught a momentary glimpse of her in the back passage a little later, bearing two steaming wooden tumblers of hot water to the Queen’s room, she came no more to the door. When she had passed out of sight, he turned to Paschics.
“Well, Carlo, we have our work cut out for us to-night, that is evident. I think it will be well to represent that we are tired with our journey, and ask leave to go to bed as soon as possible. Then we can perfect our plans. By the bye, have you looked in at the horses at all?”
“No, sir,” responded Paschics in surprise.
“Then we will go and do it now,” and they crossed the farmyard and entered the stable. Here Cyril found a state of things which threw him into a towering passion, and made him despatch Paschics to fetch their driver, who was enjoying a pleasant evening with the two or three men employed on the farm.
“What do you mean by leaving the horses like this?” he stormed, when the man appeared, surly and reluctant. “You have not even rubbed them down, and the mud is literally caked on their legs. The black can’t reach the manger, and there is something seriously wrong with the grey’s off fore-foot. Do you imagine that I would drive about behind cattle like that? Perhaps you counted on having time to clean them in the morning, but I can assure you that we shall start too early for that. By eight o’clock we must be upon the road, and it will be the worse for you if the horses are not fit to be seen.”
Cowed by the rebukes translated to him by Paschics, the driver attempted various excuses. The horses were his own, they were not accustomed to be groomed, no travellers had ever said anything of the kind before, and so on; but Cyril cut him short, and reiterating his last warning, turned on his heel and went back to the house with Paschics.
“How is that?” he asked him. “I fancy our friend will have a pretty clear idea as to our intention of starting in good time in the morning, will he not?”
“No doubt, sir; but was it worth while to awaken the man’s enmity merely for that? I saw him scowl at you as you turned away.”
“You are right; it would not have been worth while merely for that. But while you were fetching him from the house, I took the opportunity of examining the corner of the wall by the stable, which is the very corner Miss Olga mentioned to us. Thanks to the crooked tree and the roughness of the stones, we shall be able to get the ladies over with no great difficulty, if one of us is at the top to receive them and the other at the foot to help them up.”
“I must say I wish we were safe outside, sir.”
“Why not say at once safe at Prince Mirkovics’s castle or in Bellaviste itself? But here is our venerable friend the farmer. It would be as well to ask whether he has any objection to our retiring to rest now.”
The farmer, who met them with a somewhat shame-faced countenance, offered no opposition to their wishes, and they were conducted to the guest-room, where the rugs from the carriage had been arranged so as to make a bed for Paschics on the floor.
“No bed for us to-night, Carlo,” said Cyril, catching the look of pleasure which his weary follower cast at the lowly couch. “First of all, while this primitive candle lasts, do you mark on my map the spot where your cousin the charcoal-burner lives, while I hunt for the chest of clothes. Ah, this must be it!”
But the result of a search in the chest was not wholly satisfactory. The sheepskin-linedkaftanof which Olga had spoken was there, and so were a pair of high boots and a fur cap, and also several gaily embroidered shirts and the short decorated jacket which is worn to display them; but there was not one complete suit to be found, much less two.
“Well, we must divide the things, and do what we can,” said Cyril.
“No, sir,” said Paschics, firmly; “you must disguise yourself as thoroughly as possible. You are far more necessary to—to Mrs Weston than I am, and in far more danger. I can alter my present appearance sufficiently to pass muster in my own clothes, and if we have an opportunity to-morrow I will buy a disguise in one of the towns we must traverse.”
Cyril yielded to the good sense of his follower, and proceeded to array himself in the Thracian garments, supplementing the deficiencies with his own; but, happily, the coat was so long, and the boots so high, as to make it most unlikely that he would be perceived to be wearing tweed trousers instead of the baggy knickerbockers proper to the costume. When his toilet was complete, he turned to Paschics for his approval, but met instead a look of absolute consternation.
“It is impossible, sir—quite impossible. You look no more like a Thracian peasant than—the Emperor of Scythia. You have the air of a blond Hercynian officer at a fancy dress ball. To pass through the country in that costume is simply to court disaster. You would be arrested as a Scythian spy by our own people if the conspirators had not seized you first.”
“We have plenty of time before us,” said Cyril, forbearingly, “and it is your business to use it in fitting me to the costume. Pull yourself together. You can do it if you try: I won’t believe that such a master in the art of disguise could be beaten in such a comparatively simple problem. Sit down and consider carefully what is wrong. Then we will see what can be done to remedy it.”
Paschics obeyed, and before long his face lighted up.
“You are right, sir. I had forgotten this,” and he produced something from his pocket. “You may remember that I once told you I always carried a wig and false beard about with me. They will work wonders.” He fastened on the beard, and arranged the wig on Cyril’s head, pulling forward the unkempt hair over his forehead, so as to shade his eyes. “Now for a few strokes of the brush,” and by means of a small bottle of pigment he altered the shape of the eyebrows, and added various lines and wrinkles to the face. “If you will be so good as to dip your hands in the mud of the road when we are outside the walls, sir, I think you will be quite unrecognisable.”
“But what about you?” asked Cyril. “You should have kept the wig and beard for yourself.” But his success in transforming the appearance of his employer seemed to have stimulated Paschics, for he next proceeded methodically to disguise himself. He did not change his clothes, except that he took Cyril’s hat, which he moulded into a different shape, instead of his own; but when his preparations were complete, he was no longer the smart, bustling, business-like Italian courier, but an idle Thracian down on his luck, and only half at ease in his shabby Western garments. His coat was stained and partially buttonless; his hat, placed at what ought to have been a rakish angle, had an air of indescribable melancholy, owing to the fact that its brim was turned down on one side instead of up, and his very hair and moustache, which had been gaily curled, now hung dank and despondent.
“Bravo!” cried Cyril. “It will take a knowing fellow to recognise you, Carlo. Now let us pack up our possessions, and then I think it will be time to be off.”
Their preparations had taken a considerable time, and the house had long been silent. They rolled up the rugs and Cyril’s discarded garments into a bundle, which Paschics was to carry, and placed a gold coin in the chest from which they had obtained the clothes. The money due to the driver was also wrapped in paper and placed in a conspicuous spot; for, although it might have been good policy to aim at being taken for mere thieves instead of more important fugitives, Cyril did not wish to give the man an additional reason for pursuing the party with his enmity. They then carried the bundle out into the yard, and Paschics, climbing the wall, lowered it to the other side, remaining at the top himself to help the rest. The door opened easily, as Olga had promised it should, and beside it they found a little pile of barley-cakes and an old brandy-bottle filled with rye-beer. Having secured these, and given them into the charge of Paschics, Cyril returned noiselessly into the house. It was necessary to move with the greatest caution, in order to avoid disturbing the sleepers whose snores were audible from the rooms on either side; but Cyril had paced the passage carefully when he went to bid good-night to the farmer, and knew exactly how far to go. Arrived at the door which Olga had indicated, he scratched on it very lightly with his nail, and it was opened immediately by Fräulein von Staubach.
“We have been expecting you for hours!” she whispered reproachfully. “Neither Mrs Weston nor I could bring ourselves to close our eyes; but Tommy is fast asleep again, although we had to wake him to dress him.”
“Give him to me just as he is, and do you and Mrs Weston bring your things and follow me,” Cyril whispered back. The Queen laid her son in his arms without a word, and he led the way down the passage. The floor was of beaten earth, so that there were no boards to creak, and the two ladies were carrying their boots in their hands, in accordance with the directions they had received, and thus not the slightest sound was made. While they paused outside to put on their boots, Cyril secured the door noiselessly, and then noticed that the Queen and Fräulein von Staubach were not carrying the bundles of clothes he had expected.
“What have you done with your own things?” he asked, in a low voice, but with some irritation, of Fräulein von Staubach.
“We have got them on under these,” she whispered. “The Thracian dresses are so thin and loose that they would be too cold alone, and so we put them on over those we had.”
“Then you were not able to buy pelisses?” said Cyril, as he led the way to the corner where Paschics was waiting. “However, the weather is mild, and these women are wonderfully hardy, so that your being without them will not excite remark.”
They had reached the crooked tree by this time, and the ladies were a little appalled to behold their means of escape. The Queen insisted on being the first to tempt the perils of the climb, and Cyril, intrusting the sleeping form of the little King to Fräulein von Staubach, assisted her to reach the top of the wall, climbing up after her himself to help her to lower herself on the outer side until Paschics could guide her feet to the crevices in the stonework. The King was next conveyed across, still without being awakened, and then Cyril descended again to help Fräulein von Staubach, whose transit was the most difficult of all. She had not the Queen’s agility, and she was painfully nervous; but by dint of superhuman efforts on her part and on Cyril’s, she was at last able to join the group outside. The luggage was next passed over, and then Cyril let himself down, to be met by a little shriek from the Queen as he did so. In the shadow inside she had not noticed his disguise, and for the moment she believed him to be one of the enemy. Paschics viewed her alarm with equanimity, as a tribute to his skill, and in the midst of whispered explanations a start was made, Cyril again carrying the King. The ladies had been left unencumbered; but before they had gone more than a few steps the Queen snatched her bag from the hand of Paschics.
“You shall not carry everything for us!” she cried. “Sophie, take your own bag immediately. M. Paschics is heavily laden already with that great parcel.”
“Prudence, madame!” remonstrated Cyril. “I fear that in the morning we may be compelled to support our assumed characters by leaving you to carry your own luggage; but at present we are still civilised beings. That does not allow us to consider ourselves in safety, however.”
The Queen laughed and blushed, and they went on in silence along the muddy cart-track. The heaviness of the ground made their progress very difficult, and the ladies were manifestly relieved when the wood of which Olga had spoken was reached, and Cyril announced that they were to rest there for a few hours. He himself would have been inclined to press on at once; but he realised that the endurance of the party was limited by that of its feeblest members, and that it was better to rest now and start at daybreak than to undertake the greater fatigue of a night-journey, and perhaps find the ladies unable to proceed when in a hostile neighbourhood. Accordingly, he and Paschics hunted about in the wood until they came upon the clearing made by the woodcutters, where the poles which had been cut were piled up against one another to season. The shelter thus formed needed only to have its open ends filled in with branches to form a very passable hut for the ladies, and when the rugs had been spread on a carpet of dry leaves and twigs, the interior was voted by common consent to be positively luxurious. The Queen and Fräulein von Staubach took grateful possession of their new abode, while Cyril and Paschics camped outside, and in spite of the unwonted nature of the surroundings and the alarm of their position, there was not one of the party that did not sleep well.
It was one of Cyril’s enviable characteristics that he could awake at any hour he pleased, and this stood him in good stead the next morning, although the rest were scarcely disposed to rejoice in his possession of the faculty when he called them before daybreak. He hastened to explain, however, that they ought to be on the road as soon as it was fairly twilight, and that there was a good deal to do first, and they partook meekly of the frugal meal he served out, and awaited his orders.
“It is my painful duty to announce that we must lighten the ship,” he said. “We brought away all our luggage from the farm in order to puzzle the enemy, but we can’t carry it with us. It would be too heavy, and it would arouse suspicion. Everything that cannot be carried in your pockets, ladies, or in a large pocket-handkerchief, must be left behind.”
“But if the enemy find the things, it will help them to track us,” objected Fräulein von Staubach.
“I propose to bury everything we leave,” answered Cyril. “It is evident that this spot is not often visited now that the woodcutting is over, and the dead leaves and light soil are easy to move.”
“But you would not bury the Queen’s sable cloak?” in a tone of horror. “It was the Emperor of Scythia’s wedding present to her, and it is priceless.”
“Nonsense, Sophie!” said the Queen. “What is a fur cloak compared with honour and safety? You shall bury anything you like, Count—Arthur, I mean. We are all forgetting ournoms de guerre.”
“We must change them again now,” said Cyril, “in accordance with our changed position. From this moment we are merely Thracian peasants. If you will call yourself Anna, madame, and Fräulein von Staubach Maria, M. Paschics shall be Nicolai, and I will be Ivan. The King we may call Sascha. May I entreat you all to speak nothing but Thracian when we are upon the road? As for you, madame, I fear you must pretend to be dumb. To be overheard speaking any language but Thracian would be fatal.”
“Very well,” said the Queen; “from this moment I am dumb.”
“Then shall we now proceed to get rid of our surplus possessions?” asked Cyril. “As my luggage has consisted since the beginning of this trip of a toothbrush, a pocket-comb, and a piece of soap, I have a good deal of room left in my pockets, and I shall be glad to carry anything I can for any one, and so will Nicolai, I am sure. To work, ladies, if you please!”
With heroic calmness the Queen and Fräulein von Staubach proceeded to select the most necessary or most portable of their belongings, and dispose of them as best they could about their persons, while Cyril and Paschics, with the aid of some broken branches, were digging a hole in the ground, in which they laid the Queen’s cloak and the other rejected treasures. This operation was finished by the pale light of the spring morning; and as soon as the leaves and soil had been replaced, Cyril ordered a start. They walked as far as possible through the wood, and only quitted it when it would have taken them away from the road, to which they returned at a spot some four English miles beyond that at which they had left it the night before in order to reach the farm. The order of their march had now to be adapted to their supposed circumstances. Cyril and Paschics walked in front in lordly style, while the two ladies came humbly behind, according to Thracian custom, carrying, when there was any one to see them, the one the little King and the other the bundle of rugs, although when the road was empty they were immediately relieved of their burdens. It was only occasionally that they fell in with country-people, who exchanged a bucolic greeting with the two men and took no notice of the women, and to their great relief they were not overtaken by any one from the farm they had quitted so unceremoniously. At about eight o’clock in the morning they came in sight of the little town, or rather large village, at which they were to have spent the night; and Paschics proposed that the rest should make their way round it without entering, while he went boldly on to purchase food and, if possible, a suit of country clothes for himself. Cyril was loath to lose such an opportunity of gauging personally the feelings of the inhabitants; but his common-sense told him that in the uncertain condition of affairs Paschics was a safer messenger than he was, and he led his charges into a field-path which, as his map showed him, would rejoin the road later on, while the detective walked on towards the town. At the point at which the path returned to the road Cyril and his party halted and, concealed by a clump of bushes, waited for Paschics. It was some time before he came in sight, and when he saw Cyril awaiting him he made him a hasty sign to withdraw behind the bushes, and looked up and down the road anxiously. Then he turned aside, and, sitting down on the bank, began to eat some food which he took from his pocket. Presently Cyril, who had been watching him through the bushes in surprise, saw the reason of this strange behaviour, for another wayfarer came round the turn of the road, and, after exchanging a greeting with Paschics, limped on his way. It was not until this man had passed out of sight that Paschics rose and approached the rest, and they saw as he came that his face was very gloomy.
“Then you could not get any other clothes?” Cyril asked him, as he distributed the coarse bread and slices of sausage which he had brought in his handkerchief.
“I found the shopkeeper so inquisitive, sir, that I did not venture to do anything that might arouse his suspicions further. He asked me any number of questions—who I was, whence I came, where I was going, whether I was travelling alone, and if so, what I wanted with such a store of food. My answers did not throw much light on our circumstances, as you may guess; but the fact of his asking the questions was in itself unpleasant.”
“But was the man merely inquisitive, or did he know anything to make him suspicious?” demanded Cyril quickly. The detective’s eyes met his meaningly, and he was about to suggest a private conversation, when the Queen, seeing his intention, interposed—
“Allow us to hear what new danger threatens us, Count. We are all exposed to the same peril, and we have a right to know its nature.”
“I find,” Paschics went on unwillingly, in response to a sign from Cyril, to whom he persisted in addressing himself, “that our friend the farmer’s son passed through the town last night on his way from Ortojuk to the farm. He rested a short time at the tavern, and told the people the news which he had heard in Ortojuk, whither it had been telegraphed from Tatarjé. It seems (this is what he said) that an arrangement had been arrived at between her Majesty the Queen and our Holy Synod for the conversion of the King to the Orthodox faith. It was for this reason that the Court was spending the winter at Tatarjé, which is at once a stronghold of the Orthodox and remote from the capital, for the conversion was to be kept a secret until it had actually taken place, on account of the opposition which would be raised by the Queen’s mother and the Hercynian Imperial family generally, and by the other Western Powers. Meanwhile, Bishop Philaret of Tatarjé had been instructing the King diligently in his new faith, and the ceremony of receiving him into the Orthodox Church by the rite of confirmation was arranged to take place on Friday—yesterday. But on the night of Thursday his Majesty was kidnapped by some person or persons unknown, presumably foreigners in the employ of the Princess of Weldart, and had utterly disappeared. A strict watch had been set on the frontier, and it was known that no suspicious characters had crossed it, so that it was evident that the abductors had turned their steps into the interior of the country, and measures were at once taken to discover and arrest them. This was done by order of the Queen, who remained at Tatarjé in the greatest distress and anxiety; but my informant did not hesitate to add that he believed she had only been half-hearted all along, and was a party to the plot——”
“But,” exclaimed the Queen, breaking the stunned silence, “how could I be at Tatarjé when I am here? What can they mean?”
“I am afraid Baroness Paula has played her part a little too well,” said Cyril. “I arranged with Baroness von Hilfenstein that in case of need her daughter should personate you, madame, for a short time, in order to give us a better opportunity of escape; but now it seems that we have been too clever by half. But no! it is impossible that they could have been deceived when it was daylight. They have taken advantage of ourrusefor their own purposes. You think that they have not discovered who took part in their Majesties’ flight, Paschics?”
“How could they, Excellency? You had left for Bellaviste, and I had gone to visit my relations. Fräulein von Staubach is the only person they could make sure of. But what I fear is that some chance—or possibly merely his own suspicions—may take our friend the sub-prefect to Tatarjé. When he heard what had happened he would instantly remember the English travellers, and his description of you would be recognised by some one, and the identification established by showing him one of your photographs. Then he would be after us like a bloodhound, enraged at having allowed such a prey to slip through his fingers.”
“And you think that the results might be unpleasant if he once came up with the abductors of his Majesty?” asked Cyril.
“Your Excellency, they are all to be brought back to Tatarjé,dead or alive; and I gathered from the shopkeeper that if the matter were left in the hands of the people they would take care that it should be dead.”
“Count!” said the Queen quickly, as Cyril sat with his chin on his hand, plunged in meditation. “Count!” she said again, as he did not answer her, “what are we to do?”
“I was just considering the advisability of our all going quietly to the next police-station and giving ourselves up, madame.”
“You would not do it?” she cried, her eyes dilating with horror.
“I am almost convinced that it is our proper course, madame. I have known all along that failure in this enterprise meant death to Paschics and myself; but I thought that you and Fräulein von Staubach would at any rate be free from bodily peril. But don’t you see the diabolical cunning of these fellows? It would be easy enough to get up a scuffle in arresting us, in which both of you might be killed by accident, and there they are, with the King in their hands! They have only to make a dramatic discovery of Baroness Paula’s imposture and proclaim it, convert the King, and, using him as a hostage, make terms with Drakovics. The ball is at their feet in that way. Whereas, if we surrender to the police, they are bound to protect you two ladies from the mob, whatever happens to us.”
“Yes, and what is to become of us?” cried the Queen, in a harsh, strident voice. “Is my boy to be given up after all to the tender mercies of these vile conspirators? After all that I have risked to save him, is he to be forced into an alien Church before he is old enough to make a choice? I tell you, he shall not be! Give yourself up at the nearest police-station, Count, if you like; I will kill my son and myself before you shall surrender us!” She made a sudden spring forward, and snatched the keen, broad-bladed Thracian knife from Cyril’s girdle, holding it poised ready to strike at her own heart.
“This is no time for scenes, madame,” said Cyril irritably. “We are not strolling players, but sensible people consulting together as to the best means of averting a great danger. Have the goodness to give me back that knife.”
He took it from her unresisting hand as he spoke, for his words and tone came like a dash of cold water on the fire of her passion, and she was already ashamed of the momentary frenzy which had seized her. But when he had returned the knife to its sheath, she caught his hand in both hers.
“Count, I have trusted my son’s life and honour and my own to you. You will not fail us?”
“I have no present intention of doing so, madame. Can you not trust me yet?”
His words stung her like the lash of a whip, and she drew apart with a crimson face, while Cyril turned to the other two.
“We are wasting time here,” he said. “Our business is to reach Ortojuk and cross the river as soon as we can. How we are to pass through the city I don’t know. We must find out when we get there.”
“I heard in the town that to-day is market-day in Ortojuk,” said Paschics, “so that the place will be full of peasants from the country round.”
“But we have seen no one coming from here.”
“No, sir; they left early in the morning. But we are sure to fall in with some coming from the more distant villages, and arriving later, and we must mingle with them, and so slip into the city.”
“Good; we will divide our party when we get a little nearer, so that there may be a chance that some of us, at least, may get through. Now, ladies, we will start, if you please.”
He took the little King in his arms, and they walked on resolutely and almost in silence for nearly two hours. The Queen was flagging painfully towards the end of the time; but she would have died rather than complain after the words Cyril had addressed to her, and she even objected when he called a halt on a grassy bank opposite the point at which a by-path joined the main road. He took no notice of her remark, however.
“We will join the next company of peasants that comes along,” he said, as Paschics distributed a meagre lunch from the food he had brought, “but we must divide. Remember that we are peasants from one of the mountain villages across the river, and have been to Tatarjé on a pilgrimage to the tomb of St Gabriel. Our aim on reaching the town is to get through it as quickly as possible, and cross the river; but we must meet at a spot near the bridge, and reconnoitre before venturing upon it. It is almost certain to be watched, and once upon it there would be no hope of escape.”
“Except the river!” said the Queen, the wild look returning to her eyes.
“Madame!” said Cyril reprovingly. “If your Majesty will leave the choice to me, I should prefer a boat. But as regards the order of our progress, I think that you, Fräulein, should go first, carrying his Majesty, and keeping his face hidden as far as possible. Paschics shall follow, not looking as though he had any connection with you, but ready in case you find yourself in any difficulty. The Queen and I will come last.”
“No!” cried the Queen, “I will not be separated from my boy. Why should Sophie carry him? It is my place, and I will do it.”
“Madame, it is impossible,” returned Cyril, not unsympathising, but unmoved. “You have been photographed so often holding his Majesty in your arms, and the photographs are so well known throughout the country, that the juxtaposition of the two faces would attract notice at once, and that would mean instant discovery. You must allow Fräulein von Staubach to take this post of honour, and remember that your own name is Anna, and that you are unfortunately dumb.”
The Queen subsided into instant silence, and Fräulein von Staubach and Paschics, at Cyril’s suggestion, moved farther along the bank, that they might not all appear to belong to the same party. He had heard the voices and laughter of a band of peasants as they came along the by-lane, and presently they emerged into the road, and took the direction of Ortojuk. It was evident that contingents from several villages were present, for they were divided into four or five parties, each of which kept religiously to itself, and discussed its own subjects of interest, the men in front and the women behind. Fräulein von Staubach, with the little King in her arms, found a welcome among the women of the first party, Paschics slouched with the gait of the professional vagrant into the ranks of the men of another, and Cyril and the Queen, rising slowly and painfully, as though scarcely able to walk any farther, found a place in the last. Cyril knew the temper of the Thracians too well to expect to be greeted with curiosity or even interest. One or two languid questions were put to him as to his starting-point and his destination; but the announcement that his home lay across the river chilled any semblance of friendliness that might otherwise have been forthcoming, and his companions returned to the discussion of their own village politics without paying any attention to his presence. The women behind were more inquisitive, and Cyril could hear them questioning the Queen. What was her name? where did she live? had she any children? was her husband kind to her?—questions to all of which she answered by shaking her head and pointing to her tongue. Then the women drew away from her, and whispered together, and again some of their words were audible to Cyril. Dumb, poor thing! and apparently deaf too. No wonder she seemed sad! And besides, it was quite clear that her husband beat her. Cyril wondered vainly from what premisses they deduced this inference; but there was no doubt that it seemed to satisfy them.
After another hour’s walking the walls and cupolas of Ortojuk came in sight, and Cyril felt an involuntary tightening of the throat as the band of peasants approached the gate. The guards gave them a very cursory inspection, however, being chiefly interested in inquiring whether they had passed or met on the road a posting-carriage containing some English travellers, who were said to be escaped criminals, and to have succeeded in eluding justice wonderfully hitherto. Cyril recognised the hand of the sub-prefect in this piece of intelligence, and it caused him additional uneasiness to remember that the official was probably in the town at this moment; but there was no opportunity for deliberation now. The sole way of escape lay through Ortojuk and across the river, and to pause or turn back was to be lost. He pushed his way through the gate with the rest, made sure that the Queen was close behind him, and submitted to be swept along in the company of his peasant-friends towards the market-place in the middle of the town, on the opposite side of which lay the streets leading down to the river.
It was now considerably past noon, and as many people were leaving the market as entering it; but the sellers, who had been disposed to take things easily and eat their dinners, were stimulated by the arrival of the fresh band of customers, and prepared to seize upon them with effusion. The company of peasants divided on reaching the market-place, each man seeking the special row of stalls of which the contents interested him most, while Cyril and the Queen pressed on across the open space in the midst, which had been used earlier in the day as a horse-fair, in the wake of a few earnest souls who desired first of all to perform their devotions at the great church on the opposite side. Some way in front of him Cyril could see the hat which Paschics was wearing, conspicuous among the caps of the other men and the handkerchiefs of the women, and he breathed more freely, for it seemed as though the first danger of Ortojuk were already past. But his joy was premature. From the direction of the municipal buildings, which lay close to the church, but at right angles with it, came three men on horseback, pushing their way roughly through the crowd, and he recognised them immediately as the sub-prefect and his two ragged followers. He had barely time to reflect that the sub-prefect was still searching for English travellers, and was looking far too glum to have met with any success in his efforts as yet, when the official rose in his stirrups and looked over the people’s heads. Whether it was that he regarded any wearer of a hat as a suspicious person, or that he actually recognised that which Paschics had on, he shouted to the crowd to make way, and riding up behind Paschics, tapped him smartly on the shoulder, asking him some trivial question at the same time. Involuntarily Paschics looked round and up at his questioner, who uttered an exclamation of delight.
“It is the courier who was with the English!” he said to his henchmen. “Arrest him instantly, and bring him before the mayor for examination.”
There was a wild rush to the spot on the part of the crowd, and as the people swayed hither and thither, Cyril caught a momentary glimpse of Fräulein von Staubach, with the child still in her arms, disappearing down the street next the church, which he had pointed out to her on the map as the nearest way to the river, without even turning her head to ascertain the cause of the commotion. He blessed her for the stolidity or presence of mind which had made her obey him so implicitly; but the next moment he was recalled to the perils of the position by feeling the Queen’s agonised grasp on his arm. Even now she remembered her part sufficiently not to attempt to speak, but her tortured eyes gazed into his in mute anguish.
“Maria and Sascha are safe,” he said to her, not venturing to use any other language than Thracian, lest the unwonted accents should attract the notice of the crowd, but trusting that she would be reassured by the tone, “but Nicolai is taken.”
Her grip on his arm relaxed, but she still held convulsively to his coat as he thrust himself into the crowd, battling apparently to gain a front place, but in reality to force his way across the market-place. There could be no safety or shelter until they had gained the narrow streets again. After a few moments, his struggles brought him fairly near the prisoner and his guards, and he heard Paschics protesting vigorously against his arrest, in scraps of various languages. But his words were not all those of protest.
“It is an infamy, an outrage! I will complain to the Italian Minister!Don’t stay here; go on, and never mind me.” This was in English. “By what right is a peaceable Italian citizen arrested when he has done no harm?Get out of the city, and into the mountains; go quickly. You shall pay finely for this!Save them now; it is your only chance. Oh, you dogs of Thracians, you shall see what will happen!”
He was dragged away, shouting as he went, and Cyril, obeying his injunctions, broke through the crowd, and hurried across the rest of the market-place, the Queen still clinging to him. It was impossible now to reach the street down which Fräulein von Staubach had disappeared, and they turned down another and hurried along, Cyril revolving in his mind the route they must take in order to reach the river.
“Wemust go this way in order to get back to our proper road,” said Cyril in a low voice, as they reached a street running at right angles to that in which they were, and they walked briskly along it for some little distance. Presently, as they passed the end of another street leading from the market-place, they met a crowd of people, talking loud and eagerly.
“He says they must be somewhere in the town, and all the inns are to be visited.” “They say that if they are not discovered in that way no one who cannot produce his credentials will be allowed to leave the city.” “The search is beginning already, I hear.”
Looking towards the market-place, Cyril caught sight again of the forms of the three horsemen. He knew that the Queen and he could not be distinguishable in the crowd at this distance; but if the sub-prefect should come up and question them, his suspicious eyes could not fail to recognise the English lady of the previous day. The threat of closing the gates was serious enough; but the danger of the moment was so pressing as to exclude any thought of the future. Cyril led the way a little longer in the direction they had been taking, then turned sharply down a narrow back-street, silent and deserted. Just as they entered it, the sound of horses’ feet became audible in the street they had that moment left, and the Queen turned pale again, and clung to Cyril’s arm. She had not understood the words of the crowd; but she had seen the sub-prefect and his followers, and knew that their appearance boded no good.
“Keep up!” whispered Cyril; “they may not come down here, or we may find a doorway or an empty house to hide in. There is a gate open in that wall. Come on quickly.”
But the gateway to which they hastened was that of a stonemason’s yard, and the dazzling array of tombstones and obelisks afforded no chance of concealment. Moreover, the sounds of conversation near at hand showed them that the proprietor and his men were sitting in the sun on the inner side of the wall eating their dinner, and it was impossible to confide in them. But the sound of the horses’ feet was now close upon them. Once let them turn that corner, and—Cyril paused and glanced into the Queen’s white face, and an idea came to him suddenly. The rickety old gate which had first attracted his notice, and which opened outwards into the street, was swaying and creaking on its hinges in the light spring breeze. He pulled it forward, pushed the Queen into the angle of the wall behind it, followed her himself, and pulling the gate back again, held it fast with all the strength he could command. Scarcely had they taken their stand when they heard the horsemen turn the corner and ride down the street. The Queen’s hand gripped Cyril’s with a painful pressure, but neither of them uttered a sound. There was a poster on the gate in front of them, evidently fastened up in the early morning, before the yard was opened, and Cyril’s eyes studied it without his understanding a word of what it contained, while his ears were occupied in listening to the enemy without. They came past the hiding-place, looked in at the yard, and called out to the proprietor to know whether he had seen any strangers about, then rode on, knocking now and then at the door of a house, and questioning the inmates. Then the sounds of their horses’ feet died gradually away, and Cyril ventured to push the gate forward a little and look out cautiously in the direction they had taken. There was no sign of them, and although there was a danger of their returning, it was all-important to reach the river as soon as possible, and the fugitives quitted their place of refuge and pursued their way; but not before Cyril had realised that the bill posted on the gate contained offers of reward to any one who should kill or capture the abductors of the King, and that it purported to be signed by the Queen, Bishop Philaret, and the Mayor of Tatarjé.
“When this is all over, and we are safe again, I shall buy that yard, and build a memorial church there,” said the Queen, a little hysterically.
“A most laudable resolution, madame; but at present, permit me to remind you, we are very far from safe, especially when a presumably dumb lady speaks German in a hostile town.”
Much confused, she followed him in silence, and they penetrated through several winding lanes until they came out on the banks of the river. The first sight that greeted their eyes was the comfortable form of Fräulein von Staubach, sitting at her ease on a heap of planks, with the little King asleep in her arms; the next, the bridge, a short distance to their right, with a strong body of soldiers guarding its approaches. Several peasant families, coming from the market-place and wishing to cross, were turned back, and at last Cyril approached the man who seemed to be the head of one of them, and asked what the difficulty was.
“They will let no one cross without a passport,” replied the man, “and as, of course, mine is at home, I have to go and look for the headman of our village, who travelled to town with us this morning, to come and identify us as belonging to the commune before we can cross.”
He passed on, and Cyril meditated upon this unwelcome intelligence. The passport which he had drawn up at Tatarjé, and which had been countersigned by the sub-prefect, would naturally, under present circumstances, be worse than useless, and he had buried it in the wood with the other things abandoned in the morning; but now it appeared that without a passport, and with no one to testify to their identity, or rather to disown it, he and his charges would be in a position every whit as bad as if the compromising document were still in their possession. It was clearly out of the question to attempt to cross the river by means of the bridge, and he began to wander down the bank, followed at a short distance by the Queen and Fräulein von Staubach, examining the boats that were moored there. Most of them were empty and untenanted, and for a moment the thought crossed his mind of stealing one and escaping in it; but he reflected quickly that it was unlikely such an easy means of evasion should have been left unguarded, and that so larcenous an attempt would only precipitate the catastrophe he dreaded. It was necessary, then, to turn to the boats with people on board, in the hope that it might be possible to arrange the terms of a passage. After passing several craft in review, Cyril stopped before a boat loaded with bales of flax, on the deck of which a shock-headed elderly man was walking up and down and talking angrily to himself.
“Do you want a hand with your boat, father?” Cyril asked him politely; but the politeness appeared to be wasted.
“No, young man, I don’t,” was the snappish answer. “Do you think after I have brought this load of flax down the river for the merchant Alexandrovics, only to be told by that dog of a Jew his clerk that I have mistaken the day, and that it was next market-day he meant, that I am likely to be able to waste money in hiring help?”
“But surely it will be a hard pull against the stream if you have to take it back?”
“Of course it will; but that is nothing compared with losing a whole day and having nothing to show for it. At any rate, it is a comfort that I would not allow my son to leave his work on the farm when he offered to come and help me, though it will be hard enough with the loaded boat.”
“But why not land the flax and leave it at the merchant’s house?”
“And find next week that half the bales were under weight, and that the flax in the rest had been filled with stones and mud by that Jew thief? A plague on these Jews! It is they who have kidnapped the King, and his mother knows it. Birds of a feather flock together. You know that she is secretly a Jewess?”
“The Queen? No?” replied Cyril, with as stupid an expression of wonder as he could command. But his surprise seemed to offend the old man.
“Where have you been living, not to know that? And now, young man, you can be off. I have no time to waste in talking to you.”
“I thought you might be willing to put us across the river for a piastre or two,” said Cyril sadly, jingling the coins in his girdle.
“Put you across? Why didn’t you say so at once, instead of talking nonsense about helping? But what’s wrong that you don’t cross by the bridge?”
“The soldiers are making some fuss about passports, and we have none. Who would take passports on a pilgrimage, to get them stolen? And there is no one from our village to testify to our identity; but if you took us on board you would be able to say that we were respectable people.”
“And how am I to know you are respectable people?”
“If you found us prepared to pay you a certain sum for putting us across, surely that would show we were respectable?”
“Ah!” cunningly; “that would depend upon the sum. How much?”
“Five piastres,” said Cyril, with the air of one making a tremendous offer. The sum named was somewhat under a shilling.
“Fifteen,” replied the man in possession, promptly.
“Ten,” said Cyril, with a lack of resolution which was quickly seen through.
“I can’t do it under fifteen,” was the reply.
“Eleven—twelve—thirteen,” counted Cyril, in a voice of despair. “That is my last piastre. We must look for some one else.”
“No, I’ll do it for that, since you are on pilgrimage,” cried the old man, as the would-be passengers turned away. “But you must lend a hand with the oars, and I can’t put you ashore at the bridge-end, for there is a danger of smashing the boat against the piers. You must land higher up.”
“That’s all right. Our road runs alongside the river for some distance,” returned Cyril. “Are you starting now, or is there time to buy some food?”
“Do you expect me to waste an hour while you go shopping, young man? Get on board at once, or lose your money. You have something left then, have you?”
“Only a few paras.” The para is about the twenty-fifth part of the piastre. “You don’t want to take our last copper?”
“No; but I would have sold you some bread if I hadn’t eaten all I brought with me, and I would have given you more for your money than you would get in any of the town shops.”
“You are not such a bad hand at a bargain yourself,” said Cyril morosely, as he helped the women on board, and the host began to loosen the rope by which the boat was moored.
“I shouldn’t do much business if I was,” was the dry answer. “Now what are those fellows shouting about? I knew they would come and interfere as soon as an honest man who has done no business all day tries to get home.”
The persons alluded to were three or four of the soldiers from the bridge, who came rushing down to the bank when they saw the preparations for the departure of the boat.
“Your names, all of you? and your village?” cried one of them, breathlessly. The owner of the boat drew himself up.
“My name and village you can see painted there, if you can read, Mr Soldier,” he replied; “and I should like to know why I should be catechised because I allow my son and his wife and child and his wife’s aunt to find seats on the flax there?”
“You are sure of their identity?” pursued the questioner, rather confused.
“Sure? My good young man, I think you must have been visiting the tavern too often lately to ask me such a question. Do you think I don’t know my own son, and daughter-in-law, and grandson, and—and sister-in-law? If you have come here to insult honest farmers, I’ll complain to the magistrates.”
“All right,” the soldier explained hastily. “It’s only a form; but we were ordered not to let any one pass without it. Good-bye, father, and your son, and your daughter-in-law, and your grandson,andyour great-grandmother’s cousin’s aunt, good-bye!”
“Thracia is going to ruin,” observed the farmer solemnly to Cyril, as they got out the oars, “when any young jackanapes in uniform thinks he can make fun of a man old enough to be his grandfather. Move out of the way, young woman.” It was the Queen whom he addressed, and she turned mutely and pointed to her tongue. He looked at her with something like disgust.
“He wants you to move to the next bale, Anna,” said Cyril, in Thracian, but with an imperative gesture which she understood and obeyed.
“Dumb, is she?” grunted the old man. “Is she deaf as well?”
“She can understand me, as you see,” returned Cyril; “but I doubt whether you could make her hear.”
“How do you make her understand?”
“How does one make a dog understand?” asked Cyril, and the farmer laughed brutally.
“Boy dumb too?” he asked.
“Not a bit of it; only asleep. I would wake him up and let you hear how he can talk, but that he is tired and would be troublesome.”
The old man laughed again, and they rowed on in silence for a time. Then he said suddenly, “If you have been on pilgrimage, I suppose you saw the tomb of St Gabriel at Tatarjé? What is it like?”
“Of course we saw it,” returned Cyril indignantly, and he began to describe the shrine, which he and the other members of the Court had visited as the only show-place in Tatarjé. But his hearer’s attention wandered.
“What did you want to takeheron pilgrimage for?” he asked, jerking his head towards the Queen. “Did it do her any good?”
“It hasn’t given her a voice, as you see. But the fact was, I wanted to take the boy, and he can’t look after himself. Besides, she wanted to come.”
“Ah, you don’t know how to manage a wife. The idea of letting a woman go anywhere because she wished it!” and the old man turned chuckling to his oars again, and chuckled until the boat arrived at the opposite bank.
“Now then, young man, out you go, and your relations too,” he said.
“Don’t you mean to take us any farther?” asked Cyril, in a tone of dire dismay.
“For thirteen piastres? No, my son. If you could make up the fifteen, now——”
But Cyril shook his head, and began to make fast the boat, preparatory to helping his charges to land. They would walk along the bank for a little, in order to throw the old man off the scent; but it was not worth while to run an additional risk for the sake of hoodwinking him further.
“I say!” cried their late host, as he pushed the boat off again, “surely you don’t carry your own parcels when you’ve got your wife with you?”
“How could I do anything but carry the bundle in the town, when she was gaping and staring about so that I knew she would drop it or let it be stolen?” returned Cyril sullenly. “Here, Anna, make yourself useful,” and he handed the parcel of rugs to the Queen. She gave him a look of astonished reproach, which he answered by a frown intended to counsel prudence. The old man, who had caught her expression but not his, laughed loudly.
“Lazy!” he cried. “After all, my son, I see that there is some advantage in having a dumb wife. If yours had possessed a tongue, you would certainly be making acquaintance with the rough side of it at this moment. But you and I know that there is nothing like a good thick stick for all of them—is there?”
“He is a detestable old man,” said Fräulein von Staubach to Cyril in a low voice, as they walked along the bank, the farmer’s loud chuckles still reaching them faintly across the water; “but I am sorry you thought it well to deceive him about the money. It would have been much pleasanter to go a little farther in the boat.”
“But I assure you there was no deception,” returned Cyril. “That was absolutely my last piastre. It is true that I have some gold; but if I had let him see it he would have been convinced at once that we were no better than we should be. And as for going farther in the boat, it would only have been waste of time. As soon as we are out of sight of our friend, we will turn off into the hills, and look for the charcoal-burner’s glen.”
But it was some time before this was possible, for the road ran parallel with the river, and every now and then their late host rested on his oars for a minute to take breath, and shouted some remark to Cyril. It was evident that he would have liked his help again in rowing, although he would not confess it, and was trying to tempt him to produce some hidden store of coin out of which to pay for a longer passage. But at length the bank became steep and rocky, and the road turned more inland, and Cyril waved farewell joyfully to the old man, and took a furtive look at the map to ascertain the right course. But the road was so completely deserted that he might have spread out the map and consulted it for an hour without danger, and he turned to relieve the Queen of the burden she had been carrying.
“We will return to the path we passed a little way back, madame. So far as I can make out, it leads just in the direction we wish to take. Permit me to carry the rugs.”
But to his surprise she looked him full in the face without a word, and declined to give up the bundle. Thinking that she wished him to relieve Fräulein von Staubach, he held out his arms for the little King, who allowed himself to be transferred from one bearer to the other without even waking. Going on in advance to find the path, Cyril turned to wait for the ladies, and observed in astonishment that the Queen was still carrying the rugs, in spite of all Fräulein von Staubach’s attempts to get possession of the bundle. Moreover, she still refused to speak, and Cyril led the way up the hill in silence, deciding in his own mind that she had taken it into her head to feel angry at being supposed to be dumb, and was trying to punish him by keeping up the pretence when it was no longer necessary.
The path led on and on, first uphill and then down, through patches of forest in sheltered spots and again over bare uplands; and still Cyril kept on his way, with occasional halts for the purpose of consulting the map, and still the Queen toiled on with the great bundle in her arms, although she could scarcely drag one foot after the other for weariness. Cyril was provoked by her obstinacy, and determined not to make any further advances. If she chose to behave like a sulky child, and punish herself, she should be allowed to do so. It was growing dusk by this time, and when the path led down into a wood larger than any they had passed hitherto, the trees overhead made it almost dark; but Cyril’s spirits rose, for he knew that they must be approaching the charcoal-burner’s hut. Coming to a spot where the fall of an old tree had brought down two or three others with it, making a little break in the blackness overhead, he advised the ladies to sit down and rest, while he went on to reconnoitre. There was no reason to suspect the loyalty of old Minics, since Paschics had declared him worthy of trust; but it was just possible that he might have visitors, whose discretion could not be so comfortably relied upon.
Still following the path, which was now barely distinguishable, Cyril came out at last on the edge of a cleared space, sloping down to a small lake. Close in front of him was a hut built rudely of logs and branches, and before it a large fire, beside which an old man was sitting with his dog. As he came forward, they both rose and looked at him, the dog suspiciously, the man with a good deal of interest.
“You are Yosip Minics, I think?” asked Cyril. “We are travellers who have been recommended to your kindness by your cousin’s son, Lyof Paschics.”
The old man nodded. “I have been looking out for you,” he said. “I went down into Ortojuk this morning to buy my week’s supplies, and I had word by a sure hand that Lyof might be here soon wanting help. When I heard what they were all saying in the town about the King, I knew what the message meant,” and he glanced not unkindly at King Michael, who, awakened by the voices, was now almost overbalancing himself in his efforts to reach down and pat the dog.
“But what do you know about us?”
“Only this,” and the charcoal-burner brought out a dirty envelope from his hut, and held the stamp towards Cyril in the firelight. “One can’t very well go wrong when his Majesty’s portrait is so close at hand, can one?”
“You certainly have an advantage there,” said Cyril with a laugh. “It’s a good thing for us that other people haven’t thought of it.”
“Oh, I had my message from Lyof’s mother to help me, you see. But what have you done with the lad?”
“I am sorry to say he was arrested in Ortojuk this afternoon.”
“But the royal party are safe? That is all right, then. He has done his duty, and God and the saints will see that he comes to no harm. But put the child down on this wolfskin here—I will look after him—and fetch the women. They are not far off, I suppose?”
“No, I will go back for them,” and Cyril retraced his steps, wondering the less, now that he had seen this shrewd and kindly old man, at the curious conditions of Thracian life, which had given Paschics a relative so low down in the social scale. But as he approached the spot where he had left the ladies, he forgot all about the charcoal-burner, for he could distinctly hear the Queen sobbing, and Fräulein von Staubach trying to comfort her in German. His first thought was that they had been tracked by the enemy and taken prisoners; but almost at the same moment he saw that there was no one there but themselves.
“I fear that you have been alarmed, madame,” he said, hurrying forward; “but I assure you that I have not been longer than I could help. The charcoal-burner is most willing to shelter and help us, and I have left the King in his charge while I came back for you.”
“I have not been alarmed,” said the Queen, rising stiffly. “Give me that bundle of rugs, if you please; I prefer to carry it.”
“Unhappily it is already bespoken, madame. May I be permitted——?”
He offered his arm to assist her, but she drew herself away. “I wish to carry the rugs,” she repeated, but her voice failed her.
“Madame!” said Fräulein von Staubach, imploringly.
“Be quiet, Sophie. I know that it is my own fault. I have placed myself in a false and degrading position, and Count Mortimer takes advantage of it to humiliate me.”
“Madame!” protested the maligned Cyril, in utter astonishment.
“You know it is true. You rejoiced when you ordered me, in the presence of that horrible old man, to carry the bundle.”
“You must know that it was merely to avert suspicion, madame.”
“It was not. You were repaying to me all the humiliations I have ever inflicted upon you. I saw it in your eyes.”
“Upon my honour, madame, the step was more painful to me than to your Majesty, but it was necessary to save the situation.”
“At my expense. Oh, I have put myself into your power, Count, I know that. But I did not expect——”
Her voice failed again, and Fräulein von Staubach cast a beseeching glance at Cyril, to which he responded instantly:
“If I may not have the honour of assisting you, madame, I will fetch the charcoal-burner; but you cannot stay here all night. Old Minics is rather grimy, but if you prefer his help to mine——”
Without a word the Queen took his arm, and he piloted her the rest of the way. Once arrived at the hut, she was too much exhausted to do more than partake of the soup and black bread which the host had prepared, and then sit leaning against the wall of the hut while Fräulein von Staubach made the best she could, with the aid of the rugs, of the primitive arrangements for the night. When the little King had been carried indoors, and the two ladies had also retired, Cyril and his host sat outside by the fire, smoking. The charcoal-burner had accepted, out of politeness, one of his guest’s cigars; but it was evident that he preferred his own clay pipe and coarse tobacco, to which he betook himself with zest as soon as he had finished it. Under ordinary circumstances, Cyril would have welcomed this divergence of tastes, since his remaining cigars were now very few in number; but to-night he felt too much depressed to be comforted even by tobacco, and he smoked on moodily until a hand was laid upon his shoulder, and he turned to find Fräulein von Staubach stooping over him.
“I wanted to ask you whether you were intending that we should continue our journey to-morrow, Count?” she said.
“I had thought of it, Fräulein; but you must surely know that I should not venture to recommend any plan of my own in opposition to the slightest wish of her Majesty. Her knowledge of affairs——”
“You are piqued, Count, and you speak with unnecessary sarcasm. Her Majesty is asleep, and has no idea that I am consulting you; but the fact is that she is quite incapable of performing a farther march without rest. Her feet are so fearfully blistered that I cannot imagine how she succeeded in getting here at all. Every step must have been agony to her.”
“It would be quite possible to rest to-morrow, Fräulein. The people would have more leisure to stare at us if we travelled on Sunday, and we might find it difficult to obtain food. By all means inform her Majesty that you will not leave the valley until Monday morning.”
“You speak as though you were intending to abandon us, Count.”
“I hope that the abandonment will be only a temporary one, Fräulein; but I fear that her Majesty would derive little benefit from her day of rest if I were in the neighbourhood.”
“Then what do you propose to do?”
“Go out into the world—back to Ortojuk, perhaps—and see what is going on, and whether our schemes have been penetrated.”
“This is quite unnecessary, Count, and you know it. You are going wilfully into danger—exposing us to danger, even—because you cannot make allowances for her Majesty’s hasty words spoken in a moment of weariness.”
“Make allowances? I have been doing nothing else since I have been sitting here. I was a little surprised at the moment, I grant; but since then I have reflected that I was a fool not to expect just what I got. It is not my first experience of her Majesty’s gratitude, you will remember.”
“Count, you are cruelly unjust. Think of the trials which have beset the Queen since we left Tatarjé; of all the vicissitudes——”
“I have thought of them all, Fräulein. The only thing I had not expected was to be abused for what I had not done, and for that I was a fool, as I tell you. Are you not satisfied with that?”
“Satisfied, when every word you say brings an accusation against her Majesty? You are casting the blame on the woman, as the men always do.”
“May I ask whether you think I am the person to blame, Fräulein?”
Fräulein von Staubach appeared to find the question a hard one to answer, for it was some time before she said unwillingly, as she went back into the hut, “No, Count; you are not to blame, and certainly her Majesty is not. It is circumstances.”
“Circumstances!” muttered Cyril to himself somewhat later, as he crawled on hands and knees into the little lean-to which he had assisted old Minics to build as a kind of spare bedroom to his log mansion, and made himself as comfortable as he could on a couch of branches very imperfectly covered with a rug. “That is what the Baroness said—‘I am not afraid of either the Queen or you; but I am very much afraid of circumstances.’ How long ago was it—a hundred thousand years? Is it possible that it was only the night before last? It feels as if I had lived whole lifetimes since then—since she said she trusted me and would obey me. And a pretty farce it is! She will obey me when she likes, and when she doesn’t she tries to make me feel like a blackguard for giving her orders.”
He laughed angrily, and turned over on his unrestful bed. But sleep would not come to him, in spite of the fatigues of the day and the disturbed character of his last two nights. The Queen’s face floated before him—now white and terror-stricken, as when they had hidden behind the gate; now rosy and confused, as he had seen it when she had made some dangerous blunder; now lifted to his in eager interest, and again suffused with tears, as when he had come upon her in the wood,—never twice the same, and at no time strictly beautiful, perhaps, but always fascinating from its ever-changing play of expression.
“Her infinite variety!” he said to himself sarcastically, remembering the line he had once quoted to Drakovics with reference to her; “infinite fickleness, I call it—wish she would cultivate a good serviceable workaday frame of mind, and stay in it, for once. And why—why, when I have been bothered with her all day, I should want to be thinking of her all night, I don’t know——” He stretched himself vigorously, and came into such violent contact with one of the poles of the lean-to as almost to send the structure flying; then resigned himself to lying passive and watching the stars through the crevices of the roof. “I really could not be more taken up with her if I was in love with her. Why—well, and what if I am in love with her?”
“In love—and with her!” The idea was so ludicrous, and at the same time so unwelcome, that Cyril could not contemplate it lying down. He sat up, leaning against the supporting wall of the hut, and regardless of the risk of fire, lighted another cigar to calm his nerves, and thus fortified, prepared to face the situation. That he—he, Cyril Mortimer, of all men—should have fallen in love, and that with a lady who had not merely done her utmost to testify her dislike to him, but who could, and doubtless would, ruin his career with a ruthless hand if she should gain the slightest inkling of the state of his feelings, was too utterly absurd. It must be that he possessed a double personality, and one self loved the Queen, while the other not only perceived how fatal to all his chances in life such an attachment would be, but actually disliked, despised, and disapproved of Ernestine and all her doings. But—double personality or not—he was in love with her, and, so far as he could tell, for no earthly reason. This consideration was peculiarly trying to Cyril. As he had told Caerleon long ago, he had had many love-affairs, but to have called themaffaires du cœurwould have been a serious mistake. They were purelyaffaires de la tête, political or social speculations deliberately entered upon with an eye to the realisation of an underlying purpose. Cyril undertook them with the same zest that characterised him in his schemes of a more purely political nature, and enjoyed them fully, without once losing his head. The ladies concerned enjoyed them also, of course—such of them, at least, as understood that atendresse, and not agrande passion, was the utmost to be expected from him—and the affairs had never yet afforded occasion for scandal. Cyril was not the man to compromise any woman—and far less himself—unless he was playing for very high stakes indeed.
And now he was honestly in love—just as Caerleon had been! The thought was so exquisitely absurd that he laughed until the tears came into his eyes. No, not like Caerleon, very far from it. It had not been Caerleon’s misfortune to fall in love with his sovereign; his difficulty was just the other way about. And the avowal that his love was returned, the hope that one day he might call the loved one his own—these things, for which Caerleon had lived, Cyril did not even desire. If he should ever be so unfortunate as to come to desire them, it would be the signal for him to leave Thracia, and take his susceptible heart to some other country, where Queens were less attractive, or, at any rate, less given to demand knight-errantry from their followers. His susceptible heart!—the term in connection with himself struck him as so ridiculous that he began to picture himself as laying that heart at Ernestine’s feet. What would she do?—turn away from it in disgust, or take it up in her disdainful little hands and throw it down again, just for the pleasure of seeing it break? But that pleasure she should not enjoy. He could not secure his heart in his own keeping, it seemed; but at least he could prevent any one else from guessing that he had lost it. He smiled again as he thought how easy the task would be. There was not a man in the kingdom who would not be suspected of such folly before himself, not a man to whom the Queen was less likely to condescend by way of inspiring in him such dreams.
“I’ll go on,” he said to himself, “and so long as she treats me decently I’ll stay and look after her; but if she makes herself disagreeable I shall cut, and before I go I’ll tell her! That will punish her,” and happy in the thought, and also conscious that his cigar had gone out, he lay down again, and slept peacefully.
He did not wake until late in the morning; but the host was the only member of the party who was before him. He was busy making up the fire as Cyril went down to the lake for a hasty toilet, and received him with a friendly smile when he returned.
“Can you let me have a snack of some kind, Minics, before the ladies come out?” Cyril asked him. “I want to be off without their knowing it.”
“But where are you going?” asked the charcoal-burner.
“Out along the way we came yesterday, to reconnoitre.”
“But that is foolhardy,” said the old man solemnly.
“That is just how I feel—foolhardy—or perhaps restless, rather. But I don’t intend to run any risks. I shall stop on this side of the river and make sure that the soldiers are gone from the Ortojuk end of the bridge before I attempt to cross. If they are there still, I shall come back.”
“But what foolishness are you contemplating? You have some silly idea of gaining glory by running into danger.”
“I assure you that you were never more mistaken in your life. It is easy to see that you don’t know me, or you wouldn’t make such a suggestion. My errand is the very prosaic one of discovering whether we have been tracked across, or not. If I find that they think we are still on the other side, I shall venture on hiring a boat to-morrow, for the sake of the ladies, who are really unfit to walk. But if they are looking for us on this side, or along the river, walk we must.”
“Yes. I can show you a path across the hills, which is fairly safe, but very rough. Well, go and make your inquiries, my son. I wish I had something better than rye-bread and ewe-cheese to give you to take with you.”