CHAPTER III
Atthe announcement that the shabby man with the sparkling and speaking eyes and the soft and melodious voice was Frederick of Prussia, the greatest captain of the age, the two men concealed in the closet grew rigid with astonishment. They did not need his careless, but confirmatory nod to be convinced of his identity; but when he spoke it was to say:
“Yes, I am the King of Prussia. A great many people know me by sight—more do not. You are evidently one of the latter class.”
Madame Ziska remained standing respectfully, and answered Frederick’s last speech by saying:
“Your Majesty will not think me a flatterer when I say I knew from the moment you entered this room that you were no ordinary man.”
“And I knew,” said Frederick, with a faint smile, which transfigured his whole face, “that you were no ordinary woman when you faced half a dozen strange men as you did. I should like tohave a regiment of men as cool as you are. How they would stand fire! Pray be seated. War is a tiresome business,” he continued, after Madame Ziska had resumed her chair. “But it is my trade, and a man must work at his trade. However, I like my tools—my soldiers.” Then, throwing himself back in his chair, he kept on, as if merely thinking aloud. “I am like the bourgeois—of whom I have no great opinion—I am absorbed in my trade. Time was when I had tastes; now ’tis nothing but whether I can beat Prince Charles as I did Marshal Soubise the other day. I like the work less as time goes on; but I like other things less still.”
“You still like music, your Majesty.”
“How do you know that?”
Madame Ziska rose, and stepping lightly up to him, with the utmost grace and quickness drew the pieces of a flute out of the pocket of his surtout, and deftly screwed them together, evidently knowing all about it. Then, putting the flute to her rosy lips, she played a little French air, to which Frederick listened enraptured.
“Ah!” he cried; “that carries me back to my peaceful days at Ruppin, when my flute was my only company for days together.”
Madame Ziska, seeing that she had found something in which he was interested, went to the harpsichord, and seating herself, sang a French song in a sweet, agreeable voice.
Frederick was charmed.
“Madame, have you any other accomplishments?” he cried. “I have not sunk so far into the savage as I thought, if music can still give me such pleasure.”
Madame Ziska hesitated, a roguish smile playing over her face.
“Did your Majesty say you played the little air I tried just now on the flute?”
“Yes, yes. My sister, the Margravine of Baireuth, first taught it to me, and accompanied me on the harpsichord.”
He seized the flute and began playing, and Madame Ziska, with the greatest coolness in the world, picking up her skirts, executed apas de seulthat was a wonder of skill and grace. The intricacy of her steps was marvellous; she sprung into the air and alighted on the point of her toe, and then spun around with dazzling dexterity; her arms, used with exquisite effect, seemed to have the power of wings to support her; but when, with a final bound and a sinking to the floor, and risingwith consummate grace, she was about to conclude her dance, a knock came at the door. Madame Ziska, with lightning quickness, seated herself demurely, while the King, not to be behindhand, put his flute behind him, and called out petulantly:
“Come in.”
An officer entered and, saluting, said:
“Did your Majesty call?”
“No,” tartly responded the King. “Did you not hear me playing on my flute? A man must have some recreation, and because I do not puff smoke by the hour, nor gamble, nor make a beast of myself with wine, I am not thereby without tastes.”
The officer was so taken aback by this onslaught that he hastily closed the door.
The effect of Madame Ziska’s dance was not less electrifying to the two men in the closet than on the King. St. Arnaud was somewhat surprised, but Gavin’s eyes were nearly starting out of his head, and St. Arnaud could scarcely keep from laughing, although a laugh then would have cost him his life.
“There, madame!” said Frederick, when the officer had hastily shut the door. “You see one of the disadvantages of my calling. It would not surprise my military family in the least if I wereto be guilty of crimes and call them amusements; but that I should occasionally play the flute never fails to astonish them. Bah! But tell me this,” he resumed, as Madame Ziska, panting after her exercise, fanned herself. “How comes it that a woman who dances in a manner worthy of the Grand Opera at Paris should speak so well? Pardon my bluntness; I have fallen into it, because the women I see are chiefly court ladies who never would have done talking, when once they begun, if I did not use a littlebrusqueriewith them occasionally.”
Madame Ziska laughed a singularly pleasant and honest laugh. “I do myself not know,” she replied, “except that as soon as I learned to read I wished to put it to practice. I come of the very bourgeoisie you were abusing just now; but circumstances placed me with a certain person in particular who was above me in station and highly educated, and, naturally, I strove to raise myself to a higher level than a mere dancer.”
“Humph! Where are you going now?”
“I am on my way to Vienna. Your Majesty has fluted so to the Austrians and French that they are always dancing—but not of my kind. And I am going where I can find people who will think ofsome one else than your Majesty long enough to let a poor artist make a living.”
“You may see the Empress Queen at Vienna, but not exactly as you see me—ha! ha! However, I will give you some tangible proof that you have seen me.”
He fumbled in his pockets and brought out a plain silver snuff-box with the royal cipher on it. Then taking a penknife from his pocket, he scratched on the lid, “Frédéric,” adding: “I, and only I, so write my name.”
Madame Ziska’s conduct on receiving this was quite different from what might have been expected from her previous debonair behaviour. Her eyes filled with tears, and she clasped her hands in gratitude.
Within the closet, St. Arnaud and Gavin remained breathless and noiseless as they thought. But those clear, limpid eyes of Frederick’s saw more than was apparent. He rose and, carelessly approaching the door, raised the hilt of his sword, and bringing it down with a thundering crash, the glass door was shivered, the green silk torn apart, and the two French officers stood revealed.
Gavin Hamilton thought afterward: “There is something in being trained as an officer, after all,”for, although as brave a man as St. Arnaud, he involuntarily shrunk back into the closet when discovered; but St. Arnaud, deliberately stepping out, bowed to the ground and said with the utmost suavity:
“Thanks, your Majesty. It was warm in there; but we did not think of breaking the glass for air!”
At this Frederick burst into a hearty laugh; the coolness of St. Arnaud amused him. Madame Ziska turned pale, but at the King’s ringing laugh she recovered herself, and said, smiling roguishly:
“We are three to one, but we will spare your Majesty!”
Frederick laughed again at this, and seeing Gavin still trying to make himself small against the wall of the closet, the King leant in, and taking him by the collar, dragged him out, Gavin looking very sheepish and blushing furiously. And then the great King and the French officer, the private soldier and the dancer all laughed together.
“Madame and messieurs,” cried Frederick, “you may claim each to have conferred a great favour on the King of Prussia; for I tell you I have not laughed so heartily this year. I thought I had forgotten how. Nor did I ever take a prisonerbefore with my own hand; and, gentlemen, each one of you is more than a match for me, and a younger man beside.”
“Your Majesty has reason to boast of your prowess,” returned St. Arnaud, while Gavin, suddenly remembering that he must act up to his character as an officer, said with the utmost naturalness:
“Sire, if only I had kept my wits about me, I would have knocked your Majesty down and jumped out of the window. But I never spoke with a king before, and I was so taken aback—faith! a baby might have captured me.”
“Don’t try the window, my fine fellow,” said Frederick gayly, but with a warning note in his voice; “you do not suppose I am here without any escort? The fact is, however, I did not think there was a Frenchman or an Austrian in a hundred miles. What is your name and rank?” to St. Arnaud.
“Captain St. Arnaud, of the regiment of Dufour, and this is Sublieutenant Hamilton” (which he pronounced no better than Gavin) “of my regiment. We have been running away from you ever since Rosbach, and now, presto! you catch us like a couple of chickens in a barnyard.”
THE KING DRAGGED GAVIN OUT OF THE CLOSET
THE KING DRAGGED GAVIN OUT OF THE CLOSET
“And I broke up your little evening party with this lady. I suspected her of being a spy, but she charmed me so with her music and dancing that I forgot to ask her a word, and gave her the only thing of value I had about me—my snuff-box. But I must let my staff know that, single-handed, I captured a couple of tall Frenchmen.” Then calling loudly in his clear, musical voice “Steiner!” a young officer opened the door as quickly as if he had sprung from the ground. When he saw St. Arnaud and Gavin he started with amazement.
“Taken with my own hand,” said Frederick with a wave of his arm. “My compliments to the chief and the other gentlemen of my staff, and say I will not rejoin them to-night, but I shall be ready to start at daylight in the morning, and to keep a good lookout. There may be more than two Frenchmen about. You, Steiner, I will have to attend me; and keep the others well off in the other part of the house. We may have a little music while the rest are having their pipes and beer. And bring my writing-desk with you; I shall have work to do presently.”
Steiner disappeared, and Madame Ziska, St. Arnaud, and Gavin, as if realizing that they werein the presence of the greatest king of his age, remained silent and standing.
“Pray be seated,” said Frederick, with the charming manner he possessed, but did not always use. “It is not often I have either leisure or pleasure—the business of being a king requires a man to work like a galley-slave—but to-night I will indulge myself. I will imagine myself as I was twenty years ago, when, so far from fighting the French, I loved all that was French. Come, Madame, one more song.”
Madame Ziska rose, and going to the harpsichord, sang a little French chansonnette. Frederick seemed delighted with it. As he truly said, it was as if he had gone back twenty years, when music and literature made up his life, and the future great captain was the gentle and studious Crown Prince.
“And he sings,” said Madame Ziska, pointing to St. Arnaud as she rose.
In obedience to a look from Frederick, St. Arnaud went to the harpsichord and sang; and then it was Steiner’s turn, who roared out a German drinking song. Unlike the rest, Steiner was not at his ease before his King, although he tried hard to assume the air of unembarrassed gayety whichprevailed among the rest. But it was not a great success. He knew the King too well to suppose that the graceful abandon of any evening spent in unexpectedly novel and agreeable company was a fair sample of his usual moods and methods. The rest, though, naturally pleased themselves with the notion that they would be extremely favoured by the King. Madame Ziska had already received a valuable mark of his good-will in the silver snuff-box, and expected to be sent rejoicing upon her journey. Gavin’s visions were so brilliant that he almost came to regard their capture as a lucky accident. He kept thinking to himself: “Yesterday I was a private soldier. To-night I sit with a king. Surely, that means a turn of good fortune.”
St. Arnaud, who knew more of kings than any of them, was not so sanguine, but even he would rather have been taken prisoner by Frederick than any other man in the Prussian army.
The evening passed delightfully. Frederick seemed to return to his early love for the French, and nothing could exceed the grace of his allusions to “my brother of France,” French literature, art, and all that pertained to them. The extent and variety of his information were extraordinary, and the charm of his voice and manner could not havebeen excelled. Gavin had the good sense to remain in the background; Madame Ziska’s manner, of respect, without obsequiousness, was as perfect as St. Arnaud’s, who had learned many things at courts. At last one o’clock came. The King, looking at his watch, rose, and Madame Ziska, immediately taking the hint, left the room. The King said: “It is time to go to work,” and Steiner picked up the writing-desk and prepared to move. “The worst of pleasant things is their ending. This room is yours gentlemen, for the night; and, as you see, you will have company outside the window and in the corridors. And I am prepared to accept your parole.”
An awkward silence ensued. Both Gavin and St. Arnaud remembered at the same moment that Gavin, not being an officer, was not entitled to his parole; while there were so few Prussian officers, if any, in the hands of the French, that St. Arnaud’s exchange would be a matter of time and difficulty. After a moment he said, with a profound bow:
“I am much indebted to your Majesty, but I prefer to take my chances as a prisoner of war.”
Gavin, who had determined to do as St. Arnaud did, bowed and said:
“Sire, so do I.”
Frederick scowled—kings are easily offended, even when they play at Haroun al-Raschid—and then said coldly:
“I shall then refer you to my chief of staff. I am under obligations to you for a pleasant evening. Good-night.” And he walked out, obsequiously preceded by Steiner.
St. Arnaud and Gavin were left alone. They had, however, seen a soldier standing in the corridor upon which the room opened, and outside they heard the steady tramp of the sentry’s feet upon the frozen snow, as he marched up and down. The candles were burnt to their sockets, and the darkness was only illumined by the red glow of the stove. In silence they wrapped themselves in their pelisses, and lay down, not to sleep, but to discuss in whispers their chances.
“Why did you not accept your parole?” whispered Gavin.
“Because I believed our chances better as prisoners of war, and, besides, there was a question as to your parole. All this may be known some day,” replied St. Arnaud in the same low whisper. “And you forget—Madame Ziska. No doubt we will be carried to Glatz, and she will be taken withus that far. I do not fear a very strict imprisonment—and a woman can contrive wonderful things.”
“Some women can, like my mother, for example,” replied Gavin.
“Very well. Madame Ziska is a loyal and devoted woman—something assures me of that; and, after all, we are not more than three hundred miles from Prince Charles at this very moment. Go to sleep.”
Gavin remained quiet for five minutes. Then he whispered:
“Have you any money?”
“Only a little, but half of it is yours.”
Gavin nudged St. Arnaud with his elbow as a sign of gratitude, and was again quiet for five minutes, when he murmured: “We are much better off, even as prisoners, than we were last night.”
“Yes.”
“And,” again whispered Gavin diffidently, “how did I act the officer?”
“Admirably. All you needed was a sword.”
“I can capture one from the enemy in time. Do you think His Majesty will be as pleasant to us in the morning?”
“Not if he is like the kings I have known. Themore friendly and companionable the night before, the more surly the next morning—to keep us from presuming, I suppose.”
A silence followed, and the deep and heavy breathing, which showed they had laid aside all their perplexities for that night.
About half an hour afterward, so Gavin imagined, he was awakened by St. Arnaud stirring about the room, but it was nearly daybreak. Like a true soldier, Gavin waked with all his wits about him. He saw St. Arnaud, after lighting a candle, produce a kettle from the closet in which they had been shut up, and, filling it with water, he put it on the stove, which was still glowing hot. As soon as the water boiled St. Arnaud, again going to the closet, fished out a basin, and proceeded to enjoy a thorough bath. He then produced his silver-mounted razor and, standing before a mirror, removed the beard which had appeared upon his face during the last twenty-four hours. Then, completely washed and shaved, he looked ready for a promenade in Paris. Gavin watched him closely, thinking to himself:
“He will see that I bathe and shave as carefully as he.”
St. Arnaud’s toilet finished, he shook Gavin, whogot up and made rather ostentatiously a toilet, if anything, more careful than St. Arnaud’s. When it was over the two men were perfect pictures of officer-like neatness. And as for good looks, St. Arnaud was exquisitely handsome, while Gavin, by his noble figure, his brilliant complexion, and his frank and winning expression, made up for his want of regular beauty.
The tread of the sentry outside of the window was still heard, and men were passing back and forth in the corridors, and up and down the stairs. Scarcely was the gray dawn visible when their door was unceremoniously opened, and a trooper appeared, and, pointing with his sword toward the hall, St. Arnaud and Gavin went out. Awaiting them they found some bread and coffee for breakfast, and the Prussians fared no better.
On what had once been a well-kept pleasure ground, with a fish-pond in the middle, the King’s staff and escort were assembled—over two hundred mounted men. A trooper held the bridles of the prisoners’ horses, and Madame Ziska’s comfortable travelling calash was drawn up in the centre of the cavalcade.
In another moment Madame Ziska appeared, a Prussian officer leading her down the steps.She nodded to St. Arnaud and Gavin, saying gayly:
“I know not where we are going, but, being captives to His Majesty, we will neither starve nor freeze, of which there was great danger yesterday.”
Down the steps presently came Frederick. He wore the shabby surtout of the night before, and his hat was a captain’s cocked hat, with a tarnished silver buckle. His face was pale and his eyes heavy, as if he had spent the night awake. Behind him walked poor Steiner, carrying a large bundle of dispatches, and almost yawning in the King’s face from sleeplessness. Immediately the King’s horse was brought, and he mounted. His staff assembled around him, and the order was given to start. All this time he had not bestowed a word or a look upon Madame Ziska in her calash or the two prisoners. On passing them, however, he recognized their salutes by an absent-minded bow. Gavin, who was totally unprepared for this change, muttered to St. Arnaud:
“Nice behaviour, that; I suppose His Majesty has quite forgotten that he pulled me out of the closet last night, and he laughed like a schoolboy at it!”
“Put not your trust in princes,” was St. Arnaud’s whispered reply.
They then put forward rapidly and in silence. The morning was clear and cold, and they traveled fast. Shortly after sunrise they reached a place where the highroad branched in two. A halt was made, and Frederick, who had been riding ahead, stopped, and a part of the escort defiled before him. When Madame Ziska’s calash approached, behind which rode St. Arnaud and Gavin, Frederick rode up to them. His eyes were sparkling, his figure was erect, and the agreeable voice for which he was celebrated rang out musically.
“We part here, madame and messieurs,” he said. “Gentlemen, you are for Glatz. Madame for anywhere she likes. I to meet Prince Charles of Lorraine wherever I can find him. I have to thank you for a pleasant evening.Bon jour!” And putting spurs to his horse, and followed by a dozen officers, he was gone.
“What strange creatures are kings!” was Gavin’s comment to St. Arnaud, who, in his time, had seen much of royalty. “Glatz! A terrible place to be imprisoned in!”
“There is a way out of every place to which there is a way in,” was St. Arnaud’s reply.
That night they stopped at a village where Prussians were much in evidence; and three days afterward, at nightfall, they found themselves at the main entrance of the fortress of Glatz.
Madame Ziska was still with them, but her behaviour during their three days of journeying had surprised and disgusted Gavin. She seemed rather to avoid them, and was hand and glove with the Prussians. Gavin had mentioned it several times to St. Arnaud, who only smiled and said: “Women go by contraries sometimes, my lad.”
When the moment came, before the gate of the citadel of Glatz, that the two were to part from her, she stepped from her carriage lightly, and said good-by with a gayety which seemed to Gavin quite heartless. It was a bright moonlight evening, and the lights in the town shone cheerfully. But before them loomed the fortress, black and forbidding. For the first time Gavin’s heart sank; it sank lower still when this woman, whom he had credited with the utmost generosity of heart, showed such indifference to their fate.
“I will remain here a day or two,” she said, “until I can get post-horses. I wish I could do something for you; perhaps I may be able to send you some delicacies for your table. We may hopeto meet again; I, an actress, singer, and dancer, go up and down the world earning my living, and I meet everybody in the world at least once, and sometimes twice. I shall not soon forget that evening we spent as the King’s prisoners. Remember me. Adieu.”
The two prisoners were taken before the commandant of the fortress, General Kollnitz, who received them courteously as prisoners of war, and invited them to supper with him. He was of unwieldy bulk, but clear-eyed and clear-headed, and, evidently, a capable man. The only other guest at the table was the adjutant, Pfels, whom St. Arnaud and Gavin found an amiable and soldierly young man.
Gavin by that time had grown so used to sitting at the table with officers, that he felt not only as if he really were an officer, but as if he had always been an officer. He could not rally, however, from his depression. The falsity, as he thought, of Madame Ziska affected him strangely. Naturally, he took his mother as the standard of all women, and he looked for high courage and unswerving loyalty from them all. True, they had no claim on Madame Ziska, but he thought her a brave and honest woman, and St. Arnaud had hinted at chances ofassistance from her which had impressed the idea upon him that they might look to her for succour. So he ate his supper silently, while St. Arnaud spared no pains in making himself agreeable to the commandant. He told the story of their capture inimitably, and had the fat general and the slim adjutant both laughing at it, especially at Gavin’s assertion that if only he had kept his wits about him he would have knocked the King down.
At last, supper being over, they were shown two communicating cells high up in the tower of the fortress. A candle was given them, the door locked, and they were left alone. St. Arnaud at once blew out the candle, hid it, and the two, sitting on Gavin’s bed, with the moonlight streaming through a narrow, barred window, realized that they were prisoners. And in the very first hour of their real captivity they began to plan for their escape. Gavin’s first words were: “You counted on Madame Ziska; what think you now?”
“I think,” responded St. Arnaud, with a smile, “that an honest woman like her is more to be trusted than the great ones of earth. Look at our friend the King—singing and drinking with us at night, parting from us in the morning, withoutasking us if we were in want, or if he could do the smallest thing for us.”
“Humph! Madame Ziska offered to send us something to eat if she had time and could remember it. And she hardly spoke to us after we started on the journey.”
“Did you expect her to set all eyes to watching us by promising us eternal friendship? Now hear me: Madame Ziska’s manner convinced me that she meant to help us substantially; and her coldness to us was intended to throw the rest off the scent. I can tell you this much: I shall very carefully examine any provender that Madame Ziska may chance to remember to send us. I knew a woman once who sent a jewel in an orange. They are, after all, much cleverer than we. Think about that until you go to sleep.”