Front matter (continued 4)

A rap at the door brought a slight frown to his brow, and the knock had to be repeated before he gave the necessary permission to enter. The intruder was Von Hügelweiler.

"Well, what is it, Captain?" asked Bernhardt impatiently.

Von Hügelweiler's glance took in the nature of the other man's diversion, and a suspicion of contempt showed itself in his curling lip.

"I have news, sir," he said.

"Out with it!"

"Karl is alive!"

"So Gottfried said. The Iron Maiden seems to have grown humane in her old age."

Hügelweiler studied the man whose influence was then paramount in Weidenbruck, and his contempt grew. In common with others, he had been wont to fear Bernhardt. The burning eyes, the quick, imperious brain, the general air of reckless strength were things that impressed the well-born soldier, as they impressed the low-born mob. But Bernhardt sipping absinthe was a different person from the fire-brand of the revolution, and Hügelweiler realised that the lethargic sensualist of the arm-chair needed strong words to rouse him.

"The Iron Maiden has not grown humane," he said, "but there is a traitor in our midst."

Bernhardt sipped pensively.

"How very interesting!" he said.

"Very!" echoed Hügelweiler scornfully. "Before Karl was put into the Eisenmädchen someone had removed the spikes. The pretended execution was nothing more nor less than a scheme to save the King's life."

"A most ingenious scheme."

Von Hügelweiler banged his fist on the table.

"That is one piece of news!" he cried irritably. "It does not seem to move you very deeply; perhaps my second item will affect you more. The Queen has just gone through the ceremony of marriage with Trafford the American!"

Again Bernhardt raised his glass.

"I drink to the happy pair," he said blandly.

Hügelweiler almost screamed with vexation.

"It is scandalous!" he protested, almost with tears in his eyes. "The thing must be annulled. The Queen of Grimland must not wed a commoner, a foreign adventurer, a man who at a crisis turns traitor and saves the dethroned King's life."

A spark of interest glinted into the ex-priest's eye.

"By the way," he asked, "how did you find all this out?"

The question let loose a fresh flood of indignation from the Captain. In tones of choking wrath he told how he had been forbidden the royal presence, and how Trafford had been accorded instant admission.

"That was too much for a man of my kidney," he went on. "I brushed aside the young fool who was doing duty on guard, and I followed this American pig down the corridor. I found myself in the chapel, and I hid myself in the gloom behind a pew. Then I overheard things—pretty things, pretty speeches, tales of the American's mercy, how he had saved the King's life because he disliked killing a brave man. Then these two,—the Queen of Grimland and the traitor who should have been immured in the Strafeburg,—kissed each other and were made man and wife by a damned old fool in a cassock."

"Always speak respectfully of the Church, my son," said Bernhardt with exasperating mockery. "I was, myself, one of its most shining ornaments."

"Can nothing rouse you to the seriousness of the situation?" demanded the Captain in despair.

Again Bernhardt sipped. Then he leaned back, and a slow smile spread over his face.

"You don't drink absinthe, do you, Captain?"

"No," replied the other with an expression of disgust.

"It is a strange fluid," went on Bernhardt thoughtfully. "Sometimes it clears the brain, so that one sees with extraordinary distinctness. But sometimes it obfuscates the reasoning powers, so that one cannot distinguish right from wrong. For instance, at the present moment, Herr Trafford's action appears to me not a wicked, but a positively virtuous one. He saved a man from a cruel death and delivers him to freedom instead of torture."

"But the man was Karl!" expostulated Von Hügelweiler.

"I loved Karl," returned Bernhardt, unmoved, "I loved and hated him. You,—not being an absintheur,—cannot understand the curious mental pose that loves and hates the same being at the same time. Also I love Herr Trafford. He got me out of the Strafeburg."

Von Hügelweiler made a gesture of despair. He felt he was talking to a madman, one on whom sense and argument were useless and unavailing.

"But the marriage!" he said, raising his voice unconsciously to a shout in the desperate effort to drive home his point. "The marriage must be cancelled! When the truth is known that Trafford helped Karl to escape he will become the most hated man in Weidenbruck. The Queen must never unite her fortunes with such a creature."

Bernhardt gaped, as if the matter had begun to bore him.

"Then the truth must not be known," he said, between his yawns.

"But it shall be known!" cried the soldier angrily. "I shall proclaim it myself from the housetops. The mad American must be whipped out of the country."

"Captain von Hügelweiler," said the ex-priest solemnly, "just now I was enjoying two things: some deliciously bitter poetry and some deliciously bitter liquid. At the present moment I am incapacitated by your disturbing presence from enjoying either. Do I make myself plain?"

Von Hügelweiler turned to go with a stifled oath.

"A fine time for dissipation!" he said, as a parting shaft. "The fortunes of the country are at stake, and Bernhardt, Father Bernhardt, the people's leader, the man of the hour, swills absinthe and absorbs the pernicious writings of a decadent poetaster."

In a flash the ex-priest was on his feet, with blazing eyes and an air of almost terrible menace. Von Hügelweiler thought he had been talking to a sodden drunkard. He found himself confronted by the embodiment of masterful and savage energy.

"You fool!" cried Bernhardt in tones of withering contempt. "May not a man rest? May not a strange man rest in a strange way? I do the work of a hundred—must not the brain be fed and the nerves braced to meet the strain?"

The Captain shrugged his shoulders weakly. Despite his own strong feelings, the other's imperiousness cowed him.

"Go!" continued Bernhardt, pointing to the door. "Go, and hold your peace! Tell nobody this tale of Karl's escape and who contrived it. Tell no one this tale of the secret marriage in the Chapel Royal. I forbid you to speak. The nation's destinies are in my keeping, not yours."

Von Hügelweiler went to the door, smarting under the lash of the tongue.

"Has the American bewitched you, as he has bewitched Gloria von Schattenberg?" he asked, summoning up a spark of courage before quitting the room.

"Aye," retorted Bernhardt, "he has certain very fascinating qualities. He is a man, Von Hügelweiler. Pray to your God, if you believe in Him, to make you one."

And with an oath on his lips, and wrath and rebellion in his heart, Von Hügelweiler flung himself from the ex-priest's chamber.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE DREAMS

The following morning George Trafford awoke from sweet dreams to the pleasant consciousness of hot coffee and crisp rolls. He was still occupying apartments in the Hôtel Concordia, and it was a waiter in that excellent establishment who roused him from the glories of slumberland at the hour of 8.30.

"Good-morning, Rudolf," said Trafford, opening a reluctant eye. "I trust you have not forgotten my honey this morning."

"I have brought the honey, your Excellency; also a letter." Trafford glanced at the handwriting on the envelope.

"Sweeter also than the honey and the honeycomb," he murmured. "A letter from dreamland, Rudolf! Tell me, Rudolf, do waiters dream?"

The man laughed.

"Not often, Excellency. They are too busy by day. Once I dreamed that I was appointed headwaiter at the Concordia."

"Ah! you are ambitious, Rudolf. My dreams are less exalted. I only dreamed that a certain gnadiges fräulein did more than 'almost' love me; that she even cared for me 'more than the others.' It was not a bad dream, Rudolf," he added, casting his eyes over the missive, "and the letter is not a bad awakening."

"You have read it, Excellency?"

"Yes, it is short and sweet. 'Meet me at the confectioner's at the corner of the Königstrasse and the Etizabethstrasse at eleven.' That is all, but the imagination riots at the choice of rendezvous. A sensuous woman would have chosen a restaurant, an extravagant one a milliner's. Only a sweet one could have thought of a pastrycook's."

"I wish your Excellency joy."

"Thank you, Rudolf; my small change is reposing on the edge of the mantelpiece; kindly select a five-krone piece and drink to my good fortune."

At eleven o'clock Trafford was waiting outside a big corner shop, whose ample windows revealed an alluring wealth of edible magnificence. Hardly had the church clock finished striking when a young woman drew near. The combination of blue veil and Russian sables was one Trafford had seen before, and being in uniform he saluted.

"Come inside," said Gloria.

Trafford followed obediently.

"It's so like you to meet me in a place of this kind," he said.

"We must meet somewhere," she returned, and there was a half-mischievous glint in the eyes that looked back into his eyes as she added:—"after what happened yesterday. It's no good meeting at the Neptunburg—a palace has all the luxuries of an ideal home, except privacy. This is one of the places where I was known in my days of exile, and they will serve us chocolate and éclairs in a private room."

"Do you know I dreamed of you last night," began Trafford, as soon as they were alone in a cosy little room at the back.

"Naturally," she laughed.

"And in my dream you were very kind."

"Again, naturally."

"I mean," said Trafford tentatively, "you loved me 'more than the others.'"

"You are most diverting," she said, smiling.

Trafford winced.

"You are not taking me very seriously?" he asked.

"How can I take anything very seriously? If I did, I should go mad. I am a Queen, and Queens must marry. Custom compels. As an exile I had no difficulty in maintaining my spinsterhood. Now, it is different. If I do not marry you—marry you, mind, not merely go through a marriage form with you—I shall be wedded to some young German or Austrian Princeling, whose standard of manhood is measured by the number of beer seidles he can empty in an evening."

"I am flattered. And now for a few practical considerations. Supposing you marry me—and like you, I am using the word in its fullest sense—what will be the result? What will the public say?"

"The public will say little, but it will do a good deal," said Gloria grimly. "It is true we are moving in a time of great changes; it is true that for the moment you are a very popular person. But it is also true that I am a Queen and you a commoner, and Grimlanders like their Royalty undiluted. If we proclaimed ourselves man and wife we should be wise to board the Orient express at Gleis, and steam westward to Ostend or eastward to Constantinople."

"And you would really—really object to that course?" asked Trafford a little sadly. "Yesterday afternoon you said, 'If the Queen of Grimland may not wed an American I will no longer be Queen of Grimland.'"

"Ah, but I spoke in a moment of enthusiasm," declared Gloria unblushingly. "I had been oppressed by the nightmare of Karl's supposed assassination. The fact that he had not really been killed, that it was your ready wit that saved him from a cruel end, warmed my heart wonderfully towards you. But if you had your dream last night, so had I. Mine was less sentimental but equally pleasant. In it I saw myself Queen of Grimland, Queen of a whole country, with no district in revolt against me. Karl had been defeated, captured, and exiled. I was the reigning sovereign of a loyal and loving people."

Trafford nodded gravely.

"That is the dream of a Schattenberg," he said. "It is much the same dream that your father dreamed before he fell into the great sleep where there are no dreams. But it is not the dream of the woman I kissed yesterday afternoon in the Chapel Royal of the Neptunburg."

Gloria's eyes fell before his steadfast gaze. Her face softened; it saddened under a wave of emotion—an emotion, the instant expression of which, though easily attributable to her actress-temperament, was nevertheless based on something far deeper.

"I wonder if I am a hard woman," she began, still looking down. "Years of exile, of earning one's living on the variety stage, striving—surely these are not softening influences." She paused for him to add some sympathetic word. Whether he intended to do so or not, he forgot it on meeting the eyes that now were looking him through and through, as she continued: "But I do not unsay what I said yesterday! I really like you, immensely—and perhaps I almost love you."

Trafford took her hand and kissed it rapturously; she almost snatched it away, and there was a ring of steel in the tones that now declared:

"But I have tasted power, and now that the horror of Karl's death is no longer on my conscience, I wish to be the unopposed ruler of my country."

"Even though the process of establishing your rule costs the lives of brave men?"

Again she dropped her eyes—was silenced. She sipped her chocolate. When she spoke, it was quietly and with absolute conviction.

"If I had known what Father Bernhardt told us, that Karl was really a humane man and was absolutely innocent of the Archbishop's death, I don't believe I should have headed a rebellion against him. But—rightly or wrongly—the rebellion has succeeded and the seat of government is mine. To falter now would be to cause more misery and bloodshed than to go on. The people have declared against Karl, and Karl they will not have at any price. If I were to abdicate, some other adventurer would take my place. To withdraw myself from Grimland now would be to leave my friends to the certain reprisals of their enemies."

"Your argument is flawless," acknowledged Trafford. "I am de trop. Ambition, to say nothing of humanity, leaves you but one course. Neither do I complain—though I shall return a disappointed man. You are not heartless, far from it, for yesterday in a moment of golden light I caught a glimpse of a great splendour, the gorgeous harmonies of a woman's heart. The vision has faded, and again I say I do not complain. On the contrary, I thank Providence for the vision of what might have been."

A more prolonged silence followed these words. Trafford busied himself with his éclair, while his companion continued to stir her chocolate, till a veritable whirlpool formed in its opaque depths. At last she looked up.

"Of course, I'm not heartless," she said,—and she smiled as a coquette might smile on being told that her flirtations were dangerous,—"and of course, I like you very much, only you miss the whole gist of my argument. If we announce our marriage now we shall be drummed out of the country. That might suit you, but it doesn't harmonise with the ideals that have been instilled into me from my earliest years. If you accompany me in this projected expedition to Weissheim,—not as my husband, but as my officer,—if you exert your skill and valour on my behalf and help to capture Karl and win me back my old home—the Marienkastel—there is no knowing what the enthusiasm of the Grimlander would not do for you. If we return as conquerers, what more fitting crown to our pageant than the union of the vindicated Queen and her triumphant General?"

Trafford gazed at the mantled cheek and the light of expectancy that shone in her eyes now. Certain words of Saunders' came back, ringing in his ears: "When you really fall in love you will refuse to take 'No' for an answer. In the words of the pre-historic doggerel, you will 'try, try again.'"

"I see," he said, "I have done something, but I have not done enough. I will accompany you to Weissheim—a unit of your force—and I will do my best to serve your cause. What has passed between us is nothing, must make no difference in our relations, is merely the burlesque conclusion of a burlesque compact. I thought I saw the working of Fate in the incensed gloom of the Chapel Royal. The next few weeks will prove me an idle visionary or a true seer." He paused. "Which do you wish me to prove?"

She rose to her feet, opened her sable cloak, and disengaged a pearl brooch from her neck. Bending over him so that her breath swept his cheek, she fastened the trinket to the lapel of his green tunic, and finished his subjugation with a long look into his eyes.

"A true seer," she answered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO THE WAR ON THE WINE-SHOP

Outside the confectioner's Gloria let down her veil again, and turned her steps towards the Neptunburg. Trafford, at her request, took the opposite direction. His habitually fierce features wore a grimmer look than ever,—for his brows were knit and his teeth set,—and there was a dangerous gleam in his grey eyes. He was the prey to a host of indefinable emotions, that worked his turbulent spirit to its most aggressive mood. Disappointment, a tinge of bitterness, coupled with a wild sense of intoxication,—caused by the Princess's last relenting act of grace,—had strung his fine nervous system to a point when it demanded violent action as the only possible relief. Had he been at Harvard he would have kindled a bonfire; had Karl been within a reasonable radius of his activity he would have headed a cutting-out expedition to capture that unhappy monarch. As it was, he walked fast, bending his steps unconsciously towards his hotel. The sky showed a pale blue between the lines of house-tops, for as usual the sun was having its morning duel with the white fog that haunts the streets of Weidenbruck at this period of the year. The sun was winning, too,—as it generally did for an hour or so,—and even causing the huge icicles that hung from the eaves to drip a little at their sharp and glistening extremities. But Trafford noted none of these things.

"I am very ill or very much too well," he said to himself, in diagnosis of his own feverish unrest. "If I were an Elizabethan courtier I should write a sonnet; if I were an ordinary American I should play tennis or golf. Being neither, I am suffering the torments of a wild beast in a small cage; my brain is bursting from enforced inaction. Saunders, who is always right, calls me a madman, and to justify his opinion I shall probably break a shop window in about two minutes."

Whether or no he had the slightest intention of putting his insane threat into execution, he looked behind him to see if he were observed. A couple of men were following a few paces in his rear. To his excited fancy there seemed something sinister about their muffled forms. One carried a thick stick, and both seemed to look on him with eyes of malice.

"As I live, I believe they are going to attack me," he said gleefully to himself. "No," he reflected, "the wish is father to the thought. There is not the slightest reason why they should attack me. They are probably respectable burghers doing a morning's shopping in the Königstrasse."

The original idea, however, fascinated him, and he stopped; the men stopped too. He went on, and the men went on, and a backward glance told him that they were summoning a third person from across the street, and pointing at him as an object either of curiosity or offence. He continued his walk with a wild hope in his heart, and in the course of a hundred yards the hope became a certainty. A small crowd was now dogging his footsteps, and such uncomplimentary references as "traitor," "spy" and "schweinhund" assailed his ears. The situation would have alarmed most men, and would have accorded even "Nervy" Trafford a certain measure of uneasiness under ordinary conditions. But in his present state of psychical unrest the atmosphere of danger had a marvellously relieving effect. The fever went out of his bones, his blood slackened to a normal speed, his brain adjusted itself to meet the crisis. He was still spoiling for a fight, but seething pugnacity had given way to ice-cool combativeness. He walked on without quickening his pace, and though he looked neither to right nor left, he felt instinctively that the numbers of his retinue were swelling fast. The hum of muttered execrations rose to a stronger note, and every yard of his progress brought fresh idlers in his wake. From time to time he passed a policeman, but these were gorgeously uniformed officials whose idea of upholding civic dignity was to adopt a pose of statuesque aloofness to things human and divine.

Presently a piece of frozen snow struck him on the nape of his neck. He swung round in a fury, and as he did so the foremost of the pack struck his shako from his head.

"Von Hügelweiler!" he cried, recognising in his roughly-clad assailant the Captain of the Guard; and quick as thought he planted a sledge-hammer blow full in his rival's face. The Captain staggered and fell, and profiting by the diversion, Trafford crossed the wide street and plunged into a narrow alley. He was running now, doubling in and out of the congested slums that formed this quarter of the town: and if there was no fear in his heart, there was a growing appreciation of the fact that his life was in danger, and that a single-handed contest with an infuriated mob was an unsatisfactory way of working off superfluous energy. For a space he threaded his rapid way through the winding alleys round the Goose-market, but the hue and cry was strong, and the neighbourhood seemed momentarily more fit for deeds of violence.

But Trafford had not lost his head, and there was a motive in his flight that was born of quick thought and prospective vengeance rather than panic fear. At the door of a certain wine-shop he halted breathless; a backward glance showed his nearest pursuer fifty yards distant.

"Herr Krantz!" he called, bursting into the brasserie.

"Mein Herr?"

"Do you recognise me?"

The man surveyed him coolly.

"I never forget a face, Excellency," he answered.

"Good!" said Trafford. "And are you still loyal to the good Queen Gloria?"

The man nodded as if the question was unnecessary.

"Then you will help me," said Trafford; "I am being attacked by her enemies."

Hardly had he spoken when a wild-looking man entered the shop with upraised bludgeon and a cry of "Traitor!" Trafford picked up a convenient beer-can and floored the intruder with a well-directed blow.

"Close the door and shut the shutters!" called out Trafford, drawing his sword and holding at bay a couple of ruffians who had outrun the main body of his pursuers.

There was little time to spare, but there were one or two early customers of Herr Krantz, who lent instant and unquestioning aid. These helped Trafford told the narrow street till the landlord had set his oaken shutters in front of the glass shop-front. Then, as the increasing pressure threatened to overwhelm them, they darted into the shop, banged the door, and shot the massive bolts. A rattle of blows resounded on the woodwork, and a chorus of fierce cries came in strident chorus from the crowded lane. Krantz switched up the electric light to relieve the darkness.

"I will telephone for the police," he said.

"No," said Trafford, who did not share his host's confidence in the Weidenbruck constabulary. "Ring up the Palace."

Krantz retired to the telephone in the inner room, and the hammering on door and shutters went on with redoubled violence.

"What is it that they want?" asked the inmates of the shop of Trafford.

"Me," replied the latter.

"Why?"

Trafford had but the vaguest idea, but he answered boldly:

"Because I am the Queen's friend."

"I have given a message that you are here and in danger," said Herr Krantz, returning.

"Thanks. Are your shutters sound?"

"I believe so, Excellency."

"I am glad to hear it. I think we should be well advised to go to an upper window and survey the prospect."

Krantz assented, and led the way up a dark and narrow stair to a room on the first floor. Opening the double windows, Trafford surveyed a scene of many heads; the confined thoroughfare was literally crammed with a sea of human beings. All were shouting, and those whose position enabled them to do so were banging against the defences with sticks and fists.

"I trust Herr Krantz's shutters are as sound as he thinks," he muttered looking down on the surging mass of his enemies. "What an excitable folk these good Weidenbruckers are! I suppose that cross-grained beast, Von Hügelweiler, has been concocting some evil tale about me, and is egging them on to pull me to pieces in revenge for his defeat on the Rundsee. But he finds me in good fighting trim, and I will follow up that blow on the nose with other attentions if I get half a chance."

He craned his head sideways, to take full stock of his adversaries, and as he did so it came into contact with a huge icicle, one of the many that hung like gigantic dragon's teeth from the over-hanging eaves. The slight shock to his cranium instilled a fresh idea.

"Have you any snow on your roof, Herr Krantz?" he asked, drawing back into the room.

"The pitch is steep and throws off the snow, Excellency, but there may be a hundredweight or two."

"And can we get on to the roof?"

"If you will."

"We might create a diversion," pursued Trafford. "A little snow distributed scientifically on the heads of these good people might have a wonderfully cooling effect on their heated tempers."

Krantz doubted the wisdom of further infuriating the mob, but Trafford's enthusiasm was infectious, and he won his way.

A steep ladder and a trap-door gave access to the tiled roof. A shovel was procured, and in a few seconds a small avalanche was dislodged on to the more aggressive bombarders of the oak shutters. The effect was excellent, and a desire to edge away from the immediate proximity of the wine-shop manifested itself. Trafford, however, was seen, and his image served to increase the streperous chorus of execration below. He replied with a mocking bow and a shovel-full of snow tossed lightly into the middle of the throng. For the moment he held the advantage: curses were met with jeers; threats with a polite obeisance; any symptom of action was countered with a swift reprisal of hurtling snow. But the situation was not allowed to remain definitely favourable. Among the crowd was someone with an intelligent brain as well as an excitable nature. Von Hügelweiler at this time was as full of the sentiment of human hate as an insulted and disappointed egotist could be. The blow he had received had been the last straw. A bullet in his breast or a sword through his arm would not have burned with such a fire of shame as the crude, coarse shock of his rival's fist. All sense of proportion, all notion of justice, let alone mercy, had long ago been swamped by the bitter tide of maddening disappointment which poisoned his best instincts. And now the lust of vengeance,—baulked for the moment by his enemy's resource,—led him to do rather a clever thing. There was a small fire-station hard by Krantz's brasserie, and this, with the assistance of his chosen followers, Von Hügelweiler raided. A few minutes later, helmet on head and axe in hand, he and some half-dozen desperadoes returned hopefully to the attack.

As the first axe-blow crashed into the oaken woodwork, Trafford sent a mass of snow on to the assailant. The man shook under the weight, but his helmet protected him, and he went on with his work undeterred.

In vain Trafford and his companions shovelled their crystalline ammunition on to the heads and shoulders of their attackers; they delayed the work of irruption, but delayed it immaterially. It was the crowd's turn to jeer now, for the axes were playing havoc with the stout shutters, and it seemed a matter of minutes only before oak yielded to steel, and the inevitable rush of furious humanity flooded the beer-house.

"We are undone," said one of Trafford's companions; "we must try and escape over the roofs."

"One moment," said Trafford, sprawling at full length on the tiles, his head hanging over the eaves. "Herr Krantz, sit on my legs."

The proprietor, a man of weight, did as he was bid.

With the hilt of his sword Trafford banged at the base of one of the huge icicles that fringed the overhanging cornice. At the third blow it parted—four feet of glistening ice pointed to dagger fineness descended like a javelin on to the back of one of the storming party. The man fell without a sound. A snarl, half horror and half rage, burst from the crowd. His comrades raised his limp and lifeless body from the snow, and bore it from the danger zone.

"Forward again!" cried Von Hügelweiler, furiously rushing against the shop and burying his hatchet in the splintering shutter.

But Trafford was busy dislodging another icicle of even more formidable dimensions, and when that was used there were a score of others. The men drew back; one traitor's life was not worth the risk, and Von Hügelweiler, finding himself unsupported, withdrew too.

Whether caution would have prevailed, or whether the spirited harangue which Von Hügelweiler now addressed to his followers would have had its effect, can never be known. A diversion, more serious than hurtling snow or crashing icicle, occurred to change men's moods. A troop of horse, cuirassed, high-booted, armed with naked swords, was making its slow but irresistible way down the congested thoroughfare; and in the midst, with black slouch hat and sable uniform, rode the grimly smiling person of Father Bernhardt. A cheer greeted him, for his errand was unknown, and he might have come, for all they knew, to help in taking the traitor. If that was their idea, however, they were soon undeceived. The ex-priest's quick eye detected Von Hügelweiler, and the latter, reading its sinister message, commenced a hasty retreat.

"Two hundred kronen to the man who brings me Von Hügelweiler, dead or alive!" called out Bernhardt.

There was a movement in the crowd, and in it the late Captain of the Guard was lost to view.

"Good-morning, Father Bernhardt!" cried Trafford from the roof. "You arrive at an opportune moment; her Majesty's lieges were getting troublesome. At first I contented myself with snow-balling them, but they turned nasty and I had to despatch an icicle. I am afraid one liege was rather hurt."

Bernhardt's smile widened as he took in the situation.

"A pity it wasn't Von Hügelweiler," he said. "But you'd better let me escort you to your rooms. For the moment you seem to have fallen out of favour with the plebs."

"I fear so," replied the American, "and had it not been for good Herr Krantz, I might have fared badly at the hands of these gentlemen."

"Herr Krantz shall be rewarded," said Bernhardt. "His loyalty is well known and appreciated in the highest quarter. And as for these 'gentlemen,' as you call them," he went on, turning to the mob, "I've a good mind to give them an experience of a cavalry charge in a narrow lane."

The suggestion was taken literally by the mob, and something of a panic began in the neighbourhood of the steel-clad troopers. But Bernhardt checked the movement with a quick shout.

"Stop, you fools!" he cried, rising in his stirrups and letting his great voice ring out. "Stop, and listen to me before you go about your business—or your idling! What do you mean by this breach of the peace? Has there not been trouble enough in the city of late? Are you men or wolves, that you hunt a man through the streets, and pull down the doorway of a peaceful citizen?"

"He is a traitor!" cried one. "He freed Karl!" cried another, and a babel of tongues broke out in an eager flood of accusation.

For a moment Bernhardt let them speak. Then he raised his hand and won instant silence.

"He is not a traitor," he said with slow emphasis. "He rescued me from the Strafeburg. Was that the act of a traitor? Had it not been for this brave and resourceful American I should now be rotting in a dungeon, and you still beneath the yoke of Karl. It is true that Karl has fled to Weissheim, but that was a mistake due to no fault of Trafford's. And the fault, whosoever's it was, he will undo, for he accompanies me to Weissheim, sworn to win back the Marienkastel from the Queen's enemies."

The quiet force of his words carried conviction to his hearers. They feared the grim, black figure as a pack of dogs fears its master, but there was a certain canine affection in their debased regard. Bernhardt was a superior being, one whose word was law. They heard and believed, and even began to feel self-reproachful.

"For shame on you, men of Weidenbruck!" went on the ex-priest in upraised tones. "Shame on you, I say, compassing harm against the man who delivered you from tyranny! This loyal friend of mine, whose courage and craft you have just experienced to your own hurt, joins an expedition to Weissheim as my right-hand man. A foreigner, he endures hardships and dangers for your sake and that of your noble young Queen. 'Traitor,' you called him! Hero and liberator would be better titles, I think, for such as he. With his help there is no fear but that we shall capture Weissheim from our enemies, and bring back Karl a prisoner to the capital. What reward will you have then for Trafford, the deliverer? Will you hunt him through your streets like a mad dog? Or will you strew garlands in his path, acclaim him from your housetops—aye, and give him the highest in your land to wife!"

Assuredly if the power of words is a wonderful thing, the power of personality is infinitely greater. Bernhardt had spoken with a certain ready eloquence, a certain skill of pleading in his client's cause; but another might have spoken with twice his skill and twice his oratory, and have failed completely. It was not that he followed the temper of the mob and adapted himself to their moods; rather, he made their moods for them, and used them to his own sweet will. When he reasoned they followed and were convinced, when he lashed they cringed, when he reproached they suffered agonies of shame; and at the end he raised their enthusiasm for the object of their late malice, with the ease of a consummate master of men, and his last question was met with a ringing cry of "Long live the American! Long live Gloria of Grimland!" The ex-priest's smile was more of a sneer than anything—so cheap did he hold his triumph over the flaccid minds of the shifty horde; but his eye wandered to the roof where Trafford stood, shovel in hand, cheering himself and his secretly-married wife.

"We will escort you to your hotel," Bernhardt called out.

"It is not necessary," replied the American. "Bernhardt the Magician has effected my metamorphosis—he has changed me from a fox to a lion."

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE THE "BOB" RUN

In the far north of Grimland, seemingly secure in its snow-blocked passes and its improvised fortifications, the mountain town of Weissheim basked serenely in the unclouded sunshine of its exalted plateau. The life of the place went on, little affected outwardly by the rude shocks of a revolution that had unseated a dynasty at Weidenbruck, and incidentally horrified the sober-minded people of Europe. The railway was cut that connected Weissheim with the capital, and the telegraph wires were drooping, limp and useless, from their stark poles. The foreign contingent,—the English and American visitors of the "Pariserhof,"—pursued their life of unadulterated pleasure-seeking as thoroughly and unconcernedly as was their wont. Each morning found the curling rink well filled with knickerbockered mortals, bearing brooms, and hurling granite bowls over the perfect ice, and using weird expressions of Scottish origin tempered with Anglo-Saxon profanity. The snows of the hillsides were scarred with the double-tracked impressions of innumerable ski-runners, and the great toboggan run—the Kastel run—found its daily complement of votaries for its dangerous attractions. Each night the thermometer showed its zero frost, and each day the winter sun proclaimed its potency with no uncertain ray. Nature was as serenely unconscious of politics as the guests of the Pariserhof were of the series of fogs that was at that time choking the streets of London with obfuscating blackness. This winter, indeed, was singularly like other winters at this ideal resort of athletic and convalescent humanity. It is true that horrible tales of rioting and violence had come through from Weidenbruck,—but similar reports had been transmitted many times previously,—and if the present rumours were rather more highly-coloured and substantial than heretofore, that was no reason why able-bodied men and women should not skate and ski, and play innumerable rubbers of bridge over cups of hot chocolate and cream-stuffed éclairs au café. It was true that bands of swarthy men in uniform, and armed with shovels, were perpetually throwing up snow-works on the surrounding bluffs, but they respected the skating-rinks and the toboggan-runs—which was all the visitors cared about. Moreover, they furnished rather a picturesque note as they dragged their grim pieces of ordnance over the steep snow slopes, and slowly hauled them into position in the aforementioned snow-works. What the guests of the Pariserhof failed to appreciate was, that a miracle was taking place. Weissheim was loyal! Weissheim,—for years the home of sedition and intrigue,—was all for Karl! Just as in the days of his prosperity it had turned against him, so now in the hour of his discomfiture it rallied to him as one man. The troubles of 1904 had taught the good Weissheimers that they had a man for a Sovereign, that the tall, good-natured, sunburnt gentleman in spectacles had a hard fist inside his fur-lined gloves, and a stout heart under his Jäeger cardigan. And the fact that Weidenbruck had cast him out was a good enough reason for their taking him in. The men of the mountain despised the dwellers of the plain. Rough, cruel, mutable as they were, there were still certain primitive virtues among the hardy hill-folk, and when one day Karl and the ever-popular Saunders turned up unexpectedly at Weissheim with their tale of woe, they let loose an enthusiasm that had never yet been accorded to Grimland's legitimate Sovereign. So, contrary to his fears, Meyer's task had been an easy one. A more than capable engineer, he soon put the place on as sound a footing of defence as shovel and energy directed by German book-lore and Jewish brains could put it. Within a week of his arrival the whole plateau was secure in its well-planned redoubts and in the excellent temper of the civil and military population.

On the twentieth of January, eight days after the King's arrival, the race for the Cobham Cup took place on the bob-sleigh run. For this event bob-sleigh crews had foregathered from far and near, for the Weissheim "bob" run is acknowledged to be the fastest, the most difficult, and the most sporting in the world. A bob-sleigh,—let me explain for the benefit of the uninitiated,—is a very long toboggan capable of holding half a dozen persons. Unlike an ordinary toboggan, it is steered from the front by ropes, or, in the most up-to-date "bobs," by a wheel. The rearmost man manipulates a brake with a lever on either hand, and he awaits the commands of the steersman, who sees the curves coming and realises when the pace must be checked to avert disaster. Originally, the "bobbing" was done along the high road, but this was so dangerous to horse-sleighs and pedestrians, and resulted in such fearful accidents, that a special track was constructed every winter, avoiding the town and ultimately joining the highway somewhere near Riefinsdorf. The winning-post was now at this junction, but for ordinary pleasure "bobbing," crews sometimes continued their course along the road itself, the constant declivity permitting the craft to travel at a great speed almost as far as Wallen, ten miles distant, or by branching to the left, to descend the Rylvio Pass into Austria. The difficulty of dragging the "bob" back made these distant expeditions events of some rarity, and, indeed, the first part of the course was so much more exciting than the roadway, that it was mainly on this portion that practising for the cup took place.

Imagine a track some six feet in width, formed of snow turned to ice by the process of constant watering, and so smooth and slippery that a burnished mirror would be rough and dull in comparison. Imagine this track inclined at a steep angle, walled in on both sides with low ice-banks, and trailing a long and sinuous course for a length of over a mile! Here we have the potentialities of speed when we remember that racing "bobs" are just low frameworks of wood whose steel runners glide over the polished track with as little friction as a flash of lightning traversing a thunder-cloud. When we add that the bends of the course are sharp, and often flanked by sheer precipices, and that to negotiate these bends at high speed requires the greatest nerve and skill for all concerned, it is hardly necessary to add that the sport is one which appeals to wandering foreigners in search of sensations.

"It is a pity you have not got a crew," said Karl to Saunders, who, with his wife, General Meyer, and Frau von Bilderbaum, were seated in a wooden shelter erected at one of the most exciting bends of the course. "With your skill at the brake and Mrs. Saunders' skill at the wheel, you would have stood a fine chance of securing Lady Cobham's trophy."

"It is always a pity when politics interfere with sport," replied Saunders. "We manage these things better in England. When the shooting season commences politicians take a rest."

"Here," said Meyer, "the shooting season commences when the politicians are most active. Only we don't shoot grouse in Grimland—only kings and councillors."

Karl laughed.

"I should like to have seen Saunders take his crew down the run in approved style," he said; "I'd have wagered my forest lands to a frost-bite that he'd have done the best time."

"I should have liked nothing better," said Saunders, "but it is impossible to do oneself credit without practice. And I have been busy in other ways: I have been studying Meyer's treatise on Winter War, and I am not sure that the possibilities it holds forth are not more exhilarating even than the competition for Lady Cobham's cup."

"We are likely to have that statement verified, if what I hear is true," said the Commander-in-Chief quietly.

"And what you hear generally is true," muttered Karl.

"In this case I have no doubts," said Meyer. "A large military expedition left Weidenbruck the day before yesterday; its destination and object are not difficult to surmise."

"I am glad," said Frau von Bilderbaum truculently. "If blows are to be struck, the sooner the better; we are ready for them."

There was a sound of cheering from the direction of the starting point, signifying that the first crew was launched on its downward course.

It was morning—10.30 A.M., to be precise—for the race had to be run before the sun's power waxed hot enough to affect the surface of the track. And the scene was a gay one: blue and white flags were flying from poles at every hundred yards of the course, and from the crowded stands erected at the several points of vantage.

And the day was a typical Weissheim day: the sky was of a deep and ever-deepening blue. Not a breath of air stirred over the snow-veiled face of the country. The sun had risen above the shoulder of the mighty Klauigberg, and had turned the myriad crystals into a sparkling ocean of unbelievable whiteness. To draw breath was to fill one's lungs with perfect air and one's heart with ecstasy. To gaze at the shimmering panorama of towering peaks and snowy buttresses was to behold the finest view in central Europe.

"Here they come!" ejaculated Karl excitedly, as a "bob" came into view, accompanied by a slight scraping sound, as the runners slithered over the adamantine track.

All held their breath, for the speed of the descending craft was absolutely terrifying. At the prow was a goggled figure in a white sweater, with a red dragon—the badge of his crew—worked on his chest. Behind him was a young girl, and behind her again four men, all similarly attired. With the exception of the steersman, who crouched forward,—a tense thing of staring eyes and straining muscles,—all were leaning back as far as possible to minimise wind pressure.

"Too fast!" was Saunders' comment.

Suddenly, in response to a hoarse cry from the steersman, the crew swung their bodies to the left and simultaneously flung out their arms in the same direction. The manœuvre was designed to bring the "bob" round the corner without checking the pace by applying the brake. The result was unsatisfactory. The prow of the "bob" struck the counter-bank violently, there was a gasp from a hundred throats, and a feathery cloud of snow rose, in which the limbs of half a dozen human beings were whirling in an intricate and inextricable confusion. No one, fortunately, was damaged, and in a few seconds the crew had sorted themselves and resumed their chequered career.

"Heroism and no brake!" muttered Karl. "How like our friend the American!"

"May his fall be as harmless!" said Saunders.

Frau Bilderbaum snorted.

"I should like to see him go over the precipice!" she exclaimed.

"You probably will—metaphorically speaking," said Meyer. "He is accompanying this expedition against us, and he has outwitted me twice."

A minute later another "bob" was making its nerve-shattering descent of the lightning run. This time its crew,—a well-drilled sextet in blue jerseys bearing the facetious badge of a tortoise,—swept round the dangerous bend without mishap.

"Well done, Miss Reeve-Thompson!" cried Mrs. Saunders, naming the lady who was steering the successful craft.

"That's done me good," sighed Karl in a note of satisfaction. "God's sky and the best of sports! Clean snow and the champagne air of Weissheim, and what care I for the rabble of the plains."

And so the morning wore on, with cheers for the skilful, gasps for the rash, and murmurs of pity for the unfortunate. There were more spills, of course, but fortunately no disasters of magnitude, and at mid-day the great competition was over. The "times" were added up and checked, and ultimately Miss Reeve-Thompson's crew were adjudged the winners, and accompanied by a cheering throng they received the cup from Lady Cobham at the Pariserhof.

The royal party waited till the crowd of onlookers had dispersed, and then wended their way back to the Brunvarad—the Winter Palace—on foot. As they followed the track that bordered the run they fell in with General von Bilderbaum, struggling up the hill in a great grey overcoat, very moist and red of face.

"Well," said Karl, "how are the new forts looking?"

"Very workmanlike, sire. We have got two new quick-firers on to the south escarpment of redoubt A, and some old but serviceable mitraileuses in position in the long fosse between redoubts C and D."

"Excellent," drawled Meyer. "And our dear, loyal gunners—are they continuing to make good practice at the ice-targets?"

"I am sorry for anything they get sight of within two kilometres," responded the General.

"I am well served," said Karl. "Herr Saunders here has developed into a student of minor tactics, and I fancy would handle a brigade as well as a Moltke or a Kuroki."

At this moment they reached the point of the path where it crosses the bob-sleigh run, and the races being over and the track closed, a wooden plank had been laid across the glassy surface to afford secure foothold. The men halted to allow the ladies,—Mrs. Saunders and Frau Generalin von Bilderbaum,—to pass first. But the latter,—a lady, as the reader knows, of somewhat egregious proportions,—was not gifted by nature with a rapid gait through trampled snow. Holding high her green skirt, and planting her cumbrous snow-boots with deliberate precision, she advanced puffing and panting like a mountain engine in a snow-drift. Before, however, she had come up with the others, a strange man accosted the royal party from the opposite direction. The individual in question was wearing skis, and looked fatigued and travel-stained, as though he had come fast and far. A black slouch hat was pressed over his forehead, and it was not till he was quite close that Karl and his companions recognised the features as those of Von Hügelweiler.

The Captain's salutation was as abrupt as his appearance.

"Hail! King of half a country," he said.

Quietly, swiftly, and without ostentation, Saunders and Meyer covered the newcomer with their revolvers.

"Hands up when you speak to his Majesty," said the latter.

Von Hügelweiler dropped his ski-ing pole and held up his hands.

"I have a weapon in my breast," he said, "but it is not for any here."

Meyer quietly inserted his hand into the Captain's breast pocket, and drew out a revolver. It was of the Grimland army pattern, and loaded in all its chambers. He swiftly extracted the cartridges and transferred them to his own person, and then,—having satisfied himself that the Captain had no further munitions of war,—replaced the unloaded weapon in its original position.

"Now you may talk without the inconvenience of holding your hands in that fatiguing posture," he said. "What is it?"

"I come from Weidenbruck," said Von Hügelweiler, "and I bring news. The day before yesterday an expedition left the capital for Weissheim."

Meyer nodded.

"That is so," he agreed; "we get to know things, even in this charmingly remote district. Still, details are always agreeable. What does the force consist of?"

"The whole brigade of Guards, two battalions of Guides, and the Kurdeburg Sharpshooters."

"They do me honour," said the King. "But they will find the railway somewhat disorganised. You see, we have dynamited the principal viaducts, to say nothing of the two-mile tunnel under the Kahberg—and these things are not easy to repair when the snow is down."

"The railway is open as far as Eselbruck," the Captain returned, "and from thence they will come over the passes on skis. They will come quicker than they would in the summer."

"That is true enough," agreed Meyer. "And who is in command of this imposing force?"

"Bernhardt."

"Indeed! And the second in command?"

"A cursed American."

Meyer smiled.

"That describes Herr Trafford admirably," he said. "But how about yourself, Von Hügelweiler? How is it you are not occupying a distinguished position in this amiable field-force?"

"Because there are limits even to my dishonour," retorted Von Hügelweiler fiercely. "In transferring my services from his Majesty King Karl to her Majesty Queen Gloria, I knew I was sinking, but I only learned a little while ago to what great depths."

"You are the man who was sent to hold the Strafeburg for me," said Karl sternly, "and who handed it over to the mob rather than risk your skin."

"I did not yield to fear," retorted the Captain, turning almost savagely on his sovereign. "I yielded to an even more odious thing—passion. The Princess pleaded with me, balancing her woman's grace against my loyalty. I could face the fury of the multitude, but I succumbed to the blandishments of a wanton!"

The word drew an exclamation of surprise and indignation from Saunders.

"And you had your reward!" he said with a sneer.

"Aye, I have had my reward," was the bitter answer. "Love such as mine always has its reward. I learned who it was upon whom the fickle Gloria had bestowed her worthless heart. Who was it, do you think? A nobleman, a great soldier, a Prince? No! She was conducting a guilty intrigue with the schweinhund Trafford—the man who betrayed his party by immuring the enemy in a spikeless Eisenmädchen.

"Yes, that's true enough," said Karl. "The schweinhund Trafford, as you call him, possesses some rudimentary ideas of humanity, despite his absurd predilection for anarchy. I may remember that when my time comes."

"It was an act of folly and weakness," said the Captain recklessly, "an act of treachery to the side he had espoused. As soon as I heard of it I hastened to Bernhardt's chambers with the news."

"And he said?" asked Karl.

"He said he loved and hated you," replied the Captain.

Karl nodded thoughtfully.

"I believe that expresses his mental attitude towards me very well," he said.

"It was the mad paradox of an absintheur," Von Hügelweiler interrupted. "He was half drunk and wholly dangerous, and I left him. I roused the people against Trafford, but the scoundrel defended himself cunningly, and in the end the devil-ridden Bernhardt turned up and rescued him with a troop of Dragoons."

"And why are you here?" asked General Bilderbaum.

"For one thing, there are two hundred kronen on my head in Weidenbruck," replied Von Hügelweiler. "That makes the place unhealthy. Neither do I desire to serve that delightful trinity, the wanton Queen, the dipsomaniac priest, and the verdomte American."

"But why come here?" persisted Bilderbaum, growing, if possible, still redder in the face.

Von Hügelweiler ignored the speaker, and turned to Karl.

"I have no claim on your trust," he said to his late sovereign, "no claim on your mercy—but my services may be useful. I ask no high command, I merely crave to be put somewhere in the firing-line, where I can put a bullet into the heart of the cursed American."

A silence followed this savage request. Then Karl turned to General Bilderbaum.

"What say you, General?" he asked. "Do you like the look of your new recruit?"

"No, sire," said the old soldier bluntly. "I have some blackguards in my command, but no double-dyed traitor such as this."

"What!" Von Hügelweiler's nerves,—never well under control,—were raw and ragged from his recent bitter experience, and by no means improved by the forced and hasty journey he had undertaken to Weissheim. With a cry of rage and indignation he swung round on the plain-spoken old General, maddened at the insult, and raising his fist as though to avenge it with a blow. But, as on a previous occasion, the General's wife was near at hand to protect the sacred person of her lord and master. Boiling with indignation, she hurled her ample person at the mutinous captain. Von Hügelweiler gave ground—he would have been a Samson had he not done so. And he stepped, not on to the snow, not on to the plank that crossed the run, but on to the surface of the bob-sleigh track itself. He might have trodden on a cloud or a trembling bog for all the foothold it afforded, and with a cry he fell, the Frau von Bilderbaum falling heavily and incontinently on him. Hands were stretched out, but too late. Before the General could clutch the skirt of his devoted partner, the ill-assorted pair,—struggling, writhing, uttering noises of wrath and fear,—had commenced the descent of the "bob" run. Nothing could stop their downward progress. Swifter and swifter the terrified twain glided, impotent hands clutched at the frictionless banks, and impotent heels were pressed fiercely and fruitlessly on to the glassy surface of the track. Down they went, the Captain struggling and swearing, the woman struggling and bellowing. The pace grew. They became disengaged. Von Hügelweiler slithered swiftly on his side, Frau von Bilderbaum rotated slowly in a sitting posture, descending with ever-growing momentum. Up a banked curve she swung, fat arms were raised frantically, a roar of pathetic discomfort shook the frosty air, and the devoted woman disappeared from view round a bend of the track.

Much of the colour had left General Bilderbaum's face. No one laughed, for the ludicrous mishap might well be a prelude to a serious, even fatal, accident. Saunders climbed up a high mound of piled snow, from which the further bends of the track might be visible.

"There are some men at work lower down sweeping the course," he said, speaking clearly for all to hear. "They have heard the cries and they are preparing to stop them. Two have put their brooms across the track—but the speed is gathering. They have stopped her—no! the impetus was too great—the sweepers are rolling backwards in the snow. Wait! the pace is checked—others are helping. They've got her. Now—ah! Hügelweiler's on the top of them! What a collision! She's up, unhurt! It's all right, General; your good lady is safe and sound of limb. She's had a shaking, but her nerves are good, or I'm no judge of physiology. Go down and look after her."

"Aye, and after Hügelweiler, too," spluttered the veteran. "I've a heavy reckoning with that young scoundrel that will take some paying, or I'm not the son of Karl Bilderbaum the Fierce."

"I wonder,"—said Karl, as soon as General Bilderbaum had left to recover his hapless spouse,—"I wonder whether this man Von Hügelweiler might not prove a valuable addition to our force. He seems to have the enemy's discomfiture, if not our interests, very much at heart."

"Where would you put him?" asked Saunders.

"I should put him where David put Uriah the Hittite," said Meyer. "Where he has himself asked to be put—in the firing line."

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR RIVAL INFLUENCES

Von Hügelweiler had spoken true when he said that the expedition had started against Weissheim. Two days after Trafford had so narrowly escaped the violence of the Weidenbruck mob the various regiments were entrained at the great terminus in the Bahnhofstrasse. The sight of men being despatched to kill their fellow-men always rouses enthusiasm in the human breast, and there was abundance of flaunting banners, martial melody, and sounding cheers from the stay-at-homes. And in the rolling of drums and the reverberation of cheers Gloria herself seemed to have forgotten her original prejudice against the campaign. And as the engine screeched and the royal train, decked with the green and yellow bunting of her House, moved slowly from the station, she felt a Queen going forth to re-conquer a rebellious province, a just instrument of picturesque vengeance, rather than the player of the unwelcome role of blood-guilty adventuress. She put her head out of the window, and bowed and smiled and waved her hand, a thing of girlish excitement with the minutest appreciation of the underlying grimness of the situation.

That day they steamed to Eselbruck. At this point the railway was cut. The great stone viaduct that spanned the deep ravine was a thing of shattered piers and broken arches, an interesting problem for the engineer, and an object-lesson in the effective use of detonating cartridges. At this point, therefore, the units were derailed, a depôt formed, and on the next morning the whole force,—shod with skis and in full marching order,—set itself in motion towards Weissheim. During the march Trafford neither saw nor heard from Gloria. He was not unhappy. The fine air, the healthy exercise, the splendid uplands through which they were passing, won him to a mood of strong content. Something had lit a fire in his heart that no wind of disfavour or adversity could extinguish. He knew that he was a living man again, moving among creatures of flesh and blood; not a spiritless mechanism in a world of automata. He had seen, or fancied he had seen, a spark of human love in the young Queen's heart, and that spark he swore to kindle into flame by deeds of reckless heroism. And the great energy that was his birthright,—stimulated to its highest capacity by the bracing air of the snow-clad passes and the extraordinary beauty of the land,—filled his spirit with a vast and comforting hopefulness.

In the course of the afternoon he found Bernhardt by his side. Trafford began to thank him for his rescue from the mob, but Bernhardt interrupted him.

"I know about your secret marriage," he said, "and though I think it folly, it is the sort of folly I admire. Von Hügelweiler told me about it. To the people he told another story,—a less respectable story without ring or sacrament."

"So I gather. But I can fight calumny as I can fight other enemies of my Queen."

Bernhardt nodded approvingly.

"They breed men in your country," he said, and then asked: "Are you tired?"

"It is impossible to be tired in such air," was the reply.

"Ski-running is a new sport to you, and you are in love."

Trafford laughed lightly.

"I am in love with Grimland," he said. "Weidenbruck is a villainous place; but these gorgeous mountains, with their great, sombre forests and limitless snow-fields, make up a picture I shall never forget. I should like to be king of such a country."

"One never knows," said Bernhardt. "A great and striking victory, and your dream may be realised. But for the present, remember that you are a soldier, not a consort. Our friend Von Hügelweiler has an evil tongue, and he has spread cruel slanders about you and the Queen. Evil things win quick credence in Grimland, and the only way to give them the lie is for you and Gloria to see nothing of each other at present."

"That is a little rough on a newly-married man."

"Your marriage is nothing. The Grimlander, who is fickleness personified,—and who would like a change of dynasty once a week,—is never a Republican. He would not tolerate the idea of his sovereign mating with a commoner. The only possible chance of such a step being accepted is for you to do something quite out of the ordinary in this campaign. It will hardly be wise even then—but we might chance it."

"I believe in fate," said Trafford stubbornly.

"Comfort yourself your own way," said Bernhardt. "I, for my part, wish you well. There is a dash of the devil about you that wins my best wishes. But I have no further time to waste discussing your affairs. I am wanted here, there, and everywhere, and the time is one of war, not of love. Only, remember my command, my advice if you prefer it; keep your mind fixed on your military duties, and avoid her gracious Majesty Gloria as you would the plague."

That night they encamped at Schafers-stadt—a quaint old town lying in a sunless valley between precipitous hills. Next day they started early, reaching Wallen, a mountain village within easy striking distance of Weissheim, shortly after sunset. Here accommodation was somehow found for the considerable force under Bernhardt's command. Shelter had to be obtained for all, for to sleep out of doors at such an altitude during the winter months meant awakening in another world. Food had also to be provided on a large scale, for the force was what is called a "flying column"; that is to say, it was proceeding across country in the most direct line to its objective, and not relying on road or railway for a continuance of supplies.

The only transport accompanying the force was of a grimmer nature. A number of pieces of ordnance were being conveyed on flat-bottomed sleighs, specially constructed for the purpose. And these had to be drawn, with infinite labour, by men on skis, for the way lay over a countryside many feet deep in snow, and horses would have been absolutely useless for such a purpose. Trafford, therefore, was busy on his arrival unearthing cheeses and loaves, wine-casks and other fascinating objects, from the cellars of the more or less hospitable Walleners. Whilst so employed he was, approached by a private of the Guards with a note.

"Come to the big house in the Market Square—the one with the carved escutcheon over the door—at 6.30, and I will give you dinner.—Gloria R."

"I will write an answer," said Trafford.

"There is no answer, Excellency," said the man, and with a salute he was gone.

Trafford rubbed his hand thoughtfully up and down the back of his neck. Bernhardt had been quite definite in his command to him not to see the Queen, and though the order was little to his liking, he approved its prudence. But the letter in his hand was also a command, and it came from a higher source than even Bernhardt's dictum.

Accordingly, at half-past six he presented himself at a big balconied house in the Market Square. A simple meal was spread for two in the dining-room,—a low pitched apartment panelled from floor to ceiling in dark pine, and garnished with a wealth of cumbrous, antique furniture.

He waited alone for a few moments, cheered by a most appetising and savoury odour of cooking, and then Gloria entered, smiling, cordial, eminently composed.

"I am so glad you have come," she began.

He took her outstretched hand and kissed it.

"I am a soldier, and I obey," he said.

"When it pleases you," she laughed. "And I hope it does please you to dine tête-à-tête with me."

"I can conceive no greater felicity."

"None?"

"None," he answered. "I have the excitement of a military campaign, my eyes are continually feasted with magnificent scenery, and my lungs with matchless air. Then, on the top of a day of most exhilarating exercise comes an invitation from the lady who is my wife on paper, and whom I have sworn to make my wife in the sight of all men."

Gloria looked him fully in the face and pressed a small hand-bell that reposed on the table at her side.

"Gaspar," she said to the orderly who had entered, "bring in the dinner. You know that our friend Bernhardt has forbidden us to meet," Gloria continued, after a dish of yungfernbraten—roast pork and juniper berries—had been set before them.

"I know," said Trafford, "and he was right."

"Why?"

Trafford hesitated.

"Von Hügelweiler seems to have coupled our names in an unpleasant manner," he said at length.

Gloria flushed.

"Then you should not have come," she said.

"You gave me no option. As your husband I might have refused. As your officer I had to obey."

"You might have exercised your discretion."

"I might if I had any," he replied. "But I am a most indiscreet man. To-morrow, so I understand, I am going into action. I may win fame or I may be shot through the head. As the latter alternative is not unlikely, I am anxious to spend what may be my last evening on earth with the one woman whom I really——"

A forcible ring from Gloria interrupted the sentence's conclusion.

"Gaspar, fill this gentleman's glass. As you were remarking, Captain, Grimland is a very beautiful country."

"It is a very cold country," Trafford growled, plunging his fork into the steaming viands.

"To-morrow night I shall be sleeping in my ancestral home—the Marienkastel," Gloria pursued, as the orderly withdrew. "It is a fine old place, and Karl forfeited it when my father failed to carry out his projects in 1904."

"That is the place you wish me to win back for you?"

"If you will be so kind?"

"And suppose I am killed in the process, will you think kindly of me?"

"Very."

The callousness of the affirmation horrified him.

"I believe you were right when you said you had no heart!" he cried indignantly.

"That is what I want you to believe," she returned calmly.

"And that if I am killed," he went on bitterly, "you will welcome the termination of an impossible situation."

Gloria gave an almost imperceptible shrug.

"You keep harping on death," she protested, "surely you are not afraid?"

He turned fiercely on her, but restrained his voice to a level tone.

"From what you know of me," he asked, "am I the sort of man who is likely to be afraid?"

"No," she admitted readily. "The night of the revolution you were heroism personified. Also I have heard of your exploit in Herr Krantz's wine-shop, and it—it sounded very typical of you."

"Thank you," he said, meeting her gaze; and an instant later, he added: "There is no such thing as fear in the world for me."

"Why?" she asked.

He answered her question with a reckless bang on the table.

"Because I have lived!" he cried. "If a bullet finds its way to my heart it will have warm lodging. I am a happy man, and my happiness stands high above the accidents of life and death. Eternity has no terrors but solitude, and for me there will never be such a thing as solitude again, because I have met my second self."

A hand was stretched out towards the bell, but Trafford intercepted it, and the bell was swept off the table on to the floor.

Gloria rose with flashing eyes.

"I asked you here in a spirit of camaraderie," she said haughtily. "Because I owe much to you and am conscious of the debt, I risked angering Bernhardt and smirching my own fair name. But you abuse my confidence. You know, as I know, that the present is no time for love-making. And yet——" She stopped abruptly, for Trafford had risen, and, picking up the bell, he put it on the table before her.

"Ring," he said.

"Can I not trust you?"

"No!" he retorted. "You gave me the right to love you, not by your promise to go through the ceremony of marriage with me, not by the fulfilment of that promise, but by a certain light that shone in your eyes for a few brief seconds in the chapel of the Neptunburg. I am exercising that right to-night."

She drew in her breath sharply.

"You said just now that I was heartless," she said.

"That is the usual lover's lie," he retorted; "the reproach that is only justified by its manifest untruth. But I am a gentleman, as you vaguely surmise, and I will not persist in an attention which is unwelcome to you. I came to make an appeal. You have but to command, and I will leave without another word."

"What is the appeal?"

"Do you wish me to make it?" he countered.

"You have said so much you had best go on."

Trafford drew back the curtain of the mullioned window and gazed at the shining pageantry of the frosty skies. For a full minute he stood gazing, and then he dropped the tapestry and faced his royal hostess.

"I said I was content with things as they are," he began, "and to a point that is so, for they are better than they might have been. But with the eye of faith I see something nobler than this struggle for a kingdom we have no right to possess. Something has made me wise these past few days: something has taught me that the love of excitement can be very cruel, and that the harrying of a brave man is not necessarily a more elevating sport than bull-baiting."

"You wish me to abandon this expedition against Karl?"

"Oh, it is an absurd, impossible demand, I know," he said, "and I don't ask you for a moment to consider it. There are a hundred reasons why we should go on, and there is only one reason why we should not; and that reason does not seem to weigh with you at all. But I am a madman, a visionary, and, like Bernhardt, I see things. And in my hallucinations I see a woman who is Queen, not of Grimland, but of an even more delectable country. And the woman I see has but one subject, and she is content with him alone, because her sway over him is so paramount."

Gloria stood very, very still. Only her fingers moved as they plucked the fur trimming of her dress.

"If I asked you to give up Grimland and fly with me to America, would you do it?" he cried passionately.

"No—but I should like to hear you ask it." A smile, the slowest smile that ever was, bent the extreme corners of the fascinating lips, and ultimately broke in a burst of sunshine illuminating the whole face. Its arrival found him by her side, his hand on her arm, and a look in his eyes that sought for something with an almost pathetic intensity.

"I do ask you to come to America with me," he said. "Will you come—come to New York, the great, bright city, where the people do not do the horrible things they do in Grimland and other out-of-the-way corners of Europe?" He waited a moment, and then added: "Of course, we shall always keep this beautiful country in our hearts—a land of rocky spires and splintered crags, a land of swelling snow-fields and amazingly blue skies; a land where the air is sweet and keen and pine-laden, and the face of Nature stands bold and true, crisp-cut from the chisel of the Master-mason."

There was no answer. His hand trembled on her arm like a vibrant note of interrogation; his eyes strained to catch the light he longed for, the light he had seen, or fancied he had seen, in the gloom of the Chapel Royal.

"Will you come?" he breathed; and for a pregnant second the world of things material rolled back from his consciousness, and left him standing alone in space with his fate. For the strange brain was playing tricks with him,—as big, uncontrolled brains do with impulsive, ill-balanced people. His five senses were in abeyance, or warped beyond all present usefulness. He saw a pair of eyes as points of light in a world of darkness, but all sense of reality had utterly deserted him. He was as he had been in the Chapel Royal when his bride had made her hesitating avowal of a half-passion. A sheet of flame seemed to be passing through his body, a roseate glow suffused his vision; he never realised that he was uttering a beloved name in a voice of thunder and grasping a beloved object with no little strength. But ecstatic entrancements, however subliminal, yield ultimately to rude physical shocks, and dimly and slowly the world of dreams vanished and he became conscious that someone was hitting him violently on the back. Turning round with half-dazed eyes, he found himself confronted with the stern lineaments of Father Bernhardt. The ex-priest, clad in a military overcoat and high leggings, and powdered with still unmelted snow, carried mingled wrath and astonishment in his countenance.

"Sunde und Siechheit!" he cried. "Are you, too, an absintheur, Captain Trafford?"

For the moment Trafford had not the vaguest idea what an absintheur might be, but he replied vaguely in the negative.

Bernhardt uttered an oath.

"I called you three times by name," he said, "and I struck you three times on the back before you would condescend to pay me any attention."

"I apologise," said Trafford; "I was thinking of other things."

"You were in a delirium," retorted Bernhardt. "The fiend of Tobit——"

"Oh, hang the fiend of Tobit!" interrupted Trafford hotly. "I may be a lunatic, Bernhardt, but I'm a healthy-minded lunatic, if there is such a thing. I was making love, and we'll leave it at that, if you please, and drop all talk of delirium and fiends."

"I was finding an excuse for you."

"I don't need one, thank you." Trafford, as is the way with interrupted lovers, was in an irritable mood, and being so did not notice that Bernhardt was really angry.

"Indeed you do!" retorted the ex-priest. "I forbade you expressly to see the Queen, and I find you dining alone with her, and making violent love to her in addition."

"I received a command to dine."

"And a command to make love?" sneered Bernhardt.

"That is my affair."

Bernhardt turned from the irate American to the confused Gloria, and there was little deference in his regard.

"Your Majesty does not value your reputation too highly," he said. "As long as you play at being a maid it is as well to act like a maid."

"My reputation can look after itself," she retorted with dignity.

"We are five thousand feet above sea level," put in Trafford, "and at least two thousand above the level of perpetual convention. What was a wise precaution at Weidenbruck becomes sheer timidity at Wallen. But if you still think my presence is infectious to the Queen's honour, I will withdraw. The question I came to ask has been answered, and answered well."

Bernhardt turned a pair of piercing eyes on the intrepid American. Trafford met the look without flinching.

"You are a very strange person, Herr Trafford," said the ex-priest slowly; "you are not afraid of me. I believe you and Saunders are the only two men in Grimland who are capable of standing up to me in my wrath. But tell me before you go, what was this question you put and what was its answer."

"I asked her Majesty if she wished to continue this expedition against Karl, and she answered, 'No.'"

"She answered 'No!'" Bernhardt gasped.

"If you do not believe me, ask her yourself."

Again Bernhardt turned to the young Queen.

"Is it true?" he demanded.

Gloria passed her hand across her forehead, as if she was just recovering from a condition of unconsciousness. When she spoke it was in jerky, consequent sentences.

"Karl is a brave man; he is not a bad man. It is cruel to harry people—loyal, brave people. He is the lawful sovereign of Grimland. I don't wish to cause suffering. I——"

"There speaks a Schattenberg!" interrupted Bernhardt with a mocking laugh. "The man who killed your father is entrenched within two leagues of you. Your house, the historic Marienkastel, home of the Schattenbergs for centuries, is his appanage. You have six thousand men at your back to win you back your heritage; but the old, heroic fire is burning low, the fierce old blood is running thin—the Schattenbergs are bred out!"

The man's calculated scorn, his splendid insolence, filled Trafford with admiration; and it was plain that his caustic speech was not without its effect on the sensitive Gloria. She seemed to be emerging from a stupor which still drugged her senses.

"I would like the Marienkastel," she conceded; "it is the home of my childhood; its walls are very dear to me. It should be mine by right."

"Say rather by might," retorted Bernhardt. "You like the Marienkastel, but you do not like the withering fire that decimates the storming party. Its walls are dear to you, but the forlorn hope, the scaling ladders, and the petard are abhorrent to your soul. You wish to possess, but the strong man armed is too forbidding a person to be ousted."

"If the expedition were against the Marienkastel——"

"It is against the Marienkastel," interrupted Bernhardt. "The Marienkastel is the key to the whole town. If we can hold it for half an hour we can dictate what terms we like."

"Dictate what terms we like!" Gloria repeated the last words of his sentence with eyes aflame. She was a Schattenberg again, ardent, ambitious, reckless. All trace of weakness had left her.

"And can we take it—can we hold it?" she went on in tones of eager inquiry.

Bernhardt stretched out his hand towards Trafford.

"There is the answer to your question," he said.

"You will capture the Marienkastel for me?" she asked, turning to her silent lover.

Trafford looked at the girl before him long and searchingly before answering.

"The Marienkastel is the key to Weissheim," he said at length; "it is also, it appears, the key to your heart. I thought there was a nearer way,—a better way. Yes," he went on, "I will capture the Marienkastel, or do all that a man can do to capture it, and then I will claim my reward."

"You shall have it," said Bernhardt; "I swear it."

"And I promise..." breathed Gloria.

Trafford nodded to himself.

"I am content," he said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE THE OPENING BARS

Mr. and Mrs. Saunders were having breakfast together in the pretty stone villa they had built for themselves at Weissheim, overlooking the Nonnensee. The view of the mountains beyond the lake, the exquisite expanse of snow, growing into sparkling life under the touch of the rising sun, furnished a prospect of sufficiently absorbing grandeur. But Saunders' eyes wandered only from an omelette aux fines herbes to a belated copy of the Morning Post. English newspapers had been scarce since the cutting of the railway, and the present specimen had reached its destination by a roundabout way through Vienna, and had cost exactly tenpence.

"What is the Government doing?" asked Mrs. Saunders, who took an interest in home politics.

"I don't know. When I am in this delightfully disorganised country the mild animosities of English party strife fill me with contempt. I was reading the 'Births, deaths, and marriages' just to prove to myself that there are natural tragedies and romances, even in the decently regulated areas of Bayswater and Mayfair."

"Is anyone we know mentioned?"

"By Jove!" ejaculated Saunders after a pause.

"Well?"

"By Jove!"

"Please go on, Robert," said Mrs. Saunders with pardonable impatience.

"Angela Knox, that American girl, is——"

"Well?"

"Is going to marry a grouse moor."

"Pray be explicit."

"Glengourlie—a little man in the Scots Guards. Eldest son of the Marquis of Stratheerie; ten thousand a year and the best half of Inverness-shire."

Mrs. Saunders received this startling information with composure.

"She'll make a handsome peeress," was her comment.

"What about George Trafford?" asked her husband.

"Grimland is a country of short memories and swift changes," said Mrs. Saunders. "It converted you from a blasé bachelor to a happy husband; and it has converted George Trafford from a broken-hearted desperado to a lover of an usurping queen."

"Do you believe Von Hügelweiler's tale?" asked Saunders in surprise.

"Yes, and no; I believe George has undoubtedly been fascinated by Gloria. With her beauty, high spirit, and fearless temperament, she was bound to attract him. Fresh from a recent disappointment—and lacking as he is at all times in all sense of proportion—he is quite capable of demanding her hand in marriage. But Gloria,—though she would like him well enough as a friend,—would not dream of stultifying herself by marrying a plain American; still less would she stoop to the depths Von Hügelweiler hinted at."

"I am sorry about it all," said Saunders. "Nervy, with all his faults, is a lovable sort of scoundrel, and he had a pretty severe knock over l'affaire Angela. If Gloria is fooling him for her own purposes—as seems more than certain—it will leave him, spiritually and mentally, in a condition of pulp."

"You mean——"

"Oh, not exactly; for one thing, he's mad already. He's like a man on a free-wheel bicycle without a brake—all right on the level, but in the deuce of a fix if he begins to go downhill."

Mrs. Saunders looked thoughtful.

"There is a possibility that he may never live to be disillusioned," she said. "He is said to be accompanying this force against us, and he is not the sort of person to cultivate the art of taking cover. However, things will be settled one way or the other soon."

"Very soon," Saunders agreed. "Meyer's scouts report that the enemy encamped last night at Wallen; and they don't waste time there. Six thousand able-bodied men in a bracing climate eat a good deal—and Wallen is a small place with a limited supply of hams and maize. They will be here to-day or to-morrow."

Mrs. Saunders devoted her attention to the omelette which furnished their morning meal. She was a lady who had made a point of hiding her emotions, and the near prospect of her husband being in danger necessitated a strong effort of control. It was some minutes before she spoke again.

"What are you going to do this morning?" she asked at length. "I should 'curl,' if I were you. You haven't 'sent down' a 'stone' for weeks, and I think a respite from your military preoccupations would do you good."

Saunders sighed regretfully, and stretched himself.

"There is a competition to-day," he replied; "Major Flannel's Cup, and I am not in for it. I may watch for a bit, but things are too critical now to admit of much leisure. You see, I've been told off to hold the Marienkastel, and our good friends the enemy may send us their visiting-cards at any minute."

"And can you hold the Marienkastel?" asked Mrs. Saunders.

Saunders smiled.

"I can hold it for a couple of hours," he replied, "which is all that Meyer requires of me. We are to put as many of the enemy out of action as we can, and then yield possession with a bad grace. After that we have a little surprise for them: a couple of concealed mortars, which will blow the historic old fabric and those inside it into several thousand fragments."

Mrs. Saunders suppressed a shudder.

"And are they sure to attack the Marienkastel?" she asked.

"Absolutely certain," he replied, "if they know the rudiments of military science. Besides, there are sentimental reasons for their doing so, for the old Schloss is the ancestral home of the Schattenbergs."

Mrs. Saunders was silent for a moment; then she spoke, hesitatingly, but with a forced calm.

"And will your position—be a very dangerous one?" she asked.

"Fairly so," he replied lightly. "You see, we shall have to bear the brunt of the main attack, and we shall hang on as long as we can. But it is in the evacuation that we shall probably lose most heavily."

Mrs. Saunders nodded sagely.

"And it is in the subsequent bombardment that the enemy will suffer most severely?" she inquired.

"Precisely. It will mean turning the fine old place into a shambles, but we must strike hard or not at all; and Karl's blood is up, as it was in 1904."

A deep, vibrant "boom" broke on their ears, and died with long-drawn echoes amid the encircling mountains.

"The enemy have sent their visiting-card!" said Mrs. Saunders.

Saunders rose, and stepped hurriedly out of the long window on to the balcony, his wife following. The former produced a pair of field-glasses, and critically regarded a puff of smoke that hung motionless in the still morning air to the extreme left of the panorama.

"Four-inch Creusot," he said laconically; "that means that redoubt A has found something to practise at—a feint attack, probably. I must go to my post in the Marienkastel. They'll have worked round there in a couple of hours, and then the serious business will begin."

Another sounding roar came pealing along the hillsides, and then a veritable concert, as the other iron mouths took up the harsh music and shook the thin air with their stern melody.

From where they stood the actual operations of the attack were invisible by reason of the pine woods that clothed the plain in that direction. But there was much to see from the commanding site occupied by the Saunders' villa. The town itself,—with its circle of improvised forts,—lay considerably below them to the left. Companies of soldiers were plainly discernible defiling to the various points of defence assigned to them, and the blare of bugles rang shrilly through the strident chorus of the distant cannon. It was plain that the greatest activity prevailed, but an activity well-ordered, thought-out, and purposeful.

Meyer,—with all his unsoldierly distaste for personal danger,—was almost perfect as the general of a threatened city. Every detail had been thought out, every unit of the defence was ready at a moment's notice to take his appointed place.

Saunders turned his sweeping gaze to the right, and it lighted upon the private curling-rink belonging to Major Flannel's villa. He smiled, for the contest for the Flannel Cup had already begun, and was going on heedless of the stern symphony that was making the valleys echo with bursts of shattering sound.

A curling competition demands a whole-hearted absorption from its votaries, and takes little heed of battle, murder, and sudden death, provided the ice is keen and in good order.

"What are you smiling at?" demanded Mrs. Saunders.

"British sense of proportion," he replied, and as he spoke a man on skis approached from the street below and called on him by name.

"Orders from the General, Excellency!"

Saunders took the note. It was a hurried scrawl in Meyer's handwriting:

"Proceed instantly on receipt of this to the Marienkastel. Hang on till they get within a hundred yards, then bolt for the abatis in the new cemetery!" Saunders read it aloud, and then turned to his wife.

"Farewell, dearest," he said simply. "When I have gone make your way to the Pariserhof. You will be perfectly safe there."

Mrs. Saunders hung speechless a moment in her husband's embrace. When she spoke it was apologetically, as one demanding a difficult favour.

"Robert," she pleaded, "should I be a great nuisance in the Marienkastel? I could tend the wounded—I might even——"

"To-day is a day of obedience and discipline," he interrupted with firm kindness. "I am ordered to the Marienkastel, you to the Pariserhof. Yours is the post of anxiety, mine of excitement. Man is selfish and woman patient—and so the latter always has to bear the crueller burden."

She bit her lip and nodded, and released herself from his embrace. Strong arms handed him his rifle, and cool, steady hands fastened the cartridge-belt around his waist.

"You know Karl entreated you not to take part in this stupid war," she said with the suspicion of a break in her voice. "Was it kind to me to refuse him?"

"It was infernally cruel," he replied. "Necessity generally is."

Again she nodded thoughtfully. He was right; he was bound to help Karl, but it needed a brave woman to admit the necessity. But Mrs. Saunders was no ordinary woman, and for a minute her hazel eyes fought hard and not unsuccessfully against the hot, pent stream that battled for an exit. For a moment she fought the unequal fight; then nature gained the day.

The tears won through, and the strong, supple form became a clinging thing of naked grief.

Saunders pressed the bowed head tenderly against his bosom, and intertwined his fingers lovingly in her hair.

"Good-bye, best beloved," he said. "And whatever comes, defeat or victory, the thrill of triumph or the darkness that is death, there will only be one vision before me—the cool, grey eyes that looked into my soul and found something there not wholly unworthy of a woman's love."

"God who gave you to me, protect you," she sobbed, "and teach me to live through to-day."

And as Saunders strode through the snow to the Marienkastel there was no fear in his heart; merely a great longing for the reunion which must come to loyal hearts—here or hereafter.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX THE PARLEY

The Pariserhof, whither Mrs. Saunders betook herself at her husband's desire, was sufficiently safe, both from its situation and character, to form a rallying point for non-combatants of both sexes and diverse nationalities. From its upper stories an excellent view of the hostilities could be obtained, and in its cellars there was not only efficient shelter from chance missiles, but a considerable mitigation of the thunder of artillery. The latter apartments, therefore, were crowded with old ladies and young children, with a sprinkling of sensitive males who had come to Weissheim to recover nerve-tone rather than to listen to gun-fire. On the flat roof over the great dining-hall Mrs. Saunders was standing, field-glasses in hand, surveying the operations with a steady and critical gaze. Most often her glasses were directed towards the Marienkastel, against which the forces of the invading party were being gradually focussed; but no sound passed her lips, neither did the fine, white fingers that held the field-glasses twitch or tremble in the least degree. Hers was the curious, irrational pride that prefers to hide its suffering, though the suffering be doubled by the effort of concealment.

A few adventurous spirits had sallied forth to other points of vantage, where they could get a better, though less secure, view of the rare spectacle afforded by the fateful day. But for once the curling-rink and skating-rink belonging to the hotel were deserted; for once the surface of the ice-runs was unscarred by the iron runners of innumerable toboggans. Only on Major Flannel's private rink,—not far from the Marienkastel itself,—the contest for the Flannel Cup was proceeding as though the day was a day of sport and not of war. The keenest curlers in Weissheim were there: "Skipper" Fraser, the sandy Scot, whose perky humour lent such spice and piquancy to the most tragic moments of the game; Major Flannel himself, roaring out his commands, reproaches, and encouragements in a voice which easily made itself heard through the growing din of battle; Strudwick, the gigantic American, who could always be relied on when a "knock-out" shot was required; little Hobbs, the Englishman, who sent down his stones in an unorthodox manner, but always within an inch of where his "skipper" wanted them, so that a particularly brilliant shot came to be known, not as a "beauty" or a "daisy," but as a "Jimmy Hobbs."

But all the while Bernhardt had been developing his plans with the deliberate skill of a born general. He had forced the enemy to unmask the batteries that guarded the lower part of the town. These he could have forced at a price, had he willed, for, though cunningly constructed, snow ramparts are not an effective protection even against rifle fire. But to have done this would have meant long hours of heavy loss, with the grim prospect of stern street fighting when the last redoubt yielded to his superior forces. Could he capture the Marienkastel and establish the few pieces of artillery he had brought so laboriously with him, the town would be at his mercy, and he could make,—as he had said,—any terms he wished. By eleven o'clock the movement against the old Schloss commenced in earnest. Bernhardt might have brought his guns to bear on the ancient masonry, but there were sentimental reasons for not reducing the historic pile to a heap of rubble; nor was he the man to waste time in an artillery duel if the place could possibly be taken by a coup de main. The Marienkastel must be restored intact to its rightful owner and peace dictated to the dethroned monarch before the sun sank to rest behind the western mountains.