Chapter TWENTY-NINE: News From the Capital

The battle of Weissheim was a very small affair, viewed from an European standpoint. The forces engaged on either side were trivial, and the issues at stake of comparative indifference to all save those directly concerned; and yet it was not devoid of picturesqueness in its incidents, nor even of academic interest to those who study the conduct of military operations in the high regions of deep snow and zero frosts. The bombardment of the Marienkastel was an excellent example of concentrated artillery fire on a mediæval building, of the efficacy of modern explosives on ancient masonry, of the superiority of iron and melinite to stone and concrete. Bernhardt's gallant attempt to storm the destructive battery was as noble in its way as the heroic charge at Balaclava; its failure was even more pronounced. He returned from that spirited enterprise with half his men and a rifle bullet in his dangling left arm, but with an unbroken spirit and untamed energy.

The Marienkastel existed no longer as a building. Its halls were unroofed, its great tower but dwarf piers of splintered masonry. The position,--which had been captured with such skill and gallantry,--had been but a bait in the enemy's trap. The Marienkastel, indeed, commanded Weissheim, but Sanatorium Hill commanded the Marienkastel. The ex-priest's local knowledge had been inferior to Meyer's, and that inferiority spelt the difference between winning and losing the battle.

During Bernhardt's absence on his desperate effort to spike Von Hügelweiler's mortars, Trafford had been left in command of the castle. Finding his position untenable and his losses increasing at an appalling rate, he drew off to the sheltered ground by Major Flannel's curling-rink. Here they were safe from attack, and at the same time powerless for purposes of aggression. Gloria was with him, bitter at the destruction of her home, sick at the loss of her followers, anxious to do some desperate action which should win back their lost advantage.

The day which had opened with triumph seemed destined to close in shame. A man's courage was in her heart, a stubborn pride in her vigorous blood, but the sight of the wounded,--sufferers for her ambition,--won a softer mood, and she hastened to give comfort where she could no longer arouse enthusiasm. At about three o'clock in the afternoon Bernhardt and his remnant entered the hollow, which Trafford had now put in a position of defence. The ex-priest looked round at the entrenched riflemen and the guns in their snow embrasures, and laughed mockingly.

"On what can you train your guns here?" he asked, attempting to bind his wounded arm with the aid of his uninjured member and his strong teeth.

"On anyone who wants to play a game on Major Flannel's rink," Trafford replied, tendering his assistance for the stricken limb. "Our motto for the moment is 'defence not defiance.' We cannot hurt the enemy, and the next best thing is not to let him hurt us."

"And you are content with that?" asked Bernhardt with scorn.

"I have a beautiful nature," the American replied quietly, "and I accept the decrees of Providence in a chastened spirit. We came to capture a town and a king, and we have captured--a curling-rink! Unfortunately we have sent the curling-stones down the bob-sleigh run, so we are unable to derive much benefit from our achievement."

Bernhardt looked wonderingly at the other.

"And men call _me_ mad," he said after a pause.

"And with reason," retorted Trafford. "You are a Napoleon _in parvo_, a man who desires big things quite apart from their intrinsic value. You want a kingdom for your playground, and princes for your playthings; that is what scientists call megalomania, and I, bad taste. There are better things at hand for the normal man: a wife and children and a good conscience."

"A coward's creed!" was Bernhardt's comment.

"Maybe, but mine."

Bernhardt tossed his head in despairing amazement.

"To think that you of all men should sink so hopelessly at our first rebuff!--Trafford, the hero of the revolution, is no better than a craven!"

"There is more than one kind of cowardice, Bernhardt," rejoined Trafford without heat; "and I admit I was a coward in the Marienkastel, when the shells dropped and buried men alive under tottering walls. I don't think I was ever afraid before, but then I had never been in action with--with a woman."

"But 'perfect love casteth out fear,'" mocked Bernhardt.

"Then is my love very far from perfect," came the ready answer. "I was in a very torment of anxiety. A good man groaning out his life with a lump of lead in his breast, and a broken wall across his legs, is bad enough, but she"--and Trafford pointed to Gloria, who was engaged in tending a poor, disfigured wretch who had been moved from the stricken castle--"my God, Bernhardt, I was a coward!"

"Women don't feel pain as much as men," said Bernhardt brutally. "Our anxiety on their account is a purely selfish sentiment based on the lowest instincts."

"Your theory would be preposterous even if we were animals," replied Trafford. "As applied to humanity it is blasphemy. I fancy your wound hurts you."

"Aye, my wound hurts me--not the wound in my arm--I don't feel that--but the wound in my spirit. I am not one to sit down under defeat."

"Then what do you propose to do?"

"Push on to the Brunvarad!"

"And play Meyer's game for him! The road is held with every rifle and quick-firer they can cram into it."

"We can get through at a price," said Bernhardt between his teeth.

"I don't think we could get through at any price," rejoined Trafford with conviction. "If we go on we are beaten men; if we stay here we may make a draw of it."

Bernhardt uttered an exclamation of contempt.

"There is no such word in Grimland," he said. "We either win victory or we drain the cup of defeat to its dregs. Are we to return to the good loyal town of Weidenbruck and say, 'We have lost three hundred men and a dozen guns; we have not captured Weissheim, nor taken Karl, but we have made a draw of it? Strew garlands in our path and deck your houses with bunting, for we have escaped total destruction!'

"I was not suggesting returning to Weidenbruck," said Trafford.

"Can we stay here? What are we to eat? Where are we to sleep? The nights are far from warm at these altitudes. To sleep out of doors at Weissheim; is to sleep the sleep that knows no waking. If we cannot go forward we must fall back on our communications at Wallen. The hospitality of Major Flannel's curling-rink is not one to be accepted permanently."

Trafford was silenced. Events had landed them in an _impasse_, and to curse the whole folly of the expedition was alike ignoble and unprofitable.

It might have been wiser,--as he had advocated at Wallen,--to have abandoned the scheme of conquest, to have sought the joys of life in quiet retirement from the scene of clashing ambitions and frenzied upheavals; but the expedition had gone on to its fate and he had gone, consenting, with it. And things being as they were, Bernhardt's logic was relentlessly true. To go back with their purpose unfulfilled was to test the brittle fabric of the sullen Weidenbruckers' allegiance with too shrewd a strain. And if they could not go forward they must go back. In grim perplexity he called to Gloria.

"Is it worth while trying to force the road to Weidenbruck?" he asked her.

"If you had been tending wounded men, you would not ask such a question," she replied quietly.

"I thought the Schattenbergs rose to great heights in great difficulties," sneered Bernhardt. "If we are shirk our butcher's bill----"

"We have made our mistakes," she interrupted. "Our only chance is for them to make theirs. If we stay here they may attack us."

"Meyer doesn't make mistakes," said the ex-priest, "and if he did it would not be a mistake of that kind. If we stay here the only foes that will attack us will be General Frost and Brigadier Hunger; against such we have no defence."

"It seems to me," said Trafford, "that to go forward is madness, to go back madness, to stay here is madness; and as we must do one of these three things, madness is our portion. Now the most effective kind of lunacy seems to me to stay here till night-fall."

"And then hazard a night attack?" questioned Gloria hopefully.

"Not an attack," rejoined Trafford. "Meyer has very sound theories of defence, and his searchlights are sure to be in excellent working order. No; we must drop the soldier and become burglars. Where a thousand, or even a hundred, would fail, half a dozen may succeed; and the object of our burglary must be Karl. If we can secure his person and return with it to the capital, we shall have done all,--or nearly all,--we attempted. Weissheim is loyal to an individual not a dynasty, and Karl in the Strafeburg would be a much less attractive person than Karl in the Brunvarad."

Bernhardt laughed softly.

"I begin to have hopes of you again," he said.

Gloria clapped her hands excitedly.

"I knew you would find some way out of the difficulty!" she cried. "There is no such thing as despair with you in our counsels."

"I am fighting for a high stake," Trafford replied. "If I can win success out of the tangled disorder of our fortunes you----"

"If you can capture Karl," she interrupted, "I am sure there will be no political objection to your being--being my consort."

"Only personal objections?" he hazarded.

"There will be none," she said, "I swear it. You are a most gallant and resourceful gentleman, and I might search my kingdom over for your equal."

Trafford noted the genuine enthusiasm of her tones, and nodded grimly.

"You are what they call a 'throw-back,' your Majesty," he said. "You should have lived five hundred years ago, in the age of joust and tourney, when men won their wives by driving enormous spears through the breastbones of their less muscular rivals."

"And you are of the Middle Ages too," she countered; "your ideals, like mine, go back to the early days of chivalry."

"The days of the rack and the Iron Maiden? No, I assure you that with all my faults I am more up-to-date than that. Romance is a fine thing on paper, but in my heart of hearts I would win my soul's desire with a gentle wooing. But to return to our _moutons_: does the plan I have outlined commend itself to my friend Bernhardt?"

"If your proposal had been to put a bullet through Karl's cranium I should say that it bordered on sanity," replied Bernhardt. "But even that would be difficult. Meyer stands or falls by Karl's supremacy--and the Jew is not a man to let his position be forfeited for want of forethought. He will watch over Karl's sacred person as a mother watches over her first-born. Still, we might scheme an attempt for stalking the royal stag."

"I suggested turning burglar," said Trafford. "I consider that a sufficient descent in the social scale, without turning murderer."

"You have not the advantage of being an _absintheur_," was Bernhardt's rejoinder. But at this point the conversation was interrupted; an officer of the Guides had approached and was standing at the salute.

"A man to see your Excellency," he began, to Bernhardt.

"Where from?"

"Weidenbruck."

"His name?"

"Dr. Matti."

Bernhardt whistled.

"His business?" he demanded.

"Private and confidential."

"Hum! Conduct him here, please."

A moment later the doctor stood before them. He was arrayed in a woollen jersey, with a Jäeger scarf around his neck. Grey-green knickerbockers and yellow putties veiled his nether limbs. He was wearing smoked glasses, and his feet were shod with skis. His head was bare, and his hair wet and tangled, as though it had had intimate acquaintance with the snow.

"What are you doing here?" demanded the ex-priest.

"I come as a messenger and a fugitive," replied the doctor.

"Your news?"

"Weidenbruck is in a condition of anarchy. You left me as a dictator, but you deprived me of a dictator's only argument--force. You drained the city of troops, and you expected me to impose my will on that turbulent and sinful community. My will was to purify the _stadt_. My men raided the gambling-houses round the Goose-market; they harried the infamous dens of the Hahngasse. I closed the Mailand Kurhaus and that other haunt of immorality, the Augustus Café. For forty-eight hours virtue triumphed, and the worst features of my native town began to disappear with exhilarating rapidity. Then the forces of sin and debauchery put their evil heads together, and the reaction began. My police were suborned. The cry was raised that a worse tyranny than Karl's had been inaugurated. Rumours that Karl was holding his own and more began to be disseminated in the capital. It was whispered that guilty relations had been established between the young Queen and the accursed American. There was a riot. I called out the soldiers, but they were too few and not over willing. The people who had hounded Karl from his throne cheered his name in the same streets where they had sought his blood. I am no coward, but I was appalled. To calm the tempest would have needed an army corps."

"Or Father Bernhardt," interrupted Trafford.

"Anyway, I fled," the doctor resumed, "because I saw how imperative it was that you should return as soon as you had won your victory."

"And left the city to anarchy?" put in Gloria.

"I left the sons of worthlessness to their own confusion."

"Dr. Matti," said Bernhardt, "you are one of those amiable beings who have theories. If you had amused the Weidenbruckers,--or even let them amuse themselves,--all might have been well. Instead, however, you tried to turn them into angels,--a role which Providence has not assigned to any community east of Berlin."

"I meant well----"

"That is what I complain of," interrupted Bernhardt.

"But the situation is only temporarily serious," interposed the hapless doctor. "When you have captured Weissheim----"

"When we have captured Weissheim," said Trafford. "Unfortunately we are about a quarter of a mile further from Weissheim than we were two hours ago. And two hours hence we shall very probably be further still."

"Good heavens! You----"

"We are like you, Dr. Matti," went on Trafford. "We have had a failure; like you, we over-rated our own skill and under-rated our enemies'. The situation is bad."

Matti was silent, but his big, plebeian features showed plainly the disappointment and consternation of his mind. The short winter day was winning to its close. Already the sun was falling behind the great wall of the distant mountains; already the snows of the Klauigberg were flushing rose-pink against the greening turquoise of the cloudless sky. A chill had crept into the air, the surface of the curling-rink,--which had been wet under the sun's mid-day power,--was now as slippery as a polished mirror. In an hour it would be dark, and with the dark would come the intense cold that meant death to all that failed to find a night's shelter.

"It is time we fell back towards Wallen," said Bernhardt to Gloria. "I and Trafford will stay behind with a few trusty spirits. If all goes well we will join you to-morrow morning."

"I am going to stay behind too," said Gloria quietly. "Colonel Schale can conduct the retreat."

"I too will stay behind," said Dr. Matti. "I am further from Weidenbruck here than at Wallen."

Bernhardt looked at the doctor's heavy, determined features, and nodded.

"We four," he muttered. "It is enough! My wound burns like fire; the cold has got into it, and it will mortify. To-morrow Dr. Matti can remove the gangrened limb."

Matti's professional instincts were roused by the last words.

"You are wounded?" he said. "You had best let me remove the bullet at once." He produced from his person a small bottle containing a colourless fluid. "I was prepared for emergencies of this nature. A whiff of chloroform----"

"To the devil with your anæsthetics!" cried Bernhardt hotly. "My brain is wanted to-night; my _brain_, Herr Doctor, not a fuddled mass of drugged cells and inert tissue! Take out the bullet if you will, but don't imagine I shall flinch under the knife. There is no pain that I can feel but the pain of disappointment."

"But a mere whiff," began the worthy doctor.

"Do as he bids," said Trafford, taking the bottle from Matti's hand and putting it for safety into his pocket. "That may come in useful later. But I should take out the bullet, if you can," he whispered; "there is a queer look in his eyes, and I fancy the pain is making him light-headed."

"Come, cut out the little lump of lead, doctor," said Bernhardt, "the little messenger that meant so much harm and achieved so little. Cut deep, Matti, and do not stint the knife. Only leave me my right arm and my brain; for to-night there will be great doings between the dusk and the dawn. Aye, Bernhardt," he went on, talking to himself, "you must rise to great heights. There will be friends to help you--a mad Yankee, a Puritan doctor, and the last of the Schattenbergs. A strange trinity! Nor must I forget my good councillor Archmedai. He must be very near me to-night. Herr Trafford, I have a flask at my belt; it is difficult for me to undo it with one hand. Kindly assist me. A thousand thanks! I drink to our success to-night, I drink to the devil in the devil's own tipple. Death to Karl! Joy to Trafford and his bride! And to Bernhardt----" he tossed down a full measure of his beloved absinthe--"to Bernhardt I drink"--his speech thickened and his eyes wandered vaguely over the group. He drank again--"To Bernhardt I pledge--the great unknown!"