Chapter THIRTY-THREE: The Lost Sheep

In the small hours of the morning, a party of half a dozen men on skis issued from the courtyard of the Brunvarad. They were weary-looking folk, dull-eyed and taciturn, and without a word they set themselves in motion along the road to Riefinsdorf. The remains of a huge bonfire glowed dully by the roadside, and a pillar of black smoke streamed straight up into the windless air. Where the snow had thawed in a circle round the once festive blaze it had frozen again into lumps of discoloured ice. Dark, recumbent forms showed here and there in the snow, heavy breathing wretches who had gone to sleep, warmed with abundant wine and the glowing flames, but who would wake in the morn to the misery of frost-bite and its attendant horrors. But the little group of ski-ers had no thought for such as these, and they passed them by with scarce a glance. Onward they went without a word, till Meyer tripped up over a sleeping form in the roadway, and broke the silence with a bitter curse, as he dragged himself to his feet.

"Why don't you go home, Meyer?" suggested Saunders, "you are fagged out, and we may have to sprint later on."

"If Bilderbaum can go on, I can go on," said the Commander-in-Chief irritably. "He is ten years older than I am."

"Five," corrected the General snappishly.

"The pursuit is farcical," said Meyer. "It would have been useless if we had undertaken it at once. At this hour it is a piece of ludicrous folly."

"You need not come," snapped Saunders, who, like the others, seemed to be in the worst of humours.

"Thanks," retorted Meyer. "We must play the game to its weary end. We have shown ourselves fools, and the least part of our penalty is a sleepless night after a restless day."

"We may overtake them yet," said Captain Lexa, who, with two of his riflemen, made up the little party.

"Impossibilities seem possibilities only to geniuses and fools," said Meyer rudely. "It is hardly necessary to state to which category we belong."

"While there is life there is hope," maintained Lexa stubbornly.

Meyer made an exclamation of contempt.

"Supposing the miracle is realised," he said, "and the slower catches the swifter, even then they will certainly outwit us again. In the proverb the tortoise caught the hare--but then the tortoise had brains."

Meyer's sarcasm had anything but a cheering effect on the dismal spirits of the company.

"To think of our never recognising them!" said Saunders bitterly. "To think of Trafford fooling us----"

"Oh, Trafford has imagination and initiative, in strong contradistinction to ourselves!" interrupted Meyer. "He has fooled us before and he would fool us again twenty times if twenty opportunities were offered him. We are not very clever people, my dear Saunders."

"If we are ever to catch them," said Lexa, "it must be by taking every short cut that offers itself. The road to Wallen winds round in and out of the mountains, and our only chance of overtaking the fugitives is to go straight up hill and down dale, no matter how steep and difficult the track."

Meyer groaned. His legs were aching intolerably, and the thought of breasting a steep ascent on skis almost overwhelmed his flagging spirit. No one, however, answered his groan with another suggestion that he should go back. The Jew had expressed his determination to go on to the bitter end, and nothing but complete physical collapse would stop him. They glissaded swiftly and almost recklessly down the hillside, and the rush of keen air somewhat quickened their flagging energies.

"Bend to the left!" called out Saunders, himself executing a fine "Christiania swing," and thereby just saving himself from charging the snow-wall that banked the bob-sleigh run. The others swung round at his call, and for a time proceeded parallel to the track at a reduced speed.

"Man ahead!" called out Saunders presently; and true enough a dark object was advancing slowly towards them up the path bordering the run. The two soldiers cuddled their rifles suggestively, and the others proceeded at an even pace towards the strange walker of the night.

"A wounded soldier finding his way back," suggested Lexa.

"He may be able to give us information," said Von Bilderbaum.

"Or he may be going to shoot us," said Meyer, prepared as usual for the worst. "Hands up, man," he called nervously, "or we fire!"

The man slowly raised his hands above his head, and continued to plod wearily up the path towards them. In the vague moonlight the newcomer seemed of gigantic stature, and his soundless footsteps suggested a being from another world. On he came with upraised arms and bent head, and then suddenly he lifted his face so that the rays of the sinking moon fell full upon it.

Lexa uttered a cry, but the others stood still in frozen silence, believing they dreamed. Then old Bilderbaum called out hoarsely to the soldiers, "Present arms!" and himself stood stiffly at the salute.

"Must I continue to hold my hands in the air?" asked Karl. "I am very tired."

"Your Majesty!" gasped Saunders.

"Good-evening, gentlemen," said the King, at length lowering his arms. "This is an unexpected pleasure. You are indefatigable."

"Pardon me," said Meyer yawning; "we are exceedingly tired. But as I have been constantly reminding my comrades,--almost to the point of boredom,--we are a pack of fools and must pay for our folly by the inconvenience of a night in the snow."

"If you are fools," said Karl, "I am the king of fools. But at least there is something noble in your folly, if it leads you from warmth and shelter to a hopeless search over a snow-bound countryside."

"But you have escaped, sire?" said Bilderbaum.

"Yes and no," replied Karl. "When the grand coup occurred on the bob-sleigh run I was partially stupefied by the fumes of chloroform. I quickly recovered, however, from its effects, and was even beginning to appreciate the fascinations of a moonlight abduction when an accident occurred to the sleigh."

"You were hurt?" inquired Saunders anxiously.

"No; I fell on my head--which is vastly harder than the snow."

"What happened, sire?" asked Lexa.

And then the King went on to tell that when Trafford enfiladed Saunders' trench with curling-stones he had won the first trick in the game and unwittingly lost the last. That the stones went gaily down the bob-sleigh run en route for Riefinsdorf, and might have gone Heaven knows where had not a subsidence of snow, caused doubtless by the reverberation of the guns, blocked the track. "The snow held the stones up," he concluded, "and the Providence, which manages the unstable affairs of kings and tobogganers, arranged that our runners should strike a large pink stone with a blue ribbon on it."

"Splendid!" cried Bilderbaum enthusiastically. "The 'bob' was wrecked, and the Princess and Trafford being stunned or disabled, you escaped from their clutches."

"Your imagination does you infinite credit, General," said Karl dryly, "but it outruns fact. No one was stunned or disabled; of the three, I was distinctly the most shaken."

"But how----"

"The situation was simple," said Karl. "The 'bob,' as you surmise, was wrecked. My abduction, therefore, was rendered abortive. There were only two courses open to my enemies--to kill me and make their way on foot to Wallen, where their friends were awaiting them, or to set me free and themselves fly the country. Those of you who know Trafford and his charming wife----"

"Wife!" interrupted Saunders.

"Yes," affirmed Karl; "the Princess Gloria was secretly married some days ago to your friend Trafford in the Chapel Royal of the Neptunburg. They are a healthy-minded couple, and they refused to entertain seriously the idea of murder."

"They set you free!" ejaculated Saunders. "Well done, Nervy Trafford! I am not so ashamed of my friend after all."

"He is a splendid fellow," said Karl, "and incidentally, my cousin by marriage. I assure you I for my part am not ashamed of the relationship."

"But where are they now?" asked Meyer.

"They are--where they are. They are free to leave the country without let or hindrance. When things are quieted down and I am firmly in the saddle again, they can come back in their true capacity--as my friends."

"We shall not have to wait long, sire," said Meyer with an unwonted note of jubilation in his voice. "Even before yesterday's battle the tide was running strongly for you at the capital. Henceforth Weidenbruck and the whole country will be loyal. Long live Karl the Twenty-second of Grimland!"

"Long live Karl!" echoed Saunders, Von Bilderbaum, and Lexa. "Long live Karl!" reiterated the riflemen, raising their shakos aloft on their musket barrels.

Karl stood still, with eyes that swam. He began to speak, but ended with a shake of his head, as if something had choked him.

"To-morrow, dear friends," he muttered very low. "To-morrow. To-night I am tired, very tired and very happy. Long live George Trafford and his beautiful bride!" he said in stronger tones. "God bless them! God bless our poor country! God help me to rule"--but his voice had sunk again to a whisper and as he spoke he reeled against Saunders.

The latter held the massive but limp frame from falling, while someone produced brandy from a flask and poured a generous measure down the King's throat. Then the soldiers made a seat of their crossed weapons, and shoulder-high and supported by willing arms, Karl of Grimland was borne, half-fainting with exposure and fatigue, but serene of mind, to the winter palace of his beloved Weissheim.