Chapter XXIV: Again They Won Out

DRAWING up with a flourish in front of a most pretentious example of old-time architecture, the fur shrouded jehu reached for his fare, which matter was adjusted by Salisky, who had orders from his colonel to see the boys through from start to finish.

At the onyx-studded entrance of the palace the party was halted by a gorgeous flunky, who immediately unbent at a word from the useful Salisky.

"The colonel must belong up in the pictures here," suggested Billy, duly impressed by the surroundings.

"He is a great noble as well as a great soldier," reverently remarked Marovitch.

"Well," chuckled Billy, "I'm going to keep on my shoes, even though I walk on velvet."

Salisky gave the lad a side glance of disapproval of this levity, of which the young aviator took not the slightest notice.

But Billy warmed to the gracious presence revealed by cordial greeting in the spacious drawing-room.

The card from Colonel Malinkoff had preceded the visitors.

With Marovitch and Salisky in the background, the boys were ushered forward to meet a real, live duke, but, withal, a kindly gentleman without a mark or an affectation of exalted rank.

"Which, may I ask, is the Trouville, the grandson of my old friend?"

Henri bowed acceptance of the honor. With fine and delicate courtesy Billy was made to feel that he was not counted a crowd by being the third participant in a cozy chat.

The duke delighted in his memories of the close alliance he had maintained with the house of Trouville, and received with extreme regret the information that the old château had been razed by the engines of war.

"I well remember the underground passages, the walled ways, the secret panels, and the like of the ancient place."

Henri nudged his chum, and then briefly narrated how the fortune of the Trouvilles had been saved through the use of these same concealed avenues and by the plan of the same two boys now sitting in this drawing-room.

The old noble listened intently to the story, told without embellishment or boast, and at the point where Henri referred to the delivery of the treasure to his mother the duke clapped his hands in applause.

"Salisky," he called to the special messenger, "I desire to keep these young gentlemen as long as possible. Is there an emergency that commands their return?"

"Your grace," stated Salisky, "it grieves me to say that it is most important that they serve as pilots in our journey back to the front. Even now dispatches are being prepared, and we must be on the wing at sunrise to-morrow."

"Ah, the same duty that holds my son in its grip, the call of country, and which by my infirmity of years I may not answer. Not your country, my boy, but your trust, nevertheless. But this is not your last visit by many, I sincerely hope. A Trouville, a Trouville," he muttered, "without fear."

"Oh, another thought, you have not broken bread with me." The duke struck a bell on the table at his side.

The gorgeous flunky led the way to the smaller of the dining-rooms, the other would have held a regiment, and if the food was plain, on the war basis of all alike, there was a bountiful service of it.

From the dining-room windows the Prospekt could be seen, and Henri saw something besides the Prospekt--several horsemen in parti-colored uniforms pacing their mounts slowly up and down in front of the palace.

He telegraphed with a wink to his chum, who was seated with his back to the windows. Billy took the tip, and managed to get an overshoulder look on his own account.

The interest of the boys as to affairs inside instantly began to flag. True, they were under powerful protection for the time being, but there was a later time coming.

The Cossack must have struck the lost chord in his memory. There had since the encounter in the Galician farmhouse been a life added to the claim of the red rider--the duelist that Schneider had forced over the cliff.

Henri had a game to play--playing for time. Appeal to their host, for various reasons, did not impress the boy as a desirable proceeding.

"There is no need of our going back to Admiralty Place right away, is there, Salisky? We don't sail until morning and we haven't even seen the paintings here."

"The paintings"--here was a master stroke. The duke was touched at a point nearest his heart.

"You must have at least a passing look," he insisted.

Salisky uneasily shook his head. "We have orders to be within call from and after six o'clock, and, sir, it is already very near that hour."

"Now, I will tell you what to do, Salisky; you and your comrade here take my car, report yourselves, and if it then be necessary for my young friends to join you, return here for them. It is only the matter of a very few minutes, either way."

Protesting under his breath, Salisky and his companion heard the summons for the duke's automobile, and were whirled away in that swift conveyance.

They could not understand the action of a company of imperial Cossacks in ranging alongside of the machine, and only withdrawing when the indignant chauffeur sent the machine forward with a vicious plunge.

An hour passed, and no word from the departed special messengers.

The boys walked with the duke through his magnificent gallery, but it is doubtful if they had any high appreciation of the treat. In every picture they saw a Cossack wrapped in a rainbow.

Finally, observing their inattention, and attributing it to anxiety on their part at the committing of a breach of discipline, the duke instituted inquiry as to the whereabouts of his chauffeur, intending to forward the boys at once to Admiralty Place. Neither driver nor machine could be found on the premises.

Billy felt that it was his turn to get into the figuring.

"It is such a fine evening, sir, and a straight way, that, if it is all the same to you, Henri and I would like the exercise of walking back to headquarters."

Henri could not fathom the scheme that his chum was nursing, but he made no objection to the proposition.

The duke did not accompany the boys further than the door of the art gallery, stating, with a grim smile, that he had always with him a reminder of his fighting days in the shape of a "game leg." He gave them both a kindly farewell and exacted a mutual promise of a longer visit next time.

Behind the broad back of the flunky the lads proceeded as far as the drawing-room, when Billy "happened to think" that he had left his gloves in the dining-hall. There he looked for his missing gloves--out of the window!

In the glow of the high-lights on the broad avenue were revealed the gold-braided cavalrymen of the earlier hours, still patiently pacing their horses up and down in front of the palace.

"Tell his nobs to see if the automobile has arrived," softly urged Billy.

Henri sent the flunky ahead to investigate. He guessed now, and correctly, that his chum did not intend that they should leave by the front door.

Like ghosts they flitted through the dimly lighted corridors of the palace, into the unknown backstairs regions, hoping to find an easy outlet at the rear.

An open window coming handy, the boys essayed a jump therefrom, landing on all fours in the walk leading to the tradesman's gate. Darting out into a side street, the fugitives relapsed into a brisk walk, fearing to here excite suspicion by undue haste.

Alone in a great and strange city, as ignorant of locality as of the language spoken by the average inhabitant, Billy and Henri, as the former would have put it, "were up against it, good and strong."

Yet they won out, and meeting the wildly searching special messengers in the gray dawn, without ado climbed into the pilots' places of the waiting biplanes and sent the powerful machines in whirring flight toward the distant towers of Warsaw.

To follow them beyond this fixed destination is to turn the leaves of the next record, under the title of "Our Young Aëroplane Scouts in Russia; or, Lost on the Frozen Steppes."

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Transcriber's note:

The original text did not include a table of contents. One was created by the transcriber.

Inconsistent hyphenation was retained.

Page 179, "though" changed to "thought" (I thought there was)

Page 239, "supposedlv" changed to "supposedly" (supposedly in waiting in)