Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26)

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  “And when I was Crown Prince what were you, way back there in the beautiful days of our childhood?” asked Barney.

  “Why, I was what I still am, your majesty,” replied the girl. “Princess Emma von der Tann.”

  So the poor child, besides thinking him a king, thought herself a princess! She certainly was mad. Well, he would humor her.

  “Then I should call you ‘your highness,’ shouldn’t I?” he asked.

  “You always called me Emma when we were children.”

  “Very well, then, you shall be Emma and I Leopold. Is it a bargain?”

  “The king’s will is law,” she said.

  They had come to a very steep hillside, up which the half-obliterated trail zigzagged toward the crest of a flat-topped hill. Barney went ahead, taking the girl’s hand in his to help her, and thus they came to the top, to stand hand in hand, breathing heavily after the stiff climb.

  The girl’s hair had come loose about her temples and a lock was blowing over her face. Her cheeks were very red and her eyes bright. Barney thought he had never looked upon a lovelier picture. He smiled down into her eyes and she smiled back at him.

  “I wished, back there a way,” he said, “that that little brook had been as wide as the ocean — now I wish that this little hill had been as high as Mont Blanc.”

  “You like to climb?” she asked.

  “I should like to climb forever — with you,” he said seriously.

  She looked up at him quickly. A reply was on her lips, but she never uttered it, for at that moment a ruffian in picturesque rags leaped out from behind a near-by bush, confronting them with leveled revolver. He was so close that the muzzle of the weapon almost touched Barney’s face. In that the fellow made his mistake.

  “You see,” said Barney unexcitedly, “that I was right about the brigands after all. What do you want, my man?”

  The man’s eyes had suddenly gone wide. He stared with open mouth at the young fellow before him. Then a cunning look came into his eyes.

  “I want you, your majesty,” he said.

  “Godfrey!” exclaimed Barney. “Did the whole bunch escape?”

  “Quick!” growled the man. “Hold up your hands. The notice made it plain that you would be worth as much dead as alive, and I have no mind to lose you, so do not tempt me to kill you.”

  Barney’s hands went up, but not in the way that the brigand had expected. Instead, one of them seized his weapon and shoved it aside, while with the other Custer planted a blow between his eyes and sent him reeling backward. The two men closed, fighting for possession of the gun. In the scrimmage it was exploded, but a moment later the American succeeded in wresting it from his adversary and hurled it into the ravine.

  Striking at one another, the two surged backward and forward at the very edge of the hill, each searching for the other’s throat. The girl stood by, watching the battle with wide, frightened eyes. If she could only do something to aid the king!

  She saw a loose stone lying at a little distance from the fighters and hastened to procure it. If she could strike the brigand a single good blow on the side of the head, Leopold might easily overpower him. When she had gathered up the rock and turned back toward the two she saw that the man she thought to be the king was not much in the way of needing outside assistance. She could not but marvel at the strength and dexterity of this poor fellow who had spent almost half his life penned within the four walls of a prison. It must be, she thought, the superhuman strength with which maniacs are always credited.

  Nevertheless, she hurried toward them with her weapon; but just before she reached them the brigand made a last mad effort to free himself from the fingers that had found his throat. He lunged backward, dragging the other with him. His foot struck upon the root of a tree, and together the two toppled over into the ravine.

  As the girl hastened toward the spot where the two had disappeared, she was startled to see three troopers of the palace cavalry headed by an officer break through the trees at a short distance from where the battle had waged. The four men ran rapidly toward her.

  “What has happened here?” shouted the officer to Emma von der Tann; and then, as he came closer: “Gott! Can it be possible that it is your highness?”

  The girl paid no attention to the officer. Instead, she hurried down the steep embankment toward the underbrush into which the two men had fallen. There was no sound from below, and no movement in the bushes to indicate that a moment before two desperately battling human beings had dropped among them.

  The soldiers were close upon the girl’s heels, but it was she who first reached the two quiet figures that lay side by side upon the stony ground halfway down the hillside.

  When the officer stopped beside her she was sitting on the ground holding the head of one of the combatants in her lap.

  A little stream of blood trickled from a wound in the forehead. The officer stooped closer.

  “He is dead?” he asked.

  “The king is dead,” replied the Princess Emma von der Tann, a little sob in her voice.

  “The king!” exclaimed the officer; and then, as he bent lower over the white face: “Leopold!”

  The girl nodded.

  “We were searching for him,” said the officer, “when we heard the shot.” Then, arising, he removed his cap, saying in a very low voice: “The king is dead. Long live the king!”

  CHAPTER III

  AN ANGRY KING

  The soldiers stood behind their officer. None of them had ever seen Leopold of Lutha — he had been but a name to them — they cared nothing for him; but in the presence of death they were awed by the majesty of the king they had never known.

  The hands of Emma von der Tann were chafing the wrists of the man whose head rested in her lap.

  “Leopold!” she whispered. “Leopold, come back! Mad king you may have been, but still you were king of Lutha — my father’s king — my king.”

  The girl nearly cried out in shocked astonishment as she saw the eyes of the dead king open. But Emma von der Tann was quick-witted. She knew for what purpose the soldiers from the palace were scouring the country.

  Had she not thought the king dead she would have cut out her tongue rather than reveal his identity to these soldiers of his great enemy. Now she saw that Leopold lived, and she must undo the harm she had innocently wrought. She bent lower over Barney’s face, trying to hide it from the soldiers.

  “Go away, please!” she called to them. “Leave me with my dead king. You are Peter’s men. You do not care for Leopold, living or dead. Go back to your new king and tell him that this poor young man can never more stand between him and the throne.”

  The officer hesitated.

  “We shall have to take the king’s body with us, your highness,” he said.

  The officer evidently becoming suspicious, came closer, and as he did so Barney Custer sat up.

  “Go away!” cried the girl, for she saw that the king was attempting to speak. “My father’s people will carry Leopold of Lutha in state to the capital of his kingdom.”

  “What’s all this row about?” he asked. “Can’t you let a dead king alone if the young lady asks you to? What kind of a short sport are you, anyway? Run along, now, and tie yourself outside.”

  The officer smiled, a trifle maliciously perhaps.

  “Ah,” he said, “I am very glad indeed that you are not dead, your majesty.”

  Barney Custer turned his incredulous eyes upon the lieutenant.

  “Et tu, Brute?” he cried in anguished accents, letting his head fall back into the girl’s lap. He found it very comfortable there indeed.

  The officer smiled and shook his head. Then he tapped his forehead meaningly.

  “I did not know,” he said to the girl, “that he was so bad. But come — it is some distance to Blentz, and the afternoon is already well spent. Your highness will accompany us.”

  “I?” cried the girl. “You certainly cannot be serious.”

  “
And why not, your highness?” asked the officer. “We had strict orders to arrest not only the king, but any companions who may have been involved in his escape.”

  “I had nothing whatever to do with his escape,” said the girl, “though I should have been only too glad to have aided him had the opportunity presented.”

  “King Peter may think differently,” replied the man.

  “The Regent, you mean?” the girl corrected him haughtily.

  The officer shrugged his shoulders.

  “Regent or King, he is ruler of Lutha nevertheless, and he would take away my commission were I to tell him that I had found a Von der Tann in company with the king and had permitted her to escape. Your blood convicts your highness.”

  “You are going to take me to Blentz and confine me there?” asked the girl in a very small voice and with wide incredulous eyes. “You would not dare thus to humiliate a Von der Tann?”

  “I am very sorry,” said the officer, “but I am a soldier, and soldiers must obey their superiors. My orders are strict. You may be thankful,” he added, “that it was not Maenck who discovered you.”

  At the mention of the name the girl shuddered.

  “In so far as it is in my power your highness and his majesty will be accorded every consideration of dignity and courtesy while under my escort. You need not entertain any fear of me,” he concluded.

  Barney Custer, during this, to him, remarkable dialogue, had risen to his feet, and assisted the girl in rising. Now he turned and spoke to the officer.

  “This farce,” he said, “has gone quite far enough. If it is a joke it is becoming a very sorry one. I am not a king. I am an American — Bernard Custer, of Beatrice, Nebraska, U.S.A. Look at me. Look at me closely. Do I look like a king?”

  “Every inch, your majesty,” replied the officer.

  Barney looked at the man aghast.

  “Well, I am not a king,” he said at last, “and if you go to arresting me and throwing me into one of your musty old dungeons you will find that I am a whole lot more important than most kings. I’m an American citizen.”

  “Yes, your majesty,” replied the officer, a trifle impatiently. “But we waste time in idle discussion. Will your majesty be so good as to accompany me without resistance?”

  “If you will first escort this young lady to a place of safety,” replied Barney.

  “She will be quite safe at Blentz,” said the lieutenant.

  Barney turned to look at the girl, a question in his eyes. Before them stood the soldiers with drawn revolvers, and now at the summit of the hill a dozen more appeared in command of a sergeant. They were two against nearly a score, and Barney Custer was unarmed.

  The girl shook her head.

  “There, is no alternative, I am afraid, your majesty,” she said.

  Barney wheeled toward the officer.

  “Very well, lieutenant,” he said, “we will accompany you.”

  The party turned back up the hillside, leaving the dead bandit where he lay — the fellow’s neck had been broken by the fall. A short distance from where the man had confronted them the two prisoners were brought to the main road where they saw still other troopers, and with them the horses of those who had gone into the forest on foot.

  Barney and the girl were mounted on two of the animals, the soldiers who had ridden them clambering up behind two of their comrades. A moment later the troop set out along the road which leads to Blentz.

  The prisoners rode near the center of the column, surrounded by troopers. For a time they were both silent. Barney was wondering if he had accidentally tumbled into the private grounds of Lutha’s largest madhouse, or if, in reality, these people mistook him for the young king — it seemed incredible.

  It had commenced slowly to dawn upon him that perhaps the girl was not crazy after all. Had not the officer addressed her as “your highness”? Now that he thought upon it he recalled that she did have quite a haughty and regal way with her at times, especially so when she had addressed the officer.

  Of course she might be mad, after all, and possibly the bandit, too, but it seemed unbelievable that the officer was mad and his entire troop of cavalry should be composed of maniacs, yet they all persisted in speaking and acting as though he were indeed the mad king of Lutha and the young girl at his side a princess.

  From pitying the girl he had come to feel a little bit in awe of her. To the best of his knowledge he had never before associated with a real princess. When he recalled that he had treated her as he would an ordinary mortal, and that he had thought her demented, and had tried to humor her mad whims, he felt very foolish indeed.

  Presently he turned a sheepish glance in her direction, to find her looking at him. He saw her flush slightly as his eyes met hers.

  “Can your highness ever forgive me?” he asked.

  “Forgive you!” she cried in astonishment. “For what, your majesty?”

  “For thinking you insane, and for getting you into this horrible predicament,” he replied. “But especially for thinking you insane.”

  “Did you think me mad?” she asked in wide-eyed astonishment.

  “When you insisted that I was a king, yes,” he replied. “But now I begin to believe that it must be I who am mad, after all, or else I bear a remarkable resemblance to Leopold of Lutha.”

  “You do, your majesty,” replied the girl.

  Barney saw it was useless to attempt to convince them and so he decided to give up for the time.

  “Have me king, if you will,” he said, “but please do not call me ‘your majesty’ any more. It gets on my nerves.”

  “Your will is law — Leopold,” replied the girl, hesitating prettily before the familiar name, “but do not forget your part of the compact.”

  He smiled at her. A princess wasn’t half so terrible after all.

  “And your will shall be my law, Emma,” he said.

  It was almost dark when they came to Blentz. The castle lay far up on the side of a steep hill above the town. It was an ancient pile, but had been maintained in an excellent state of repair. As Barney Custer looked up at the grim towers and mighty, buttressed walls his heart sank. It had taken the mad king ten years to make his escape from that gloomy and forbidding pile!

  “Poor child,” he murmured, thinking of the girl.

  Before the barbican the party was halted by the guard. An officer with a lantern stepped out upon the lowered portcullis. The lieutenant who had captured them rode forward to meet him.

  “A detachment of the Royal Horse Guards escorting His Majesty the King, who is returning to Blentz,” he said in reply to the officer’s sharp challenge.

  “The king!” exclaimed the officer. “You have found him?” and he advanced with raised lantern searching for the monarch.

  “At last,” whispered Barney to the girl at his side, “I shall be vindicated. This man, at least, who is stationed at Blentz must know his king by sight.”

  The officer came quite close, holding his lantern until the rays fell full in Barney’s face. He scrutinized the young man for a moment. There was neither humility nor respect in his manner, so that the American was sure that the fellow had discovered the imposture.

  From the bottom of his heart he hoped so. Then the officer swung the lantern until its light shone upon the girl.

  “And who’s the wench with him?” he asked the officer who had found them.

  The man was standing close beside Barney’s horse, and the words were scarce out of his month when the American slipped from his saddle to the portcullis and struck the officer full in the face.

  “She is the Princess von der Tann, you boor,” said Barney, “and let that help you remember it in future.”

  The officer scrambled to his feet, white with rage. Whipping out his sword he rushed at Barney.

  “You shall die for that, you half-wit,” he cried.

  Lieutenant Butzow, he of the Royal Horse, rushed forward to prevent the assault and Emma von der Tann sprang from her
saddle and threw herself in front of Barney.

  Butzow grasped the other officer’s arm.

  “Are you mad, Schonau?” he cried. “Would you kill the king?”

  The fellow tugged to escape the grasp of Butzow. He was crazed with anger.

  “Why not?” he bellowed. “You were a fool not to have done it yourself. Maenck will do it and get a baronetcy. It will mean a captaincy for me at least. Let me at him — no man can strike Karl Schonau and live.”

  “The king is unarmed,” cried Emma von der Tann. “Would you murder him in cold blood?”

  “He shall not murder him at all, your highness,” said Lieutenant Butzow quietly. “Give me your sword, Lieutenant Schonau. I place you under arrest. What you have just said will not please the Regent when it is reported to him. You should keep your head better when you are angry.”

  “It is the truth,” growled Schonau, regretting that his anger had led him into a disclosure of the plot against the king’s life, but like most weak characters fearing to admit himself in error even more than he feared the consequences of his rash words.

  “Do you intend taking my sword?” asked Schonau suddenly, turning toward Lieutenant Butzow standing beside him.

  “We will forget the whole occurrence, lieutenant,” replied Butzow, “if you will promise not to harm his majesty, or offer him or the Princess von der Tann further humiliation. Their position is sufficiently unpleasant without our adding to the degradation of it.”

  “Very well,” grumbled Schonau. “Pass on into the courtyard.”

  Barney and the girl remounted and the little cavalcade moved forward through the ballium and the great gate into the court beyond.

  “Did you notice,” said Barney to the princess, “that even he believes me to be the king? I cannot fathom it.”

  Within the castle they were met by a number of servants and soldiers. An officer escorted them to the great hall, and presently a dark visaged captain of cavalry entered and approached them. Butzow saluted.

  “His Majesty, the King,” he announced, “has returned to Blentz. In accordance with the commands of the Regent I deliver his august person into your safe keeping, Captain Maenck.”