Presently one of them found the switch and instantly the room was flooded with light, which revealed to the American a dozen Luthanian troopers headed by the murderous Maenck.
Barney looked anxiously aloft. Would Joseph never lower that rope! Within the room the men were searching. He could hear Maenck directing them. Only a thin portiere screened him from their view. It was but a matter of seconds before they would investigate the window through which Maenck knew the king had found ingress.
Yes! It had come.
“Look to the window,” commanded Maenck. “He may have gone as he came.”
Two of the soldiers crossed the room toward the casement. From above Joseph was lowering the rope; but it was too late. The men would be at the window before he could clamber out of their reach.
“Hoist away!” he whispered to Joseph. “Quick now, my man, and make your escape with the Princess von der Tann. It is the king’s command.”
Already the soldiers were at the window. At the sound of his voice they tore aside the draperies; at the same instant the pseudo-king turned and leaped out into the blackness of the night.
There were exclamations of surprise and rage from the soldiers — a woman’s scream. Then from far below came a dull splash as the body of Bernard Custer struck the surface of the moat.
Maenck, leaning from the window, heard the scream and the splash, and jumped to the conclusion that both the king and the princess had attempted to make their escape in this harebrained way. Immediately all the resources at his command were put to the task of searching the moat and the adjacent woods.
He was sure that one or both of the prisoners would be stunned by impact with the surface of the water, and then drowned before they regained consciousness, but he did not know Bernard Custer, nor the facility and almost uncanny ease with which that young man could negotiate a high dive into shallow water.
Nor did he know that upon the floor above him one Joseph was hastening along a dark corridor toward a secret panel in another apartment, and that with him was the Princess Emma bound for liberty and safety far from the frowning walls of Blentz.
As Barney’s head emerged above the surface of the moat he shook it vigorously to free his eyes from water, and then struck out for the further bank.
Long before his pursuers had reached the courtyard and alarmed the watch at the barbican, the American had crawled out upon dry land and hastened across the broad clearing to the patch of stunted trees that grew lower down upon the steep hillside before the castle.
He shrank from the thought of leaving Blentz without knowing positively that Joseph had made good the escape of himself and the princess, but he finally argued that even if they had been retaken, he could serve her best by hastening to her father and fetching the only succor that might prevail against the strength of Blentz — armed men in sufficient force to storm the ancient fortress.
He had scarcely entered the wood when he heard the sound of the searchers at the moat, and saw the rays of their lanterns flitting hither and thither as they moved back and forth along the bank.
Then the young man turned his face from the castle and set forth across the unfamiliar country in the direction of the Old Forest and the castle Von der Tann.
The memory of the warm lips that had so recently been pressed to his urged him on in the service of the wondrous girl who had come so suddenly into his life, bringing to him the realization of a love that he knew must alter, for happiness or for sorrow, all the balance of his existence, even unto death.
He dreaded the day of reckoning when, at last, she must learn that he was no king. He did not have the temerity to hope that her courage would be equal to the great sacrifice which the acknowledgment of her love for one not of noble blood must entail; but he could not believe that she would cease to love him when she learned the truth.
So the future looked black and cheerless to Barney Custer as he trudged along the rocky, moonlit way. The only bright spot was the realization that for a while at least he might be serving the one woman in all the world.
All the balance of the long night the young man traversed valley and mountain, holding due south in the direction he supposed the Old Forest to lie. He passed many a little farm tucked away in the hollow of a hillside, and quaint hamlets, and now and then the ruins of an ancient feudal stronghold, but no great forest of black oaks loomed before him to apprise him of the nearness of his goal, nor did he dare to ask the correct route at any of the homes he passed.
His fatal likeness to the description of the mad king of Lutha warned him from intercourse with the men of Lutha until he might know which were friends and which enemies of the hapless monarch.
Dawn found him still upon his way, but with the determination fully crystallized to hail the first man he met and ask the way to Tann. He still avoided the main traveled roads, but from time to time he paralleled them close enough that he might have ample opportunity to hail the first passerby.
The road was becoming more and more mountainous and difficult. There were fewer homes and no hamlets, and now he began to despair entirely of meeting any who could give him direction unless he turned and retraced his steps to the nearest farm.
Directly before him the narrow trail he had been following for the past few miles wound sharply about the shoulder of a protruding cliff. He would see what lay beyond the turn — perhaps he would find the Old Forest there, after all.
But instead he found something very different, though in its way quite as interesting, for as he rounded the rugged bluff he came face to face with two evil-looking fellows astride stocky, rough-coated ponies.
At sight of him they drew in their mounts and eyed him suspiciously. Nor was there great cause for wonderment in that, for the American presented aught but a respectable appearance. His khaki motoring suit, soaked from immersion in the moat, had but partially dried upon him. Mud from the banks of the stagnant pool caked his legs to the knees, almost hiding his once tan puttees. More mud streaked his jacket front and stained its sleeves to the elbows. He was bare-headed, for his cap had remained in the moat at Blentz, and his disheveled hair was tousled upon his head, while his full beard had dried into a weird and tangled fringe about his face. At his side still hung the sword that Joseph had buckled there, and it was this that caused the two men the greatest suspicion of this strange looking character.
They continued to eye Barney in silence, every now and then casting apprehensive glances beyond him, as though expecting others of his kind to appear in the trail at his back. And that is precisely what they did fear, for the sword at Barney’s side had convinced them that he must be an officer of the army, and they looked to see his command following in his wake.
The young man saluted them pleasantly, asking the direction to the Old Forest. They thought it strange that a soldier of Lutha should not know his own way about his native land, and so judged that his question was but a blind to deceive them.
“Why do you not ask your own men the way?” parried one of the fellows.
“I have no men, I am alone,” replied Barney. “I am a stranger in Lutha and have lost my way.”
He who had spoken before pointed to the sword at Barney’s side.
“Strangers traveling in Lutha do not wear swords,” he said. “You are an officer. Why should you desire to conceal the fact from two honest farmers? We have done nothing. Let us go our way.”
Barney looked his astonishment at this reply.
“Most certainly, go your way, my friends,” he said laughing. “I would not delay you if I could; but before you go please be good enough to tell me how to reach the Old Forest and the ancient castle of the Prince von der Tann.”
For a moment the two men whispered together, then the spokesman turned to Barney.
“We will lead you upon the right road. Come,” and the two turned their horses, one of them starting slowly back up the trail while the other remained waiting for Barney to pass him.
The American, suspecting nothing, voic
ed his thanks, and set out after him who had gone before. As he passed the fellow who waited the latter moved in behind him, so that Barney walked between the two. Occasionally the rider at his back turned in his saddle to scan the trail behind, as though still fearful that Barney had been lying to them and that he would discover a company of soldiers charging down upon them.
The trail became more and more difficult as they advanced, until Barney wondered how the little horses clung to the steep mountainside, where he himself had difficulty in walking without using his hand to keep from falling.
Twice the American attempted to break through the taciturnity of his guides, but his advances were met with nothing more than sultry grunts or silence, and presently a suspicion began to obtrude itself among his thoughts that possibly these “honest farmers” were something more sinister than they represented themselves to be.
A malign and threatening atmosphere seemed to surround them. Even the cat-like movement of their silent mounts breathed a sinister secrecy, and now, for the first time, Barney noticed the short, ugly looking carbines that were slung in boots at their saddle-horns. Then, prompted to further investigation, he dropped back beside the man who had been riding behind him, and as he did so he saw beneath the fellow’s cloak the butts of two villainous-looking pistols.
As Barney dropped back beside him the man turned his mount across the narrow trail, and reining him in motioned Barney ahead.
“I have changed my mind,” said the American, “about going to the Old Forest.”
He had determined that he might as well have the thing out now as later, and discover at once how he stood with these two, and whether or not his suspicions of them were well grounded.
The man ahead had halted at the sound of Barney’s voice, and swung about in the saddle.
“What’s the trouble?” he asked.
“He don’t want to go to the Old Forest,” explained his companion, and for the first time Barney saw one of them grin. It was not at all a pleasant grin, nor reassuring.
“He don’t, eh?” growled the other. “Well, he ain’t goin’, is he? Who ever said he was?”
And then he, too, laughed.
“I’m going back the way I came,” said Barney, starting around the horse that blocked his way.
“No, you ain’t,” said the horseman. “You’re goin’ with us.”
And Barney found himself gazing down the muzzle of one of the wicked looking pistols.
For a moment he stood in silence, debating mentally the wisdom of attempting to rush the fellow, and then, with a shake of his head, he turned back up the trail between his captors.
“Yes,” he said, “on second thought I have decided to go with you. Your logic is most convincing.”
CHAPTER VI
A KING’S RANSOM
For another mile the two brigands conducted their captor along the mountainside, then they turned into a narrow ravine near the summit of the hills — a deep, rocky, wooded ravine into whose black shadows it seemed the sun might never penetrate.
A winding path led crookedly among the pines that grew thickly in this sheltered hollow, until presently, after half an hour of rough going, they came upon a small natural clearing, rock-bound and impregnable.
As they filed from the wood Barney saw a score of villainous fellows clustered about a camp fire where they seemed engaged in cooking their noonday meal. Bits of meat were roasting upon iron skewers, and a great iron pot boiled vigorously at one side of the blaze.
At the sound of their approach the men sprang to their feet in alarm, and as many weapons as there were men leaped to view; but when they saw Barney’s companions they returned their pistols to their holsters, and at sight of Barney they pressed forward to inspect the prisoner.
“Who have we here?” shouted a big blond giant, who affected extremely gaudy colors in his selection of wearing apparel, and whose pistols and knife had their grips heavily ornamented with pearl and silver.
“A stranger in Lutha he calls himself,” replied one of Barney’s captors. “But from the sword I take it he is one of old Peter’s wolfhounds.”
“Well, he’s found the wolves at any rate,” replied the giant, with a wide grin at his witticism. “And if Yellow Franz is the particular wolf you’re after, my friend, why here I am,” he concluded, addressing the American with a leer.
“I’m after no one,” replied Barney. “I tell you I’m a stranger, and I lost my way in your infernal mountains. All I wish is to be set upon the right road to Tann, and if you will do that for me you shall be well paid for your trouble.”
The giant, Yellow Franz, had come quite close to Barney and was inspecting him with an expression of considerable interest. Presently he drew a soiled and much-folded paper from his breast. Upon one side was a printed notice, and at the corners bits were torn away as though the paper had once been tacked upon wood, and then torn down without removing the tacks.
At sight of it Barney’s heart sank. The look of the thing was all too familiar. Before the yellow one had commenced to read aloud from it Barney had repeated to himself the words he knew were coming.
“‘Gray eyes,’” read the brigand, “‘brown hair, and a full, reddish-brown beard.’ Herman and Friedrich, my dear children, you have stumbled upon the richest haul in all Lutha. Down upon your marrow-bones, you swine, and rub your low-born noses in the dirt before your king.”
The others looked their surprise.
“The king?” one cried.
“Behold!” cried Yellow Franz. “Leopold of Lutha!”
He waved a ham-like hand toward Barney.
Among the rough men was a young smooth-faced boy, and now with wide eyes he pressed forward to get a nearer view of the wonderful person of a king.
“Take a good look at him, Rudolph,” cried Yellow Franz. “It is the first and will probably be the last time you will ever see a king. Kings seldom visit the court of their fellow monarch, Yellow Franz of the Black Mountains.
“Come, my children, remove his majesty’s sword, lest he fall and stick himself upon it, and then prepare the royal chamber, seeing to it that it be made so comfortable that Leopold will remain with us a long time. Rudolph, fetch food and water for his majesty, and see to it that the silver plates and the golden goblets are well scoured and polished up.”
They conducted Barney to a miserable lean-to shack at one side of the clearing, and for a while the motley crew loitered about bandying coarse jests at the expense of the “king.” The boy, Rudolph, brought food and water, he alone of them all evincing the slightest respect or awe for the royalty of their unwilling guest.
After a time the men tired of the sport of king-baiting, for Barney showed neither rancor nor outraged majesty at their keenest thrusts, instead, often joining in the laugh with them at his own expense. They thought it odd that the king should hold his dignity in so low esteem, but that he was king they never doubted, attributing his denials to a disposition to deceive them, and rob them of the “king’s ransom” they had already commenced to consider as their own.
Shortly after Barney arrived at the rendezvous he saw a messenger dispatched by Yellow Franz, and from the repeated gestures toward himself that had accompanied the giant’s instructions to his emissary, Barney was positive that the man’s errand had to do with him.
After the men had left his prison, leaving the boy standing awkwardly in wide-eyed contemplation of his august charge, the American ventured to open a conversation with his youthful keeper.
“Aren’t you rather young to be starting in the bandit business, Rudolph?” asked Barney, who had taken a fancy to the youth.
“I do not want to be a bandit, your majesty,” whispered the lad; “but my father owes Yellow Franz a great sum of money, and as he could not pay the debt Yellow Franz stole me from my home and says that he will keep me until my father pays him, and that if he does not pay he will make a bandit of me, and that then some day I shall be caught and hanged until I am dead.”
&n
bsp; “Can’t you escape?” asked the young man. “It would seem to me that there would be many opportunities for you to get away undetected.”
“There are, but I dare not. Yellow Franz says that if I run away he will be sure to come across me some day again and that then he will kill me.”
Barney laughed.
“He is just talking, my boy,” he said. “He thinks that by frightening you he will be able to keep you from running away.”
“Your majesty does not know him,” whispered the youth, shuddering. “He is the wickedest man in all the world. Nothing would please him more than killing me, and he would have done it long since but for two things. One is that I have made myself useful about his camp, doing chores and the like, and the other is that were he to kill me he knows that my father would never pay him.”
“How much does your father owe him?”
“Five hundred marks, your majesty,” replied Rudolph. “Two hundred of this amount is the original debt, and the balance Yellow Franz has added since he captured me, so that it is really ransom money. But my father is a poor man, so that it will take a long time before he can accumulate so large a sum.
“You would really like to go home again, Rudolph?”
“Oh, very much, your majesty, if I only dared.” Barney was silent for some time, thinking. Possibly he could effect his own escape with the connivance of Rudolph, and at the same time free the boy. The paltry ransom he could pay out of his own pocket and send to Yellow Franz later, so that the youth need not fear the brigand’s revenge. It was worth thinking about, at any rate.
“How long do you imagine they will keep me, Rudolph?” he asked after a time.
“Yellow Franz has already sent Herman to Lustadt with a message for Prince Peter, telling him that you are being held for ransom, and demanding the payment of a huge sum for your release. Day after tomorrow or the next day he should return with Prince Peter’s reply.
“If it is favorable, arrangements will be made to turn you over to Prince Peter’s agents, who will have to come to some distant meeting place with the money. A week, perhaps, it will take, maybe longer.”
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 655
