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

by Edgar Rice Burroughs

  It was the second day before Herman returned from Lustadt. He rode in just at dark, his pony lathered from hard going.

  Barney and the boy saw him coming, and the youth ran forward with the others to learn the news that he had brought; but Yellow Franz and his messenger withdrew to a hut which the brigand chief reserved for his own use, nor would he permit any beside the messenger to accompany him to hear the report.

  For half an hour Barney sat alone waiting for word from Yellow Franz that arrangements had been consummated for his release, and then out of the darkness came Rudolph, wide-eyed and trembling.

  “Oh, my king?” he whispered. “What shall we do? Peter has refused to ransom you alive, but he has offered a great sum for unquestioned proof of your death. Already he has caused a proclamation to be issued stating that you have been killed by bandits after escaping from Blentz, and ordering a period of national mourning. In three weeks he is to be crowned king of Lutha.”

  “When do they intend terminating my existence?” queried Barney.

  There was a smile upon his lips, for even now he could scarce believe that in the twentieth century there could be any such medieval plotting against a king’s life, and yet, on second thought, had he not ample proof of the lengths to which Peter of Blentz was willing to go to obtain the crown of Lutha!

  “I do not know, your majesty,” replied Rudolph, “when they will do it; but soon, doubtless, since the sooner it is done the sooner they can collect their pay.”

  Further conversation was interrupted by the sound of footsteps without, and an instant later Yellow Franz entered the squalid apartment and the dim circle of light which flickered feebly from the smoky lantern that hung suspended from the rafters.

  He stopped just within the doorway and stood eyeing the American with an ugly grin upon his vicious face. Then his eyes fell upon the trembling Rudolph.

  “Get out of here, you!” he growled. “I’ve got private business with this king. And see that you don’t come nosing round either, or I’ll slit that soft throat for you.”

  Rudolph slipped past the burly ruffian, barely dodging a brutal blow aimed at him by the giant, and escaped into the darkness without.

  “And now for you, my fine fellow,” said the brigand, turning toward Barney. “Peter says you ain’t worth nothing to him — alive, but that your dead body will fetch us a hundred thousand marks.”

  “Rather cheap for a king, isn’t it?” was Barney’s only comment.

  “That’s what Herman tells him,” replied Yellow Franz. “But he’s a close one, Peter is, and so it was that or nothing.”

  “When are you going to pull off this little — er — ah — royal demise?” asked Barney.

  “If you mean when am I going to kill you,” replied the bandit, “why, there ain’t no particular rush about it. I’m a tender-hearted chap, I am. I never should have been in this business at all, but here I be, and as there ain’t nobody that can do a better job of the kind than me, or do it so painlessly, why I just got to do it myself, and that’s all there is to it. But, as I says, there ain’t no great rush. If you want to pray, why, go ahead and pray. I’ll wait for you.”

  “I don’t remember,” said Barney, “when I have met so generous a party as you, my friend. Your self-sacrificing magnanimity quite overpowers me. It reminds me of another unloved Robin Hood whom I once met. It was in front of Burket’s coal-yard on Ella Street, back in dear old Beatrice, at some unchristian hour of the night.

  “After he had relieved me of a dollar and forty cents he remarked: ‘I gotta good mind to kick yer slats in fer not havin’ more of de cush on yeh; but I’m feelin’ so good about de last guy I stuck up I’ll let youse off dis time.’”

  “I do not know what you are talking about,” replied Yellow Franz; “but if you want to pray you’d better hurry up about it.”

  He drew his pistol from its holster on the belt at his hips.

  Now Barney Custer had no mind to give up the ghost without a struggle; but just how he was to overcome the great beast who confronted him with menacing pistol was, to say the least, not precisely plain. He wished the man would come a little nearer where he might have some chance to close with him before the fellow could fire. To gain time the American assumed a prayerful attitude, but kept one eye on the bandit.

  Presently Yellow Franz showed indications of impatience. He fingered the trigger of his weapon, and then slowly raised it on a line with Barney’s chest.

  “Hadn’t you better come closer?” asked the young man. “You might miss at that distance, or just wound me.”

  Yellow Franz grinned.

  “I don’t miss,” he said, and then: “You’re certainly a game one. If it wasn’t for the hundred thousand marks, I’d be hanged if I’d kill you.”

  “The chances are that you will be if you do,” said Barney, “so wouldn’t you rather take one hundred and fifty thousand marks and let me make my escape?”

  Yellow Franz looked at the speaker a moment through narrowed lids.

  “Where would you find any one willing to pay that amount for a crazy king?” he asked.

  “I have told you that I am not the king,” said Barney. “I am an American with a father who would gladly pay that amount on my safe delivery to any American consul.”

  Yellow Franz shook his head and tapped his brow significantly.

  “Even if you was what you are dreaming, it wouldn’t pay me,” he said.

  “I’ll make it two hundred thousand,” said Barney.

  “No — it’s a waste of time talking about it. It’s worth more than money to me to know that I’ll always have this thing on Peter, and that when he’s king he won’t dare bother me for fear I’ll publish the details of this little deal. Come, you must be through praying by this time. I can’t wait around here all night.” Again Yellow Franz raised his pistol toward Barney’s heart.

  Before the brigand could pull the trigger, or Barney hurl himself upon his would-be assassin, there was a flash and a loud report from the open window of the shack.

  With a groan Yellow Franz crumpled to the dirt floor, and simultaneously Barney was upon him and had wrested the pistol from his hand; but the precaution was unnecessary for Yellow Franz would never again press finger to trigger. He was dead even before Barney reached his side.

  In possession of the weapon, the American turned toward the window from which had come the rescuing shot, and as he did so he saw the boy, Rudolph, clambering over the sill, white-faced and trembling. In his hand was a smoking carbine, and on his brow great beads of cold sweat.

  “God forgive me!” murmured the youth. “I have killed a man.”

  “You have killed a dangerous wild beast, Rudolph,” said Barney, “and both God and your fellow man will thank and reward you.”

  “I am glad that I killed him, though,” went on the boy, “for he would have killed you, my king, had I not done so. Gladly would I go to the gallows to save my king.”

  “You are a brave lad, Rudolph,” said Barney, “and if ever I get out of the pretty pickle I’m in you’ll be well rewarded for your loyalty to Leopold of Lutha. After all,” thought the young man, “being a kind has its redeeming features, for if the boy had not thought me his monarch he would never have risked the vengeance of the bloodthirsty brigands in this attempt to save me.”

  “Hasten, your majesty,” whispered the boy, tugging at the sleeve of Barney’s jacket. “There is no time to be lost. We must be far away from here when the others discover that Yellow Franz has been killed.”

  Barney stooped above the dead man, and removing his belt and cartridges transferred them to his own person. Then blowing out the lantern the two slipped out into the darkness of the night.

  About the camp fire of the brigands the entire pack was congregated. They were talking together in low voices, ever and anon glancing expectantly toward the shack to which their chief had gone to dispatch the king. It is not every day that a king is murdered, and even these hardened cut-throats
felt the spell of awe at the thought of what they believed the sharp report they had heard from the shack portended.

  Keeping well to the far side of the clearing, Rudolph led Barney around the group of men and safely into the wood below them. From this point the boy followed the trail which Barney and his captors had traversed two days previously, until he came to a diverging ravine that led steeply up through the mountains upon their right hand.

  In the distance behind them they suddenly heard, faintly, the shouting of men.

  “They have discovered Yellow Franz,” whispered the boy, shuddering.

  “Then they’ll be after us directly,” said Barney.

  “Yes, your majesty,” replied Rudolph, “but in the darkness they will not see that we have turned up this ravine, and so they will ride on down the other. I have chosen this way because their horses cannot follow us here, and thus we shall be under no great disadvantage. It may be, however, that we shall have to hide in the mountains for a while, since there will be no place of safety for us between here and Lustadt until after the edge of their anger is dulled.”

  And such proved to be the case, for try as they would they found it impossible to reach Lustadt without detection by the brigands who patrolled every highway and byway from their rugged mountains to the capital of Lutha.

  For nearly three weeks Barney and the boy hid in caves or dense underbrush by day, and by night sought some avenue which would lead them past the vigilant sentries that patrolled the ways to freedom.

  Often they were wet by rains, nor were they ever in the warm sunlight for a sufficient length of time to become thoroughly dry and comfortable. Of food they had little, and of the poorest quality.

  They dared not light a fire for warmth or cooking, and their light was so miserable that, but for the boy’s pitiful terror at the thought of being recaptured by the bandits, Barney would long since have made a break for Lustadt, depending upon their arms and ammunition to carry them safely through were they discovered by their enemies.

  Rudolph had contracted a severe cold the first night, and now, it having settled upon his lungs, he had developed a persistent and aggravating cough that caused Barney not a little apprehension. When, after nearly three weeks of suffering and privation, it became clear that the boy’s lungs were affected, the American decided to take matters into his own hands and attempt to reach Lustadt and a good doctor; but before he had an opportunity to put his plan into execution the entire matter was removed from his jurisdiction.

  It happened like this: After a particularly fatiguing and uncomfortable night spent in attempting to elude the sentinels who blocked their way from the mountains, daylight found them near a little spring, and here they decided to rest for an hour before resuming their way.

  The little pool lay not far from a clump of heavy bushes which would offer them excellent shelter, as it was Barney’s intention to go into hiding as soon as they had quenched their thirst at the spring.

  Rudolph was coughing pitifully, his slender frame wracked by the convulsion of each new attack. Barney had placed an arm about the boy to support him, for the paroxysms always left him very weak.

  The young man’s heart went out to the poor boy, and pangs of regret filled his mind as he realized that the child’s pathetic condition was the direct result of his self-sacrificing attempt to save his king. Barney felt much like a murderer and a thief, and dreaded the time when the boy should be brought to a realization of his mistake.

  He had come to feel a warm affection for the loyal little lad, who had suffered so uncomplainingly and whose every thought had been for the safety and comfort of his king.

  Today, thought Barney, I’ll take this child through to Lustadt even if every ragged brigand in Lutha lies between us and the capital; but even as he spoke a sudden crashing of underbrush behind caused him to wheel about, and there, not twenty paces from them, stood two of Yellow Franz’s cutthroats.

  At sight of Barney and the lad they gave voice to a shout of triumph, and raising their carbines fired point-blank at the two fugitives.

  But Barney had been equally as quick with his own weapon, and at the moment that they fired he grasped Rudolph and dragged him backward to a great boulder behind which their bodies might be protected from the fire of their enemies.

  Both the bullets of the bandits’ first volley had been directed at Barney, for it was upon his head that the great price rested. They had missed him by a narrow margin, due, perhaps, to the fact that the mounts of the brigands had been prancing in alarm at the unexpected sight of the two strangers at the very moment that their riders attempted to take aim and fire.

  But now they had ridden back into the brush and dismounted, and after hiding their ponies they came creeping out upon their bellies upon opposite sides of Barney’s shelter.

  The American saw that it would be an easy thing for them to pick him off if he remained where he was, and so with a word to Rudolph he sprang up and the boy with him. Each delivered a quick shot at the bandit nearest him, and then together they broke for the bushes in which the brigand’s mounts were hidden.

  Two shots answered theirs. Rudolph, who was ahead of Barney, stumbled and threw up his hands. He would have fallen had not the American thrown a strong arm about him.

  “I’m shot, your majesty,” murmured the boy, his head dropping against Barney’s breast.

  With the lad grasped close to him, the young man turned at the edge of the brush to meet the charge of the two ruffians. The wounding of the youth had delayed them just enough to preclude their making this temporary refuge in safety.

  As Barney turned both the men fired simultaneously, and both missed. The American raised his revolver, and with the flash of it the foremost brigand came to a sudden stop. An expression of bewilderment crossed his features. He extended his arms straight before him, the revolver slipped from his grasp, and then like a dying top he pivoted once drunkenly and collapsed upon the turf.

  At the instant of his fall his companion and the American fired point-blank at one another.

  Barney felt a burning sensation in his shoulder, but it was forgotten for the moment in the relief that came to him as he saw the second rascal sprawl headlong upon his face. Then he turned his attention to the limp little figure that hung across his left arm.

  Gently Barney laid the boy upon the sward, and fetching water from the pool bathed his face and forced a few drops between the white lips. The cooling draft revived the wounded child, but brought on a paroxysm of coughing. When this had subsided Rudolph raised his eyes to those of the man bending above him.

  “Thank God, your majesty is unharmed,” he whispered. “Now I can die in peace.”

  The white lids drooped lower, and with a tired sigh the boy lay quiet. Tears came to the young man’s eyes as he let the limp body gently to the ground.

  “Brave little heart,” he murmured, “you gave up your life in the service of your king as truly as though you had not been all mistaken in the object of your veneration, and if it lies within the power of Barney Custer you shall not have died in vain.”

  CHAPTER VII

  THE REAL LEOPOLD

  Two hours later a horseman pushed his way between tumbled and tangled briers along the bottom of a deep ravine.

  He was hatless, and his stained and ragged khaki betokened much exposure to the elements and hard and continued usage. At his saddle-bow a carbine swung in its boot, and upon either hip was strapped a long revolver. Ammunition in plenty filled the cross belts that he had looped about his shoulders.

  Grim and warlike as were his trappings, no less grim was the set of his strong jaw or the glint of his gray eyes, nor did the patch of brown stain that had soaked through the left shoulder of his jacket tend to lessen the martial atmosphere which surrounded him. Fortunate it was for the brigands of the late Yellow Franz that none of them chanced in the path of Barney Custer that day.

  For nearly two hours the man had ridden downward out of the high hills in search of a d
welling at which he might ask the way to Tann; but as yet he had passed but a single house, and that a long untenanted ruin. He was wondering what had become of all the inhabitants of Lutha when his horse came to a sudden halt before an obstacle which entirely blocked the narrow trail at the bottom of the ravine.

  As the horseman’s eyes fell upon the thing they went wide in astonishment, for it was no less than the charred remnants of the once beautiful gray roadster that had brought him into this twentieth century land of medieval adventure and intrigue. Barney saw that the machine had been lifted from where it had fallen across the horse of the Princess von der Tann, for the animal’s decaying carcass now lay entirely clear of it; but why this should have been done, or by whom, the young man could not imagine.

  A glance aloft showed him the road far above him, from which he, the horse and the roadster had catapulted; and with the sight of it there flashed to his mind the fair face of the young girl in whose service the thing had happened. Barney wondered if Joseph had been successful in returning her to Tann, and he wondered, too, if she mourned for the man she had thought king — if she would be very angry should she ever learn the truth.

  Then there came to the American’s mind the figure of the shopkeeper of Tafelberg, and the fellow’s evident loyalty to the mad king he had never seen. Here was one who might aid him, thought Barney. He would have the will, at least, and with the thought the young man turned his pony’s head diagonally up the steep ravine side.

  It was a tough and dangerous struggle to the road above, but at last by dint of strenuous efforts on the part of the sturdy little beast the two finally scrambled over the edge of the road and stood once more upon level footing.

  After breathing his mount for a few minutes Barney swung himself into the saddle again and set off toward Tafelberg. He met no one upon the road, nor within the outskirts of the village, and so he came to the door of the shop he sought without attracting attention.