By this time, Joan and Felix were seated at breakfast in the hotel. Joan had wisely left the bargaining with the landlord to her companion, and he, knowing something of Serbian ways, which reck little of politeness when curiosity can be sated, chose a sitting room on the first floor with three bedrooms adjoining. The sitting room was a huge place, big enough to serve as a studio if necessary. Three large windows commanded a view of the main street, and the solid oak door opened into the corridor behind, which also gave access to the bedrooms.

Poluski's only motive in selecting this particular suite was to secure the maximum of privacy. Joan's appearance was far too striking that she should be subjected to the scrutiny of every lounger in the restaurant beneath. In this primitive community she would probably receive several offers of marriage the first time she sat at table in the public dining room.

It was he, too, who advised her never to go out unless she was deeply veiled. Joan laughed at the reason—but followed his counsel. During their first stroll in the open air she said she felt like a Mohammedan woman; yet she soon realized that a double motor veil not only shielded her from impertinent eyes but kept her face free from dust and insects.

Naturally, they made straight for the cathedral and examined the quaint picture that had provided an excuse for their visit to the Near East. They were much impressed. They gazed at its brilliant coloring and stiff pose for fully a minute. Then Joan broke a silence that was becoming irksome.

"If it is really a Giotto," she whispered, "it was painted before he broke away from the Byzantine tradition."

"Yes," murmured Poluski, "here we have both Giotto and Saint Peter at their worst."

"Felix, how can I copy that?"

"Impossible, my belle. You must improvise, using it as a theme. When all is said and done, you know far more than Giotto about Saint Peter. Holy blue! if you bring that back to Paris as a veritable likeness of the Chief Apostle you will be placed on the Index Expurgatorius. Moreover, it would not be fair to him, after all these years."

"It needed only this to prove how farcical is the whole scheme. I am beginning to dread the idea of meeting Alec. He will laugh at me."

"That will do him good. I am told he is becoming most serious."

"Told—by whom? Surely you have not sent any message?"

"Not a word. I leave that to you—or Princess Delgrado."

"How snappy you are! It was not my fault that the Princess spoke to me. She would never have known I was on the train if you hadn't sung."

"Ah, by the way, we ought to hear some decent Gregorian music in this old place. See, where they have put the choir, nearly under the dome. Yes, we must attend a service. The bass should roll like thunder up yonder——"

"Felix, who told you about Alec?"

"A waiter in the hotel, a waiter rejoicing in the noble name of John Sobieski, a Pole, therefore, like myself. I said to him 'What of the King?' He answered, 'Everything that is good, if one listens to the people; but the officers who come here to drink and play cards do not like him.' I explained that I wished to know the King's whereabouts, and he said that if I was anxious to see the gracious youth I should have a splendid opportunity at four o'clock this afternoon, as his Majesty will pass the hotel at that hour on his way to the University, where he has promised to attend a prize giving."

"At four o'clock! What shall we do meanwhile?" asked Joan innocently.

Felix winked brazenly at the picture. "Delgratz is a picturesque city," he said. "Let us inspect it."

"You do not think Alec will learn of our presence and visit us before going to the University?"

"Very improbable. He is out in the country, watching artillery at field exercise. Of course, he knows nothing about artillery; but Kings have to pretend a good deal. Now, if I were a young lady who had been traveling for a day and two nights, especially if I had slept badly during the second night, I should stroll about the principal streets till I was tired, eat a light luncheon, sleep for an hour afterward, dress myself in some muslin confection, and be ready to dine with the King at seven-thirty or thereabouts."

"I shall do nothing of the kind!" cried Joan, blushing behind her motor veil.

"Very well. Behold in me your slave of the lamp. What shall we do?"

"I don't object to looking at the shops and the people for a little while," she admitted, and this time Felix did not wink at the picture, but contented himself with an expressive raising of his bushy eyebrows.

The program he mapped out was adhered to faithfully. Joan was really tired, and the midday heat of Delgratz was not only novel but highly disagreeable. She retired to her room at one o'clock, and Felix heard her telling her maid to call her at three.

The elderly Frenchwoman whom Joan employed as a compendium of all the domestic virtues was scandalized by the pestering she had already undergone at the hands of the hotel employees. They wanted to know everything about her mistress as soon as they were told that she was not Poluski's wife, and the staid Pauline was at her wit's end to parry the questions showered on her in bad French. Felix advised her not to understand when spoken to, and relieved her manifest distress by the statement that the hotel would see the last of them in a day or two.

Then, anxious himself to be rid of Pauline, he strolled out into Fuerst Michaelstrasse, entered the hotel's public restaurant by another door, and sat there, musing and alone.

Thus far, Joan and he had passed through the simple vicissitudes that might beset any other strangers in the capital of Kosnovia. Though the little man expected developments when Alec heard of Joan's presence, he certainly did not look for squalls forthwith; yet he had not been smoking and humming and sipping a cup of excellent coffee more than a minute before he became aware that the sunlit street was curiously alive.

The hottest hours of a hot day might well have driven the citizens of Delgratz indoors; but some powerful inducement was drawing loiterers to Fuerst Michaelstrasse. It was evident that the attraction, whatsoever it might be, was not supplied by the thoroughfare itself. Men lounged along the pavements or gathered in groups, and Poluski noted that few women were present. Soon a regiment of soldiers marched up, formed into two ranks, and lined the street on both sides.

Felix betook himself to the door, where his compatriot was dusting marble topped tables with an apron that, under other conditions, would have soiled them.

"Does the King arrive earlier than four o'clock?" he asked.

John Sobieski looked around furtively before he answered. "No," said he in a low tone, "the crowd is gathering to see the regicides. Their trial ended to-day, and they are being taken to the Old Fort to await sentence."

"Found guilty?"

"I should think so, indeed, monsieur! They gloried in their crime. They claim that they cleared the way for Alexis III. by removing Ferdinand. Some people say the King cannot really be severe on them, though it was he who brought them to justice."

"Have they many sympathizers?"

The waiter, a pallid creature, flicked a table loudly to cover his reply. "Some of our customers talk big; but it is a strange thing that the authorities allow the men of the disbanded Seventh Regiment to remain in Delgratz. There are hundreds of them in the street at this moment."

"It reminds one of Warsaw."

A sudden moisture glistened in John Sobieski's eyes. "Ah, Warsaw!" he muttered. "Shall I ever see my beautiful city again? But it is different here, monsieur. Even though they quarrel among themselves, they have at least got rid of their conquerors."

A quickening of interest on the part of the mob, a general craning of necks, and a sharp command to the soldiers showed that the criminals were en route from the law courts. A squad of cavalry trotted into sight, followed by eight closed carriages. An armed policeman sat near every driver, and another stood on the step outside each door. Mounted soldiers in single file surrounded the dismal procession, and a second strong detachment guarded the rear.

It was a doleful spectacle, and Felix was puzzled by the absence of anything in the nature of a popular demonstration. He had been led to believe that Delgratz abhorred these murders committed in the name of progress, and he naturally expected an emotional people to betray their feelings. He listened in vain for a yell of execration. A queer murmur ran through the crowd, that was all, a murmur that was ominous, almost sinister. He scanned the faces of the crowd, trying to pierce their stolid aspect. Some of the bystanders obviously belonged to the mutinous regiment; but he looked in vain for any sign of anger or regret.

Skilled conspirator that he was, Poluski seemed rather to discern a deep laid purpose behind their unnatural phlegm, yet his suspicions died away when the street began to empty as soon as the prisoners' vehicles and the escort had clattered past. The foot regiment marched off, and within ten minutes Felix was back in his nook, smoking and coffee drinking, and thanking the chance that left Joan unconscious of this grim episode, since her bedroom windows looked out on the garden in rear of the hotel.

He sat there quietly, sternly repressing his musical instincts when he caught himself humming some favorite melody; nor would he have budged until Alec appeared had not his keen eyes noted another curious movement in the street. About half-past three several men strolled past the cafe, men whom he distinctly remembered having seen in the earlier crowd. In twos and threes they came, and he fancied that the complete disregard each set paid the others was rather overdone.

At any rate, he ordered a fresh supply of coffee and sought enlightenment from Sobieski. "Just peep at some of those fellows in the street and tell me if they are not soldiers of the Seventh Regiment," he said.

The waiter obeyed. He determined the point quickly. "I recognize a few, monsieur," he muttered, "and I believe there are scores of them. I wish they would patronize some other street. Our patrons will not care to mix with such rascals."

Poluski rose wearily; for his energetic soul was housed in a frail body, and the long journey from Paris had exhausted him.

"I have read in the newspapers that King Alexis dispenses with a bodyguard?" he said, lighting a fresh cigar.

"He hates ceremony, that young man," was the ready answer. "At first the people mobbed him. Now he rides through Delgratz like a courier, sometimes alone, at others with a friend or two, and perhaps an orderly."

Felix laughed. "He is a fine fellow," said he. "Do the King a good turn, John, and you will be able to buy a cafe in Warsaw one of these days."

"Me, monsieur! How can a poor waiter hope to serve a King?"

"Que diable! You never know your luck. Life is a lottery, and some day you may draw the great prize."

Felix sauntered into the street and took a keen interest in its architecture. In front of the hotel and down a slight gradient to the right it was a wide and straight thoroughfare; but to the left and uphill it narrowed rapidly and took a sharp left turn. In the angle stood a popular restaurant, and the rooms on the first and second stories were full of customers. No one, apparently, was looking out; but small parties of men sat near each open window, and they were not playing cards or dominoes, though the greater part of the male inhabitants of Delgratz seem to do little else when not eating or sleeping. Moreover, an empty bullock cart was halted in front of the ground floor entrance.

"There's thunder in the air," said Poluski to himself; but he continued to admire the irregular outlines of Fuerst Michaelstrasse. Thus, he could not fail to notice that the upper rooms of three cafes exactly similar to that at the corner were untenanted, while there was a disposition on the part of the late Seventh Regiment to group itself either at the turning or a good deal lower down the street, perhaps a hundred yards beyond the hotel.

"Yes," said he, eying the glittering expanse of unclouded blue overhead, "a storm is certainly brewing. I can feel it in my bones. It reminds me of the afternoon we removed the Governor of Silesia. He was fused by a thunderbolt, from just such a summer sky. Obviously, what he lacked was a lightning conductor. Now, the question is, even if he had owned one, whereabouts would he have put it?"

The reply was given by the appearance of two men on horseback advancing at a fast trot up the easy slope of the hill. They were notable because they wore the ordinary costume adopted by riders in the Bois or the Row, and in Delgratz, where rank was marked by uniform, this fact conferred distinction. A few yards behind them cantered a couple of soldiers.

"You are ten minutes before time, my dear Alec," murmured Felix. "Joan will never forgive me if she is still asleep; but what is one to do? Saperlotte! One must act."

A hasty glance over his shoulder showed that the gentry in the corner cafe were stirred by some common impulse that led them to the windows, while the bullock cart was now drawn awkwardly across the narrow way. As the horsemen came near, the loungers in the lower part of the street displayed a singularly unanimous desire to close in and follow them. There were hundreds of townspeople gathered on the pavements, and not a few vehicles occupied the roadway; so these concerted movements were not discernible to any one who was not a past master in the revolutionary art like Poluski, and to him only because his suspicions were already active.

The King and Beaumanoir were coming on at such a pace that Felix, owing to his low stature, would be quite invisible to them if he stood among the crowd now hovering on the curb; so he pushed boldly out into the middle of the street, took off his hat with a flourish, and sang lustily:

"O, Alec! O, mon roi!"

The thunderbolt that removed the Governor of Silesia, had it struck the paving stones in front of the King's horse, could hardly have startled Alec more than the sight of Felix, standing there, bare headed and grinning, and chanting an improvised version of a famous song at the top of his voice.

"You, Felix!" he cried. "You here?"

"It is far more to the point that Joan is there," said Poluski, with expressive pantomime.

"In the hotel?"

"Yes, up the stairs, first door on the right, across the landing. You have a few minutes to spare. Go quickly!"

Alec required no second bidding. Leaping from the saddle, he threw the reins to one of the orderlies. "Give me a few seconds, Berty," he cried to Beaumanoir, and before the onlookers could grasp the motive of this sudden halt, he had vanished through the doorway.

"You come, too; you are wanted," said Felix, addressing Beaumanoir in English.

"Sure?" asked his Lordship, gazing at the quaint figure with some degree of astonishment.

"Yes, it is a matter of life or death. Come!"

Beaumanoir dismounted leisurely. "Who's going to die?" he demanded, drawing the reins over his charger's head ere he handed them to the second soldier.

Felix quivered, yet he realized that the Englishman's cool demeanor was wholly in accord with the plan outlined in his own alert brain.

"Everybody of any consequence in this bally menagerie if you don't hurry up," said Felix.

The use of British slang at that crisis was a touch of real genius. It appealed to Beaumanoir. "Gad! it's a treat to hear you talk," he grinned; but he thrust through the gapers in his turn.

Felix rushed into the restaurant and clutched Sobieski. "Here's your chance!" he growled in Polish. "The King's life is in danger. Run to the President and tell him to despatch a strong body of troops on whom he can rely. If he refuses to listen, say that Felix Poluski sent you, and bid him ask Prince Michael what that signifies. Remember the names—Poluski, Michael—now run! Delay, and your throat will be cut!"

John Sobieski was trained to obey. He made off without a word. Felix entered the hotel by a side door. He darted up the stairs, breathless and almost spent. He was in time to see Beaumanoir open the door of the sitting room and close it again hastily.

"Oh, dash it all!" began his Lordship; for Alec, not to be denied, had just clasped Joan in his arms.

"In, in! Not a second to lose! Barricade the door!" gasped Felix.

"But, man alive, where is the fire?"

"In, I tell you! Sacre nom! Act first and talk afterward!"

Felix himself flung wide the door, and Alec, at this second interruption, was compelled to free the scarlet faced Joan from his eager embrace.

"Too bad!" he laughed. "You promised me a minute, Felix!"

Beaumanoir came in, diffident for once in his life, since none knew so well as he how dear to his friend was the blushing and embarrassed girl whom he now met for the first time.

"Sorry, old chap," he said; "but this other johnny will have it that somebody is thirsting for your gore."

Poluski, all trembling with excitement, slammed and locked the door and pointed to a heavy sideboard. "Drag it here!" he shrieked in a high falsetto. "The street is crammed with men belonging to the Seventh Regiment, and they have a short way with Kings they don't like. The instant they see how they have been tricked they will be after you like a pack of wolves. I have sent a messenger for help. I dared not use one of your orderlies, because that would have given the game away. While the men sit their horses out there the mutineers may believe you will soon reappear. Nevertheless, block the doorway with all the furniture. We must gain ten minutes at least, or it may be twenty."



Joan was the first to credit him. She ran to the window. "Oh, Alec, it is true!" she cried. "I was watching the crowd before you came, and it looks quite different now. Hundreds of men have gathered, and they are armed with knives and pistols. Something has made them angry, and the two soldiers are becoming alarmed. Oh, my dear, my dear! misfortune and I have come to you hand in hand!"

"It seems to me that you and Felix have saved my life," said Alec quietly. "Now, Beaumanoir, you and I must fortify the position. Joan, stand with your back to the wall between the windows. Felix, watch the houses opposite, and don't let the enemy take us in flank without warning. Thank goodness for an oak sideboard and a heavy table! Are you ready, Berty? Heave away, then! We shall occupy a box in the front row when Stampoff arrives with his hussars! By Jove! what a day! Twelve hours in that scorching sun and Joan waiting here all the time! Well, wonders will never cease! I wish we had one of those live shells we were experimenting with this morning. It would come in handy when the first panel gives way."



CHAPTER VIII

SHOWING HOW THE KING KEPT HIS APPOINTMENT

Joan's eyes could not leave Alec. She followed each movement of his lithe, strongly knit frame as he and Beaumanoir hauled the heavy pieces of furniture into position behind the door. She was not fully alive as yet to the real menace of the gesticulating mob surging in the street beneath, and her thoughts ran riot in the newly discovered paradise of being loved and in love.

For Alec had asked no questions, listened to no explanations. When he entered the room, he found her, half turned from the window, conscious that he was near, though trying to persuade her throbbing heart that Felix would not depart from an implied promise by sending him to her without warning. She strove to utter some words of greeting. Before she could speak, Alec's arms were around her, and he was kissing her lips, her forehead, her hair. She saw him as through a mist. Her first fleeting impression was that he had become older, sterner, more commanding. Kingship had set its seal on him. A short month of power had stamped lines on his face that would never vanish. But that sense of imperiousness was quickly dispelled by the enchantment of her presence.

Somehow, almost without spoken word, he brought the thrilling conviction that he was hungering for her. The light in his eyes, the overwhelming ardor of his embrace, the magnetic force that leaped the intervening space while yet they were separated by half the length of the room,—these things bewildered, charmed, subdued her wholly, and she kindled under them ere her brain could summon to aid the feeblest of remonstrances.

She abandoned the nebulous idea of protest when she found that she in turn was clinging to him, giving kiss for kiss with a delirious intensity that refused to be denied. Nevertheless, the sheer joy of her emotions frightened her, and she was endeavoring to subdue its too sensuous expression when Beaumanoir opened the door, to close it again hurriedly. She recovered her faculties slowly. She was still quivering under the stress of that moment of ineffable delight, and her brown eyes sparkled with the glow of a soul on fire, and she was brought back to earth only by the knowledge that Felix, standing at his post near a window, was on the verge of collapse.

The sideboard contained a flask of brandy, which Pauline had insisted on stowing in a dressing bag in case of illness. Joan, glad of the pretext to do some commonplace thing, thankful for the mere utterance of commonplace words, called for help.

"Please remove the table for an instant," she cried. "Felix is ill, and I want to get at some cognac that is in the cellarette."

"Ill! He was lively enough in the street a minute ago, singing like a thrush," said Alec cheerily, though he did not fail to pull the table clear of the cupboard. "What is it, my Humming Bee?" he demanded, turning to Poluski. "Is it a surfeit of excitement, or late hours, or what?"

"I am yielding to the unusual, my King," crackled the Pole's voice thinly. "During three whole days I have done naught but think, and that would incommode an elephant, leave alone a rat like me."

"Rat, indeed! When we are all out of this trap, Felix, you must tell me what caused your alarming exercise of brain power. Already you have bothered me to guess how you fathomed the pretty scheme you are now upsetting."

"There, dear Felix, drink that, and you will soon feel strong again," put in Joan.

"Ha, dear Felix, am I? I expected to be called anything but that after breaking my word so disgracefully!"

"You are forgiven," said she with a tender smile at Alec.

Beaumanoir, discreetly peeping through the window over Poluski's shoulder, saw something that perplexed him.

"I say, Alec," he exclaimed, "I thought you told me that Stampoff's man Bosko was a thoroughly reliable sort of chap."

"I have always found him so."

"Well, just at present he looks jolly like a deserter. He is making a speech to the mob and tearing off his uniform obligato. The other joker is scared to death."

"Bosko making a speech! Why, he never says anything but 'Oui, monsieur,' or 'Non, monsieur,' which is all the French he knows. Well, this is a day of wonders, anyhow."

Neglecting the precautions he had insisted on a minute earlier, Alec himself went to the window and drew Joan with him. There were two other windows in the room; but the four clustered in the one deep recess, for the thick walls of this old building were meant to defy extremes of heat and cold. By this time one of the two orderlies had dismounted and was stamping on his smart cavalry jacket and plumed shako, thus announcing by eloquent pantomime, that he was discarding forever the livery of a tyrant.

The mob in the street was now swollen to unrecognizable dimensions, and Alec's charger, which Bosko was holding, resented the uproar by lashing out viciously with his heels. A man who had narrowly escaped being kicked drew a revolver, fired, and the spirited Arab fell with a bullet in its brain. The dastardly act was cheered; for the Seventh Regiment remembered that this same white horse had stumbled and thrown King Theodore on the day of his murder.

"Oh, the coward, the hateful coward!" wailed Joan, and two of the men muttered expressions of opinion that must be passed over in silence.

But Felix happened to be watching Bosko, and noted the black rage that convulsed his face when the Arab dropped dead at his feet. The Albanian's feelings mastered him only for an instant.

He began at once to harangue the crowd again, evidently offering to lead his own horse out of harm's way, and loudly bidding his frightened comrade to do likewise.

A path was being cleared when some one looked up at the window, and a fierce yell proclaimed the King's presence. Bosko was forgotten. Sight of their quarry had frenzied the pack.

"Down everyone!" cried Alec, bending double and dragging Joan with him.

Several panes of glass were starred with little round holes, mortar fell from the ceiling, and the crackle of shots below showed that revolvers were popular in Delgratz. But Felix had seen enough to set his shrewd wits working.

"That man of yours—is Bosko his name?—is no fool," said he, when they had crept from the glass strewn area into the shelter of the stout wall. "He is gulling your beloved subjects, Alec. He realizes that trouble is brewing, and he means to steal off and bring help. Fortunately, my brave Sobieski will be at the President's house by this time, and your guards may arrive before those cutthroats in the street decide to storm the hotel."

"Sobieski—who is he?" asked Alec.

"A waiter in the restaurant. I have pledged you to buy him a cafe in Warsaw if the troops come speedily."

"Make it a brewery, Alec," said Beaumanoir; "these bounders mean business."

A constant fusillade of bullets was now tearing the windows to atoms, and shattering the ceiling on the other side of the room. Lord Adalbert was justified in offering liberal terms for relief.

The King, standing with one arm thrown round Joan's shoulders, felt the tremors she strove vainly to repress. "Don't be afraid, sweetheart. They cannot reach us here," he said. "I have one unknown protector, it seems, and I feel sure that Felix is right about Bosko. The only drawback is that our friendly waiter may find some difficulty in persuading the officers on duty at Monsieur Nesimir's house that we are in danger. We must risk that."

"Oh, to safeguard against delay, I told him to ask for the Prince," said Felix.

"What Prince?"

"Your father, of course. Ha! Name of a good little gray man! You don't know that Prince Michael and your mother are in Delgratz."

"Mark cock!" cried Beaumanoir, as a bullet flew breast high across the room and imbedded itself in the inner wall. The heroes of the Seventh Regiment were firing from the upper floors of the houses opposite.

Alec did not seem to heed. The look of blank amazement on his face proved that he had ridden straight from the review ground to the university, whereas a call at the President's house would have enlightened him.

"It is true, dear," whispered Joan. "They came with us from Paris; in the same train, that is. We all arrived at Delgratz this morning. Your mother spoke to me on the platform at Vienna."

He smiled with something of the old careless humor of Paris days. "I suppose everything is for the best," he said. "Nothing surprises me now, not even this," and he nodded cheerfully toward the landing and stairs, whence a rush of footsteps and clamor of voices were audible.

The handle of the door was wrenched violently, and shots were fired into the lock and at the panels; but the wood was seasoned and stanch, and nothing short of a rifle would drive a bullet through. The door creaked and strained under the pressure of the mutineers' shoulders. Had it not been reinforced by the solid sideboard and equally heavy table, it must have given way. As it was, no four men in Delgratz could hope to force an entrance, and no more than four could attack it simultaneously.

It was noteworthy that no one called on the King to come out. These hirelings, enraged against a ruler who had brought to the Danube a new evangel of justice and uprightness, of honest government and clean handed service to the State, made no pretense of requesting a hearing for their grievances. They had planned to shoot him in cold blood while he and his three companions were momentarily delayed by the barrier of the bullock cart in front of the corner cafe. Balked of this easy means of attaining their end, they were still sure of success. But their cries and curses were intended only for self encouragement. Not even the bloodstained Seventh Regiment had the effrontery to ask their victim to admit them.

There was a momentary quieting of their wild beast fury when the door resisted their utmost efforts. Joan tried to persuade her tortured mind that the conspiracy had failed.

"They will not dare to remain," she whispered. "They know that assistance may arrive at any moment. Listen, they are going now!"

"Are you gentlemen armed?" asked Felix, grimly.

"Yes, with riding whips," said Alec. "For my part, I have refused to carry any more dangerous weapon; though it is true that I entered Delgratz with a sword in my hand," he added, remembering with a twinge his imagining of Joan's ready laugh when she heard of Prince Michael's brown paper parcel.

"Pity you don't possess a revolver apiece. They would prove useful when the panels are broken, which will happen just as soon as these high spirited politicians on the landing secure axes," went on Felix remorselessly.

He wanted Joan to realize the certain fate that awaited her once the door gave way. Concealment was useless, and he hoped she would faint before the end came.

"What price the leg of a chair?" asked Beaumanoir.

The Pole bent his gleaming gray eyes on the Briton with a curious underlook of inquiry. "No, no. We can do better than that. You would be shot before you could strike a blow. Joan, please crawl past the window and stand upright in the corner close to the wall. You follow, Alec. I go next, and this young gentleman, who must be Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir, since he has all the outward signs of the British aristocracy, will place himself near the door. If he does exactly what I tell him, we still have a fighting chance."

The change of position advised by Poluski rendered them safe from their assailants' bullets until the door was actually off its hinges and the furniture thrust aside. In the last resort, Alec meant to show himself at a window and offer a fair target to the men in the houses across the street. When he fell the shooting from that quarter would cease. Then, acting on his precise instructions, Beaumanoir and Felix must lift Joan through another window and allow her to drop to the pavement. It was not far. She might escape uninjured, and there was a possibility that the mob would spare a woman who was an utter stranger, one in no way mixed up in Kosnovian affairs.

Time enough to take this final step when their defense was forced, and that would be soon. In all likelihood, he had not much more than a minute to live, and he devoted that minute to Joan.

"Sweetheart," he murmured tenderly, "you saw the beginning of my career as a King, and it seems that you are fated to see its end. Have you forgotten what Pallas Athene said to Perseus? It is not so long ago, that morning in the Louvre. But why did you run away from Paris? Why have you not written? If you knew how I hoped for a word from you! My heart told me you loved me; but even one's heart likes to be assured that it is not mistaken."

He was looking into her eyes. The fantasy seized her that he was able to read her secret soul, and she swept aside any thought of concealment. "Alec," she said, "tell me truly, are we in danger of death?"

"I am," he replied simply. It was better so, he thought.

"Then I thank God that I am here to die with you."

He dared not hint that she might escape. "We still have a remote chance," he went on. "Let us talk of ourselves, not of death."

"But I don't want to die, Alec," she whispered brokenly. "I want to live, dear. I want to live and be your wife. Oh, Alec, let us ask Heaven for one year of happiness, one short year——" She choked, and the tears so bravely repressed hitherto dimmed her glorious eyes. Her piteous appeal increased the torment of his impotence. His face grew marble white beneath the bronze, and he bent in mute agony over her bowed head.

Felix, crouching behind Beaumanoir, assured himself that the King and his chosen lady were momentarily deaf to all else than the one supreme fact that each loved the other. He sighed, and touched the stalwart Beaumanoir's shoulder, which he was just able to reach with uplifted hand.

"Drop on your knees," he said. "I want to tell you something."

"You think it is high time I said my prayers—eh, what?"

Yet the younger man obeyed, since there was a calm authority in the pinched and wrinkled face raised to his that seemed to despise the uproar of the mob. Felix was singularly unmoved by the bestial din. He evidently cared naught for the continuous shooting from street and houses, or the renewed outburst on the stairs that welcomed the arrival of axes and sledge hammers rifled from a neighboring shop.

"Pay heed to what I am going to say," he muttered, bringing his mouth close to Beaumanoir's ear, "I don't wish Joan or the King to know what we are doing. They will be wise after the event, not before, which is often the better part of wisdom. Have you a steady hand? Will you flinch if I ask you to destroy every man on the other side of that door?"

Beaumanoir twisted his head round and grinned. "If asking will do the trick, try me!" said he.

Felix took from an inner pocket of his coat a gunmetal cigarcase. He pressed a spring, and the lid flew open. Inside were four cigar shaped cylinders, each studded with a number of tiny knobs. He withdrew a cylinder, and from a small cup in its base obtained six percussion caps, which he proceeded to adjust on the iron nipples.

"My own patent!" he exclaimed, with an air of pride that was grotesque under the conditions. "Each cigar is a bomb, warranted to clear any ordinary room of its occupants. It does not discriminate. It will dismember the most exalted personages."

"By gad!" ejaculated Beaumanoir, shrinking away slightly.

Felix pressed closer in his enthusiasm. "The point carrying the detonators is loaded with lead. If properly handled, it is sure to fly with that end in front. You take it between your thumb and second finger, thus, and poise it by placing the tip of the first finger behind it, thus; but you must throw hard, and wait until the upper part of the door is smashed, and you can fling it clear, or three ounces of dynamite will explode in front of your nose, with disastrous effect. I will have a second bomb ready if the first one fails; but it will not."

"By gad!" said Beaumanoir again, gazing at the deadly contrivance as if fascinated by it. He could retreat no farther, being jammed against the sideboard.

"Do you understand?" demanded Felix coolly.

"Perfectly. Is it—er—Russian or Spanish?"

"Neither. I call it the International. Are you ready?"

A thunderous blow shook the door. Another and another fell on lock and hinges.

"Felix!" said Alec, turning from Joan and stooping over the hunchback.

"Don't bother me, I am busy," growled the Pole.

"But we must act. We are done for now, and Joan must be saved. I mean to draw the enemy's fire. When I am hit, you and Beaumanoir must take Joan to the third window over there—take her by force if necessary——"

"My good Alec, at present you are a King without power. Please don't talk nonsense. Keep in your corner, pacify Joan, and leave the rest to me."

"Felix," and Alec's tone grew curt and sharp, "this is no time for jest! Look, you madman, the door is splitting! Is Joan to die, then, to please your whim? Either attend to me or stand aside!"

Poluski groaned. He was such an amalgam of contrarieties that he hated the notion of explaining to a monarch the subtle means he had devised for ridding the world of its unpopular rulers. Where Alec was concerned, the bomb ought to remain a trade secret, so to speak. He would not have trusted even Beaumanoir with its properties had he not known that his own nerve would fail at the critical moment. For that was Felix Poluski's weakness. He could not use his diabolical invention—an anarchist in theory, in practice he would not harm a fly.

"I think just as much of Joan as you!" he blazed back at the pallid man whose next step promised to lead to the grave. "I am King here, not you! Keep yourself and Joan out of harm's way, and don't interfere! Stand flat against the wall, both of you! Back, I say! There is the first axhead! Now you, who were born a lord, be ready to lord it over these groundlings!"

He whirled round on Beaumanoir, and Alec saw in his friend's hand some object, what he could not guess, while Felix carried a similar article in reserve, as it were. The little man's earnestness was so convincing that the King could not choose but believe that some scheme that offered salvation was in train. But it might fail! The door might be forced before his own desperate alternative could be adopted, and the consequences to Joan of failure were too horrible to be risked. A panel shivered into splinters and the muzzles of two revolvers frowned through the aperture.

"Wait!" bellowed Poluski; for Beaumanoir's hand was raised.

Lord Adalbert did more than wait. With the quickness born of many a hard won victory on the polo ground, his free left hand flew out and grasped the wrist behind one of the pistols. He pulled fiercely and irresistibly. An arm appeared, and a yell of pain signalized a dislocated shoulder.

The weapon exploded harmlessly and fell to the floor. A living stop gap now plugged the first hole made by the ax wielders, while the writhing body of their comrade interfered with further operations.

Beaumanoir gave an extra wrench, and his victim howled most dolorously. He slipped the bomb into his coat pocket.

"Pick up that revolver, Alec," he cried. "If it is still loaded it will help us to hold the fort."

The King rushed forward, and butted against Beaumanoir in his haste. Felix, whose skin was always sallow, became livid; but nothing happened, and he snatched the bomb from its dangerous resting place. Then he burst into a paroxysm of hysterical laughter which drowned for an instant a new hubbub in the street.

Alec, hastily examining his prize, found that three chambers were loaded. He was about to search for a crack in the door through which he could fire at least one telling shot, when his ear caught the prancing of horses on the paving stones.

Joan, thoroughly enlightened now as to their common peril, had behaved with admirable coolness since Alec implored her not to stir from the corner between door and window. She was sure they would all be killed, and her lips moved in fervent prayer that death might be merciful in its haste; but she was not afraid; that storm of tears had been succeeded by a spiritual exaltation that rescued her from any ignoble panic. Yet her senses were strained to a tension far more exhausting than the display of emotion natural to one plunged without warning into the most horrible of the many horrors of civil war, and she had heard, long before the others, the onrush of cavalry and the stampede of the mob.

So, when her eyes met Alec's, and she saw that questioning look in his face, she smiled at him with a radiant confidence that was astounding at such a moment.

"Heaven has been good to us, dear," she said. "Your soldiers are here. Your enemies are running away. Listen! they are fighting now on the stairs. The unhappy men who raved for our lives will lose their own. Can nothing be done to save them?"

He ran to the window. Those leaden blasts that had swept the room from the first floors of the opposite houses had ceased, and not one potvaliant marksman of them all was to be seen; but the street was full of hussars, and directly beneath, mounted on an excited horse, Stampoff was giving furious orders which evidently demanded an energetic storming of the hotel entrance.

Alec threw open the window and leaned out. "Just in time, old friend!" he cried.

Stampoff heard him and looked up. "God's bones!" he roared. "Here is the King safe and sound. At them, my children! Dig them out with your sabers! Don't leave a man alive!"

"Stop!" shouted Alec. "No more slaughter! I forbid it!"

Stampoff wheeled round on his charger and addressed the press of soldiers who had been unable to take any part in the street clearing, since the mob broke and fled when the first rank of plumed caps and flashing swords became visible.

"You hear, my children," he vociferated. "Don't harm anybody who does not resist. The King's commands must be obeyed."

Joan, of course, could only guess what was being said; but she could not fail to recognize the sounds of conflict on the stairs. Men are strangely akin to tigers when they see red, and the tiger's roar when he pounces on a victim differs greatly from his own death scream. Alec, powerless to move Stampoff, who believed, rightly, as it transpired, that the ringleaders were foremost in the attack, turned to Beaumanoir.

"Release that fellow," he said. "If I am able to make my voice heard through the racket, I can put an end to this butchery."

Beaumanoir let go the arm, and a body fell on the other side of the door.

"You are too late, I hope," he said quietly. "My prisoner took the knock just before you spoke. I felt it run through him. He shook like a pony under the spur. And you're wrong, you know. This gang must be cleared out." He peered through the broken panel. "It's all over," he added. "No flowers, by request."

Felix was peering up at them with his bright crafty eyes. "Queer thing!" he growled. "In my first honest fight I have been on the side of tyranny. If you young gentlemen will be good enough to remove the barricade and give orders to have the passage cleared, I can go back to the cup of coffee I left in the restaurant. Meanwhile, Joan must be taken to her room. She is going to faint, and the Lord only knows what has become of her maid!"

Alec was at Joan's side before Felix had made an end. "You will not break down now, sweetheart," he cried. "All danger is over, and, with God's help, you will never witness such a scene in Delgratz again!"

"I feel tired," she sighed. "I know quite well I am safe, Alec. Somehow, I hardly thought you and I should die to-day. We have things to do in the world, you and I; but those horrid men frightened me by their shrieks. It must be awful to pass into the unknown—like that!"

She sighed again. To her strained vision Alec suddenly assumed the aspect of Henri Quatre's gilded statue on the Pont Neuf. It did not seem to be in the least remarkable that the statue should leap from his horse and take her in his arms. She was absolutely happy and content. She felt she could rest there awhile in safety.

So, when the door was opened, the King experienced no difficulty in carrying Joan through a scene of bloodshed that would certainly never have been blotted from her mind had she remained conscious. Stampoff's commands had been obeyed, and the place reeked of the shambles; but the girl was happily as heedless of its nightmare horrors as the thirty-one men who lay there dead or dying.

Alec bore her out into the street. The sight of him was greeted by a sustained cheer from the troops and the loyal citizens who were now threatening a riot of curiosity and alarm, since the news had gone round that the King was being done to death by a rebellious soldiery in the Fuerst Michaelstrasse, and Delgratz was hurrying to the rescue.

Joan, revived a little by the fresh air and bewildered by the shouting throng that pressed around the King, opened her eyes. "Where am I?" she whispered, delightfully ignorant of the fact that she was nestling in Alec's arms under the gaze of many hundreds of his subjects.

"I am sending you to my mother, dear," he replied. "Felix and your maid will be here in a moment, and they will take you to her in a carriage. You cannot remain at the hotel, and you will be well cared for in Monsieur Nesimir's house."

"Are you coming, Alec?" she asked, scanning his face like a timid child.

"Soon, quite soon."

"Then I am content," she said, and the cloud descended again for a brief space.

Pauline, unfortunately, happened to be in the kitchen when the fray began. She was nearly incoherent with fright; but Felix managed to reassure her, and piloted her skilfully out of the hotel by an exit that concealed the gruesome staircase.

The glittering escort of soldiers surrounding the carriage pressed into the King's service served to complete the illusion insisted on by Poluski, and Pauline rejoined her mistress, firm in the conviction that the tumult was an outlandish Serbian method of merrymaking.

Alec, having seen the carriage started on its short journey, approached Stampoff and wrung his hand. "It was a near thing, General," he said. "Five minutes later and we should have been in another world."

He spoke in French, and Beaumanoir heard him.

"Not a bit of it," said he. "That anarchist johnny carries about with him the finest assortment of bombs.—By the way, where is the bally thing? I'll swear I put it in my pocket when I grabbed that joker through the door."

His hurried search was not rewarded, and Alec, scarcely understanding him, asked Stampoff who had given the alarm.

"Bosko, of course. He came tearing up to the War Office like a madman. Had any other brought the same message I really should not have believed it."

"Then you heard nothing of a waiter from this hotel, a waiter named Sobieski?"

"Nothing, your Majesty. Bosko was undoubtedly the first to arrive with the news, and all was quiet at the President's as I rode past. I noted that especially. By the way, Prince Michael is here; came this morning, I am told. The Princess accompanied him. Does your Majesty intend going to them at once? I have already sent an orderly to announce your safety."

Alec looked at his watch. "Five minutes past four," he said. "No, General, I am due at the university. I like to be punctual; but this slight delay was unavoidable. I shall see you at dinner to-night, and I suppose you will clear the city of these idiots of the Seventh Regiment before sunset. By the way, a word before we part. You saw the lady whom I brought from the hotel and placed in the carriage?"

"Saw her, your Majesty? Judas! Thirty years ago I should have striven to rescue her myself."

"It was she who rescued me, General, she and the little humpbacked man. Exactly how they managed it I do not know as yet; but to-night you shall hear the whole story. At present, it is enough that you should be told the one really important fact. She is my promised wife."

With a smile and a farewell hand-wave, Alec mounted a troop horse and rode away with Beaumanoir in the direction of the university.

Stampoff looked after him with an expression of utmost dismay on his weatherbeaten face. "Gods!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man's mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong—they are just beginning to wake up!"



CHAPTER IX

MUTTERINGS OF STORM

Before Joan's carriage had traveled a hundred yards it was halted by a loud command. An officer, galloping at the head of a detachment of cavalry, sought news of the King, and an escorted vehicle coming from the upper end of Fuerst Michaelstrasse promised developments. Joan was startled back into consciousness by the sudden stoppage. The excited babble going on without was incomprehensible and therefore alarming, nor did the polite assurances of the officer, as he bent in the saddle and peered in at the window while he aired his best French, serve to still this fresh tumult in her veins.

"What is he saying?" she asked Felix, turning her frightened eyes from the urbane personage on horseback to Poluski's intent face.

"He was sent to rescue the King," was the explanation. "He says the bodyguard received warning less than two minutes ago."

"Tell him the King is safe now."

"Oh, he knows that already. What puzzled him is the fact that the troops at the War Ministry, which lies beyond the President's house, should have reached there before him."

"What does it matter, since help came in time? Please bid the coachman go on. I—I would like to be the first to let Princess Delgrado know that her son has escaped from those horrid men. Who were they? Why should they want to kill Alec?"

Felix did not obey her bequest instantly. He exchanged some hasty words with the strange officer, who chanced to be Drakovitch, and answered Joan's questions only when the cab resumed its journey. "Have you forgotten the part played by the Seventh Regiment in the recent history of Delgratz?" he cried.

"I remember something about them. Alec disbanded them. Oh—they were the soldiers who revolted and murdered the late King and Queen."

"Exactly. Do women ever read the newspapers intelligently, I wonder? You state a most remarkable fact, considering that this is Delgratz and your future capital, as coolly as if it had happened in Kamchatka."

"But still I do not understand why they should turn against Alec. I have at least sufficient intelligence to recall the avowed object of their crime,—the restoration of the Delgrado line."

Felix smiled. If Joan was able to defend herself, she was certainly making a rapid recovery. "That is a mere hazy recollection of their afterthought. Of all despotisms, save me from a military one, and soldiers who slay Kings are the worst of despots. If there were no Kings, there would be few soldiers, Joan. Put that valuable truism away among the other wise saws that govern your life. You will appreciate its truth, and the even greater truth of its converse, when you are a Queen. But soldiers are stupid creatures, obviously so, since killing is no argument, or the word philosopher would mean a man armed with a bludgeon. If they do away with a tyrant and elect his successor, they are apt to acquire the habit. Soldiers are meant to obey, not to rule, and these Kosnovian Kingmakers were not patriots but cutthroats."

Joan buried her face in her hands. The thought came unbidden that in some inexplicable way she shared with the infamous Seventh Regiment a large measure of responsibility for Alec's dangerous kingship.

"Mademoiselle is ill. Why trouble her with your silly chatter?" demanded Pauline angrily.

"Eh, what the deuce? My name isn't Balaam," retorted Felix.

"Nor am I a donkey, monsieur. If it wasn't for you, miladi would now be happy in her little apartment in the Place de la Sorbonne. I keep my ears open, me!"

"I said nothing about your ears, Madame Pauline," tittered Felix.

The Frenchwoman's homely features reddened, and a vitriolic reply was only half averted by the lurching of the carriage through a gateway. Joan looked out, and her eyes were moist.

"I possess two good friends in Delgratz, and I hope they will not quarrel on my account," she said, with a piteous smile that silenced the woman. Poluski's mouth twisted.

"We are not quarreling, my belle," he cried. "Pauline thinks I brought you here, whereas your presence is clearly an act of Providence. Being a modest person, I naturally protested."

If Joan was not utterly bewildered by the whirligig of events, and more than ever unnerved now at the near prospect of meeting Prince and Princess Delgrado in the perhaps unwelcome guise of their son's affianced wife, she would certainly have discovered that Felix was saying the first thing that came uppermost in his mind. The outcome must have been a quick mental review of the day's incidents in order to hit upon the special item he was trying to conceal, though it is probable that no girl of Joan's candid nature would ever guess the suspicion rapidly maturing to a settled belief in the Pole's acute brain.

For Captain Drakovitch, the officer who led the bodyguard in their belated ride to the King's aid, had told him that a waiter, John Sobieski by name, had arrived breathless at the President's house many minutes before the actual alarm was given. Sobieski had sobbed out some incoherent words about the King, and the Seventh Regiment; but Prince Michael, who was in the courtyard, snapped up the man immediately, bidding him hold his tongue, and hurrying him inside the building. Once there, Sobieski became more confused than ever. Prince Michael obviously regarded him as a crazy rumor-monger until Nesimir appeared. The latter, by reason of his local knowledge, instantly appreciated the true significance of an attack on the King in a crowded thoroughfare by a gang whom Sobieski was sure he had identified correctly.

Nevertheless, precious time had been consumed by the elder Delgrado's interference. The President acted with promptitude; but the outcome was clear. If it had not been for Bosko, the King must have fallen.

"Gods!" vowed Drakovitch in his emphatic story to Felix, "there were we lounging about smoking cigarettes while his Majesty was in a fair way to be cut in pieces! A nice state of affairs! If some one had not warned Stampoff, we might have been too late!"

"Better not mention it in public," was Poluski's advice. "The mere notion of the resultant disaster would make Prince Michael seriously ill. Moreover, such things grow in the telling, and the story will be traced back to you."

The other had agreed, and Felix followed his own counsel by withholding from Joan all knowledge of the unpleasant mischance that had nearly cost the lives of the King and his companions in the besieged hotel. But his thoughts were busy, and, when he found Sobieski detained in the entrance hall, he consigned Joan and her maid to the care of a servant, briefly explaining that they were to be taken to Princess Delgrado, and forthwith questioned his fellow countryman.

Sobieski was quaking with fear. The scornful disbelief expressed by Prince Michael had discomfited him at the beginning, and now he was practically under arrest until his connection with the outrage was investigated officially. One of Stampoff's messengers had already announced the King's safety, or by this time Sobieski must have become the lunatic Prince Michael took him to be.

"What then, my friend, they did not credit your tale, I hear?" said Felix genially, and the sound of his voice drove some of the misery from the waiter's pallid cheeks.

"It was my fault, monsieur. I ran so fast that I lost my breath and the gentleman could not understand me."

"Ah, is that it? Did you speak Polish?"

"No, no, monsieur. I always speak Serbian here."

"And what did you say?"

"Just what you told me to say,—that the King was in danger and that the President was to send troops instantly to the Fuerst Michaelstrasse. Then the old gentleman, he whom they call Prince Michael, came up and said he did not believe a word of it."

"Mon Dieu! He understood you, it appears?"

"Perhaps not, monsieur. I made a hash of it, especially when I told him Monsieur Poluski sent me."

"Sure you mentioned that?"

"Quite sure, monsieur. It was then he ordered me inside the house. The mention of your name seemed to annoy him. For a little while he could say nothing but 'Poluski, Poluski! Is he in it?' I swore you had nothing to do with the plot, monsieur, but had acted throughout as the King's friend; then he stormed at me again, and called me a blockhead for coming to the palace with such a mad story. He asked me what I thought would have been the consequence if the Princess heard me, and I said I knew nothing about any Princess; I was only quite sure the King would be slain if some one did not hasten to his rescue."

"But some one had more sense, some one listened?" said Felix dryly.

"Ah, yes. When the President came down the stairs, Prince Michael went to meet him, laughing all the time at my romancing, as he called it. But I shouted out, being quite desperate then, and Monsieur Nesimir heard me. Of course, by that time, I was in such a state that my knees shook. I was certain the King would be found dead, and perhaps you, monsieur, and then would there be no one to prove that I was not mixed up in the affair, so people would think I ran to the palace in order to save my own skin. I nearly dropped with fear, feeling that so many minutes were being lost, and that made me more nervous than ever when I was answering Monsieur Nesimir's questions."

Poluski's worn face exhibited no more emotion than if he was a graven image, but his voice was sympathetic. "At any rate, everything has ended happily, friend John," said he. "The King is alive, you did your duty, and you will find him not unmindful of your services. By whose order are you detained here?"

The excited waiter began to snivel. "I don't know, monsieur. Pray intercede for me and have me set at liberty, or I shall lose my situation if it gets about that I have been arrested. My patron will have nothing to do with politics. He says his business is to sell beer and coffee, and all parties are equally fond of his goods."

Felix, who was already being eyed askance by the presidential hangers-on in the entrance lobby, returned to the courtyard and appealed to the officer in charge of the escort. A brief conversation with an official elicited the fact that Sobieski awaited Prince Michael's commands.

"Then bring Prince Michael here," said Poluski.

"Monsieur!" An astounded flunky could say no more; but this impudent hunchback was in no wise abashed.

"Exactly, Monsieur Felix Poluski wishes to see his Excellency at once. Tell him that, and it will suffice."

The lackey was forced to yield, and, much to his surprise, Prince Michael did not hesitate an instant in obeying that imperative summons. An expression of annoyance flitted across his florid features when he found Poluski standing near the trembling waiter; but he tackled the situation with nonchalance.

"Have you been here long, Felix?" he inquired. "No one told me you had arrived. Your young lady friend has been taken to the Princess—at her own request, I am given to understand. Dreadful business, this unforeseen attack on my son, isn't it? I must confess that I didn't credit a word of it when this poor fellow rushed in with his broken tale. Ah, by the way, I gave some orders in my alarm that may have been misinterpreted." He dug a hand into a pocket; but withdrew it, empty.

"His Majesty will see to it that you are suitably rewarded," he said to Sobieski. "Meanwhile, you have my hearty thanks, and I regret that any hasty words of mine should have caused you inconvenience. You can go at once, of course."

Sobieski made off, well pleased that his stormy career in the whirlpool of state affairs was ended. But Felix shook hands with him and said quietly:

"I will not forget."

Prince Michael seized Poluski's arm with a fine assumption of dignified cordiality. "So it was really you who sent that stammering youth with such an astounding message? Come, then. Tell me all about it. Was Alec actually in peril?"

He drew Felix up the stairs, out of earshot of the servants and orderlies in the wide hall. Felix sniffed.

"Odd thing," he grinned. "You are a Prince and I am an anarchist, yet both of us need a nip of brandy when we are disturbed. But I have the better of you in one respect, my dear Michael. My hand doesn't shake. Now, yours——"

The clasp on his arm loosened, lost some of its friendliness, and Prince Delgrado stood for an instant on the stairs.

"I tried to show a calm front before the others; but the predicament my son was in found the weak place in my armor," he said.

"My case exactly," said Felix. "Joan diagnosed the symptoms, and dosed me with cognac. You, I imagine, were your own physician."

"Ah, since you mention the lady, who is she?"

"Joan? A female divinity, one of the few charming women left in the world."

"Admirable! One can associate those qualities with residence in Paris; but in Delgratz, Felix, one finds them unusual—shall I say out of place?"

"If I were you, Monseigneur, I would learn to regard her in a totally different light. Joan ought to be at home here, because she is your prospective daughter in law."

Michael Delgrado could govern his nervous system with some measure of success when words were the only weapons that threatened. He did not flinch now; but threw open the door of the nearest room on the upper floor. It chanced to be the apartment in which President Nesimir had received Alec and Stampoff on that memorable morning, barely a month ago, when the young King came to Delgratz to claim his patrimony. Neither man was aware of the coincidence that led Michael to slam the door, place his back against it, and gurgle a question:

"Are you jesting, Felix?"

"Quarter of an hour ago I was on the point of being introduced to a grim personage who would have squeezed the last joke out of me," said Poluski. "His name was Death, Pallida Mors, who steps with even stride from the huts of the poor to the palace of the King, and he gave me such a fright that I shall be in no mood all day for any display of humor. Why, man, don't you realize that I have been under this roof fully five minutes without experiencing the slightest desire to sing?"

"But, Felix, do be in earnest for once. What is this you tell me? How can Alexis III. marry this woman, this adventuress?"

Poluski's big gray eyes narrowed into slits, and the hump on his shoulders became more pronounced as his head drooped forward a little; but his smooth tones did not falter, and his uneasy hearer thought he found a note of friendly commiseration in them.

"A hard word, Michael, hard and unjust. Joan is no adventuress," he said. "We old birds are too ready to condemn a young and pretty woman who falls in love with a King; but in the present instance criticism is disarmed, since Joan was in love with Alec when he had no more worldly wealth than the endowment of your princely name, and when his chance of becoming King of Kosnovia was as remote as—what shall I say?—well, as your own."

Michael came away from the door and stood looking out at the window. It afforded a partial view of the courtyard and the fairly wide street beyond the gate. "I know, of course, that your ideas and mine on these subjects differ very greatly," he said after a pause, and with a perceptible return to his grandiose manner; "but as you say rightly, both of us are old enough to realize that a reigning King can marry none but a Princess of some royal house. Again, the King of Kosnovia must marry a Serb. There you have two fixed principles, so to speak, each of which renders it impossible for a lady who rejoices apparently in no other name than Joan——"

"Joan Vernon," put in Felix, producing a cigarcase, an exact replica of that containing the bombs, and selecting one of the long thin cigars he favored.

"Ah, certainly. The Princess spoke to her in Vienna, and ascertained her name then. Well, Miss Joan Vernon cannot, by the very nature of things, become Queen of Kosnovia. It is not that I disapprove of the notion, Felix; it is simply impossible."

Poluski struck a match and began to smoke furiously. Delgrado probably expected him to say something; but he waited in vain, since Felix seemed to be far more perturbed by the suspected existence of a hole in the outer wrapping of the cigar, and futile efforts to close it with the tip of a finger, than by the princely hinting at a morganatic marriage.

Perforce, Prince Michael resumed the discussion. "I am stating the facts calmly and without prejudice," he said. "I assume that you are not misleading me or that some sort of lovers' vows exists between these young people?"

He paused again. Poluski was triumphant. He had found the hole, applied the surgical method of a tourniquet by pressure, and the cigar was drawing perfectly.

"Having said so much, Felix, you might be sufficiently communicative in other respects," growled Delgrado, turning angrily from the window.

"Parbleu! I left you to do the talking, Monseigneur. This devil of a cigar has been bored by a weevil, and was broken winded till I stopped the leak. You were saying?"

"That Alec Delgrado might have married your young friend; but King Alexis III. cannot."

"He will," said Felix, grinning complacently.

"If he does, it will cost him his throne."

"Poof! For a man of the world, Michael, you utter opinions that are singularly inept. I think you were driving just now at the accepted theory of royal alliances? If it holds good for Alec, it affects you, his father. You didn't marry a Princess, but happily secured a good, honest American lady, sufficiently endowed with good, honest American dollars to keep you in luxury throughout your useless life. If there is some law which says that Alec cannot make Joan a Queen, the same law would prevent him from being a King. But it doesn't. King he is, and King he will remain as long as it pleases God to keep him in good health and save him from the miserable rascals who tried to assassinate him to-day—and their like. What you want, Michael, is a friend who is not afraid to warn you. Now, for the hour, kindly regard me as filling that useful capacity. After twenty-five years of extravagance you have managed, I suppose, to exhaust your excellent wife's fortune. You came to Delgratz this morning for the express purpose of drawing fresh supplies from the Kosnovian treasury. Well, you haven't met your son yet; but when you suggest that he should begin to impoverish his people to maintain you in idle pomp in Paris, I fancy you will find him adamant. That is not his theory of governing. If it was, he would neither marry Joan nor be alive at this moment, since Heaven saw fit to intrust me with the control of both his bride and his life.

"One thing more I have to say, Michael, and then I have finished, unless you press me too hardly. Let us suppose Alec had fallen in to-day's attempt. Whom do you think would succeed him? Michael V. Not for five minutes! You know now, and I have known all along, that the real instigator of the May outbreak was Julius Marulitch and his Greek bear leader, Constantine Beliani. You were inspired, Michael, when you resigned your claims in favor of your son. Those two meant to put you forward as their puppet and shove you to the wall as soon as the Delgrado line was restored and they were able to pull the strings here in safety. They never dreamed that Alec, the careless, happy-go-lucky boy, the polo player and haunter of studios, would prove a stumbling block in the path of royal progress. You were a mere pawn, Michael. They counted on pushing you out of the way as easily as if you were a baby in a perambulator. What was true a month ago is more true now. Go down on your knees and thank Heaven that it saw fit to preserve your son's life this afternoon; for his life alone stands between you and the abyss!

"Now, I have spoken, and—name of a good little gray man!—you don't seem to like the hearing. But do not forget what I have said, Michael. I have poured forth a stream of golden words. It will be well for you if you are never called on to apply other test to their value than your own judgment; for as sure as the day dawns that you dream of reigning in Delgratz, so surely will you dig your own grave with a shovel lent by the devil."

Poluski ceased, and apparently expected no answer. He, too, went to a window and gazed out at the sunlit vista of graveled courtyard and yellow buildings.

Already there were long patches of shade; for the day was closing. A foot regiment marched past the palace gates, and Prince Michael might have remembered that in Delgratz a sentry with a loaded rifle guards each street after sunset. But his bloated face was curiously haggard, and his prominent eyes looked at the soldiers with the unconscious aspect of a man whose castle in Spain had suddenly proved itself the most deceptive of mirages. Perhaps, for a brief space, he saw himself as Felix saw him, and a species of horror may have fallen on him at the mere conceit that another man was able to peep into his heart and surprise there the foul notion that had seized him when John Sobieski brought the tidings of his son's desperate plight.

Be that as it may, Prince Michael Delgrado offered no reply to the decrepit, poverty stricken artist who had dared to unmask him in such exceedingly plain terms. Not a word passed between them during many minutes. The shuffling tramp and dust of the regiment died away, and the thoroughfare beyond the gates had resumed its normal condition when a new animation was given to the courtyard by a loud order and the hurried assembly of the guard.

"Good!" said Felix contentedly. "Here comes the King! Your Excellency will now receive confirmation of some of my statements. As for the rest, if I am proved right in some respects, it will be a first rate idea to accept the remainder without proof."

Delgrado shot a baleful glance at the hunchback; but ignored his comment. "If it is not indiscreet of a parent to betray some interest in a son's prospective happiness, may I venture again to inquire who Miss Joan Vernon is?"

"I think I answered you."

"In general terms. Feminine divinity and charm should be the characteristics of all brides; but these delectable beings do not enter the world fully formed, like Venus Aphrodite newly risen from the sea of Cyprus."

"Oh, to me it suffices that she exists, and is Joan. I have known her a whole year, during her student life in Paris, in fact. Your simile was well chosen, Monseigneur. Aphrodite came with the spring, and so came Joan."

"And before Paris?"

"The New England section of America, I believe. Her mother died when Joan was a child; her father was in the navy and was drowned."

"An artist, you say?"

"Artistic would be the better description. She is too rich ever to paint well."

"Rich!"

"As artists go. She has an income of two hundred pounds a year."

"Ah, bah!"

"Don't be so contemptuous of five thousand francs. They go a long way—with care. I believe that my dear Joan spends all her money on dress, and keeps soup in the pot by copying pictures. But she will make a lovely Queen. Saperlotte! I must paint her in purple and ermine."

Yielding to the spell of the vision thus conjured up, Felix forgot his racked nerves and sang lustily a stanza from "Masaniello." Prince Michael flung out of the room to meet his son; but the strains followed him down the stairs.

Yet Poluski was thinking while he sang, and the burden of his thought was that this anxious father had asked him no word as to the scene in that bullet swept room, nor the means whereby Alec and his friends were snatched from death.

Very different was the meeting between Joan and Princess Delgrado. The panic stricken mother, scarce crediting the assurance given her by the President's family that there were no grounds for the disquieting rumors that arose from Sobieski's appeal for help, was in an agony of dread when the first undoubted version of the true occurrence was brought by Stampoff's courier.

The arrival of Joan, of one who had actually been in her son's company until the danger was passed, though helping to dispel her terror, aroused a consuming desire to learn exactly what had happened. Joan, of course, could only describe the siege and their state of suspense until the soldiers cleared the street of the would-be assassins. As to the motive of the outrage or the manner in which it reached its sudden crisis, she had no more knowledge than the Princess, and a quite natural question occurred to the older woman when Joan told how Felix Poluski had startled the King and herself by his warning cry.

"My son had gone to visit you, then?" she said, not without a shadow of resentment at the fact that he had discovered this girl's whereabouts readily enough, though seemingly there was none to tell him that his father and mother were in the city and longing to see him.

Joan flushed at the words; but her answer carried conviction. "I do not yet understand just how or when Felix discovered that the King's life was threatened," she said; "but there can be no doubt it was a ruse on his part to distract the attention of the mob when he told his Majesty that I was in the hotel.—I chanced to be looking out—and I was very angry with Felix when I saw that he had stopped the King and was evidently informing him of my presence."

"Then my son did not know you were in Delgratz?"

"He had no notion I was any nearer than Paris."

"What an amazing chapter of accidents that you should be in Delgratz to-day, and, under Providence, become the means of saving Alec's life; for it is quite clear to me now that had he gone a few yards farther he would have been shot down without mercy!"

Joan colored even more deeply. Her pride demanded that she should no longer sail under a false flag, yet it was a seeming breach of maidenly reserve that she should announce her own betrothal. It would have come easier if she could claim more consideration from this kind faced, pleasant voiced woman than was warranted by the casual acquaintance of a railway journey. But Alec had sent her to his mother, and Joan's nature would not permit her to carry on the deception, though it might be capable of the most plausible explanation afterward.

"I feel I ought to tell you," she said, and the blood suddenly ebbed away from her face to her throbbing heart. "Alec and I were friends in Paris. We were fond of each other; but gave not much heed to it, since I was poor and he told me he had his way to make in the world. He wrote to me a few days ago, asking me to marry him. I did not know what to say, when chance threw in my way a commission to copy a picture in this very city. Put in such words, it all sounds very mad and unconvincing; but it is true, and it is equally true that I should never have acknowledged to-day that I returned his love if—if I did not think—for a few awful minutes—that we should both be killed. And—and—I wanted to die in his arms!"

Joan began to cry, and Princess Delgrado cried too, and it was in tears that King Alexis III. found them when he had returned Prince Michael's stately greeting and was told that the young American lady who had come from the shattered hotel was in his mother's room.



CHAPTER X

WHEREIN THE SHADOWS DEEPEN

Joan was standing on the first floor veranda of the President's house early next morning, when her errant thoughts were brought back to earth from wonderland by a stir and clatter of hoofs in the courtyard. She knew, because Alec had told her the previous evening, that he was bound for an experimental farm certain local magnates had established in the rich alluvial plain that forms the right bank of the Danube some few miles from the capital city.

"At present our country exports pigs and little else," he had said. "I mean to change all that. Austria shuts and bolts her doors by hostile tariffs; but Turkey is open to trade with all the world, and who so favorably situated as we, once the barriers of race prejudice are broken down? So, behold in me a patron of agriculture and its allied arts!"

"The Turk is our hereditary enemy," snarled Prince Michael, who was much annoyed by the poor quality of the wine at the royal repast. "Fancy me drinking Carlowitz at my age!" he had growled to Stampoff when he discovered that champagne was not supplied, by the King's order.

"My dear Dad, I am trying hard to erase that word 'hereditary' from the Serbian language," laughed Alec. "It opposes me at every turn; it mocks at my best efforts; it swathes me like the bandages of a mummy,—and I am growing weary of its restraint. This is a question of self interest, too. Perhaps, if I can persuade our good Kosnovians to adopt some more up-to-date fetish, they may drop the hereditary habit of carving their chosen rulers into mincemeat whenever a change of Government seems good to them."

"The King of Kosnovia should never forget that the time may come when he will be crowned Emperor at Constantinople," said Prince Michael with a regal flourish of his plump hand.

"Precisely. The ceremony should provide a picturesque spectacle for the cinematograph. Meanwhile, I want to enter the enemy's territory, and at present my skirmishers are pigs which are difficult to drive. We need stronger forces, such as hardware, agricultural implements, horses, cereals, even textile manufactures."

"In sending your pigs, I hope you also get rid of your bores, Alec," put in Felix, and Nesimir, who knew no English, wondered why so many of his guests laughed.

As for the elder Delgrado, he sulked until the President produced a bottle of imperial tokay, a luxury which the stout Sergius explained away by the statement that his house had never before been honored by so distinguished and brilliant a company.

So Joan was prepared for her lover's departure from Delgratz soon after daybreak. The heat of the noon hours was so excessive that early rising became more of a necessity than a virtue; hence her appearance on the veranda.

Alec had definitely promised his mother before retiring to rest that he would not dispense with an escort until the city was thoroughly quieted down after the day's excitement. The troopers paraded at six o'clock, and he did not keep them waiting a minute. Joan, delighting in the military display, watched him mount and ride off with that half-maternal solicitude which is the true expression of a woman's love. She hoped he would look up ere he quitted the courtyard—and she must have telegraphed her wish; for Alec at once turned in the saddle, almost as though some one had told him she was there.

He waved a hand in gay greeting, and it would appear that a whim seized him at the sight of her, since he gave some instructions to an aid de camp, who came clanking back to the porch, dismounted, and entered the building.

Soon the officer was bowing low to Joan. "The King presents his compliments, Excellency," he said in careful French, "and wishes to know if you will accompany him for an hour's ride before sunset."



"Please convey my regrets to his Majesty; but I do not possess a riding habit," said Joan.

"The King told me to say that if your Excellency offers no objection, a habit will be brought to the palace at four o'clock."

Joan laughed whole heartedly; for Alec's masterful methods came as a distinct surprise. Yet, despite her independent spirit, she rejoiced in his dominance.

"Tell his Majesty that I have the utmost confidence in his judgment," she said, and her face was still rippling with merriment at the hidden meaning Alec would surely extract from her message when Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir joined her.

"Ah, that is better, Miss Vernon," he cried. "Glad to find you in good spirits,—'Hail, smiling morn,' and that sort of thing, eh, what?"

"Why are you deserting Alec—the King—to-day?" she asked. "I thought you two were inseparable. And please enlighten me, Lord Adalbert, as to the correct way of alluding to royalty. Alec is every inch a King, of course; but I find my tongue tripping every time I use his title."

Beaumanoir seemed to weigh the point. "You are experiencing the same difficulty as the sailor who acted as billiard marker in the naval mess at Portsmouth," he said. "One evening the Prince of Wales came in to play pool, and Jack whispered to the mess president, 'Beg pardon, sir, but am I to call 'im Yer R'yal 'Ighness or Spot Yaller?'"

Joan shrieked at that, and the sound of her mirth brought Princess Delgrado to them.

"You are cheerful this morning, Joan," she said.

Her ready use of the girl's Christian name would have told Felix, if he had been present, that Alec's mother did not by any means share her husband's views as to the impossibility of a marriage between her son and this bright faced American. At any rate, Joan's cheeks glowed, and there was more than convention in the kiss the two women exchanged, each moved, as it were, by a spontaneous liking for the other.

"It is impossible to be other than cheerful in Lord Adalbert's company," said Joan. "Even yesterday, when bullets were showering in through the windows of that wretched hotel, he made game of them."

"So I did,—shouted 'Mark cock' when the first low one flew across. By gad! that's rather clever of you, Miss Vernon," he grinned.

"I don't know how either of you can find it in your heart to jest about that dreadful adventure," said the Princess. "I lay awake for hours last night thinking of what might have happened if that man Bosko had not managed to get away and warn General Stampoff."

"By the way, what became of the waiter Felix sent here from the hotel?" mused Joan aloud. "I forgot to ask him. Surely the man came and spoke to some one?"

"Oh, yes, Prince Michael met him and questioned him. Then Monsieur Nesimir took him in hand; but long before either of them could make up their minds that he was speaking the truth Bosko was clear of the mob and Stampoff was bringing his hussars from the War Ministry."

The Princess spoke hurriedly, and the younger people were quick to perceive a slight restraint in her words. It was quite natural. A mother, weighing the actions of others in a matter touching the safety of her son, would hardly make allowance for the incredulity such a messenger as Sobieski would inspire, and Beaumanoir tactfully led the talk to a less serious topic.

"You charged me, a little while ago, Miss Vernon, with deserting our sovereign lord the King, whereas the exact opposite is true," he said. "I am here on duty. 'Berty,' said my liege, 'stop at home to-day and amuse my mother and Joan,' his very words. Am I amusing you? No! Then I must go and find that funny little Pole and beseech him to tell us his best before breakfast story. Gad! He has some rippin' after dinner ones. He had us all roaring last night, and the funniest thing was to hear him spinning the same yarn in the local lingo, so that Nesimir and the other Serbs could share in the festivities. Prince Michael and Alec had the pull of me there, because they could laugh twice. By the way, Princess, Monsieur Poluski was well acquainted with your husband a good many years ago. They first met in New York, it seems. Poluski coolly informed us that he was obliged to leave Warsaw about that time because he had invented a new explosive specially adapted for removing crowned heads. Fancy him saying that when a real live King was sitting next to him."

"Alec is very fond of Felix," said Joan. "He knows quite well that our friend talks about things he has never done and never means to do. Why, Felix is the most tender hearted man living. His generosity is proverbial, and he would give away the last franc in his pocket if a starving woman begged of him. His anarchist notions are all nonsense. He has cared little about political affairs during the last ten years, and his only real happiness now is to paint the portrait of a pretty woman and sing at his work. If it was not for the belief that he is mixed up with dynamitards and other weird creatures, he would be one of the best known artists in Paris."

Beaumanoir called to mind the quiet confidence in Poluski's voice when describing the potency of that curious cigar-shaped bomb which so narrowly escaped being hurled at the mutineers during the fight.

"There is a lot more in Poluski's make-up than one would give him credit for at a glance," said he.

"I understand he was really a firebrand in his youth," remarked the Princess. "My husband and he disagreed so strongly at one period that their acquaintance ceased during many years. Indeed, I met him yesterday practically for the first time."

She sighed. Joan realized that Princess Delgrado was perplexed to find her son with so many new interests in life, interests of which she had no cognizance. He might have dwelt in some city a thousand miles removed from Paris, for all she knew of his associates or habits, and this one fact was eloquent of the gulf that yawned between his home and his pursuits.

After breakfast, Joan insisted on beginning work in the Cathedral. Felix and Beaumanoir accompanied her there in a closed carriage, and the cool interior of the heavy, ugly structure was not ungrateful in the midday heat.

At four o'clock Joan was ready to don a riding-habit that fitted marvelously well considering that the maker had never set eyes on the wearer till he brought the costume to the palace. At five she and Alec and Beaumanoir went for a ride on the outskirts of the town. The men took her to a very fine turfed avenue that wound through three miles of woodland. At the close of a glorious canter a turn in the path revealed a rather pretty chateau situated on a gentle slope of lawns and gardens rising from the northern shore of a large lake.

"Do you like it?" asked Alec.

"It is a perfectly charming place," she said enthusiastically.

"I am glad you think so," said he. "It is called the New Konak, in contradistinction to the old one, the Schwarzburg. It will be our summer residence. I propose to occupy it as soon as it is properly furnished."

He spoke lightly; but a quiet glance conveyed far more than the words. This, then, was their destined nest, their very own house, and for their first ramble he had brought her there. Its seclusion gave a sense of secure peace that was absent from the President's gloomy palace. The lovely park and its belt of forest shut out the noise and glare of the streets. Joan sat on her horse and surveyed the scene with glistening eyes. Her future home lay there, and the belief thrilled her strangely. If she could have peered into the future, how much more deeply would she have been stirred; for if ever she was fated to be happy in the companionship of the gallant youth by her side, assuredly that happiness was not so near or so easily attained as it seemed to be in that sylvan hour.

Beaumanoir broke in on her reverie in his usual happy-go-lucky style. "Not a bad looking crib, is it, Miss Joan?" said he. "I have promised Alec to remain in Delgratz until you are all settled down in it, nice and comfy. Then I wend my lonely way back to Paris. By Jove! I shall be something of a hero there—shine with reflected glory—eh, what?"

"I can't spare you for many a day yet, Berty," said Alec. "You can hardly realize how good he has been, Joan," he continued. "I had a fearfully hard time during the first week. More than once I wanted to cut and run; but he kept me to it, chaffing me out of the dumps when everything seemed to be going wrong."

Beaumanoir winked brazenly at her. "He talks that way now," he grinned. "It's the kingly habit, I understand. Alec has got it down to a fine point. Make every fellow believe that he is It, and there you are, you know."

There was some substratum of sense in Beaumanoir's chaffing. Alec was taking his kingship very seriously, and Joan was hard pressed to bridge the gulf that lay between Paris and Delgratz.

At first she found it almost impossible to realize that Alec had been in harness little more than a month. His talk was replete with local knowledge; he seemed to understand the people and their ways so thoroughly. He was versed even in the peculiarities of their methods of tillage, was able to explain distinctions of costume and racial appearance, and might have spent his life in studying all their customs and folklore.

Fortunately, Joan herself was gifted with quick perception and a retentive memory. After a few days' residence in the White City she began to assimilate the rills of information that trickled in upon her from so many sources, and the feeling of bewildered surprise with which she regarded her lover's attainments during the first hours of real intimacy was soon replaced by an active sympathy and fuller understanding. She was helped in this by the King's mother, since there could be no doubt that Princess Delgrado took her absolutely to her heart.

Prince Michael, who was completely eclipsed not only by his son's extraordinary versatility in all public affairs but by lack of that opulent setting for his peculiar qualities which Paris alone could supply, seemed to accept the inevitable. He tolerated Joan, openly praised her beauty, and became resigned in a more or less patronizing way to the minor distractions of local life.

Felix and Joan gave up their mornings to art. The Pole discovered some quaint old frescoes in the cathedral which attracted him by their remarkable freedom of design and simplicity of color. He valiantly essayed their reproduction; but Joan suspected in her deepest heart that Poluski's sudden conversion to Byzantine ideals was due far more to the fact that the lofty dome of the building produced musical effects of the most gratifying nature than to any real appreciation of the quaint contours and glaring tints of a series of wall pictures that set forth some long forgotten Bulgar artist's conception of the life and history of John the Baptist.

There was naturally a good deal of inquiry and speculation as to the identity of the unknown connoisseur who had commissioned Joan to copy the Saint Peter. Felix resolutely declined to satisfy any one's questioning on that topic. He had given his word, he said, not to betray the confidence reposed in him; but he allayed Alec's professed jealousy by declaring that to the best of his knowledge the man who had sent Joan on this mysterious quest had never even seen her. Still, it was impossible to avoid a certain amount of interested speculation among members of the small circle which was aware of the reason that lay behind Joan's visit to Delgratz. Both Alec and Joan believed that Count Julius Marulitch was in some way responsible, and their chief difficulty was to analyze the motive of such unlooked-for generosity on his part.