XII
LEOPOLD WAITS FOR DAWN
After the American had shoved him through the secret doorway intothe tower room of the castle of Blentz, Leopold had stood forseveral minutes waiting for the next command from his captor.Presently, hearing no sound other than that of his own breathing,the king ventured to speak. He asked the American what he purposeddoing with him next.
There was no reply. For another minute the king listened intently;then he raised his hands and removed the bandage from his eyes. Helooked about him. The room was vacant except for himself. Herecognized it as the one in which he had spent ten years of his lifeas a prisoner. He shuddered. What had become of the American? Heapproached the door and listened. Beyond the panels he could hearthe two soldiers on guard there conversing. He called to them.
"What do you want?" shouted one of the men through the closed door.
"I want Prince Peter!" yelled the king. "Send him at once!"
The soldiers laughed.
"He wants Prince Peter," they mocked. "Wouldn't you rather have ussend the king to you?" they asked.
"I am the king!" yelled Leopold. "I am the king! Open the door,pigs, or it will go hard with you! I shall have you both shot in themorning if you do not open the door and fetch Prince Peter."
"Ah!" exclaimed one of the soldiers. "Then there will be three ofus shot together."
Leopold went white. He had not connected the sentence of theAmerican with himself; but now, quite vividly, he realized what itmight mean to him if he failed before dawn to convince someone thathe was not the American. Peter would not be awake at so early anhour, and if he had no better success with others than he was havingwith these soldiers, it was possible that he might be led out andshot before his identity was discovered. The thing was preposterous.The king's knees became suddenly quite weak. They shook, and hislegs gave beneath his weight so that he had to lean against the backof a chair to keep from falling.
Once more he turned to the soldiers. This time he pleaded withthem, begging them to carry word to Prince Peter that a terriblemistake had been made, and that it was the king and not the Americanwho was confined in the death chamber. But the soldiers only laughedat him, and finally threatened to come in and beat him if he againinterrupted their conversation.
It was a white and shaken prisoner that the officer of the guardfound when he entered the room at dawn. The man before him, his facestreaked with tears of terror and self-pity, fell upon his kneesbefore him, beseeching him to carry word to Peter of Blentz, that hewas the king. The officer drew away with a gesture of disgust.
"I might well believe from your actions that you are Leopold," hesaid; "for, by Heaven, you do not act as I have always imagined theAmerican would act in the face of danger. He has a reputation forbravery that would suffer could his admirers see him now."
"But I am not the American," pleaded the king. "I tell you that theAmerican came to my apartments last night, overpowered me, forced meto change clothing with him, and then led me back here."
A sudden inspiration came to the king with the memory of all thathad transpired during that humiliating encounter with the American.
"I signed a pardon for him!" he cried. "He forced me to do so. Ifyou think I am the American, you cannot kill me now, for there is apardon signed by the king, and an order for the American's immediaterelease. Where is it? Do not tell me that Prince Peter did notreceive it."
"He received it," replied the officer, "and I am here to acquaintyou with the fact, but Prince Peter said nothing about your release.All he told me was that you were not to be shot this morning," andthe man emphasized the last two words.
Leopold of Lutha spent two awful days a prisoner at Blentz, notknowing at what moment Prince Peter might see fit to carry out theverdict of the Austrian court martial. He could convince no one thathe was the king. Peter would not even grant him an audience. Uponthe evening of the third day, word came that the Austrians had beendefeated before Lustadt, and those that were not prisoners wereretreating through Blentz toward the Austrian frontier.
The news filtered to Leopold's prison room through the servant whobrought him his scant and rough fare. The king was utterlydisheartened before this word reached him. For the moment he seemedto see a ray of hope, for, since the impostor had been victorious,he would be in a position to force Peter of Blentz to give up thetrue king.
There was the chance that the American, flushed with success andpower, might elect to hold the crown he had seized. Who would guessthe transfer that had been effected, or, guessing, would dare voicehis suspicions in the face of the power and popularity that Leopoldknew such a victory as the impostor had won must have given him inthe hearts and minds of the people of Lutha? Still, there was a barepossibility that the American would be as good as his word, andreturn the crown as he had promised. Though he hated to admit it,the king had every reason to believe that the impostor was a man ofhonor, whose bare word was as good as another's bond.
He was commencing, under this line of reasoning, to achieve acertain hopeful content when the door to his prison opened and Peterof Blentz, black and scowling, entered. At his elbow was CaptainErnst Maenck.
"Leopold has defeated the Austrians," announced the former. "Untilyou returned to Lutha he considered the Austrians his best friends.I do not know how you could have reached or influenced him. It is tolearn how you accomplished it that I am here. The fact that hesigned your pardon indicates that his attitude toward you changedsuddenly--almost within an hour. There is something at the bottom ofit all, and that something I must know."
"I am Leopold!" cried the king. "Don't you recognize me, PrincePeter? Look at me! Maenck must know me. It was I who wrote andsigned the American's pardon--at the point of the American'srevolver. He forced me to exchange clothing with him, and then hebrought me here to this room and left me."
The two men looked at the speaker and smiled.
"You bank too strongly, my friend," said Peter of Blentz, "upon yourresemblance to the king of Lutha. I will admit that it is strong,but not so strong as to convince me of the truth of so improbable astory. How in the world could the American have brought you throughthe castle, from one end to the other, unseen? There was a guardbefore the king's door and another before this. No, Herr Custer, youwill have to concoct a more plausible tale.
"No," and Peter of Blentz scowled savagely, as though to impressupon his listener the importance of his next utterance, "there weremore than you and the king involved in his sudden departure fromBlentz and in his hasty change of policy toward Austria. To be quitecandid, it seems to me that it may be necessary to my futurewelfare--vitally necessary, I may say--to know precisely how allthis occurred, and just what influence you have over Leopold ofLutha. Who was it that acted as the go-between in the king'snegotiations with you, or rather, yours with the king? And whatargument did you bring to bear to force Leopold to the action hetook?"
"I have told you all that I know about the matter," whined the king."The American appeared suddenly in my apartment. When he brought mehere he first blindfolded me. I have no idea by what route wetraveled through the castle, and unless your guards outside thisdoor were bribed they can tell you more about how we got in herethan I can--provided we entered through that doorway," and the kingpointed to the door which had just opened to admit his two visitors.
"Oh, pshaw!" exclaimed Maenck. "There is but one door to thisroom--if the king came in here at all, he came through that door."
"Enough!" cried Peter of Blentz. "I shall not be trifled withlonger. I shall give you until tomorrow morning to make a fullexplanation of the truth and to form some plan whereby you mayutilize once more whatever influence you had over Leopold to the endthat he grant to myself and my associates his royal assurance thatour lives and property will be safe in Lutha."
"But I tell you it is impossible," wailed the king.
"I think not," sneered Prince Peter, "especially when I tell youthat if you do not accede to my wishes the order of the Au
strianmilitary court that sentenced you to death at Burgova will becarried out in the morning."
With his final words the two men turned and left the room. Behindthem, upon the floor, inarticulate with terror, knelt Leopold ofLutha, his hands outstretched in supplication.
The long night wore its weary way to dawn at last. The sleeplessman, alternately tossing upon his bed and pacing the floor, lookedfearfully from time to time at the window through which thelightening of the sky would proclaim the coming day and his lasthour on earth. His windows faced the west. At the foot of the hillbeneath the castle nestled the village of Blentz, once moreenveloped in peaceful silence since the Austrians were gone.
An unmistakable lessening of the darkness in the east had justannounced the proximity of day, when the king heard a clatter ofhorses' hoofs upon the road before the castle. The sound ceased atthe gates and a loud voice broke out upon the stillness of the dyingnight demanding entrance "in the name of the king."
New hope burst aflame in the breast of the condemned man. Theimpostor had not forsaken him. Leopold ran to the window, leaningfar out. He heard the voices of the sentries in the barbican as theyconversed with the newcomers. Then silence came, broken only by therapid footsteps of a soldier hastening from the gate to the castle.His hobnail shoes pounding upon the cobbles of the courtyard echoedamong the angles of the lofty walls. When he had entered the castlethe silence became oppressive. For five minutes there was no soundother than the pawing of the horses outside the barbican and thesubdued conversation of their riders.
Presently the soldier emerged from the castle. With him was anofficer. The two went to the barbican. Again there was a parleybetween the horsemen and the guard. Leopold could hear the officerdemanding terms. He would lower the drawbridge and admit them uponconditions.
One of these the king overheard--it concerned an assurance of fullpardon for Peter of Blentz and the garrison; and again Leopold heardthe officer addressing someone as "your majesty."
Ah, the impostor was there in person. Ach, Gott! How Leopold ofLutha hated him, and yet, in the hands of this American lay not onlyhis throne but his very life as well.
Evidently the negotiations proved unsuccessful for after a time theparty wheeled their horses from the gate and rode back towardBlentz. As the sound of the iron-shod hoofs diminished in thedistance, with them diminished the hopes of the king.
When they ceased entirely his hopes were at an end, to be supplantedby renewed terror at the turning of the knob of his prison door asit swung open to admit Maenck and a squad of soldiers.
"Come!" ordered the captain. "The king has refused to intercede inyour behalf. When he returns with his army he will find your body atthe foot of the west wall in the courtyard."
With an ear-piercing shriek that rang through the grim old castle,Leopold of Lutha flung his arms above his head and lunged forwardupon his face. Roughly the soldiers seized the unconscious man anddragged him from the room.
Along the corridor they hauled him and down the winding stairswithin the north tower to the narrow slit of a door that opened uponthe courtyard. To the foot of the west wall they brought him,tossing him brutally to the stone flagging. Here one of the soldiersbrought a flagon of water and dashed it in the face of the king. Thecold douche returned Leopold to a consciousness of the nearness ofhis impending fate.
He saw the little squad of soldiers before him. He saw the cold,gray wall behind, and, above, the cold, gray sky of early dawn. Thedismal men leaning upon their shadowy guns seemed unearthly spectersin the weird light of the hour that is neither God's day nor devil'snight. With difficulty two of them dragged Leopold to his feet.
Then the dismal men formed in line before him at the opposite sideof the courtyard. Maenck stood to the left of them. He was givingcommands. They fell upon the doomed man's ears with all the crueltyof physical blows. Tears coursed down his white cheeks. Withincoherent mumblings he begged for his life. Leopold, King of Lutha,trembling in the face of death!