CHAPTER XIV
Wogan closed the window cautiously. The snow had drifted through and laymelting in a heap beneath the sill. He drew the curtain across theembrasure, and then he crossed to the bedroom door.
"Jenny," he whispered, "are you in bed?"
"Yes."
"Lie close! Do not show your face nor speak. Only groan, and groan mostdelicately, or we are lost."
He closed the door upon Jenny, and turning about came face to face withthe Princess-mother. She stood confronting him, a finger on her lips,and terror in her eyes; and he heard the street-door open and clang tobelow.
"The magistrate!" she whispered.
"Courage, your Highness. Keep them from the bed! Say that her eyes areweak and cannot bear the light."
He slipped behind the curtain into the embrasure, picturing to himselfthe disposition of the room, lest he should have left behind a trifle tobetray him. He had in a supreme degree that gift of recollection whichtakes the form of a mental vision. He did not have to count over thedetails of the room; he summoned a picture of it to his mind, and sawit and its contents from corner to corner. And thus while the footstepsyet sounded on the stair, he saw Clementina's bundle lying forgotten ona couch. He darted from his hiding-place, seized it, and ran back. Hehad just sufficient and not a second more time, for the curtain had notceased to swing when the magistrate knocked, and without waiting for ananswer entered. He was followed by two soldiers, and these he ordered towait without the door.
"Your Highness," he said in a polite voice, and stopped abruptly. Itseemed to Wogan behind the curtain that his heart stopped at the samemoment and with no less abruptness. There was no evidence ofClementina's flight to justify that sudden silence. Then he grew faint,as it occurred to him that he had made Lady Featherstone'smistake,--that his boot protruded into the room. He clenched his teeth,expecting a swift step and the curtain to be torn aside. The window wasshut; he would never have time to open it and leap out and take hischance with the sentry underneath. He was caught in a trap, andClementina waited for him in the avenue, under the fourth tree. All waslost, it seemed, and by his own folly, his own confidence. Had he onlytold her of the tavern under the city wall, where the carriage stoodwith its horses harnessed in the shafts, she might still have escaped,though he was trapped. The sweat passed down his face. Yet no swift stepwas taken, nor was the curtain torn aside.
For within the room the magistrate, a kindly citizen of Innspruck whohad no liking for this addition to his duties, stood gazing at thePrincess-mother with a respectful pity. It was the sight of hertear-stained face which had checked his words. For two days Clementinahad kept her bed, and the mother's tears alarmed him.
"Her Highness, your daughter, suffers so much?" said he.
"Sir, it is little to be wondered at."
The magistrate bowed. That question was not one with which he had a mindto meddle.
"She still lies in bed?" said he, and he crossed to the door. The motherflung herself in the way.
"She lies in pain, and you would disturb her; you would flash yourlanterns in her eyes, that if perchance she sleeps, she may wake into aworld of pain. Sir, you will not."
"Your Highness--"
"It is the mother who beseeches you. Sir, would you have me on myknees?"
Wogan, but this moment recovered from his alarm, became again uneasy.Her Highness protested too much; she played her part in the comedy toostrenuously. He judged by the ear; the magistrate had the quivering,terror-stricken face before his eyes, and his pity deepened.
"Your Highness," he said, "I must pray you to let me pass. I haveGeneral Heister's orders to obey."
The Princess-mother now gave Wogan reason to applaud her. She saw thatthe magistrate, for all his politeness, was quite inflexible.
"Go, then," she said with a quiet dignity which once before she hadshown that evening. "Since there is no humiliation to be spared us, takea candle, sir, and count the marks of suffering in my daughter's face;"and with her own hand she opened the bedroom door and stood aside.
"Madam, I would not press my duty an inch beyond its limits," said themagistrate. "I will stand in the doorway, and do you bid your daughterspeak."
The Princess-mother did not move from her position.
"My child," she said.
Jenny in the bedroom groaned and turned from one side to the other.
"You are in pain?"
Jenny groaned again. The magistrate himself closed the door.
"Believe me," said he, "no one could more regret than I the incivilitiesto which I am compelled."
He crossed the room. Wogan heard him and his men descending the stairs.He heard the door open and shut; he heard Chateaudoux draw the bolts.Then he stepped out from the curtain.
"Your Highness, that was bravely done," said he, and kneeling he kissedher hand. He went back into the embrasure, slipped the bundle over hisarm, and opened the window very silently. He saw the snow was stillfalling, the wind still moaning about the crannies and roaring alongthe streets. He set his knee upon the window-ledge, climbed out, anddrew the window to behind him.
The Princess-mother waited in the room with her hand upon her heart. Shewaited, it seemed to her, for an eternity. Then she heard the sound of aheavy fall, and the clang of a musket against the wall of the villa. Butshe heard no cry. She ran to the window and looked out. But strain hereyes as she might, she could distinguish nothing in that blinding storm.She could not see the sentinel; nor was this strange, for the sentinellay senseless on the snow against the house-wall, and Mr. Wogan wasalready running down the avenue.
Under the fourth tree he found Clementina; she took his arm, and theyset off together, wrestling with the wind, wading through the snow. Itseemed to Clementina that her companion was possessed by some new fear.He said no single word to her; he dragged her with a fierce grip uponher wrist; if she stumbled, he jerked her roughly to her feet. She sether teeth and kept pace with him. Only once did she speak. They had cometo a depression in the road where the melted snow had made a wide pool.Wogan leaped across it and said,--
"Give me your hand! There's a white stone midway where you can set yourfoot."
The Princess stepped as he bade her. The stone yielded beneath her treadand she stood ankle-deep in the water. Wogan sprang to her side andlifted her out. She had uttered no cry, and now she only laughed as shestood shivering on the further edge. It was that low musical,good-humoured laugh to which Wogan had never listened without a thrillof gladness, but it waked no response in him now.
"You told me of a white stone on which I might safely set my foot," shesaid. "Well, sir, your white stone was straw."
They were both to remember these words afterwards and to make of them aparable, but it seemed that Wogan barely heard them now. "Come!" hesaid, and taking her arm he set off running again.
Clementina understood that something inopportune, something terrible,had happened since she had left the villa. She asked no questions; shetrusted herself without reserve to these true friends who had striven atsuch risks for her, she desired to prove to them that she was what theywould have her be,--a girl who did not pester them with inconvenientchatter, but who could keep silence when silence was helpful, and facehardships with a buoyant heart.
They crossed the bridge and stopped before a pair of high folding doors.They were the doors of the tavern. Wogan drew a breath of relief, pulledthe bobbin, and pushed the doors open. Clementina slipped through, andin darkness she took a step forward and bruised herself against thewheels of a carriage. Wogan closed the door and ran to her side.
"This way," said he, and held out his hand. He guided Clementina roundthe carriage to a steep narrow stairway--it was more a ladder than astair--fixed against the inner wall. At the top of this stairway shone ahorizontal line of yellow light. Wogan led the Princess up the stairs.The line of light shone out beneath a door. Wogan opened the door andstood aside. Clementina passed into a small bare room lighted by asingle candle, where Mrs. Misset, Gaydon, a
nd O'Toole waited for hercoming. Not a word was said; but their eyes spoke their admiration ofthe woman, their knees expressed their homage to the Queen. There was afire blazing on the hearth, Mrs. Misset had a dry change of clothesready and warm. Wogan laid the Princess's bundle on a chair, and withGaydon and O'Toole went down the stairs.
"The horses?" he asked.
"I have ordered them," said Gaydon, "at the post-house. I will fetchthem;" and he hurried off upon his errand.
Wogan turned to O'Toole.
"And the bill?"
"I have paid it."
"There is no one awake in the house?"
"No one but the landlady."
"Good! Can you keep her engaged until we are ready?"
"To be sure I can. She shall never give a thought to any man of you butmyself."
O'Toole passed through a door at the bottom of the staircase into thecommon-room of the inn. Wogan gently opened the big doors and draggedthe carriage out into the road. Gaydon with the horses gallopedsilently up through the snow, and together the two men feverishlyharnessed them to the carriage. There were six for the carriage, and aseventh for O'Toole to ride. The expedition which Wogan and Gaydonshowed was matched by the Princess. For while they were fastening thelast buckles, the door at the top of the stairs opened, and again thatnight Clementina whispered,--
"I am ready."
"Come!" replied Wogan. She wore a scarlet cloak upon her shoulders, andmuffling it about her head she ran down with Mrs. Misset. Wogan openedthe lower door of the inn and called for O'Toole. O'Toole came runningout before Wogan had ended his words, and sprang into his saddle. Gaydonwas already on the box with the reins gathered in his hand. Wogan hadthe carriage door open before Clementina had reached the foot of thestairs; it was shut upon her and her companion almost before they wereaware they were within it; the carriage started almost before the doorwas shut. Yet when it did start, Wogan was beside Gaydon upon the box.Their movements, indeed, occurred with so exact a rapidity, that thoughthe hostess at once followed O'Toole to bid her guests farewell, whenshe reached the big doors she saw only the back of the carriage lurchingthrough the ruts of snow.
"Quick!" cried Wogan; "we have lost too much time."
"A bare twenty minutes," said Gaydon.
"A good twelve hours," said Wogan.
Gaydon lashed the horses into a gallop, the horses strained at theircollars, the carriage raced out of the town and up the slopes of theBrenner. The princess Clementina had been rescued from her prison.
"But we must keep her free!" cried Wogan, as he blew through his glovesupon his frozen fingers. "Faster! Faster!"
The incline was steep, the snow clogged the wheels, the horses sank deepin it. Gaydon might ply his whip as he would, the carriage might lurchand leap from side to side; the pace was all too slow for Wogan.
"We have lost twelve hours," he cried. "Oh, would to God we were come toItaly!" And turning backwards he strained his eyes down through thedarkness and snow to the hidden roofs of Innspruck, almost fearing tosee the windows from one end of the town to the other leap to a blaze oflight, and to hear a roar of many voices warn him that the escape wasdiscovered. But the only cry that he heard came from the lips of Mrs.Misset, who put her head from the carriage and bade him stop.
Gaydon brought the horses to a standstill three miles out of Innspruck.