“For real genuine slave-driving commend me to a pretty woman who knows her own value—as all pretty women ought to,” added Mr Hicks gallantly, repenting, apparently, of his opening complaint.

“Who is the lady?” asked Usk.

“No less a person than her Majesty Queen Félicia, sir. She is lying off Paranati in the Bluebird, and has had the mate come over the mountains on horseback at the risk of his life, with a message for me that she has no use for matrimony just now, and I may as well fix up a separation.”

“What, already?” cried Usk, with unintentional irony.

“Why, certainly. The King has insulted her unpardonably, so she says, and I guess there isn’t anything to be done but eliminate him for the future.”

“Then you will be obliged to go to her at Paranati?”

“That’s so, and it makes me real mad. I had concluded to wander around in these parts some, and try and solve the mystery of this last disappearance of the Count’s, and now I don’t see but you’ll have to do what you can without me. What riles me is the way things seem to work for the other side all the time. It’s that which is telling on Lady Usk too, I guess.”

Usk nodded gravely, for it seemed as if Helene could not forgive herself for her failure to rescue Cyril. In vain her husband and Mr Hicks pointed out that she could not in any case have saved him by herself, and that the circumstances made it impossible for her to get together a band of helpers. She was convinced that there was something she might have done if she had had more presence of mind, or even—to go back to the beginning of her misfortunes—that she would have done far better not to approach the Pelenko mansion at all, rather than give the alarm by her sudden appearance there, and thus enable Dr Gregorescu to remove his patient. That there was some truth in this could not be denied, and Helene brooded over it until she was at times persuaded that Usk must hate her for her disastrous interference, and she made herself miserable over an alienation which was quite imaginary. To Usk such a state of mind was utterly incomprehensible. Helene was tired after her adventures and inclined to be morbid, he thought, and he dragged her out into the fresh air, and scolded her good-humouredly, never dreaming that she took his scoldings seriously to heart, and believed that he invited her out with him as a matter of duty.

“It’s a real misfortune that your mother is set fast at Geneva, and Queen Ernestine at Vindobona,” Mr Hicks went on. “You and I, Lord Usk, we don’t know just the way to get hold of a little sensitive girl like that, and put things so’s she must take a cheerful view of them. We can’t seem to fix it that she should have a good cry, and feel better, which is what she wants.”

Usk was silent. His private opinion was that Helene cried a great deal without feeling any better, but he was not going to say this to Mr Hicks, although he did not resent his curious assumption of a share in the charge of her, knowing that any woman in trouble imposed a responsibility upon the American to see that she was comforted or righted.

“Did you try suggesting to her that her mother should come here?” Mr Hicks asked.

“Yes; but it was no good. She said at once that her mother couldn’t leave her father, and that the Grand-Duke wouldn’t like this place at all.”

“No; I guess he’d raise Cain a few dozen times a day, which wouldn’t be soothing to his daughter’s nerves. And did you propose that she should take a fortnight’s vacation, and go right home to them?”

“Yes; and it made her perfectly miserable. She thought I wanted to send her away from me, and she was so unhappy I had to promise never to suggest such a thing again.”

“Well, well!” remarked Mr Hicks soothingly, “things will pan out all right yet. You know the pay-dirt’s there, and by and bye you’ll get down to the bed-rock, and find you’re come upon a real Bonanza. That’ll be when you understand her all through, see? And for the present you’ll do your level best to be father and mother to her as well as husband. That starched stone image of a maid of hers is worse than no one. And I wouldn’t wonder if things will all go smooth when once we start finding the Count, any way. That little lady of yours has so much grit that it only needs an emergency to bring her along smiling.”

“Pity the emergency doesn’t hurry up!” said Usk. “Why, Hicks, there must be a countryman of yours inside there,” as a slow voice of extraordinary solemnity, speaking in English, made itself audible on the terrace where they sat.

“That’s the mate of the Bluebird,” responded Mr Hicks. “I told him come out here when he was finished stoking. Is that you, Mr Bradwell? Come right out. Did the folks give you a good square meal?”

“According to their lights, sir, according to their lights.” The sailor, a gaunt middle-aged man, emerged from the doorway and bowed to Usk. “They don’t know to fix that sort of thing properly here.”

“Nor anywhere out of the States,” agreed Mr Hicks heartily. “I don’t wonder her Majesty is tired of these one-horse countries. Did I hear you say she didn’t incline to go back to Thracia alive?”

“Won’t trust herself on shore, not even to visit the Prince and Princess,” was the reply. “Ship prepared for action, rifles got up and ball ammunition served out. Boats patrolling around all night, watch on deck forbidden to snooze.”

“Ah, she knows her way about!” said Mr Hicks admiringly. For a few minutes they smoked in silence, and then the sailor inquired suddenly—

“Is there any sort of a State asylum in these parts?”

“Not much there isn’t—not near here, any way. What’s the racket?”

“What would be your candid opinion of a man that located one in the mountains, just over the Dardanian frontier there?”

“Either that he was the worst kind of a fool, or that he had concluded it was safer to keep himself out of sight.”

“Well,” pursued the sailor slowly, “there’s one of our firemen taken to hurling chunks of coal at the other men instead of into the furnaces. It ain’t only his fun, but the rest of the boys object to it. It seemed sort of suitable when I asked that guide of mine this afternoon what a certain house was, and he gave me to understand it was a lunatic asylum. I don’t see but a week or two way up there while we’re lying off Paranati might set this nigger right.”

“You didn’t go so far as make any inquiries?” asked Mr Hicks.

“Well, I just did, as we were giving the horses a rest in the village. Saw the doctor chap, ain’t been long at the business, only one patient at present, old fellow who’s forgotten his own name, but looks smart enough.”

“What’s the doctor’s name?” broke from Usk and Mr Hicks together.

“Gregory? no, something sort of foreign-sounding—Gregorescu, here it is. I said I would have him hear from me.”

“So you shall, to-morrow morning,” said Mr Hicks, “and I’ll go along there with you.”

“The doctor would as lief be rid of this old fellow, I guess. He told me he was quite safe to be allowed out, but he didn’t know where to find his friends.”

“Then his friends will find him. Did you say you were coming here?”

“Well, yes, I guess I did.”

“I don’t just see this,” murmured Mr Hicks, “but we will look into it to-morrow.”

CHAPTER XXII.
OPENING THE PRISON DOORS.

When Mr Bradwell started the next morning on his return journey to the Dardanian port, Mr Hicks accompanied him, not without strong opposition from Usk and Helene. Dr Gregorescu’s extraordinary change of front, as exhibited in his interview with the mate, seemed to them to show that the only thing that needed to be done was to go in a body and demand and obtain Cyril’s release, but Mr Hicks could not satisfy himself that the matter was so simple. The utmost he would concede was that four hours after he had started, they might drive out as far as the bend of the road where Helene had first lost her way, and wait there in case he sent back a message by Jakob, whom he would take with him, and William could ride out with the carriage, as it might be an advantage to have another man at hand. But when Usk asked scoffingly what was the object of all these warlike preparations, Mr Hicks confessed that he didn’t know. It was simply that he couldn’t seem to see such an elaborate plot peter out without some sort of a surprise for somebody.

The two Americans and Jakob accomplished their journey to the village without mishap, although Mr Bradwell, who had seldom ridden any distance until the day before, was glad to adopt one of the high native saddles, well padded with sheep-skins, instead of the European one he had used. Arrived at the village, the horses were left in Jakob’s care, and Mr Hicks and his friend turned into the rough track which led to the asylum. This track branched off from the village street at its upper end, where the road, now fairly in Dardania, became little better than a bridle-path, and the house stood on an isolated hill about a mile away. It had been a kind of watch-tower or rude fort in the Roumi times, but of late years had been enlarged and adapted to the purposes of an ordinary dwelling by a wealthy merchant of Paranati, who thought it would prove a pleasant summer retreat. He had made the winding path leading up the hill passable for the rough vehicles of the country, even if it could not justly be called a carriage-road, and he was proceeding to plant the bare hillside and lay out gardens, when a disastrous speculation plunged him into poverty, and left the place to its old isolation. It seemed admirably fitted for Dr Gregorescu’s ostensible purpose. The situation was airy and commanded splendid views, there was space for moderate exercise within the outer circle of the old fortifications, and any patient who succeeded in escaping over the walls would be in view from the gateway almost as far as the foot of the hill.

Mr Hicks noted the possibilities of the place with a jealous eye as he and his companion climbed the path. There were one or two points where it might be possible to effect an entrance, but there was no way of descending the hill but by this path, which wound in zigzag fashion up the slope, with a steep cliff above it on one side and below it on the other. There were turns at which the passenger would be invisible from the gate for a moment or two, but he could not reach the foot without coming into view again. If Dr Gregorescu were really willing to surrender his patient peaceably, it was a most extraordinary piece of good fortune, but why should he establish himself in a place of such natural advantages if he had no intention of making use of them?

Mr Hicks was on the look out for suspicious circumstances, and when he met Dr Gregorescu face to face the interview seemed to justify him in the belief that the doctor was a party to the whole of the plot. Mr Bradwell was despatched to view the building with a Greek attendant who spoke French, and to make arrangements for the reception of the unfortunate fireman, and Mr Hicks approached delicately the subject of Prince Shishman Pelenko. When he hinted that the patient thus styled might in reality be identical with a missing personage of importance in whose fate he took a deep interest, the doctor rose to the bait immediately, with every appearance of frankness. His story was that he had received the charge of the unfortunate man from a lady, whose name he was not at liberty to mention, but whom Mr Hicks understood at once to be Mlle. Garanine. This lady explained that while travelling with her, Prince Shishman had been seized suddenly with the distressing delusion that his life was perpetually threatened, which was accompanied by an entire loss of memory, and almost of the sense of personal identity. There was no reason why Dr Gregorescu should doubt her statement as to his patient’s name at the time, for when they arrived at the Pelenko mansion they were expected and welcomed. Moreover, the day after their arrival Prince Soudaroff called and had a long interview with the patient, endeavouring in vain to rouse him to any recollection of his former life. This account differed so totally from that given to Usk and Helene by Prince Soudaroff himself of his mission to Drinitza that Mr Hicks wondered for the moment whether the doctor had really been a dupe throughout, but in an instant he detected a false note. The evidence of the landlord of the Drinitza inn showed conclusively that the mysterious visitors had occupied the Pelenko mansion from the very evening on which Prince Valerian had left it, and when Cyril had disappeared; and the neighbourhood had been so strictly watched about the time of Prince Soudaroff’s visit that the doctor, his patient, and their train of attendants could not have arrived unnoticed. But since the doctor must not be allowed to see that he had blundered, Mr Hicks repaid his confidence by imparting to him, under a pledge of secrecy, the history of Cyril’s disappearance, and suggested that he should be allowed to see him without his knowledge. The doctor agreed to this at once, remarking that he had begun to be doubtful as to the identity of his patient of late, since Prince Valerian paid no attention whatever to the detailed reports and other documents he forwarded to him, and no other member of the family had shown the slightest interest. He took the visitor up to one of the flat roofs of the building, which commanded a view of a lower roof. On this lower roof Cyril was sitting idle, as Helene had seen him in the garden, his hair and moustache white, his expression perfectly vacant, except when he rolled a cigarette with great care and neatness. A dreadful misgiving began to creep into Mr Hicks’s mind.

“If he’s not mad, it’s just about the finest imitation I ever saw,” he thought, and then suggested to the doctor that they should show themselves and speak to him.

“Not from this distance,” was the reply, “but I shall be delighted to take you to him and present you formally. The case is a most interesting one, and I shall be glad to see whether there is any return of memory at the sight of you. I suppose you still think this is the person of whom you are in search?”

The question was asked hastily, as if Dr Gregorescu feared he might have aroused suspicion by taking for granted that the visitor would know his patient, and Mr Hicks was also conscious that there might be danger in a sudden meeting; but he remembered Cyril’s apparent non-recognition of Helene, and took comfort as he accepted the doctor’s offer. They passed through various passages, and at last came out upon the roof where they had seen Cyril. He was sitting in a kind of stone summer-house, open in front, with a bench running round the three sides, and a rough wooden table in the middle.

“May I be allowed to present to your Highness Mr Hicks, who is travelling in this neighbourhood?” said Dr Gregorescu, appearing round the corner of the summer-house with a suddenness which the visitor felt sure was intentional.

“How you startle one, Gregorescu!” said Cyril in French, rising and bowing languidly. “This is not the first time I have had to speak to you about your roughness. A man in my unfortunate position has at least the right to expect consideration from his physician. Monsieur,” he turned to Mr Hicks, “pardon the irritability of my nerves. It is difficult for the young”—he waved his hand towards the doctor—“to realise how the knowledge that death may be lurking at any corner tends to unman one. You are an Englishman, I presume? My good doctor will be able to air his linguistic attainments. He is a most accomplished person.”

“No, sir, an American,” said Mr Hicks laconically. “I understood from you just now that you did not speak English?” he added sharply to Dr Gregorescu.

“His Highness is too kind. I speak a few words, just enough to make English people laugh,” was the reply, and another black mark went down against the doctor in Mr Hicks’s mind.

“Mr Hicks is anxious to take your Highness away with him,” the doctor went on.

Cyril raised his eyebrows. “It is really very kind of Mr Hicks, but I don’t quite see why I should go away with him,” he remarked.

“If you remember the conversation we had a day or two ago, Highness——”

“Ah, I see.” Cyril turned frankly to Mr Hicks. “You must understand, monsieur, that I make no complaints against Dr Gregorescu, but—and I say this to his face—I am not altogether satisfied with his arrangements. I can quite believe that it was advisable to remove from my brother’s house, since my enemies had tracked me there, and I only escaped assassination by a secret and hasty departure, but I do not care for the situation of this place. It is isolated—exposed. I have the sensation of being set up to be shot at. Moreover, I understand that the doctor intends to take other patients, which is a very different thing from being my private physician, as I intended when I placed myself under his care. Hence I should not refuse to consider—merely to consider—proposals for a change.”

“Count, you are colossal!” was the exclamation Mr Hicks only just restrained himself from uttering. He looked inquiringly at the doctor.

“His Highness’s remarks compel me to enter upon a rather awkward subject,” was the response. “The money entrusted to me for his Highness’s support by—the lady I mentioned to you, monsieur, is—is very nearly exhausted, and——”

“And you think his Highness’s friends might prefer to make their own arrangements in future?” asked Mr Hicks. “Quite so.”

“Oh, monsieur, why should we continue this farce?” cried the doctor excitedly. “I see you have no doubt that my patient is in reality your friend, Count Mortimer——”

Cyril bowed smilingly. “You are very kind, to endow me with a new name,” he said.

“And nothing would please me better than to resign him to your care at once,” the doctor went on; “but how could I reconcile it with my conscience? You have no authority—you are not a relation. If he had even recognised you”—his little black eyes were on Cyril’s face—“but I cannot surrender him to a stranger.”

“That is so,” agreed Mr Hicks, wondering what this portended.

“If only you could bring his wife here; but you say she is dangerously ill at Vindobona——”

Mr Hicks saw Cyril start slightly, very slightly, and interposed hastily. “Not dangerously ill, doctor; you mistook me. In fact, when she hears I have found her husband, I think she will be well at once. As you say, the best thing will be to bring her here. But she could scarcely arrive in less than a week, for she must travel slowly.”

“If his Excellency will continue to put up with our poor quarters here for that time——”

“By all means,” said Cyril, with a whimsical smile. “But you place me in a curious position, gentlemen. You propose to bring a charming lady—of course she is charming—who is good enough to say that she is my wife, to take care of me. Well and good; the lady and I can but see one another, and the decision will lie with her, naturally. The state of affairs is quite interesting.”

“Perhaps,” said Mr Hicks, anxious to disarm any suspicion in the doctor’s mind, “it might be well for the Queen to remain in this house for a day or two before taking her husband away. You would then see whether there was any hope of his recognising her——”

“Or any fear of a recurrence of violence,” said the doctor.

“There is one important point which doesn’t seem to have occurred to you,” said Cyril, with languid impatience. “My personal safety must be provided for. Mr dear Mr Hicks, I like your countenance, but you must understand that I cannot consent to leave a place of comparative security in order to plunge into constant danger. You and the lady of whom you speak will be good enough to make adequate arrangements for protecting me from assassination when I am outside these walls. You will also, if you please, arrange to defray any sum that may be due to Dr Gregorescu for his services by that time. His mentioning money matters was quite unnecessary, but since he is so deeply concerned about them, pray let him feel himself secure. That is all I have to say. Please make your own arrangements. I shall be delighted to fall in with them, if these two points are remembered.” He rolled himself another cigarette, and leaned back in his seat, tapping with his fingers on the table as if tired of the subject, while Mr Hicks and the doctor, the latter looking much subdued, entered into a discussion as to ways and means. It was while they were trying to arrange how Queen Ernestine could be accommodated in a house which contained no female inhabitants, that Mr Hicks was struck by the intentness of Cyril’s gaze at the doctor.

“What can it mean?” he thought. “And that tapping—how he keeps it up! It might be Morse—Jehoshaphat! it is Morse. Four dots, two dots, dash dot dash dot, dash dot dash, three dots—Hicks! Hicks! Hicks! and he’s been doing it five minutes already. I understand you perfectly,” he said slowly to the doctor. “There is a difficulty. Perhaps the best plan will be for Lady Usk to drive over here and see what can be done. A woman’s notions often come in useful for circumventing a deadlock.”

Dr Gregorescu welcomed the suggestion, and thought that it might be advisable to hire some furniture, either from Paranati or Novigrad, with a view to the Queen’s visit. Paranati was nearer, but the absence of roads made it almost hopeless to send there. Decidedly Novigrad would be better, but then there was the difficulty of the frontier. Mr Hicks listened and agreed, while all the time, though his eyes were fixed on the doctor, he was interpreting the tapping on the table.

“Hicks, get me out of this to-day, for heaven’s sake! He suspects something. I shall be mad in real earnest if you leave me here another week.”

To answer this appeal, Mr Hicks summoned to his aid all the fertility of invention which had made him famous in three continents. He dared not respond by tapping on the table, but from where he sat Cyril could see his knee, while it was hidden from the doctor. Tapping the knee smartly for a dot, and rubbing his finger along softly for a dash, he answered according to the code.

“Be here this afternoon, and when you hear a row down below, watch out for a stone.” Then he turned to the doctor and summed up. “If I can get a message to Lady Usk in time, she shall come up this afternoon, and you will settle with her what arrangements you can make. The Queen will arrive in a week, possibly sooner, and you will keep his Excellency under your care until then? My friend and I must go over to Paranati to bring that poor mad chap, for he ought to be in your charge as soon as possible, and I may be back here almost as soon as Lady Usk, but if I haven’t arrived, you will explain things to her?”

The doctor agreed, and he and Mr Hicks parted with the utmost cordiality. The patient Mr Bradwell, reduced to utter silence from having exhausted every possible topic of conversation with his guide, was rescued from the bench in the porter’s lodge where he was meekly smoking, and the two men walked down the hill together. No sooner were they out of earshot of the asylum than Mr Hicks said—

“Now, Eben Bradwell, buck up. You’ve got the very biggest order on hand to-day that you ever had, and don’t you forget it.”

“I guess this ain’t the first time I’ve shepherded a lunatic gently into an asylum,” was the reply, in a somewhat injured tone.

“Ebenezer,” said Mr Hicks, “that isn’t a circumstance to what I’m going to have you do to-day. You’ll just make the journey to Paranati and back in the quickest time you ever travelled, and you’ll bring along with you the smartest man on board the Bluebird.”

“If you air alluding to that unfortunate darkey, I guess——”

“I am not alluding to him, but to a smart man that must take his place. I wouldn’t hand over my worst enemy to that smooth-tongued Dago back of us, after the time we’re going to give him to-day. No, sir; what that smart man of yours has to do is to try and give you the slip right at the foot of the hill here, and after a real hard fight, with as much yelling and general violence as he can get in for the money, to lead the chase way back into Dardania. You will have despatched a messenger as soon as he began to be ugly to entreat the doctor to come and try his influence on him, see?”

“You want the doctor out of the road for a bit, is that so? Well, sir, I like the notion, and I know the man that’ll tumble to it. We’ll make a real handsome nigger out of him.”

“That’s so, but there mustn’t be any waste of time. You’ve just got to break the record getting to Paranati and back. Pour out the dollars like water if they’re needed. I’ll have Lady Usk’s Dutchy go with you to do the talking, for I must stay and fix things up here, but I’ll meet you in the village, and the patient needn’t begin his star performances before then.”

“And what about her Majesty’s message that I brought you?”

“I guess her Majesty will just have to wait until this row is hoed. If she’s so mad that she gets reconciled again, it won’t hurt me, any way.”

With this reckless defiance of Queen Félicia, Mr Hicks sped the mate and Jakob on their way, and himself returned along the road to meet Usk and Helene. He found them waiting faithfully, but fuming, at the appointed spot, and he unfolded the plan he had elaborated as he rode. To one point Usk objected strongly.

“I won’t have Helene mixed up in the rescue,” he said. “She can stay in the village, and we’ll pick her up as we come back.”

“I don’t see but we must have her come with us,” said Mr Hicks doubtfully, “or we won’t be enough for the business. You, sir, will have your hands full getting the rope to your uncle and helping him down it, and Lady Usk will be wanted to hold the doctor in talk, for I must be way down the hill with Bradwell’s outfit. Then when the doctor is sent for to help us, you must distract the janitor’s attention while the Count slips past. If the charms of your conversation will do it, so much the better, but if not, then the six-shooter I warned you to bring will come into play. I must have Lady Usk wait with William and the buggy at the turn of the track out of sight of the gateway, for there’s no other way of getting the Count down the hill without being seen. You have the waterproof apron on the buggy, Lady Usk, I hope? I guess you’ll admire to take your part in saving the Count, won’t you? Don’t you go and have an upset down the hill; drive gently till you’re through the village, but then just take it out of the horses until you’re past the Pannonian frontier-post. I’ve had a word with the boss there. He can’t do anything to help us, for fear of a frontier incident, but once you’re safe across he’ll see you’re not followed.”

“But supposing these Dardanian fellows fire—she may be hit!” cried Usk.

“Well, sir, there’ll be your uncle and William, who won’t have her get hurt if they can help it. And as I said, I wouldn’t bring a woman into this if there was any other way of fixing things, but your wife has grit, and she’ll take the risk.”

“Oh, Usk, please, please!” entreated Helene, squeezing his arm very hard. “You know it was my fault he wasn’t saved before. If I could really help to save him this time!”

Usk yielded, with a sufficiently bad grace, and they waited impatiently until Mr Hicks thought the mate’s party would be on its way back from Paranati, and then started for the frontier. The Gendarmerie officer at the Pannonian post came out and wished them luck as they passed, and they crossed the frontier-line and began to climb the street of the village, which lay some few hundred yards beyond it. Several of Helene’s old acquaintances came out to greet her, and while she talked to them through the imperfect medium of the customs-officer as interpreter, Mr Hicks and Usk went into the post-office for a moment. When they emerged, Usk looked noticeably stouter, a fact attributable to the length of thin, tough rope, knotted at intervals, which was wound round his body under his coat. This rope Mr Hicks had obtained in the morning through the postmaster, and ensuring his secrecy by a judicious gift and the promise of another, had employed him to make the knots. It would have been wholly inadequate had the asylum been a modern building, with smooth, well-finished walls, but the masonry had been rough when it was first laid, and was now so weather-beaten that a young and active man might almost have descended it without the aid of a rope at all.

Mr Hicks remained in the village to meet Mr Bradwell, and William, leaving his horse, took the driver’s seat in the buggy. Usk walked up the hill by the side of the carriage, and loitered about the gateway, while Helene, with much outward dignity and inward shrinking, paid her call upon the doctor. It was almost more than her husband could endure to let her enter the place by herself. What if she should be kidnapped too! But she looked round and smiled at him bravely when she went in at the gate, and after he had fidgeted about for the prescribed three or four minutes, he began to take an interest in the masonry, and to cross-question the porter. The man knew nothing of the history of the place, but he intimated that the noble gentleman was quite at liberty to walk round the outside, as far as the cliff afforded a foothold, and see what the rest of the walls were like. Usk waited only until he was out of sight of the gateway to unwind himself from the rope, and fasten the end of it round a suitable stone. Then he went on, along a very narrow ledge, until it ended suddenly, and he caught sight of Cyril looking over the wall some ten feet farther on. At first his heart stood still as he realised that he could not get under the wall at the right spot, but in a moment he saw that this did not really signify. The ledge was so narrow that it would have been next to impossible to throw the stone up perpendicularly with any hope of its lodging on the wall, but from the spot where he stood he could throw it diagonally with some chance of success. Cyril held up a finger as a warning to him not to begin yet, and he gathered the rope in his left hand and waited. Then the sound of a sudden tumult, shouts, yells, expostulations, and blows, mounted to them from the foot of the hill. Cyril nodded, and Usk threw the stone. After two or three attempts which fell short, Cyril caught it, and began to draw up the rope.

In the meantime, William and the gatekeeper were startled by the appearance of Jakob, who dashed up hatless and dishevelled to entreat that Dr Gregorescu would come down the hill at once. The lunatic from the Bluebird had suddenly become violent, and refused to mount the hill. He was fighting with such strength that Mr Hicks and Mr Bradwell feared they could not restrain him much longer. It would take at least six men to carry him up the hill, they thought. The doctor came out promptly, making final arrangements hastily with Helene as he handed her into the buggy, then hurried down the hill with three or four of his Dardanian servants, while William started the horses on the steep descent with cautious deliberation. At the turn in the track they paused, William almost as much excited as his mistress, until the tones of Usk’s voice as he asked the porter whether his wife had started without waiting for him reached their ears. Almost immediately there was the sound of hasty footsteps, and Cyril ran down the road. William had handed the reins to Helene, and was out of the carriage immediately, lifting the apron on the farther side, and in a moment Cyril was crouching in the vacant space and hidden under the apron.

“William, put up the hood, please,” said Helene, in a quick hard voice, and the servant, alarmed by her tone, turned to see Dr Gregorescu hurrying breathlessly round the turn in front of them. He might have no suspicion at present, but he could not but be surprised to see the carriage stopping and William standing in the road. Helene’s presence of mind saved the situation, and William obeyed at once.

“Surely you must find this place very windy?” said Helene, as the doctor passed them. “I feel quite cold. Will you kindly tell my husband that I have driven on, if you meet him? But don’t let me keep you. William, you had better lead the horses down the hill.”

“A thousand pardons!” ejaculated Dr Gregorescu. “I cannot stay, madame, for the poor fellow from the ship has escaped. We must organise a search at once. Pray excuse me.”

A gracious bow from Helene, and she drove on, her face so white and her hands so powerless that William, at the horses’ heads, feared the reins would be torn from her grasp. At the next turning he stopped.

“Excuse me, my lady, but if his lordship would change hats and coats with me, he might sit up aside of you and drive, and no one the wiser, without they looked close under the ’ood, if you’ll forgive me offerin’ advice.”

“Excellent advice too, William,” came in Cyril’s voice, muffled by the apron, “but what will you do?”

“I’ll go off in your things, my lord, as if I was tryin’ to get to the frontier post by a short cut, without passin’ through the village, and lead ’em a rare dance. If they come up with me, I have my fistes.”

As he spoke, William was divesting himself of his livery coat and cockaded hat, and replacing them with the soft felt hat and light overcoat Cyril handed to him. Cyril made the change almost as quickly, and stepped in front of Helene to the driver’s seat. She gave up the reins without a word, for she was incapable of speech, and they were just starting when Usk rushed headlong down the hill behind them.

“What’s all this? Oh, good! Drive for your life, Uncle Cyril. Gregorescu’s found out! Now, William, let’s put them off the scent!” and Usk and the disguised William plunged into the wilderness of rocks and low bushes beside the track, where the carriage could not pass, as if intending to cut off the angle formed by the turns of the road.

“Don’t be frightened, Helene, but hold tight!” said Cyril, with a smile at his companion, as he kept a firm hand on the reins.

“Oh, I don’t mind. Go fast—oh, do go fast!” she cried, finding her voice.

“Not until we are down this hill,” he answered, but when they came to the short stretch of level road leading to the village, the buggy seemed to fly along. When they reached the corner, and turned down into the village street, Helene screamed.

“Oh, they are taking the short cut too! They mean to catch us up before we can reach the frontier-line.”

“Never mind. They’re only after Usk and William, who don’t mean to be caught. They won’t lead them across our track, you may be sure.”

“No, no!” cried Helene, in agony. “I caught sight of Usk just for a moment, and they must have seen him too, but they are not following. They are coming straight across.”

“Well, they are after William, then,” said Cyril shortly. “Keep quiet, Lenchen, and don’t frighten the horses.”

He was driving very carefully down the steep street, which in some places was almost as rough as a flight of steps, and the horses were picking their way with the greatest daintiness. Suddenly Helene screamed again.

“Oh, I saw them—between the houses! They will be there before us! Oh, do drive faster!”

Standing up with one hand on the rail, she snatched the whip from Cyril, and struck the horses wildly several times. They swerved across the road, and Cyril was almost dragged from his seat.

“Sit down, Lenchen!” he said angrily. “Do you want us both to be killed?”

He recovered the whip, but there was no holding the horses now. The buggy clattered down the stony street, dispersing pigs and fowls and goats as it came. Horrified mothers caught up their children from before the very feet of the horses, and village elders, leaning against their houses for a talk, drew back out of the road with an injured air as the wheels crashed close by their toes. By some miracle, as it seemed, the horses kept their feet, and the buggy was not overturned, and when the foot of the hill was in sight, Cyril drew a deep breath, and said to Helene—

“It’s no use trying to pull up here. I’m going to rush them. Crouch. Get under the apron if you can.”

Glancing ahead, Helene saw that the Dardanians were straining every nerve to reach the road and intercept them as soon as they were upon the level. She slipped down under the apron as far as she could, and Cyril urged the horses on. Only two men leaped into the road in time to stand and meet them, and though both shouted that they would fire, they were too much shaken by their run to take accurate aim. One sprang aside, and struck a futile blow at Cyril with the butt-end of his gun; the other was knocked down, and the horses, terrified by the discharge of his rifle as he fell, and by the shouts which arose from behind them, dashed on faster than ever. Two or three bullets struck the hood of the buggy harmlessly.

“Not much farther now, Lenchen,” said Cyril. “Get back to your seat, at once, and if I say ‘Jump!’ do it immediately, do you hear?”

Why should she jump? What could he see that made him think such a thing might be necessary? Helene cowered on the seat beside him with parted lips and staring eyes. Suddenly she saw what it was. A Dardanian sprang from some bushes on the right of the road, and standing in front of the horses, waved his arms and shouted. They swerved aside, but Cyril brought them round again, and as the man tried to leap up on the step of the carriage as it passed him, struck at him with the whip. He fell back, but at the same moment a fusilade broke out from the bushes, and terrified the horses beyond control. The high pole which marked the frontier, bearing on this side the emblems of Dardania, on the other those of Pannonia, was only a little way in front, and just beyond it were the gendarmes and their officer, drawn up in line, with their rifles ready. Cyril made a last effort to direct the horses into the lane kept open for them between the two ranks of men, but they dashed violently to the left, where the ground sank into a kind of wooden glen.

“Jump, Lenchen, jump!” cried Cyril, but Helene was too much frightened to obey. She was conscious of a violent jolt, a crackling of branches, the sensation of falling. There were shouts and cries, then a great silence.

CHAPTER XXIII.
THE PRICE TO BE PAID.

It was late at night, but the windows of the little inn at Drinitza were still ablaze with lights. In the sitting-room which was held sacred to Lord and Lady Usk, Cyril was lying upon a sofa, while Mr Hicks bandaged systematically and scientifically the various injuries he had received in being thrown out of the buggy. Usk was wandering in and out of the room, restless and savagely miserable, for Helene had not recovered consciousness since she was extricated from the wrecked carriage, and Hannele and the doctor from Novigrad were with her upstairs, and would not allow him even near her door.

“There, Count!” said Mr Hicks, tying a final knot; “I guess you’re about fixed up now, and I incline to think a meal of some sort would be a judicious investment after all this mussing around. Lord Usk, if we might requisition the services of that excellent William of yours to forage for us——”

“Oh, tell him to do anything you like,” said Usk wearily, stepping out on the terrace for the twentieth time. “I don’t want him.”

The others heard him tramping up and down outside while William removed the traces of Mr Hicks’s surgical labours, and brought in a hastily prepared meal. Seeing that Cyril was helpless with a sprained wrist, the servant asked if he should cut up his meat for him, but the offer was declined. Presently Usk, finding the companionship of his own thoughts intolerable, came back into the room.

“Now, Lord Usk,” said Mr Hicks cheerfully, “just sit down and eat something.”

“No, no, I don’t want anything,” was the hasty answer.

“Do you really feel that you can’t break bread with me, Usk?” asked Cyril, pausing in his efforts to feed himself with his left hand.

“It’s not that, of course. Here, let me cut that up for you, uncle. It’s simply that I can’t eat.”

“It is that. You feel that if it had not been for me that poor little girl upstairs would have been sitting here with you as usual. It’s quite true, but do you need to hear me say that if I had known what was to happen I would never have stirred a step to escape—that I would go back and give myself up to Gregorescu this moment if it would do her any good?”

“It’s not that,” repeated Usk. “I know it wasn’t your fault—or Hicks’s or mine, except that we ought never to have let her come—but that we, all of us strong men, should have got through without a scratch, and a little delicate girl like her—oh, God! when we got her out from under the buggy——” his voice failed.

“Well, the Count has a good few scratches to show any way,” said Mr Hicks judicially, “and so has that good fellow William, blubbering out that he wished he was killed and her ladyship not hurt. But if I were you, Lord Usk, I guess I’d find something else to do beyond tearing my hair and scarifying my soul with remorse that way. You’ll be a fine washed-out article when they want you upstairs to give a hand with the nursing. Now, for your wife’s sake!” he took Usk by the shoulders, and pushed him down into a chair, “I’ll have you make some sort of a meal, or I’ll warn the doctor that it’ll only mean another patient on his hands if he lets you sit up.”

“I can’t hear what they are doing from here,” objected Usk.

“Nor can any of us. But we can hear if they open the door, or come out in the upper hall, and that’s just all you want. Now the Count is going to tell us something of what he’s been through. Yes, sir,” he added firmly, in response to a look of remonstrance from Cyril, “I guess I mean just that.”

“You needn’t think you’re going to make any sensational discoveries, Hicks. We may suspect till all is blue, but the real movers in the plot have covered up their traces too well to be brought to book.”

“Ah, I sort of suspicioned that they weren’t taking any risks. But I’d as lief know the way they fixed things up, Count, from that very evening when you swam out of our ken, like a new kind of planet.”

For a moment Cyril hesitated still. “It’s not the kind of story to make a man altogether proud,” he said, “for whenever I was outwitting our friends the enemy most completely, I seem to have been making it easier for them to keep a tight hold on me. But you shall hear. Of course our driver must have been drugged when we got to Klotsch that evening, and it had probably been made worth the landlord’s while not to be in too great a hurry to supply his place. At any rate, poor Paschics and I walked on a good way, and at last, thinking that as we had paid for the carriage, it was not much good doing the journey on our own feet, sat down by the roadside to wait for it. I think it was the first time in our joint lives that we were ever caught napping, and we have paid dearly enough for it, both of us, Heaven knows! but who would ever have anticipated danger on that straight piece of high road? There were not even woods on each side—merely rocks, and those stunted shrubs the goats eat. We were just beyond the turning which leads to this road below you here, down into Dardania, sitting rather high up on the bank so as to be out of the dust. Suddenly we were seized from behind, and blindfolded with something thrown over our heads. We hadn’t a chance to struggle. How many men there were against us I don’t know, but they carried us off quite easily, and when they took the cloak off my head again I was in a carriage, which must have been waiting just out of sight in the side-road. There was a woman in it—Tania Garanine, the Scythian actress—and when I saw her I knew the true inwardness of the plot at once. She is a favourite tool of Soudaroff’s; and the Princess of Dardania turned her on when she wanted to keep her son from marrying Princess Emilia of Magnagrecia. The young fellow was staunch, you know, which didn’t make the fair Tania any more kindly disposed towards me, who had made up the match. She looked quite radiant when I found myself opposite her in the carriage, and made no bones about answering my questions. It was desirable that I should be out of the way for a time, she told me, but everything would be done to make the short seclusion as pleasant as possible, and if I would give my word not to attempt to escape, I should be allowed a considerable degree of freedom. Since my revolver was gone, and my feet were fastened together, and my hands tied in front of me, it seemed rather unnecessary to ask for my parole, and I refused it promptly. She didn’t seem to mind, but the fellow who sat beside me immediately poked the muzzle of a revolver into my neck, and remarked that he would fire if I moved. There was another man opposite, also with a revolver, and poor Paschics was at the bottom of the carriage, apparently choking. I pointed out to the lady that if she didn’t want him to die before her eyes, she had better have the thing taken off his head, and she gave the order with a sweet smile, as a personal favour to me, she said. Just at that moment we passed another carriage—an elaborate old-fashioned affair with Dardanian outriders—coming in the opposite direction, towards Europe, and the man in it bowed very impressively to Mlle. Garanine.”

“Prince Valerian Pelenko!” cried Mr Hicks. “Then I guess he told the exact truth, after all, when he said he had seen you riding with that lady, and on the best of terms with her.”

“Probably, since he could not see the revolver, and the carriage-rug was drawn up over my hands. Did—did my wife hear it?”

“We all heard it, Count, but no one believed a word of it. To us it was only one more attempt to take away your character.”

“But she might have believed it!” cried Usk violently. “It might have pained her most awfully. Why didn’t you cry out, Uncle Cyril, even if you were shot the next moment? At least she would have known that their whole story was a lie.”

“Would she?” asked Cyril. “My dear Usk, do you think my enemies would not have been able to arrange things so as to give her greater pain still? As it happened, Prince Pelenko was able to do his part without departing from the apparent truth, but do you think he would have objected to go a little beyond it if necessary? Would it have been much consolation to my wife to learn that I had shot myself, whether accidentally or otherwise, when in Mlle. Garanine’s company? You may say that it would have been no worse than to hear that I was in her company living, but you must remember that I fully expected to be able to escape with Paschics in two or three days at most. If I had thought I should be a prisoner for more than three months!—well, I may tell you that many and many a time I have wished I had called out as you suggest, and taken the consequences.”

“I think I hear them moving upstairs,” interrupted Usk, and he went to the door and listened, but came back almost immediately, sitting down at the table with the same gloomy face.

“Go ahead, Count!” said Mr Hicks. “I want to know right now what happened.”

“Nothing happened for some time, except that Mlle. Garanine threw out hints which were evidently intended to make me believe that I was merely wanted out of the way for a day or two while a revolution was carried through in Thracia. It was an ingenious idea, for, of course, with Michael out of the kingdom, and most of the Ministers away at his wedding, the time would have been well chosen, but I knew I must have had some inkling of it if things had gone so far, and I was prepared to believe anything rather than what she told me. I felt pretty certain that it was the affairs of Palestine, and not of Thracia, which were concerned, and that I was wanted out of the way for a good deal longer than a day or two. I saw several ways in which they might try to manage it, but I reserved my judgment until we stopped at that accursed house down there——” he waved his hand towards the hill at the back of the inn. “If you knew what it has been to be certain that there were friends and safety within a mile of me, and yet to be unable to take a step towards them——! I should like to tear that house down stone by stone, and make it a desolation for ever——”

“And bury Dr Gregorescu and his Dardanians under the ruins?” asked Mr Hicks.

“No,” said Cyril calmly. “That would be too good for them. That man has made me twenty years older in these three months. I saw the whole plot as soon as I was face to face with him and heard his name, and it was the very worst of the alternatives I had imagined. You will wonder how I knew. Well, I don’t think I am a coward generally. Hicks, you and I have been in some tight places together; what do you say?”

“No man less so, Count.”

“Thanks. But there is one thing before which I am an abject coward, and that is poison. Not ordinary poison—just going to sleep and not waking up again—nor even the fancy kinds which twist you up into an arch before they’ve done with you, but one particular kind of poison, the thought of which used to give me the horrors whenever I let myself remember it while I was in Thracia. Taken in small quantities, it doesn’t destroy life, only the mind—takes away a man’s memory, leaves him a sort of perpetual child, do you see? The knowledge of it is hereditary in one family, but for generations it has been at the service of the Scythian Government, and occasionally it has been used—not too often, so as to awaken suspicion, but just to get rid effectually of some troublesome person whose death might cause remark. All those years when I was practically the only barrier between Ernestine and Michael and a Scythian protectorate, I went in deadly fear of this devilish stuff. Of course I took precautions. Paschics and Dietrich were staunch, if all the rest of my household were traitors, but there was always the danger of the thing’s being administered in some one else’s house. I inquired secretly into the subject, and got some interesting information by bribing disappointed Secret Service agents, so that I had some faint idea of the nature and properties of the drug. Then I had an exhaustive list made of the members of the family that prepared it, and their various marriages, so that if I found myself in the neighbourhood of any of them I might be on my guard. In the last generation, one of the daughters married a Dacian named Gregorescu. Now you see why I knew my fate as soon as I heard the doctor’s name. He was at the house, waiting to receive me, and Mlle. Garanine delivered me over to him in the most matter-of-fact way. She herself returned into Dardania at once—on horseback, I presume, for the carriage could not cross the mountains, and was laid up in the Pelenko stables—and the two men with revolvers went with her. But we were no better off for that. The house was guarded by a small army of Dardanians, who kept watch day and night, though of course I didn’t find this out at once. My idea was to disarm the doctor’s suspicions by pretending to swallow whole the notion of the Thracian plot, and I harped on the subject till late at night. I pointed out that it could not possibly be successful, but that I would make it worth his while if he would release me at once. I appealed to his cupidity, his ambition, everything I could think of, and at last he thought it advisable to pretend to yield. He would think it over, and let me know in the morning, he said, and in any case I might be sure my captivity should be as pleasant as he could make it. I had refused supper, but would I drink a little glass of benedictine with him to show there was no ill-feeling? This was what I had been expecting, and I agreed at once, only thankful he had chosen liqueur and not coffee, which would have been much more difficult to manage. The benedictine looked just as usual, except that I could just distinguish a very slight—almost imperceptible—cloudiness about the glass at my end of the tray.”

“But why not have taken the other, and so forced on an explanation?” demanded Usk, who had become interested in the recital in spite of himself.

“Because that was what I particularly wished not to do. My idea was to make Gregorescu think I had taken the poison, and so gull him into keeping a less strict watch on me. He would not venture to repeat the experiment unless he was quite sure I had tricked him, for a second dose would kill any man living, and I was pretty certain they did not want me to die on their hands. For one thing, it would look bad if the matter came out; for another, it would spoil the full effect of the Princess of Dardania’s revenge. So I took up the glass and sipped it quite calmly, to all appearance—only, instead of swallowing any of the liqueur, I poured it down my sleeve a drop at a time, by a turn of the wrist, when I raised the glass to my lips. He did not dare to watch me very closely while I drank, lest I should suspect something, and I am thankful to say my nerve lasted until the glass was empty. I thought then it was about the stiffest piece of acting I had ever been driven to. If I had known that I had to carry it on for three months! Afterwards I spoke a little thickly, and let him help me to my room. He was watching for the symptoms, and was quite satisfied, but early in the morning he very nearly had me. Poor Paschics, of course, knew nothing of the whole affair. He was imprisoned somewhere by himself, but in the morning they left his door open, and he crept along the passage to find me. I saw him standing over me with his finger on his lips when I woke, and I was just going to explain things to him when it struck me that his being allowed to be there was suspicious, and I pretended not to know him. It was heartbreaking to see the state he was in, but I persisted, and it was well I did, for Gregorescu was spying on us the whole time. I found out his spy-hole afterwards. He thought it was all right then, and came and had poor Paschics taken away, apologising to me for his intrusion. I looked as puzzled as I could, and when I got up did my best to make it clear that my mind was a blank—that I did not know Gregorescu himself, or where I was, or who I was, or anything that had happened. For the first day or two he used to try to catch me out, starting subjects suddenly, or asking questions, and it’s just a chance that the strain didn’t make me as mad as he thought I was. But when he felt pretty sure of the vacuum, he began to fill it after a fashion by suggestion. I was Prince Shishman Pelenko, and I was gradually fitted with a past to match the name—all hinted most carefully, and wedged into my mind, so to speak, by leading questions. It was horribly cleverly done, and when Gregorescu thought his work was complete, he had it inspected—by Prince Soudaroff himself. It was a good thing that I had had fair practice in guile by that time, or I could never have held out, but I baffled even him. He also went away quite satisfied——”

“And met us on the hill here, and told us a whole lot of lies about Shishman Pelenko,” said Usk savagely.

“Well,” said Mr Hicks, with some complacency, “I guess the champion liar of Europe had met his match that time, any way.”

“Thanks for the compliment!” said Cyril. “I believe now that his perfect satisfaction with what he had seen and heard must have made him less clear-sighted with regard to what was going on in Neustria. He thought that with me helpless and in safe custody he had nipped the Palestine scheme in the bud, but no doubt he intended to make things safe after a while by opening negotiations with Ernestine and Goldberg, and handing me over, as a hopeless idiot, in exchange for a promise that the existing state of affairs at Jerusalem should remain undisturbed. It has been about the only consolation I have had, to think that the real scheme would go on all the better because Soudaroff was congratulating himself on having put a stop to the bogus one. But I needed the consolation, for it was just about that time that I lost poor Paschics. We had been kept so strictly apart that I had never had a chance of conferring with him or explaining matters, but he seems to have had some idea that I was only shamming madness. At any rate, one night, when there was a tremendous thunderstorm, I found him by my bed again. He did not utter a sound, simply took my hand in the darkness, and talked on it in the deaf-and-dumb alphabet. He said he believed he could escape under cover of the storm, for the Dardanians were all in a lively state of funk, taking shelter wherever they could, and he would bring back help and release me. I asked him in the same way why I should not come too, but he told me that the usual man—a rascally French-speaking Greek who posed as my personal attendant—was on guard at my door, and had only let him pass when he gave him all the money he had, under the pretext that I was always afraid of thunder. In fact, I saw the fellow inside the room by the next flash of lightning, listening jealously, but as he only saw Paschics holding my hand, he got nothing to tell his master. Well, as soon as the storm became less severe, Paschics departed, and the next thing I heard was that he was dead.”

“And was he murdered?” asked Usk quickly.

“I believe not. As far as I could make out, he was trying to escape along the roof, intending to climb down one of the trees which grew near the end of the house, when Gregorescu discovered his absence and turned out the Dardanians. When he saw they were after him, he turned off to the edge of the roof, intending to drop from it to the back verandah, and so to the ground; but the parapet was rotten all along, and a great piece of it fell with him. He struggled up and threw himself over the edge of the verandah, and actually ran a few steps; then they saw him give a convulsive leap and fall to the ground. When they got to him he was dead. The shock and the fall together were too much for him, after the excitement and anxiety of the past weeks. That was Gregorescu’s account, and I have no reason to doubt it.”

“No; it’s in accordance with the medical evidence,” said Mr Hicks. “Death due to shock, bruises inflicted before death; that was all.”

“But it doesn’t explain our finding the body in the river,” said Usk.

“That was to throw you off the scent,” said Cyril quickly. “Didn’t you all go off to some place on the Mœsian frontier, miles away, to see whether I was in that neighbourhood? But you didn’t rise to the occasion as they hoped. You were quite expected to leave Drinitza, and take up your quarters at Bagnanera.”

“Then you heard something of our movements?”

“Oh yes; they talked quite openly before me, at first to try and catch me off my guard, and afterwards, when they were quite sure the drug had taken effect, because there was no reason why they shouldn’t. They had one more try to make me betray myself when they found Paschics was dead, telling me of it suddenly, and I had to affect ignorance and mystification, and go through the whole sickening show over again. It was so long before Gregorescu was really convinced of my madness that I suppose, in spite of all my care, I must have failed in some points, but he seems to have satisfied himself at last that it was more likely the drug should produce slightly different effects on different people than that a man should carry on such a deception for so long. Then came the news of the Neustrian revolution and Malasorte’s dictatorship, and Soudaroff must have seen immediately that his plans for making use of me were foiled. In a sense, all that had been done was useless, except as a matter of personal revenge, and he could not hope to do any successful trading with me in the future, since his Emperor had gone behind him and was in league with Malasorte, and Malasorte was in league with the Jews. I gathered that the plan now was to smuggle me into Pannonia and leave me in a lunatic asylum there, to be discovered or not by my friends, as circumstances might determine——”

“No, sir,” said Mr Hicks quickly; “you were to be discovered. Mlle. Garanine took the trouble to come here on purpose to give the plan away to us.”

“That was to get us out of the way, as I said at the time,” remarked Usk. “We were keeping too strict a watch on the neighbourhood to please them.”

“No doubt,” said Cyril; “and we must also remember that nothing would satisfy the Princess of Dardania but to restore to my wife a husband who could not even recognise her. The woman’s malice had to be consulted as well as Soudaroff’s statecraft, you see. Well, you may imagine my state of feeling, with such a prospect before me—a pauper lunatic asylum, from which I might or might not be released before I was driven really mad. Then there came poor Helene’s sudden incursion.” Usk moved restlessly. “It was almost more than I could do to keep up my pretence of not recognising her; but if I hadn’t done it, I don’t believe she would have got away alive. As it was, I saw her to the gate myself, and watched her out of sight, for those bloodthirsty Dardanians were capable of anything, but I had disarmed their suspicions so completely by that time that they all obeyed me in ordinary matters as if I had really been Shishman Pelenko himself. But Gregorescu was not going to risk Helene’s bringing back help. The last thing he wished was to be caught on Pannonian soil, and to be identified with my disappearance, so we prepared for a flitting at once. The idea which he had so carefully ‘suggested’ to me, that my life was in danger from unknown enemies, was worked again, and I was warned I must escape at once. And I had to fall in with it, for I couldn’t throw off the mask until help was actually at hand. When I saw Helene again, alone, hiding in the bushes, just as we were starting, I almost lost hope, for I couldn’t make her understand what I wanted, and I could only trust no one else had seen her. If they hadn’t found out who she was since the morning, by sending a spy to track her back here, I haven’t a doubt she would have been killed, but they were afraid of meddling with her further than by sending an old woman to guide her astray while we got off.”

“But how did you get off, any way, and what happened to the carriage, Count?” cried Mr Hicks.

“The carriage simply drove out of the gates and into the wood, where it was left, while we went on with the horses alone,” answered Cyril. “After your visit to the house the next day, it was restored to its usual place, but when you were wondering which way it could have gone without being seen, it was hidden in a thicket quite close to you. And ourselves? Oh, we crossed the road and plunged into the hills on the opposite side, and so made our way round by mountain-paths to the house above the village, which Gregorescu had had in his eye for some time in case he found it necessary to take the bull by the horns and negotiate for my surrender instead of dumping me down in Pannonia. You see, it was on Dardanian soil, and he knew you could not touch him without a long diplomatic difficulty which would involve just what you didn’t want—waste of time. You know how he worked the thing through the mate of Queen Félicia’s yacht, and you know, Hicks, how very close the shave was at last. I don’t know quite how I gave myself away in that interview this morning—or yesterday morning now—my nerve is not what it was, and my face may have shown what I was feeling, or perhaps he merely put two and two together, but I swear I solemnly believe that if I had been in his power for another day, he would have forced me to take another dose of his drug, in some way that I could not evade. Even as it was, I was in terror lest he should do it before you came back, but he thought he had a week before him, and he didn’t know I had seen what was in his mind. You were only just in time, Usk, but I would rather you had been too late than that this should have happened.”

“It can’t be helped,” groaned Usk. “Oh, what are they doing with her all this time? Can she be dead, and they haven’t told me?”

“No, no,” said Mr Hicks. “They had a lot to do, and I guess no news is good news. If you could sleep a little, now——?”

A mute gesture of refusal from Usk answered him, and they waited on, until at last the door of the room upstairs was heard to open. Usk met the doctor half-way up the stairs. “Well?” he gasped. “How is she?”

The doctor, who was a German and disapproved of misalliances, looked him over severely before answering. “There is no sign of consciousness,” he replied slowly. “It would be as well to summon her Highness’s august parents as soon as possible, and there is a specialist at Vindobona I should be glad to have at hand. It is not likely he could suggest anything, but it is always a comfort to the patient’s friends to feel that everything possible has been done.”

The Grand-Duke and Duchess came from Molzau, Queen Ernestine from her sick-bed at Vindobona, Lord and Lady Caerleon from Geneva, where they had just laid in the grave the exiled Pauline Vassilievna, who had been more than a mother to Lady Caerleon. Never had the little inn at Drinitza been so full, or entertained such important guests, but the old landlord felt no desire to congratulate himself. The “little Princess” had won every heart during her stay, and now, to all appearance, she was dying. When her parents first arrived, she seemed to recognise them—Usk was certain that she did—but she relapsed immediately into a state in which she appeared to be conscious of nothing but pain. As if it had not been agony enough to see her suffer, Usk found very soon that the blame was supposed to be his. The Grand-Duchess could not forgive either him or Cyril for the accident. At least, she said resentfully, she thought she was securing a kind and thoughtful husband for her Lenchen when she gave her to him, but he had gone and sacrificed her to his uncle before they had been four months married. She would have kept him out of the sick-room altogether if she could, and when he insisted on taking part in the nursing, mounted guard over him the whole time to make sure that he did not disturb Helene by speaking to her. If Usk’s heart had not been very sore, and a good deal troubled by remorse, for which no one but himself and the Grand-Duchess could see any reason, he would have rebelled; but he could not engage in a squabble over his wife’s unconscious form, and his imperious mother-in-law rode roughshod over him. To his astonishment, it was the Grand-Duke who took his part. He also was banished from the sick-room, and he did not venture to dispute his wife’s decision, but he made friends with Usk in a rough kind of way, and they would take long walks together almost in silence, finding a fellow-feeling in their common grief. The Grand-Duchess, in a fury of maternal anxiety so vehement as almost to be ludicrous, made no secret of the fact that she would have preferred to be left with only Queen Ernestine and Lady Caerleon to share her labours. True, she bore a grudge against the Queen because she was Cyril’s wife, but she credited her with a genuine interest in Helene, which she denied to any of the men. They could talk of politics, she said with scorn, when Lenchen lay dying. The accusation had some colour, unreasonable though it sounded. The question of the relations between Michael and Félicia had reached an acute stage, and must speedily become common property if no solution could be devised for it.

Up to this point, chiefly by the assiduous efforts of Baroness Radnika, the fiction that Félicia was merely taking a short cruise, and that her husband had not found time to join her, had been kept up. Even the Pannonian Court had been willing to account for anything that seemed strange in the arrangement by remembering Félicia’s American education, but she had no mind to leave things in this state. When the Grand-Duke and Duchess paid her a hurried visit on board the yacht on their way to Drinitza, she told them the facts of the case with the greatest frankness, and refused to hear of a reconciliation. A separation she wanted, and a separation she would have, and the Grand-Duke saw no way of avoiding a scandal. He took counsel with Cyril and Mr Hicks (these conversations it was which aroused the Grand-Duchess’s ire), and they beat their brains for some means of bringing Félicia back to Bellaviste. King Michael was far from implacable. He admired Félicia intensely, and was really as much in love with her as it was possible to him to be, and he had the grace to be heartily ashamed of his own part in the dispute. He saw it now through Félicia’s eyes, and admired her secretly for resenting his conduct, and he was also painfully alive to the ridicule that would descend upon him if it came out that he had driven away his three months’ bride by his groundless jealousy. He was willing to make promises and concessions for the future, but Félicia opposed a simple negative to all his proposals. Once more Cyril became the natural go-between, and travelled first to Bellaviste to interview the King, and then across the peninsula to Paranati to try to influence Félicia, but all in vain.

These journeys were not undertaken without strong remonstrance from Queen Ernestine, who never saw her husband depart without fearing that his enemies might contrive to get him again into their power. But he never travelled without either the Grand-Duke, Mr Hicks, or Lord Caerleon, and two or three armed servants, and with such precautions it was not likely that he would now incur danger. Dr Gregorescu had prudently disappeared, and his Dardanians were merged again in the general mass of their fellow-countrymen. It was in the highest degree unlikely that either Prince Soudaroff or the Princess of Dardania would attempt any further hostile move, when the victim was able to recount the whole history of the one that had just failed, although he had not at present chosen to make it public. Moreover, the political reasons which had induced the Scythian Chancellor to join in the plot existed no longer, and he recognised that he had been cleverly led aside by a false clue. Before the Emperor Timoleon V. had sat for a month upon the throne of Neustria, the world was startled by a rescript issued jointly by himself and his brother monarch of Scythia. From this document it appeared that the Scythian troops which had for three years occupied Jerusalem would be withdrawn immediately, and the city handed over to the representatives of the Jewish provisional government which had sat during that period at Nablus. Palestine would be neutralised, and the Jewish State guaranteed in its independence and privileges (nothing being said of the shadowy suzerainty of Roum) by Neustria, Scythia, and the United States of America.

There was little real opposition to the measure. The new alliance was immensely formidable, besides representing roughly the three Christian creeds which were wont to battle over the sacred soil. England had lost her opportunity of protesting when she acquiesced in the Scythian occupation of Jerusalem three years before, and Hercynia was quieted by receiving compensation elsewhere, as usual at the expense of Roum. There was a wild outcry from the mass of the poorer Jews that no provision was made for appointing a Prince of Palestine, but Cyril made it known that he should refuse to be nominated even if the post were constituted. As he had said, the agony of his captivity had made him an old man all at once, and he felt no temptation to mingle any longer in politics. It was typical of the change wrought in the man by the disastrous result of his last experience of the political arena, that he now desired nothing more than to return with his wife to the oasis in the Syrian desert, within whose narrow limits he had so often chafed, and there end his days in quietness.

And in the mean time, while the two Emperors were reorganising the map of the world, and Félicia was reiterating her undying defiance of her husband, Helene still lay unconscious in the inn at Drinitza. The agonies of pain had passed, but she did not recover. She had not sufficient vitality, the doctors said, to rally from the shock and the long suffering, and it was not unlikely that her life would flicker out without so much as a return to consciousness.