Beverly of Graustark Part 9

"It is beyond your power to help me," he said gravely. She was silent, but it was the silence of deep reflection. "Your highness left the castle ten days ago," he said, dismissing himself as a subject for conversation. "Have you kept in close communication with Edelweiss during that time?"

"I know nothing of what is going on there," she said, quite truthfully. She only knew that she had sent a message to the Princess Yetive, apprising her of her arrival In St. Petersburg and of her intention to leave soon for the Graustark capital.

"Then you do not know that Mr. Lorry is still on the Dawsbergen frontier in conference with representatives from Serros. He may not return for a week, so Colonel Quinnox brings back word."

"It's news to me," murmured Beverly.

"You do not seem to be alarmed," he ventured. "Yet I fancy it is not a dangerous mission, although Prince Gabriel is ready to battle at a moment's notice."

"I have the utmost confidence in Mr. Lorry," said Beverly, with proper pride.

"Baron Dangloss, your minister of police, is in these mountains watching the operations of Axphain scouts and spies."

"Is he? You are very well posted, it seems."

"Moreover, the Axphainians are planning to attack Ganlook upon the first signal from their ruler. I do not wish to alarm your highness, but we may as well expect trouble before we come to the Ganlook gates You are known to be in the pa.s.s, and I am certain an effort will be made to take possession of your person."

"They wouldn't dare!" she exclaimed." Uncle Sam would annihilate them In a week."

"Uncle Sam? Is he related to your Aunt f.a.n.n.y? I'm afraid he could do but little against Volga's fighting men," he said, with a smile.

"They'd soon find out who Uncle Sam is if they touch me," she threatened grandly. He seemed puzzled, but was too polite to press her for explanations. "But, he is a long way off and couldn't do much if we were suddenly attacked from ambush, could he? What would they do to me if I were taken, as you suggest?" she was more concerned than she appeared to be.

"With you in their hands, Graustark would be utterly helpless. Volga could demand anything she liked, and your ministry would be forced to submit."

"I really think it would be a capital joke on the Princess Volga," mused Beverly reflectively. He did not know what she meant, but regarded her soft smile as the clear t.i.tle to the serenity of a princess.

She sank back and gave herself over to the complications that were likely to grow out of her involuntary deception. The one thing which worried her more than all others was the fear that Yetive might not be in Edelweiss. According to all reports, she had lately been in St. Petersburg and the mere fact that she was supposed to be traveling by coach was sufficient proof that she was not at her capital. Then there was, of course, the possibility of trouble on the road with the Axphain scouts, but Beverly enjoyed the optimism of youth and civilization.

Baldos, the goat-hunter, was dreamily thinking of the beautiful young woman at his side and of the queer freak Fortune had played in bringing them together. As he studied her face he could not but lament that marriage, at least, established a barrier between her and the advances his bold heart might otherwise be willing to risk. His black hair straggled down over his forehead and his dark eyes--the patch had been surrept.i.tiously lifted--were unusually pensive.

"It is strange that you live in Graustark and have not seen its princess--before," she said, laying groundwork for enquiry concerning the acts and whereabouts of the real princess.

"May it please your highness, I have not lived long in Graustark. Besides, it is said that half the people of Ganlook have never looked upon your face."

"I'm not surprised at that. The proportion is much smaller than I imagined. I have not visited Ganlook, strange as it may seem to you."

"One of my company fell in with some of your guards from the Ganlook garrison day before yesterday. He learned that you were to reach that city within forty-eight hours. A large detachment of men has been sent to meet you at Labbot."

"Oh, indeed," said Beverly, very much interested.

"They must have been misinformed as to your route--or else your Russian escort decided to take you through by the lower and more hazardous way.

It was our luck that you came by the wrong road. Otherwise we should not have met each other--and the lion," he said, smiling reflectively.

"Where is Labbot?" asked she, intent upon the one subject uppermost in her mind.

"In the mountains many leagues north of this pa.s.s. Had you taken that route instead of this, you would by this time have left Labbot for the town of Erros, a half-day's journey from Ganlook. Instead of vagabonds, your escort would have been made up of loyal soldiers, well-fed, well-clad, and well satisfied with themselves, at least."

"But no braver, no truer than my soldiers of fortune," she said earnestly. "By the way, are you informed as to the state of affairs in Dawsbergen?"

"Scarcely as well as your highness must be," he replied.

"The young prince--what's his name?" she paused, looking to him for the name.

"Dantan?"

"Yes, that's it. What has become of him? I am terribly interested in him."

"He is a fugitive, they say."

"They haven't captured him, then? Good! I am so glad."

Baldos exhibited little or no interest in the fresh topic.

"It is strange you should have forgotten his name," he said wearily.

"Oh, I do so many ridiculous things!" complained Beverly, remembering who she was supposed to be. "I have never seen him, you know," she added.

"It is not strange, your highness. He was educated in England and had seen but little of his own country when he was called to the throne two years ago. You remember, of course, that his mother was an Englishwoman--Lady Ida Falconer."

"I--I think I have heard some of his history--a very little, to be sure," she explained lamely.

"Prince Gabriel, his half brother, is the son of Prince Louis the Third by his first wife, who was a Polish countess. After her death, when Gabriel was two years old, the prince married Lady Ida. Dantan is their son. He has a sister--Candace, who is but nineteen years of age."

"I am ashamed to confess that you know so much more about my neighbors than I," she said.

"I lived in Dawsbergen for a little while, and was ever interested in the doings of royalty. That is a poor man's privilege, you know."

"Prince Gabriel must be a terrible man," cried Beverly, her heart swelling with tender thoughts of the exiled Dantan and his little sister.

"You have cause to know," said he shortly, and she was perplexed until she recalled the stories of Gabriel's misdemeanors at the court of Edelweiss.

"Is Prince Dantan as handsome as they say he is?" she asked.

"It is entirely a matter of opinion," he replied. "I, for one, do not consider him at all prepossessing."

The day went on, fatiguing, distressing in its length and its happenings. Progress was necessarily slow, the perils of the road increasing as the little cavalcade wound deeper and deeper into the wilderness. There were times when the coach fairly crawled along the edge of a precipice, a proceeding so hazardous that Beverly shuddered as if in a chill. Aunt f.a.n.n.y slept serenely most of the time, and Baldos took to dreaming with his eyes wide open. Contrary to her expectations, the Axphainians did not appear, and if there were robbers in the hills they thought better than to attack the valorous-looking party. It dawned upon her finally that the Axphainians were guarding the upper route and not the one over which she was traveling. Yetive doubtless was approaching Ganlook over the northern pa.s.s, provided the enemy had not been encountered before Labbot was reached. Beverly soon found herself fearing for the safety of the princess, a fear which at last became almost unendurable.

Near nightfall they came upon three Graustark shepherds and learned that Ganlook could not be reached before the next afternoon. The tired, hungry travelers spent the night in a snug little valley through which a rivulet bounded onward to the river below. The supper was a scant one, the foragers having poor luck in the hunt for food. Daybreak saw them on their way once more. Hunger and dread had worn down Beverly's supply of good spirits; she was having difficulty in keeping the haggard, distressed look from her face. Her tender, hopeful eyes were not so bold or so merry as on the day before; cheerfulness cost her an effort, but she managed to keep it fairly alive. Her escort, wretched and half-starved, never forgot the deference due to their charge, but strode steadily on with the doggedness of martyrs. At times she was impelled to disclose her true ident.i.ty, but discretion told her that deception was her best safeguard.

Late in the afternoon of the second day the front axle of the coach snapped in two, and a tedious delay of two hours ensued. Baldos was strangely silent and subdued. It was not until the misfortune came that Beverly observed the flushed condition of his face. Involuntarily and with the compa.s.sion of a true woman she touched his hand and brow. They were burning-hot. The wounded man was in a high fever. He laughed at her fears and scoffed at the prospect of blood-poisoning and the hundred other possibilities that suggested themselves to her anxious brain.

"We are close to Ganlook," he said, with the setting of the sun. "Soon you may be relieved of your tiresome, cheerless company, your highness."

"You are going to a physician," she said, resolutely, alive and active once more, now that the worst part of the journey was coming to an end. "Tell that man to drive in a gallop all the rest of the way!"