CHAPTER TEN

A SKI-ING EXPEDITION

Weidenbruck lies in the wildest part of the valley of the Niederkessel. On either side,--at the distance of several miles--rise mountains of picturesque outline and considerable eminence. Prominent among these stands the Piz Schadel, a grim giant with a fatal fascination for those who affect dangerous rock-climbing. It is on the lower slopes of the Piz Schadel,--snug among its pinewoods, and facing southwards to the sun,--that the tiny village of Nussheim is situated. The little train that plies between the capital and this sunny hamlet was fairly crowded,--despite the earliness of the hour--for ski-running is a favourite amusement of Grimlanders, and the slopes of Nussheim offer an ideal ground for the exercise of that exhilarating pastime. The royal party had a carriage to themselves, and in due course they steamed through the outskirts of Weidenbruck, across the flat, snow-covered plains of the valley, and then mounted by means of a cog-wheel and a centre rail, to the little yellow station that was their objective. A party of tourists in blue glasses and check ulsters--Americans, to judge from the accent and phraseology of their leader, a tall black-bearded man with a Baedeker--got out at Nussheim and proceeded to the local hostelry. The King and his companions repaired to a small chalet, where their skis were awaiting them. Having shod themselves with their long footgear, they sallied forth on to the snow. The sun was just rising above the opposite mountains, and the scene was one of quite extraordinary beauty. The air was still and crisp and invigorating, but so dry on this elevated plateau that there was no sensation of cold, though the thermometer gave a far lower reading than at Weidenbruck. The sky was purest ultra-marine, and in the perfect air every detail of the surrounding hills, forest, crag, and hamlet, stood out with soft distinctness. And everywhere was snow and the silence of the snows; white fields of sparkling purity swelling and falling in smooth stretches of shimmering argent. Above were dun precipices and dark green woods of larch and fir, and above, again, fairy snow-peaks, showing like dabs of Chinese white against the cloudless glory of the sky. It was a day to live and be thankful for life; a day for deep breath and noble thoughts, a day to take one's troubles to Nature and lose them in the splendid silence of her hills and the vastness of her immaculate snows.

The royal party of five shuffled along on their wooden footgear till they came to a long dip with a gentle rise at the end of it. Karl was the first to essay the descent. With knees slightly bent, one foot slightly in front of the other, his burly body noticeably inclined forward, he started on his downward course. For a second or two he moved slowly. Then the pace increased till he was travelling at a sharp speed; then, as the momentum grew, and the angle of the hillside sharpened, he fairly flew through the air in the swift, smooth rush that brings joy to the heart of the ski-runner. At the bottom he got into some soft snow, and after a fruitless struggle with the laws of gravity, the royal equipoise was overcome, and Karl lay prone and buried in the gleaming crystals. A roar of delight burst from his companions above, and a ski-shod foot was waved answeringly in the air in plaintive rebuke at their merriment.

Mrs. Saunders was the next to come down. With perfect balance,--relying not at all on her guiding stick,--she swept down the mountain-side like a Valkyrie. With grey eyes shining with pleasure, wisps of fair hair streaming from under her woollen beret, she seemed the embodiment of graceful and athletic young womanhood. Her course was taking her direct on to the prostrate monarch, but at the critical moment she swung round with a superb Telemark turn, and halted to watch Karl's desperate efforts to regain an upright position.

The others descended in turn with varying elegance but without serious mishap, Von Hügelweiler bringing up the rear and nearly injuring his sovereign whom he had sworn so solemnly to defend. Onward they went again, shuffling along levels, gliding down descents, mounting laboriously sideways, like crabs, when it was necessary to reach higher ground. In the pleasurable absorption of their sport they wandered far, ever gaining fresh joys of swift descent or harmless fall, and winning fresh views of plain and wood and mountain.

"There go the Americans," said the King to Mrs. Saunders. "They have been travelling parallel to us."

The King's party had collected under a mutual desire for rest, by a crop of boulders which broke through the level surface of the snows.

"Parallel to us," agreed Meyer, mopping his humid face, "but I notice that they always manœuvre for the upper ground."

The King frowned at the General's speech. He was enjoying the morning's relaxation from his usual worries, and Meyer's words,--if they had any meaning at all,--suggested personal danger to himself and his friends.

"They are excellent ski-runners," said Mrs. Saunders, watching them as they moved rapidly to a point of the hill above them.

But Meyer was whispering something in the King's ear, and a vague sense of apprehension had taken the party.

Karl nodded, as one convinced against his will, and spoke briefly to the company.

"General Meyer suggests that those people may not be quite so harmless as they seem," he said. "Personally, I think he is over-suspicious, but in order to be on the safe side, I propose doubling back down the hill, and if they turn, too, and follow us, we will assume the worst."

The others received the statement in silence.

The gorgeous splendour of the day and the unmatched loveliness of the scene seemed to mock the timidity of the Commander-in-Chief's imaginings. But all present were too familiar with Grimland politics to question the prudence of the King's decision; and with scarce a backward glance they turned round and followed General Meyer down the hillside. Presently they reached a cliff of brown rock which broke the slope of the mountain with a precipitous drop of some twenty feet. Beneath this and parallel to it Meyer decided to proceed, till the King called a halt for purposes of reconnoitering.

Far below them lay the valley of the Niederkessel, and plainly discernible were the tiny houses and toy churches of the capital. But above them it was impossible to see anything except the golden-brown wall of rock which they were following.

As swiftly as the operation permitted, Meyer slipped off his skis, bidding Von Hügelweiler do the same. The Captain was then told to stand leaning against the cliff, whereupon the Commander-in-Chief clambered bravely on to his shoulders. Then with an agility remarkable for his years, he drew himself up to the ledge of rock from which it was possible to overlook the top of the cliff. He gazed for a moment with peering eyes, the others watching with silent interest. Then he came down in a flash. "Skis on again, Captain," he said, kneeling down and inserting his foot in the shoe of his own ski. "We must run for it."

"Who are they?" demanded the King.

"There are six of them, sire," answered the Commander-in-Chief, tugging viciously at a refractory strap. "They are about five hundred yards up the hillside, and the man in the beard is Father Bernhardt!"

"Father Bernhardt in the beard!" ejaculated the others.

"In a false beard," affirmed Meyer. "He has had a fall, and one side has come unhooked. It's the ex-priest, sure enough, and full of vengeance for his last night's inconvenience. We'd better move at once."

Karl hesitated a moment.

"I don't like running away," he said, glancing at Saunders and Von Hügelweiler.

"I do," retorted Meyer, "when it's six to four in their favour. Come sire, we shall never get a better chance than this. They can't follow us direct, because of this cliff, and while they are making a detour we will push on to some spot on the railway, and hold up a train to take us back to Weidenbruck."

"The General's right," said Saunders, seeing the King hesitate. "We have a lady with us."

"Who is not in the least afraid," added the lady in question.

"That is precisely the trouble," said Saunders.

"Forward, sire!" urged Meyer, making a move. "I will lead the way, and you and Mrs. Saunders will accompany me. Von Hügelweiler and Heir Saunders will bring up the rear."

"The post of honour!" commented the King.

"If you will," said Meyer with a shrug. "I go first because I know the countryside. I am more useful so. Saunders stays behind because he is the best shot."

"A gallant fellow, our Commander-in-Chief," sneered Von Hügelweiler to Saunders, as the three others glided rapidly away down the snow-slope. The crack of a rifle punctuated the Captain's remark. Saunders waited to make sure that neither his wife nor her escort was touched, and then produced a revolver.

"I am glad Meyer has gone on with them," he said. "He is a clever old fox, and he knows every cliff and cranny in the countryside."

Another shot rang out, but this too failed to take effect, and in a twinkling the fugitives had disappeared into the friendly shelter of a pine wood.

Saunders wore a pensive air, in marked contrast to Von Hügelweiler, who was betraying signs of strong excitement.

"Of what are you thinking?" demanded the latter.

"I am thinking that if we follow the others we shall most certainly be shot," replied Saunders.

"That is true," agreed the Captain. "Our enemies must be quite close now. It would be madness to venture out into the open."

"Precisely," said Saunders. "We are left here as a rear-guard, and it is our duty to check the pursuit, not to be killed. Here we are under cover, and here I propose to remain."

"The enemy will make a detour to avoid this cliff," said Von Hügelweiler, "then will come our opportunity to move out."

Saunders shook his head.

"This cliff stretches half a mile at least, in either direction," he said, "and there is broken ground beyond that. No, they won't make a detour, not if they're the good ski-runners I take them for. To a clever _ski-laufer_, a jump over a cliff like this is no very desperate affair, and it's their only chance of nabbing Karl before he gets back to Weidenbruck."

"Then we wait here and fire at them from behind?" demanded the Captain excitedly, taking his orders from the distinguished Englishman as a matter of course.

"We pot them as they come over--like pheasants," said Saunders.

There was a smile on his face, not at the prospect of taking human life, still less at the chance of losing his own; for Saunders was not one to welcome danger for its own sake, though he could always meet it with coolness and resource. He was thinking, just then, of Trafford, and how willingly his excitable friend would have changed places with them, how jealous and annoyed he would be at learning that he, Saunders, had again the luck to be in the thick of a desperate affair. Von Hügelweiler noted the smile with admiration. Saunders was one who had a big hold on the popular imagination of Grimland, and the Captain was proud to be associated with him in an enterprise of this sort. His divided loyalty to the King and Princess was quite forgotten in the exigencies of the situation. He had a plain duty to perform,--and he hoped to perform it creditably in the eyes of the cool, smiling Englishman who had won such fame in the stirring winter of 1904.

Suddenly there was a slight scuffling sound in the snow above, and a second later something dark came over their heads like an enormous bird. It was one of their pursuers, a braced, rigid figure travelling through the air with the grace and poise of a skilled ski-juniper. Saunders raised a steady hand and fired. Simultaneously the human projectile collapsed into a limp and shapeless mass and fell with a dead plump into a cloud of snow. A second later and another ski-jumper had darkened the heavens above them. He had heard the crack and seen his comrade fall, but it was too late to stop his progress. He turned a swarthy face with black eyes full of terror, and again Saunders' revolver spoke, and with a dull groan the man fell spread-eagled in the snow within a yard of his companion.

"Bravo! Englander," muttered Von Hügelweiler, his eyes bright with excitement, his fingers nervously clutching the butt of his own weapon.

But Saunders' eyes were cast upwards at the jagged edge of the cliff above their heads. After a wait of some moments the face of a man peered over the skyline. Instantaneously Saunders covered it with his revolver. But the face remained, and a voice--the voice of Father Bernhardt--spoke.

"Don't fire, Herr Saunders!"

Saunders remained fixed and tranquil as a statue.

"You have killed two of my men, Englishman," went on the ex-priest.

"I think not," returned Saunders calmly. "The second man was only wounded in the thigh."

"I should be justified in taking your life for this," continued Father Bernhardt.

"Perfectly," agreed Saunders with composure, "but you will find the proceeding difficult and rather dangerous."

A low laugh followed Saunders' words.

"That's the spirit I admire!" cried the outlaw. "There's a dash of the devil about that--and the devil, you know, is a particular friend of mine."

"So I have been led to understand," said Saunders drily.

Again the outlaw laughed.

"Come," he said, "will you make a truce with us? We could probably kill you and your friend there, but we should lose a man or two in the killing. Make truce, and we give you a free return to Weidenbruck, or wherever you choose to go. Your friend Karl has got away safely now,--thanks to your infernal coolness,--so you can make peace with honour."

Saunders shrugged his shoulders.

"If my friend, Captain von Hügelweiler, agrees," he said, "I consent. Only there must be no further pursuit of us or the royal party."

"I give my word," said Bernhardt.

"Can we trust it?" whispered Von Hügelweiler. But the ex-priest overheard, and for answer clambered down the cliff beside them.

Von Hügelweiler was no coward, but something made him give ground before the strange individual who confronted him. A man of medium height and compact build, there was a suggestion of great muscularity about the outlaw's person. But it was the face rather than the body which compelled attention. The clean-carved, aquiline features, the black, bushy eyebrows, the piercing eyes, and the strange, restless light that played in them, made up a personality that set the turbulent rebel as a man apart from his fellows.

"Now, then," he said, thrusting his face into Von Hügelweiler's, "shoot me, and earn the eternal gratitude of your sovereign."

Again the Captain gave ground, though his timidity shamed and irritated him.

"I am not a murderer," he said, flushing. "You come to parley, I imagine."

"I come to shake Saunders by the hand," said the outlaw, turning and stretching out a sudden hand to the Englishman. "He is a man, a stubborn fellow, with a brain of ice and nerves of tested steel. I would sooner have him on my side than a pack of artillery and the whole brigade of Guards."

"You flatter me," said Saunders, taking the proffered hand. "I am a man of peace."

"How lovely are the feet of them that bring us good tidings of peace," said the outlaw with a scornful laugh. "Behold Satan also can quote the Scriptures! When I sold my soul three years ago to the Father of Lies I drove a fine bargain. I took a Queen to wife--such a Queen, such a wife! And my good friends Ahriman, the Prince of Darkness, and Archmedai, the Demon of Lust, have given me strength and health and cunning beyond my fellows, so that no man can bind me or prevail against me. They never leave me long, these good fiends. It was one of them who warned me not to lead the pursuit of Karl over this bit of cliff."

Von Hügelweller shuddered, but Saunders looked the outlaw steadily in the face.

"Your nerves are out of gear, Bernhardt," he said. "Did you ever try bromide?"

"I've tried asceticism and I've tried debauchery," was the leering answer, "and they both vouchsafe visions of the evil one. When I was a priest I lived as a priest: I scourged myself and fasted; but the Prince of Power of the Air was never far from me. And now that I am of the world, worldly, a sinner of strange sins, a blasphemer, and a wine-bibber, Diabolus and his satellites are in even more constant attendance on me. Perhaps I am mad, or perhaps they are there for such as me to see."

"I'd chance the former alternative and see a brain specialist," suggested Saunders. "It might save a deal of wasted blood and treasure to Grimland."

"There is no healing for a damned soul," said Bernhardt fiercely. "I saw strange things before I drank the libidinous cup of Tobit. I see them now. Saint or sinner, my eyes have been opened to the unclean hosts of Beelzebub."

Saunders offered the unhappy man a cigarette.

"Saints and sinners generally do see things," he said dispassionately. "I am neither, and my vision is normal. If you would live a reasonable life for six months you might become a useful member of society instead of a devil-ridden firebrand. Fasting is bad and excess is bad. One starves the brain, the other gluts it. Both lead to hallucinations. Take hold of life with both hands and be a man with normal appetites and reasonable relaxations, and you will have men and women for friends, not the unclean spawn of over-stimulated brain-cells."

A puzzled look crept into Father Bernhardt's eyes. Then he shook his head firmly.

"I won't talk to you any more," he cried angrily. "I hate talking to you. I hate your cursed English common sense. If I saw much of you I'd lose all the savour of life. I'd be a decent, law-abiding citizen, and miss all the thrills and torments of a man fire-doomed."

"A good conscience is not a bad thing," said Saunders, "and a man at peace with himself is king of a fine country. You're a youngish man, Bernhardt, and the world's before you. Give up listening to devils, and the devils will give up talking to you. Go on listening to them and the fine balances of sanity will be overthrown for ever."

"Silence!" cried the ex-priest, thrusting his fingers in his ears. "Would you rob me even of my remaining joys? For such as me there is no peace. I have my mission, and by the devil's aid I must perform it!"

"We all have missions," retorted Saunders. "Mine apparently is to preserve Karl from assassination. I don't boast a body-guard of demons, but I'll back my luck against yours, Father Bernhardt."

The outlaw smiled again at these words.

"Good-bye, Englishman," he said, "I love you for your courage. Go in peace," he went on, shaking him by the hand, but ignoring Von Hügelweiler altogether. "But take heed to yourself, for you are pitting yourself against a man who is neither wholly sane nor wholly mad, and therefore entirely to be feared. Good-bye, and tell the Jew Meyer that to-night I am dwelling in the Goose-market, at the house of Fritz Birnbaum, the cobbler. Let him send to take me and see whether he is stronger than my dear allies, Archmedai and Ahriman."

"I will make a point of doing so," said Saunders, preparing to depart, "and I will lay a shade of odds on the Jew."