CHAPTER SIXTEEN

KING AND CANAILLE

"Where is George Trafford?" asked Mrs. Saunders of her husband.

It was just on ten o'clock, ten minutes, in fact, after Trafford had bluffed an exit from the Neptunburg; and Mrs. Saunders was sitting in the Rubens room in the company of Frau von Bilderbaum. To retire to bed in the present unsettled state of affairs was unthinkable, and the two women,--so unlike in temperament and feature, yet linked by the subtle bond of wifehood,--sat, to their mutual comfort, in the great state-room opening on to the palace courtyard. Disturbances were common things at Weidenbruck, but to-night there was an extra pressure in the atmosphere. The air was full of fever and unrest, pregnant with some issue of decisive import. A dull anxiety was written on the women's faces; their eyes seemed watching, their ears expectantly listening for something. The tension was almost unbearable in its strained silence, and Mrs. Saunders hailed her husband's advent with a sigh of relief.

"Where is George Trafford?" she asked again.

"I don't know," replied Saunders, "but he's not where I intended him to be--locked in my dressing-room with a brandy and soda, and a pack of cards to play patience with."

Saunders had entered from the courtyard, though the chamber possessed two other doors connecting it with the corridors of the Neptunburg. The room itself was of considerable size, rich in works of art, mellow with abundant candle-light and the numerous gold frames that housed some choice products of the old Flemish painters. The fireplace,--by which the two ladies were seated,--was a much carven affair of pale-rose marble with blue-purple markings. The tiles round the huge grate were of old Persian manufacture, holding the rich blue and green tints that modern chemistry strives so unsuccessfully to approximate. In one corner of the room stood a tall, ornate clock, presented to a predecessor of Karl's by the Pompadour: on the mantelpiece reposed a pair of porphyry vases, the gift of the late Czar.

Frau von Bilderbaum was smoking a cigarette in enormous puffs, her wide nostrils dilating spasmodically with the emotion that filled her capacious frame.

"Then you have no idea where this wretched American is?" she demanded in thick tones of pent wrathfulness.

"Not the faintest," replied Saunders. "If I hazarded a guess, I should say in the Strafeburg."

"A prisoner?" questioned Mrs. Saunders quickly. "I hope so."

"I hope so, too," said Saunders, "but I have my doubts; I wish I had never induced the fellow to come to Grimland--he is too much in his element. He is just the sort of lunatic to appeal to the average Weidenbrucker. But talking of lunatics, thank goodness Father Bernhardt is safe under lock and key at last!"

"How do you know?" asked Frau von Bilderbaum.

"A telephone message has just come through from the police-station; it is good news. With that devil-ridden priest at large, and Nervy Trafford fooling about, it's tough work keeping a sane Government on its legs."

"I thought you were not going to let Mr. Trafford leave the Palace?" interjected Mrs. Saunders.

"That was certainly our intention," admitted Saunders, "but he argued otherwise, his argument taking the practical form of a six-chambered revolver, and--well----"

"He threatened you?" interrupted Mrs. Saunders indignantly.

"Not me, perhaps; but Meyer certainly by implication. Anyway, we let him go to his fate. He will quite probably be shot heading a charge against the military. In anything of a disturbance he sees red, and his thinking powers come automatically to a standstill."

"I hate this Mr. Trafford!" exclaimed Frau von Bilderbaum in harsh, guttural tones, and puffing furiously at her cigarette. "Why does not he stay in his own country and wreck that? I hate him!"

"I don't," said Mrs. Saunders quietly; "I rather like him. But I wish my husband had knocked him on the head rather than let him leave the Neptunburg."

At this point the door opened and the King entered, accompanied by General von Bilderbaum. The General's face was scarlet, contrasting effectively with his snowy hair and moustache and the immaculate whiteness of his uniform. His manner,--like that of his wife,--was strongly agitated, and it was evident that the civic tumult had roused his fighting spirit to a point dangerously near apoplexy. The King, in contrast, looked grey and sad, but his face brightened a little as the ladies rose at his entrance.

"Things seem to be quieting down a little in the Domkircheplatz," he said. "I have been talking to my Prefect Kummer on the telephone, and he thinks the square will be empty in half an hour."

"I am glad," said Mrs. Saunders simply.

"I am very glad," echoed Saunders; "I feel some responsibility in the matter. It was I who induced Trafford to come to Weidenbruck. The fellow was in trouble, and I wanted to show him sport; but I did not want him to find his sport at the expense of my host."

Karl laid a kindly hand on Saunders' shoulder.

"My very dear friend," he said, "this morning you saved my life. About this time three years ago you saved it under even more dramatic circumstances and at even greater personal risk. There is no room for apologies from you to me." A silence followed his Majesty's words. Then the King went on: "Besides, this mad American friend of yours is a very small part of my troubles. Were my subjects loyal men and true, his capacity for harm would be nil; as it is, I think we over-rate it. With Father Bernhardt in the Strafeburg we can sleep safe and sound in our beds to-night." His Majesty touched the electric bell. "Let us drink death to anarchy and revolution," he went on, as the major-domo Bomcke appeared. "Bomcke, brandy and cigarettes, if you please."

In a trice the whiskered and stately Bomcke produced the necessary stimulants from a Buhl cupboard, and set the shining glass and silver on the great circular table of Florentine inlay.

The men filled their glasses in turn.

"Death to anarchy, sire!" cried General von Bilderbaum; "and may my sword help to deal its death-blow."

"Death to traitors, cowards, and----" began Saunders, but his speech was checked by the appearance on the scene of General Meyer.

"What news?" demanded his Majesty.

"Good and bad, sire," replied the Commander-in-Chief.

"The good first, please," said Karl.

"The Red Hussars have refused to quit their barracks."

The King's face fell.

"You call that good news?" he said after a pause.

"Distinctly," returned Meyer. "Had they turned out they would undoubtedly have sided with the rioters. I know their admirable Colonel, and the _ètat d'âme_ of his command."

The King put his brandy and soda down untasted on the table.

"Now for the bad news," he said firmly.

"They are singing the 'Rothlied' in front of the Strafeburg, sire," was the Commander-in-Chief's reply.

"Is that all?" demanded his Majesty.

Meyer shrugged his shoulders.

"Your Majesty's subjects are very musical folk," he said drily, "and the 'Rothlied' is a very remarkable melody. I heard it the other day, and it had almost the effect of making me feel heroic. That speaks volumes for its potency."

In the silence which followed these words was heard the distant tinkling of the telephone bell. The King made as though to move towards the door, but changed his mind and remained where he was, signalling to Bomcke to take the call. There were three endless minutes during which no one spoke; on the faces of all might be read in contracted brow and half-open mouth, the sharp dominating expectancy that possessed them, the sickening fear of ill-tidings, and the struggling hope of good. Then the major-domo reappeared, and the struggling hope was extinguished. Bomcke's face, always waxen, was deathly pale, and his suave, smug pomposity had given way to a palsy of agitation.

"Well?" demanded the King; but no answering speech issued from Bomcke's twitching lips.

"Speak, man!" interjected General von Bilderbaum wrathfully, but the major-domo merely bowed unctuously and fumbled stupidly with his white hands.

"What is it, Bomcke?" asked the King, more kindly.

"The--Strafeburg----" said the steward, forming his words with infinite difficulty.

"Go on," said Meyer, almost as bloodless as the invertebrate major-domo.

"The Strafeburg," repeated Bomcke stupidly.

"Yes, yes, yes!" screamed Frau von Bilderbaum, losing all patience. "And what about the Strafeburg?"

The question was never answered; perhaps it never needed an answer, for the stern faces of the King and his Generals showed that they knew the worst. But there was another reason for postponing their interrogations. A distant sound of many voices was audible to the inmates of the Rubens room. It was a sound similar to that which had interrupted the dinner-party at the Neptunburg that evening, a snarling roar of malice and insensate fury. Louder it swelled with amazing rapidity,--and there was a note of reckless triumph in its depths that had something very terrible and disconcerting in it.

"Have I your Majesty's permission?" demanded General von Bilderbaum, drawing his sword and holding it in stiff salute.

"Where is the guard?" asked Karl.

"In the courtyard, sire," replied Meyer, "Captain Traun-Nelidoff is in command."

"Have I your Majesty's permission to take over that command?" persisted Von Bilderbaum.

For a moment the King stood motionless in deep thought.

"I will usurp that position myself," he said at length, going to the door leading on to the courtyard and flinging it open. The roar of the shrieking rabble burst in through the doorway in waves of terrifying sound.

Meyer poured himself out a half-tumblerful of neat brandy, thought better of it, and handed it to the collapsing Bomcke. When he looked up the King had disappeared into the courtyard, with General von Bilderbaum and Saunders in his wake. With a strange grimace and a muttered "Folly!" he followed, too, with leaden steps. For a moment Mrs. Saunders and Frau von Bilderbaum were left alone. Their eyes met, and then their hands. Both asked a silent question, and both returned a silent answer. Then, throwing some loose wraps around their shoulders, they also went out to face the grim menace of the night.

In the courtyard of the Neptunburg a company of soldiers was drawn up before the fountain and leaden statue of the sea-god. On three sides were stone façades of pedimented windows and classic pilasters. On the fourth side, facing the Königstrasse, were wrought-iron gates between high piers of carved masonry, bearing electric arc lamps. Overhead the stars burned clear in the cold heaven; underfoot was the trampled carpet of semestral snow.

"Shall we fire on the mob, sire?" demanded Traun-Nelidoff, a tall, lean officer, whose eyes shone as brightly as his drawn sword.

Karl shook his head. The rabble were pressed against the iron railings in a frenzy of destructive lust. Hands were thrust graspingly between the bars, curses and jeers issued unceasingly from grinning lips; the analogy to terriers outside a rat-trap was irresistible. But Karl was taking stock of the personnel of his enemies. There were low ruffians in abundance, "hooligans," "apaches," "larrikins" (as they are called in different cities), "nightwolves," as they were called in Weidenbruck--men with the narrow, receding foreheads that can only house vile thoughts, the ugly, misshapen mouths that can only utter base words, the long, loose arms that are more fitted for garotting than honest work. Yet there were others: men with hot eyes, indeed, and upraised voices, but clothed in decent garments, burghers of some standing in the Stadt, men with a stake in the country who would not welcome anarchy for its own wild sake. There were soldiers, too, in the throng, and here and there a smart uniform that bespoke an officer of the line. Karl watched, and as he watched the lines deepened on his grey face.

"Traun-Nelidoff," he shouted hoarsely, "open the gates!"

"We are to charge, sire?" came the breathless inquiry.

"No. These are my people; I wish to speak with them."

Traun-Nelidoff protested with a glance, but Karl's face was set like stone.

With slow steps the Captain of the Guard advanced to the palace gates. He laid his hand on the huge key, but it would not budge. He put the point of his sword into the iron ring and used it as a lever, and with a raucous clang the bolt shot back. There was no need to do more. In a twinkling the twin gates were hurled open by the dense pressure of the closely-packed mob, and in a few seconds the stately courtyard was a mass of revolutionaries.

The King and his late companions of the Rubensaal were separated from the Guard by the rush of incomers, but there was no attack made upon their person. For a moment even there was silence; perhaps the unexpectedness of the situation gave the rebels pause; perhaps the dignity of the royal presence shamed their violence. And, in that silence, Karl stepped forward as if to speak, but just at that moment there was a sudden cry of--

"Way there! way for the Queen Gloria!" and with a crack of a whip a sleigh drove through the open gates into the courtyard. The driver was George Trafford! In the body of the car sat the Princess Gloria, pale and softly weeping, but struggling bravely with her tears. On one side of her was Doctor Matti, and on the other Father Bernhardt. But there was something else in the sleigh, something that was neither man nor woman, and yet had the lineaments of a human being. The Iron Maiden had been taken from the captured Strafeburg, and was being borne in triumph to the home of its owner. Ever since the death of the late Archbishop,--and the spreading of the vile legend which ascribed his sudden demise to the embrace of the celebrated _Eisenmädchen_,--the thing had stood as the symbol of the cruelty and despotism of the twenty-second Karl. So when the tide of revolution had swept into the ancient prison-house, rude hands had plucked the maiden from her home, and set her on the sleigh with the leaders of their emancipation.

The sleigh pulled up before the King.

"I want to avoid bloodshed," began Trafford in English, but even as he spoke the mob re-found its old temper. Cries and curses ruined all prospect of a parley; desperate men and wild women pressed in on the royal party, and clutching hands were thrust even in the King's face. This was too much for General von Bilderbaum. His hand, which had been itching on his sword hilt, flashed the weapon from its sheath and struck down a sallow ruffian who had impinged too recklessly on the King's person. In an instant rough hands were laid on the stout old soldier, and the General's honourable career looked to be near its certain termination. But there was one near him as devoted to the General as the General was to his Sovereign. With the quickness of thought Frau von Bilderbaum hurled her ample person between her husband and his assailants. A plump hand was swung, there was a sounding smack of flesh meeting flesh, and a "night wolf" was lying prostrate and smarting in the snow. The sight of the Amazonian fury standing with dilated nostrils and fiery glance before her lord and master touched the humour of the crowd.

"Well struck, housewife!" shouted one; and for a moment a burst of laughter took the place of fierce cries and yells of derision. But while the incident was taking place, Trafford had descended from his box-seat and engaged in conversation with Saunders. The latter listened with a grave face, looked doubtful, and ultimately nodded. Then, as Trafford remounted to his seat, Saunders in turn whispered earnestly in the King's ear. And almost at once,--so quick are the moods of mobs,--the comic scene was forgotten and the lust of vengeance came uppermost again in the minds of the insurgents.

"Death to the tyrants!" shouted some. "Death to Karl! Away with oppressors of the people's liberty!"

It was a moment of crisis. Things had reached a head, and in a minute unless something was done there would be a hideous massacre.

With upraised hands Karl plunged boldly forward and addressed the crowd. He spoke, but no word was audible. A deafening chorus of jeers and curses stifled his utterance. Pale, leonine, unflinching, he faced the rabid throng. Then suddenly Trafford and Father Bernhardt descended from the sleigh. Between them, and with the help of Doctor Matti, they dragged the Iron Maiden out on to the snow of the courtyard. The Princess bent forward in an agony of entreaty, but the ex-priest silenced her with a word. Then quick as thought Trafford seized the isolated monarch, pushed him inside the _Eisenmädchen_, and with an apparently great effort shut the doors slowly on his victim. The horror took the crowd by surprise. They had come lusting for blood but not for torture. A low intake of the breath made simultaneously by a hundred throats gave a vast sibilant sound. Men looked at each other in frozen horror. A woman burst into high hysterical laughter. Then with a sudden impulse born of guilty remorse, the huge concourse began to slink away from the scene. At first by twos and threes, then by tens and twenties, then in one universal struggling rush. In a few minutes the only occupants of the courtyard were the royal party, the guard--and the Iron Maiden.

"Close the gates, please, Traun-Nelidoff," ordered Saunders.

Mechanically the officer did as he was bid. General Meyer was looking at his boots with a vacant stare. Beads of perspiration were standing on his brow. Von Bilderbaum was rubbing snow in an absent-minded way on his wife's face, the lady having swooned in his arms.

"You let him do it--you let him do it," muttered Mrs. Saunders reproachfully to her husband.

"Yes, I let him do it," he answered. "It was Trafford's own idea, and shows how near genius lies to madness. You see, there were no spikes in the Iron Maiden; they were all in Trafford's overcoat pocket."