V
THE ESCAPE
FOR HALF an hour the Princess von der Tann succeeded ad-
mirably in immersing herself in the periodical, to the ex-
clusion of her unhappy thoughts and the depressing influence
of the austere countenance of the Blentz Princess hanging
upon the wall behind her.
But presently she became unaccountably nervous. At the
slightest sound from the palace-life on the floor below she
would start up with a tremor of excitement. Once she heard
footsteps in the corridor before her door, but they passed
on, and she thought she discerned the click of a latch a
short distance further on along the passageway.
Again she attempted to gather up the thread of the article
she had been reading, but she was unsuccessful. A stealthy
scratching brought her round quickly, staring in the direc-
tion of the great portrait. The girl would have sworn that she
had heard a noise within her chamber. She shuddered at
the thought that it might have come from that painted thing
upon the wall.
What was the matter with her? Was she losing all control
of herself to be frightened like a little child by ghostly noises?
She tried to return to her reading, but for the life of her
she could not keep her eyes off the silent, painted woman
who stared and stared and stared in cold, threatening si-
lence upon this ancient enemy of her house.
Presently the girl's eyes went wide in horror. She could
feel the scalp upon her head contract with fright. Her terror-
filled gaze was frozen upon that awful figure that loomed
so large and sinister above her, for the thing had moved! She
had seen it with her own eyes. There could be no mistake--
no hallucination of overwrought nerves about it. The Blentz
Princess was moving slowly toward her!
Like one in a trance the girl rose from her chair, her eyes
glued upon the awful apparition that seemed creeping upon
her. Slowly she withdrew toward the opposite side of the
chamber. As the painting moved more quickly the truth
flashed upon her--it was mounted on a door.
The crack of the door widened and beyond it the girl saw
dimly, eyes fastened upon her. With difficulty she restrained
a shriek. The portal swung wide and a man in uniform
stepped into the room.
It was Maenck.
Emma von der Tann gazed in unveiled abhorrence upon
the leering face of the governor of Blentz.
"What means this intrusion?" cried the girl.
"What would you have here?"
"You," replied Maenck.
The girl crimsoned.
Maenck regarded her sneeringly.
"You coward!" she cried. "Leave my apartments at once.
Not even Peter of Blentz would countenance such abhorrent
treatment of a prisoner."
"You do not know Peter my dear," responded Maenck.
"But you need not fear. You shall be my wife. Peter has
promised me a baronetcy for the capture of Leopold, and
before I am done I shall be made a prince, of that you may
rest assured, so you see I am not so bad a match after all."
He crossed over toward her and would have laid a rough
hand upon her arm.
The girl sprang away from him, running to the opposite
side of the library table at which she had been reading.
Maenck started to pursue her, when she seized a heavy,
copper bowl that stood upon the table and hurled it full
in his face. The missile struck him a glancing blow, but the
edge laid open the flesh of one cheek almost to the jaw bone.
With a cry of pain and rage Captain Ernst Maenck leaped
across the table full upon the young girl. With vicious, mur-
derous fingers he seized upon her fair throat, shaking her as
a terrier might shake a rat. Futilely the girl struck at the
hate-contorted features so close to hers.
"Stop!" she cried. "You are killing me."
The fingers released their hold.
"No," muttered the man, and dragged the princess roughly
across the room.
Half a dozen steps he had taken when there came a sud-
den crash of breaking glass from the window across the
chamber. Both turned in astonishment to see the figure of a
man leap into the room, carrying the shattered crystal and
the casement with him. In one hand was a naked sword.
"The king!" cried Emma von der Tann.
"The devil!" muttered Maenck, as, dropping the girl, he
scurried toward the great painting from behind which he
had found ingress to the chambers of the princess.
Maenck was a coward, and he had seen murder in the
eyes of the man rushing upon him. With a bound he reached
the picture which still stood swung wide into the room.
Barney was close behind him, but fear lent wings to the
governor of Blentz, so that he was able to dart into the pas-
sage behind the picture and slam the door behind him a
moment before the infuriated man was upon him.
The American clawed at the edge of the massive frame,
but all to no avail. Then he raised his sword and slashed
the canvas, hoping to find a way into the place beyond, but
mighty oaken panels barred his further progress. With a
whispered oath he turned back toward the girl.
"Thank Heaven that I was in time, Emma," he cried.
"Oh, Leopold, my king, but at what a price," replied the
girl. "He will return now with others and kill you. He is
furious--so furious that he scarce knows what he does."
"He seemed to know what he was doing when he ran for
that hole in the wall," replied Barney with a grin. "But
come, it won't pay to let them find us should they return."
Together they hastened to the window beyond which the
girl could see a rope dangling from above. The sight of it
partially solved the riddle of the king's almost uncanny pres-
ence upon her window sill in the very nick of time.
Below, the lights in the watch tower at the outer gate
were plainly visible, and the twinkling of them reminded
Barney of the danger of detection from that quarter. Quickly
he recrossed the apartment to the wall-switch that operated
the recently installed electric lights, and an instant later the
chamber was in total darkness.
Once more at the girl's side Barney drew in one end of
the rope and made it fast about her body below her arms,
leaving a sufficient length terminating in a small loop to per-
mit her to support herself more comfortably with one foot
within the noose. Then he stepped to the outer sill, and
reaching down assisted her to his side.
Far below them the moonlight played upon the sluggish
waters of the moat. In the distance twinkled the lights of
the village of Blentz. From the courtyard and the palace
came faintly the sound of voices, and the movement of men.
A horse whinnied from the stables.
Barney turned his eyes upward. He could see the head
and shoulders of Joseph leaning from the window of the
chamber directly above them.
"Hoist away, Joseph!" whispered the American, and to
the girl: "Be brave. Shut your eyes and trust to Joseph and
--and--"
"And my king," finished the girl for him.
His arm was about her shoulders, supporting her upon
the narrow sill. His cheek so close to hers that once he felt
the soft velvet of it brush his own. Involuntarily his arm
tightened about the supple body.
"My princess!" he murmured, and as he turned his face
toward hers their lips almost touched.
Joseph was pulling upon the rope from above. They
could feel it tighten beneath the girl's arms. Impulsively
Barney Custer drew the sweet lips closer to his own. There
was no resistance.
"I love you," he whispered. The words were smothered
as their lips met.
Joseph, above, wondered at the great weight of the Princess
Emma von der Tann.
"I love you, Leopold, forever," whispered the girl, and
then as Joseph's Herculean tugging seemed likely to drag
them both from the narrow sill, Barney lifted the girl up-
ward with one hand while he clung to the window frame
with the other. The distance to the sill above was short,
and a moment later Joseph had grasped the princess's hand
and was helping her over the ledge into the room beyond.
At the same instant there came a sudden commotion from
the interior of the room in the window of which Barney still
stood waiting for Joseph to remove the rope from about the
princess and lower it for him. Barney heard the heavy feet
of men, the clank of arms, and muttered oaths as the
searchers stumbled against the furniture.
Presently one of them found the switch and instantly the
room was flooded with light, which revealed to the American
a dozen Luthanian troopers headed by the murderous
Maenck.
Barney looked anxiously aloft. Would Joseph never lower
that rope! Within the room the men were searching. He
could hear Maenck directing them. Only a thin portiere
screened him from their view. It was but a matter of seconds
before they would investigate the window through which
Maenck knew the king had found ingress.
Yes! It had come.
"Look to the window," commanded Maenck. "He may
have gone as he came."
Two of the soldiers crossed the room toward the casement.
From above Joseph was lowering the rope; but it was too
late. The men would be at the window before he could
clamber out of their reach.
"Hoist away!" he whispered to Joseph. "Quick now, my
man, and make your escape with the Princess von der Tann.
It is the king's command."
Already the soldiers were at the window. At the sound
of his voice they tore aside the draperies; at the same instant
the pseudo-king turned and leaped out into the blackness
of the night.
There were exclamations of surprise and rage from the
soldiers--a woman's scream. Then from far below came a
dull splash as the body of Bernard Custer struck the surface
of the moat.
Maenck, leaning from the window, heard the scream and
the splash, and jumped to the conclusion that both the king
and the princess had attempted to make their escape in this
harebrained way. Immediately all the resources at his com-
mand were put to the task of searching the moat and the
adjacent woods.
He was sure that one or both of the prisoners would be
stunned by impact with the surface of the water, and then
drowned before they regained consciousness, but he did not
know Bernard Custer, nor the facility and almost uncanny
ease with which that young man could negotiate a high dive
into shallow water.
Nor did he know that upon the floor above him one
Joseph was hastening along a dark corridor toward a secret
panel in another apartment, and that with him was the Prin-
cess Emma bound for liberty and safety far from the frown-
ing walls of Blentz.
As Barney's head emerged above the surface of the moat
he shook it vigorously to free his eyes from water, and then
struck out for the further bank.
Long before his pursuers had reached the courtyard and
alarmed the watch at the barbican, the American had
crawled out upon dry land and hastened across the broad
clearing to the patch of stunted trees that grew lower down
upon the steep hillside before the castle.
He shrank from the thought of leaving Blentz without
knowing positively that Joseph had made good the escape
of himself and the princess, but he finally argued that even
if they had been retaken, he could serve her best by hasten-
ing to her father and fetching the only succor that might
prevail against the strength of Blentz--armed men in suffi-
cient force to storm the ancient fortress.
He had scarcely entered the wood when he heard the
sound of the searchers at the moat, and saw the rays of
their lanterns flitting hither and thither as they moved back
and forth along the bank.
Then the young man turned his face from the castle and
set forth across the unfamiliar country in the direction of the
Old Forest and the castle Von der Tann.
The memory of the warm lips that had so recently been
pressed to his urged him on in the service of the wondrous
girl who had come so suddenly into his life, bringing to him
the realization of a love that he knew must alter, for hap-
piness or for sorrow, all the balance of his existence, even
unto death.
He dreaded the day of reckoning when, at last, she must
learn that he was no king. He did not have the temerity to
hope that her courage would be equal to the great sacrifice
which the acknowledgment of her love for one not of noble
blood must entail; but he could not believe that she would
cease to love him when she learned the truth.
So the future looked black and cheerless to Barney Custer
as he trudged along the rocky, moonlit way. The only bright
spot was the realization that for a while at least he might
be serving the one woman in all the world.
All the balance of the long night the young man traversed
valley and mountain, holding due south in the direction he
supposed the Old Forest to lie. He passed many a little
farm tucked away in the hollow of a hillside, and quaint
hamlets, and now and then the ruins of an ancient feudal
stronghold, but no great forest of black oaks loomed before
him to apprise him of the nearness of his goal, nor did he
dare to ask the correct route at any of the homes he passed.
His fatal likeness to the description of the mad king of
Lutha warned him from intercourse with the men of Lutha
until he might know which were friends and which enemies
of the hapless monarch.
Dawn found him still upon his way, but with the deter-
mination fully crystallized to hail the first man he met and
ask the way to Tann. He still avoided the main traveled
roads, but from time to time he paralleled them close enough
that he might have ample opportunity to hail the first
passerby.
The road was becoming more and more mountainous and
difficult. There were fewer homes and no hamlets, and now
he began to despair entirely of meeting any who could give
him direction unless he turned and retraced his steps to the
nearest farm.
Directly before him the narrow trail he had been following
for the past few miles wound sharply about the shoulder of
a protruding cliff. He would see what lay beyond the turn--
perhaps he would find the Old Forest there, after all.
But instead he found something very different, though
in its way quite as interesting, for as he rounded the rugged
bluff he came face to face with two evil-looking fellows
astride stocky, rough-coated ponies.
At sight of him they drew in their mounts and eyed him
suspiciously. Nor was there great cause for wonderment in
that, for the American presented aught but a respectable
appearance. His khaki motoring suit, soaked from immersion
in the moat, had but partially dried upon him. Mud from
the banks of the stagnant pool caked his legs to the knees,
almost hiding his once tan puttees. More mud streaked his
jacket front and stained its sleeves to the elbows. He was
bare-headed, for his cap had remained in the moat at Blentz,
and his disheveled hair was tousled upon his head, while
his full beard had dried into a weird and tangled fringe
about his face. At his side still hung the sword that Joseph
had buckled there, and it was this that caused the two men
the greatest suspicion of this strange looking character.
They continued to eye Barney in silence, every now and
then casting apprehensive glances beyond him, as though
expecting others of his kind to appear in the trail at his back.
And that is precisely what they did fear, for the sword at
Barney's side had convinced them that he must be an officer
of the army, and they looked to see his command following
in his wake.
The young man saluted them pleasantly, asking the direc-
tion to the Old Forest. They thought it strange that a soldier
of Lutha should not know his own way about his native land,
and so judged that his question was but a blind to deceive
them.
"Why do you not ask your own men the way?" parried
one of the fellows.
"I have no men, I am alone," replied Barney. "I am a
stranger in Lutha and have lost my way."
He who had spoken before pointed to the sword at Bar-
ney's side.
"Strangers traveling in Lutha do not wear swords," he said.
"You are an officer. Why should you desire to conceal the
fact from two honest farmers? We have done nothing. Let
us go our way."
Barney looked his astonishment at this reply.
"Most certainly, go your way, my friends," he said laugh-
ing. "I would not delay you if I could; but before you go
please be good enough to tell me how to reach the Old
Forest and the ancient castle of the Prince von der Tann."
For a moment the two men whispered together, then the
spokesman turned to Barney.
"We will lead you upon the right road. Come," and the
two turned their horses, one of them starting slowly back up
the trail while the other remained waiting for Barney to
pass him.
The American, suspecting nothing, voiced his thanks, and
set out after him who had gone before. As be passed the
fellow who waited the latter moved in behind him, so that
Barney walked between the two. Occasionally the rider at
his back turned in his saddle to scan the trail behind, as
though still fearful that Barney had been lying to them
and that he would discover a company of soldiers charging
down upon them.
The trail became more and more difficult as they ad-
vanced, until Barney wondered how the little horses clung
to the steep mountainside, where he himself had difficulty
in walking without using his hand to keep from falling.
Twice the American attempted to break through the taci-
turnity of his guides, but his advances were met with noth-
ing more than sultry grunts or silence, and presently a sus-
picion began to obtrude itself among his thoughts that pos-
sibly these "honest farmers" were something more sinister
than they represented themselves to be.
A malign and threatening atmosphere seemed to surround
them. Even the cat-like movement of their silent mounts
breathed a sinister secrecy, and now, for the first time,
Barney noticed the short, ugly looking carbines that were
slung in boots at their saddle-horns. Then, promoted to fur-
ther investigation, he dropped back beside the man who had
been riding behind him, and as he did so he saw beneath
the fellow's cloak the butts of two villainous-looking pistols.
As Barney dropped back beside him the man turned his
mount across the narrow trail, and reining him in motioned
Barney ahead.
"I have changed my mind," said the American, "about
going to the Old Forest."
He had determined that he might as well have the thing
out now as later, and discover at once how he stood with
these two, and whether or not his suspicions of them were
well grounded.
The man ahead had halted at the sound of Barney's voice,
and swung about in the saddle.
"What's the trouble?" he asked.
"He don't want to go to the Old Forest," explained his
companion, and for the first time Barney saw one of them
grin. It was not at all a pleasant grin, nor reassuring.
"He don't, eh?" growled the other. "Well, he ain't goin',
is he? Who ever said he was?"
And then he, too, laughed.
"I'm going back the way I came," said Barney, starting
around the horse that blocked his way.
"No, you ain't," said the horseman. "You're goin' with us."
And Barney found himself gazing down the muzzle of one
of the wicked looking pistols.
For a moment he stood in silence, debating mentally the
wisdom of attempting to rush the fellow, and then, with a
shake of his head, he turned back up the trail between his
captors.
"Yes," he said, "on second thought I have decided to go
with you. Your logic is most convincing."
