"LOONEY TRAFFORD"

Otago Witness, Issue 2913, 12 January 1910, Page 74

"LOONEY TRAFFORD"

B? Fkbdkric Tpbxer, M.A. Author of "Frost and Friendship," "The Conversion of Gland." "The Toad and the Amazon," "The Bicycle Ride," Etc.

THE NOTHBXJST.

OR THE INDOMITABLE GEORGE.

CHAPTER XXXII.—THE CONQUERING XING.

RAKE !” called out a high feminine voice, issuing strangely from the moustached lips of the soldier who steered the abducting bob-sleigh. The gentleman in the woollen helmet applied the brake, and a sharp turn

in ths' run was negotiated in safety. “How is Karl?” asked the Princess Mathildo, for it was she who was manipulating the wheel at the “bob’s” prow. “Coming to, I think,” Trafford shouted back ; “this cold air would restore a corpse.” They were in the straight now, and the pace was terrific. Downward they tore through realms of icy .air, while the night wind pushed at their throats, brought floods of moisture to their eyes, and roared a wild melody in their deafened ears. It was an exhilarating - experience, and even without the added excitement of their desperate deed would have set the blood racing in their veins. But with the excitement was mingled a. very definite sen,so of shame—in Trafford® case, at any rate. Their action had been justified by success, and morally, perhaps, by its absolute necessity in their- desperate plight,

but it painfully resembled an act of treachery. "What become of Father Bernhardt and Doctor Matti?" asked Mathilde presently. Trafford leaned forward and answered at the top of his voice: "They must have been killed. Our weight started the 'bob' before I intended, •and we were a hundred yards down the track before I could get my hand to the brake. It was impossible to go back." "Will they catch us, do you think?"

"Impossible! We are travelling at the rate of an express train,. Another twenty minutes of this, and we shall reach the point where Colonel Schale's flying detachment has arranged to wait' for us." For a while they travelled without further speech, save when an imperious "Brake!" from the Princess indicated that the pace must be cheeked in order for a corner to be rounded without mishap. Under the stone viaduct of the railway they flew, winding in and out of pine woods, sometimes catching a glimpse of the golden lights of Riefinsdorf, and sometimes of the moonlight ivory of the mighty Klauigberg. "You are sure that Father Bernhardt and Dr Matti must have been killed?" asked Mathilde at length. "Without reasonable doubt. They have gone to their long homes, which, according to all theory, should be widely separated. That's as may be. The man I'm sorry for is poor Karl, who* was feeling really happy till I clapped the ! drugged antimacassar over his head." j Trafford waited ,to hear his sentiments j echoed, but Mathilde said nothing. Her I silence pained him; under the cireum- ' stances it seemed ungenerous. Then occurred something which cannot be verbally described, so far as the seafesations of' the three human beings were concerned; for to be suddenly checked in a lightning descent and hurled incontinently into deep snow produces a. complexity of emotions incapable of being recorded through the medium of ink. What happened to the bob-sleigh is a matter of more precise fact. The front part struck violently against eome hard object, the steering runners were wrenched •round at right angles to the body of the sleigh, the whole thing skidded viciously on the ice, and finally buried its nose in the Hanking wall of snow. "Are you hurt, Mathilde?" called out Trafford from his couch of crystals as scon as ho had sufficient breath to frame the question. There was no answer. Within a few yards of hirn Karl was sitting up with an expression' of dazed bewilderment that was almost comic to beheld. Trafford rose j and made his way with infinite difficulty ! to the run.. Discovering his revolver j lying by the side of the track, he picked ; it up and examined it. It was uninjured, and the cartridges still undetonated. "Mathilde!" he calied. "Yes—l'm all right," came a voice somewhere from the neighbourhood of Karl. "I'm only a bit shaken. I couldn't answer before. I hadn't—any—breath." "No bones brokeui?" b» persisted. "None whatever. What' happened?" Trafford was peering thoughtfully at the track. "Curling-stones," he answered laconically. "When we enfiladed Saunders's trench we sent Major Flannel's stones en a long journey, but not long enough, it appears. There has been a small avalanche of snow across the track, due, I presume, to the vibration of the guns. This held the stones up in the middle of the fairway. We might have ploughed through the snow, but the granite smashed us." "What's to be done?" asked the Princess after a pause. Trafford stepped over the snow-bank and examined the "bob." The runners were- twisted and half wrenched from the . wooden framework. The steeTing-wheel ! was jammed, and refused to respond to j the most strenuous efforts; the brakej lever was snapped off short. "The midnight express doesn't run any further," he said. "What on earth- are we to do?" He answered her question with another. ' "How's Karl?" • The outraged monarch replied in person.. "I am toleralbv well, thank you," he paid. "I have been conscious for some • time, and have listened with some amusement to your commiserations of my lot. The little catastrophe which has just occurred has dispelled the last lingeringfumes of the chloroform with which you rendered me hora do combat." Trafford said nothing, but knitted his brows in perplexed thought. . "We are face to face with a very seri«ona problem," he snid after a full minute's meditation. "Mathilde, are you sufficiently recovered to join me on the path here,"or shall I come and help you out of the soft snow?" "I will come to you," she answered, suit.hif- the action to the word, and ploughing her deep wav to his side. The blonde moustache had parte,' l , company with her fair lips, and hsn fallen shako had released a charming disorder of dark trc-rses. In her great overcoat, her nether extremities concealed in the snow, she looked once more what she really was, a young girl of singularly fascinating aspect. "We can't stav here all night.". she said, when she had' won her wa.v to the path, "and we cannot well reach the spot where Colonel Schale is awaiting UK." Trafford shook his head. "Assuming we could walk so far." he said, "and assuming our friend over tb?ro would consent to acompany us, we should be overts-ken by the pursuit party they are bound fo> send after us." <c T''y: all honalass." she sa-id wearily. "You have lost confidence in mv ability to help you out of difficulties?" he asked. "You are resourceful —indomitable al-

most," she conceded, "but you cannot fight Pate." "I am not trying to." "I am. Had it not been foT this wretched mishap everything would have been .splendid ; we should have returned to Weidenbruck with Karl our prisoner. I should have been firmly established on my throne, and you might have been accepted as my consort. Ae it is, we are j checkmated within sight of victory.'' j "You do not blame me for your disapI pointment? You concede that I did my best?"

His question was dispassionate. She answered it with generous words, but without enthusiasm. "You did more than any other man could have done. lam not complaining of you ; I am complaining of Fate." "Personally, I have a pathetic and unconquerable confidence in Fate," he retorted. "You —yes. But what is my position? Bernhardt is dead, Matti is dead, Karl is our prisoner only so long as he consents to be. You and I are alone—alone in the dead of night, in a land of snow and frost. We must find shelter, or perish. We must creep down to Riefinsdorf for a night's lodging, for the road to .Wallen is long and will be traversed, for a certainty, by our pursuers. Do you not see now why I complain of Fate? Lying slander has coupled our names none too pleasantly before; what will it say when it has visual facts instead of idle gossip to build upon ?" "Slander will say a good deal," he replied, "but if we wish to give it the lie, the register of the Chapel Royal can always retort with an unanswerable argument." Mathilde said nothing. Moonlight, which is infinitely more beautifying than sunlight, had put a strange fire into her eyes and turned her flesh to dearest ivory. Trafford, had he been a heathen, would have bowed down and worshipped, so goddess-like was her still pose, so unearthly the cold, soft shadows that gave roundness to her cheeks. As it was, he held his breath and clenched his hands in a spasm of passionate appreciation. Was ever anything so fair under the starts, he asked himself?—did ever such mystic fire burn in human eyes or frosty breath issue from such perfectly-shaped lips? Angela Knox—Angela Knox had become to him a memory, a painted perfection of oils and canvas, an inanimate statue of flawless Carrara! But the woman who stood bareheaded in the moonbeams, rudely clad in the ill-fitting garments of a private soldier, was a being of desires and ambitions, of laughter and hate, as earthly in her mental as she was divine in her physical attributes. Then gradually a great anger swept over him, so that 'his brows contracted and his finger-nails were pressed deep into the palms of his hands. This woman, this changeling moon-child, this fantastic elf of the snows and the forest, had "almost" loved him in the chapel of the Ne>ptunburg; and the "almost" had become a "quite" for a delicious halfmoment in an ancient house in the mountain village of Wallen. What might not have happened had not Bernhardt intervened—Bernhardt with his masterful ways, his goading tongue, and his capacity for ruling the highest, as he ruled the lowest, in the land ? Trafford unclaspd his hands and his fingers teembled-, for the wrath that mastered him shook his frame as a winter tempest shakes the dead bough of a blasted tree. Mathilde, who might have loved, who might have fulfilled the mission of her splendid womanhood, had fought down the promptings of her heart and given herself to ambition and the deadening lust of place and power. He felt an almost overpowering desire to seize heT roughly in his arms, to break her in his grasp, to crush the supple limbs in an act of ferocious but just retribution. Fortunately his brain steadied itself in time, the mad impulse was checked, and, as was the way with him, the paroxysm gave place to a singularly clear and controlled condition, of mind. "Your Majesty," he called out to Karl, who was still maintaining a recumbent position in the snow, "are you sufficiently recovered from your various mishaps to join us here on the path and discuss the situation?"

For answer Earl struggled to his feet and made towards them. He appeared very pale in the moonlight, but there was the same look in his eyes as when he had faced the rebel throng in the courtyard of the Eeptunburg. “You perceive our difficulties, of course,” Trafford began. “A week ago we set out from Weidenbruck to accomplish a. certain object. That object was, in plain language, to wipe you off tbs ■earth, or bring you back bound to the capital. We employed open force, and failed. We employed the gentle arts of abduction, and succeeded —up to a point.” Karl nodded, “ I follow you,” he said curtly. “Our motives were frankly selfish.” Trafford went on. “'The favour of the good Weidenbruckers had to bs retained, and it was necessary to do something notable to obtain permanent possession of their good graces.” ’He paused a moment, toyed with his revolver, and looked fixedly at Mathilde, and then back again at Karl. Then he went on deliberately: “If wo return without having killed or captured one Karl, styling himself King of Chimland, we shall be returning to a nest of hornets. You see my point 1” Karl eyed the revolver thoughtfully. “Yes, I sec your point,” he said ; “I saw it long before you put it before me. Having failed to abduct me, only one course is open to you. Here I am, unarmed, alone, scarcely recovered from an anaesthetic, shaken by a fall. The moon gives ample light, and your revolver is loaded.” “ Precisely,” said Trafford. “Mv course

is so obvious ! A pressure ox tbs first finder, a puff of smoke, and a brave man groaning in the snow! There are but two objections : firstly, I am not a butcher j secondly, jou took it upon oi i a little while ago to defend the honour of my wife !” “Your wife?” “Yes, my wife. The lady who is now more or less disguised as a private oi the line, did me the honour of bestowing on me her hand in the Chapel Royal of the Nentimburg. When Bernhardt, playing his pS hinted at her shame, your kingly snirit refused to hear ill even of your enemy. For that, if for no other reason, I am steering clear of regicide.” Karl passed his hand across his brow, as if the news was too much for his dazed senses. “You and Matbilde von Schattenberg are man and wife?” he gasped. “On paper,” Trafford affirmed; “on paper only. In reality wo are nothing- to each other, and as even to are turning out never will be anything to each other. But I am a proud man, proud of the secret bond between ns, though our vows were meaningless and of no value ; and because vou took it upon you to defend the honour of my ‘paper’ spouse, I give you your life and wish you god-speed.” Karl’s features twitched in. the moonlight, and his breath seemed to come with difficulty. “You are a generous foeman,” he said at length. “Not more so than yourself,” Trafford i-etorted. “When I, also playing my part, swore death to ‘the cursed Englander Trafford,’ you vowed you would like me for a guest, with whom to fight old battles over odd Tokay. I am fond of Tokay,” Trafford went on, “and I am. fond of reminiscenoes; also I know a man when I see one. Karl, King of Grimland, will you give me your hand?” •Karl stretched out his hand and gripped the other’s. He seemed searching for words, but no words came. Trafford read many things in the labouring chest and ths dimmed eye, and his heart kindled. “You call me generous,” he went on, “bub I am generous with another’s property. Grimland is yours or Mathilde’s; mine it never was. Fate has somehow set me as umpire in a great quarrel; and being holder of the scales, I must perforce be impartial. Supposing I trample conscience under foot and do a nameless deed under the moon: suppose we return to Weide.nbruck triumphant as Queen and consort—what then? Bernhardt, who understood the temper of the Grimland canaille, who ruled them as a rough huntsman rules a pack of hounds—Bernhardt, the apostate, the absintheur, the distorted genius whose counsels could alone havs kept ub in power,—is no more. Matti is dead—Matti who, as city prefect-, did more with his reforming zeal to make the name of Schattenberg stink in the nostrils of the citizens than any enemy could have done. Weidenbruck is yours for the asking ! The nobility were never against you ; the people were oura only in their meaner moments. You left the capital as a fugitive; you will return as conqueror, and the people will cry, as I cry now, ‘Long live Karl the Twenty-second of Grim,land !’ ” Still Karl maintained hie frozen silence; not a muscle of his face moved. Only, there wau a gleam in bis eyes that seemed to look beyond the stark pine trunks and the barren fields of snow; that seemed to project his vision over forty leagues of hill and plain to the turbulent city on the Niederkessel, where a shouting throng acclaimed him as their King. For a moment his whole face lit up with a wonderful glow, and then, his emotion seemed to master him. He was a strong man, but be had been through much, physically and mentally, and the last sudden vicissitude of his fortunes won a sharp reaction. Hie heart beat in great thuds, and the stiff vertical trunks of the forest pines bent and swayed before hie eyes. He leaned against a big tree and covered his face with, his hands. Trafford turned and faced Mathilda. He expected reproaches, anger, tears of despair. He had given away her kingdom to her enemy. The strong plant of heirambition be had cut at the very tap-root. Ho who. by hardening his heart, might have made her a queen, had preferred by an act of mercy to make her a fugitive! He steeled himself against the expected hurricane of bitterness. He looked, and as he looked he rubbed hie eyes in amazement. The face of Mathilda von Schattenberg was the face he had-seen in delirium at the old house at Wallen—the face of a woman with a loving heart and a soul of flame. The eyes that met his were bright with a splendid joy, overflowing with a great tenderness. “Mathilda!” “My noble, wonderful friend!” she cried, advancing to him with outstretched arms. Hb seized her and drew hex* to him. “Have I done right?” he whispered. “A thousand times, yes!” she replied. “To-night I see things trulv. and I'shall never foe them otherwise. You have conquered me. hypnotised me, as vou nearly did at Wallen; and now there is no Bernhardt to wake me from, my sweet dream. The glory of a man is his strength and his courage, but the heart oi a man is his 1 enderncss and hrs mercy, and it is those that have prevailed" with me.” Tiert T. afford ! came a voice from the big pine tree. “Your Majesty.” am going to make mv way back to- M e/isahaira. May I ask what you propose doing? Trafford hesitated. “About that I must consult the Princess,” he said at length. “I am going where my husband goes/® said. Mat hi! de, “and T am doing what my husband decides to do. 5 "

"Then tre will make for Riefinfidorf,'' eaid Trafford. "To-morrow, early, we will get a. smith to mend our shattered ' bob,' and before the sun has climbed above the shoulder of the Klauigberg we will be scudding down the King's highway, 'Youth at the prow and pleasure at the helm.' " "Towards Wallen?" asked Karl. "Towards Austria," corrected Trafford. "The road forks at Winterthurm, and we take the southern branch. The Rylvio Pass is steep, and six hours' coasting should bring us to the frontier." "Needless to say, you need fear no pursuit," said Karl; "but when will you return? You have to be my guest at the Brunvarad and drink my wine. That is part of the bargain." Trafford smiled. "It may come to that some day," he said. "Things move quickly in Grimland. But the time is not yet." He paused, and then went on: "Your Majesty has had an eventful winter. You have lost a throne, and regained it, I believe, more firmly than before. That is, in allegory, the case with me"—he took the Princess's hand in bis—"and I am well content." Karl gazed at the happy pair. Slowly a wonderful smile spread itself over his face and his eyes shone through a veil of moisture. He seized Trafford's hand and gripped it almost violently. "Good-bye, brave and generous enemy," he said; "good-bye, friend' that is to be, that must be, that shall be." He turned to the Princess, took her in his big arms, and kissed her on both cheeks. "Goodbye, little cousin," he said. "You are wise and happy in your choice. You have abjured- a troubled throne for a kingdom of peace and heart's ease. You are my kinswoman in more than blood, for you have given yourself to the man whom I am proud to call friend." He turned and walked up the path as one in a dream. For a moment he staggered in his gait; but he stooped down, rubbed some snow on hi« forehead, and went on steadily up the hill towards Wfcissherm.

Mathilde and Trafford stood watching him till he disappeared from view. A little sob broke from the Princess. Then she put her hand in Trafford's, and together they set out towards Riefinsdorf.

CHAPTER XXXIIL—THE LOST SHEEP.

In the small hours of the morning, when the temperature had sunk to its very nadir of deadening cold, when the moon

had accomplished two-thirds of her night's journey, and left dark spaces in the heavens for the paled stars to pattern again with renewed brilliance; when the noises of riot and revelry had died down to an occasional outburst of tipsy song or the .incoherent crooning of a maudlin chorus, a party of half a dozen men on-skis issued from the courtyard of the Btuuvarad. They were weary-looking folk, dull-eyed and taciturn, and without a word they set themselves in motion along the road to Riefinsdorf. The remains of a huge bonfire glowed dully by the roadside, and a pillar of black smoke streamed straight up into the windless air. Where the snow had thawed in a circle round the once festive blaze it had frozen again into lumps of discoloured ice. Dark, recumbent forms showed here and there in the snow, heavy-breathing wretches who had gone to sleep, wanned with abundant wine and the glowing flames, but who would wake in the morn to the misery of frostbite and its attendant horrors. But the little group of ski-ens had no thought for such as these, and they' passed them by with sca.ree a glance. Onward they went without a word, till Meyer flipped up over a sleeping form in the roadway, and broke the silence with a bitter curse, as he dragged himself to his feet. "Why don't you go home, Meyer ?" said Saunders; "you are feagged out, and we may have to sprint later on." " If Bilderbaum can go on, I can go on," said the Commander-in-Chief irritably. "He is ten years older than I am." "Five," corrected the general snappishly. "The pursuit is farcical," said Meyer. "It would have been useless if we had undertaken it at once. At this hour it is a piece of ludicrous felly." "You need not come," said Saunders, who, like the others, seemed to be in the worst of humours. "Thanks," retorted Meyer. "We must play the game to its weary end. We have shown ourselves fools, and the least part of our penalty is a sleepless night after a restless day." "We may overtake them yet, said Laptain Lexa, who, with two of his riflemen, made up the little party. "Impossibilities seem possibilities only to geniuses and fools," said Meyer rudely. "It is hardly necesary to state to which category we belong.'' _ (j "While there is life there is hope, maintained Lcxa stubbornly. Meyer made an exclamation of contempt. "Supposing the miracle is realised," he said, "and the slower catches the swifter, />ven then they will certainly outwit us -rrain. In the proverb the tortoise caught ,£ e hare _but then the tortoise had b-iins." Mever's sarcasm had anything but a f --.eering effect on the dismal spirits of the "To "think of our never recocmsins them!" said Saunders bitterly. "To think of Traiford fooling us " _ _ "Oh Trafford has imagination and initiative', in strong contradistinction to ourselves," interrupted Meyer. " He has fooled us before, and he would fool lis again-—twenty times if twenty opportunities were offered him. We are not very clever people, my dear Saunders." After this the conversation languished. All were very tired, bitterly disappointed. aa4 paapfuUy oonscwus of their own and

each other's intellectual shortcomings. Nevertheless, with a dull dogged loyalty to the cause they believed lost they shuffled wearily over the snow in the grim determination to spare no effort to retrieve disaster. Through the sleeping town they took their hopeless way, past the Drei Kronen, past the Barenhof and the Meierei, and then at Lexa's suggestion they left the road and betook themselves to the steep slopes of untrodden snow. "If we are ever to catch them," said Lexa, "it must be by taking every shortcut that offers itself. The road to Wallen winds round in and out of the mountains, and our only chance of overtaking the fugitives is to go straight up hill and down dale, no matter how steep and difficult the track." Meyer groaned. His legs were aching intolerably, and the thought of breasting a step ascent on skis almost overwhelmed his flagging spirit. No- one, however, answered his groan with another suggestion that he should go back. The Jew had expressed his determination to go on to the bitter end, and nothing but complete physical collapse would stop him. They glissaded swiftly and almost recklessly down the hillside, and the rush of keen air somewhat quickened their flagging energies. "Bend to the left!" called out Saunders, himself executing a fine "Christiamia swing," and thereby just saving himself from charging the snow wall that banked the bob-sleigh run. The others swung round at his call, and for a time proceeded parallel to the track at a reduced speed. "Man ahead!" called out Saunders presently, and true enough a dark object was advancing slowly towards them up the path bordering the run. The two soldiers cuddled their rifles suggestively, and the others proceeded at an even pace towards the strange walker of the night. "A wounded soldier . finding his way back," suggested Lexa. "He may .be able to give us information," said Von Bilderbaum. "Or he m.ay be going to shoot lis," said Meyer, prepared, as usual, for the worst. "Hands up, man," he called nervously, "or we fire." The man slowly raised his hands above his head, and continued to plod we airily up the path towards them. In the vague moonlight the newcomer seemed of gigantic stature, and his soundless footsteps suggested a being from another world. On he came with upraised arms and bent head, and then suddenlv he lifted his face so that the rays of the sinking moon fall full upon it. Lexa uttered a cry, but the others stood still in frozen silence, believing they dreamed. Then old Bildercaum called out hoarsely to the soldiers, "Present arms!" and himself stood stiffly at the salute. "Must I continue to hold my hands in the air?" asked Karl. "I am veay tired." "Your Majesty!" gasped Saunders.' "Good evening, gentlemen," said the King, at length lowering his arms. "This is an unexpected pleasure. You are indefatigable." "Pardon me," said .Meyer, yawning: "we are exceedingly tired. But as I have been constantly reminding my comrades, almost to the point of boredom, we are a pack of fools and must pay for our folly by the inconvenience of a. night in the snow." "If you are fools." said Karl, "I am. the king of fools. But at least there is something noble in your folly if it leads you from warmth and shelter to a hopeless 'Search over a snow-bound countryside." "But you have escaped, sire?" said Bilderbaum. "Yes and no," replied Kar*. "When the .grand coup occurred on the bob-sleigh run I was partially stupefied by the fumes of chloroform. I ouickly recovered, however, from its effects, and was even beginning to appT-eciate the fascinations of a moonlight abduction, when an accident occurred to the sleigh." "You were hurt?" inquired Saunders anxiously. "No: f fell on mv head—which is vastly hardier than the snow." "What happened, sir??" asked Lexa.. "When Tra.ffovd enfiladed Saunders's trench curling-stones he won the first f.viok in the game, and unwittingly k-rst the last. The .stones went gailv down the bob-sleio-h run en route for Riefinsdorf. and might have gone heaven knows wher° had not a subsidence of snow. caused doubtless bv tb.p reverberation of the guns, blocked the track. The <mow_ held the stones up. and the Proyiden-e _ which manages the unstable affairs of kings and tobogganers arranged that our runners should strike a large pink ston° with a blue ribbon on it." "Splendid!" cri«d Bilderbaum enthusiastically. "The 'bob' was wrecked, and the Princes and Trafford being stunned or disabled, you escaped from their clutehes." 'Your imagination does you infinite credit. General," said Karl drily, "but it outruns fact. No one was stunned or disabled : of the three, I was distinctly the mo:st shaken." "But how " "The situation was simple." said Karl. "The 'bob.' as you surmise, was wrecked. Mv abducton. therefore, was rendered abortive. There were onlv two ■"ourses onen to my enemies : to kill me and make their way on foot to Wallen, where their friends were awaiting them : or to set me free and themselves flv the counlrv. 'Those of yo" who know Trafxcrd and his charm hip- wife " "Wife!" interrupted Saunders. "YVv5." affirmed Karl: "the Princess Mathilds was secretlv married some days aero to your friend Trafford in the Chapel Poval of the Neptunbi;i:g. They are a. healthv-minded couple, and they refused to entertain seriouslv the idea of murder." "They set you free!" eiaculaied Saun..

ders. "Well done, Looney Trafford! I am not so ashamed of my friend after all."

"He is a splendid fellow," said Karl, "and, incidentally, my cousin by marriage. I assure you I for my part am not ashamed of the relationship." "But where are they ow?" asked Meyer. "They are—where they are. They are free to leave the country without let or hindrance. When things are quieted down and I am firmly in the saddle again they can come back in their true capacity—as my friends." "We shall not have to wait long, sire," said Meyer with an unwonted note of jubilation in his voice. "Even before yesterday's battle the tide was running strongly for you at the capital. Frequent reports have come through that Matti was ruining the cause of the Schattenbergs by his excessive zeal for social purity. The reaction was violent, and nothing but a brilliant victory could have saved the usurpers from the rising flood of discontent. Bernhardt's death and the rout of hie men can only meet one thing. As the air was cleared four years ago at Weiss'heim by the unsuccessful rebellion of the Grand Duke Fritz, so now it is cleared at Weidenbruck by the failure of the Grand Duke's daughter. Since then Weissheim bas.-bsen loyal, and henceforth Weidenbruck and the whole country will be loyal. Long live Karl the Twentysecond of Grimland !" "Long live Karl!" echoed Saunders, Von Bilderbaum, and Lexa. "Long live Karl!" reiterated, the riflemen, raising their shakos aloft on their musket barrels. Karl stood still, v/ith eyes that. swam. He began to speak, but ended with a shake of his head, as if something had choked him. " To-morrow, dear friends." he muttered very low. "To-morrow. To-night lam tired, very tired and very happy. Long live George the Irresponsible and his beautiful bride !" he cried in stronger tones. "God bless them! God bless our poor country ! God help me to rule"—but his voice had sunk again to a whisper, and he reeled as he spoke against Saunders. The latter held the massive but limp frame from falling, while someone produced brandy from a flask and poured a, generouis measure down the King's throat. Then the soldiers made a seat of their crossed weapons, and shoulder-high and supported by willing arms Karl of Grimland was borne, half-fainting with exposure and fatigue, but serene of mind, to the winter palace of his beloved Weissheim.

EPILOGUE

Down the great, white highway of the Rylvio Pass a bob-sleigh was speeding in the early hours of a perfect morning. The incense of dawn was in the air, and the magic of stupendous scenery uplifted the souls of the two travellers. Fantastic peaks of incomparable beauty rose up in majesty to meet the amazing turquoi.se of the heavens. Sparkling cascades of dazzling whiteness hung in streams of frozen foam from dun cliffs and larch-crowned boulders. The roadway down which the sleigh was coursing with unchecked speed wound like a silver ribbon, at the edge of precipices, sometimes tunnelling through an arch of brown rock, only to give again, after a moment's gloom, a fresh expanse of argent domes and shimmering declivities. Perched high on perilous crags were ancient castles of grim battlements and enduring masonry, stubborn homes of a stubborn nobility that had levied toll in olden times on ail such as passed their inhospitable walls. Below, in the still shadowed valley, were villages of tiny houses, the toy campanili of liliputian churches, and a grey-green river rushing over a stony bed to merge itself in the ampler flood of the Danube. "Could anything be more perfect?" asked Mathilda, who, as en the previous night, was doing duty at the wheel. There wa.s a flush on her cheeks that was a tribute to the keen mountain air, and a sparkle in her dark eyes that told of welling happiness and a splendid conscious joy. ' Radiant as the morn, fragrant as the pine-laden air, she eeemed the embodiment of a hundred vitalities crowded into one blithe being. "We are on our honeymoon," returned Trafford, ''and it would' be a cold, dank day that could depress my soaring spirits. As it is, the impossible beauty of our surroundings is so intoxicating my bewildered brain that I am neglecting my duties as brakesman in a most alarming manner. We shall be over a precipice in a- minute if I don't master my exaltation of spirits." " Perfect love casteth out fear," laughed Mathilde.

" Is it perfect?" be asked. "Absolutely—now," she replied. "From this first you captured my fancy; that was why I did not lie to you in Herr Krantz's wine shop. Then when I thought you had killed Kail in the Iron Maiden my heart grew sick and cold, for I believed you were, as the others, without ruth or mercy. The news that you had saved his life while pretending to take it put new fire into my soul; but there was ever a war in my breast between true tenderness and the lust of power. I had inherited ambition from a long line of callous ancestors ; my whole life had been a tale of scheming, deadening opportunism. Bernhardt, with his great domineering personality, was as death to sentiment. And then, last night, you took the bit between your teeth and let yourself go. You overrode my will, you set at nought my interests; yon were master, and I handmaid, ■and my whole soul went out to you in admiration of your strength and love of the way you used' it." Trafford drank in the words as he drank in the clear, sweet air of the moun-tain-side, and happiness—the heroic happiness that befell poets and warriors in the days of the world's youth, when men were demi-god'S and %od,& were demi-mortals—-

took him with golden wings and exalted him, so that the soaring mountain and the wheeling bird and the forest and the crag and the river were as his brothers and his sisters, fellow members of the worshipful company of rejoicing creation. Onward and downward they flew, while the beams of the rising sun climbed down the valley walls, ledge by ledge and rock by rock, turning brown cliffs to gold and snowy slopes to diamond and silver. Already they were far below the supreme height of the Weissheim plateau, and the air, dry though it was in reality, seemed almost damp in comparison after the moistureless atmosphere of the lofty tableland thev had quitted. The snow held ■everywhere, but it was the thin covering of an English hillside in January, not the sumptuous and universal mantle of frost-bound Weissheim. The larch and fir of the uplands were giving gradual place to the stunted oak and the starved chestnut, A thin hedge maintained a scrubbv. struggling line at the edge of the roadside, and on the southern slopes the fields were furrowed in endless terraces for the vine. "We shall reach the frontier in an hour," said Trafford. "And then?" ( , "Then we must quit our faithful 'bob. The road ceases to aim downhill at Morgenthal, and a bob-sleigh will not defy the laws of gravity even for the happiestcouple in Christendom." "Then what are our plans v " asked Mathilde. "Plans?" he echoed. "We have no plans. The poor, the unhappy, and the hungry have plans, for they must scheme to improve their condition. But you and I are rich in every perfect gift, and life will be one' delicious and unending bobsleigh ride through gorgeous scenery and vitalising air." The Princess sighed luxuriously. Then, after a pause—"We must reach the valley seme day," she said. "Some day, yes," he acquiesced. "Some day the ride will be done, and the road end in the great shadows Which no human eye can pierce. But that day will find us hand in hand, with no fear in our hearts, and ready for a longer, stranger, and even more beautiful journey." As he spoke the valley widened out, and the hills on either side receded at a broad angle. The roofs of Morgenthal were plain to their gaze, and the tinkling of goats' bells broke the silence.. "Austria!" cried Mathilde. "Austria, Vienna, Paris, Dover, London," he said, "Charing Cross, and a, taxi-cab to South Kensington. But in our hearts Grimland —always Grimland." [The End.]