Trusia Part 24

The first figure, patriotically named the "Flag of Krovitch," was danced by Stovik, Trusia and seven other couples all nearly related to royalty, each person waving a small silken flag bearing the Lion of their race.

Carter, from the throng, with hungry eyes saw but one wondrous form, supported on the arm of royalty, glide through the graceful maze. A lull came in the music and Stovik, bowing the d.u.c.h.ess to her seat, turned with evident relish to a coquettish brunette who had a.s.sured him that they were first cousins.

Having fulfilled the demands of Court etiquette in yielding first place to her sovereign, Trusia was now free to indulge any other preference for partners for the ensuing figures. The American glanced covetously toward the place where Sobieska and Zulka stood, expectantly awaiting her invitation. With a mild negation of her head she pa.s.sed them, moving to where Carter was engaged talking to the Countess Muhlen-Sarkey.

Seeing her approach, his heart beat with a foolish hope and his remarks to his matronly auditor, took on a perplexing shade of incoherence.

Evidently Trusia shyly expected him to accept the courtesy; as through a myriad phantoms, where only she was real, he threaded his way to her side.

"You are the stranger within our gates," she explained as in rhythmic unison they drifted into the cadence of the waltz.

"Have I awakened," he inquired, "or is this part of the dream I had in the Boulevard S. Michel?"

"It must have been a dream, monsieur," she said with sad finality. "It is folly to enc.u.mber one's life with useless dreams."

"Your Grace wishes it?" he asked in halting syllables wrenched from a heavy heart.

"For your own happiness, now," she answered with a meaning nod toward the King.

"But," he pleaded, "it was such a beautiful dream."

"Dreams are--sometimes. Then we awake." He felt the slight tremor against his arm as she spoke.

"I wish," he sighed impotently, "that you were an American girl."

She smiled mechanically to hide the sadness welling in her breast.

"Wishes," she murmured resignedly, "are too near akin to dreams for me to indulge them. Besides I have a country to hope for. Why should I join you in such a wish?"

"Have you, then, realized your wishes in His Majesty?" It was a brutal thing to say; he saw it when too late to recall the words which had pa.s.sed his lips.

She shrank as if struck. Her eyes spoke the volumes of her appeal. They read in his a hopeless prayer for forgiveness, and graciously, gently, she pressed his arm under her hand as a sweet upward glance a.s.sured him of absolution. Like the sigh in his own soul, sweet and low, the music died out. The figure was finished.

Pleading fatigue, Carter sought the quarters a.s.signed him in the castle.

His senses were awhirl, his spirits high in the chimera that Trusia cared for him. Had he been compelled to remain in attendance he felt certain that he would have bruited his glad tidings abroad. Between the throbs of hope, however, with growing insistence threaded the stinging pulses of despair and pity; despair that destiny would never give her to him as wife, pity that she should sacrifice her own sweet self to a man who had no real affection for her. Hers was a nature, he well knew, requiring the full measure of tenderness to bloom in its fullest beauty.

Believing her beyond his reach he felt a sudden overpowering sense of utter loneliness. Fully clad as he was, he flung himself upon his bed, but his arm, his breast, still tingled with the contact from the dance.

Sleep held aloof from him. Darkness was no refuge from her tempting face, for, visible to his soul, it stood between him and the gloom.

From the distant hall, augmenting his restlessness, came occasional s.n.a.t.c.hes of music mingled with the hum of voices. The hours pa.s.sed on while he tossed nervously on his bed. Then the music stopped. Laughter and farewells floated up to him. In a few minutes all was silence save for the footfalls of the sentries on their posts.

Somewhere in its boat of song, the nightingale was floating on the sea of darkness. Drawn aimlessly by the pathos of the songster's lay, Carter wandered to the window to gaze out into the moonless midnight. Racking his quivering heart, his imagination dwelt on a pictured life with Trusia, emphasizing the sweet moments of her complete surrender.

Time lost all measure in his rhapsody. He might have stood leaning over the sill a day or a second, when a sound, persistent and murmuring, haled him back to mundane things. Intermittently, but with growing volume, from somewhere beyond the wall of black, came the echoes of an army in pa.s.sage. He could separate the different noises. That, he recognized by its deep grumbling noise, was cannon; the rattling sound, like an empty hay wagon, was caissons, while the m.u.f.fled, thudding echo was cavalry at the trot. The force, apparently a heavy one, did not seem to be coming from Schallberg. He leaned far out of the window challenging the darkness with his peering eyes. Dimly he could descry the plateau about the castle with its low bastions at the cliff's edge.

Indefinite shapes pacing along the wall he knew to be Krovitzer sentries. He fancied he heard a challenge on the distant road, a halt, then the invisible army took up its march again.

Straining every sense, he concluded that the force was moving from, and not toward, the frontier. Sutphen, then, for some unknown reason, must have consented to withdraw part of his none too strong army from points which Carter believed to be greatly in need of reinforcement. He debated with himself, therefore, the military necessity of confirming these impressions. Knowing, however, how p.r.o.ne to offense the plethoric Colonel could be, and rea.s.sured by the fancied challenges, he relinquished the idea. Growing drowsy with the extra mental exertion, he divested himself of his clothing and was soon in bed and asleep.

During his slumber another detachment pa.s.sed, then another, while just before dawn a heavy force of infantry at double time went down the road.

Carter arose late the next morning. After a hasty breakfast, too early, however, for the other partic.i.p.ants in the evening's festivities, he buckled on his sabre and, taking his fatigue cap, strolled out upon the terrace. He found the Minister of Private Intelligence pacing moodily back and forth on the stone flags. Acknowledging his salute, Carter stopped and spoke.

"Anything doing?" he inquired with a cheerful air.

Sobieska nodded. "Zulka's in command of Schallberg. Sutphen with a small force occupies Markos due east of the capital. Lesky's Rifles have seized Bagos on a line with both at the western frontier. This completes our alignment on the south. Wings have been thrown out from both Markos and Bagos to the extreme north, making a monster 'E' of which we are the middle arm."

Carter betrayed surprise. "Well, what force was that which pa.s.sed during the night?" he asked. "I thought you said Sutphen had only a small command on the frontier, yet there were two or three parks of heavy artillery went by."

"I didn't hear them," responded Sobieska, "but Josef reported them as reinforcements from the Rifles for the frontier. There may have been some cannon, but not as many as you think. He dare not weaken his strength that way."

"It seemed to me," said Carter dubiously, "that they marched from the frontier, not toward it. But how did Josef come to report it? Where was the officer of the guard?"

Sobieska turned an indulgently commiserating smile on Carter.

"Haven't you heard?" he asked as he lightly flicked the ash from his morning cigar. Carter pleaded ignorance.

The Privy Counselor drew close to his shoulder and spoke in a confidential tone. "Josef has made himself indispensable to His Majesty.

He begged for, and yesterday received, a commission as Colonel of Hussars as a return for services in restoring the King to his own.

Whether or not at his own request, he was yesterday appointed Officer of the Guard. It was in the line of his duty that he reported." He next spoke as to one in whom he could safely confide. "I don't like the look of things there," he said, pointing toward the frontier. "There weren't too many men, in my opinion, to hold it as it was. Now they have withdrawn part of that force. Unless they can mobilize quickly on this road we are holding wide open arms for Russia's forces. However," he said hopefully, "last night's movement may have been to cure the evil."

Setting them down to the vagaries of darkness, Carter dismissed his surmises of the night before as untenable in the face of this explanation. His companion continued his promenade nervously along the front of the castle. Carter joined him.

"There is another matter," said the Krovitzer with a slight contraction of his brows, "that is causing me some little annoyance. I am very punctilious about some things and exact prompt.i.tude as the greatest qualification in my subordinates. I should have had dispatches from London and Paris two days ago. I am out here now waiting for Max to arrive with them. It's a minor matter, but it has made me uneasy."

"Information concerning Carrick?" Carter queried.

"Yes," Sobieska replied. "What is that?" he asked with more than usual animation as the dull sound of distant booming interrupted them.

"Krupp guns," Carter answered, as much in surprise as for the information of the other. "Russia must have awakened at last. Sounds like a general engagement," he said as the volume of the distant sounds increased.

"We'll have to inform His Majesty. Hope he is awake." Sobieska started for the door. Carter lingered, for just then Trusia appeared in the entrance.

She seemed a part of the sweet, pure morning. Clad in an informal riding habit, such as he had frequently met in early rides in Central Park, in her starched waist, khaki skirt and broad-brimmed felt, she made a charming picture against the grim doorway.

"Plotting?" she asked with a gay little smile, shaking her bamboo crop at them. "You look like surprised conspirators. Major Carter, I'll have to claim your escort this morning. Casimir is still asleep. I'm afraid Lady Natalie danced him to death last night, the will-o'-the-wisp. His Majesty has his duties for some hours to come, as I can tell by that portentous frown on Sobieska's face. I, alone, once so busy, now find time hanging heavy on my hands. Can you come?"

"My only duty, Highness, is to serve you. That makes any duty a pleasure."

"Rather well done," she said with head on one side critically, "just a trifle stiff. I saw Carrick at the stable and antic.i.p.ated your acquiescence. He is saddling a mount for you. Here he comes now," she added, as the clatter of hoofs on the flags approached from the direction of the stables.

The c.o.c.kney approached leading two horses. He held Trusia's foot as she leaped lightly into the saddle. After he was satisfied that she was properly mounted he came to the off side of Carter's horse. There was a request written in every line of the earnest face.

"Well?" asked Carter bending down from his saddle.

"May I go too, sir? Just as groom, sir. Please, sir?" he added, seeing a shade of dissent upon his master's face. "The truth is, sir, I 'ad a bad dream last night. Don't laugh," he pleaded as the corners of Carter's mouth twitched suggestively, "don't laugh. It was too real, too 'orrible. I thought an army rode over you and 'Er Grace and tramped you down. You called out to me to 'elp. I could 'ave saved you, but was too far away. Let me go, sir; just as groom. I'll keep far be'ind." The fellow was honestly distressed, so Carter sent him to Trusia, who gave him the desired permission. Then for the first time the Major noted that Carrick wore his sabre. The holster by his saddle held a revolver.

XXI

CARRICK WAS FAR BEHIND