The Hosts of the Air Part 33

"Aren't you eager to see them?" asked Ilse, piqued a little at his lack of curiosity.

"Oh yes," replied John, recalling that he must make believe, "but I've seen the Kaiser several times and once at Vienna I could almost have reached out my hand and touched the old Emperor, as he rode on his way to Schonbrunn."

He pa.s.sed on and they looked after him. They liked the bearing of this young peasant who was respectful, but who certainly was never servile.

But it was in John's mind that however brilliant the great council might be he would not see it. He was surely going from Zillenstein but it was for the future to say whether his absence would be short or long.

While John was at the stables young Kratzek sent for his horse, and John, after his custom, led the animal to him. He had long since ceased to fear discovery by the Austrian, and his immunity made him careless, or it may be that Kratzek's eyes were uncommonly keen that day. He stood beside John, as the young American fixed the stirrup, and some motion or gesture of the seeming peasant suddenly appeared familiar to Kratzek.

Before John had realized what he intended Kratzek suddenly seized him by both shoulders and turning him around, looked straight into his eyes.

"Scott, the American, and a spy!" he exclaimed.

John's heart missed several beats. He knew that it was useless to deny, but in a moment or two he had himself under full control.

"Yes, it's Scott, and I'm in disguise, but I'm not a spy," he said.

"The penalty anyhow is death."

"But you'll not betray me!"

"You saved my life at the great peril of your own."

John was silent. He felt that the time had come for Kratzek to repay, but he would not say so. Now his own look was straight and high, and it was Kratzek's that wavered.

"You pledge your word that you are not seeking to pry into our military secrets?" asked the Austrian at length.

"No such purpose is in my mind at all, and I leave here within twenty-four hours as ignorant of them as I was when I came."

"Then, sir, I do not know you. I never saw you before, and I believe you are the peasant you seem to be."

Kratzek gave him one look of intense curiosity, then sprang upon his horse, and rode away, never looking back.

"There goes a true man," thought John, as he returned to the stable.

Toward evening Walther gave him a heavier suit of clothes which he put on, a great overcoat like an ulster falling almost to his ankles, and an automobile cap and gla.s.ses. John could see that he longed to ask questions but he did not do so and John too was silent. A few minutes before nine o'clock Walther told him to go to the small gate in the rear wall.

"Reach it without being seen if you can," he said. "But if you are seen be sure to answer no questions. I would go with you myself, but it's forbidden. You're to be absolutely alone."

John, shrouded in the overcoat and cap and gla.s.ses, made his way in the dark to the designated gate.

As he approached the place he saw the black shadow of a heavy bulk against the dusk. No person was yet in sight and there was utter silence. The beat of his heart was so hard that it gave him actual physical pain. The shadow he knew was that of a large closed automobile, but no driver was in the seat, and he did not believe that anybody was inside. Both the silence and the loneliness became sinister.

John slipped forward boldly. It required no divination to know that he was expected to drive this machine. The gate was open and two figures hooded and cloaked came forth. But hooded and cloaked as they were John knew at once the first and slenderer one. The step disclosed the G.o.ddess. Julie and Suzanne were going somewhere and he was to take them and there was the prince himself coming through the open gate to give him his instructions.

John's first emotion was one of extraordinary wonder, qualified in a moment or two by humor. Suzanne opened the door of the machine and Julie stepped in. Then the maid followed into the darkness of the interior and closed the door. Truly that variable G.o.ddess, Fortune, had chosen to play one of her oddest tricks and for the time, at least, she had chosen him also as her favorite. But with a presence of mind bred in the terrible school of war, he stood waiting ready to receive all her gifts with a thankful heart. "These are two Frenchwomen, prisoners, whom I hold," said the prince in a whisper. "There are reasons of state why they should be taken from Zillenstein and be hidden at my hunting lodge in the mountains. Follow the road that you see there in the moonlight leading up the slope, and on the crest six leagues away you will come to the lodge. You cannot miss it because no other building is there. It lies off the road in a deep pine forest, and here is a letter to my forester Muller who lives there. You and he will hold the women at the lodge until I send for them, and let them speak with n.o.body, though there is little chance of such a thing on the mountain, where the winter has not yet gone. I hold you responsible for them. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Your Highness," replied John, and he meant it.

"And here is a purse of gold for you. See that you serve me well in this matter, and there is another purse at the end of it. Now go at once!"

John touched his cap, sprang into the seat and started the great automobile up the mountain road. He could not look back, but he knew instinctively that the prince had gone into the castle as silently as he had come from it. And he was alone at the wheel with Julie and Suzanne inside. In very truth chance or fortune had moved the p.a.w.ns for him in a way that the most skillful player could not have equaled. For a moment, the whole world seemed to swim beneath his feet.

The night was dark and cold, and although the road up the slope showed for a long distance in the moons.h.i.+ne the top of the mountain was wrapped in mist. A wind began to blow and he felt raw and damp to his face. But there was nothing to check his exultation. Come wind or rain or snow they were all one to him. He was away from Zillenstein, out in the great free world and Julie was with him. Auersperg himself, unknowing, had provided the way and he was sending them not only in comfort but in luxury. John knew the big automobile. It was the prince's own and it was surely equipped in a princely way. The man who bad brought it to the gate had been forced to go away and he, John Scott, and Prince Karl of Auersperg alone knew where they were going. All the better! He laughed under his breath as he handled the wheel with hands now skilled and sent the great automobile along the smooth white road that stretched away and away up the mountain side.

At a curve a mile or more distant, he could look down almost directly upon Zillenstein. The vast castle was bathed in whitish mists floating up the valley in which it loomed gigantic and enlarged, a menacing creation that had survived far beyond its time. He shuddered at the thought that Julie and he might still be there, had not fortune been so kind, and then, pressing the accelerator, he sent the machine forward a little faster.

The road owing to the steepness of the ascent now wound a great deal, but it was smooth and safe, and the automobile, despite its size, had an organism as delicate as that of a watch. It obeyed the least pressure of his hand, and his exultation became all the greater when he fully realized that he had such a powerful mechanism at hand, subject to its lightest touch. The thought, in truth, had come to him that he might turn back into the valley, and seek escape from the mountains. But consideration showed that the idea was foolish. So large a machine by no possibility could escape from the valley. It was better to go on.

The cold increased sharply. He expected a fall in the mercury owing to the ascent, but it was greater than the height alone warranted. All the signs betokened foul weather. The castle was now wholly lost in great ma.s.ses of vapor and the moon was withdrawing from the sky. The wind had an edge of ice. He knew that mountains were the breeding place of storms and he made another increase of speed in order that they might reach the hunting lodge before one broke.

He had not heard a sound from the interior of the automobile since he started. They were sitting only a few feet away, but the whistling of the wind and the crunch of the wheels on the sanded road would have drowned out all slight noises, and they did not speak, nor did he look back.

He knew that they could see only a broad back in front of them and the m.u.f.fling coat and cap. He longed to say a word or two, but he deemed it wisest to wait yet a while. His full attention was concentrated upon the machine and the road and it was all the more necessary because the night was growing darker and the wind cut.

But his confidence was so high that he handled the automobile through all the dangers with a firm and sure hand. It sped on and on, climbing in a rapid series of circles up the side of the mountain. Behind him the gulf was filled with vapors and before him the clouds were growing darker on the crest, but he could yet trace the road, and it would not be long now until they reached the crest and the pine forest in which the hunting lodge stood.

He wondered what kind of man the forester Muller would prove to be. If he were suspicious, keenly alert, he might prevent their ultimate escape, but if he were merely a simple hunter John might make friends with him and use him for his purposes. Then his thoughts came quickly back to Julie. He believed that she had left the castle without resistance of any kind. She would be glad to escape from Zillenstein and Auersperg, no matter where that escape might take her.

Another half-hour and the crest was but a hundred yards or so away. How thankful he was now that he had put on extra speed despite the ascent and had driven the machine hard, because the road would soon be blotted from sight! Heavy flakes of snow had begun to fall and with the rising wind they were coming faster and faster.

He dimly made out a pine wood on his right, and, then, in the center of it the outline of a low building which he knew must be the hunting lodge. He slowed down the machine, took the last little curve, and stopped before the door of the lodge. But in that minute the snow had become a driving white storm.

He leaped out, knocked hard on the door of the lodge, and, no answer coming, threw himself heavily against it. It burst open, revealing only an interior of darkness, but he turned quickly back to the automobile, threw wide its door and beckoned with peremptory command to the two dark figures sitting within.

They stepped out, Julie first, and entered the lodge. John followed them, and there they stood, staring at one another until their eyes might grow used to the dusk and they could see their faces. It was evident that Muller was not anywhere in the building, or he would have come at the sound of the machine.

John glanced toward a window set deep in a heavy timbered wall and admitting enough light to disclose a lantern and a box of matches on a shelf. Still in his shrouding coat, cap and gla.s.ses he stepped forward, struck a match and lighted the lantern. Driven by a sudden impulse, he swept off the cap and gla.s.ses and held up the light.

He saw Julie's face turn deadly pale. Every particle of color was gone from it and her blue eyes stared at him as if he were one newly risen from the dead. Then the color flushed back in a rosy tide and such a tide of gladness as he had never seen before in human eyes came into hers.

"You! You! Is it really you?" she cried.

John was once more the knightly young crusader. No such moment had ever before come into his life. His heart was full. Triumph and joy were mingled there, and something over and beyond either. In that pa.s.sing flash he had read the light in her eyes, a light that he knew was only for him, but in the instant of supreme revelation he would take no advantage. The manner as well as the spirit of the young crusader was upon him.

He knelt before her and taking one of her gloved hands in his kissed it.

"Yes, dearest Julie," he said, "by some singular fortune or chance, or rather, I should call it, the will of G.o.d, I was chosen to bring you here, and I glory because I have fulfilled the trust."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'You! You! Is it really you?' she cried"]

Suzanne, tall and dark, stood looking down at them. Her grim features which relaxed so rarely relaxed now and her eyes were soft. The young stranger from beyond the seas had proved after all that he was a man among men, and no Frenchwoman could resist a romance so strong and true in the face of all that war could do.

John felt Julie's hand trembling in his, but she did not draw it away.

Her lashes were lowered a little now, but her gaze still rested upon him, soft yet confident and powerful. He had believed in her courage. He had believed that she would suffer no shock when she should see that he was the strange man who had been at the wheel, and his confidence was justified.

"And it was you who brought us up the mountain?" she said.

"The Prince of Auersperg himself chose me because I was a stranger and he did not wish anyone else in the castle to know where you were sent."