Kitabı oku: «Long Live the King!», sayfa 3
CHAPTER III
I have described the ignominious fashion in which our family, led by the giant innkeeper, made its way through the hole in the cliff, and thus escaped the soldiers, who otherwise would certainly have arrested us. As soon as Gabriel, my father's valet, who was the last of our party to enter, had disappeared, the innkeeper's son, who remained outside, once more covered the aperture with brushwood, thus effectually concealing its existence. Provided the soldiers did not become aware of our subterranean hiding-place as they were scarcely likely to do, we had every right to consider ourselves safe, at least for the time being.
Much to our relief the small tunnel through which it was necessary for us to crawl was only a few feet in length; for this reason we seemed scarcely to have entered it before our guide informed us that we might resume an upright position. He then struck a match, and its light enabled us to see that we were standing in a large cave, the walls of which streamed with moisture. Taking a torch, made of some resinous wood, from a small box covered with a sack, he fired it and turned to us again.
"It is for your Majesty to say what you will do now," he observed, addressing my father. "Do you prefer to wait until the soldiers have gone, and then return to the inn, or will you permit me to guide you across the mountains to the Border by a track which is difficult but safe, and which will shorten the distance by nearly one half? I await your Majesty's orders!"
The King turned to my mother as if for her opinion. Her mind was soon made up.
"Let us endeavour to reach the Border by all means," she answered. "There is nothing to be gained by returning to the inn, and there is always the risk of the soldiers finding us there. The sooner we are under the protection of King George, the better for us all."
"So be it," my father replied, with his usual equanimity. Then, turning to the innkeeper, he added, with what must have been a touch of his old sarcasm, "If it will not be troubling you too much to conduct us to the Border, we will do our best to follow you."
The man bowed, and having advised us to step carefully, led the way to the back of the cave. Hitherto it had looked as if we were standing in a chamber to which the tunnel was the only entrance. This was not the case, however. In the further corner, hidden by a projecting rock, was a narrow passage, perhaps seven feet high by three in width. Whether it had been cut by the hand of man, or whether it was the work of Nature, I cannot say. In either case it enabled us to escape from what promised to be a most embarrassing situation, for had the troops caught us, I tremble to think what our fate must have been. Enraged as the populace were by our departure from the Capital, and flushed with their recent triumphs, it is difficult to say to what extremes they might have resorted.
Leaving the cave, we climbed the narrow passage in single file, the landlord leading the way, Gabriel bringing up the rear. Sometimes in my dreams I climb that passage now, see the streaming walls, feel the rough stones under my feet, and hear my mother's voice bidding me step carefully. From what I can remember of it now, the path must have sloped upwards very gradually. It was long, and certainly difficult. As the innkeeper, with a desire for explanation that unconsciously attained a fine height in the realms of irony, confessed to my father afterwards, it had been used in bygone days by smugglers, who were in the habit of bringing their booty across the border by the self-same track we were to follow that night. Having reached the western slope of the mountains, they carried it down by the passage to the cave below, whence it was despatched to its destination by different hands. It is possible that our guide had himself participated in this amusement; if he had, however, he did not commit himself. Once on the road my father gave him a home thrust:
"You seem to know the road extremely well, my friend," he said. "Doubtless you have carried many a valuable cargo over it with your friends. I fancy, however, this must be the first time you have convoyed a king."
The man looked sheepish.
"Well, well," continued my father, noticing his confusion, "if you have defrauded the king, you have at least made up for it by giving him his life. Since the bargain would strike you as a fair one, we will cry quits."
It was noticeable, as we approached the end of the passage, that the incline was not so steep. Indeed, at the mouth it was almost level walking. A moment later the guide put out his torch by knocking it against the wall, and as he did so, the daylight poured in upon us. We had reached the end of our underground journey. Outside, the world was covered with snow, and the air that blew in through the passage was bitterly cold.
"Would your Majesties care to rest awhile, or shall we push on?" inquired the innkeeper, after he had inspected the sky.
"Let us go on by all means," my mother replied. "How far shall we have to travel to reach the Border?"
"Fully thirty miles," the man answered. "It is about twenty from here as the crow flies. There is a hut half-way in which we can spend the night. If we are to reach it before dark, however, we must step out."
We accordingly rose and prepared for our long tramp. It was a terrible undertaking for most of our party. My mother and her maid were by no means strong; my father had lived a recluse's life for so many years that he was ill-fitted for so much exertion; Max and I were children, while Gabriel was a man who had led a decidedly easy life, and was by no means accustomed to outdoor exercise. Our minds having been made up for us by our mother, we left the passage and set out. The mountains, covered with their white mantle, looked very beautiful, but the silence was awesome in the extreme. Not a sound save the crunching of the snow under our feet fell upon the ear. All things considered, it was far from being a joyous procession. The remembrance of what we had before us, and the recollection of what we had already passed through, weighed upon us like lead. As a matter of fact, we had not proceeded more than a mile before I was quite exhausted. Seeing this, the innkeeper waited until I approached him, then took me up and carried me, sometimes in his arms, sometimes on his shoulder, for the remainder of the journey.
The sun had fallen and day was drawing to its close when we saw ahead of us the hut in which we were destined to spend the night. It was a tiny place, built of wood, and of the roughest possible description. Poor as it was, however, our hearts were gladdened by the sight of it, and on its appearance the others unconsciously hastened their steps. With the approach of night the cold had increased a hundredfold, and a heavy fall of snow seemed imminent. My mother and her maid could scarcely draw their feet along, and the remainder of our party were in almost as bad a case. For my own part, I believe I must have fallen asleep in our guide's arms, for I have but the faintest recollection of what occurred during the latter portion of the march. But we reached the hut at last, and, for the time being at least, were able to consider our troubles at an end. In such a place we were scarcely likely to be disturbed. Unfastening the door of the hut, the man threw it open and invited us to enter.
I am often tempted to wonder whether in the history of the Nineteenth Century, when it comes to be written, it will be possible to find a parallel in the record of any single royal family for that strange evening's lodgings. For my own part, I know that whenever my mother's description of it occurs to me, I am compelled to a feeling of wonderment that she should not only be able to recall it with so much equanimity, but that she should have come through it at all. As I have said, dusk had fallen before we reached the hut.
As we entered it and closed the door behind us, the wind rose, and a long gust whistled drearily round the building as if loth to let us escape so easily. The snow was piled high against the walls, so that at a distance the hut must have resembled a white heap rather than a human dwelling. Fortunately for our comfort, however, the last occupant of the hut had accumulated a good supply of fuel, and this being so it was not long before the innkeeper and Gabriel had a large fire blazing on the hearth. Provisions were next obtained from some mysterious hiding-place, and then might have been seen, had there been any stranger there to witness it, the curious spectacle of the King and Queen of Pannonia, their children, and their faithful adherents, sitting before the cheerful blaze munching black bread with its accompaniment of goat's milk cheese. After that I must have become drowsy, for I remember resting my head upon my mother's arm, watching the sparks hop from the logs, and listening to the moaning of the wind outside.
I can recollect nothing else, however, until I was awakened by a loud knocking at the door. "Who can it be?" was the question that each one asked of him or her self. Had the soldiers discovered our whereabouts? Were we destined to be captured after all? My father, who had his place on the further side of the hearth, had risen, and was watching the innkeeper, who had approached the door, while my mother placed her arm round me as if she were prepared to protect me to the last gasp. Once more the knocking sounded, and the innkeeper turned to my father for instructions.
"Open it," said the latter with a nod. "If they want us they must have us, so we may as well make a virtue of necessity."
The other obeyed, and a moment later a blast of cold air entered, bringing with it a quantity of snow that melted as soon as it touched the floor. Outside, within the range of firelight, stood three men, each of whom, it was to be observed, carried upon his back a pack of curious shape. That they were not soldiers was happily apparent. The luck which had stood by us so far was once more triumphant. The innkeeper must have recognised the new arrivals, for, uttering a cry of surprise, he threw his cloak round his shoulders and went out to them, closing the door behind him. He was absent some ten minutes. When he returned he approached my father and informed him, with a candour quite in keeping with his character, that the men were three of the band of smugglers of whom he had spoken to us that afternoon. The hut was their property, and it was they who kept it stocked and provisioned.
"But the point is what they intend doing with us?" said my father. "Surely they do not wish to turn us out? And there seems scarcely room for us all."
"They have no thought of turning your Majesties out," the other replied. "All they desire is to be permitted to share the hut with you to-night. They have come far to-day and are weary."
"If that is all, let them enter by all means. It would be hard indeed if we were to keep them out of their rightful property." Then turning to my mother, he continued, "It is only consistent with the topsy-turvey state of things at present existing, that a king and those who are defrauding him of his revenues should spend the night together. I wonder what von Marquart would say if he could see us now?"
He had scarcely finished speaking before the three men, whose arrival had caused us so much anxiety, entered the hut, the last of the three closing the door carefully behind him. Needless to say we eyed them critically. And indeed they were a singular trio. Two were enormous men, so tall indeed that, when they stood upright, their heads came within a few inches of the roof. The third, the leader and their spokesman, was built on different lines; in other words, he was as small as his companions were large; as talkative as they were taciturn. He was the possessor of an enormous head, which was quite out of proportion to his body; and his face, which was without hirsute adornment of any sort or description, derived an added comicality from the fact that his left eye was partially closed, giving it the appearance of a perpetual wink. When they had deposited their burdens in a corner of the hut, they turned and saluted my father and mother.
"Welcome, my friends," said my father, who could be graciousness itself when he pleased. "You have chosen a rough night for travelling. Approach the fire and warm yourselves."
In response to his invitation, the men drew a step or two nearer the blaze, but no persuasion could induce them to come further. Their leader had not given them the signal, and they were not accustomed to act on their own initiative. Consequently, they took up their positions on blocks of wood at the back of the hut, and sitting there stared at us with a solemnity that at any other time would have been laughable in the extreme. It was in vain that my father sought to lure them into conversation. They answered him, it is true, but in so few words as possible. They had been engaged in this illicit traffic all their lives, and, as they protested, and we could believe, made but little out of it. The risks were great, the hardships never ceasing, dangers surrounded them on every hand, and yet they braved them for a reward which they could have doubled had they confined their energies to the humbler tranquility of trade. They were brothers, and their father had been in the business before them, a fact which they regarded as a good and sufficient reason that they should continue the enterprise after he had ceased to participate in it.
Suddenly the small man turned and whispered something to his companion. The idea, whatever it was, seemed to give him considerable satisfaction, for he nodded his head approvingly. Still true to his rôle of leader, the smaller rose and went to the corner where their illicit merchandise was stored. Having broached one of the kegs he poured from it a cup of spirit for the refreshment of the party. It was offered first to my mother, who refused it. Then to my father, who took a sip and passed it on; the others drinking in their turn. From that moment matters improved a little, and a desultory conversation followed, my father and the little man doing most of the talking, the others throwing in occasional remarks, like the firing of minute guns at sea. Thus the night wore on.
At length the pauses in the conversation grew longer and more frequent. The sound of breathing resounded through the hut, until only my mother remained awake, thinking her own thoughts, which, it may be supposed, were far from being of the most pleasant description. Poor Queen, though she lived for many years after our flight, she never fully recovered from the shock of that dreadful time. The recollection of those days remained a nightmare to her until the end, and it may be remembered that in her last delirium she fancied herself back in the hut with her children crouching by her side.
As soon as it was light next morning we ate a hasty meal, and then prepared to continue our journey. It was a white world that we looked upon when we opened the door. Fortunately, snow was no longer falling, but it had been doing so all night, and every sign of the path by which we had approached the hut had entirely disappeared. A consultation had taken place earlier between the innkeeper and the smugglers, the result of which was an offer on their part to assist in the work of conducting us to the frontier, which, needless to say, was only too gladly accepted. Accordingly, as soon as day was sufficiently advanced, we bade the hut good-bye and set out on the last stage of our momentous journey. A strong breeze was still blowing across the snow, and, as we were soon to discover, it cut like a knife. When we had decided upon the route, the little man went on ahead, in order, so he explained, to spy out the country, and to make sure that we did not fall into a trap. As on the previous afternoon, the big innkeeper carried me, and one of the smugglers did the same at intervals for Max, while the other helped my mother and her woman whenever the path became more difficult than usual. It was perhaps as well that we had their assistance, for, as we soon found, the road we were following, if road it can be called, was far from being an easy one. For the first few miles it lay along the mountain side, then by a long and gradual descent to the valley below. For the women of our party it proved even more trying than that of the previous day, but, with the assistance of the guides, it was in the end safely accomplished, and we stood upon the plain, only a matter of ten or a dozen miles from safety. Even that short distance, however, contained a sufficiency of dangers. On one occasion we were within an ace of stumbling upon a camp of gipsies, on another we discovered that we were being followed by three men, whose intentions could scarcely have been conducive to the end we had in view. It was within half a mile of the Border, however, and just when we were beginning to deem ourselves safe, that we received the greatest shock. We had left the fields behind us and had entered a small wood, when the little man, who, as usual, was leading the way, suddenly stopped, and held up his hand to the others not to advance. Then he crept forward to discover, if possible, of what the danger consisted. He was absent for upwards of five minutes, and when he returned it was with a solemn face.
"Soldiers!" he whispered; "they are resting on the far side of the wood."
"There are at least a dozen of them," he replied in answer to a question of my father's. "They are eating a meal. They have not unsaddled, so that they will go on when they have rested."
Comforting as this last assurance was, we dared not place too much reliance on it. If the men were really searching for us, as we felt sure they were, it was more than likely that they would make an examination of the wood before leaving it. In that case we could scarcely fail to be captured. My father pointed this out to the innkeeper, who he still regarded as the leader of the party.
"We must hope for the best, your Majesty," that stalwart individual replied. "They have not caught us yet."
I can recall the whole scene now – the white trees, the snow-covered ground, and the anxious faces of our party, as we clustered together in the most sheltered spot we could find. While we were deliberating, snow once more began to fall in heavy flakes. It was the only touch that was wanting to complete our misery, and I heard my mother give a heavy sigh as if her endurance were giving way under the strain placed upon it.
"Go back again," said my father to the little man, "and watch them closely. As soon as they have finished their meal and you are in a position to divine their intentions, return and tell us, in order that we may know how to act."
The man slipped away in the same noiseless fashion as before, and once more we settled ourselves down to wait. The snow was falling thicker and faster every minute, and before the man had been absent ten minutes his footmarks were completely hidden. Of all the trials to which we were subjected during those three terrible days, I fancy that time of waiting was the worst. We were cold, tired, hungry, and in immediate danger. Small wonder, therefore, that everything seemed hopeless to us. Years afterwards, when I spoke of it to my mother, she confessed that, at the time, she did not expect to cross the Border alive. Hitherto, she had borne up as bravely as any woman could do; now, however, her fortitude gave way. To me it was all one long bewilderment. Accustomed as I was to be treated as a king's son, used to all the luxuries that rank and wealth could bestow, I could only imperfectly realise the change in our position. The guard turned out and saluted me when I entered the palace gates, my name was even associated with one of the crack regiments – Prince Paul's Own Hussars. How was it then, I asked myself, that the self-same troops were engaged in hunting instead of protecting us? It was a riddle I could not answer, try how I would, and my mother's explanation, that it was because they hated her, served to intensify rather than to dispel my bewilderment. I was about to interrogate Max, on whose wisdom I was accustomed to rely, on the subject, when we were suddenly called to action. Running as fast as his short legs could carry him, the little man burst upon our group with the alarming intelligence that the soldiers were about to search the wood. Though we had been expecting it, and were even waiting for it, the news came upon us like a thunder clap.
"What can we do to escape them?" cried my mother, wringing her hands in an agony of terror. Then turning to my father she continued: "Whatever happens they must not take the children. Save them at any hazard."
Even in that moment of danger she gave no thought to herself. It will always remain my firm conviction that she would have yielded up her own life joyfully, if by so doing she could have been sure of saving ours.
"There is nothing for it but for us to hide in the trees and take our chance," began my father, for once coming forward with a suggestion. "If we are perfectly quiet and the snow covers our tracks, it is just possible that they may not become aware of our presence."
In order that you may understand the value of the idea, it should be explained that the trees of which the wood was composed were a species of pine – I cannot recall their botanical name – with long, low branches that stretched out and touched the ground on every side. It was within the bounds of possibility that if we scrambled in among the snow-laden boughs and crouched down, our presence might not be observed, but it was a very slender chance upon which to trust our lives. However, within a few seconds of the man's sounding the alarm, we were all stowed away out of sight. I scrambled into a tree with my mother and Max; my father, Gabriel, and my mother's woman were hidden in another; while the remainder of the party distributed themselves as best they could. Then followed another interval of suspense, during which we expected to hear every moment the tramp of the soldiers' chargers on the snow, and to find a lance come driving into the tree to turn us out. With anxious eyes we watched the tell-tale footmarks on the ground, knowing that upon them our lives depended. Heaven be thanked, however, the snow was falling fast, and every second's delay meant a greater chance of safety. A quarter of an hour went by and still the troopers did not come. The delay was difficult to account for. Had the man made a mistake when he had said that he had seen them preparing to search the wood? I had turned my face up to my mother's and was about to address a remark to her on the subject, when a look of terror flashed into her face, and she had clapped her hand upon my mouth to prevent me from speaking. It was well that she did, for, looking through the branches, I saw coming towards us, and not a dozen paces distant, a stalwart cavalryman, mounted upon a bay horse. He was covered by a heavy cloak and had a bundle of hay tied behind his saddle. As he rode toward the tree in which we lay hidden, he hummed a song, the words of which we could plainly distinguish. That he noticed nothing unusual about the ground, and that he was not troubling himself very much on our account, was as plain as his appearance there. At any rate, he passed us without becoming aware how close we were to him. A moment later we heard him call to his companion to know if he had discovered anything.
"I've got the ague, I believe," the other answered. "That's all I've found. I wish his Majesty had discovered it instead of me."
"He's worse off than you are, I'll be bound," returned the first speaker with a considerable amount of truth. "For my part, I wouldn't change places with him."
Then the voice of the officer in command interrupted them. Five minutes later they had left the wood and were on their way along the road upon the other side. We were saved! But it was some time before we recovered from our fright.
An hour later we crossed the Border, and in less than two hours we had placed ourselves under the protection of King George of Gota. Our leave-taking of the brave innkeeper and his equally brave friends the smugglers was of an affecting description. For once my father dropped his cynicism and spoke his mind direct. My mother added her thanks to his, and distributed her rings among the men in token of the gratitude she felt for the service they had rendered us. If we had no other friends in Pannonia we had at least four upon whom we knew we might depend.
