"Too bad!" he laughed. "You promised me a minute, Felix!"
Beaumanoir came in, diffident for once in his life, since none knew so well as he how dear to his friend was the blushing and embarra.s.sed girl whom he now met for the first time.
"Sorry, old chap," he said; "but this other johnny will have it that somebody is thirsting for your gore."
Poluski, all trembling with excitement, slammed and locked the door and pointed to a heavy sideboard. "Drag it here!" he shrieked in a high falsetto. "The street is crammed with men belonging to the Seventh Regiment, and they have a short way with Kings they don"t like. The instant they see how they have been tricked they will be after you like a pack of wolves. I have sent a messenger for help. I dared not use one of your orderlies, because that would have given the game away. While the men sit their horses out there the mutineers may believe you will soon reappear. Nevertheless, block the doorway with all the furniture.
We must gain ten minutes at least, or it may be twenty."
[Ill.u.s.tration: Beaumanoir and Felix fortified the position Page 155]
Joan was the first to credit him. She ran to the window. "Oh, Alec, it is true!" she cried. "I was watching the crowd before you came, and it looks quite different now. Hundreds of men have gathered, and they are armed with knives and pistols. Something has made them angry, and the two soldiers are becoming alarmed. Oh, my dear, my dear! misfortune and I have come to you hand in hand!"
"It seems to me that you and Felix have saved my life," said Alec quietly. "Now, Beaumanoir, you and I must fortify the position. Joan, stand with your back to the wall between the windows. Felix, watch the houses opposite, and don"t let the enemy take us in flank without warning. Thank goodness for an oak sideboard and a heavy table! Are you ready, Berty? Heave away, then! We shall occupy a box in the front row when Stampoff arrives with his hussars! By Jove! what a day! Twelve hours in that scorching sun and Joan waiting here all the time! Well, wonders will never cease! I wish we had one of those live sh.e.l.ls we were experimenting with this morning. It would come in handy when the first panel gives way."
CHAPTER VIII
SHOWING HOW THE KING KEPT HIS APPOINTMENT
Joan"s eyes could not leave Alec. She followed each movement of his lithe, strongly knit frame as he and Beaumanoir hauled the heavy pieces of furniture into position behind the door. She was not fully alive as yet to the real menace of the gesticulating mob surging in the street beneath, and her thoughts ran riot in the newly discovered paradise of being loved and in love.
For Alec had asked no questions, listened to no explanations. When he entered the room, he found her, half turned from the window, conscious that he was near, though trying to persuade her throbbing heart that Felix would not depart from an implied promise by sending him to her without warning. She strove to utter some words of greeting. Before she could speak, Alec"s arms were around her, and he was kissing her lips, her forehead, her hair. She saw him as through a mist. Her first fleeting impression was that he had become older, sterner, more commanding. Kingship had set its seal on him. A short month of power had stamped lines on his face that would never vanish. But that sense of imperiousness was quickly dispelled by the enchantment of her presence.
Somehow, almost without spoken word, he brought the thrilling conviction that he was hungering for her. The light in his eyes, the overwhelming ardor of his embrace, the magnetic force that leaped the intervening s.p.a.ce while yet they were separated by half the length of the room,--these things bewildered, charmed, subdued her wholly, and she kindled under them ere her brain could summon to aid the feeblest of remonstrances.
She abandoned the nebulous idea of protest when she found that she in turn was clinging to him, giving kiss for kiss with a delirious intensity that refused to be denied. Nevertheless, the sheer joy of her emotions frightened her, and she was endeavoring to subdue its too sensuous expression when Beaumanoir opened the door, to close it again hurriedly. She recovered her faculties slowly. She was still quivering under the stress of that moment of ineffable delight, and her brown eyes sparkled with the glow of a soul on fire, and she was brought back to earth only by the knowledge that Felix, standing at his post near a window, was on the verge of collapse.
The sideboard contained a flask of brandy, which Pauline had insisted on stowing in a dressing bag in case of illness. Joan, glad of the pretext to do some commonplace thing, thankful for the mere utterance of commonplace words, called for help.
"Please remove the table for an instant," she cried. "Felix is ill, and I want to get at some cognac that is in the cellarette."
"Ill! He was lively enough in the street a minute ago, singing like a thrush," said Alec cheerily, though he did not fail to pull the table clear of the cupboard. "What is it, my Humming Bee?" he demanded, turning to Poluski. "Is it a surfeit of excitement, or late hours, or what?"
"I am yielding to the unusual, my King," crackled the Pole"s voice thinly. "During three whole days I have done naught but think, and that would incommode an elephant, leave alone a rat like me."
"Rat, indeed! When we are all out of this trap, Felix, you must tell me what caused your alarming exercise of brain power. Already you have bothered me to guess how you fathomed the pretty scheme you are now upsetting."
"There, dear Felix, drink that, and you will soon feel strong again,"
put in Joan.
"Ha, dear Felix, am I? I expected to be called anything but that after breaking my word so disgracefully!"
"You are forgiven," said she with a tender smile at Alec.
Beaumanoir, discreetly peeping through the window over Poluski"s shoulder, saw something that perplexed him.
"I say, Alec," he exclaimed, "I thought you told me that Stampoff"s man Bosko was a thoroughly reliable sort of chap."
"I have always found him so."
"Well, just at present he looks jolly like a deserter. He is making a speech to the mob and tearing off his uniform obligato. The other joker is scared to death."
"Bosko making a speech! Why, he never says anything but "_Oui, monsieur_," or "_Non, monsieur_," which is all the French he knows.
Well, this is a day of wonders, anyhow."
Neglecting the precautions he had insisted on a minute earlier, Alec himself went to the window and drew Joan with him. There were two other windows in the room; but the four cl.u.s.tered in the one deep recess, for the thick walls of this old building were meant to defy extremes of heat and cold. By this time one of the two orderlies had dismounted and was stamping on his smart cavalry jacket and plumed shako, thus announcing by eloquent pantomime, that he was discarding forever the livery of a tyrant.
The mob in the street was now swollen to unrecognizable dimensions, and Alec"s charger, which Bosko was holding, resented the uproar by lashing out viciously with his heels. A man who had narrowly escaped being kicked drew a revolver, fired, and the spirited Arab fell with a bullet in its brain. The dastardly act was cheered; for the Seventh Regiment remembered that this same white horse had stumbled and thrown King Theodore on the day of his murder.
"Oh, the coward, the hateful coward!" wailed Joan, and two of the men muttered expressions of opinion that must be pa.s.sed over in silence.
But Felix happened to be watching Bosko, and noted the black rage that convulsed his face when the Arab dropped dead at his feet. The Albanian"s feelings mastered him only for an instant.
He began at once to harangue the crowd again, evidently offering to lead his own horse out of harm"s way, and loudly bidding his frightened comrade to do likewise.
A path was being cleared when some one looked up at the window, and a fierce yell proclaimed the King"s presence. Bosko was forgotten. Sight of their quarry had frenzied the pack.
"Down everyone!" cried Alec, bending double and dragging Joan with him.
Several panes of gla.s.s were starred with little round holes, mortar fell from the ceiling, and the crackle of shots below showed that revolvers were popular in Delgratz. But Felix had seen enough to set his shrewd wits working.
"That man of yours--is Bosko his name?--is no fool," said he, when they had crept from the gla.s.s strewn area into the shelter of the stout wall.
"He is gulling your beloved subjects, Alec. He realizes that trouble is brewing, and he means to steal off and bring help. Fortunately, my brave Sobieski will be at the President"s house by this time, and your guards may arrive before those cutthroats in the street decide to storm the hotel."
"Sobieski--who is he?" asked Alec.
"A waiter in the restaurant. I have pledged you to buy him a cafe in Warsaw if the troops come speedily."
"Make it a brewery, Alec," said Beaumanoir; "these bounders mean business."
A constant fusillade of bullets was now tearing the windows to atoms, and shattering the ceiling on the other side of the room. Lord Adalbert was justified in offering liberal terms for relief.
The King, standing with one arm thrown round Joan"s shoulders, felt the tremors she strove vainly to repress. "Don"t be afraid, sweetheart. They cannot reach us here," he said. "I have one unknown protector, it seems, and I feel sure that Felix is right about Bosko. The only drawback is that our friendly waiter may find some difficulty in persuading the officers on duty at Monsieur Nesimir"s house that we are in danger. We must risk that."
"Oh, to safeguard against delay, I told him to ask for the Prince," said Felix.
"What Prince?"
"Your father, of course. Ha! Name of a good little gray man! You don"t know that Prince Michael and your mother are in Delgratz."
"Mark c.o.c.k!" cried Beaumanoir, as a bullet flew breast high across the room and imbedded itself in the inner wall. The heroes of the Seventh Regiment were firing from the upper floors of the houses opposite.
Alec did not seem to heed. The look of blank amazement on his face proved that he had ridden straight from the review ground to the university, whereas a call at the President"s house would have enlightened him.
"It is true, dear," whispered Joan. "They came with us from Paris; in the same train, that is. We all arrived at Delgratz this morning. Your mother spoke to me on the platform at Vienna."