Felix, whose skin was always sallow, became livid; but nothing happened, and he s.n.a.t.c.hed the bomb from its dangerous resting place. Then he burst into a paroxysm of hysterical laughter which drowned for an instant a new hubbub in the street.
Alec, hastily examining his prize, found that three chambers were loaded. He was about to search for a crack in the door through which he could fire at least one telling shot, when his ear caught the prancing of horses on the paving stones.
Joan, thoroughly enlightened now as to their common peril, had behaved with admirable coolness since Alec implored her not to stir from the corner between door and window. She was sure they would all be killed, and her lips moved in fervent prayer that death might be merciful in its haste; but she was not afraid; that storm of tears had been succeeded by a spiritual exaltation that rescued her from any ign.o.ble panic. Yet her senses were strained to a tension far more exhausting than the display of emotion natural to one plunged without warning into the most horrible of the many horrors of civil war, and she had heard, long before the others, the onrush of cavalry and the stampede of the mob.
So, when her eyes met Alec"s, and she saw that questioning look in his face, she smiled at him with a radiant confidence that was astounding at such a moment.
"Heaven has been good to us, dear," she said. "Your soldiers are here.
Your enemies are running away. Listen! they are fighting now on the stairs. The unhappy men who raved for our lives will lose their own. Can nothing be done to save them?"
He ran to the window. Those leaden blasts that had swept the room from the first floors of the opposite houses had ceased, and not one potvaliant marksman of them all was to be seen; but the street was full of hussars, and directly beneath, mounted on an excited horse, Stampoff was giving furious orders which evidently demanded an energetic storming of the hotel entrance.
Alec threw open the window and leaned out. "Just in time, old friend!"
he cried.
Stampoff heard him and looked up. "G.o.d"s bones!" he roared. "Here is the King safe and sound. At them, my children! Dig them out with your sabers! Don"t leave a man alive!"
"Stop!" shouted Alec. "No more slaughter! I forbid it!"
Stampoff wheeled round on his charger and addressed the press of soldiers who had been unable to take any part in the street clearing, since the mob broke and fled when the first rank of plumed caps and flashing swords became visible.
"You hear, my children," he vociferated. "Don"t harm anybody who does not resist. The King"s commands must be obeyed."
Joan, of course, could only guess what was being said; but she could not fail to recognize the sounds of conflict on the stairs. Men are strangely akin to tigers when they see red, and the tiger"s roar when he pounces on a victim differs greatly from his own death scream. Alec, powerless to move Stampoff, who believed, rightly, as it transpired, that the ringleaders were foremost in the attack, turned to Beaumanoir.
"Release that fellow," he said. "If I am able to make my voice heard through the racket, I can put an end to this butchery."
Beaumanoir let go the arm, and a body fell on the other side of the door.
"You are too late, I hope," he said quietly. "My prisoner took the knock just before you spoke. I felt it run through him. He shook like a pony under the spur. And you"re wrong, you know. This gang must be cleared out." He peered through the broken panel. "It"s all over," he added. "No flowers, by request."
Felix was peering up at them with his bright crafty eyes. "Queer thing!"
he growled. "In my first honest fight I have been on the side of tyranny. If you young gentlemen will be good enough to remove the barricade and give orders to have the pa.s.sage cleared, I can go back to the cup of coffee I left in the restaurant. Meanwhile, Joan must be taken to her room. She is going to faint, and the Lord only knows what has become of her maid!"
Alec was at Joan"s side before Felix had made an end. "You will not break down now, sweetheart," he cried. "All danger is over, and, with G.o.d"s help, you will never witness such a scene in Delgratz again!"
"I feel tired," she sighed. "I know quite well I am safe, Alec. Somehow, I hardly thought you and I should die to-day. We have things to do in the world, you and I; but those horrid men frightened me by their shrieks. It must be awful to pa.s.s into the unknown--like that!"
She sighed again. To her strained vision Alec suddenly a.s.sumed the aspect of Henri Quatre"s gilded statue on the Pont Neuf. It did not seem to be in the least remarkable that the statue should leap from his horse and take her in his arms. She was absolutely happy and content. She felt she could rest there awhile in safety.
So, when the door was opened, the King experienced no difficulty in carrying Joan through a scene of bloodshed that would certainly never have been blotted from her mind had she remained conscious. Stampoff"s commands had been obeyed, and the place reeked of the shambles; but the girl was happily as heedless of its nightmare horrors as the thirty-one men who lay there dead or dying.
Alec bore her out into the street. The sight of him was greeted by a sustained cheer from the troops and the loyal citizens who were now threatening a riot of curiosity and alarm, since the news had gone round that the King was being done to death by a rebellious soldiery in the Furst Michaelstra.s.se, and Delgratz was hurrying to the rescue.
Joan, revived a little by the fresh air and bewildered by the shouting throng that pressed around the King, opened her eyes. "Where am I?" she whispered, delightfully ignorant of the fact that she was nestling in Alec"s arms under the gaze of many hundreds of his subjects.
"I am sending you to my mother, dear," he replied. "Felix and your maid will be here in a moment, and they will take you to her in a carriage.
You cannot remain at the hotel, and you will be well cared for in Monsieur Nesimir"s house."
"Are you coming, Alec?" she asked, scanning his face like a timid child.
"Soon, quite soon."
"Then I am content," she said, and the cloud descended again for a brief s.p.a.ce.
Pauline, unfortunately, happened to be in the kitchen when the fray began. She was nearly incoherent with fright; but Felix managed to rea.s.sure her, and piloted her skilfully out of the hotel by an exit that concealed the gruesome staircase.
The glittering escort of soldiers surrounding the carriage pressed into the King"s service served to complete the illusion insisted on by Poluski, and Pauline rejoined her mistress, firm in the conviction that the tumult was an outlandish Serbian method of merrymaking.
Alec, having seen the carriage started on its short journey, approached Stampoff and wrung his hand. "It was a near thing, General," he said.
"Five minutes later and we should have been in another world."
He spoke in French, and Beaumanoir heard him.
"Not a bit of it," said he. "That anarchist johnny carries about with him the finest a.s.sortment of bombs.--By the way, where is the bally thing? I"ll swear I put it in my pocket when I grabbed that joker through the door."
His hurried search was not rewarded, and Alec, scarcely understanding him, asked Stampoff who had given the alarm.
"Bosko, of course. He came tearing up to the War Office like a madman.
Had any other brought the same message I really should not have believed it."
"Then you heard nothing of a waiter from this hotel, a waiter named Sobieski?"
"Nothing, your Majesty. Bosko was undoubtedly the first to arrive with the news, and all was quiet at the President"s as I rode past. I noted that especially. By the way, Prince Michael is here; came this morning, I am told. The Princess accompanied him. Does your Majesty intend going to them at once? I have already sent an orderly to announce your safety."
Alec looked at his watch. "Five minutes past four," he said. "No, General, I am due at the university. I like to be punctual; but this slight delay was unavoidable. I shall see you at dinner to-night, and I suppose you will clear the city of these idiots of the Seventh Regiment before sunset. By the way, a word before we part. You saw the lady whom I brought from the hotel and placed in the carriage?"
"Saw her, your Majesty? Judas! Thirty years ago I should have striven to rescue her myself."
"It was she who rescued me, General, she and the little humpbacked man.
Exactly how they managed it I do not know as yet; but to-night you shall hear the whole story. At present, it is enough that you should be told the one really important fact. She is my promised wife."
With a smile and a farewell hand-wave, Alec mounted a troop horse and rode away with Beaumanoir in the direction of the university.
Stampoff looked after him with an expression of utmost dismay on his weatherbeaten face. "G.o.ds!" he muttered. "A wife, and a pretty foreigner too, that is a bird of another color! What will Prince and Princess Delgrado say now, I wonder? What will Kosnovia say, when it is in every man"s mind that you should marry a Serb? And what mad prank of fortune sent her here to-day? By thunder! I thought things were quieting down in Delgratz; but I was wrong--they are just beginning to wake up!"
CHAPTER IX
MUTTERINGS OF STORM
Before Joan"s carriage had traveled a hundred yards it was halted by a loud command. An officer, galloping at the head of a detachment of cavalry, sought news of the King, and an escorted vehicle coming from the upper end of Furst Michaelstra.s.se promised developments. Joan was startled back into consciousness by the sudden stoppage. The excited babble going on without was incomprehensible and therefore alarming, nor did the polite a.s.surances of the officer, as he bent in the saddle and peered in at the window while he aired his best French, serve to still this fresh tumult in her veins.
"What is he saying?" she asked Felix, turning her frightened eyes from the urbane personage on horseback to Poluski"s intent face.
"He was sent to rescue the King," was the explanation. "He says the bodyguard received warning less than two minutes ago."