It is a good three hours" ride to the summit of Monastery Mountain. And, after the height has been attained, one does not care to linger long among the chilly, whistling crags, with their snow-creva.s.ses and bitter winds; the utter loneliness, the aloofness of this frost-crowned crest appals, disheartens one who loves the fair, green things of life. In the shelter of the crags, at the base of the Monastery walls, looking out over the sunlit valley, one has his luncheon and his snack of spirits quite undisturbed, for the monks pay no heed to him. They are not hospitable, neither are they unfriendly. One seldom sees them.
Truxton King and Mr. Hobbs were not long in disposing of their lunch. It was too cold for comfort in their draughty dining-room, and they were not invited to enter the inhospitable gates. In half an hour they were wending their way down the north side of the peak by gradually declining roads, headed for the much-talked-of home of the Witch in Ganlook Gap, some six miles from Edelweiss as the crow flies, but twice that distance over the tortuous bridle paths and post roads.
It was three o"clock when they clattered down the stone road and up to the forbidding vale in which lurked, like an evil, guilty thing, the log-built home of that ancient female who made no secret of her practices in witchcraft. The hut stood back from the mountain road a hundred yards or more, at the head of a small, thicket-grown recess.
A low, thatched roof protruded from the hill against which the hut was built. As a matter of fact, a thin chimney grew out of the earth itself, for all the world like a smoking tree stump. The hovel was a squalid, beggary thing that might have been built over night somewhere back in the dark ages. Its single door was so low that one was obliged to stoop to enter the little room where the dame had been holding forth for three-score years, "twas said. This was her throne-room, her dining-room, her bed-chamber, her all, it would seem, unless one had been there before and knew that her kitchen was beyond, in the side of the hill. The one window, sans gla.s.s, looked narrowly out upon an odd opening in the foliage below, giving the occupant of the hut an un.o.bstructed view of the winding road that led up from Edelweiss. The door faced the Monastery road down which the two men had just ridden. As for the door yard, it was no more than a pebbly, avalanche-swept opening among the trees and rocks, down which in the glacial age perhaps a thousand torrents had leaped, but which was now so dry and white and lifeless that one could only think of bones bleached and polished by a sun that had sickened of the work a thousand years ago.
This brief, inadequate description of the Witch"s hut is given in advance of the actual descent of the personally conducted gentleman for the somewhat ambiguous reason that he was to find it not at all as described.
The two hors.e.m.e.n rode into the glen and came plump upon a small detachment of the royal guard, mounted and rather resolute in their lack of amiability.
"Wot"s this?" gasped Mr. Hobbs, drawing rein at the edge of the pebbly dooryard.
"Soldiers, I"d say," remarked Mr. King, scowling quite glumly from beneath the rim of his panama. "h.e.l.lo!" His eyes brightened and his hat came off with a switch. "There"s the Prince!"
"My word," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mr. Hobbs, and forthwith began to ransack his pockets for the band which said he was from Cook"s.
Farther up the glen, in fact at the very door of the Witch"s hut, were gathered a small but rather distinguished portion of the royal household. It was not difficult to recognise the little Prince. He was standing beside John Tullis; and it is not with a desire to speak ill of his valour that we add: he was clutching the slackest part of that gentleman"s riding breeks with an earnestness that betrayed extreme trepidation. Facing them, on the stone door-step, was the Witch herself, a figure to try the courage of a time-tried hero, let alone the susceptibilities of a small boy in knickers. Behind Tullis and the Prince were several ladies and gentlemen, all in riding garments and all more or less ill at ease.
Truxton King"s heart swelled suddenly; all the world grew bright again for him. Next to the tall figure of Colonel Quinnox, of the Royal Guard, was the slim, entrancing lady of his most recent dreams--the Prince"s aunt! The lady of the grotto! The lady of the goldfish conspiracy!
The Countess Marlanx, tall and exquisite, was a little apart from the others, with Baron Dangloss and young Count Vos Engo--whom Truxton was ready to hate because he was a recognised suitor for the hand of the slim, young person in grey. He thought he had liked her beyond increase in the rajah silk, but now he confessed to himself that he was mistaken.
He liked her better in a grey riding habit. It struck him sharply, as he sat there in the saddle, that she would be absolutely and adorably faultless in point lace or calico, in silk or gingham, low-neck or high.
He was for riding boldly up to this little group, but a very objectionable lieutenant barred the way, supported in no small measure by the defection of Mr. Hobbs, who announced in a hoa.r.s.e, agitated whisper that he"s "be "anged if he"d let any man make a fool of him twice over."
The way was made easy by the intervention of the alert young woman in grey. She caught sight of the restricted adventurers--or one of them, to be quite accurate--and, after speeding a swift smile of astonishment, turned quickly to Prince Bobby.
A moment later, the tall stranger with the sun-browned face was the centre of interest to the small group at the door. He bowed amiably to the smiling young person in grey and received a quick nod in response.
As he was adventuring what he considered to be a proper salute for the Prince, he observed that a few words pa.s.sed between the lad"s aunt and John Tullis, who was now surveying him with some interest.
The Prince broke the ice.
"h.e.l.lo!" he cried shrilly, his little face aglow.
"h.e.l.lo!" responded the gentleman, readily.
John Tullis found himself being dragged away from the Witch"s door toward the newcomer at the bottom of the glen. Mr. Hobbs listened with deepening awe to the friendly conversation which resulted in Truxton King going forward to join the party in front of the hut. He came along in the rear, after having tethered the tired horses, not quite sure that he was awake. The Prince had called him Mr. Cook, had asked him how his Sons were, all of which was highly gratifying when one pauses to consider that he had got his cap band on upside down in his excitement.
He always was to wonder how the little monarch succeeded in reading the t.i.tle without standing on his head to do so.
Truxton was duly presented to the ladies and gentlemen of the party by John Tullis, who gracefully announced that he knew King"s parents in New York. Baron Dangloss was quite an old friend, if one were to judge by the manner in which he greeted the young man. The lady in grey smiled so sweetly and nodded so blithely, that Tullis, instead of presenting King to her as he had done to the Countess Marlanx and others, merely said:
"And you know one another, of course." Whereupon she flushed very prettily and felt constrained to avoid Truxton"s look of inquiry. He did not lose his wits, but vowed acquiescence and a.s.sumed that he knew.
As a result of the combined supplications of the entire party, the old woman grudgingly consented to take them into her hovel, where, in exchange for small pieces of silver, she would undertake certain manifestations in necromancy.
Truxton King, scarcely able to believe his good fortune, crowded into the loathsome, squalid room with his aristocratic companions, managing, with considerable skill, to keep close beside his charming friend. They stood back while the others crowded up to the table where the hag occupied herself with the crystal ball.
Never had Truxton looked upon a creature who so thoroughly vindicated the life-long reliance he had put in the description of witches given by the fairy-tale tellers of his earliest youth. She had the traditional hook-nose and peaked chin, the glittering eyes, the thousand wrinkles and the toothless gums. He looked about for the raven and the cat, but if she had them, they were not in evidence. At a rough guess, he calculated her age at one hundred years. A youth of extreme laziness, who Baron Dangloss said was the old woman"s grandson, appeared to be her man-of-all-work. He fetched the old woman"s crystal, placed stools for the visitors, lighted the candles on the table, occupying no less than a quarter of an hour in performing these simple acts, so awkward that at least two of his observers giggled openly and whispered their opinions.
"Gruesome lady, isn"t she?" whispered King.
"I shall dream of her for months," whispered the lady in grey, shuddering.
"Are you willing to have her read your future in that ball?"
"Do you really think she can tell?"
"I once had a fortune-teller say that I would be married before I was twenty-three," he informed her. She appeared interested.
"And were you?"
"No. But she did her part, you know--the fortune-teller, I mean."
"She warned you. I see. So it really wasn"t her fault." She was watching the preparations at the table with eager eyes, her lips parted and her breath coming quick through excitement.
"Would you mind telling me how I am to address you?" whispered King.
They were leaning against the mud-plastered wall near the little window, side by side. The whimsical smile that every one loved to see was on his lips, in his eyes. "You see, I"m a stranger in a strange land. That accounts for my ignorance."
"You must not speak while she is gazing into the crystal," she warned, after a quick, searching glance at his face. He could have sworn that he saw a gleam of concern in her eyes, followed instantly by a twinkle that meant mischief.
"Please consider my plight," he implored. "I can"t call you Aunt Loraine, you know."
She laughed silently and turned her head to devote her entire attention to the scene at the table. Truxton King was in a sudden state of trepidation. Had he offended her? There was a hot rush of blood to his ears. He missed the sly, wondering glance that she gave him out of the corner of her eye a moment later.
Although it was broad daylight, the low, stuffy room would have been pitch dark had it not been for the flickering candles on the table beside the bent, grey head of the mumbling fortune-teller, whose bony fingers twitched over and about the crystal globe like wiggling serpents" tails. The window gave little or no light and the door was closed, the grinning grandson leaning against it limply. The picture was a weird, uncanny one, despite the gay, lightsome appearance of the visitors. The old woman, in high, shrill tones, had commanded silence.
The men obeyed with a grim scepticism, while the women seemed really awed by their surroundings.
The Witch began by reading the fortune of John Tullis, who had been pushed forward by the wide-eyed Prince. In a cackling monotone she rambled through a supposit.i.tious history of his past, for the chief part so unintelligible that even he could not gainsay the statements. Later, she bent her piercing eyes upon the Prince and refused to read his future, shrilly a.s.serting that she had not the courage to tell what might befall the little ruler, all the while muttering something about the two little princes who had died in a tower ages and ages ago. Seeing that the boy was frightened, Tullis withdrew him to the background. The Countess Marlanx, who had returned that morning to Edelweiss as mysteriously as she had left, came next. She was smiling derisively.
"You have just returned from a visit to some one whom you hate," began the Witch. "He is your husband. You will marry again. There is a fair-haired man in love with you. You are in love with him. I can see trouble--"
But the Countess deliberately turned away from the table, her cheeks flaming with the consciousness that a smile had swept the circle behind her graceful back.
"Ridiculous," she said, and avoided John Tullis"s gaze. "I don"t care to hear any more. Come, Baron You are next."
Truxton King, subdued and troubled in his mind, found himself studying his surroundings and the people who went so far to make them interesting. He glanced from time to time at the delicate, eager profile of the girl beside him; at the soft, warm cheek and the caressing brown hair; at the little ear and the white slim neck of her--and realised just what had happened to him. He had fallen in love; that was the plain upshot of it. It had come to pa.s.s, just as he had hoped it would in his dearest dreams. He was face to face with the girl of royal blood that the story books had created for him long, long ago, and he was doing just what he had always intended to do: falling heels over head and hopelessly in love with her. Never had he seen hair grow so exquisitely about the temples and neck as this one"s hair--but, just to confound his budding singleness of interest, his gaze at that instant wandered off and fell upon something that caused him to stare hard at a certain spot far removed from the coiffure of a fair and dainty lady.
His eye had fallen upon a crack in the door that led to the kitchen, although he had no means of knowing that it was a kitchen. To his amazement, a gleaming eye was looking out upon the room from beyond this narrow crack. He looked long and found that he was not mistaken.
There was an eye, glued close to the opposite side of the rickety door, and its gaze was directed to the Countess Marlanx.
The spirit of adventure, recklessness, bravado--whatever you may choose to call it--flared high in the soul of this self-despised outsider. He could feel a strange thrill of exaltation shooting through his veins; he knew as well as he knew anything that he was destined to create commotion in that stately crowd, even against his better judgment. The desire to spring forward and throw open the door, thus exposing a probable con-federate, was stronger than he had the power to resist.
Even as he sought vainly to hold himself in check, he became conscious that the staring eye was meeting his own in a glare of realisation.
Without pausing to consider the result of his action, he sprang across the room, shouting as he did so that there was a man behind the door.
Grasping the latch, he threw the door wide open, the others in the room looking at him as if he were suddenly crazed.
He had expected to confront the owner of that basilisk eye. There was not a sign of a human being in sight. Beyond was a black little room, at the back of which stood an old cooking stove with a fire going and a kettle singing. He leaped through, prepared to grasp the mysterious watcher, but, to his utter amazement, the kitchen was absolutely empty, save for inanimate things. His surprise was so genuine that it was not to be mistaken by the men who leaped to his side. He had time to note that two of them carried pistols in their hands, and that Tullis and Quinnox had placed themselves between the Prince and possible danger.