"Here we are," cried the driver, a few minutes later, pulling up his half dead oxen and leaping to the ground. He threw off the covering and they lost no time in tumbling from their bed of melons to the cobble-stone pavement of a narrow alley into which he had turned for safety. "Through this pa.s.sage!" he gasped, hoa.r.s.e with excitement. "The Tower is below. Follow me! My oxen will stand. I am going with you!" His rugged face was aglow.
Off through the alley they hurried, King disdaining the pain his ankle was giving him. They came to the crowded square a few minutes later. The clock in the Cathedral pointed to twelve o"clock and after! The catastrophe had not yet taken place; the people were laughing and singing and shouting. They were in time. Everywhere they heard glad voices crying out that the Prince was coming! It was the Royal band that they heard through dinning ears!
"Great G.o.d!" cried Truxton, stopping suddenly and pointing with trembling hand to a spot across the street and a little below where they had pushed through the resentful, staring throng on the sidewalk.
"There she is! At the corner! Stop her!"
He had caught sight of Olga Platanova.
The first row of dragoons was already pa.s.sing in front of her. Less than two hundred feet away rolled the royal coach of gold! All this flashed before the eyes of the distracted pair, who were now dashing frantically into the open street, disregarding the shouts of the police and the howls of the crowd.
"An anarchist!" shouted King hoa.r.s.ely. He looked like one himself. "The bomb! The bomb! Stop the Prince!"
Colonel Quinnox recognised this bearded, uncouth figure, and the flying, terrified girl at his heels. King was dragging her along by the hand.
There was an instant of confusion on the part of the vanguard, a drawing of sabres, a movement toward the coach in which the Prince rode.
Quinnox alone prevented the dragoons from cutting down the pallid madman who stumbled blindly toward the coaches beyond. He whirled his steed after an astonished glance in all directions, shouting eager commands all the while. When he reached the side of the gasping American, that person had stopped and was pointing toward the trembling Olga, who had seen and recognised him.
"Stop the coach!" cried King. Loraine was running frantically through the ranks of hors.e.m.e.n, screaming her words of alarm.
The Duke of Perse leaped from his carriage and ran forward, shouting to the soldiers to seize the disturbers. Panic seized the crowd. There was a mad rush for the corner above. Olga Platanova stood alone, her eyes wide and gla.s.sy, staring as if petrified at the face of Truxton King.
He saw the object in her wavering hand. With a yell he dashed for safety down the seething avenue. The Duke of Perse struck at him as he pa.s.sed, ignoring the frantic cry of warning that he uttered. A plain, white-faced farmer in a smock of blue was crossing the street with mighty bounds, his eyes glued upon the arm of the frail, terrified anarchist. If he could only arrest that palsied, uncertain arm!
But she hurled the bomb, her hands going to her eyes as she fell upon her knees.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE THROWING OF THE BOMB
The scene that followed beggars all powers of description.
A score of men and horses lay writhing in the street; others crept away screaming with pain; human flesh and that of animals lay in the path of the frenzied, panic-stricken holiday crowd; blood mingled with the soft mud of Regengetz Circus, slimy, slippery, ugly!
Rent bodies of men in once gaudy uniforms, now flattened and bruised in warm, oozy death, were piled in a ma.s.s where but a moment before the wondering vanguard of troopers had cl.u.s.tered. For many rods in all directions stunned creatures were struggling to their feet after the stupendous shock that had felled them. The clattering of frightened horses, the shouts and screams of men and women, the gruesome rush of ten thousand people in stampede--all in twenty seconds after the engine of death left the hand of Olga Platanova.
Olga Platanova! There was nothing left of her! She had failed to do the deed expected of her, but she would not hear the execrations of those who had depended upon her to kill the Prince. We draw a veil across the picture of Olga Platanova after the bomb left her hand; no one may look upon the quivering, shattered thing that once was a living, beautiful woman. The glimpse she had of Truxton King"s haggard face unnerved her.
She faltered, her strength of will collapsed; she hurled the bomb in a panic of indecision. Ma.s.sacre but not conquest!
Down in an alley below the Tower, a trembling, worn team of oxen stood for a day and night, awaiting the return of a master who was never to come back to them. G.o.d rest his simple soul!
Truxton King picked himself up from the street, dazed, bewildered but unhurt. Everywhere about him mad people were rushing and screeching.
Scarcely knowing what he did, he fled with the crowd. From behind him came the banging of guns, followed by new shouts of terror. He knew what it meant! The revolutionists had begun the a.s.sault on the paralysed minions of the government.
Scores of Royal Guardsmen swept past him, rushing to the support of the coach of gold. The sharp, shrill scream of a single name rose above the tumult. Some one had seen the Iron Count!
"Marlanx!"
He looked back toward the gory entrance to the Circus. There was Marlanx, mounted and swinging a sabre on high. Ahead was the ma.s.s of carriages, filled with the white-faced, palsied prey from the Court of Graustark. Somewhere in that huddled, glittering crowd were two beings he willingly would give his own life to save.
Foot soldiers, policemen and mounted guardsmen began firing into the crowd at the square, without sense or discretion, falling back, nevertheless, before the well-timed, deliberate advance of the mercenaries. From somewhere near the spot where Olga Platanova fell came a harsh, penetrating command:
"Cut them off! Cut them off from the Castle!"
It was his cue. He dashed into the street and ran toward the carriages, shouting with all his strength:
"Turn back! It is Marlanx! To the Castle!"
Then it was that he saw the Prince. The boy was standing on a seat on the royal coach of state, holding out his eager little hands to some one in the thick of the crowd that surged about him. He was calling some one"s name, but no one could have heard him.
Truxton"s straining eyes caught sight of the figure in grey that struggled forward in response to the cries and the extended hands. He pushed his way savagely through the crowd; he came up with her as she reached the side of the coach, and with a shout of encouragement grasped her in his arms.
"Aunt Loraine! Aunt Loraine!" He now heard the name the boy cried with all his little heart.
Two officers struck at the uncouth, desperate American as he lifted the girl from the ground and deliberately tossed her into the coach.
"Turn back!" he shouted. A horseman rode him down. He looked up as the plunging animal"s hoofs clattered about his head. Vos Engo, with drawn sword, was crowding up to the carriage door, shouting words of rejoicing at sight of the girl he loved.
Somehow he managed to crawl from under the hoofs and wheels, not without thumps and bruises, and made his way to the sidewalk. The coach had swung around and the horses were being lashed into a gallop for the Castle gates.
He caught a glimpse of her, holding the Prince in her arms, her white, agonised face turned toward the mob. Distinctly he heard her cry:
"Save him! Save Truxton King!"
From the sidewalks swarmed well-armed hordes of desperadoes, firing wildly into the ranks of devoted guardsmen grouped in the avenue to cover the flight of their royal charge. Truxton fled from the danger zone as fast as his legs would carry him. Bullets were striking all about him. Later on he was to remember his swollen, bitterly painful ankle; but there was no thought of it now. He had played football with this same ankle in worse condition than it was now--and he had played for the fun of it, too.
He realised that his life was worth absolutely nothing if he fell into the hands of the enemy. His only chance lay in falling in with some sane, loyal citizen who could be prevailed upon to hide him until the worst was over. There seemed no possibility of getting inside the Castle grounds. He had done his duty and--he laughed bitterly as he thought of it--he had been ridden down by the men he came to save.
Some one was shouting his name behind in the scurrying crowd. He turned for a single glance backward. Little Mr. Hobbs, pale as a ghost, his cap gone, his clothing torn, was panting at his elbow.
"G.o.d save us!" gasped Hobbs. "Are you alive or am I seeing all the b.l.o.o.d.y ghosts in the world?"
"I"m alive all right," cried King. "Where can we go? Be quick, Hobbs!
Think! Don"t sputter like that. I want to be personally conducted, and d.a.m.ned quick at that."
"Before G.o.d, sir, I "aven"t the idea where to go," groaned Hobbs. "It"s dreadful! Did you see what the woman did back there--"
"Don"t stop to tell me about it, Hobbs. Keep on running. Go ahead of me.
I"m used to following the man from Cook"s."
"Right you are, sir. I say, by Jove, I"m glad to see you--I am. You came right up out of the ground as if--"
"Is there no way to get off this beastly avenue?" panted King. "They"re shooting back there like a pack of wild men. I hate to think of what"s going on."
"Dangloss will "ave them all in the jug inside of ten minutes, take my word--"