CHAPTER XXXVII. LONG LIVE THE KING!
While the birthday supper was at its height, in the bureau of theconcierge sat old Adelbert, heavy and despairing. That very day had helearned to what use the Committee would put the information he had giventhem, and his old heart was dead within him. One may not be loyal forseventy years, and then easily become a traitor.
He had surveyed stonily the costume in which the little Prince was to betaken away. He had watched while the boxes of ammunition were uncoveredin their barrels, he had seen the cobbler's shop become a seething hiveof activity, where all day men had come and gone. He had heard the pressbeneath his feet fall silent because its work was done, and at dusk hehad with his own eyes beheld men who carried forth, under their arms,blazing placards for the walls of the town.
Then, at seven o'clock, something had happened.
The concierge's niece had gone, leaving the supper ready cooked on theback of the stove. Old Adelbert sat alone, and watched the red bars ofthe stove fade to black. By that time it was done, and he was of thedamned. The Crown Prince, who was of an age with the American ladupstairs, the Crown Prince was in the hands of his enemies. He, oldAdelbert, had done it.
And now it was forever too late. Terrible thoughts filled his mind. Hecould not live thus, yet he could not die. The daughter must have thepension. He must live, a traitor, he on whose breast the King himselfhad pinned a decoration.
He wore his new uniform, in honor of the day. Suddenly he felt that hecould not wear it any longer. He had no right to any uniform. He who hadsold his country was of no country.
He went slowly out and up the staircase, dragging his wooden legpainfully from step to step. He heard the concierge come in below, hisheavy footsteps reechoed through the building. Inside the door he calledfuriously to his niece. Old Adelbert heard him strike a match to lightthe gas.
On the staircase he met the Fraulein hurrying down. Her face wasstrained and her eyes glittering. She hesitated, as though she wouldspeak, then she went on past him. He could hear her running. Itreminded the old man of that day in the Opera, when a child ran downthe staircase, and, as is the way of the old, he repeated himself:"One would think new legs grew in place of old ones, like the claws ofsea-creatures," he said fretfully. And went on up the staircase.
In his room he sat down on a straight chair inside the door, and staredahead. Then, slowly and mechanically, he took off his new uniformand donned the old one. He would have put on civilian clothes, had hepossessed any. For by the deeds of that day he had forfeited the rightto the King's garb.
It was there that Black Humbert, hurrying up, found him. The conciergewas livid, his massive frame shook with excitement.
"Quick!" he said, and swore a great oath. "To the shop of the cobblerHeinz, and tell him this word. Here in the building is the boy."
"What boy?"
The concierge closed a great hand on the veteran's shoulder. "Who butthe Crown Prince himself!" he said.
"But I thought--how can he be here?"
"Here is he, in our very hands. It is no time to ask questions."
"If he is here--"
"He is with the Americans," hissed the concierge, the veins on hisforehead swollen with excitement. "Now, go, and quickly. I shall watch.Say that when I have secured the lad, I shall take him there. Let allbe ready. An hour ago," he said, raising his great fists on high, "andeverything lost. Now hurry, old wooden leg. It is a great night."
"But--I cannot. Already I have done too much. I am damned. I have lostmy soul. I who am soon to die."
"YOU WILL GO."
And, at last, he went, hobbling down the staircase recklessly, becausethe looming figure at the stair head was listening. He reached thestreet. There, only a block away, was the cobbler's shop, lighted, butwith the dirty curtains drawn across the window.
Old Adelbert gazed at it. Then he commended his soul to God, and turnedtoward the Palace.
He passed the Opera. On Carnival night it should have been open andin gala array, with lines of carriages and machines before it. It wasclosed, and dreary. But old Adelbert saw it not at all. He stumpedalong, panting with haste and exhaustion, to do the thing he had sethimself to do.
Here was the Palace. Before it were packed dense throngs of silentpeople. Now and then a man put down a box, and rising on it, addressedthe crowd, attempting to rouse them. Each time angry hands pulled himdown, and hisses greeted him as he slunk away.
Had old Adelbert been alive to anything but his mission, he would haveseen that this was no mob of revolutionists, but a throng of grievingpeople, awaiting the great bell of St. Stefan's with its dire news.
Then, above their heads, it rang out, slow, ominous, terrible. A sob ranthrough the crowd. In groups, and at last as a whole, the throng knelt.Men uncovered and women wept.
The bell rang on. At its first notes old Adelbert stopped, staggered,almost fell. Then he uncovered his head.
"Gone!" he said. "The old King! My old King!"
His face twitched. But the horror behind him drove him on through thekneeling crowd. Where it refused to yield, he drove the iron point ofhis wooden leg into yielding flesh, and so made his way.
Here, in the throng, Olga of the garderobe met him, and laid a tremblinghand on his arm. He shook her off, but she clung to him.
"Know you what they are saying?" she whispered. "That the Crown Princeis stolen. And it is true. Soldiers scour the city everywhere."
"Let me go," said old Adelbert, fiercely.
"They say," she persisted, "that the Chancellor has made away with him,to sell us to Karnia."
"Fools!" cried old Adelbert, and pushed her off. When she refused torelease him, he planted his iron toe on her shapely one and worked hisway forward. The crowd had risen, and now stood expectantly facing thePalace. Some one raised a cry and others took it up.
"The King!" they cried. "Show us the little King!"
But the balcony outside the dead King's apartments remained empty. Thecurtains at the long windows were drawn, save at one, opened for air.The breeze shook its curtains to and fro, but no small, childish figureemerged. The cries kept up, but there was a snarl in the note now.
"The King! Long live the King! Where is he?"
A man in a red costume, near old Adelbert, leaped on a box and lighted aflaming torch. "Aye!" he yelled, "call for the little King. Where is he?What have they done with him?"
Old Adelbert pushed on. The voice of the revolutionist died behind him,in a chorus of fury. From nowhere, apparently, came lighted box-bannersproclaiming the Chancellor's treason, and demanding a Republic. Some ofthem instructed the people to gather around the Parliament, where, itwas stated, leading citizens were already forming a Republic. Some, moreviolent, suggested an advance on the Palace.
The crowd at first ignored them, but as time went on, it grew ugly. Byall precedent, the new King should be now before them. What, then, ifthis rumor was true? Where was the little King?
Revolution, now, in the making. A flame ready to blaze. Hastily, on theoutskirts of the throng, a delegation formed to visit the Palace, andlearn the truth. Orderly citizens these, braving the terror of thatforbidding and guarded pile in the interests of the land they loved.
Drums were now beating steadily, filling the air with their throbbing,almost drowning out the solemn tolling of the bell. Around them wererallying angry groups. As the groups grew large, each drum led itsfollowers toward the Government House, where, on the steps; therevolutionary party harangued the crowd. Bonfires sprang up, built ofno one knew what, in the public squares. Red fire burned. The drumsthrobbed.
The city had not yet risen. It was large and slow to move. Slow, too,to believe in treason, or that it had no king. But it was a matter ofmoments now, not of hours.
The noise penetrated into the very wards of the hospital. Red firesbathed pale faces on their pillows in a feverish glow. Nurses gatheredat the windows, their uniforms and faces alike scarlet in the glare, andwhispered together.
One su
ch group gathered near the bedside of the student Haeckel, stillin his lethargy. His body had gained strength, so that he was clothedat times, to wander aimlessly about the ward. But he had remained dazed.Now and then the curtain of the past lifted, but for a moment only. Hehad forgotten his name. He spent long hours struggling to pierce themist.
But mostly he lay, or sat, as now, beside his bed, a bandage stillon his head, clad in shirt and trousers, bare feet thrust into wornhospital slippers. The red glare had not roused him, nor yet the beat ofthe drums. But a word or two that one of the nurses spoke caught his earand held him. He looked up, and slowly rose to his feet. Unsteadily hemade his way to a window, holding to the sill to steady himself.
Old Adelbert had been working his way impatiently. The temper of the mobwas growing ugly. It was suspicious, frightened, potentially dangerous.
The cry of "To the Palace!" greeted his ears he finally emergedbreathless from the throng.
He stepped boldly to the old stone archway, and faced a line of soldiersthere. "I would see the Chancellor!" he gasped, and saluted.
The captain of the guard stepped out. "What is it you want?" hedemanded.
"The Chancellor," he lowered his voice. "I have news of the CrownPrince."
Magic words, indeed. Doors opened swiftly before them. But time wasflying, too. In his confusion the old man had only one thought, to reachthe Chancellor. It would have been better to have told his news at once.The climbing of stairs takes time when one is old and fatigued, and hasbut one leg.
However, at last it way done. Past a room where sat Nikky Larisch,swordless and self-convicted of treason, past a great salon where aterrified Court waited, and waiting, listened to the cries outside, thebeating of many drums, the sound of multitudinous feet, old Adelbertstumped to the door of the room where the Council sat debating and theChancellor paced the floor.
Small ceremony tow. Led by soldiers, who retired and left him to enteralone, old Adelbert stumbled into the room. He was out of breath anddizzy; his heart beat to suffocation. There was not air enough in allthe world to breathe. He clutched at the velvet hangings of the door,and swayed, but he saw the Chancellor.
"The Crown Prince," he said thickly, "is at the home of the Americans."He stared about him. Strange that the room should suddenly be filledwith a mist. "But there be those--who wait--there--to capture him."
He caught desperately at the curtains, with their royal arms embroideredin blue and gold. Shameful, in such company, to stagger so!
"Make--haste," he said, and slid stiffly to the ground. He lay withoutmoving.
The Council roused then. Mettlich was the first to get to him. But itwas too late.
Old Adelbert had followed the mist to the gates it concealed. More thanthat, sham traitor that he was, he had followed his King.