Part 7 (1/2)

Hohenburg is the family name of Rhaetia's emperors; therefore everything in Salzbruck that can be Hohenburg is Hohenburg; and it was at the Hohenburgerhof, Salzbruck's grandest hotel, that a suite of rooms had been hired for Lady de Courcy's party.

They had broken the journey at Wandeck; and Sylvia had so timed it that they should arrive in Salzbruck an hour before the first of the ceremonies on the birthday eve--the unveiling by the Kaiser of the great national statue of Rhaetia in the Maximilian Platz, exactly in front of the Hohenburgerhof. At the station they were told by the driver of their selected droschky that he would not be able to take the high, well-born ladies to the main door of the Hohenburgerhof, for the pa.s.sage of carriages was forbidden in the Maximilian Platz, where the crowd had been a.s.sembling since dawn for the ceremony; and that he would be compelled to deposit them and their luggage at a side entrance. As they left the station, from far away came a burst of martial music, a military band playing the national air which the chamois-hunter had heard the English girl singing at Heiligengelt. The shops were closed for the day; from nearly every window hung a flag or banner, while the old narrow streets and the broad new streets were festooned with bunting, wreaths of evergreen, and autumn flowers.

Prosperous citizens in their best, peasants in gay holiday attire, streamed toward the Maximilian Platz. It seemed to Sylvia that the air tingled with expectation; she thought that she must have felt the magnetic thrill in it, even if she had shut her eyes and ears.

”We shall be in time. We shall see the ceremony from our windows,” she excitedly said.

But at the hotel she encountered a keen disappointment. With many apologies the landlord explained that he had done his best for the ladies when he received their letter a week before, and that he had allotted them a good suite, with balconies, overlooking the river at the back of the house--the situation considered preferable on ordinary occasions. But, as to rooms in the front, it was impossible; they had all been taken more than six weeks in advance; one American gentleman was paying a thousand gulden for an hour's use of a small balcony leading off the drawing-room.

Sylvia was pale with disappointment. ”I will go down into the crowd and take my chance,” she said to her mother when they had been shown into the handsome rooms, so satisfactory in everything but situation.

”My dear--impossible,” exclaimed the Grand d.u.c.h.ess. ”I could not think of allowing it. Only fancy what a crush there will be--people trampling on each other for places. You could see nothing.”

”But I couldn't bear to stay shut up here,” pleaded Sylvia, ”while that music plays and the crowds shout themselves hoa.r.s.e for the Emperor. Something inside me seems to say that I must be there. And Miss M'Pherson and I will take care of each other.”

Somehow--she hardly knew how--consent was as usual wrung from the Grand d.u.c.h.ess's reluctance, the only stipulation being that Sylvia and her chaperon should keep close to the hotel, returning at once if they found themselves in danger of being borne away by the crowd.

Their rooms were on the first floor, and the girl hurried down the broad flight of marble stairs, without sending for the lift, Miss M'Pherson following upon her heels.

They could not get out by the front door, for people had paid for places there, and would not yield an inch even for a moment; while the two or three steps below and the pavement in front were closely blocked.

Matters began to look hopeless, but Sylvia would not yet be daunted.

They tried the wide entrance, and found it free, the street into which it led being comparatively empty; but beyond, where it joined the great open square of the Maximilian Platz, there was a solid wall of human beings.

”We might as well go back,” said Miss M'Pherson, who had not Sylvia's keenness for the undertaking. She was comfortably fatigued after the journey, and would rather have had a cup of tea than see fifty emperors unveil as many statues.

”Look at that man just ahead,” whispered the Princess; ”_he_ doesn't mean to go back. Let us keep close behind him, and see what he is going to do. He has the air of one who has made up his mind to get something or do something, which he won't easily give up.”

Miss M'Pherson brought a critical gaze to bear upon the person indicated. He was striding rapidly along, a few yards in advance, only his back being visible; but it was a singularly determined back; and it was clad in a gray and crimson uniform. On his head he wore a c.o.c.ked hat, adorned with an eagle's feather, fastened by a gaudy jewel. As Miss M'Pherson observed these details, she noted half unconsciously that the man's neck between the collar of his coat and the sleek black hair was yellow-white as old parchment.

”He looks like an official of some sort,” she remarked. ”Maybe the crowd will open to let him through.”

”So I was thinking,” hopefully responded Sylvia. ”And when the crowd opens for him, if we're clever, it may open for us too. He's a hateful-looking man, and I have taken a dislike to him without a sight of his face; but we must use him as if he were a Cairene cyce.”

”He really _is_ going through!” exclaimed Miss M'Pherson.

They were close upon their unconscious pioneer now; and as--in peremptory tones--he informed the human wall that it must divide to let him pa.s.s, because he had come with a special message to the Lord Chancellor from the Burgomaster, the Princess Sylvia of Eltzburg-Neuwald could have laid her hands upon the gray shoulders, epauletted with red.

The wall obeyed, evidently recognizing the authority of his uniform.

”It must be the secretary of Herr Hermann, the Burgomaster,” Sylvia heard one man murmur knowingly to another. ”Something of importance has, perhaps, been forgotten, or special news has been received and must be reported.”

Good-naturedly the crowd gave way for the new comer; and, to Sylvia's joy, she was sucked into the whirlpool in his wake. Near the front, people would have stopped her if they could, knowing that she, at least, had no official right of entrance; but at the critical instant the blue-and-silver uniformed band of Rhaetia's crack regiment, the ”Kaiser's Own,” struck up an air which told them the Emperor was approaching. Angry ones were content with keeping out the tall, thin English spinster in tweed, hustling and pus.h.i.+ng her into the background, when she would shrilly have protested in her native tongue that ”really, _really_ she _must_ be allowed to pa.s.s with her friend!”

The man who had announced his mission from the Burgomaster must have felt that someone pressed after him with particularity, for, as he reached the front rank on the densely packed pavement, he wheeled sharply round. Sylvia, her little chin almost resting on his shoulder, met his gaze, shrinking away from the breath that swept hot across her cheek.

”Just the face I gave his back credit for,” she thought ungratefully.

”Sly and cruel, brutal, too--and, how curiously pale!”

A pair of black eyes, small, gla.s.sy, with a peculiar flatness of the cornea, had aimed at her a glance of suspicion; and she seemed still to feel their penetrating stare, when the face was turned away again.