Part 41 (2/2)

”Cheer up, Hobbs!” he sang out in his new-found exuberance as he rode up to the dismal Englishman, who moped in the shade of the stable walls.

”Don't be down-hearted. Look at me! Never say die, that's my motto.”

”That's all very well, sir,” said Hobbs, removing the unlighted pipe from his lips, ”but you 'aven't got a dog and a parrot locked up in your rooms with no one to feed them. It makes me sick, 'pon my soul, sir, to think of them dying of thirst and all that, and me here safe and sound, so to speak.”

That night Haddan and a fellow-subaltern attempted to leave the Castle grounds by way of the private gate in the western wall, only to be driven back by careful watchers on the outside. A second attempt was made at two o'clock. This time they went through the crypt into the secret underground pa.s.sage. As they crawled forth into the blackest of nights, clear of the walls, they were met by a perfect fusillade of rifle shots. Haddan's companion was shot through the leg and arm and it was with extreme difficulty that the pair succeeded in regaining the pa.s.sage and closing the door. No other attempt was made that night.

Sunday night a quick sortie was made, it being the hope of the besieged that two selected men might elude Marlanx's watch-dogs during the melee that followed. Curiously enough, the only men killed were the two who had been chosen to run the gauntlet in the gallant, but ill-timed attempt to reach John Tullis.

On Monday morning the first direct word from Count Marlanx came to the Castle. Under a flag of truce, two of his men were admitted to the grounds. They presented the infamous ultimatum of the Iron Count. In brief, it announced the establishment of a dictators.h.i.+p pending the formal a.s.sumption of the crown by the conqueror. With scant courtesy the Iron Count begged to inform Prince Robin that his rule was at an end.

Surrender would result in his safe conduct to America, the home of his father; defiance would just so surely end in death for him and all of his friends. The Prince was given twenty-four hours in which to surrender his person to the new governor of the city. With the expiration of the time limit mentioned, the Castle would be sh.e.l.led from the fortress, greatly as the dictator might regret the destruction of the historic and well-beloved structure. No one would be spared if it became necessary to bombard; the rejection of his offer of mercy would be taken as a sign that the defenders were ready to die for a lost cause. He would cheerfully see to it that they died as quickly as possible, in order that the course of government might not be obstructed any longer than necessary.

The defenders of the Castle tore his message in two and sent it back to him without disfiguring it by a single word in reply. The scornful laughter which greeted the reading of the doc.u.ment by Count Halfont did not lose any of its force in the report that the truce-bearers carried, with considerable uneasiness, to the Iron Count later on.

No one in the Castle was deceived by Marlanx's promise to provide safe conduct for the Prince. They knew that the boy was doomed if he fell into the hands of this iniquitous old schemer. More than that, there was not a heart among them so faint that it was not confident of eventual victory over the usurper. They could hold out for weeks against starvation. Hope is an able provider.

A single, distant volley at sunset had puzzled the men on guard at the Castle. They had no means of knowing that the Committee of Ten and its wretched friends had been shot down like dogs in the Public Square.

Peter Brutus was in charge of the squad of executioners.

Soon after the return of Marlanx's messengers to the Tower, a number of carriages were observed approaching in Castle Avenue. They were halted a couple of hundred yards from the gates and once more a flag of truce was presented. There was a single line from Marlanx:

”I am sending indisputable witnesses to bear testimony to the thoroughness of my conquest.

”MARLANX.”

Investigation convinced the captain of the Guard that the motley caravan in the avenue was made up of loyal, representative citizens from the important villages of the realm. They were admitted to the grounds without question.

The Countess Prandeville of Ganlook, terribly agitated, was one of the first to enter the haven of safety, such as it was. After her came the mayors and the magistrates of a dozen villages. Count Marlanx's reason for delivering these people over to their friends in the Castle was at once manifest.

By the words of their mouths his almost complete mastery of the situation was conveyed to the Prince's defenders. In every instance the representative from a village sorrowfully admitted that Marlanx's men were in control. Ganlook, an ancient stronghold, had been taken without a struggle by a handful of men. The Countess's husband was even now confined in his own castle under guard.

The news was staggering. Count Halfont had based his strongest hopes on the a.s.sistance that would naturally come from the villages. Moreover, the strangely commissioned emissaries cast additional gloom over the situation by the report that mountaineers, herdsmen and woodchoppers in the north were flocking to the a.s.sistance of the Iron Count, followed by hordes of outlaws from the Axphain hills. They were swarming into the city. These men had always been thorns in the sides of the Crown's peace-makers.

”It is worse than I thought,” said Count Halfont, after listening to the words of the excited magistrates. ”Are there no loyal men outside these walls?”

”Thousands, sir, but they are not organised. They have no leader, and but little with which to fight against such a force.”

”It is hard to realise that a force of three or four thousand desperadoes has the power to defy an entire kingdom. A city of 75,000 people in the hands of hirelings! The shame of it!”

Truxton King was leaning against a column not far from the little group, nervously pulling away at the pipe Quinnox had given him. As if impelled by a common thought, a half dozen pairs of eyes were turned in his direction. Their owners looked as quickly away, again moved by a common thought.

The Minister of Mines gave utterance to a single sentence that might well have been called the epitome of that shrewd, concentrated thought:

”There must be some one who can get to John Tullis before it is too late.”

They looked at one another and then once more at the American who had come among them, avowedly in quest of adventure.

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