Part 46 (1/2)

”Listen, Hobbs: we're going to swim out,” said Truxton. He was engaged in stuffing food into a knapsack. Colonel Quinnox and Haddan had been listening to Hobbs's lamentations for half an hour, in King's room.

”Swim? Oh, I say! By hokey, he's gone clean daffy!” Hobbs was eyeing him with alarm. The others looked hard at the speaker, scenting a joke.

”Not yet, Hobbs. Later on, perhaps. I had occasion to make a short tour of investigation this afternoon. Doubtless, gentlemen, you know where the water-gate is, back of the Castle. Well, I've looked it over--and under, I might say. Hobbs, you and I will sneak under those slippery old gates like a couple of eels. I forgot to ask if you can swim.”

”To be sure I can. _Under_ the gates? My word!”

”Simple as rolling off a log,” said Truxton carelessly. ”The Cascades and Basin of Venus run out through the gate. There is a s.p.a.ce of at least a foot below the bottom of the gate, which hasn't been opened in fifty years, I'm told. A good swimmer can wriggle through, d'ye see?

That lets him out into the little ca.n.a.l that connects with the river.

Then--”

”I see!” cried Quinnox. ”It can be done! No one will be watching at that point.”

The sky was overcast, the night as black as ebony. The four men left the officers' quarters at one o'clock, making their way to the historic old gate in the glen below the Castle. Arriving at the wall, Truxton briefly whispered his plans.

”You remember, Colonel Quinnox, that the stream is four or five feet deep here at the gate. The current has washed a deeper channel under the iron-bound timbers. The gates are perhaps two feet thick. For something like seven or eight feet from the bottom they are so constructed that the water runs through an open network of great iron bars. Now, Hobbs and I will go under the gates in the old-clothes you have given us. When we are on the opposite side we'll stick close by the gate, and you may pa.s.s our dry clothes out between the bars above the surface of the water. Our guns, the map and the food, as well. It's very simple. Then we'll drop down the ca.n.a.l a short distance and change our clothes in the underbrush. Hobbs knows where we can procure horses and he knows a trusty guide on the other side of the city. So long, Colonel. I'll see you later.”

”G.o.d be with you,” said Quinnox fervently. The four men shook hands and King slipped into the water without a moment's hesitation.

”Right after me, Hobbs,” he said, and then his head went under.

A minute later he and Hobbs were on the outside of the gate, gasping for breath. Standing in water to their necks, Quinnox and Haddan pa.s.sed the equipment through the barred openings. There were whispered good-byes and then two invisible heads bobbed off in the night, wading in the swift-flowing ca.n.a.l, up to their chins. Swimming would have been dangerous, on account of the noise.

Holding their belongings high above their heads, with their hearts in their mouths, King and the Englishman felt their way carefully along the bed of the stream. Not a sound was to be heard, except the barking of dogs in the distance. The stillness of death hung over the land. So still, that the almost imperceptible sounds they made in breathing and moving seemed like great volumes of noise in their tense ears.

A hundred yards from the gate they crawled ash.o.r.e and made their way up over the steep bank into the thick, wild underbrush. Not a word had been spoken up to this time.

”Quietly now, Hobbs. Let us get out of these duds. 'Gad, they're like ice. From now on, Hobbs, you lead the way. I'll do my customary act of following.”

Hobbs was s.h.i.+vering from the cold. ”I say, Mr. King, you're a wonder, that's wot you are. Think of going under those bally gates!”

”That's right, Hobbs, think of it, but don't talk.”

They stealthily stripped themselves of the wet garments, and, after no end of trouble, succeeded in getting into the dry subst.i.tutes. Then they lowered the wet bundles into the water and quietly stole off through the brush, Hobbs in the lead, intent upon striking the King's Highway, a mile or two above town. It was slow, arduous going, because of the extreme caution required. A wide detour was made by the canny Hobbs--wider, in fact, than the impatient American thought wholly necessary. In time, however, they came to the Highway.

”Well, we've got a start, Hobbs. We'll win out, just as I said we would.

Easy as falling off a log.”

”I'm not so blooming sure of that,” said Hobbs. He was recalling a recent flight along this very road. ”We're a long way from being out of the woods.”

”Don't be a kill-joy, Hobbs. Look at the bright side of things.”

”I'll do that in the morning, when the sun's up,” said Hobbs, with a sigh. ”Come along, sir. We take this path here for the upper road. It's a good two hours' walk up the mountain to Rabot's, where we get the horses.”

All the way up the black, narrow mountain path Hobbs kept the lead. King followed, his thoughts divided between the blackness ahead and the single, steady light in a certain window now far behind. He had seen the lighted window in the upper balcony as he pa.s.sed the Castle on the way to the gate. Somehow he knew she was there saying good-bye and G.o.dspeed to him.

At four o'clock, as the sun reached up with his long, red fingers from behind the Monastery mountain, Truxton King and Hobbs rode away from Rabot's cottage high in the hills, refreshed and sound of heart. Rabot's son rode with them, a st.u.r.dy, loyal lad, who had leaped joyously at the chance to serve his Prince. Undisturbed, they rode straight for the pa.s.ses below St. Valentine's. Behind and below them lay the sleeping, restless, unhappy city of Edelweiss, with closed gates and unfriendly, sullen walls. There reigned the darkest fiend that Graustark, in all her history, had ever come to know.

Truxton King had slipped through his fingers with almost ridiculous ease. So simple had it been, that the two messengers, gloating in the prospect ahead, now spoke of the experience as if it were the most trivial thing in their lives. They mentioned it casually; that was all.

Now, let us turn to John Tullis and his quest in the hills. It goes without saying that he found no trace of his sister or her abductors.