The Mad King, Edgar Rice Burroughs [best pdf ebook reader TXT] 📗

you and Maenck had located him, and from which you were attempting to rescue him, I believe that the people would tear our enemies to pieces. What say you, Coblich?”

The other stared at Peter of Blentz for several seconds while the atrocity of his chief’s plan filtered through his brain.

“My God!” he exclaimed at last. “You mean that you wish me to murder Leopold with my own hands?”

“You put it too crudely, my dear Coblich,” replied the other.

“I cannot do it,” muttered Coblich. “I have never killed a man in my life. I am getting old. No, I could never do it. I should not sleep nights.”

“If it is not done, Coblich, and Leopold comes into his own,” said Peter slowly, “you will be caught and hanged higher than Haman. And if you do not do it, and the imposter is crowned today, then you will be either hanged officially or knifed unofficially, and without any choice in the matter whatsoever. Nothing, Coblich, but the dead body of the true Leopold can save your neck. You have your choice, therefore, of letting him live to prove your treason, or letting him die and becoming chancellor of Lutha.”

Slowly Coblich turned toward the door. “You are right,” he said, “but may God have mercy on my soul. I never thought that I should have to do it with my own hands.”

So saying he left the room and a moment later Peter of Blentz smiled as he heard the pounding of a horse’s hoofs upon the pavement without.

Then the Regent entered the room he had recently quitted and spoke to the nobles of Lutha who were gathered there.

“Coblich has found the body of the murdered king,” he said. “I have directed him to bring it to the cathedral. He came upon the impostor and his confederate, Lieutenant Butzow, as they were bearing the corpse from the hospital at Tafelberg where the king has lain unknown since the rumor was spread by Von der Tann that he had been killed by bandits.

“He was not killed until last evening, my lords, and you shall see today the fresh wounds upon him. When the time comes that we can present this grisly evidence of the guilt of the impostor and those who uphold him, I shall expect you all to stand at my side, as you have promised.”

With one accord the noblemen pledged anew their alle-giance to Peter of Blentz if he could produce one-quarter of the evidence he claimed to possess.

“All that we wish to know positively is,” said one, “that the man who bears the title of king today is really Leopold of Lutha, or that he is not. If not then he stands convicted of treason, and we shall know how to conduct ourselves.”

Together the party rode to the cathedral, the majority of the older nobility now openly espousing the cause of the Regent.

 

At the palace Barney was about distracted. Butzow was urging him to take the crown whether he was Leopold or not, for the young lieutenant saw no hope for Lutha, if either the scoundrelly Regent or the cowardly man whom Barney had assured him was the true king should come into power.

It was eleven o’clock. In another hour Barney knew that he must have found some new solution of his dilemma, for there seemed little probability that the king would be located in the brief interval that remained before the coronation. He wondered what they did to people who stole thrones. For a time he figured his chances of reaching the border ahead of the enraged populace. All had depended upon the finding of the king, and he had been so sure that it could be accomplished in time, for Coblich and Maenck had had but a few hours in which to conceal the monarch before the search was well under way.

Armed with the king’s warrants, his troopers had ridden through the country, searching houses, and questioning all whom they met. Patrols had guarded every road that the fugitives might take either to Lustadt, Blentz, or the border; but no king had been found and no trace of his abductors.

Prince von der Tann, Barney was convinced, was on the point of deserting him, and going over to the other side. It was true that the old man had carried out his instructions relative to the placing of the machine guns; but they might be used as well against him, where they stood, as for him.

From his window he could see the broad avenue which passes before the royal palace of Lutha. It was crowded with throngs moving toward the cathedral. Presently there came a knock upon the closed door of his chamber.

At his “Enter” a functionary announced: “His Royal Highness Ludwig, Prince von der Tann!”

The old man was much perturbed at the rumors he had heard relative to the assassination of the true Leopold. Soldier-like, he blurted out his suspicions and his ultimatum.

“None but the royal blood of Rubinroth may reign in Lutha while there be a Rubinroth left to reign and old Von der Tann lives,” he cried in conclusion.

At the name “Rubinroth” Barney started. It was his mother’s name. Suddenly the truth flashed upon him. He understood now the reticence of both his father and mother relative to her early life.

“Prince Ludwig,” said the young man earnestly, “I have only the good of Lutha in my heart. For three weeks I have labored and risked death a hundred times to place the legitimate heir to the crown of Lutha upon his throne. I—”

He hesitated, not knowing just how to commence the confession he was determined to make, though he was positive that it would place Peter of Blentz upon the throne, since the old prince had promised to support the Regent could it be proved that Barney was an impostor.

“I,” he started again, and then there came an interruption at the door.

“A messenger, your majesty,” announced the doorman, “who says that he must have audience at once upon a mat-ter of life and death to the king.”

“We will see him in the antechamber,” replied Barney, moving toward the door. “Await us here, Prince Ludwig.”

A moment later he reentered the apartment. There was an expression of renewed hope upon his face.

“As we were about to remark, my dear prince,” he said, “I swear that the royal blood of the Rubinroths flows in my veins, and as God is my judge, none other than the true Leopold of Lutha shall be crowned today. And now we must prepare for the coronation. If there be trouble in the cathedral, Prince Ludwig, we look to your sword in protection of the king.”

“When I am with you, sire,” said Von der Tann, “I know that you are king. When I saw how you led the troops in battle, I prayed that there could be no mistake. God give that I am right. But God help you if you are playing with old Ludwig von der Tann.”

When the old man had left the apartment Barney summoned an aide and sent for Butzow. Then he hurried to the bath that adjoined the apartment, and when the lieutenant of horse was announced Barney called through a soapy lather for his confederate to enter.

“What are you doing, sire?” cried Butzow in amazement.

“Cut out the ‘sire,’ old man,” shouted Barney Custer of Beatrice. “this is the fifth of November and I am shaving off this alfalfa. The king is found!”

“What?” cried Butzow, and upon his face there was little to indicate the rejoicing that a loyal subject of Leopold of Lutha should have felt at that announcement.

“There is a man in the next room,” went on Barney, “who can lead us to the spot where Coblich and Maenck guard the king. Get him in here.”

Butzow hastened to comply with the American’s instructions, and a moment later returned to the apartment with the old shopkeeper of Tafelberg.

As Barney shaved he issued directions to the two. Within the room to the east, he said, there were the king’s coronation robes, and in a smaller dressingroom beyond they would find a long gray cloak.

They were to wrap all these in a bundle which the old shopkeeper was to carry.

“And, Butzow,” added Barney, “look to my revolvers and your own, and lay my sword out as well. The chances are that we shall have to use them before we are ten minutes older.”

In an incredibly short space of time the young man emerged from the bath, his luxuriant beard gone forever, he hoped. Butzow looked at him with a smile.

“I must say that the beard did not add greatly to your majesty’s good looks,” he said.

“Never mind the bouquets, old man,” cried Barney, cram-ming his arms into the sleeves of his khaki jacket and buckling sword and revolver about him, as he hurried toward a small door that opened upon the opposite side of the apartment to that through which his visitors had been conducted.

Together the three hastened through a narrow, little-used corridor and down a flight of well-worn stone steps to a door that let upon the rear court of the palace.

There were grooms and servants there, and soldiers too, who saluted Butzow, according the old shopkeeper and the smooth-faced young stranger only cursory glances. It was evident that without his beard it was not likely that Barney would be again mistaken for the king.

At the stables Butzow requisitioned three horses, and soon the trio was galloping through a little-frequented street toward the northern, hilly environs of Lustadt. They rode in silence until they came to an old stone building, whose boarded windows and general appearance of dilapidation proclaimed its long tenantless condition. Rank weeds, now rustling dry and yellow in the November wind, choked what once might have been a luxuriant garden. A stone wall, which had at one time entirely surrounded the grounds, had been almost completely removed from the front to serve as foundation stone for a smaller edifice farther down the mountainside.

The horsemen avoided this break in the wall, coming up instead upon the rear side where their approach was wholly screened from the building by the wall upon that exposure.

Close in they dismounted, and leaving the animals in charge of the shopkeeper of Tafelberg, Barney and Butzow hastened toward a small postern-gate which swung, groan-ing, upon a single rusted hinge. Each felt that there was no time for caution or stratagem. Instead all depended upon the very boldness and rashness of their attack, and so as they came through into the courtyard the two dashed headlong for the building.

Chance accomplished for them what no amount of careful execution might have done, and they came within the ruin unnoticed by the four who occupied the old, darkened library.

Possibly the fact that one of the men had himself just entered and was excitedly talking to the others may have drowned the noisy approach of the two. However that may be, it is a fact that Barney and the cavalry officer came to the very door of the library unheard.

There they halted, listening. Coblich was speaking.

“The Regent commands it, Maenck,” he was saying. “It is the only thing that can save our necks. He said that you had better be the one to do it, since it was your carelessness that permitted the fellow to escape from Blentz.”

Huddled in a far corner of the room was an abject figure trembling in terror. At the words of Coblich it staggered to its feet. It was the king.

“Have pity—have pity!” he cried. “Do not kill me, and I will go away where none will ever know that I live. You can tell Peter that I am dead.