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

command me to do so I should have to compel you to,” and the lieutenant half drew his sword once more.

There was something in Butzow’s voice that warned Maenck that his subordinate would like nothing better than the king’s command to run him through.

He well knew the fame of Butzow’s sword arm, and hav-ing no stomach for an encounter with it he grumbled an apology.

“And don’t let it occur again,” warned Barney.

“Come,” said Dr. Stein, “your majesty should be in your apartments, away from all excitement, if we are to effect a cure, so that you may return to your throne quickly.”

Butzow formed the soldiers about the American, and the party moved silently out of the great hall, leaving Captain Maenck and Princess Emma von der Tann its only occupants.

Barney cast a troubled glance toward Maenck, and half hesitated.

“I am sorry, your majesty,” said Butzow in a low voice, “but you must accompany us. In this the governor of Blentz is well within his authority, and I must obey him.”

“Heaven help her!” murmured Barney.

“The governor will not dare harm her,” said Butzow. “Your majesty need entertain no apprehension.”

“I wouldn’t trust him,” replied the American. “I know his kind.”

IV BARNEY FINDS A FRIEND

AFTER THE party had left the room Maenck stood looking at the princess for several seconds. A cunning expression supplanted the anger that had shown so plainly upon his face but a moment before. The girl had moved to one side of the apartment and was pretending an interest in a large tapestry that covered the wall at that point. Maenck watched her with greedy eves. Presently he spoke.

“Let us be friends,” he said. “You shall be my guest at Blentz for a long time. I doubt if Peter will care to release you soon, for he has no love for your father—and it will he easier for both if we establish pleasant relations from the beginning. What do you say?”

“I shall not be at Blentz long,” she replied, not even looking in Maenck’s direction, “though while I am it shall be as a prisoner and not as a guest. It is incredible that one could believe me willing to pose as the guest of a traitor, even were he less impossible than the notorious and infamous Captain Maenck.”

Maenck smiled. He was one of those who rather pride themselves upon the possession of racy reputations. He walked across the room to a bell cord which he pulled. Then he turned toward the girl again.

“I have given you an opportunity,” he said, “to lighten the burdens of your captivity. I hoped that you would be sensible and accept my advances of friendship voluntarily,” and he emphasized the word “voluntarily,” “but—”

He shrugged his shoulders.

A servant had entered the apartment in response to Maenck’s summons.

“Show the Princess von der Tann to her apartments,” he commanded with a sinister tone.

The man, who was in the livery of Peter of Blentz, bowed, and with a deferential sign to the girl led the way from the room. Emma von der Tann followed her guide up a winding stairway which spiraled within a tower at the end of a long passage. On the second floor of the castle the servant led her to a large and beautifully furnished suite of three rooms—a bedroom, dressingroom and boudoir. After showing her the rooms that were to be hers the servant left her alone.

As soon as he had gone the Princess von der Tann took another turn through the suite, looking to the doors and windows to ascertain how securely she might barricade herself against unwelcome visitors.

She found that the three rooms lay in an angle of the old, moss-covered castle wall.

The bedroom and dressingroom were connected by a doorway, and each in turn had another door opening into the boudoir. The only connection with the corridor without was through a single doorway from the boudoir. This door was equipped with a massive bolt, which, when she had shot it, gave her a feeling of immense relief and security. The windows were all too high above the court on one side and the moat upon the other to cause her the slightest apprehension of danger from the outside.

The girl found the boudoir not only beautiful, but extremely comfortable and cozy. A huge log-fire blazed upon the hearth, and, though it was summer, its warmth was most welcome, for the night was chill. Across the room from the fireplace a full length oil of a former Blentz princess looked down in arrogance upon the unwilling occupant of the room. It seemed to the girl that there was an expression of annoyance upon the painted countenance that another, and an enemy of her house, should be making free with her belongings. She wondered a little, too, that this huge oil should have been bung in a lady’s boudoir. It seemed singu-larly out of place.

“If she would but smile,” thought Emma von der Tann, “she would detract less from the otherwise pleasant surroundings, but I suppose she serves her purpose in some way, whatever it may be.”

There were papers, magazines and books upon the center table and more books upon a low tier of shelves on either side of the fireplace. The girl tried to amuse herself by reading, but she found her thoughts continually reverting to the unhappy situation of the king, and her eyes momentarily wandered to the cold and repellent face of the Blentz princess.

Finally she wheeled a great armchair near the fireplace, and with her back toward the portrait made a final attempt to submerge her unhappy thoughts in a current periodical.

 

When Barney and his escort reached the apartments that had been occupied by the king of Lutha before his escape, Butzow and the soldiers left him in company with Dr. Stein and an old servant, whom the doctor introduced as his new personal attendant.

“Your majesty will find him a very attentive and faithful servant,” said Stein. “He will remain with you and administer your medicine at proper intervals.”

“Medicine?” ejaculated Barney. “What in the world do I need of medicine? There is nothing the matter with me.”

Stein smiled indulgently.

“Ah, your majesty,” he said, “if you could but realize the sad affliction that clouds your life! You may never sit upon your throne until the last trace of this sinister mental disorder is eradicated, so take your medicine voluntarily, or otherwise Joseph will be compelled to administer it by force. Remember, sire, that only through this treatment will you be able to leave Blentz.”

After Stein had left the room Joseph bolted the door be-hind him. Then he came to where Barney stood in the center of the apartment, and dropping to his knees took the young man’s hand in his and kissed it.

“God has been good indeed, your majesty,” he whispered. “It was He who made it possible for old Joseph to deceive them and find his way to your side.”

“Who are you, my man?” asked Barney.

“I am from Tann,” whispered the old man, in a very low voice. “His highness, the prince, found the means to obtain service for me with the new retinue that has replaced the old which permitted your majesty’s escape. There was another from Tann among the former servants here.

“It was through his efforts that you escaped before, you will recall. I have seen Fritz and learned from him the way, so that if your majesty does not recall it it will make no difference, for I know it well, having been over it three times already since I came here, to be sure that when the time came that they should recapture you I might lead you out quickly before they could slay you.”

“You really think that they intend murdering me?”

“There is no doubt about it, your majesty,” replied the old man. “This very bottle”—Joseph touched the phial which Stein had left upon the table—“contains the means whereby, through my hands, you were to be slowly poisoned.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“Bichloride of mercury, your majesty. One dose would have been sufficient, and after a few days—perhaps a week —you would have died in great agony.”

Barney shuddered.

“But I am not the king, Joseph,” said the young man, “so even had they succeeded in killing me it would have profited them nothing.”

Joseph shook his head sadly.

“Your majesty will pardon the presumption of one who loves him,” he said, “if he makes so bold as to suggest that your majesty must not again deny that he is king. That only tends to corroborate the contention of Prince Peter that your majesty is not—er, just sane, and so, incompetent to rule Lutha. But we of Tann know differently, and with the help of the good God we will place your majesty upon the throne which Peter has kept from you all these years.”

Barney sighed. They were determined that he should be king whether he would or no. He had often thought he would like to be a king; but now the realization of his boy-ish dreaming which seemed so imminent bade fair to be almost anything than pleasant.

Barney suddenly realized that the old fellow was talking. He was explaining how they might escape. It seemed that a secret passage led from this very chamber to the vaults beneath the castle and from there through a narrow tunnel below the moat to a cave in the hillside far beyond the structure.

“They will not return again tonight to see your majesty,” said Joseph, “and so we had best make haste to leave at once. I have a rope and swords in readiness. We shall need the rope to make our way down the hillside, but let us hope that we shall not need the swords.”

“I cannot leave Blentz,” said Barney, “unless the Princess Emma goes with us.”

“The Princess Emma!” cried the old man. “What Princess Emma?”

“Princess von der Tann,” replied Barney. “Did you not know that she was captured with me!”

The old man was visibly affected by the knowledge that his young mistress was a prisoner within the walls of Blentz. He seemed torn by conflicting emotions—his duty toward his king and his love for the daughter of his old master. So it was that he seemed much relieved when he found that Barney insisted upon saving the girl before any thought of their own escape should be taken into consideration.

“My first duty, your majesty,” said Joseph, “is to bring you safely out of the hands of your enemies, but if you command me to try to bring your betrothed with us I am sure that his highness, Prince Ludwig, would be the last to censure me for deviating thus from his instructions, for if he loves another more than he loves his king it is his daughter, the beautiful Princess Emma.”

“What do you mean, Joseph,” asked Barney, “by referring to the princess as my betrothed? I never saw her before today.”

“It has slipped your majesty’s mind,” said the old man sadly; “but you and my young mistress were betrothed many years ago while you were yet but children. It was the old king’s wish that you wed the daughter of his best friend and most loyal subject.”

Here was a pretty pass, indeed, thought Barney. It was sufficiently embarrassing to be mistaken for the king, but to be thrown into this false position in company with a beautiful young woman to whom the king was engaged to be married, and who, with the others, thought him to be the king, was quite the last word in impossible positions.

Following this knowledge there came to Barney the first pangs of regret that he was not really the king, and then the