The Adventure of Princess Sylvia Part 7

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 pushing 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.

Having obtained his desire--a position in the front rank of the spectators, and incidentally a place for Sylvia too--the man in gray and red proceeded to take from his breast a roll of parchment, tied with narrow ribbon and sealed with a crimson seal.

Sylvia, standing shoulder to shoulder with him, had just time to wonder if the fellow were going to read some proclamation, when a great cheer arose from thousands of throats; men waved their hats; peasant women held up their children, while ladies threw roses from the decorated balconies. A white figure on a white charger came riding into the square, under the gay-coloured triumphal arch of flags and flowers.

Others followed: men in rich dark uniforms, on coal-black horses; yet Sylvia saw only one, glittering white from head to foot, like h.o.a.r-frost in sunlight. Under the shining helmet of steel, the earnest face looked clear-cut as cameo. To the crowd he was the Kaiser--a fine, popular, clever young man, who ruled his country well, and, above all provided many a pleasing spectacle; to the girl he was an ideal St. George, strong and brave to slay modern dragons, right all crying wrongs.

How stately and splendid he looked, controlling the white charger, with its clanking silver trappings; how the jewelled orders on his breast sparkled, as he saluted his enthusiastic subjects!

"What if he should never love me?" Sylvia thought, as she often thought, with a sharp, jealous spasm of the heart.

Now he was vaulting from his horse, while men in uniforms, and men with ribbons and decorations, came forward, bowing, to receive him.

The ceremony of unveiling the statue of Rhaetia, executed by one of the world's most famous sculptors, was about to begin.

To reach the great crimson-draped platform on which he was presently to take his stand, the Emperor must pa.s.s within a few yards of Sylvia.

His eyes travelled over the brightly coloured throng; what if they should fall upon her? The girl's heart was in her throat; she could feel it beating there, and for a moment the tall white figure was lost in a mist that rose before her eyes.

She had forgotten how she came there--forgotten the stranger in gray and red to whom she owed her great good fortune; when suddenly, while the mist was at its thickest, she grew conscious of the man's presence. So near her he stood, that a quick start, a gathering of his muscles for a spring, flashed like a message by telegraph through her own body. The mist clouding her senses was burnt up in the flame of a strange enlightenment--a clarity of vision which showed not only the hero of the day, the crowd, and the man beside her, but the guilty soul of that man as well.

"He is going to kill the Emperor!"

It was as if a voice hissed the words into her ears; she knew now why she had struggled to win this place, why she had succeeded, what she had to do--or die in failing to do.

The Emperor was not half a dozen yards away. She alone had felt that murderous thrilling, heard that panting breath; she alone guessed what the roll of parchment hid.

While the crowd shouted for "Unser Max!" a figure, gray and red, leapt toward the white one, with clenched hand upraised, something sharp and bright catching the sun in a streak of steely light as it rose and fell.

Maximilian saw, yet not in time to swerve aside. The blade swooped hawk-like, scenting blood. A second's fraction, and it would have drunk deep--a Royal draught; but an arm struck it up and a girl was sobbing; while for her the heavens above and the earth below merged together in whirling chaos.

The man in red and gray was like a fox among the hounds; and the crowd, in the madness of sudden rage, would have rent him limb from limb, despite the cordon of police that quickly gathered round him; but the Emperor's ringing voice commanded instant obedience. Only those in the front ranks, or the windows above, had seen the attack and the unknown girl's intervention; yet the shouts of those who had witnessed the furious rush forward, the shrieks of the ladies on the balconies, flashed the news through the Maximilian Platz that there had been an attempt on the Kaiser's life. That little yellow man in the Burgomaster's red and gray--he who had pushed past everybody on the pretense of official business--he it was who had done the deed.

Kill him--kill him!--trample him down, tear out the vile heart of him and fling it to the dogs! What of the police? This is not their affair, but the people's--the people who love "Unser Max" and would die for the Kaiser. Away with the police!--but no--silence, silence for the Kaiser. What is he saying? "My people shall not be murderers; let the law deal with the madman--it is my command. Three cheers for the lady to whom your Kaiser owes his life, and then the ceremonies shall go on!"

Three cheers? Three times three, and split the skies with shouts for the Kaiser. How the women cry, when they ought to be laughing! A chance now for the police to hurry the limp thing in gray and red away out of sight and off to prison, for every one turns to the Emperor, just saved from the a.s.sa.s.sin's knife. He has sprung up the steps of the great crimson-covered platform, half carrying, half leading, a beautiful pale girl, who stifles her hysterical sobbing and tries to hide the blood that drips from a wound in her arm. Who is she? Has any one seen her before? G.o.d grant it is a Rhaetian who has had the good fortune and courage to save the Emperor's life! Yet what does it matter? There he stands, well and unhurt, holding her by his side, that all the people may see her and give thanks. She is worthy to be a G.o.ddess in their eyes; the radiance of her beauty--as for a few seconds she stands gazing up into his face, then hiding hers between trembling hands--seems supernatural. It is only for a moment that they see her, as the shouts of praise to heaven, and the cheers for Maximilian and the stranger who saved him, drown the music for which a signal has been given; for the programme of the day is to be finished and the episode to be set aside.

"G.o.d keep our Kaiser!" the band plays; and as if the order of events had been undisturbed, the ceremony of unveiling the statue goes on.

CHAPTER VI

THE HONOURS OF THE DAY

IT IS those in the thick of battle who can afterward tell least about it, and to the Princess those five potent moments--the most tremendous, the most vital of her life--were in memory like a dream.

She had felt a tigerish quiver run through the body of a man when the crowd pressed close against her; instinct was responsible for the rest. Vaguely she recalled later that she had run forward and thrown up the arm that meant to strike; an impression of the knife, as the light struck it, alone remained vividly in her mind. She had thought of the thud it would make in falling, of the life-blood that would spout from the rent in the white coat, among the jewels and decorations. She had thought of the blankness of existence for her in a world empty of Maximilian, and she had known that, unless she could save him, it would be far better to die--then, in that moment.

More than this she had not thought or known. What she did was done well-nigh unconsciously, and she seemed to wake with a start at last, to hear herself sobbing, and to feel a sharp pain in her arm.

A hundred hands--not quick enough to save, yet quick enough to follow the lead she had given--had fought to seize the a.s.sa.s.sin, and prevent a second blow; while as for Sylvia, her work done, she forgot everything and every one but Maximilian.

It was he who kept her from falling, as the knife aimed at his heart struck her arm; he who held her, as she mechanically clung to him, half fainting--brave no longer, but only a frightened, weeping girl.