The Mad King Part 25

heads northward toward Lutha's nearest boundary. All night they rode, stopping at daylight before a distant farm to feed and water their mounts and s.n.a.t.c.h a mouthful for themselves. Then onward once again they pressed in their mad flight.

Now that day had come they caught occasional glimpses of a body of hors.e.m.e.n far behind them, but the border was near, and their start such that there was no danger of their being overtaken.

"For the thousandth time, Butzow," said one of the men, "will you turn back before it is too late?"

But the other only shook his head obstinately, and so they came to the great granite monument which marks the boundary between Lutha and her powerful neighbor upon the north.

Barney held out his hand. "Good-bye, old man," he said. "If I've learned the ingrat.i.tude of kings here in Lutha, I have found something that more than compensates me--the friendship of a brave man. Now hurry back and tell them that I escaped across the border just as I was about to fall into your hands and they will think that you have been pursuing me instead of aiding in my escape across the border."

But again Butzow shook his head.

"I have fought shoulder to shoulder with you, my friend," he said.

"I have called you king, and after that I could never serve the coward who sits now upon the throne of Lutha. I have made up my mind during this long ride from l.u.s.tadt, and I have come to the decision that I should prefer to raise corn in Nebraska with you rather than serve in the court of an ingrate."

"Well, you are an obstinate Dutchman, after all," replied the American with a smile, placing his hand affectionately upon the shoulder of his comrade.

There was a clatter of horses' hoofs upon the gravel of the road behind them.

The two men put spurs to their mounts, and Barney Custer galloped across the northern boundary of Lutha just ahead of a troop of Luthanian cavalry, as had his father thirty years before; but a royal princess had accompanied the father--only a soldier accompanied the son.

PART II

I

BARNEY RETURNS TO LUTHA

"What's the matter, Vic?" asked Barney Custer of his sister. "You look peeved."

"I am peeved," replied the girl, smiling. "I am terribly peeved. I don't want to play bridge this afternoon. I want to go motoring with Lieutenant Butzow. This is his last day with us."

"Yes. I know it is, and I hate to think of it," replied Barney; "but why in the world do you have to play bridge if you don't want to?"

"I promised Margaret that I'd go. They're short one, and she's coming after me in her car."

"Where are you going to play--at the champion lady bridge player's on Fourth Street?" asked Barney, grinning.

His sister answered with a nod and a smile. "Where you brought down the wrath of the lady champion upon your head the other night when you were letting your mind wander across to Lutha and the Old Forest, instead of paying attention to the game," she added.

"Well, cheer up, Vic," cried her brother. "Bert'll probably set fire to the car, the way he did to their first one, and then you won't have to go."

"Oh, yes, I would; Margaret would send him after me in that awful-looking, unwashed Ford runabout of his," answered the girl.

"And then you WOULD go," said Barney.

"You bet I would," laughed Victoria. "I'd go in a wheelbarrow with Bert."

But she didn't have to; and after she had driven off with her chum, Barney and Butzow strolled down through the little city of Beatrice to the corn mill in which the former was interested.

"I'm mighty sorry that you have to leave us, Butzow," said Barney's partner. "It's bad enough to lose you, but I'm afraid it will mean the loss of Barney, too. He's been hunting for some excuse to get back to Lutha, and with you there and a war in sight I'm afraid nothing can hold him."

"I don't know but that it may be just as well for my friends here that I leave," said Butzow seriously. "I did not tell you, Barney, all there is in this letter"--he tapped his breastpocket, where the foreign-looking envelope reposed with its contents.

Custer looked at him inquiringly.

"Besides saying that war between Austria and Serbia seems unavoidable and that Lutha doubtless will be drawn into it, my informant warns me that Leopold had sent emissaries to America to search for you, Barney, and myself. What his purpose may be my friend does not know, but he warns us to be upon our guard. Von der Tann wants me to return to Lutha. He has promised to protect me, and with the country in danger there is nothing else for me to do. I must go."

"I wish I could go with you," said Barney. "If it wasn't for this dinged old mill I would; but Bert wants to go away this summer, and as I have been away most of the time for the past two years, it's up to me to stay."

As the three men talked the afternoon wore on. Heavy clouds gathered in the sky; a storm was brewing. Outside, a man, skulking behind a box car on the siding, watched the entrance through which the three had gone. He watched the workmen, and as quitting time came and he saw them leaving for their homes he moved more restlessly, transferring the package which he held from one hand to another many times, yet always gingerly.

At last all had left. The man started from behind the box car, only to jump back as the watchman appeared around the end of one of the buildings. He watched the guardian of the property make his rounds; he saw him enter his office, and then he crept forward toward the building, holding his queer package in his right hand.

In the office the watchman came upon the three friends. At sight of him they looked at one another in surprise.

"Why, what time is it?" exclaimed Custer, and as he looked at his watch he rose with a laugh. "Late to dinner again," he cried. "Come on, we'll go out this other way." And with a cheery good night to the watchman Barney and his friends hastened from the building.

Upon the opposite side the stranger approached the doorway to the mill. The rain was falling in blinding sheets. Ominously the thunder roared. Vivid flashes of lightning shot the heavens. The watchman, coming suddenly from the doorway, his hat brim pulled low over his eyes, pa.s.sed within a couple of paces of the stranger without seeing him.

Five minutes later there was a blinding glare accompanied by a deafening roar. It was as though nature had marshaled all her forces in one mighty, devastating effort. At the same instant the walls of the great mill burst asunder, a nebulous ma.s.s of burning gas shot heavenward, and then the flames settled down to complete the destruction of the ruin.

It was the following morning that Victoria and Barney Custer, with Lieutenant Butzow and Custer's partner, stood contemplating the smoldering wreckage.

"And to think," said Barney, "that yesterday this muss was the largest corn mill west of anywhere. I guess we can both take vacations now, Bert."

"Who would have thought that a single bolt of lightning could have resulted in such havoc?" mused Victoria.

"Who would?" agreed Lieutenant Butzow, and then, with a sudden narrowing of his eyes and a quick glance at Barney, "if it WAS lightning."

The American looked at the Luthanian. "You think--" he started.

"I don't dare think," replied Butzow, "because of the fear of what this may mean to you and Miss Victoria if it was not lightning that destroyed the mill. I shouldn't have spoken of it but that it may urge you to greater caution, which I cannot but think is most necessary since the warning I received from Lutha."

"Why should Leopold seek to harm me now?" asked Barney. "It has been almost two years since you and I placed him upon his throne, only to be rewarded with threats and hatred. In that time neither of us has returned to Lutha nor in any way conspired against the king.

I cannot fathom his motives."

"There is the Princess Emma von der Tann," Butzow reminded him.

"She still repulses him. He may think that, with you removed definitely and permanently, all will then be plain sailing for him in that direction. Evidently he does not know the princess."

An hour later they were all bidding Butzow good-bye at the station.

Victoria Custer was genuinely grieved to see him go, for she liked this soldierly young officer of the Royal Horse Guards immensely.

"You must come back to America soon," she urged.