The Terrible Twins Part 29

"Yes, shout!" said the archduke quickly.

The chauffeur rose to his full height in the car and bellowed: "Zerbst!

Zerbst! Zerbst!"

No answer came to the call; no one came from the path to the knoll.

In three minutes the archduke was grinding his teeth in a black fury.

Then with an air of inspiration he cried: "I shout--you shout--all ad vonce!"

"Every little 'elps," said the chauffeur politely.

With that they both rose to their full height in the car and together bellowed: "Zerbst! Zerbst! Zerbst!"

No answer came to it; no one came from the path to the knoll.

On his sunny bank on the side of the knoll Sir Maurice said carelessly: "He seems to be growing impatient."

"He isn't calling us. And it's no use our going back without either the princess or the count," said Miss Lambart quickly.

"Not the slightest," said Sir Maurice; and he drew her closer, if that were possible, to him and kissed her.

To this point had their cooperation in the search for the princess and their discussion of everything and certain other things ripened their earlier friendship. They, or rather Sir Maurice, had even been discussing the matter of being married at an early date.

"I don't think I shall let you go back to the Grange at all. They don't treat you decently, you know--not even for royalties," he went on.

"Oh, it wouldn't do not to go back--at any rate for to-night--though, of course, there's no point in my staying longer, since the princess isn't there," said Miss Lambart.

"You don't know: perhaps Zerbst has caught her by now and is hauling her to her circular sire," said Sir Maurice. "The Twins can not be successful all the time."

"We ought to go and search those caves thoroughly," said Miss Lambart.

"That wouldn't be the slightest use," said Sir Maurice in a tone of complete certainty. "If the princess is in the caves, she is not in an accessible one. But as a matter of fact she is quite as likely, or even likelier, to be at the Grange. The Twins are quite intelligent enough to hide princesses in the last place you would be likely to look for them. It's no use our worrying ourselves about her; besides, we're very comfortable here. Why not stay just as we are?"

They stayed there.

But the archduke's impatience was slowly rising to a fury as the minutes that separated him from the one-fifteen slipped away. At ten minutes to one he was seized by a sudden fresh fear lest the searchers should be so long returning as to make him late for lunch; and at once he despatched the chauffeur to find them and bring them without delay.

The chauffeur made no haste about it. He had heard of the caves on Deeping Knoll and had always been curious to see them. Besides, he made it a point of honor not to smoke on duty; he had not had a pipe in his mouth since eleven o'clock; and he felt now off duty. He explored half a dozen caves thoroughly before he came upon Miss Lambart and Sir Maurice and gave them the archduke's message. They joined him in his search for Count Zerbst, going through the caves and calling to him loudly.

The one-fifteen had gone; and the hour of lunch was perilously near.

The face of the archduke was dark with the dread that he would be late for it. There was a terrifying but sympathetic throbbing not far from his solar plexus.

Every two or three minutes he rose to his full height in the car and bellowed: "Zerbst! Zerbst! Zerbst!"

Still no answer came to the call; no one came from the path to the knoll.

Then at the very moment at which on more fortunate days he was wont to sink heavily, with his mouth watering, into a large chair before a gloriously spread German table, he heard the sound of voices; and the chauffeur, Miss Lambart and Sir Maurice came out of the path to the knoll.

They told the duke that they had neither seen nor heard anything of the princess, her hosts, or Count Zerbst. The archduke cursed his equerry wheezily but in the German tongue, and bade the chauffeur get into the car and drive to the Grange as fast as petrol could take him.

Sir Maurice bade Miss Lambart good-by, saluted the archduke, and the car went b.u.mping down the turfed aisle. Once in the road the chauffeur, anxious to make trial at an early moment of the archducal hospitality, let her rip. But half a mile down the road, they came upon a slow-going, limping wayfarer. It was Count Zerbst. After a long discussion with Mrs. Dangerfield he had decided that since Erebus had slipped away back to the knoll, it would be impossible for him to find his way to it unguided; and he had set out for Muttle Deeping Grange. In the course of his chase of Erebus and his walk back his patent leather boots had found him out with great severity; and he was indeed footsore. He stepped into the grateful car with a deep sigh of relief.

A depressed party gathered round the luncheon table; Miss Lambart alone was cheerful. The archduke had been much shaken by his terrors and disappointments of the morning. Count Zerbst had acquired a deep respect for the intelligence of the young friends of the princess; and he had learned from Mrs. Dangerfield, who had discussed the matter with Sir Maurice, that since her stay at the knoll was doing the princess good, and was certainly better for her than life with the crimson baroness at the Grange, she was not going to annoy and discourage her charitable offspring by interfering in their good work for trivial social reasons. The baroness was bitterly angry at their failure to recover her lost charge.

They discussed the further measures to be taken, the archduke and the baroness with asperity, Count Zerbst gloomily. He made no secret of the fact that he believed that, if he dressed for the chase and took to the woods, he would in the end find and capture the princess, but it might take a week or ten days. The archduke cried shame upon a strategist of his ability that he should be baffled by children for a week or ten days. Count Zerbst said sulkily that it was not the children who would baffle him, but the caves and the woods they were using. At last they began to discuss the measure of summoning to their aid the local police; and for some time debated whether it was worth the risk of the ridicule it might bring upon them.

Miss Lambart had listened to them with distrait ears since she had something more pleasant to give her mind to. But at last she said with some impatience: "Why can't the princess stay where she is? That open-air life, day and night, is doing her a world of good. She is eating lots of good food and taking ten times as much exercise as ever she took in her life before."

"Eembossible! Shall I live in a cave?" cried the baroness.

"It doesn't matter at all where you live. It is the princess we are considering," said Miss Lambart unkindly, for she had come quite to the end of her patience with the baroness.

"Drue!" said the archduke quickly.

"Shall eet zen be zat ze princess live ze life of a beast in a gave?"

cried the baroness.

"She isn't," said Miss Lambart shortly. "In fact she's leading a far better and healthier and more intelligent life than she does here. The doctor's orders were never properly carried out."

"Ees zat zo?" said the archduke, frowning at the baroness.

"Eengleesh doctors! What zey know? Modern!" cried the baroness scornfully.

In loud and angry German the archduke fell furiously upon the baroness, upbraiding her for her disobedience of his orders. The baroness defended herself loudly, alleging that the princess would by now be dying of a galloping consumption had she had all the air and water the doctors had ordered her. But the archduke stormed on. At last he had some one on whom he could vent his anger with an excellent show of reason; and he vented it.

Presently, for the sake of Miss Lambart's counsel in the matter, they returned to the English tongue and discussed seriously the matter of the princess remaining at the knoll. They found many objections to it, and the chief of them was that it was not safe for three children to be encamped by themselves in the heart of a wood.

Miss Lambart grew tired of a.s.suring them that the Twins were more efficient persons than nine Germans out of ten; and at last she said:

"Well, Highness, to set your fears quite at rest, I will go and stay at the knoll myself. Then you can go back to Ca.s.sel-Na.s.sau with your mind at ease; and I will undertake that the princess comes to you in better health than if she had stayed on here."

"Bud 'ow would she be zafer wiz a young woman, ignorant and--" cried the baroness, furious at this attempt to usurp her authority.

"Goot!" cried the archduke cutting her short; and his face beamed at the thought of escaping forthwith to his home. "Eet shall be zo! And ze baroness shall go alzo to Ca.s.sel-Na.s.sau zo zoon az I zend a lady who do as ze doctors zay."

So it was settled; and Miss Lambart was busy for an hour collecting provisions, arranging that fresh provisions should be brought to the path to the knoll every morning and preparing and packing the fewest possible number of garments she would need during her stay.

Then she bade the relieved archduke good-by; and set out in the Rowington car to the knoll. Not far from the park gates she met Sir Maurice strolling toward the Grange, and took him with her. At the entrance of the path to the knoll they took the baskets of provisions and Miss Lambart's trunk from the car, and dismissed it. Then they went to the knoll.

It was silent; there were no signs of the presence of man about it.

But after Sir Maurice had shouted three times that they came in peace-bearing terms, Erebus and Wiggins came out of one of the caves above them and heard the news. She made haste to bear it to the Terror and the princess who received it with joy. They had already been cooped up long enough in the secret caves and were eager to plunge once more into the strenuous life. They welcomed Miss Lambart warmly; and the princess was indeed pleased to have her fears removed and her position at the knoll secure.

They made Miss Lambart one of themselves and admitted her to a full share of the strenuous life. She played her part in it manfully. Even Erebus, who was inclined to carp at female attainments, was forced to admit that as a brigand, an outlaw, or a pirate she often shone.

But Sir Maurice, who was naturally a frequent visitor, never caught her engaged in the strenuous life. Indeed, on his arrival she disappeared; and always spent some minutes after his arrival removing traces of the speed at which she had been living it, and on cooling down to life on the lower place. Both of them found the knoll a delightful place for lovers.