第97章 XV MAENCK BLUNDERS(2)

As he charged again he uttered a peculiar whistling noise from between his set teeth. To the American it sounded like the hissing of a snake, and as he would have met a snake he met the venomous attack of the old man.

When the short battle was over the Blentz servitor lay unconscious upon the floor, while above him leaned the American, uninjured, ripping long strips from a sheet torn from the bed, twisting them into rope-like strands and, with them, binding the wrists and ankles of his defeated foe.

Finally he stuffed a gag between the toothless gums.

Running to the wardrobe, he discovered that the king's uniform was gone. That, with the witness of the empty bed, told him the whole story. The American smiled. "More nerve than I gave him credit for," he mused, as he walked back to his bed and reached under the pillow for the two papers he had forced the king to sign. They, too, were gone. Slowly Barney Custer realized his plight, as there filtered through his mind a suggestion of the possibilities of the trick that had been played upon him.

Why should Leopold wish these papers? Of course, he might merely have taken them that he might destroy them;but something told Barney Custer that such was not the case. And something, too, told him whither the king had ridden and what he would do there when he arrived.

He ran back to the wardrobe. In it hung the peasant attire that he had stolen from the line of the careless house frau, and later wished upon his majesty the king. Barney grinned as he recalled the royal disgust with which Leopold had fingered the soiled garments. He scarce blamed him.

Looking further toward the back of the wardrobe, the American discovered other clothing.

He dragged it all out upon the floor. There was an old shooting jacket, several pairs of trousers and breeches, and a hunting coat. In a drawer at the bottom of the wardrobe he found many old shoes, puttees, and boots.

From this miscellany he selected riding breeches, a pair of boots, and the red hunting coat as the only articles that fitted his rather large frame. Hastily he dressed, and, taking the ax the old man had brought to the room as the only weapon available, he walked boldly into the corridor, down the spiral stairway and into the guardroom.

Barney Custer was prepared to fight. He was desperate.

He could have slunk from the Castle of Blentz as he had entered it--through the secret passageway to the ravine;but to attempt to reach Lustadt on foot was not at all compatible with the urgent haste that he felt necessary. He must have a horse, and a horse he would have if he had to fight his way through a Blentz army.

But there were no armed retainers left at Blentz. The guardroom was vacant; but there were arms there and am-munition. Barney commandeered a sword and a revolver, then he walked into the courtyard and crossed to the stables.

The way took him by the garden. In it he saw a coffin-like box resting upon planks above a grave-like excavation. Bar-ney investigated. The box was empty. Once again he grinned.

"It is not always wise," he mused, "to count your corpses before they're dead. What a lot of work the old man might have spared himself if he'd only caught his cadaver first--or at least tried to."

Passing on by his own grave, he came to the stables. Agroom was carrying a strong, clean-limbed hunter haltered in the doorway. The man looked up as Barney approached him. A puzzled expression entered the fellow's eyes. He was a young man--a stupid-looking lout. It was evident that he half recognized the face of the newcomer as one he had seen before. Barney nodded to him.

"Never mind finishing," he said. "I am in a hurry. You may saddle him at once." The voice was authoritative--it brooked no demur. The groom touched his forehead, dropped the currycomb and brush, and turned back into the stable to fetch saddle and bridle.

Five minutes later Barney was riding toward the gate.

The portcullis was raised--the drawbridge spanned the moat --no guard was there to bar his way. The sunlight flooded the green valley, stretching lazily below him in the soft warmth of a mellow autumn morning. Behind him he had left the brooding shadows of the grim old fortress--the cold, cruel, depressing stronghold of intrigue, treason, and sud-den death.

He threw back his shoulders and filled his lungs with the sweet, pure air of freedom. He was a new man. The wound in his breast was forgotten. Lightly he touched his spurs to the hunter's sides. Tossing his head and curveting, the ani-mal broke into a long, easy trot. Where the road dipped into the ravine and down through the village to the valley the rider drew his restless mount into a walk; but, once in the valley, he let him out. Barney took the short road to Lus-tadt. It would cut ten miles off the distance that the main wagonroad covered, and it was a good road for a horseman.

It should bring him to Lustadt by one o'clock or a little after. The road wound through the hills to the east of the main highway, and was scarcely more than a trail where it crossed the Ru River upon a narrow bridge that spanned the deep mountain gorge that walls the Ru for ten miles through the hills.

When Barney reached the river his hopes sank. The bridge was gone--dynamited by the Austrians in their re-treat. The nearest bridge was at the crossing of the main highway over ten miles to the southwest. There, too, the river might be forded even if the Austrians had destroyed that bridge also; but here or elsewhere in the hills there could be no fording--the banks of the Ru were perpendicular cliffs.