Choosing deserted streets and avoiding every thoroughfare in which there was the remotest chance of our carriages being recognised, we eventually reached the outskirts of the city and took the high-road that leads across the mountains to the town of Aschenberg. So far, admirable success had accompanied us, but it was no sort of guarantee that such good fortune would continue. Hour after hour we rolled along the silent country roads, drawing gradually nearer the mountains, whose snow-clad peaks loomed dense as a wall against the starlit sky.
It had been arranged that we should spend what remained of that night and also the next day at the house of a distant kinsman of the Count von Marquart. On the second night we were to continue our journey, putting up at an inn in the mountains, and so on, as fast as horses could take us, and circumstances would permit, until we should have crossed the border and be in safety. The night was well spent before we reached the mountains, and it wanted only an hour or so to daybreak when we began the climb up the last ascent that led to our refuge for the night. Already the first grey dawn was creeping across the landscape, showing the snow-covered slopes of the mountains on the one side, and the rock-strewn valley on the other, in all their dreary nakedness. Then we looked out of the carriage window and saw the castle itself, standing out on the bold side of the mountain, and commanding a view that is possibly without its equal in all Pannonia. The rusty old drawbridge – for this ancient place still possessed one – was lowered in readiness for our approach, and since the owner and his three stalwart sons were beside it on the look-out for our coming, it seemed as if our arrival were more anxiously awaited than we imagined. Glad as they were to see us, we were still more pleased to leave the carriage. For two of our number at least the journey must of necessity have been an agonising one. Yet no word of reproach had been spoken on either side.
"I offer your Majesties the heartiest welcome in my power," said our host, coming forward and bowing before my father and mother. "I would to God it were not under such circumstances."
"The fortune of war, my dear Count," replied my father. "Let us be thankful our enemies have allowed us even to live. I believe I am not the first of my House that your castle has sheltered in adverse days. If I am not mistaken my ancestor, Stephen Ramonyi, was its guest in 1553 when – but there, the present is sufficient for our needs, without raking up the troubles of the past, and it is rather cold here for such a discussion. Her Majesty and the children are tired after their long journey."
On hearing this the old man led the way across the great courtyard towards the flight of steps which led up to the main entrance of the castle. I cannot hope to make you understand how the dreariness of the place struck me, and what a chill it set upon my heart. Yet for the time being it meant safety, even life itself, for us.
The Countess received my mother on the steps, and then we passed into the castle together. A meal had been prepared for us, and as soon as we had discarded our wraps we sat down to it. What transpired further I do not know, for, quite worn out, I fell asleep in my chair before I had swallowed half a dozen mouthfuls. When I awoke again I was in bed, and the wind was whistling round the turret as if in mockery of our fallen fortunes.
Next evening, as soon as it was dark, we bade our friends farewell, and once more resumed our journey. It was necessary that, if possible, we should reach a lonely inn on the other side of the mountains before daylight, and the road, so we were informed, was by no means a good one. As we soon discovered, this proved a correct assertion; for a more discouraging thirty miles could scarcely have been found in the length and breadth of the country. In consequence, instead of arriving at our destination, as it was most important we should do, while it was still dark, it was full morning before we came in sight of it. If the castle of Elfrinstein had seemed a lonely spot, this, our second stopping place, was infinitely more so. The inn itself stood within a deep gorge, the rugged sides of which towered some hundreds of feet above its roof. The building was a mere hovel of four rooms, and at one time was much frequented by those engaged in smuggling spirits across the border.
When we drew up at the door, the landlord, an enormous man, possessing the reddest hair I have ever seen on a human being, and a beard that reached almost to his waist, emerged, rubbing his eyes and yawning cavernously. He was followed by a woman, his wife. Together they approached the carriage, and as soon as my father had alighted, knelt before him with bowed heads. The picture seemed so incongruous, so out of keeping with the other attributes of that grim place, that, miserable as we all were – for the previous night's journey had been comfort itself compared with that we had just completed. I don't think one of us was able to suppress a smile.
"Get up, my friends," said my father in a kindly tone, "and lead us into the house. We are worn out after our night's travelling. No one has been this way in search of us, I hope?"
"Not a living soul, your Majesty," the man replied. "They'd best not come about here now. 'Twould be a bad case for them if they found your Majesties here."
Having uttered this somewhat ambiguous speech, he led the way into the house, where, it was soon apparent, great preparations had been made for our reception.
It was early in the afternoon when a terrible incident, which came so near our undoing, occurred, and it happened in this way. Being determined that no one should approach the inn during the time we occupied it, our shock-headed friend had stationed one of his sons at the entrance of the defile, with definite instructions to bring the news to him with all speed should he detect the approach of any suspicious persons. For the greater portion of the day the lad saw no one; just when his brother arrived to relieve him, however, they espied approaching them, as rapidly as the rough nature of the ground would permit, a body of horsemen, who presently proved themselves to be soldiers. To rush back to the inn and give the alarm was the work of a few minutes.
"The soldiers! the soldiers!" cried the lads, bursting together into the room where their mother was busily engaged in preparing a last meal for us.
Their father rose to his feet.
"You know what to do, wife?" he said quietly, and then entered the room where we were sitting listening to the dreadful tidings.
"The soldiers are coming, your Majesty," he remarked, still quite unperturbed. "You must be away before they reach the house."
"But how is it to be done?" inquired my mother anxiously. "I see no way of escape, and there are the children to be thought of."
"When the little princes are ready, I'll show your Majesty a way, never fear," the man replied, and surely enough, as soon as our outdoor garments had been donned, he took me in his arms and led the way through the house to the back. The great blank wall of the cliff abutted close upon it, but how this was to help us I could not understand. At one place his eldest son was busily engaged removing a pile of brushwood, and making straight for this he put me down and began to assist the boy. When the stack had been partially removed, a circular hole in the cliff, about the size of a large barrel, became apparent.
"If your Majesties will follow me, I don't think the soldiers will catch you," he said, and forthwith went down upon all-fours. A moment later the King and Queen of Pannonia and their somewhat fastidious children might have been seen on their hands and knees, crawling into safety, if I may so express it, through a hole in the wall.
CHAPTER III
I have described the ignominious fashion in which our family, led by the giant innkeeper, made its way through the hole in the cliff, and thus escaped the soldiers, who otherwise would certainly have arrested us. As soon as Gabriel, my father's valet, who was the last of our party to enter, had disappeared, the innkeeper's son, who remained outside, once more covered the aperture with brushwood, thus effectually concealing its existence. Provided the soldiers did not become aware of our subterranean hiding-place as they were scarcely likely to do, we had every right to consider ourselves safe, at least for the time being.
Much to our relief the small tunnel through which it was necessary for us to crawl was only a few feet in length; for this reason we seemed scarcely to have entered it before our guide informed us that we might resume an upright position. He then struck a match, and its light enabled us to see that we were standing in a large cave, the walls of which streamed with moisture. Taking a torch, made of some resinous wood, from a small box covered with a sack, he fired it and turned to us again.
"It