LITMIR.BIZ

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officer looked bewildered, and said nothing. Aunt Fanny was speechless. Later on, when the lieutenant had gone ahead to confer with the guides about the suspicious actions of a small troop of horsemen they had seen, Beverly confided to the old negress that she was frightened almost out of her boots, but that she’d die before the men should see a sign of cowardice in a Calhoun. Aunt Fanny was not so proud and imperious. It was with difficulty that her high-strung young mistress suppressed the wails that long had been under restraint in Aunt Fanny’s huge and turbulent bosom.

      “Good Lawd, Miss Bev’ly, dey’ll chop us all to pieces an’ take ouah jewl’ry an’ money an’ clo’es and ev’ything else we done got about us. Good Lawd, le’s tu’n back, Miss Bev’ly. We ain’ got no mo’ show out heah in dese mountings dan a—”

      “Be still, Aunt Fanny!” commanded Beverly, with a fine show of courage. “You must be brave. Don’t you see we can’t turn back? It’s just as dangerous and a heap sight more so. If we let on we’re not one bit afraid they’ll respect us, don’t you see, and men never harm women whom they respect.”

      “Umph!” grunted Aunt Fanny, with exaggerated irony.

      “Well, they never do!” maintained Beverly, who was not at all sure about it. “And they look like real nice men—honest men, even though they have such awful whiskers.”

      “Dey’s de wust trash Ah eveh did see,” exploded Aunt Fanny.

      “Sh! Don’t let them hear you,” whispered Beverly.

      In spite of her terror and perplexity, she was compelled to smile. It was all so like the farce comedies one sees at the theatre.

      As the officer rode up, his face was pale in the shadowy light of the afternoon and he was plainly nervous.

      “What is the latest news from the front?” she inquired cheerfully.

      “The men refuse to ride on,” he exclaimed, speaking rapidly, making it still harder for her to understand. “Our advance guard has met a party of hunters from Axphain. They insist that you—’the fine lady in the coach’—are the Princess Yetive, returning from a secret visit to St. Petersburg, where you went to plead for assistance from the Czar.”

      Beverly Calhoun gasped in astonishment. It was too incredible to believe. It was actually ludicrous. She laughed heartily. “How perfectly absurd.”

      “I am well aware that you are not the Princess Yetive,” he continued emphatically; “but what can I do; the men won’t believe me. They swear they have been tricked and are panic-stricken over the situation. The hunters tell them that the Axphain authorities, fully aware of the hurried flight of the Princess through these wilds, are preparing to intercept her. A large detachment of soldiers are already across the Graustark frontier. It is only a question of time before the ‘red legs’ will be upon them. I have assured them that their beautiful charge is not the Princess, but an American girl, and that there is no mystery about the coach and escort. All in vain. The Axphain guides already feel that their heads are on the block; while as for the Cossacks, not even my dire threats of the awful anger of the White Czar, when he finds they have disobeyed his commands, will move them.”

      “Speak to your men once more, sir, and promise them big purses of gold when we reach Ganlook. I have no money or valuables with me; but there I can obtain plenty,” said Beverly, shrewdly thinking it better that they should believe her to be without funds.

      The cavalcade had halted during this colloquy. All the men were ahead conversing sullenly and excitedly with much gesticulation. The driver, a stolid creature, seemingly indifferent to all that was going on, alone remained at his post. The situation, apparently dangerous, was certainly most annoying. But if Beverly could have read the mind of that silent figure on the box, she would have felt slightly relieved, for he was infinitely more anxious to proceed than even she; but from far different reasons. He was a Russian convict, who had escaped on the way to Siberia. Disguised as a coachman he was seeking life and safety in Graustark, or any out-of-the-way place. It mattered little to him where the escort concluded to go. He was going ahead. He dared not go back—he must go on.

      At the end of half an hour, the officer returned; all hope had gone from his face. “It is useless!” he cried out. “The guides refuse to proceed. See! They are going off with their countrymen! We are lost without them. I do not know what to do. We cannot get to Ganlook; I do not know the way, and the danger is great. Ah! Madam! Here they come! The Cossacks are going back.”

      As he spoke, the surly mutineers were riding slowly towards the coach. Every man had his pistol on the high pommel of the saddle. Their faces wore an ugly look. As they passed the officer, one of them, pointing ahead of him with his sword, shouted savagely, “Balak!”

      It was conclusive and convincing. They were deserting her.

      “Oh, oh, oh! The cowards!” sobbed Beverly in rage and despair. “I must go on! Is it possible that even such men would leave—”

      She was interrupted by the voice of the officer, who, raising his cap to her, commanded at the same time the driver to turn his horses and follow the escort to Balak.

      “What is that?” demanded Beverly in alarm.

      From far off came the sound of firearms. A dozen shots were fired, and reverberated down through the gloomy pass ahead of the coach.

      “They are fighting somewhere in the hills in front of us,” answered the now frightened officer. Turning quickly, he saw the deserting horsemen halt, listen a minute, and then spur their horses. He cried out sharply to the driver, “Come, there! Turn round! We have no time to lose!”

      With a savage grin, the hitherto motionless driver hurled some insulting remark at the officer, who was already following his men, now in full flight down the road, and settling himself firmly on the seat, taking a fresh grip of the reins, he yelled to his horses, at the same time lashing them furiously with his whip, and started the coach ahead at a fearful pace. His only thought was to get away as far as possible from the Russian officer, then deliberately desert the coach and its occupants and take to the hills.

      CHAPTER IV

      THE RAGGED RETINUE

      Thoroughly mystified by the action of the driver and at length terrified by the pace that carried them careening along the narrow road, Beverly cried out to him, her voice shrill with alarm. Aunt Fanny was crouching on the floor of the coach, between the seats, groaning and praying.

      “Stop! Where are you going?” cried Beverly, putting her head recklessly through the window. If the man heard her he gave no evidence of the fact. His face was set forward and he was guiding the horses with a firm, unquivering hand. The coach rattled and bounded along the dangerous way hewn in the side of the mountain. A misstep or a false turn might easily start the clumsy vehicle rolling down the declivity on the right. The convict was taking desperate chances, and with a cool, calculating brain, prepared to leap to the ground in case of accident and save himself, without a thought for the victims inside.

      “Stop! Turn around!” she cried in a frenzy. “We shall be killed! Are you crazy?”

      By this time they had struck a descent in the road and were rushing along at breakneck speed into oppressive shadows that bore the first imprints of night. Realizing at last that her cries were falling upon purposely deaf ears, Beverly Calhoun sank back into the seat, weak and terror-stricken. It was plain to her that the horses were not running away, for the man had been lashing them furiously. There was but one conclusion: he was deliberately taking her farther into the mountain fastnesses, his purpose known only to himself. A hundred terrors presented themselves to her as she lay huddled against the side of the coach, her eyes closed tightly, her tender body tossed furiously about with the sway of the vehicle. There was the fundamental fear that she would be dashed to death down the side of the mountain, but apart from this her quick brain was evolving all sorts of possible endings—none short of absolute disaster.

      Even as she prayed that something might intervene to check the mad rush and to deliver her from the horrors of the moment, the

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