Then the dismal men formed in line before him at the
opposite side of the courtyard. Maenck stood
to the left of them. He was giving commands.
They fell upon the doomed man’s ears with all
the cruelty of physical blows. Tears coursed
down his white cheeks. With incoherent mumblings
he begged for his life. Leopold, King of Lutha,
trembling in the face of death!
THE TWO KINGS
Twenty troopers had ridden with Lieutenant Butzow
and the false king from Lustadt to Blentz. During
the long, hard ride there had been little or no conversation
between the American and his friend, for Butzow was
still unsuspicious of the true identity of the man
who posed as the ruler of Lutha. The lieutenant
was all anxiety to reach Blentz and rescue the American
he thought imprisoned there and in danger of being
shot.
At the gate they were refused admittance unless the
king would accept conditions. Barney refused—there
was another way to gain entrance to Blentz that not
even the master of Blentz knew. Butzow urged
him to accede to anything to save the life of the American.
He recalled all that the latter had done in the service
of Lutha and Leopold. Barney leaned close to
the other’s ear.
“If they have not already shot him,” he
whispered, “we shall save the prisoner yet.
Let them think that we give up and are returning to
Lustadt. Then follow me.”
Slowly the little cavalcade rode down from the castle
of Blentz toward the village. Just out of sight
of the grim pile where the road wound down into a
ravine Barney turned his horse’s head up the
narrow defile. In single file Butzow and the troopers
followed until the rank undergrowth precluded farther
advance. Here the American directed that they
dismount, and, leaving the horses in charge of three
troopers, set out once more with the balance of the
company on foot.
It was with difficulty that the men forced their way
through the bushes, but they had not gone far when
their leader stopped before a sheer wall of earth
and stone, covered with densely growing shrubbery.
Here he groped in the dim light, feeling his way with
his hands before him, while at his heels came his
followers. At last he separated a wall of bushes
and disappeared within the aperture his hands had
made. One by one his men followed, finding themselves
in inky darkness, but upon a smooth stone floor and
with stone walls close upon either hand. Those
who lifted their hands above their heads discovered
an arched stone ceiling close above them.
Along this buried corridor the “king”
led them, for though he had never traversed it himself
the Princess Emma had, and from her he had received
minute directions. Occasionally he struck a match,
and presently in the fitful glare of one of these
he and those directly behind him saw the foot of a
ladder that disappeared in the Stygian darkness above.
