The Rider Read online

  A laugh was on the lips of the conqueror of the redoubtable highwayman as the latter crawled to his feet, nursing a bloody nose with one hand, and, turning to his friends, who were now grouped in sullen defiance before the bar, called to them to rush the four at the doorway and make good their escape.

  “I was afraid the fun was over, Ivan,” said Dimmie; “but evidently it has only begun.”

  “Come!” whispered Alexander, in his ear. “The door is behind us-let’s get out of here before any blood is spilled. The thing has gone far enough. These fellows are getting nasty, and there is no telling what may happen-there are more than a few knives and revolvers in that crowd.”

  “Never!” cried Dimmie. “I am having the time of my life, old killjoy; and I’m going to stick for the finish. Run, if you want to-the door is there, and we will cover your retreat.”

  Alexander flushed “You know that I would not desert you,” he cried. “I only thought of the danger to your-”

  “Sh-sh-sh!” admonished Dimmie with a gesture of arrogance. “Forget it!”

  The roughs were advancing slowly across the barroom, when one of them passing a table which had not been overturned in the previous scrimmage, seized an empty bottle and hurled it viciously at the four guardsmen. It grazed Dimrnie’s head and splintered on the oak panel behind him. Instantly Alexander leaped in front of his friend, and drew his sword.

  “Stop!” he cried. “This has gone far enough. In the king’s name, I command you to halt where you are!”

  The answer to his order was a volley of glasses and bottles. Ivan seized a small table and raised it as a shield before them. Nicholas drew his sword and took his place on one side of the improvised barrier, while Alexander held the other.

  At sight of the drawn weapons the crowd of cutthroats and thieves cast discretion to the winds. Knives flashed, and revolvers flourished. A sullen roar rose from the pack.

  Dimmie, the inextinguishable smile still upon his lips, thuust aside his protectors, and stepped out before the menacing foe, one hand upraised for silence and attention.

  “Hold, my friends,” he said “We have enjoyed a pleasant evening. None more so than I. Let us not spoil it now by the spilling of blood.”

  As he spoke a man stepped forward from the crowd advancing from the bar. A revolver glistened in his hand. Blood streamed down his brutal face from a wound above one eye. Behind him, unnoticed came Bakla.

  “You have come here once too often, you dandies,” cried the fellow. “You have come looking for trouble; and now you’ve got it, and damn you you’re goin’ to get it good and plenty,” and with that he raised his weapon and levelled it at Dimmie.

  Ivan cast the table aside, and he and Alexander and Nicholas sprang forward to throw themselves in front of their friend, to shield his body with their own from the bullet of the assassin; but trig little Bakla was quicker than any of them. Without a cry she leaped at the man as his finger closed downward upon the trigger. Her lithe figure dodged beneath his upraised arm, which she clutched with both her little hands. There was the sharp report of a shot; but the bullet buried itself in the ceiling instead of finding lodgement in the body of Dimmie for whom it had been intended, Bakla, still clinging to the man’s arm, threw herself in front of him and facing the menacing roughs, raised her voice in protest and in censure.

  “Are you crazy,” she cried,“that you would fit halters to your necks by threatening the life of the king’s son?”

  The what?” exclaimed the man whose arm she still held raised aloft.

  “The Crown Prince, you fool,” snapped Bakla.

  The man gazed stupidly at the three guardsmen and their friend, only the last of which was not in uniform.

  “Which is the Crown Prince?” he asked.

  “He,” and she pointed at Dimmie. “He is Prince Boris.”

  The roughs looked uneasily around at one another. One of them laughed scornfully. “That the crown prince?” he asked with a sneer.

  “Yes,” spoke up he of the low brow and surly expression who had kept carefully out of the fracas from the moment that he had recognized Dimmie; “he’s Prince Boris. I ought to know him-I worked in the palace for five years.”

  An uneasy silence fell upon the company. Those who had menaced the prince shuffled their feet about on the sanded floor and cast furtive glances in the direction of their future king, who stood, unsmiling now and rather ill at ease since his identity had been revealed.

  “I think we’d better go now,” suggested Alexander. “The thing has gone too far already; and the longer we stay the worse it may become-you’ll have a bad enough time explaining it to his majesty as it is, Dimmie.”

  “Without our dinner?” asked Boris, ruefully. “No, I came for one of Tillie’s good dinners; and I’ll never leave until I’ve had it. Here, Peter, you old rogue, see what the gentlemen will drink,” and he waved his hand to include the whole company, “and Bakla, lay another plate at our table for my guest, if The Rider will honor us with his company?” and he turned with a bow toward the bandit.

  “And then go back to Sovgrad and the halter?” demanded The Rider.

  Boris drew the man’s two revolvers from his shirt and extended them toward him, butts first.

  “Here are your weapons,” he said, pleasantly. “Take them as proof of my good faith. After we have dined each of us shall go his way unmolested, carrying only memories of a pleasant evening among friends. What do you say?”

  “Done!” said The Rider.

  The king’s son linked arms with the bandit and crossed the room past the bar where Peter was already busy serving drinks to the relieved brawlers, toward the little alcove in which Bakla was laying the fifth plate at the round table.

  “You must have had many thrilling adventures,” said Boris to his guest, after the dinner and the wine had warmed the latter’s heart and loosed his naturally taciturn tongue. “Tell us of them.”

  For an hour The Rider told them tales of the road-of narrow escapes, of running fights with gendarmes, of rich hauls, and of lean days. When he paused to light another of Ivan’s gold tipped and monogrammed cigarets, Boris leaned back in his chair with a deep sigh.

  “Ah,” he murmured, “such freedom! You have lived. For such as you romance still exists; but for us life is a tame and prosaic thing. I wish that I were a bandit.”

  “And I,” said The Rider, “wish that I were a prince.”

  Boris sat suddenly erect with a half smothered exclamation.

  “Why not!” he cried. It would be great sport

  “Why not what?” asked Nicholas.

  “Be a bandit for a week,” replied Boris.

  The others leaned back in their chairs, shouting in laughter. Ivan, tying a napkin about the lower half of his face, rose and pointed a salt shaker at Alexander, menacingly.

  “Stand and deliver!” he cried. “I am Dimmie, the terror of the highways.”

  Boris joined in the good natured raillery; but when the laughter had subsided he turned toward The Rider.

  “You have said that you would like being a prince,” he said. “Well, you shall be, for a week, and I shall borrow your horse and your mask and uphold the honor of your calling upon the roads.”

  “Dimmie, you’re crazy,” cried Alexander, realizing at last that Boris was in earnest.

  The crown prince paid no attention to his friend’s interruption.

  “And you,” he continued, still addressing the bandit, “shall live like a prince while I am gone.”

  “It can’t be done, Dimmie,” broke in Alexander. “How could this man pass as Prince Boris? Except in size you are as unlike as two men can be. Where could he go to play prince where the imposture would not be immediately discovered and exposed?”

  “My hunting lodge,” cried Boris. It’s just the place.”

  “But, Dimmie,” expostulated Ivan, “within the week you will receive his majesty’s commands to proceed to Demia, for the purpose of paying court to the future crown
princess of Karlova-I have had the information in a letter from my father.”

  “Good!” exclaimed Boris. “Now I am unalterably decided, and a setting is provided where our friend here may play prince to his heart’s content and do me a good turn into the bargain.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Nicholas.

  “I mean,” replied Boris, “that I shall send The Rider to Demia to pay court to the Princess Mary of Margoth.

  The three guardsmen gaspe.

  “You are my best friends,” continued Boris. “A thousand times have you sworn that you would willingly lay down your lives for me. Now I shall discover how sincere were your protestations of fidelity. I do not wish to marry, yet; and most certainly I do not wish to marry a scrawny-necked, watery-eyed Margoth princess. If she refuses me, I shall be saved; and our friend here can see to it that she refuses. Should she accept him,” and Boris could not restrain a grin of amusement, “I shall still be saved, since she will be married to another.”

  “But Dimmie,” cried Alexander, seriously, “you cannot mean to carry your hoax as far as that! It would mean war, Dimmie.”

  “And which of you would not prefer war with Margoth?” asked Boris.

  The others were silent. Prince Boris had spoken the truth, for the military party of Karlova had for long sought to foment trouble between the two countries. The crown prince, to whom they looked for guidance, had counselled temperance, and though the acknowledged head of the war party he had been the strongest advocate of peace with Margoth. Now, however, that a distasteful marriage was to be thrust upon him he was quite willing to go to any lengths, though the principal appeal of the adventure lay in it’s levity.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE city of Demia was draped with bunting. The flags of Karlova and Margoth floated from a thousand windows and balconies. They were suspended across the main thoroughfares upon ropes of flowers. The colors of Karlova were twined with those of Margoth upon the coats of the men of Margoth and in the dark hair of the women; yet, notwithstanding these outward symbols of rejoicing, the hearts of the Margothians were heavy, for today a Karlovian prince was coming to pay court to their beloved princess, Mary of Margoth.

  In the palace of the king the object of their devotion stamped back and forth the length of her boudoir. Her little hands were flying in excited gestures as she stormed vehemently to the sympathetic ear of her audience of one. Faithful Carlotta shared her mistress’s aversion to the thought of the impending calamity.

  “I won’t! I won’t! I won’t!” cried Mary. “I’ll -I’ll die first. I won’t marry a hideous, hateful Karlovian. I don’t care if I am a princess. It isn’t my fault; and I don’t want to be one, anyway.

  “My dear child,” and Carlotta’s voice was choked with sobs; “if poor old Carlotta could only help you! But there is no help. You were born to the purple, and you must accept the responsibilities of the purple; and, too, dear, you may find that Prince Boris is not entirely impossible-even though he be a Karlovian. He-”

  “Carlotta!” interrupted~ the Princess Mary, clapping her palms together. “I have it!”

  “Have what?” asked Carlotta.

  “Never mind what I have; but I have it; and, Carlotta, pay no attention to anything that I may say or do while Prince Boris is present. Do you understand?”

  There was a blare of trumpets from far down the broad avenue which leads up to the palace.

  “He is coming!” cried Carlotta.

  “But he won’t stay long,” said Princess Mary, with a shrug and a girlish giggle.

  In the uniform of colonel of The Black Guard, and attended only by three officers of that famous regiment, came Boris, Prince of Karlova to the court of Alexis III. Between lines of royal troops, down a flower-strewn boulevard he rode in the French limousine which had brought him along the Roman road from Sovgrad to Demia Prince Stroebel, Prime Minister of Margoth had met him at the city gates, and now sat beside him. The crown prince of Karlova seemed ill at ease. He played with the sword knot upon the hilt of the jeweled weapon at his side. He cast apprehensive glances at the long line of soldiery, standing with arms at the present along either hand. To the perfunctory plaudits of the citizens of Demia he made no response.

  Ivan Kantchi, who sat just in front of him, kicked his royal foot and made a surreptitious gesture toward his helmet. The crown prince snatched off his own headgear and waved it frantically at the cheering populace. Ivan Kantchi bit his lip, and a slow flush crept up from beneath his military collar. Prince Stroebel became acutely interested in something straight ahead of him. Alexander Palensk, sitting beside Ivan, gave the latter an almost imperceptible nudge with his elbow. The people packing either side of the avenue gazed wide eyed at the crown prince of Karlova for a moment; then they broke into loud and tumultuous laughter.

  Prince Boris glanced nervously to right and left. He saw the strained expressions upon the faces of his companions, he sensed the jeers in the laughter of the people of Demia. Then he lost his temper. Jamming his helmet down upon his head, the eagles of The Black Guard to the rear instead of in front, he rose to his feet, and shaking his fists at the Margothians unloosed a stream of profane invective upon them.

  A young American, standing upon a balcony of Demia’s principal hotel, witnessed the outbreak.

  “The future husband of your princess appears to have a little temper of his own,” he commented, grinning, to a chance acquaintance at his side. The latter, a very tall young man, broad shouldered and with an unmistakably military bearing, smiled.

  “He doesn’t seem to be making a very good impression, does he?” he asked. “But you are mistaken, M. Main, in thinking me a Margothian. I am not. Just a chance visitor to Demia, like yourself.”

  “Well,” said Hemmington Main, “I hope that whatever your business here may be that you are more successful than I have been. One disappointment after another has been my lot - since I first reached Europe, and now I have entirely lost track of those I am seeking. They should have arrived in Demia three days since, and I can only account for their absence on the hypothesis that-ahem-ne of them discovered that I was following them and has altered their route in order to elude me.”

  “You are an American detective?” asked the stranger.

  Main laughed. “Far from it,” he replied; “though I have often thought, until recently, that I was a natural born sleuth; and now to lose two women and a chauffeur, to say nothing of two maids and an automobile, in the heart of Europe is a severe blow to my egotism.”

  “My dear fellow,” exclaimed the stranger; “can it be that be that you are trailing a convent?”

  “I’m trailing the dearest girl in the world,” replied Main.

  The other raised his eyebrows in partial understanding.

  “Ah,” he said; “a love affair-romance-adventure! My dear M. Main, I think that you are a man after my own heart, with this slight difference-you are seeking to find a love, I to elude one. Possibly we might join forces, eh?”

  “How?”

  “I do not know-we must leave that to fate; and while fate is mustering her forces let us find a table here on the balcony and investigate again that incomparable ‘bronx’ which you taught the bar boy to concoct before we were interrupted by the coming of His Royal Highness, Prince Boris of Karlova.”

  “You’re on,” cried Hemmington Main. “His royal nibs has passed. The troops are going. Hoi polloi are dispersing. The circus parade is over-now for red lemonade and peanuts.”

  “You Americans don’t entertain a ~eat deal of respect for royalty,” commented the stranger, with a good natured laugh.

  “Oh, hut we do,” replied Main. “We deride the gods even while we tremble at their feet. We poke fun at kings, for whose lightest favor we would barter our souls. We are a strange race, monsieur. Europeans do not know us; nor is it strange, for, as a matter of fact, we do not know ourselves.”

  The two men had seated themselves at a small table near the balustrade, overlooking the
avenue beneath. Traffic was once more assuming its normal condition, though many pedestrians still lingered in idle gossip upon the narrow walks. An automobile, a large touring car, honked noisily out of a side street and crossed toward the hotel entrance. Main chanced to be looking down into the street at the time. With an excited exclamation he half rose from his chair.

  “There they are!” he whispered. “There she is, now.

  “Who?” asked the stranger.

  “The convent,” explained Main.

  “Good! You are something of a detective, after all.”

  The car drew up before the hotel and stopped. Two maids alighted, followed by a young girl and a white haired woman.

  “I am interested, my friend,” said the stranger. “Tell me something of your romance-it is possible that I may be of assistance to you.

  Main looked the other squarely in the eyes. He had been attracted to the man from the first by that indefinable something which inspires confidence and belief even in total strangers.

  “My dear Kargovitch,” he said, “I do not know you from the side of a barn; but I like you. You are what my friend Garrigan of the late Chicago Press Club would call ‘a regular fellow.’ I think I’ll tell you my troubles; but I’ll promise not to weep on your shoulder-the bronx is far too mild for that.”

  M. Kargovitch leaned across the table and laid a hand on the American’s shoulder.

  “I am glad that you like me, my friend,” he said; and I can assure you that I return the compliment. Tell me no more than you care to; and if I can help you, I will.

  Hemmington Main let his eyes return from the walk below, from which the little party had disappeared from the automobile into the interior of the hotel.

  t is this way,” he said. “The young lady whom you just saw leaving the machine is Miss Gwendolyn Bass, daughter of Abner J. Bass the multi-millionaire American. I-er-ah-we, well, you understand; she is perfectly willing to become Mrs. Hemmington Main; and her father is with us, strong; but Mamma Bass has aspirations. She wants a title in the family. Money, of course, is no object to them. The fact that I am poor means nothing to Mrs. Bass one way or another; but, you see, being a plain American, I am absolutely titleless and, therefore, impossible. Gwendolyn would marry me in a minute if we coiild get her away from her mother long enough to have the ceremony performed; but mamma has Argus backed through the ropes in the first round when it comes to watchfulness. If I could only find some way to separate Gwen from mamma for about an hour it would all be over but the shouting.”