“Bah! It was nothing! We are unstrung to-night,” he said in a low tone. “But to-morrow—”
Evil anticipation lit up the faces of his companions.
“Ready now!” whispered he whom they had called “count.”
The ten of them slipped through the unlocked door into the house where the aged Emperor slept all unconscious of the hands at his throat.
CHAPTER XXVII
THE MAN IN THE CLOAK SURPRISES EVERYBODY
Franz Joseph, the aged Emperor of Austria-Hungary—whose life history is one of the most tragic of all contemporary royalty—tossed uneasily as he slumbered on the great four-posted bed, around which heavy damask curtains had been drawn, shutting off all view of the bed chamber. The Emperor had fled here to his Chateau Schoenbrunn for at least a day or so of quiet and ease from the heavy cares of state.
“Go, your Imperial Highness, and sleep in peace,” his trusted friend the Grand Chancellor had told him. “For the time being I will take the burden from your shoulders.”
“There are couriers waiting there in the ante-room, from Plotz and the army at Lublin. There is a messenger from the routed army before Belgrade. There is yet another ultimatum from Bulgaria to be considered,” said the aged monarch doubtfully, passing a listless hand across his careworn brow.
“Highness, cannot I attend to all that?”