If she was surprised at my manner, she showed it by driving the spurs into her horse's flanks, which put her in the lead. It was getting light enough now for us to see the road, if the half-outlined path we were following could be termed a road. Solonika never hesitated; she seemed to know the forest well, for she found a sort of bridlepath between the trees and kept to it unerringly; whereas, had I been left to myself, I must have missed the way frequently.
For an hour we rode steadily without speaking, although I would have given much to have heard her voice again. But, when the sun came up, driving away, as I fondly imagined, plots and fear of sudden death, I could no longer resist the temptation. I knew that we were not out of danger by any means, for the horses were plainly tired, having covered the journey once that evening. Now I understood why Nick deliberated upon the steps. He was making up his mind not to use his own horse, but to take a fresh mount from the Duke's stable. When we emerged at last from the forest, and found ourselves in a pleasant country road, lined at intervals with farmers' houses, I signalled to Solonika and drew down to a walk.
"How far to Dhalmatia?" I panted.
"Thirty miles."
Thirty miles on tired horses! I was aghast. Our only hope now was that our escape had not been discovered. I recalled that it had taken only three hours to ride to the hunting grounds, but Solonika explained that I had walked sixteen miles in the night. If my calculation was correct the poor beasts we rode would have to cover some eighty miles from Framkor to the lodge and back.
"And furthermore," she added, "if your friend Nicholas takes the back track in search of you, he will come out on the Framkor lawns and we may meet him on the road ahead."
"He will have to pass Dhalmatia to do that," I said.
"Well, he promised to assure my sister of my safety."
She threw back her head and laughed, while I forgot my weariness, my aching head, my empty stomach, and laughed with her for the pure joy of laughing. To rest our horses we dismounted, walking hand in hand down the middle of the dusty road like two school children coming from school. We stopped occasionally at farmhouses where Solonika begged milk and bread for me, saying, as she fed me with her own hands, that the good things of this world were not equally divided, since she had had too much to eat and I too little.
I told her of America, my own United States, and described it to her as a land where there were no kings or queens but where every man was a king and every woman a queen. My description was so glowing that she promised to visit the States, after she was crowned and grew tired of being always a man. One day, she said, she would run away incognito, put on her loved woman's finery, which she could not forsake altogether, and send me her card from her hotel. Would I have forgotten her by that time? Would I be pleased to see her?