"Your highness," he said earnestly, after she had looked long and anxiously at his half-closed eyes, "we are within an hour of Ganlook. It will be dark before we reach the gates, I know, but you have nothing to fear during the rest of the trip. Franz shall drive you to the sentry post and turn over the horses to your own men. My friends and I must leave you at the end of the mountain road. We are—"
"Ridiculous!" she cried. "I'll not permit it! You must go to a hospital."
"If I enter the Ganlook gates it will be the same as entering the gates of death," he protested.
"Nonsense! You have a fever or you wouldn't talk like that. I can promise you absolute security."
"You do not understand, your highness."
"Nevertheless, you are going to a hospital," she firmly said. "You would die out here in the wilds, so what are the odds either way? Aunt Fanny, will you be careful? Don't you know that the least movement of those bags hurts him?"
"Please, do not mind me, your highness. I am doing very well," he said, smiling.
The coach brought up in front of a roadside inn. While some of the men were watering the horses others gathered about its open window. A conversation in a tongue utterly incomprehensible to Beverly took place between Baldos and his followers. The latter seemed to be disturbed about something, and there was no mistaking the solicitous air with which they regarded their leader. The pseudo-princess was patient as long as possible and then broke into the discussion.
"What do they want?" she demanded in English.
"They are asking for instructions," he answered.