"That's done me good," sighed Karl in a note of satisfaction. "God's sky and the best of sports! Clean snow and the champagne air of Weissheim, and what care I for the rabble of the plains."
And so the morning wore on, with cheers for the skilful, gasps for the rash, and murmurs of pity for the unfortunate. There were more spills, of course, but fortunately no disasters of magnitude, and at mid-day the great competition was over. The "times" were added up and checked, and ultimately Miss Reeve-Thompson's crew were adjudged the winners, and accompanied by a cheering throng they received the cup from Lady Cobham at the Pariserhof.
The royal party waited till the crowd of onlookers had dispersed, and then wended their way back to the Brunvarad—the Winter Palace—on foot. As they followed the track that bordered the run they fell in with General von Bilderbaum, struggling up the hill in a great grey overcoat, very moist and red of face.
"Well," said Karl, "how are the new forts looking?"
"Very workmanlike, sire. We have got two new quick-firers on to the south escarpment of redoubt A, and some old but serviceable mitraileuses in position in the long fosse between redoubts C and D."
"Excellent," drawled Meyer. "And our dear, loyal gunners—are they continuing to make good practice at the ice-targets?"
"I am sorry for anything they get sight of within two kilometres," responded the General.
"I am well served," said Karl. "Herr Saunders here has developed into a student of minor tactics, and I fancy would handle a brigade as well as a Moltke or a Kuroki."
At this moment they reached the point of the path where it crosses the bob-sleigh run, and the races being over and the track closed, a wooden plank had been laid across the glassy surface to afford secure foothold. The men halted to allow the ladies,—Mrs. Saunders and Frau Generalin von Bilderbaum,—to pass first. But the latter,—a lady, as the reader knows, of somewhat egregious proportions,—was not gifted by nature with a rapid gait through trampled snow. Holding high her green skirt, and planting her cumbrous snow-boots with deliberate precision, she advanced puffing and panting like a mountain engine in a snow-drift. Before, however, she had come up with the others, a strange man accosted the royal party from the opposite direction. The individual in question was wearing skis, and looked fatigued and travel-stained, as though he had come fast and far. A black slouch hat was pressed over his forehead, and it was not till he was quite close that Karl and his companions recognised the features as those of Von Hügelweiler.
The Captain's salutation was as abrupt as his appearance.