Karl frowned. He had been ruthless enough in 1904, but then he was fighting against men. He was no sentimentalist, and he meant holding his own, though regiments were decimated in the process, and the snows of his beloved Weissheim were stained scarlet with good blood. But he had ever had a soft corner in his heart for the laughter-loving Princess, and his spirits sank at the prospect of her bright young life being sacrificed to the brutal, senseless Moloch of civil strife. The rough, fierce men who held the uplands for him were fair game for powder and shot, the levies of the plain were chair a cannon, maybe; but Gloria von Schattenberg was a creature of too delicate flesh to be maimed by live shell or splintering masonry, and his manhood revolted at the gruesome prospect.
"We must try and save the Princess," he said after a minute's silence.
Meyer said nothing. The nearer they advanced to the scene of action the lower his spirits fell. The sun was high in the cloudless heavens, and the distant mountains reared their snowy crests against a blue that was astounding in its intensity. A purple haze swam in the hollows of the hills; the buntings twittered in cheerful chorus amidst the dripping pine trees, now that their song was broken no longer by the crude music of the cannons' roar. For the moment Nature spoke of peace, but Meyer knew that there was no peace. There was a pause in the struggle, a lull before the storm, a moment when, by mutual consent, the hand-grip was relaxed, preparatory to the final struggle when one combatant or the other would be forced ruthlessly to his knees. And Meyer in his room, directing movements from a distance, was a very different person from Meyer within striking distance of a mobile foe. The man had no stomach for fighting. His mouth was dry and his pulses drumming a craven melody in his ears. He was afraid, and he was painfully conscious of his fear; but although his suffering was acute his brain was working tolerably well behind the half-shut eyes.
There is a kind of cowardice that never loses its self-control at a crisis, just as there is a kind of bravery that never keeps it.
A turn of their path brought them into the main road running between the town of Weissheim and the Marienkastel; and if there had been peace in the outlook over the matchless valley of the Niederkessel and amidst the high sanctuaries of the mountains, there was war here in stern evidence and grim reality. Upward pressed the troops who had held the redoubts of the lower town, and whose presence was now needed on higher ground. Downward, on sleighs painted with the red cross of mercy, progressed those who had suffered in the brief defence of the Marienkastel. Karl and his General saluted, the latter with no softening of his cynical features, but a strange numbness of his breast that was fear tempered, perhaps, with mercy, certainly with horror. A couple of hundred yards up the road they halted; here, within easy range of the Marienkastel, but protected by the banked-up snow at the side of the road, were gathered a considerable number of soldiers under the eye of General von Bilderbaum. The latter advanced and saluted as soon as he saw his Sovereign.
"How are matters progressing, General?" asked the King.
"They are not progressing, sire," replied the General bluntly. "We are doing nothing, while the enemy is doing much. In forty minutes their guns will be in position, and the loyal town of Weissheim will be wiped off the map."
"Meyer does not seem to have bestowed his confidences very widely," returned Karl. "I have only just learned that there is a battery of howitzers waiting to pound the Marienkastel into brick-dust. Why they do not commence pounding is known only to my intelligent Commander-in-Chief."
"When one destroys a wasps' nest," said Meyer smiling, "it is wise to protect oneself against the inmates. When the castle becomes untenable Bernhardt and his men will buzz out in a thoroughly bad temper. Unless this road, where we now are, is held strongly, there is nothing to prevent them taking their afternoon tea in the Brunvarad."
Karl nodded; despite his present irritability he had considerable faith in his Commander-in-Chief. Not so old Bilderbaum.