"Not a living soul, your Majesty," the man replied. "They'd best not come about here now. 'Twould be a bad case for them if they found your Majesties here."
Having uttered this somewhat ambiguous speech, he led the way into the house, where, it was soon apparent, great preparations had been made for our reception.
It was early in the afternoon when a terrible incident, which came so near our undoing, occurred, and it happened in this way. Being determined that no one should approach the inn during the time we occupied it, our shock-headed friend had stationed one of his sons at the entrance of the defile, with definite instructions to bring the news to him with all speed should he detect the approach of any suspicious persons. For the greater portion of the day the lad saw no one; just when his brother arrived to relieve him, however, they espied approaching them, as rapidly as the rough nature of the ground would permit, a body of horsemen, who presently proved themselves to be soldiers. To rush back to the inn and give the alarm was the work of a few minutes.
"The soldiers! the soldiers!" cried the lads, bursting together into the room where their mother was busily engaged in preparing a last meal for us.
Their father rose to his feet.
"You know what to do, wife?" he said quietly, and then entered the room where we were sitting listening to the dreadful tidings.
"The soldiers are coming, your Majesty," he remarked, still quite unperturbed. "You must be away before they reach the house."
"But how is it to be done?" inquired my mother anxiously. "I see no way of escape, and there are the children to be thought of."
"When the little princes are ready, I'll show your Majesty a way, never fear," the man replied, and surely enough, as soon as our outdoor garments had been donned, he took me in his arms and led the way through the house to the back. The great blank wall of the cliff abutted close upon it, but how this was to help us I could not understand. At one place his eldest son was busily engaged removing a pile of brushwood, and making straight for this he put me down and began to assist the boy. When the stack had been partially removed, a circular hole in the cliff, about the size of a large barrel, became apparent.
"If your Majesties will follow me, I don't think the soldiers will catch you," he said, and forthwith went down upon all-fours. A moment later the King and Queen of Pannonia and their somewhat fastidious children might have been seen on their hands and knees, crawling into safety, if I may so express it, through a hole in the wall.