“What a woman!” Maurice murmured, as the scheme of Madame's flashed through his mind. “What a woman! And she had the audacity to kidnap you, too!”
“And by the most dishonorable device. I and my suite of gentlemen were coming to Bleiberg to make the final arrangements. At Ehrenstein I received a telegram which requested me to visit till the following train a baron who was formerly a comrade of my father. The telegram advised me of his sudden illness, and that he had something important to disclose to me. I bade my gentlemen, save one, proceed to Bleiberg. My aide and I entered the carriage which was to convey us to the castle. We never reached it. On the road we fell into an ambush, a contrivance of Madame's. I was brought to the chateau. Whatever happened to Hofer, my aide, I do not know. Doubtless he is dead. But Madame shall pay, both in pride and wealth. I will lay waste this duchy of hers, though in the end the emperor crush me. Let us be off.”
They stumbled on through the forest. So confused was Maurice that he forgot his usual caution. The supreme confidence of this woman and the flawlessness of her schemes dazed him. So far she had stopped at nothing; where would she end? A Napoleon in petticoats, she was about to appall the confederation. She had suppressed a prince who was heir to a kingdom triple in power and size to the kingdom which she coveted. Madame the duchess was relying on some greater power, else her plans were madness.
As for the prince, he had but one thought: to reach Bleiberg. The confinement, together with mental suffering, anxiety and forced inaction, began to tell on him. Twice he tripped and fell, and Maurice had to return to assist him to his feet. However could they cross the mountains, a feat which needed both courage and extreme physical endurance?
“I am so weak,” said the prince, “so pitiably weak! I thought to frighten the woman by starving myself, poor fool that I was!”
And they went on again. Maurice was beginning to feel the effect of his wine-bibbing; he had a splitting headache.
“Silence!” he suddenly whispered, sinking and dragging the prince with him.
A hundred yards in advance of them stood a sentinel, his body bent forward and a hand to his ear. Presently he, too, lay down. Five minutes passed. The sentinel rose, and convinced that his ears had tricked him, resumed his lonely patrol. He disappeared toward the west, while the fugitives made off in an easterly direction. Maurice was a soldier again. Every two or three hundred yards he knelt and pressed his ear to the cold, damp earth and waited for a familiar jar. The prince watched these movements with interest.
“You have been a soldier?” he asked.
“Yes. Perhaps we had better strike out for the mountains. The sentry line can not extend as far as this.”