“Maybe it is,” replied Maurice. “Now, my gay banqueteers, open the door; and the first man who makes a suspicious movement will find that I'm a tolerable shot.”
“Seize him, your Excellency!” shouted one of the troopers. “Those are my revolvers he has, and they are not loaded.”
CHAPTER VIII. THE RED CHATEAU
Two o'clock in the morning, on the king's highway, and a small body of horse making progress. The moon was beginning to roll away toward the west, but the world was still frost-white, and the broad road stretched out like a silver ribbon before the horsemen, until it was lost in the blue mist of the forests.
The troop consisted of ten men, two of whom rode with their hands tied behind their backs and their feet fastened under the bellies of the horses. The troop was not conspicuous for this alone. Three others had their heads done up in handkerchiefs, and a fourth carried his arm in a sling.
Five miles to the rear lay the sleeping city of Bleiberg, twenty miles beyond rose the formidable heights of the Thalians. At times the horses went forward at a gallop, but more often they walked; when they galloped the man with his arm in the sling complained. Whenever the horses dropped into a walk, the leader talked to one of the prisoners.
“You fight like the very devil, my friend,” he said; “but we were too many by six. Mind, I think none the less of you for your attempt; freedom is always worth fighting for. As I said before, no harm is meant to you, physically; as to the moral side, that doesn't concern me. You have disabled four of my men, and have scarcely a dozen scratches to show for it. I wanted to take only four men with me; I was ordered to take eight. The hand of providence is in it.”
“You wouldn't be so polite, Colonel,” spoke up the trooper whose arm was in the sling, “if you had got this crack.”
“Baron, who told you to call me Colonel?” the leader demanded.