“I know not where we are going, but, being captives to His Majesty, we will neither starve nor freeze, of which there was great danger yesterday.”
Down the steps presently came Frederick. He wore the shabby surtout of the night before, and his hat was a captain’s cocked hat, with a tarnished silver buckle. His face was pale and his eyes heavy, as if he had spent the night awake. Behind him walked poor Steiner, carrying a large bundle of dispatches, and almost yawning in the King’s face from sleeplessness. Immediately the King’s horse was brought, and he mounted. His staff assembled around him, and the order was given to start. All this time he had not bestowed a word or a look upon Madame Ziska in her calash or the two prisoners. On passing them, however, he recognized their salutes by an absent-minded bow. Gavin, who was totally unprepared for this change, muttered to St. Arnaud:
“Nice behaviour, that; I suppose His Majesty has quite forgotten that he pulled me out of the closet last night, and he laughed like a schoolboy at it!”
“Put not your trust in princes,” was St. Arnaud’s whispered reply.
They then put forward rapidly and in silence. The morning was clear and cold, and they traveled fast. Shortly after sunrise they reached a place where the highroad branched in two. A halt was made, and Frederick, who had been riding ahead, stopped, and a part of the escort defiled before him. When Madame Ziska’s calash approached, behind which rode St. Arnaud and Gavin, Frederick rode up to them. His eyes were sparkling, his figure was erect, and the agreeable voice for which he was celebrated rang out musically.
“We part here, madame and messieurs,” he said. “Gentlemen, you are for Glatz. Madame for anywhere she likes. I to meet Prince Charles of Lorraine wherever I can find him. I have to thank you for a pleasant evening. Bon jour!” And putting spurs to his horse, and followed by a dozen officers, he was gone.
“What strange creatures are kings!” was Gavin’s comment to St. Arnaud, who, in his time, had seen much of royalty. “Glatz! A terrible place to be imprisoned in!”
“There is a way out of every place to which there is a way in,” was St. Arnaud’s reply.
That night they stopped at a village where Prussians were much in evidence; and three days afterward, at nightfall, they found themselves at the main entrance of the fortress of Glatz.
Madame Ziska was still with them, but her behaviour during their three days of journeying had surprised and disgusted Gavin. She seemed rather to avoid them, and was hand and glove with the Prussians. Gavin had mentioned it several times to St. Arnaud, who only smiled and said: “Women go by contraries sometimes, my lad.”