“I rather think Carlo has some provisions that you can begin upon at once. There! will that keep the wolf from the door a little?”
“Oh, it’s just like a picnic!” said King Michael ecstatically, looking at the coarse dark bread and flabby ewe’s-milk cheese which Paschics produced from a bag and handed to him. “Thank you, Carlo; thank you, Uncle Arthur.”
“I am afraid, sir,” said Paschics to Cyril, when the child was engrossed with his frugal meal, “that we may not find it as easy to obtain a carriage and horses at the posting-station as you expect. When I was at my brother’s, and it was too late to let you know, I heard that the traffic by this road had fallen off so much since the construction of the railway, that the regulations were not enforced, and the people at the stations had almost given up keeping horses in readiness. I fear we shall meet with delay, at best.”
“Well, we can’t help it,” returned Cyril, after a moment of dismay, due to his perception of the truth of the detective’s words. The road had been constructed purely for military and strategical purposes, to relieve Tatarjé from the isolation caused by its position as the most outlying portion of the kingdom, and did not follow any of the native trade-routes. The inns and posting-stations maintained by Government had thriven so long as the road presented the swiftest means of communication with the capital; but as soon as the railway was opened, they lost their principal raison d’être.
“After all,” Cyril went on cheerfully, “a little rest will do none of us any harm, and we have a good start. The conspirators have no means of knowing what route we have taken, and I hope that our avoiding the first three post-houses will prevent them from discovering it by accident. There is only treachery left, and if we are to be betrayed we may as well be captured sooner as later.”
“Uncle Arthur,” said the little King, “mamma is awake: I think she would like some of this nice bread and cheese.”
“I’m afraid she is not so hungry as you are, Tommy; but take her the bag, by all means, and ask her whether she would not like to have the cover taken off the cart, so that she can sit up.”
The Queen accepted the offer willingly, and she and Fräulein von Staubach straightened their hats and picked a few stray pieces of straw out of their hair before partaking of the bread and cheese. The Queen laughed merrily as Cyril handed her the bag, which proved too heavy for King Michael to carry.
“We will look as respectable as we can,” she said, “even if we are travelling like gipsies. I feel quite excited with wondering what extraordinary thing we shall have to do next.”
“What a blessing that she takes it in this way!” thought Cyril, reflecting on the inevitable unpleasantness if she had chosen to behave with the austere dignity which had characterised her manner of late; “but what would the Baroness say?”