“In that case, you may be sure that I will not trouble the sentry,” said Prince Otto Georg, blandly. “But before I wish you good-night, Herr Captain, perhaps you will kindly enlighten me on one point. What of King Carlino? Did I understand you to say that he had abdicated the throne?”
“The propriety of doing so has not yet been represented to him,” returned Louis, “but there can be little doubt that he will find it advisable to yield quietly. A pistol at the head, Highness, is occasionally a powerful persuasive.”
“Thanks; I will not detain you longer,” and the Prince waved his hand politely, and laid his head on the pillow again. “If I know anything of my young friend Carlino, he will choose the pistol,” he mused, as Louis and his men left the room, and the former locked the door on the outside. For a moment the prisoner lay listening, while the sentry began his measured tramp up and down the corridor, then he sat up suddenly.
“Let me think,” he said to himself. “There may yet be a chance of doing something. For these plotters, there are two points of attack, Carlino and Drakovics. Both men must be in their hands to give them any hope of success. Now it is scarcely likely that their numbers are sufficient to allow them to seize both at once—that is, to obtain the mastery of the palace and the town at one blow. Which will they attempt to capture first? Drakovics is the most important—Carlino is a figurehead, comparatively speaking—but still, I think this is one of the cases in which the natural foolishness of mankind may safely be considered as a factor. The seizure of Carlino would appear a greater success at first—and it would give them the command of the palace, which they could defend against the town, while the town could not long hold out against a foe in possession of the palace. They have, then, concentrated their strength on the palace in order to make a prisoner of the King, and while they are doing their best to induce him to abdicate, it may yet be possible to warn Drakovics.”
Prince Otto Georg was out of bed now, and dressing in the dark with the speed and silence of an old campaigner. Hurrying into his boots and a fur-lined coat, he went to the window, drew up the blind noiselessly, and looked out.
“Snow!” he said. “So far, so good.”
He returned and took one of the sheets from the bed, then, with the utmost care, opened the window, which was fortunately a casement, and moved easily. As has been already mentioned, the room was in the front of the palace, and the window opened directly two or three feet above the great porch. Here Prince Otto had noticed the day before a hinged iron ladder, folded up and concealed by the coping from the view of any one below, but ready in case of fire. He climbed out upon the leaden roof of the porch and looked round. No light shone from any of the windows on this side of the building, and the great door was fast shut. The conspirators had made their entrance through the courtyard from the back, and the sentries who kept guard in front of the palace on ordinary occasions had forsaken their posts like the rest, while it had not occurred to Louis to place any others. There was not a soul to be seen. Prince Otto Georg drew out and unfolded the ladder, let it down over the side of the porch, and fastening it firmly at the top by the hooks attached to it, descended it in safety. It was impossible to remove it when he had reached the ground, and he could only hope that, as the side of the porch was in deep shadow, it might escape the notice of any one who might chance to come out at the front door.
“And now,” he said to himself, wrapping the sheet round him, “one may as well take every precaution, painful as it would be to be discovered in this costume. To think of my giving myself all this trouble for the sake of a man I saw for the first time the day before yesterday!”
Gathering up the ends of the sheet, he walked cautiously across the garden, indistinguishable among the whitened shrubs to any one looking out of the windows of the palace. But on arriving at the wall he found his further progress impeded, for there was a sentry on guard at the gate, and another at the corner overlooking the town. Prince Otto groaned mentally, but there was no help for it. Choosing a spot as remote as possible from both sentries, he climbed the wall by the aid of a tree which grew beside it, and threw his fur-lined coat over into the road. This done, he let himself drop from the branches, with considerably less agility and confidence in his own powers than he had felt at the time of his former exploit of the kind, but with happier results, for the coat broke his fall, and he rose unhurt, and after creeping a short distance in the shadow of the wall, turned down a side-street, and made the best of his way to M. Drakovics’s house. In spite of the highly logical reasoning with which he had started on his journey, he felt a good deal of misgiving as to whether he had been justified in calculating so confidently on human folly; and it was with unfeigned joy that on coming round the corner of the house he caught sight of the Premier standing at a window with a light behind him, and looking out at the river. To attract his attention was the work of a moment, and in obedience to the call M. Drakovics, in extreme astonishment, hastened to admit his visitor by a side-door. There was no time for lengthy explanations.
“There is a plot to depose the King and restore the house of Franza, headed by General Sertchaieff and Captain O’Malachy. They have seized the palace, and the King is in their hands. By the uniforms of the men whom I saw, I believe that both the palace and the city guard are implicated.”