THE LIVELY ADVENTURES
OF
GAVIN HAMILTON

By

MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL

AUTHOR OF “THE ROCK OF THE LION”
“A VIRGINIA CAVALIER” ETC.

ILLUSTRATED

BY H. C. EDWARDS

NEW YORK AND LONDON
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
1900

“‘IT IS MY TURN NOW!’ SHOUTED GAVIN”

By MOLLY ELLIOT SEAWELL.

THE ROCK OF THE LION. Illustrated by A. I. Keller. Post 8vo, cloth, $1 50.

The book is written with much dash and spirit, as well as with painstaking accuracy.—N. Y. Times.

A VIRGINIA CAVALIER. Illustrated. Post 8vo, Cloth, $1 50.

A Virginia cavalier is the title under which George Washington as a youth is presented to us. Some of the incidents of his boyhood and early manhood are told in a picturesque way, and the spirit and manners of the time are well shown forth.—Atlantic Monthly.

NEW YORK AND LONDON:
HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS.

Copyright, 1899, by Harper & Brothers.
All rights reserved.

NOTE

In this story, as in all the other stories for the young written by the author, few, or no liberties have been taken with history and chronology.

Molly Elliot Seawell

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE LIVELY
ADVENTURES OF GAVIN HAMILTON

CHAPTER I

In Silesia, the autumn of 1757 was one of frightful cold, of icy winds, of sunless days, and freezing nights. The land, made desolate by the contending armies of the Empress Queen, Maria Theresa, and Frederick the Great, of Prussia, suffered still more from this bitter and premature winter. The miserable inhabitants, many of them houseless, died by thousands, of cold and starvation. The wretched remnant of cattle left them perished; the fields lay untilled, the mills were only piles of charred ruins, and desolation brooded over the land. War could add but little more to the miseries of this unfortunate region; but Frederick of Prussia and the lion-hearted Empress of Austria fought as fiercely as they had done sixteen years before when the Titanic combat had first begun. Rosbach had been fought—that terrible battle in which Frederick prevailed against the Austrians, who were assisted by the soldiers of France and the money of England. The Austrians and French had, at first, attempted an orderly retreat; but the piercing cold, the constant fall of snow, and the difficulties of subsistence, had very much interfered with this. Their object was to reach Prince Charles of Lorraine, in northwest Silesia, and many small bodies of troops succeeded in maintaining their organization until they joined Prince Charles. Others were not so fortunate; soldiers found themselves without officers, and officers found themselves without men. In this last case was Captain St. Arnaud, of the French regiment of Dufour, a young gentleman who had exchanged his commission in the King’s Musketeers, the most royal of all the royal guards, for a line regiment where he could see service. It cannot be denied that this decision on Captain St. Arnaud’s part surprised his world, for he was a curled darling among the ladies, and the most superlative dandy in Paris. And, wonderful to say, he still looked the superlative dandy on the afternoon of the coldest day he ever felt in his life, amid the snowy wastes of Silesia, when, after two weeks of starving and running away from the Prussians, it looked as if the inevitable hour had come. There was, yet, not a speck upon his handsome uniform; his long, light hair lay in curls upon his shoulders—he had admired his own locks too much to cover them up with a periwig; and his delicate, handsome face, now gaunt and pale, was exquisitely shaven. Clearly, starving did not agree with his constitution. His whole life before that campaign had been spent in the courts and camps of kings, and he had missed those hardening and fortifying influences which is Fate’s rough way of benefiting her favorites. But faint and weak and hopeless as he seemed, his soul was still unconquered, and his eyes looked bravely around upon the desolate waste before him. The cold, already intense, was becoming severer every hour. St. Arnaud, being naturally of a reflective nature, which he hid under a mask of the utmost levity, was thinking to himself, as he patted the neck of his lean and patient horse, “The whole social order depends on the mercury in the tube. At a certain point, varying in different races, all distinctions are abolished. If my general were here this moment, I would be as good as he; for the best man would be he who could keep up his circulation best. And if my orderly were here—bah! he could only deprive me of my last chance of living through this night by rubbing down my horse for me, which exercise would keep my blood in circulation and increase the poor beast’s chances of carrying me through to the end.” His piercing eyes had swept the view in front of him, but he almost jumped out of his saddle as a voice at his elbow said: “My Captain! I salute you!”

Close behind him, on a very good horse, sat a young private soldier of St. Arnaud’s company. St. Arnaud at once recognized him; he was so tall, so fresh coloured, so well made that he attracted attention in the ranks; but private soldiers to St. Arnaud represented not names, but numbers. He thought this young fellow was 472 on the regimental roll, but had no idea of his name. He was a contrast to St. Arnaud in every way; for besides being a perfect picture of physical well-being, the young soldier was in rags. In one the inner man had suffered, in the other the outer man. Having spoken, the young man awaited speech from his officer with as much coolness as if he were on parade at Versailles, instead of being alone with him at nightfall in a frozen desert.

“I recognize you,” said St. Arnaud, after a moment; “where are the others of your company?”

“I am the only man left, sir,” replied the soldier; “as you know, we were very much cut up that villainous day at Rosbach; and when you were swept from us, in that last charge, we had already lost half our men. I don’t know how it was, sir; certainly it was not the fault of our officers”—with another salute—“but I believe ours was the worst demoralized regiment in the French forces after Rosbach, and my company was the worst demoralized in the regiment. We had not an officer left above a corporal, but the handful of us could have remained together. Instead of doing that, it was sauve qui peut with all of us. Note, sir, I do not say we did not fight like devils at Rosbach; but being unused to defeat, we did not know how to take it. I cannot tell you how it is I come to be here alone; only I know that I, with twenty others, started out to make our way toward Prince Charles, and one by one the men dropped off, until yesterday morning, when, at sunrise, I found myself alone where I had bivouacked the night before with three comrades. They had gone off in the night, or early in the morning, to follow a road I did not believe would lead us where we wanted to go. I came this way, and well it was for me.”

The young soldier’s story, told jauntily, produced a singular effect on St. Arnaud. He had kept on hoping that, in spite of the accident of his being separated from his command—an accident caused by his own impetuosity carrying him too far in advance of his men—he would yet find his own personal command intact. But there was no more room for hope in the face of what was before his eyes and ringing in his ears. His countenance became so pale with grief and chagrin that he seemed about to drop from his saddle. He laid the reins on his horse’s neck, and raised both arms above his head in a gesture of despair, but he said no word. The soldier, after waiting vainly for a question or an answer, spoke again.

“We have no time to lose, sir; we must cross this plain before night. I have some forage here and something in my haversack, and if we can get a fire we can live.”

St. Arnaud, still silent, mechanically gathered up the reins again, and the horse instinctively made for a faint track beaten through the snow. The soldier followed, ten paces behind. On they travelled for an hour or two. As the sickly sun sank below the fringe of dun clouds in the west the cold became more terrible. A fierce wind set in, which drifted furious flurries of snow across the vast, white plain; and when the sky showed black against the white earth, neither man nor horse could travel farther. There was not a tree or even a bush in sight. They had passed a few dead horses on the dreary waste, but that was the only thing that broke the ghastly monotony of the way. Now they involuntarily halted, and each knew that from then until sunrise they would be fighting with the cold for life. The thought came back to St. Arnaud, who had scarcely spoken a word to his companion, how calamity levels all distinctions. It would not have surprised him in the least if, when he dismounted, and mechanically threw the reins to the soldier, to have heard him say: “Take care of your own horse, and I will attend to mine.” Instead of this, the soldier only pointed to a little hillock near by, and said: “That place, sir, is a little sheltered from the wind. It will do us good to walk there.”

St. Arnaud, whose faculties seemed frozen, obeyed the soldier. As he was tramping through the half darkness, his eyes blinded by the snow, and the icy blast nearly cutting him to pieces, he heard a shout of joy behind him. The soldier had suddenly stumbled upon something which was worth to them at that moment all the gold in the Bank of France. It was nothing less than a broken gun-carriage, of which a few inches of the wheel appeared above the snow. The soldier dashed toward it, and tugged and pulled at it, shouting out exclamations of joy, as a man will who has found that which will give him life. St. Arnaud watched him dully as he wrenched such of it apart as he could, and dragging it to the sheltered spot under the hillock, where St. Arnaud held the trembling horses, scooped out a hole in the snow, and with a flint and steel struck a flash of fire.

At first, the flame flickered tamely; then, suddenly, it burst into a glory of light and warmth. St. Arnaud advanced, still leading the poor horses, who gazed at the flames with an intelligent joy, almost human.

By that time it was so black overhead and so white underfoot, and the swirling snow was so whipped about by the furious north wind, that it seemed as if the two men and the two shivering horses were alone in a universe of cold and snow and blackness. The young soldier first gave the horses the feed they had carried, and melting some snow in a tin pan he carried in his knapsack, gave them to drink. Then, washing out the pan, he produced some bacon and cheese and black bread. St. Arnaud showed the first sign of interest so far, by handing out his canteen, of which one whiff caused the young soldier’s wide mouth to come open with a grin, that showed the whitest teeth imaginable. And then, huddling under their cloaks, officer and soldier shared their first meal together. That day month St. Arnaud had been entertained by a countess in one of the finest houses in Vienna, and the young soldier had fared sumptuously in the kitchen with the maids; but to-night they were supping together, and only too glad to sup at all. At last, all the bacon and cheese being devoured, St. Arnaud’s spirit seemed to rouse from its torpor. He looked at the soldier attentively and asked:

“What is your name?”

“Ameeltone,” was the response.

St. Arnaud’s French ear did not detect the strange pronunciation of the name, yet he could not quite make it out.

“Can you spell it?” he asked.

“Oh, yes. H-a-m-i-l-t-o-n—Ameeltone.”

“But that is English.”

“Yes; my name is English all over. Gavin is my first name”—and he pronounced it Garvan.

“Have you any English blood in you?”

“I have not a drop of any but English blood, my Captain. My father, Sir Gavin Hamilton, is an Englishman; and my mother, God bless her, is Lady Hamilton.”

“Then,” said St. Arnaud, very naturally, “what are you doing as a trooper in Dufour’s regiment?”

“Because,” replied Gavin, taking up the tin pan and scooping out the last remnants of their supper, “my father is a great rascal.” And he washed the pan out with snow.

St. Arnaud, accustomed to the extreme filial respect of the French for their parents, felt a shock at Gavin’s cool characterization of his father, and said in reply:

“A man sometimes has cause for resentment against his father, but seldom calls him a rascal.”

“True, my Captain,” cheerfully replied Gavin, “but my father is a terrible rascal. He has ill-used my mother, the finest creature God ever made. What do you think of a man with a great fortune deserting his wife and child in a foreign land and then using all his power to make her admit she is not his wife, when he knows she is; and when he finds she has a soul not to be terrified, trying to fool her into a divorce? But I tell you, my Captain, my mother is a brave lady. She told him and wrote him that she was his lawful wife, and that she would defend me—I was a little boy then—that she would have no divorce, lest it reflect on me, and that no one of my rights would be bartered away by her. And at that very time she could barely keep body and soul together by giving lessons in Paris. She is well educated, luckily, being an English officer’s daughter. The English laws are hard on poor and friendless women, and being in France, too, my mother had little chance to prove her rights. She looked to me, however, to be able one day to maintain all she had claimed; and she taught me carefully, so that, as she said, when I came to the condition and estate of a gentleman, I might know how to bear myself. She did not wish to go back to England, where she knew persecution awaited her, and brought me up as much an English boy as she could in France. The only thing that troubled her was my pronunciation—she always laughs when I pronounce my own name. I have an English way of using my fists when I am angry. She scolds me, but I know her brothers fought like that when they were lads at school.”

“How came you to join the army?”

“Faith, sir, I had no choice. The King’s recruiting officers came after me, and I had to go. But I cannot say I regretted it, for I could never have been anything else but a soldier, and I have a better chance to rise in the army than in any of the humble callings open to me in civil life. My mother said it was best—that I came of good fighting stock on her side—her brothers were officers, and as far back as she knows her ancestors they were mostly in the army and navy.”

The fire was burning brightly now; they were warmed through, their hunger was appeased, and so comfortable was their situation that they were both in a mood to entertain and be entertained. A fire in the snow and a supper of cheese and bacon meant luxury to St. Arnaud now, who had been brought up in palaces, and he found himself listening to Gavin’s story with the same interest that the Arab in the parching desert listens to the story-teller who makes him forget all his miseries.

“Did you ever see your father?” he asked.

“Once. My father was sent to the court of the Empress Queen on a diplomatic mission. He passed secretly through Paris and sent for me. I went with the sole idea that he might do justice to my mother. But I might have saved my shoe leather. However, what I did that day to my father is written to my credit in heaven’s books, for I mauled him well, and I was but eighteen—I am only nineteen now.”

St. Arnaud could not refrain from a look of disapproval, and Gavin, noting it, asked at once, with the greatest naïveté:

“But he spoke abominably of my mother, and any man who speaks one disrespectful word of her—he is my enemy, and I am his. Would not you do the same by your mother?”

And St. Arnaud involuntarily answered “Yes.”

“Well, then,” continued Gavin, rising to his feet, “are you surprised that I should think I did a righteous act in flying at Sir Gavin? He is a strong, well-made man, though not so big as I am now, and as I took him by surprise, I succeeded in knocking him off his chair before he had got out half he had meant to say about my mother. His valet came running in then, and Sir Gavin, smiling as he wiped some blood off his face, sent the man away. Oh, he was a cool one! He smiled all the time we were together, and he laughed aloud when I called myself Gavin Hamilton.

“‘Garvan Ameeltone!’ he cried, mocking me.”

Gavin was now thoroughly inspired by his own eloquence. He stood up and put his hands behind his back, English fashion, while repeating his father’s words and mimicking him in an odd, drawling voice. St. Arnaud fully believed in the scene that Gavin not only told, but acted before him. Even the two horses, tethered close to the red circle of light, lifted their heads, attracted by the ringing human voice, and seemed to be listening attentively to the story of Gavin Hamilton’s wrongs and revenges.

“My father then, instead of being angry with me, seemed to like me the better, and offered me everything—everything if I would abandon my mother. He would acknowledge me as his son, according to both the French and English law, for I was born in France; he would promise never to marry again, and I don’t know what else beside. It was then my turn to laugh. I said: ‘Wait until I am twenty-one, and then see if I do not prove I am your son. And as for marrying again, you dare not in my mother’s lifetime.’

“There was an hour-glass in the room, and Sir Gavin said to me: ‘In about twenty minutes all the sand will have run out of that glass. I give you until then to accept my offer.’ For answer I smashed the hour-glass on the hearth. It was then he spoke insultingly of my mother, and it was then that I think I laid up treasures in heaven by the way I pounded him. I got several good blows at him before that rascal of a valet came in and pulled me off.”

The wind was howling so, and the gusts of snow so driven between them, that St. Arnaud drew close to Gavin to hear the rest of the story. Gavin, who was thoroughly enjoying the recital of his affair, stopped long enough to throw some of the iron work of the gun-carriage into the fire, when it speedily grew red hot, and glowed radiantly, adding materially to the warmth. He then resumed, in response to the interest plain in St. Arnaud’s face:

“I trudged back to our garret, where my mother was waiting for me. It was a cold evening, and my mother had a little fire for me—fuel is cruelly dear in Paris, isn’t it, my Captain?—and she also had something for me to eat. She let me be warmed and filled before asking me any questions, for my mother has that English coolness which nothing seems able to disturb. When I was through eating I told her about the interview. I told her all except the words Sir Gavin had used about her, but I said they were such as no man, father or no father, should speak of her without being made to suffer all I could make him suffer for it. Then my mother suddenly burst into tears, and taking my face between her hands, kissed me, and said some of those sweet things that women say to those they love; and I replied: ‘What matters it about his threats and promises? You are his wife; I am his son and heir. Wait until I am twenty-one, and I will go to England and proclaim it all. If Sir Gavin Hamilton deals with us thinking he is dealing with a helpless woman and a boy, he will find we are not quite so helpless as he fancies we are. The notion that I, within three years of my majority, would make a bargain with him! It is absurd!’”

“Quite so,” replied St. Arnaud, “and his anxiety to make a bargain with you shows that he knows you will have to be reckoned with.”

Then, drawing his watch from his pocket, he said: “We must divide the watch to-night. I will take the first hour until one in the morning. The fire will last the night, and rubbing the horses down will warm us up.”

Gavin then discovered that St. Arnaud meant the distinction between officer and private to be overlooked. They both went to work on their horses, and for fifteen minutes nothing more was said. Gavin had a small supply of forage, and he noticed that St. Arnaud had a large haversack strapped to his saddle. Gavin hoped that it was something to sustain life in man or beast; but presently, both having got through with their horses, St. Arnaud, noticing for the first time Gavin’s tattered clothes, said:

“You are ill-clad for such weather as this. Yonder in my haversack is a second uniform, which you may have. You see, I am not used to running away, and carried with me clothes, when I should have taken food.”

Gavin’s eyes sparkled. He fetched the haversack, and tore it open. A change of delicate linen, some toilet articles, and a handsome new uniform tumbled out. Gavin was in ecstasy when he saw the uniform.

“Oh, my Captain,” he cried, “do you mean this for me? I have longed—yes, longed to wear an officer’s uniform; and I have a presentiment that if I once take off a private soldier’s coarse clothes, I shall never again wear them.”

And as quick as lightning he slipped off his rags, jumped into the uniform, and then, in the excess of his delight, he gave three loud and ear-piercing huzzas, that were half lost in the tumult of the wind. At the same moment he threw his own tattered clothes as far as he could swing them, the wind seizing and scattering them; next, he dashed away the dragoon’s sabre which he carried.

“There you go,” he shouted; “you never were any good as a weapon, and I will replace you by an officer’s sword with a gold handle. And meanwhile I will defend myself with my horse-pistol!”

St. Arnaud laughed until the tears came into his eyes. He had not in a month been so amused and interested as in this young man, so strangely found, and to whom he owed his life by the finding him. Gavin looked a little sheepish at St. Arnaud’s laughter, but was compensated by his next words.

“You are a fine-looking fellow, and you have the bearing of an officer. Why is it I never recognized you in the regiment?”

GAVIN THROWS AWAY HIS TROOPER’S SABRE

“I can’t say. I only know it was not because I did not want to be recognized. But I knew you, my Captain, and often looked at you as you stepped along so elegant, so debonair, with such beautiful cambric handkerchiefs, and such small polished boots. I heard, too, that your quarters were like a lady’s boudoir, and you had a private wagon to carry your clavier and viol da gamba!”

“Yes,” replied St. Arnaud, somewhat ruefully. “I shall know better in my next campaign.”

Gavin, then rolling himself in his blanket, lay down before the fire. By its red light his dark, upturned eyes could be seen, and they were full of hope and even joy. Defeat and disaster were lightly taken by this young soldier. In a little while, though, he was sleeping, with the soft, low breathing of a baby.

Beyond the red circle of the fire all was blackness, and, except the roaring of the wind, all was silence. A few stars flickered dimly in the cold heavens above them, but they were often obscured by the flurries of snow. St. Arnaud sat still in front of the fire, for it was not yet necessary to walk up and down to keep alive. His face was pale and impassive, and he was still suffering from the shock of flight and defeat. It seemed to him as if a hundred years separated him from the year before, or even the month before. The hours dragged by toward midnight. Every moment it grew colder, but the fire still lasted. At last, at one o’clock, St. Arnaud waked Gavin, who rose instantly. St. Arnaud showed him a pocket thermometer, with the mercury down to zero.

“That’s nothing,” cried Gavin jauntily. “I will throw some of the iron of the gun-carriage on the fire, and if I see you freezing, I will wake you up, never fear.”

St. Arnaud lay down and, covered with Gavin’s blanket, soon fell asleep. Gavin watched him all the time, thinking:

“Some men in my place would think themselves unfortunate at this moment. I don’t. This is my first real stroke of fortune. I have an officer’s uniform—parbleu! what may I not expect in the way of good luck!”

Absorbed in a delicious dream of the future, the rest of the night seemed short to Gavin. A ghastly half light succeeded the darkness; and then all at once a pale rose colour appeared in the eastern sky, and a faint golden haze overspread the snow-covered earth. The distant mountains glowed in an opaline light—it was the dawn of the cloudless winter day.

Gavin, however, beyond the thrill which morning brings to men of his youth and type, noticed nothing, being occupied with the horses, and with the preparation of the last of his cheese and bacon in the tin pan. When it was ready he waked St. Arnaud, who was sleeping soundly.

“Come, my Captain,” he called out. “We are both alive. There is something to eat. The weather is fair, and the sun is rising. And faith! I feel as if I would like to right about face and go back to fighting those confounded Prussians again.”

St. Arnaud got up instantly. In fifteen minutes they had finished all they had to eat, had mounted, and were travelling along the faint track in the snow which indicated the highroad. As they turned their horses’ heads, St. Arnaud said to Gavin:

“Ride by me.” And Gavin, without the least impertinence, replied firmly:

“I meant to. No man in an officer’s uniform rides behind his captain.”

CHAPTER II

St. Arnaud and Gavin travelled all that day through a scene of desolation, but the sun shone, and they were approaching a part of the country where at least food could be had, and their circumstances seemed so much improved, that all at once the world took on an altogether different aspect. No man could long endure, and live, the hideous depression from which St. Arnaud had suffered since Rosbach; and when his soul made a final rally, it was to perch upon heights of hope and joy. He felt sure they would beat Frederick of Prussia, and one short month would see a revival of the fortunes of the Empress Queen. He so expressed himself to Gavin, who had never suffered any depression whatever. And each found a source of vivid interest in the other’s personality. St. Arnaud had never met a man in the least like this young French-Englishman, and the story of the mother, the woman who was Lady Hamilton by right, starving and freezing with her child, but always working in her miserable attic in a great foreign city, was moving to him. He saw that the son of such a mother would be of tough fibre. As for Gavin, St. Arnaud’s beauty, grace, and superior knowledge of the world were so captivating, that the riding by his side in an officer’s uniform was an intoxicating pleasure.

“Often,” thought Gavin to himself, looking sidewise at St. Arnaud’s clear and handsome profile, “have I watched you at parade, and longed—oh, how I have longed—to be on equal terms with you. I shall be yet, because I am resolved, if a man has any share in his own destiny, to be one day a sublieutenant; and then—pouf! the rest is easy.” He would have dearly liked to ask St. Arnaud questions, but he remembered that, although they rode side by side, he was still a private soldier. St. Arnaud, however, took the privilege of an officer, and questioned Gavin freely.

“Can you read and write?” he asked.

“Like a notary,” replied Gavin promptly. “My mother took good care to give me an excellent English education herself, and she was well qualified, too. Often has she taught me out of her head when she would be working at her needle for a living, for to that has Sir Gavin Hamilton reduced my mother; and he wanted me to go home and live with him—may the devil take him now and forever! My mother taught me also a little Latin, a little Spanish, and I myself learned a good deal of German from those Austrian allies of ours.”

“You far excel me,” responded St. Arnaud, “and yet I had the best teachers in France.”

At which Gavin replied proudly: “I can ask for wine in four languages.”

“I only wish you had a chance to ask for it in one—to make signs, for that matter.”

They rode on in silence for a few moments, when Gavin spoke again.

“My Captain,” he said in a coaxing voice, “I have something to ask of you—a favour—such a favour as a man asks but once in a lifetime.”

“Considering that my meeting you last night saved my life, I should feel a little awkward in refusing you anything I could grant.”

“It is this, then. You see, I have on this uniform. As long as I wear it the world thinks me an officer. Let me wear it, and let me dream myself a lieutenant until we reach the army of Prince Charles! Our regiment is scattered; it may never be reorganized; and as soon as we join Prince Charles there will be fighting, and what glorious chances has a soldier then! Give me but one chance under fire, and I promise you I will come out of it so that I will be made an officer in truth.”

St. Arnaud stopped, amazed at Gavin’s presumption; but one look at his face, his eyes glowing with furious entreaty, checked the peremptory refusal upon his lips. Instead he said:

“You will be discovered.”

“Certainly; but a general who discovers a private soldier, by birth a gentleman, who is known to be brave and loyal—for that I am, and challenge any man to say nay—wishing and deserving to be an officer, will make him one. The French army is not like the Austrian, or even these pigs of Prussians.”

“You will discover yourself—betray yourself, in short, in whatever society you find yourself. No one will take you for an officer.”

“I think I told you I was the son of Lady Hamilton,” responded Gavin coldly.

St. Arnaud hesitated for a moment or two; then, with a brilliant smile, holding out his hand to Gavin, he said:

“Every word I have spoken was against the impulse of my heart. You are an officer now, as far as I can make you; and trust me, when we reach Prince Charles, he shall hear your story first from me.”

Gavin, who was usually glib of speech, became silent under the influence of strong emotion. He only held St. Arnaud’s hand in a grip that was like steel. Presently releasing it, he said:

“My life is yours—I have nothing more now to offer.” Then, suddenly recovering himself, he cried joyfully: “Oh, that my mother could see me now! It fretted her proud soul to see me a private soldier, but she said no word. And if I only remember all she told me, I will prove myself a gentleman. She was, as I told you last night, always preparing me for something higher. She made me learn English table manners even when we had precious little to eat. And wash! Those English are mad about soap and water. My mother has washed me when I was a little lad until I shrieked for mercy; but scrub, wash, wash, scrub, every day, and twice a day. Illness, cold, nothing excused me from that infernal tub. But at last I got to like it; and now I like cold water as well as any whale that swims the Arctic seas. Here is the proof.”

Gavin produced with great pride a small, round lump tied with strings, and on the strings being cut, it expanded into a huge sponge.

“And this—and this—and this—” he added, handing out some coarse soap, a comb, and a razor.

For reply, St. Arnaud produced not only a sponge, but a small towel, a cake of scented soap, a silver comb, and a pearl-handled razor. Gavin’s eyes gleamed. “These will I have when I am an officer!” he cried.

They resumed their way. The joy that shone in Gavin’s face was contagious. St. Arnaud smiled at the thought that a suit of clothes and the hope of a sublieutenancy could give so much happiness to any one; but he did not know that it meant all which the young soldier coveted in life.

That day they entered a tract of country where an occasional house still stood; and they even found an inn, soon after midday, where they got a coarse but abundant meal. After that the aspect of the country steadily improved, and in the early winter dusk they found themselves approaching a comfortable country mansion with pleasure grounds around it. The windows were tightly barred, but smoke was pouring from one of the chimneys.

“Now, my young sublieutenant,” cried St. Arnaud, laughing, “we will find gentlepeople in this pleasant bivouac; and, remember, you are an officer. Don’t call me ‘my Captain,’ and whatever you do, don’t show any subservience to me. Contradict me occasionally, and when I say it is a certain time by my watch, say my watch is fast or slow—anything to show we are on an equality.”

“I will remember,” answered Gavin gravely.

Dismounting before the door, Gavin began a rat-tat-tat which sounded like an earthquake. There was no response, and after banging at the door for five minutes he walked around the corner of the house. There was a door leading into the kitchen quarters, but it, too, was closely fastened. The cold was becoming intense, and Gavin was about to return to St. Arnaud and discuss the propriety of breaking a window, when a man-servant appeared upon the scene. He did not observe Gavin in the half darkness, and, on hearing the heavy clump of the rustic’s shoes, the kitchen door opened an inch or two, and a maid, with a foolish, frightened face, whispered:

“Get the other one to help you with the wood-basket; we must have the wood in the house at once. But be quiet about it, for there has been a great pounding at the front door, and we don’t wish to let any one in.”

Gavin then noticed a great, two-handled basket piled with wood such as the huge stoves of the region required. The man went off to get help in lifting it, and an idea jumped into Gavin’s mind. “I’ll get in the house and open the door for St. Arnaud,” thought he; and as soon as the man’s back was turned he went to the basket, softly removed some of the wood, crawled in, and, artistically arranging a few sticks so as to conceal himself, waited some minutes. Then the servant, with another one, approached; a stout pole was run between the two handles, and the basket, with Gavin and the logs, was picked up, carried through the kitchen, then into a long corridor, and finally to the main entrance hall, where there was a vast porcelain stove. At that moment Gavin heard a light step descending the stairs, and an exquisitely sweet voice say:

“How can you let those poor creatures outside suffer in this cold? I order you to open the door immediately.”

“But, madame,” said the maid, who had followed, “we had express orders from the master and mistress to let no one in.”

At this moment the basket was let down, and in another instant Gavin, having disengaged himself with quiet dexterity from the wood, stepped out of the basket, and making his best bow, said in his best German: “Madame, I will obey your orders, if these louts will not,” and running to the door, drew the bolt, and in walked Captain St. Arnaud.

The two men-servants gaped in grotesque horror at the load they had brought in; the maid began to scream violently; only the lady retained her self-possession.

“To whom am I indebted,” she asked of Gavin with perfect composure, “for carrying out my orders with such unexpected promptness?”

“To Sublieutenant Gavin Hamilton, of Dufour’s regiment of dragoons, in the service of His Majesty of France,” replied Gavin with equal coolness, saying to himself meanwhile, “Aha! St. Arnaud will see that I have the composure of a gentleman.” Then he said, “Permit me, madame, to present Captain St. Arnaud of my regiment.”

St. Arnaud bowed with the utmost gravity, although immensely tickled at Gavin, and the three gentlepeople stood entirely at ease, while the three servants were completely disconcerted.

“I am Madame Ziska,” said the lady of the charming voice, speaking in French. “I am running away from the Prussians toward Vienna. This house belongs to acquaintances of mine, who have left it. The servants in charge, knowing me, gave me permission to remain the night here; and although I had no authority to let any one else in, I certainly should have opened the door had not Lieutenant Hamilton done so for me.”

Neither cold nor hunger nor flight had dulled either St. Arnaud’s or Gavin’s appreciation of beauty and charm. There was no great beauty in Madame Ziska, but an exquisite grace of bearing, a face full of expression, and a beautiful figure. She was one of those women whose age it was impossible to tell. She was, in truth, thirty, but she might have been twenty-five or thirty-five. Nor was her nationality apparent either in her appearance or her language, for her French was immaculate; and neither St. Arnaud nor Gavin Hamilton knew enough of the German language to judge of how she spoke it when she addressed the servants. St. Arnaud thought first of the poor beasts outside, and said to the men-servants: “Have our horses attended to at once, and look for either money or kicks, according to how you do it.”

The two men disappeared, and the maid, apparently profiting by the suggestion of money, said very respectfully:

“Supper is not yet ready, madame; and I will add something for these gentlemen,” and disappeared.

Madame Ziska then led the way to a small sitting-room, where a stove glowed, candles gleamed, and a table was set with linen and plate. She seated herself before the stove, and not until then did St. Arnaud and Gavin proceed to warm their chilled bodies. St. Arnaud watched Gavin closely, but with amusement, as if he were assisting at the first production of a new comedy, when he saw this young private soldier of nineteen masquerading as a gentleman. Gavin himself saw the joke, and St. Arnaud could not refrain from bursting out laughing when Gavin, surveying himself coolly in a mirror on the wall, remarked:

“Madame, I am indebted to my brother officer for these clothes—it is quite a story—and, sacre! I hardly know myself in this rig.”

“But,” thought St. Arnaud, “wait until supper is served. The table is a place to tell a man’s up-bringing.”

The door opened, and the servants entered, bringing with them a very good supper. Gavin rose instantly, and forestalled St. Arnaud in placing a chair for Madame Ziska, at which the captain’s heretofore smiling face assumed a scowl. There is such a thing as learning a lesson too well and too promptly. They seated themselves, and a very jolly supper party they made. Madame Ziska’s conversation proved as charming as her appearance. She talked with the utmost ease and apparent frankness, but of her own condition in life she said not a word. Yet, there was something convincingly honest about her; and St. Arnaud, who knew the world thoroughly, felt as much confidence in her as did the unsophisticated Gavin. He shrewdly suspected her to be a professional artist of some description, who possessed, by some chance, a higher degree of education and breeding than was usual in those times. He treated her, however, as if she had been a princess in her own right, and Madame Ziska accepted it with perfect dignity, as her just due.

Gavin had never before sat at table with an officer, and he watched St. Arnaud quite as closely as St. Arnaud watched him. He carried off his part wonderfully well, but it was not quite perfection. He laughed and talked too much, airing his sentiments in the four languages he claimed to know, which, except English and French, he spoke very ungrammatically. St. Arnaud, pleasant but critical, noticed all, while Madame Ziska’s sweet, inscrutable smile revealed nothing. There was a harpsichord in the room, and as soon as they had finished supper St. Arnaud jumped up and, opening it, burst into a sentimental song, accompanying himself brilliantly. This was too much for Gavin, who was so charmed that he altogether forgot the part he was playing, and also the training his mother had given him, and acted as he would at a bivouac when a comrade sang a good song. In the excess of his enjoyment he sat down on the floor, close to the glowing stove, and after a while established himself comfortably at full length, his head resting on his elbows, which he dug into the carpet. St. Arnaud saw it all out of the tail of his eye, until Gavin, suddenly catching St. Arnaud’s amused glance fixed on him, jumped up, red and embarrassed.

“That is for not remembering what my mother told me,” he thought, with the deepest vexation. “However,” he reflected again, “I shall soon overcome the demoralization of camp manners in company like this,” and he demurely seated himself on a sofa. The song closed in a beautiful cadenza, but it was drowned in a tremendous tramping of hoofs, and the maid-servants rushed in, bawling:

“The Prussians! The Prussians!”

St. Arnaud’s and Gavin’s first sensation was one of stupid surprise. They had not thought a Prussian to be within fifty miles. Madame Ziska, however, showed not an instant’s discomposure. She at once opened the door of a closet in the room, saying, “It is strategy, not rashness, which is wanted now;” and almost pushing them in, she took the key out of the lock, and passed it to them in the inside. Then, seating herself nonchalantly, she trimmed the candles and took up a book to read.

It was so quickly done that neither St. Arnaud nor Gavin had a connected thought until they found themselves in the closet, nor could they recall which one locked the door. They gazed stupidly at each other in the half light which filtered through the glass doors lined with green silk; and then they found that, although concealed from sight themselves, they could yet see any one in the room through little holes in the moth-eaten silk behind the glass.

The sound of many feet entering the house was now heard, and in a moment more the door was opened, and a Prussian officer ushered in, a short, slender man, wearing a shabby surtout and nondescript uniform. Several other officers followed; but from the moment the short, slender man entered, neither one of the prisoners in the closet, nor had Madame Ziska, eyes for any one but him.

His face was wan and weather-beaten, his nose high and prominent, and his brow and mouth rather unpleasing. But his gray-blue eyes redeemed an otherwise sinister face. They were exquisitely clear, soft yet sparkling, and their mild expression flatly contradicted the hardness and even cruelty of his other features.

He advanced to the stove, slightly and negligently saluting Madame Ziska, who rose and bowed. As he addressed no word to her, after standing a moment she quietly reseated herself. The other officers remained standing, and a shiver seemed to run through them at Madame Ziska’s action. The man in the nondescript uniform noticed it, and smiled faintly. He sat down, warmed his hands at the stove, while the officers stood rigidly at attention. Madame Ziska read diligently, and St. Arnaud and Gavin in the closet scarcely dared to breathe.

After five minutes of this the shabby man looked around him, made a slight motion with his hand, and every officer, saluting, filed out of the door, and he was left alone with Madame Ziska.

Madame Ziska continued to read. Presently the strange personage spoke to her in French, and in the clearest and sweetest voice imaginable.

“You have a great deal of sang froid, madame.”

“One needs it in this bustling world,” replied Madame Ziska calmly, withdrawing her eyes for a moment from her book.

“Ahem!” A pause. “Your French is very good.”

“So is yours, monsieur.”

“It is the only language, after all.”

“You must be well up in the graces of His Majesty, the King of Prussia, who loves everything French, although he fights France.”

“Well, yes. You think me a major, or a colonel, perhaps, in the King’s body-guard.”

“Majors and colonels do not have the staff that came with you into this room just now. You are a general at least.”

“No. Higher.”

“A field-marshal?”

“Higher still.”

“Prince Henry of Prussia?”

“Prince Henry rises when I speak to him.”

Madame Ziska rose and made him a profound courtesy.

“Sire, you are the King of Prussia.”

CHAPTER III

At the announcement that the shabby man with the sparkling and speaking eyes and the soft and melodious voice was Frederick of Prussia, the greatest captain of the age, the two men concealed in the closet grew rigid with astonishment. They did not need his careless, but confirmatory nod to be convinced of his identity; but when he spoke it was to say:

“Yes, I am the King of Prussia. A great many people know me by sight—more do not. You are evidently one of the latter class.”

Madame Ziska remained standing respectfully, and answered Frederick’s last speech by saying:

“Your Majesty will not think me a flatterer when I say I knew from the moment you entered this room that you were no ordinary man.”

“And I knew,” said Frederick, with a faint smile, which transfigured his whole face, “that you were no ordinary woman when you faced half a dozen strange men as you did. I should like to have a regiment of men as cool as you are. How they would stand fire! Pray be seated. War is a tiresome business,” he continued, after Madame Ziska had resumed her chair. “But it is my trade, and a man must work at his trade. However, I like my tools—my soldiers.” Then, throwing himself back in his chair, he kept on, as if merely thinking aloud. “I am like the bourgeois—of whom I have no great opinion—I am absorbed in my trade. Time was when I had tastes; now ’tis nothing but whether I can beat Prince Charles as I did Marshal Soubise the other day. I like the work less as time goes on; but I like other things less still.”

“You still like music, your Majesty.”

“How do you know that?”

Madame Ziska rose, and stepping lightly up to him, with the utmost grace and quickness drew the pieces of a flute out of the pocket of his surtout, and deftly screwed them together, evidently knowing all about it. Then, putting the flute to her rosy lips, she played a little French air, to which Frederick listened enraptured.

“Ah!” he cried; “that carries me back to my peaceful days at Ruppin, when my flute was my only company for days together.”

Madame Ziska, seeing that she had found something in which he was interested, went to the harpsichord, and seating herself, sang a French song in a sweet, agreeable voice.

Frederick was charmed.

“Madame, have you any other accomplishments?” he cried. “I have not sunk so far into the savage as I thought, if music can still give me such pleasure.”

Madame Ziska hesitated, a roguish smile playing over her face.

“Did your Majesty say you played the little air I tried just now on the flute?”

“Yes, yes. My sister, the Margravine of Baireuth, first taught it to me, and accompanied me on the harpsichord.”

He seized the flute and began playing, and Madame Ziska, with the greatest coolness in the world, picking up her skirts, executed a pas de seul that was a wonder of skill and grace. The intricacy of her steps was marvellous; she sprung into the air and alighted on the point of her toe, and then spun around with dazzling dexterity; her arms, used with exquisite effect, seemed to have the power of wings to support her; but when, with a final bound and a sinking to the floor, and rising with consummate grace, she was about to conclude her dance, a knock came at the door. Madame Ziska, with lightning quickness, seated herself demurely, while the King, not to be behindhand, put his flute behind him, and called out petulantly:

“Come in.”

An officer entered and, saluting, said:

“Did your Majesty call?”

“No,” tartly responded the King. “Did you not hear me playing on my flute? A man must have some recreation, and because I do not puff smoke by the hour, nor gamble, nor make a beast of myself with wine, I am not thereby without tastes.”

The officer was so taken aback by this onslaught that he hastily closed the door.

The effect of Madame Ziska’s dance was not less electrifying to the two men in the closet than on the King. St. Arnaud was somewhat surprised, but Gavin’s eyes were nearly starting out of his head, and St. Arnaud could scarcely keep from laughing, although a laugh then would have cost him his life.

“There, madame!” said Frederick, when the officer had hastily shut the door. “You see one of the disadvantages of my calling. It would not surprise my military family in the least if I were to be guilty of crimes and call them amusements; but that I should occasionally play the flute never fails to astonish them. Bah! But tell me this,” he resumed, as Madame Ziska, panting after her exercise, fanned herself. “How comes it that a woman who dances in a manner worthy of the Grand Opera at Paris should speak so well? Pardon my bluntness; I have fallen into it, because the women I see are chiefly court ladies who never would have done talking, when once they begun, if I did not use a little brusquerie with them occasionally.”

Madame Ziska laughed a singularly pleasant and honest laugh. “I do myself not know,” she replied, “except that as soon as I learned to read I wished to put it to practice. I come of the very bourgeoisie you were abusing just now; but circumstances placed me with a certain person in particular who was above me in station and highly educated, and, naturally, I strove to raise myself to a higher level than a mere dancer.”

“Humph! Where are you going now?”

“I am on my way to Vienna. Your Majesty has fluted so to the Austrians and French that they are always dancing—but not of my kind. And I am going where I can find people who will think of some one else than your Majesty long enough to let a poor artist make a living.”

“You may see the Empress Queen at Vienna, but not exactly as you see me—ha! ha! However, I will give you some tangible proof that you have seen me.”

He fumbled in his pockets and brought out a plain silver snuff-box with the royal cipher on it. Then taking a penknife from his pocket, he scratched on the lid, “Frédéric,” adding: “I, and only I, so write my name.”

Madame Ziska’s conduct on receiving this was quite different from what might have been expected from her previous debonair behaviour. Her eyes filled with tears, and she clasped her hands in gratitude.

Within the closet, St. Arnaud and Gavin remained breathless and noiseless as they thought. But those clear, limpid eyes of Frederick’s saw more than was apparent. He rose and, carelessly approaching the door, raised the hilt of his sword, and bringing it down with a thundering crash, the glass door was shivered, the green silk torn apart, and the two French officers stood revealed.

Gavin Hamilton thought afterward: “There is something in being trained as an officer, after all,” for, although as brave a man as St. Arnaud, he involuntarily shrunk back into the closet when discovered; but St. Arnaud, deliberately stepping out, bowed to the ground and said with the utmost suavity:

“Thanks, your Majesty. It was warm in there; but we did not think of breaking the glass for air!”

At this Frederick burst into a hearty laugh; the coolness of St. Arnaud amused him. Madame Ziska turned pale, but at the King’s ringing laugh she recovered herself, and said, smiling roguishly:

“We are three to one, but we will spare your Majesty!”

Frederick laughed again at this, and seeing Gavin still trying to make himself small against the wall of the closet, the King leant in, and taking him by the collar, dragged him out, Gavin looking very sheepish and blushing furiously. And then the great King and the French officer, the private soldier and the dancer all laughed together.

“Madame and messieurs,” cried Frederick, “you may claim each to have conferred a great favour on the King of Prussia; for I tell you I have not laughed so heartily this year. I thought I had forgotten how. Nor did I ever take a prisoner before with my own hand; and, gentlemen, each one of you is more than a match for me, and a younger man beside.”

“Your Majesty has reason to boast of your prowess,” returned St. Arnaud, while Gavin, suddenly remembering that he must act up to his character as an officer, said with the utmost naturalness:

“Sire, if only I had kept my wits about me, I would have knocked your Majesty down and jumped out of the window. But I never spoke with a king before, and I was so taken aback—faith! a baby might have captured me.”

“Don’t try the window, my fine fellow,” said Frederick gayly, but with a warning note in his voice; “you do not suppose I am here without any escort? The fact is, however, I did not think there was a Frenchman or an Austrian in a hundred miles. What is your name and rank?” to St. Arnaud.

“Captain St. Arnaud, of the regiment of Dufour, and this is Sublieutenant Hamilton” (which he pronounced no better than Gavin) “of my regiment. We have been running away from you ever since Rosbach, and now, presto! you catch us like a couple of chickens in a barnyard.”

THE KING DRAGGED GAVIN OUT OF THE CLOSET

“And I broke up your little evening party with this lady. I suspected her of being a spy, but she charmed me so with her music and dancing that I forgot to ask her a word, and gave her the only thing of value I had about me—my snuff-box. But I must let my staff know that, single-handed, I captured a couple of tall Frenchmen.” Then calling loudly in his clear, musical voice “Steiner!” a young officer opened the door as quickly as if he had sprung from the ground. When he saw St. Arnaud and Gavin he started with amazement.

“Taken with my own hand,” said Frederick with a wave of his arm. “My compliments to the chief and the other gentlemen of my staff, and say I will not rejoin them to-night, but I shall be ready to start at daylight in the morning, and to keep a good lookout. There may be more than two Frenchmen about. You, Steiner, I will have to attend me; and keep the others well off in the other part of the house. We may have a little music while the rest are having their pipes and beer. And bring my writing-desk with you; I shall have work to do presently.”

Steiner disappeared, and Madame Ziska, St. Arnaud, and Gavin, as if realizing that they were in the presence of the greatest king of his age, remained silent and standing.

“Pray be seated,” said Frederick, with the charming manner he possessed, but did not always use. “It is not often I have either leisure or pleasure—the business of being a king requires a man to work like a galley-slave—but to-night I will indulge myself. I will imagine myself as I was twenty years ago, when, so far from fighting the French, I loved all that was French. Come, Madame, one more song.”

Madame Ziska rose, and going to the harpsichord, sang a little French chansonnette. Frederick seemed delighted with it. As he truly said, it was as if he had gone back twenty years, when music and literature made up his life, and the future great captain was the gentle and studious Crown Prince.

“And he sings,” said Madame Ziska, pointing to St. Arnaud as she rose.

In obedience to a look from Frederick, St. Arnaud went to the harpsichord and sang; and then it was Steiner’s turn, who roared out a German drinking song. Unlike the rest, Steiner was not at his ease before his King, although he tried hard to assume the air of unembarrassed gayety which prevailed among the rest. But it was not a great success. He knew the King too well to suppose that the graceful abandon of any evening spent in unexpectedly novel and agreeable company was a fair sample of his usual moods and methods. The rest, though, naturally pleased themselves with the notion that they would be extremely favoured by the King. Madame Ziska had already received a valuable mark of his good-will in the silver snuff-box, and expected to be sent rejoicing upon her journey. Gavin’s visions were so brilliant that he almost came to regard their capture as a lucky accident. He kept thinking to himself: “Yesterday I was a private soldier. To-night I sit with a king. Surely, that means a turn of good fortune.”

St. Arnaud, who knew more of kings than any of them, was not so sanguine, but even he would rather have been taken prisoner by Frederick than any other man in the Prussian army.

The evening passed delightfully. Frederick seemed to return to his early love for the French, and nothing could exceed the grace of his allusions to “my brother of France,” French literature, art, and all that pertained to them. The extent and variety of his information were extraordinary, and the charm of his voice and manner could not have been excelled. Gavin had the good sense to remain in the background; Madame Ziska’s manner, of respect, without obsequiousness, was as perfect as St. Arnaud’s, who had learned many things at courts. At last one o’clock came. The King, looking at his watch, rose, and Madame Ziska, immediately taking the hint, left the room. The King said: “It is time to go to work,” and Steiner picked up the writing-desk and prepared to move. “The worst of pleasant things is their ending. This room is yours gentlemen, for the night; and, as you see, you will have company outside the window and in the corridors. And I am prepared to accept your parole.”

An awkward silence ensued. Both Gavin and St. Arnaud remembered at the same moment that Gavin, not being an officer, was not entitled to his parole; while there were so few Prussian officers, if any, in the hands of the French, that St. Arnaud’s exchange would be a matter of time and difficulty. After a moment he said, with a profound bow:

“I am much indebted to your Majesty, but I prefer to take my chances as a prisoner of war.”

Gavin, who had determined to do as St. Arnaud did, bowed and said:

“Sire, so do I.”

Frederick scowled—kings are easily offended, even when they play at Haroun al-Raschid—and then said coldly:

“I shall then refer you to my chief of staff. I am under obligations to you for a pleasant evening. Good-night.” And he walked out, obsequiously preceded by Steiner.

St. Arnaud and Gavin were left alone. They had, however, seen a soldier standing in the corridor upon which the room opened, and outside they heard the steady tramp of the sentry’s feet upon the frozen snow, as he marched up and down. The candles were burnt to their sockets, and the darkness was only illumined by the red glow of the stove. In silence they wrapped themselves in their pelisses, and lay down, not to sleep, but to discuss in whispers their chances.

“Why did you not accept your parole?” whispered Gavin.

“Because I believed our chances better as prisoners of war, and, besides, there was a question as to your parole. All this may be known some day,” replied St. Arnaud in the same low whisper. “And you forget—Madame Ziska. No doubt we will be carried to Glatz, and she will be taken with us that far. I do not fear a very strict imprisonment—and a woman can contrive wonderful things.”

“Some women can, like my mother, for example,” replied Gavin.

“Very well. Madame Ziska is a loyal and devoted woman—something assures me of that; and, after all, we are not more than three hundred miles from Prince Charles at this very moment. Go to sleep.”

Gavin remained quiet for five minutes. Then he whispered:

“Have you any money?”

“Only a little, but half of it is yours.”

Gavin nudged St. Arnaud with his elbow as a sign of gratitude, and was again quiet for five minutes, when he murmured: “We are much better off, even as prisoners, than we were last night.”

“Yes.”

“And,” again whispered Gavin diffidently, “how did I act the officer?”

“Admirably. All you needed was a sword.”

“I can capture one from the enemy in time. Do you think His Majesty will be as pleasant to us in the morning?”

“Not if he is like the kings I have known. The more friendly and companionable the night before, the more surly the next morning—to keep us from presuming, I suppose.”

A silence followed, and the deep and heavy breathing, which showed they had laid aside all their perplexities for that night.

About half an hour afterward, so Gavin imagined, he was awakened by St. Arnaud stirring about the room, but it was nearly daybreak. Like a true soldier, Gavin waked with all his wits about him. He saw St. Arnaud, after lighting a candle, produce a kettle from the closet in which they had been shut up, and, filling it with water, he put it on the stove, which was still glowing hot. As soon as the water boiled St. Arnaud, again going to the closet, fished out a basin, and proceeded to enjoy a thorough bath. He then produced his silver-mounted razor and, standing before a mirror, removed the beard which had appeared upon his face during the last twenty-four hours. Then, completely washed and shaved, he looked ready for a promenade in Paris. Gavin watched him closely, thinking to himself:

“He will see that I bathe and shave as carefully as he.”

St. Arnaud’s toilet finished, he shook Gavin, who got up and made rather ostentatiously a toilet, if anything, more careful than St. Arnaud’s. When it was over the two men were perfect pictures of officer-like neatness. And as for good looks, St. Arnaud was exquisitely handsome, while Gavin, by his noble figure, his brilliant complexion, and his frank and winning expression, made up for his want of regular beauty.

The tread of the sentry outside of the window was still heard, and men were passing back and forth in the corridors, and up and down the stairs. Scarcely was the gray dawn visible when their door was unceremoniously opened, and a trooper appeared, and, pointing with his sword toward the hall, St. Arnaud and Gavin went out. Awaiting them they found some bread and coffee for breakfast, and the Prussians fared no better.

On what had once been a well-kept pleasure ground, with a fish-pond in the middle, the King’s staff and escort were assembled—over two hundred mounted men. A trooper held the bridles of the prisoners’ horses, and Madame Ziska’s comfortable travelling calash was drawn up in the centre of the cavalcade.

In another moment Madame Ziska appeared, a Prussian officer leading her down the steps. She nodded to St. Arnaud and Gavin, saying gayly:

“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.”

When the moment came, before the gate of the citadel of Glatz, that the two were to part from her, she stepped from her carriage lightly, and said good-by with a gayety which seemed to Gavin quite heartless. It was a bright moonlight evening, and the lights in the town shone cheerfully. But before them loomed the fortress, black and forbidding. For the first time Gavin’s heart sank; it sank lower still when this woman, whom he had credited with the utmost generosity of heart, showed such indifference to their fate.

“I will remain here a day or two,” she said, “until I can get post-horses. I wish I could do something for you; perhaps I may be able to send you some delicacies for your table. We may hope to meet again; I, an actress, singer, and dancer, go up and down the world earning my living, and I meet everybody in the world at least once, and sometimes twice. I shall not soon forget that evening we spent as the King’s prisoners. Remember me. Adieu.”

The two prisoners were taken before the commandant of the fortress, General Kollnitz, who received them courteously as prisoners of war, and invited them to supper with him. He was of unwieldy bulk, but clear-eyed and clear-headed, and, evidently, a capable man. The only other guest at the table was the adjutant, Pfels, whom St. Arnaud and Gavin found an amiable and soldierly young man.

Gavin by that time had grown so used to sitting at the table with officers, that he felt not only as if he really were an officer, but as if he had always been an officer. He could not rally, however, from his depression. The falsity, as he thought, of Madame Ziska affected him strangely. Naturally, he took his mother as the standard of all women, and he looked for high courage and unswerving loyalty from them all. True, they had no claim on Madame Ziska, but he thought her a brave and honest woman, and St. Arnaud had hinted at chances of assistance from her which had impressed the idea upon him that they might look to her for succour. So he ate his supper silently, while St. Arnaud spared no pains in making himself agreeable to the commandant. He told the story of their capture inimitably, and had the fat general and the slim adjutant both laughing at it, especially at Gavin’s assertion that if only he had kept his wits about him he would have knocked the King down.

At last, supper being over, they were shown two communicating cells high up in the tower of the fortress. A candle was given them, the door locked, and they were left alone. St. Arnaud at once blew out the candle, hid it, and the two, sitting on Gavin’s bed, with the moonlight streaming through a narrow, barred window, realized that they were prisoners. And in the very first hour of their real captivity they began to plan for their escape. Gavin’s first words were: “You counted on Madame Ziska; what think you now?”

“I think,” responded St. Arnaud, with a smile, “that an honest woman like her is more to be trusted than the great ones of earth. Look at our friend the King—singing and drinking with us at night, parting from us in the morning, without asking us if we were in want, or if he could do the smallest thing for us.”

“Humph! Madame Ziska offered to send us something to eat if she had time and could remember it. And she hardly spoke to us after we started on the journey.”

“Did you expect her to set all eyes to watching us by promising us eternal friendship? Now hear me: Madame Ziska’s manner convinced me that she meant to help us substantially; and her coldness to us was intended to throw the rest off the scent. I can tell you this much: I shall very carefully examine any provender that Madame Ziska may chance to remember to send us. I knew a woman once who sent a jewel in an orange. They are, after all, much cleverer than we. Think about that until you go to sleep.”

CHAPTER IV

The first week of captivity passed slowly and heavily for Gavin and St. Arnaud, and it was not lightened when, a few days after, came the news of the defeat of Prince Charles at Leuthen by Frederick of Prussia.

Naturally, every waking hour was spent in planning and dreaming of escape, but St. Arnaud counselled patience.

“Wait until we know something more of our surroundings and the people about us. I have an idea in my mind about the commandant. And, besides, we shall hear from Madame Ziska in time, and I have the greatest confidence in that woman’s friendship.” To all of which Gavin gave a grumbling assent.

In that time, St. Arnaud and Gavin, who, a month before, had never exchanged a word, came to know each other better than they knew any other men in the world. Gavin’s trustful and generous nature was filled with admiration at the calmness and even gayety with which St. Arnaud bore his misfortunes. He made a careful toilet every day, sang and whistled cheerfully, and amused himself and Gavin, too, by supplying what he called the deficiencies of a limited education. He studied German industriously, and succeeded in borrowing from the commandant a few old books on military science, which he read with diligence if not with profit.

“You see,” he said to Gavin, “I was taught no end of Latin and Greek and music and grammar and fencing, and all sorts of things that an officer should know; but this original person, the King of Prussia, has made all these things perfectly useless. Some of our generals whom he has defeated knew more Latin and Greek and fencing than I; but yet they were whipped. However, if England, your country, will continue to assist the Empress Queen, we may yet beat Frederick. And meanwhile I am doing my best to study the art of war, although, according to the books, the King’s tactics are all wrong.”

Gavin would smile at this and listen, but left to himself, he had not the calm fortitude of the older man. Nothing in the way of danger or privation could quench Gavin’s spirit as long as he was on horseback and roaming about the country; but the confinement of a prison for a week did more to depress him than a month of dangers and hazards. Often he would toss about on his narrow bed and groan loudly in the very anguish of his heart, and then be shamed into fortitude by St. Arnaud laughing at him. And St. Arnaud declined to consider either of them the most unfortunate of men.

“I grant you,” said he, “that I would rather be at Versailles, as I was a year ago, than shut up here in Glatz. But the other was an imprisonment, too. What do you think of getting up at five o’clock, spending the whole day in attendance on the King, in court clothes and periwig? Ah! how hot it was in summer, and how cold it was in winter! Never a moment to sit down, always wearing a grin, when one would much rather have scowled. I was freer when I was a captain in Dufour’s regiment than ever I was in the King’s Musketeers, where even the private soldiers are gentlemen.”

“But we will never get out. Prince Charles beaten, what is there to keep that long-nosed Frederick from marching to Vienna? Tell me that, I say.”

“Don’t trouble yourself about that. Let us see how we can get to Vienna ourselves. It is time we were hearing from Madame Ziska, for I am sure she has not forgotten us.”

The very next morning a parcel was brought them, with an unsealed letter. All had been opened and the letter read. It ran:

“Dear Captain St. Arnaud: Knowing you and your fellow-prisoner, Sublieutenant Hamilton, were well fed by the excellent commandant, I had difficulty in thinking of something you needed. But remembering how excessively particular you are about your toilet, I send you some powder and scented soap. I am leaving here to-day in hopes of some time reaching Vienna, where I expect to find an engagement at the opera house. I shall stop a few days on the road with some relatives of mine, honest shopkeepers. How strange is life! One day I sup with the greatest king in the world; the next I visit people who hang a bag of wool in one window and a hank of yarn in the other, to signify what they have to sell. I scorn, as you see, the common affectation of representing my family to be more important than it really is.

“I beg you both to hold me in remembrance, and I promise not to forget you. We shall meet again.

Rosa Ziska.”

The soap bore evident marks of having been pricked through with darning-needles, to make sure that neither files nor money were concealed inside. Nevertheless, as soon as they were locked up for the night Gavin and St. Arnaud proceeded to dissolve the soap in a basin of water by the light of the brilliant moon, which flooded their cells through the narrow window. They were rewarded by finding small scraps of paper, so cunningly laid inside the soap that a needle could pass through it without trouble. After carefully saving every scrap and drying them all, daylight revealed them to be, when pieced together, a bank-note for a hundred ducats and a map of the country around Glatz, showing, in particular, the road to the Bohemian mountains. Several villages on the route were marked by crosses, indicating it was safe to stop at them.

“And I thought she had forgotten us!” said Gavin remorsefully.

“Women, my dear boy, rarely desert us in misfortune. They carefully choose our time of prosperity to play the deuce. They are considerate even in tormenting us. One thing is sure about this particular woman, Madame Ziska—she thinks us a couple of enterprising fellows, and evidently expects us to escape, and I cannot bear to disappoint the expectations of a lady.”

“It seems to me,” said Gavin, “that for prisoners captured by the King’s own hand we have very little attention shown us by the commandant. He might have asked us to dinner, at least.”

The very next morning Pfels, the tall, thin adjutant, appeared with the compliments of General Kollnitz and an invitation to dinner at four o’clock. Pfels, who was a very civil, pleasant fellow, explained that this would have been done before, but that the commandant had been suffering from rheumatism, and had been obliged to keep his bed for some time past. His health, however, was now restored.

The invitation was promptly accepted, and then Gavin began to tease St. Arnaud to tell him the plan of escape in which the commandant figured. St. Arnaud good-naturedly refused, and then Gavin cried:

“But let us swear never to be divided from each other, for I believe our chance of safety is increased tenfold by being together.”

St. Arnaud smiled; he read Gavin like a book, and saw that this pretense of finding safety together was only the heart of Gavin clinging to what it loved.

Precisely at a quarter to four Pfels appeared, and led them through a maze of corridors, stairs, and passages, to the commandant’s quarters. These were a handsome suite of rooms, directly on the sallyport.

On entering, they found General Kollnitz seated in a huge chair; he managed to rise from it, in spite of his vast bulk and stiff joints, to welcome his guests.

“You will find us a small party,” said he, “but the fact is we are very short of officers at present, the King having need of all that could be spared, and my military family is much reduced.”

Dinner was soon announced, and proved an excellent one. St. Arnaud exerted himself, as usual, to be agreeable, and he never failed at that. Gavin, too, recovered his spirits at the sight of a good dinner, and sent the fat general into roars of laughter by saying, when Frederick’s name was mentioned:

“And to think I should have been led, like a great calf, out of that closet! Oh, I am afraid the King thinks me a wretched coward!”

The dinner passed pleasantly, and Gavin’s heart was made glad by a polite offer from General Kollnitz to forward letters for them. Gavin immediately began in thought a letter to his mother.

Evidences of vigilance and watchfulness on the part of the garrison were not wanting, even when the commandant and his adjutant were supposed to be taking their ease at dinner. Every hour Pfels was called into the anteroom to receive reports from every quarter of the fortress. About half-past eight o’clock the general, who had been talking gayly, suddenly stopped, laid his head back, and in a moment was slumbering peacefully. Pfels smiled and said: “That has been his habit for years. He is quite unconscious of it, though, and if you hint he has been asleep he grows very angry. He wakes of himself in a half hour or so, and goes back to what he was talking about when he dropped off. I was warned, when I was ordered here, that more aides had been sent back to their regiments for mentioning to the general that he had fallen asleep than one could count. It is quite the garrison joke.”

Sure enough, as Pfels said, the general waked after a while and resumed: “Gentlemen, as we were saying a moment ago, your letters should be ready to-morrow.” None of the young men as much as smiled.

At nine o’clock the rumbling of a carriage under the archway was heard.

“That is no new arrival,” remarked General Kollnitz. “The regulations require me to make the circuit of the fortress, inside and out, at nine o’clock every evening. My disabilities compel me to make the outer circuit in a carriage. But, let none think that the only inspection had is that of a gouty old gentleman, the rattling of whose carriage may be heard a mile off. That is merely perfunctory. Better legs and eyes than mine are on watch day and night. Not a prisoner has escaped since I have been here, and every deserter has been recaptured. On all three sides of the fortress a heavy siege-gun is kept loaded, and as soon as a prisoner or deserter is missed, those guns are fired, one immediately after the other. That gives notice, and arouses not only the garrison, but the town and the surrounding country. As I offer a handsome reward for every prisoner or deserter captured, the peasants and townspeople may be relied on for vigilance; and difficult as the escape is from the fortress, the real obstruction is outside and beyond the walls. I tell you this for your profit, because, being young and adventurous, you may tempt fate; and you will certainly fail unless you can get at least two hours’ start before your absence is discovered.”

Pfels then went to a press in the room, and took out a huge cloak and chapeau, which he placed upon the general; and, putting on his own cloak and hat, and calling an orderly to show the guests the way back to their cells, opened the door and carefully escorted the rheumatic old gentleman down a winding stair. Gavin and St. Arnaud heard the clank of muskets as the guard presented arms, and in another moment the carriage rolled under the sallyport.

The next day Gavin spent writing to his mother. He covered many pages, and when Pfels made his rounds that evening handed him the letter. It was well written and well expressed, and Gavin felt decidedly proud of his educational accomplishments. Pfels made a polite apology for being compelled to read the letter before sending it.

“Read it now,” cried Gavin.

Pfels glanced over it, and handed it back with a smile.

“Pardon me for calling your attention to a singular circumstance; you have not told your mother one word about yourself, as far as I have seen; it is all about your fellow-prisoner.”

“Oh!” cried Gavin with a blush. “Give me the letter,” and he added at the bottom: “Dear mother, forgive me for forgetting to tell you that I am very well. Your devoted son, G. H.”

So agreeable was the impression made by the two upon the commandant, that they were invited to dine with him constantly. Life in the fortress was monotonous to the officers, and the presence of interesting prisoners was a genuine resource to the commandant and Pfels. St. Arnaud and Gavin had by no means given up the thought of escape, in spite of the general’s well-meant warning; and as the prospect of exchange grew fainter, they dwelt the more upon the idea of getting away. Both of them realized the numerous difficulties they would encounter, even if they should be fortunate enough to get beyond the walls; yet that did not cause them to give up their hopes. One night, after they had been dining with the commandant and Pfels, and were returned to their cells, St. Arnaud whispered:

“Do you know, Gavin, I think you look something like the general. Of course, you are not so large, but a couple of pillows, and the general’s cloak and hat—”

“What!” replied Gavin, in an indignant whisper; for this young man had no small opinion of his own comeliness of face and figure; and then suddenly stopping, he realized a hidden meaning in St. Arnaud’s words. The two conversed half the night in whispers; and when, toward morning, they dropped off asleep, St. Arnaud was saying: “All’s fair in war, as in love.”

They anxiously awaited another invitation to dine, and when the invitation and the day came they were ready for something more than a dinner with the general and Pfels. St. Arnaud had given Gavin half the money he had left; poor Gavin had only a few francs of his private’s pay remaining. Gavin carried the bank-note concealed about him, and St. Arnaud the map. Each had in his pocket his comb and soap and such poor preparations as could be made for flight; and each, on leaving the cell, gave a last look back, and knew that he would never enter it again, for before nine o’clock they meant to make a dash for liberty, and if they failed and were brought back, they would be consigned to a far more rigorous confinement.