第103章

Each handful of the cold liquid caused him to gasp; but soon the fever and fire died out, leaving only the duller pain.When he rose from his knees, however, he found that the world had not yet ceased its wild reeling.He stooped to regain his saber, and fell into the dust; though to him it was not he who fell, but the earth which rose.He struggled to his feet, leaned panting on his saber, and tried to steady himself.He laughed hysterically.He had dismounted, but he knew that he could never climb to the back of the horse; and Bleiberg might yet be miles away.To walk the distance; was it possible? To reach Bleiberg before Madame....Madame the duchess and her army! He laughed again, but there was a wild strain in his laughter.Ah, God!

what a farce it was! One man dead and another dying; the beginning and the end of the war.The comic opera! La Grande Duchesse! And the fool of an Englishman was playing Fritz! He started down the road, his body slouched forward, the saber trailing in the dust....

"Voici le sabre de mon pere!"

The hand of madness had touched him.The Mecklenberg followed at his heels as a dog would have followed his master.

Less than a mile away a yellow haze wavered in the sky.It was the reflection of the city lights.

Maurice passed under the town gates, the wild song on his lips, his eyes bloodshot, his hair dank about his brow, conscious of nothing but the mad, rollicking rhythm.Nobody molested him;those he met gave him the full width of the road.A strange picture they presented, the man and the troop horse.Some one recognized the trappings of the horse; half an hour later it was known throughout the city that the king's army had been defeated and that Madame was approaching.Students began their depredations.They built bonfires.They raided the office of the official paper, and destroyed the presses and type.Later they marched around the Hohenstaufenplatz, yelling and singing.

Once a gendarme tried to stop Maurice and inquire into his business.The inquisition was abruptly ended by a cut from the madman's sword.The gendarme took to his legs.Maurice continued, and the Mecklenberg tramped on after him.Into the Konigstrasse they turned.At this time, before the news was known, the street was deserted.Up the center of it the man went, his saber scraping along the asphalt, the horse always following.

Voici le sabre de mon pere! Tu vas le mettre a ton cote! Apres la victoire, j'espere Te revoir en bonne sante.....

The street lamps swayed; sometimes a dozen revolved on one post, and Maurice would stop long enough to laugh.How easy it was to walk! All he had to do was to lift a foot, and the pavement would rise to meet it.The moon, standing high behind him, cast a long, weird shadow, and he staggered after it and cut at it with the saber.It was only when he saw the lights of the royal palace and the great globes on the gate posts that sanity returned.This sanity was of short duration.

"To the palace!" he cried; "to the palace! To warn her!" And he stumbled against the gates, still calling, "To the palace! To the palace!"The cuirassiers who had been left behind to protect the inmates of the palace, were first aroused by the yelling and singing of the students.They rushed out of the guard room and came running to the gates, which they opened.The body of a man rolled inside.

They stopped and examined him; the uniform was theirs.The face they looked into was that of the handsome young foreigner who, that day, had gone forth from the city, a gay and gallant figure, who sat his horse so well that he earned their admiration.What could this mean? And where were the others? Had there been a desperate battle?

"Run back to the guard room, one of you, and fetch some brandy.

He lives." And Lieutenant Scharfenstein took his hand from the insensible man's heart.Pulsation was there, but weak and intermittent."Sergeant, take ten men and clear the square.If they refuse to leave, kill! Madame is not yet queen by any means."The men scattered.One soon returned with the brandy.

Scharfenstein moistened the wounded man's lips and placed his palm under the nose.Shortly Maurice opened his eyes, his half-delirious eyes.

"To the palace!" he said, "to the palace--Ah!" He saw the faces staring down at him.He struggled.Instinctively they all stood back.What seemed incredible to them, he got to his knees, from his knees to his feet, and propped himself against a gate post.