The Mad King by Edgar Rice Burroughs (short novels in english .txt) 📖

through Barney Custer’s athletic frame.

The man cast a glance to his right. His machine drove from the left side, and he could not see the road at all over the right hand door. The sight of tree tops waving beneath him was all that was visible. Just ahead the road’s edge rushed swiftly beneath the righthand fender, the wheels on that side must have been on the very verge of the embankment.

Now he was abreast the girl. Just ahead he could see where the road disappeared around a corner of the bluff at the dangerous curve the girl had warned him against.

Custer leaned far out over the side of his car. The lunging of the horse in his stride, and the swaying of the leaping car carried him first close to the girl and then away again. With his right hand he held the car between the frantic horse and the edge of the embankment. His left hand, outstretched, was almost at the girl’s waist. The turn was just before them.

“Jump!” cried Barney.

The girl fell backward from her mount, turning to grasp Custer’s arm as it closed about her. At the same instant Barney closed the throttle, and threw all the weight of his body upon the foot brake.

The gray roadster swerved toward the embankment as the hind wheels skidded on the loose surface gravel. They were at the turn. The horse was just abreast the bumper. There was one chance in a thousand of making the turn were the running beast out of the way. There was still a chance if he turned ahead of them. If he did not turn—Barney hated to think of what must follow.

But it was all over in a second. The horse bolted straight ahead. Barney swerved the roadster to the turn. It caught the animal full in the side. There was a sickening lurch as the hind wheels slid over the embankment, and then the man shoved the girl from the running board to the road, and horse, man and roadster went over into the ravine.

A moment before a tall young man with a reddish-brown beard had stood at the turn of the road listening intently to the sound of the hurrying hoof beats and the purring of the racing motor car approaching from the distance. In his eyes lurked the look of the hunted. For a moment he stood in evident indecision, but just before the runaway horse and the pursuing machine came into view he slipped over the edge of the road to slink into the underbrush far down toward the bottom of the ravine.

When Barney pushed the girl from the running board she fell heavily to the road, rolling over several times, but in an instant she scrambled to her feet, hardly the worse for the tumble other than a few scratches.

Quickly she ran to the edge of the embankment, a look of immense relief coming to her soft, brown eyes as she saw her rescuer scrambling up the precipitous side of the ravine toward her.

“You are not killed?” she cried in German. “It is a miracle!”

“Not even bruised,” reassured Barney. “But you? You must have had a nasty fall.”

“I am not hurt at all,” she replied. “But for you I should be lying dead, or terribly maimed down there at the bottom of that awful ravine at this very moment. It’s awful.” She drew her shoulders upward in a little shudder of horror. “But how did you escape? Even now I can scarce believe it possible.”

“I’m quite sure I don’t know how I did escape,” said Barney, clambering over the rim of the road to her side. “That I had nothing to do with it I am positive. It was just luck. I simply dropped out onto that bush down there.”

They were standing side by side, now peering down into the ravine where the car was visible, bottom side up against a tree, near the base of the declivity. The horse’s head could be seen protruding from beneath the wreckage.

“I’d better go down and put him out of his misery,” said Barney, “if he is not already dead.”

“I think he is quite dead,” said the girl. “I have not seen him move.”

Just then a little puff of smoke arose from the machine, followed by a tongue of yellow flame. Barney had already started toward the horse.

“Please don’t go,” begged the girl. “I am sure that he is quite dead, and it wouldn’t be safe for you down there now. The gasoline tank may explode any minute.”

Barney stopped.

“Yes, he is dead all right,” he said, “but all my belongings are down there. My guns, six-shooters and all my ammunition. And,” he added ruefully, “I’ve heard so much about the brigands that infest these mountains.”

The girl laughed.

“Those stories are really exaggerated,” she said. “I was born in Lutha, and except for a few months each year have always lived here, and though I ride much I have never seen a brigand. You need not be afraid.”

Barney Custer looked up at her quickly, and then he grinned. His only fear had been that he would not meet brigands, for Mr. Bernard Custer, Jr., was young and the spirit of Romance and Adventure breathed strong within him.

“Why do you smile?” asked the girl.

“At our dilemma,” evaded Barney. “Have you paused to consider our situation?”

The girl smiled, too.

“It is most unconventional,” she said. “On foot and alone in the mountains, far from home, and we do not even know each other’s name.”

“Pardon me,” cried Barney, bowing low. “Permit me to introduce myself. I am,” and then to the spirits of Romance and Adventure was added a third, the spirit of Deviltry, “I am the mad king of Lutha.”

II OVER THE PRECIPICE

THE EFFECT of his words upon the girl were quite different from what he had expected. An American girl would have laughed, knowing that he but joked. This girl did not laugh. Instead her face went white, and she clutched her bosom with her two hands. Her brown eyes peered searchingly into the face of the man.

“Leopold!” she cried in a suppressed voice. “Oh, your majesty, thank God that you are free—and sane!”

Before he could prevent it the girl had seized his hand and pressed it to her lips.

Here was a pretty muddle! Barney Custer swore at himself inwardly for a boorish fool. What in the world had ever prompted him to speak those ridiculous words! And now how was he to unsay them without mortifying this beautiful girl who had just kissed his hand?

She would never forgive that—he was sure of it.

There was but one thing to do, however, and that was to make a clean breast of it. Somehow, he managed to stumble through his explanation of what had prompted him, and when he had finished he saw that the girl was smiling indulgently at him.

“It shall be Mr. Bernard Custer if you wish it so,” she said; “but your majesty need fear nothing from Emma von der Tann. Your secret is as safe with me as with yourself, as the name of Von der Tann must assure you.”

She looked to see the expression of relief and pleasure that her father’s name should have brought to the face of Leopold of Lutha, but when he gave no indication that he had ever before heard the name she sighed and looked puzzled.

“Perhaps,” she thought, “he doubts me. Or can it be possible that, after all, his poor mind is gone?”

“I wish,” said Barney in a tone of entreaty, “that you would forgive and forget my foolish words, and then let me accompany you to the end of your journey.”

“Whither were you bound when I became the means of wrecking your motor car?” asked the girl.

“To the Old Forest,” replied Barney.

Now she was positive that she was indeed with the mad king of Lutha, but she had no fear of him, for since childhood she had heard her father scout the idea that Leopold was mad. For what other purpose would he hasten toward the Old Forest than to take refuge in her father’s castle upon the banks of the Tann at the forest’s verge?

“Thither was I bound also,” she said, “and if you would come there quickly and in safety I can show you a short path across the mountains that my father taught me years ago. It touches the main road but once or twice, and much of the way passes through dense woods and undergrowth where an army might hide.”

“Hadn’t we better find the nearest town,” suggested Bar-ney, “where I can obtain some sort of conveyance to take you home?”

“It would not be safe,” said the girl. “Peter of Blentz will have troops out scouring all Lutha about Blentz and the Old Forest until the king is captured.”

Barney Custer shook his head despairingly.

“Won’t you please believe that I am but a plain American?” he begged.

Upon the bole of a large wayside tree a fresh, new placard stared them in the face. Emma von der Tann pointed at one of the paragraphs.

“Gray eyes, brown hair, and a full reddish-brown beard,” she read. “No matter who you may be,” she said, “you are safer off the highways of Lutha than on them until you can find and use a razor.”

“But I cannot shave until the fifth of November,” said Barney.

Again the girl looked quickly into his eyes and again in her mind rose the question that had hovered there once be-fore. Was he indeed, after all, quite sane?

“Then please come with me the safest way to my father’s,” she urged. “He will know what is best to do.”

“He cannot make me shave,” insisted Barney.

“Why do you wish not to shave?” asked the girl.,

“It is a matter of my honor,” he replied. “I had my choice of wearing a green wastebasket bonnet trimmed with red roses for six months, or a beard for twelve. If I shave off the beard before the fifth of November I shall be without honor in the sight of all men or else I shall have to wear the green bonnet. The beard is bad enough, but the bonnet—ugh!”

Emma von der Tann was now quite assured that the poor fellow was indeed quite demented, but she had seen no indications of violence as yet, though when that too might develop there was no telling. However, he was to her Leopold of Lutha, and her father’s house had been loyal to him or his ancestors for three hundred years.

If she must sacrifice her life in the attempt, nevertheless still must she do all within her power to save her king from recapture and to lead him in safety to the castle upon the Tann.

“Come,” she said; “we waste time here. Let us make haste, for the way is long. At best we cannot reach Tann by dark.”

“I will do anything you wish,” replied Barney, “but I shall never forgive myself for having caused you the long and tedious journey that lies before us. It would be perfectly safe to go to the nearest town and secure a rig.”

Emma von der Tann had heard that it was always well to humor maniacs and she thought of it now. She would put the scheme to the test.

“The reason that I fear to have you go to the village,” she said, “is that I am quite sure they would catch you and shave off your beard.”

Barney started to laugh, but when he saw the deep serious-ness of the girl’s eyes he changed his mind. Then he recalled her rather peculiar insistence that he was a king, and it suddenly