"Poor little chap!"

"He will rejoice to know that you have found his lucky stone so effective. The Prince has never wavered in his loyalty to that pebble, sir."

Together they entered the Castle. Inside there were horrid signs of destruction, particularly off the balconies.

"No one occupies the upper part of the Castle now, sir."

Attendants sped to the tower, shouting the battle tidings. No compunction was felt in arousing the sleeping household. As a matter of fact, there was no protest from the eager ladies and gentlemen who hurried forth to hear the news.

The Prince came tumbling down the narrow iron stairs from his room above, shouting joyously to Truxton King. No man was ever so welcome. He was besieged with questions, handshakings and praises. Even the Duke of Perse, hobbling on crutches, had a kindly greeting for him. Tears streamed down the old man's cheeks when King told him of his daughter's safe arrival in the friendly camp.

Truxton picked the Prince up in his arms and held him close to his breast, patting his back all the while, his heart so full that he could not speak.

"I knowed you'd come back," Bobby kept crying in his ear. "Aunt Loraine said you wouldn't, but I said you would. I knowed it--I knowed it! And now you're going to be a baron, sure enough. Isn't he, Uncle Caspar?"

But Truxton was not listening to the eager prattle. He remembered afterward that Bobby's hands and face were hot with fever. Just now he was staring at the narrow staircase. Vos Engo and Loraine were descending slowly. The former was white and evidently very weak. He leaned on the girl for support.

Count Halfont offered the explanation. "Vos Engo was shot last week, through the shoulder. He is too brave to give up, as you may see. It happened on the terrace. There was an unexpected fusilade from the housetops. Eric placed himself between the marksmen and Miss Tullis. A bullet that might have killed her instantly, struck him in the shoulder.

They were fleeing to the balcony. He fell and she dragged him to a place of safety. The wound is not so serious as it might have been, but he should be in bed. He, like most of us, has not removed his clothing in five days and nights."

King never forgot the look in Loraine's eyes as she came down the steps.

Joy and anguish seemed to combine themselves in that long, intense look.

He saw her hand go to her heart. Her lips were parted. He knew she was breathing quickly, tremulously.

The Prince was whispering in his ear: "Keep the lucky stone, Mr. King.

Please keep it. It will surely help you. I gave her your kiss. She was happy--awful happy for awhile. 'Nen the Count he saved her from the bullet. But you just keep the lucky stone." King put him down and walked directly across to meet her at the foot of the steps.

She gave him her hands. The look in her tired eyes went straight to his heart. Vos Engo drew back, his face set in a frown of displeasure.

"My brother?" she asked, without taking her gaze from his eyes.

"He is well. He will see you to-day."

"And you, Truxton?" was her next question, low and quavering.

"Unharmed and unchanged, Loraine," he said softly. "Tell me, did Vos Engo stand between you and the fire from the--"

"Yes, Truxton," she said, dropping her eyes as if in deep pain.

"And you have not--broken your promise to him?"

"No. Nor have I broken my promise to you."

"He is a brave man. I can't help saying it," said the American, deep lines suddenly appearing in his face. Swiftly he turned to Vos Engo, extending his hand. "My hand, sir, to a brave man!"

Vos Engo stared at him for a moment and then turned away, ignoring the friendly hand. A hot flush mounted to Loraine's brow.

"This is a brave man, too, Eric," she said very quietly.

Vos Engo's response was a short, bitter laugh.

CHAPTER XXII

THE LAST STAND

Soon after five o'clock, a man in the topmost window of the tower called down that the forces in the hills were moving in a compact body toward the ridges below the southern gates.

"Give them half an hour to locate themselves," advised Truxton King.

"They will move rapidly and strike as soon as the sh.e.l.ls have levelled the gates. The proper time for your sortie, Colonel, would be some time in advance of their final movement. You will in that way draw at least a portion of Marlanx's men away from the heart of the city. They will come to the a.s.sistance of the gang bivouacked beyond the Duke of Perse's palace."

One hundred picked men were to be left inside the Castle gates with Vos Engo, prepared to meet any flank movement that might be attempted. Three hundred mounted men were selected to make the dash down Castle Avenue, straight into the camp of the sharpshooters. It was the purpose of the house guard to wage a fierce and noisy conflict off the Avenue and then retire to the Castle as abruptly as they left it, to be ready for Marlanx, should he decide to make a final desperate effort to seize their stronghold.

King, fired by a rebellious zeal, elected to ride with the attacking party. His heart was cold with the fear that he was to lose Loraine, after all. The fairy princess of his dreams seemed farther away from him than ever. "I'll do what I can for the Prince," he said to himself.

"He's a perfect little brick. d.a.m.n Vos Engo! I'll make him repent that insult. Every one noticed it, too. She tried to smooth it over, but--oh, well, what's the use!"

The dash of the three hundred through the gates and down the avenue was the most spectacular experience in Truxton's life. He was up with Quinnox and General Braze, galloping well in front of the yelling troop.

These mounted carbineers, riding as Bedouins, swept like thunder down the street, whirled into the broad, open arena beyond the Duke's palace, and were upon the surprised ruffians before they were fully awake to the situation.

They came tumbling out of barns and sheds, clutching their rifles in nerveless hands, aghast in the face of absolute destruction. It was all over with the first dash of the dragoons. The enemy, craven at the outset, threw down their guns and tried to escape through the alleys and side streets at the end of the common. Firing all the time, the attacking force rode them down as if they were so many dogs. The few who stood their ground and fought valiantly were overpowered and made captive by Quinnox. Less than a hundred men were found in the camp.

Instead of retreating immediately to the Castle, Quinnox, acting on the suggestion of the exhilarated King, kept up a fierce, deceptive fire for the benefit of the distant Marlanx.

After ten or fifteen minutes of this desultory carnage, it was reported that a large force of men were entering the avenue from Regengetz Circus. Quinnox sent his chargers toward this great horde of foot-soldiers, but they did not falter as he had expected. On they swept, two or three thousand of them. At their head rode five or six officers. The foremost was Count Marlanx.

The cannons were booming now in the foothills. Marlanx, if he heard them and realised what the bombardment meant, did not swerve from the purpose at present in his mind.

Quinnox saw now that the Iron Count was determined to storm the gates, and gave the command to retreat. Waving their rifles and shouting defiance over their shoulders, the dragoons drew up, wheeled and galloped toward the gates.

Truxton King afterward recalled to mind certain huge piles of fresh earth in a corner of the common. He did not know what they meant at the time of observation, but he was wiser inside of three minutes after the whirlwind brigade dashed through the gates.

Scarcely were the ma.s.sive portals closed and the great steel bars dropped into place by the men who attended them, when a low, dull explosion shook the earth as if by volcanic force. Then came the crashing of timbers, the cracking of masonry, the whirring of a thousand missiles through the air. Before the very eyes of the stunned, bewildered defenders, dismounting near the parade ground, the huge gates and pillars fell to the ground.

The gates have been dynamited!

Then it was that Truxton King remembered. Marlanx's sappers had been quietly at work for days, drilling from the common to the gates. It was a strange coincidence that Marlanx should have chosen this day for his culminating a.s.sault on the Castle. The skirmish at daybreak had hurried his arrangements, no doubt, but none the less were his plans complete.

The explosives had been laid during the night; the fuses reached to the mouth of the tunnel, across the common. As he swept up the avenue at the head of his command, hawk-faced and with glittering eyes, he snarled the command that put fire to the fuses. He was still a quarter of a mile away when the gates crumbled. With short, shrill cries, scarcely human in their viciousness, he urged his men forward. He and Brutus were the first to ride up to the great hole that yawned where the gates had stood. Beyond they could see the distracted soldiers of the Prince forming in line to resist attack.

A moment later his vanguard streamed through the aperture and faced the deadly fire from the driveway.

Like a stone wall the men under Quinnox stood their ground; a solid, defiant line that fired with telling accuracy into the struggling horde.

On the walls two Gatling guns began to cackle their laugh of death. And still the mercenaries poured through the gap, forming in haphazard lines under the direction of the maddened Iron Count.

At last they began to advance across the gra.s.sy meadow. When one man fell under the fire of the Guardsmen, another rushed into his place.

Three times the indomitable Graustarkians drove them back, and as often did Marlanx drag them up again, exalted by the example he set.