who had
stood by us so faithfully was affecting in the extreme.

"Your Majesty knows the route that has been arranged?" began Marquart.
"The men, I pledge myself, are trustworthy, but I should not delay at
any place longer than is absolutely necessary for the business in hand.
The rebellion is spreading through the country, and one scarcely knows
upon whom to pin one's faith. For your children's and your Queen's sake,
let me implore you to be careful!"

Even then, at this late hour in the tide of his affairs, my father could
not resist a jibe at the other's expense.

"I must endeavour to remember your advice, Marquart," he said. "At first
it is a little difficult to understand that one is out of leading
strings. I suppose, however, I shall get used to being my own master in
time."

To this speech Marquart offered no reply. Taking the hand my mother
offered him, he bent over it and kissed it.

"Farewell, your Majesty," he said, "and when we next meet I pray it may
be in happier times."

Then he took leave of my father and afterwards of Max and myself.
Bathony followed suit, and then we entered the carriage and drove
rapidly away.

Choosing deserted streets and avoiding every thoroughfare in which there
was the remotest chance of our carriages being recognised, we eventually
reached the outskirts of the city and took the high-road that leads
across the mountains to the town of Aschenberg. So far, admirable
success had accompanied us, but it was no sort of guarantee that such
good fortune would continue. Hour after hour we rolled along the silent
country roads, drawing gradually nearer the mountains, whose snow-clad
peaks loomed dense as a wall against the starlit sky.

It had been arranged that we should spend what remained of that night
and also the next day at the house of a distant kinsman of the Count von
Marquart. On the second night we were to continue our journey, putting
up at an inn in the mountains, and so on, as fast as horses could take
us, and circumstances would permit, until we should have crossed the
border and be in safety. The night was well spent before we reached the
mountains, and it wanted only an hour or so to daybreak when we began
the climb up the last ascent that led to our refuge for the night.
Already the first grey dawn was creeping across the landscape, showing
the snow-covered slopes of the mountains on the one side, and the
rock-strewn valley on the other, in all their dreary nake