The Slim Princess Part 4

"Hideous? Say, if you ever walked up Fifth Avenue you would block the traffic! And in the palm-garden at the Waldorf--why, you and the head waiter would own the place! Are you trying to string me by asking such questions? Are you a real ingenue, or a kidder?"

"I hardly know what you mean, but I a.s.sure you that here in Morovenia they laugh at me because I am not fat."

"This is a s.h.i.+ne country, and you're in wrong, little girl," said Mr.

Pike, in a kindly tone. "Why don't you duck?"

"Duck?"

"Leave here and hunt up some of the red spots on the map. You know what I mean--away to the bright lights! I don't like to knock your native land but, honestly, Morovenia is a bad boy. I've struck towns around here where you couldn't buy ill.u.s.trated post-cards. They take in the sidewalks at nine o'clock every night. That orchestra down at the hotel handed me a new c.o.o.n song last night--_Bill Bailey_! Can you beat that?

As long as you stay here you are hooked up with a funeral."

Kalora, with wrinkled brow, had been striving to follow him in his figurative flights.

"Strange," she murmured. "You are the second person I have met to-day who advises me to go away--to the west."

"That's the tip!" he exclaimed with fervor. "Go west and when you start, keep on going. You come to America and bring along the papers to show that you're a real live princess and you'll own both sides of the street. We'll show you more real excitement in two weeks than you'll see around here if you live to be a hundred."

"I should like to go, but--Look! Hurry, please! You must go!"

She pointed, and young Mr. Pike turned to see two guards in baggy uniforms bearing down upon him, their eyes bulging with amazement.

"Shall I try to put up a bluff, or fight it out?" he asked, as he stood up to meet them.

"You can not explain," gasped Kalora. "Run! _Run_! They know you have no right here. This means going to prison--perhaps worse."

"Does it?" he asked, between his set teeth. "If those two brunettes get me, they'll have to go some."

When the two pounced upon him he made no resistance and they captured him. He stood between them, each of them clutching an arm and breathing heavily, not only from exertion, but also out of a sense of triumph.

VI

HE DEPARTS

And now, in order to give a key to the surprising performances of Alexander H. Pike, it will be necessary to call up certain biographical data.

When he was in the Hill School he won the pole vault, but later, in his real collegiate days, he never could come within two inches of 'varsity form, and therefore failed to make the track-team.

While attending the Inst.i.tute of Technology he worked one whole autumn to perfect an offensive play which was to be used against "Buff"

Rodigan, of the semi-professional athletic-club team. This play was known as "giving the shoulder," with the solar plexus as the point of attack. The purpose of the play was not to kill the opposing player, but to induce him to relinquish all interest in the contest.

Furthermore, Mr. Pike, while spending a month or more at a time in New York City, during his post-graduate days, had worked with Mr. Mike Donovan, in order to keep down to weight. Mr. Donovan had ill.u.s.trated many tricks to him, one of the best being a low feint with the left, followed by a right cross to the point of the jaw.

While the two bronze-colored guards stood holding him, Mr. Pike rapidly took stock of his accomplishments, and formulated a program. With a sudden twist he cleared himself, sprang away from the two, and jumped behind a tree. One soldier started to the right of the tree and the other to the left, so as to close in upon him and retake him. This was what he wanted, for he had them "spread," and could deal with them singly.

He used the Donovan tactics on the first guard, and they worked out with shameful ease. When the soldier saw the left coming for the pit of his stomach, he crouched and hugged himself, thereby extending his jaw so that it waited there with the sun s.h.i.+ning on it until the young man's right swing came across and changed the middle of the afternoon to midnight. Number one was lying in profound slumber when Alumnus Pike turned to greet number two.

The second soldier, having witnessed the feat of pugilism, doubled his fists and extended them awkwardly, coming with a rush. Mr. Pike suddenly squatted and leaned forward, balancing on his finger-tips, until number two was about to fall upon him and crush him, and then he arose with that rigid right shoulder aimed as a catapult. There was a sound as when the air-brake is disconnected, and number two curled over limply on the ground and made faces in an effort to resume breathing.

Mr. Pike picked up his magazine and put it under his coat. He b.u.t.toned the coat, smiled in a pale, but placid manner at Kalora, who was still immovable with terror, and then he proceeded to vindicate his "prep school" training. He ran over to the canopy tent, under which the refreshments had been served, pulled out one of the poles and, pointing it ahead of him, ran straight for the wall.

Kalora, watching him, regarded this as a wholly insane proceeding. Was he going to attempt to poke a hole through a wall three feet thick?

Just as he seemed ready to flatten himself against the stones, he dropped the end of the pole to the ground and shot upward like a rocket.

Kalora saw him give an upward twist and wriggle, fling himself free from the pole and disappear on the other side of the wall, the camera following like the tail of a comet. As he did so, number two, coming to a sitting posture, began to shriek for reinforcements. Number one was up on his elbow, regarding the affairs of this world with a dreamy interest.

Fortunately for the Governor-General, the partic.i.p.ants in the exploded garden-party had escaped at the very first opportunity.

Count Malagaski, greatly perturbed and almost in a state of collapse over the unhappy affair in the garden, was returning to his apartments when the second surprising episode of the day came to a noisy climax.

He heard the uproar and had the two guards brought before him. They reported that they had found a stranger in the garb of an infidel seated within the secret garden chatting with the Princess Kalora. They did not agree in their descriptions of him, but each maintained that the intruder was a very large person of forbidding appearance and terrific strength.

"How did he manage to escape?" asked the Governor-General.

"By jumping over the wall."

"Over a wall ten feet high?" demanded the Governor-General.

"Without touching his hands, sir. He was very tall; must have been seven feet."

"If you ever had an atom of gray matter, evidently this stranger has beaten it out of you. Hurry and notify the police!"

Kalora's candid version of the whole affair was hardly less startling than that of the guards. The stranger had come over the wall suddenly, much to her alarm. He attempted to converse with her, but she sternly ordered him from the premises. He was exceedingly tall, as the guards had said, and very dark, with rather long hair and curling black mustache. He addressed her in English, but spoke with a marked German accent.

This description, faithfully set down by Popova, was carried away to the secret police of Morovenia, said to be the most astute in the world.

They were instructed to watch all trains and guard the frontier and, as soon as they had their prisoner safely put away in the lower dungeon of the munic.i.p.al prison, they were to notify the Governor-General, who would privately pa.s.s sentence.

A crime against any member of the ruler's household comes under a separate category and need not be tried in public sessions. For entering a royal harem or addressing a woman of t.i.tle the sentences range from the bastinado to solitary confinement for life.

No wonder Kalora waited in trembling. Like every other provincial she had much respect for the indigenous constabulary. She did not believe it possible for the pleasing stranger to break through the network that would be woven about him.

Shunning her father and sister, and shunned by them, she waited many sleepless hours in her own apartments for the inevitable news from beyond the walls.

Next morning there came to her a cheering and terrifying message.

VII

THE ONLY KOLDO

Three hours after his pole-vault, Mr. Alexander H. Pike, wearing a dinner-jacket newly ironed by his man-slave, and with a soft hat crushed jauntily down over the right ear, was pacing back and forth in the main corridor of the Hotel de l'Europe waiting for the dread summons to the table d'hote.