The Hosts of the Air by Joseph A. Altsheler

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"They say it's to be the mightiest array of princes and generals
gathered at Zillenstein in a hundred years," said Ilse.

"So I hear," said John.

"And you may be called from the stable to serve in the castle. The man
who rode the horse of Count Pappenheim may have to carry a plate and a
napkin."

"One can but do his best."

"But it will be a great scene. Perhaps the Kaiser himself will be here,
or the old Emperor."

"Perhaps."

"Aren't you eager to see them?" asked Ilse, piqued a little at his lack
of curiosity.

"Oh yes," replied John, recalling that he must make believe, "but I've
seen the Kaiser several times and once at Vienna I could almost have
reached out my hand and touched the old Emperor, as he rode on his way
to Schonbrunn."

He passed on and they looked after him. They liked the bearing of this
young peasant who was respectful, but who certainly was never servile.
But it was in John's mind that however brilliant the great council might
be he would not see it. He was surely going from Zillenstein but it was
for the future to say whether his absence would be short or long.

While John was at the stables young Kratzek sent for his horse, and
John, after his custom, led the animal to him. He had long since ceased
to fear discovery by the Austrian, and his immunity made him careless,
or it may be that Kratzek's eyes were uncommonly keen that day. He stood
beside John, as the young American fixed the stirrup, and some motion or
gesture of the seeming peasant suddenly appeared familiar to Kratzek.

Before John had realized what he intended Kratzek suddenly seized him by
both shoulders and turning him around, looked straight into his eyes.

"Scott, the American, and a spy!" he exclaimed.

John's heart missed several beats. He knew that it was useless to deny,
but in a moment or two he had himself under full control.

"Yes, it's Scott, and I'm in disguise, but I'm not a spy," he said.

"The penalty anyhow is death."

"But you'll not betray me!"

"You saved my life at the great peril of your own."

John was silent. He felt that the time had come for Kratzek to repay,
but he would not say so. Now his own look was straight and high, and it
was Kratzek's that wavered.

"You pledge your word that you are not seeking to pry into our military
secrets?" asked the Austrian at length.

"No such purpose is in my mind at all, and I leave here within
twenty-four hours as ignorant of them as I was when I came."

"Then, sir, I do not know you. I never saw you before, and I believe
you are the peasant you seem to be."

Kratzek gave him one look of intense curiosity, then sprang upon his
horse, and rode away, never looking back.

"There goes a true man," thought John, as he returned to the stable.

Toward evening Walther gave him a heavier suit of clothes which he put
on, a great overcoat like an ulster falling almost to his ankles, and an
automobile cap and glasses. John could see that he longed to ask
questions but he did not do so and John too was silent. A few minutes
before nine o'clock Walther told him to go to the small gate in the rear
wall.

"Reach it without being seen if you can," he said. "But if you are seen
be sure to answer no questions. I would go with you myself, but it's
forbidden. You're to be absolutely alone."

John, shrouded in the overcoat and cap and glasses, made his way in the
dark to the designated gate.

As he approached the place he saw the black shadow of a heavy bulk
against the dusk. No person was yet in sight and there was utter
silence. The beat of his heart was so hard that it gave him actual
physical pain. The shadow he knew was that of a large closed automobile,
but no driver was in the seat, and he did not believe that anybody was
inside. Both the silence and the loneliness became sinister.

John slipped forward boldly. It required no divination to know that he
was expected to drive this machine. The gate was open and two figures
hooded and cloaked came forth. But hooded and cloaked as they were John
knew at once the first and slenderer one. The step disclosed the
goddess. Julie and Suzanne were going somewhere and he was to take them
and there was the prince himself coming through the open gate to give
him his instructions.

John's first emotion was one of extraordinary wonder, qualified in a
moment or two by humor. Suzanne opened the door of the machine and Julie
stepped in. Then the maid followed into the darkness of the interior and
closed the door. Truly that variable goddess, Fortune, had chosen to
play one of her oddest tricks and for the time, at least, she had chosen
him also as her favorite. But with a presence of mind bred in the
terrible school of war, he stood waiting ready to receive all her gifts
with a thankful heart. "These are two Frenchwomen, prisoners, whom I
hold," said the prince in a whisper. "There are reasons of state why
they should be taken from Zillenstein and be hidden at my hunting lodge
in the mountains. Follow the road that you see there in the moonlight
leading up the slope, and on the crest six leagues away you will come to
the lodge. You cannot miss it because no other building is there. It
lies off the road in a deep pine forest, and here is a letter to my
forester Muller who lives there. You and he will hold the women at the
lodge until I send for them, and let them speak with nobody, though
there is little chance of such a thing on the mountain, where the winter
has not yet gone. I hold you responsible for them. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Your Highness," replied John, and he meant it.

"And here is a purse of gold for you. See that you serve me well in this
matter, and there is another purse at the end of it. Now go at once!"

John touched his cap, sprang into the seat and started the great
automobile up the mountain road. He could not look back, but he knew
instinctively that the prince had gone into the castle as silently as he
had come from it. And he was alone at the wheel with Julie and Suzanne
inside. In very truth chance or fortune had moved the pawns for him in a
way that the most skillful player could not have equaled. For a moment,
the whole world seemed to swim beneath his feet.

The night was dark and cold, and although the road up the slope showed
for a long distance in the moonshine the top of the mountain was wrapped
in mist. A wind began to blow and he felt raw and damp to his face. But
there was nothing to check his exultation. Come wind or rain or snow
they were all one to him. He was away from Zillenstein, out in the great
free world and Julie was with him. Auersperg himself, unknowing, had
provided the way and he was sending them not only in comfort but in
luxury. John knew the big automobile. It was the prince's own and it was
surely equipped in a princely way. The man who bad brought it to the
gate had been forced to go away and he, John Scott, and Prince Karl of
Auersperg alone knew where they were going. All the better! He laughed
under his breath as he handled the wheel with hands now skilled and sent
the great automobile along the smooth white road that stretched away and
away up the mountain side.

At a curve a mile or more distant, he could look down almost directly
upon Zillenstein. The vast castle was bathed in whitish mists floating
up the valley in which it loomed gigantic and enlarged, a menacing
creation that had survived far beyond its time. He shuddered at the
thought that Julie and he might still be there, had not fortune been so
kind, and then, pressing the accelerator, he sent the machine forward a
little faster.

The road owing to the steepness of the ascent now wound a great deal,
but it was smooth and safe, and the automobile, despite its size, had an
organism as delicate as that of a watch. It obeyed the least pressure of
his hand, and his exultation became all the greater when he fully
realized that he had such a powerful mechanism at hand, subject to its
lightest touch. The thought, in truth, had come to him that he might
turn back into the valley, and seek escape from the mountains. But
consideration showed that the idea was foolish. So large a machine by no
possibility could escape from the valley. It was better to go on.

The cold increased sharply. He expected a fall in the mercury owing to
the ascent, but it was greater than the height alone warranted. All the
signs betokened foul weather. The castle was now wholly lost in great
masses of vapor and the moon was withdrawing from the sky. The wind had
an edge of ice. He knew that mountains were the breeding place of storms
and he made another increase of speed in order that they might reach the
hunting lodge before one broke.

He had not heard a sound from the interior of the automobile since he
started. They were sitting only a few feet away, but the whistling of
the wind and the crunch of the wheels on the sanded road would have
drowned out all slight noises, and they did not speak, nor did he look
back.

He knew that they could see only a broad back in front of them and the
muffling coat and cap. He longed to say a word or two, but he deemed it
wisest to wait yet a while. His full attention was concentrated upon the
machine and the road and it was all the more necessary because the night
was growing darker and the wind cut.

But his confidence was so high that he handled the automobile through
all the dangers with a firm and sure hand. It sped on and on, climbing
in a rapid series of circles up the side of the mountain. Behind him the
gulf was filled with vapors and before him the clouds were growing
darker on the crest, but he could yet trace the road, and it would not
be long now until they reached the crest and the pine forest in which
the hunting lodge stood.

He wondered what kind of man the forester Muller would prove to be. If
he were suspicious, keenly alert, he might prevent their ultimate
escape, but if he were merely a simple hunter John might make friends
with him and use him for his purposes. Then his thoughts came quickly
back to Julie. He believed that she had left the castle without
resistance of any kind. She would be glad to escape from Zillenstein and
Auersperg, no matter where that escape might take her.

Another half-hour and the crest was but a hundred yards or so away. How
thankful he was now that he had put on extra speed despite the ascent
and had driven the machine hard, because the road would soon be blotted
from sight! Heavy flakes of snow had begun to fall and with the rising
wind they were coming faster and faster.

He dimly made out a pine wood on his right, and, then, in the center of
it the outline of a low building which he knew must be the hunting
lodge. He slowed down the machine, took the last little curve, and
stopped before the door of the lodge. But in that minute the snow had
become a driving white storm.

He leaped out, knocked hard on the door of the lodge, and, no answer
coming, threw himself heavily against it. It burst open, revealing only
an interior of darkness, but he turned quickly back to the automobile,
threw wide its door and beckoned with peremptory command to the two dark
figures sitting within.

They stepped out, Julie first, and entered the lodge. John followed
them, and there they stood, staring at one another until their eyes
might grow used to the dusk and they could see their faces. It was
evident that Muller was not anywhere in the building, or he would have
come at the sound of the machine.

John glanced toward a window set deep in a heavy timbered wall and
admitting enough light to disclose a lantern and a box of matches on a
shelf. Still in his shrouding coat, cap and glasses he stepped forward,
struck a match and lighted the lantern. Driven by a sudden impulse, he
swept off the cap and glasses and held up the light.

He saw Julie's face turn deadly pale. Every particle of color was gone
from it and her blue eyes stared at him as if he were one newly risen
from the dead. Then the color flushed back in a rosy tide and such a
tide of gladness as he had never seen before in human eyes came into
hers.

"You! You! Is it really you?" she cried.

John was once more the knightly young crusader. No such moment had ever
before come into his life. His heart was full. Triumph and joy were
mingled there, and something over and beyond either. In that passing
flash he had read the light in her eyes, a light that he knew was only
for him, but in the instant of supreme revelation he would take no
advantage. The manner as well as the spirit of the young crusader was
upon him.

He knelt before her and taking one of her gloved hands in his kissed it.

"Yes, dearest Julie," he said, "by some singular fortune or chance, or
rather, I should call it, the will of God, I was chosen to bring you
here, and I glory because I have fulfilled the trust."

[Illustration: "'You! You! Is it really you?' she cried"]

Suzanne, tall and dark, stood looking down at them. Her grim features
which relaxed so rarely relaxed now and her eyes were soft. The young
stranger from beyond the seas had proved after all that he was a man
among men, and no Frenchwoman could resist a romance so strong and true
in the face of all that war could do.

John felt Julie's hand trembling in his, but she did not draw it away.
Her lashes were lowered a little now, but her gaze still rested upon
him, soft yet confident and powerful. He had believed in her courage. He
had believed that she would suffer no shock when she should see that he
was the strange man who had been at the wheel, and his confidence was
justified.

"And it was you who brought us up the mountain?" she said.

"The Prince of Auersperg himself chose me because I was a stranger and
he did not wish anyone else in the castle to know where you were sent."

He released her hand and rose. The soft but strong gaze was still upon
him, as if she were yet trying to persuade herself that it was reality.

"I felt all the time that some day we should leave the castle together,"
she said, "but I did not dream that it was you who sat before me as we
came up the mountain."

"But it was," said John, joyfully. "I think Wharton himself would have
complimented me on the way I drove the machine. I have a letter in my
pocket for Muller, the prince's forester who lives here, but it seems
that he is absent on other duty."

"And then," said the practical Suzanne, "it becomes us to take
possession of the house at once. Look forth, sir! how the storm beats!"

Through the open door they saw the snow driven past in sheets that
seemed almost solid. John handed the lantern to Suzanne and said:

"Wait here a moment."

"Where are you going, Mr. Scott?" exclaimed Julie. "You will not desert
us?"

"Never!"

He was out of the door in a couple of strides, and then he sprang into
the automobile. He had noticed a small garage back of the lodge and he
meant to save the machine, feeling sure that they would have need of it
later. In a few minutes it was safely inside with the door fastened so
tightly behind him that no wind could blow it loose, and he was back at
the lodge with the wind and snow driving so hard that he opened the door
but little, and, slipping in, slammed it shut. Then he turned the heavy
key in the lock, and stared in surprise and pleasure at the room.

It was a great apartment, the heavy log walls adorned with the horns and
stuffed heads of wild animals. Several bear skins and other rugs lay
upon the oaken floor. There were chairs and tables with books upon them,
and, at one end, the dry wood that filled a great fireplace was
crackling and flashing merrily. The practical Suzanne, noticing the
heap, had set a match to it at once, and already the room, great as it
was, was filled with warmth and light. Julie, having taken off her heavy
furs, was sitting in a chair before the fire, the leaping flames
deepening the light in her eyes and the new rose in her cheeks.

John's heart swelled with thankfulness and joy. He had not dreamed that
so much could be achieved. A day before he would have said that it was
impossible. As the whistling of the wind rose to a fierce roar and the
snow drove by, he realized, with a shudder at the danger escaped so
narrowly, that they had arrived just in time. The automobile itself
would have been driven from the path by the fierce Alpine storm now
raging.

The stern but gifted Suzanne had found lamps and had lighted them, and
like a capable soldier she was already looking over her field of battle.

"Not so bad," she said. "His Highness, Prince Karl of Auersperg, builds
a little palace and calls it his hunting lodge. But his heart would turn
black within him if he knew who was one of the guests in it today."

John smiled, and meeting Julie's eyes, he smiled again. He saw a flame
there to which his own soul responded, and he tingled from head to foot.
The omens had not been in vain. The blessings of the righteous had
availed. Again it may be said that he had no faith in the supernatural,
at least here on earth, but all things must have worked for him in a
world that seemed wholly against him. He believed that he read such a
thought too in the glowing dark blue of her own eyes.

"You are wonderfully right, Suzanne," said John. "Probably the Prince of
Auersperg had the lodge especially prepared for the coming of
Mademoiselle Julie. Perhaps there is a telephone."

"Truly there is, Mr. Scott," said Suzanne. "Here it is, in the corner."

"Then," said John, "it's very likely that we'll hear very soon from
Zillenstein, and since he has kept your journey secret it is sure to be
Prince Karl himself who will call you up. I must be the one to answer.
Now will you sit here by the fire, Miss Julie, and rest while your most
capable Suzanne and I look further into our new residence. There is no
possibility of any caller, save the worthy Muller, to whom I bear a
letter from the prince, in which I have no doubt I am highly
recommended."

"Very well, Mr. John, I obey you," said Julie, sitting down again in a
large armchair before the flames, where the ruddy light once more
deepened the gold of her hair and the rose of her cheeks. "It seems that
you intend to be master here."

"I'm master already. My rule has become supreme, nor am I any usurper.
Do I not hold a commission from Prince Karl of Auersperg, the owner of
this lodge, and did he not intrust you to my care? I mean to do my duty.
And now come, Suzanne, you and I will see what this wilderness castle of
ours contains."

The hunting lodge was worthy of a prince. It was built of massive logs,
but the interior was improved and finished in modern style. There were
no electric lights, but it contained almost every other luxury or
convenience. Besides the great room in which Julie was now sitting, they
found on the ground floor a writing-room well supplied, a small parlor,
a gunroom amply equipped with a variety of arms and ammunition, a
dining-room containing much princely silver, a butler's pantry, a
kitchen and a storeroom holding food enough to last them a year. Above
stairs were six bedrooms, any one of which the capable Suzanne could put
in order in half an hour. All the house had running water drawn from
some reservoir in the mountains.

John had seen such luxurious camps as this in the Adirondacks in his own
country, and there were many others scattered about the mountains of
Europe, but he was very grateful now to find such a refuge for Julie.
Again he realized how fortunate they had been to arrive so early. As he
looked from an upper window he saw that the storm was driving with
tremendous fury. Even behind the huge logs he heard the wind roaring and
thundering, and now and then, through the thick glass of the windows, he
caught a glimpse of a young pine torn up by its roots and whirled past.

Where was Muller, the forester, who had charge of the lodge and who
lived there, and what kind of a man was he? It was the only question
that was troubling him now. If he did not come soon he could not come
that night, nor perhaps the next day. The snowfall was immense, with
every sign of heavy continuance, and by morning it certainly would lie
many feet deep on the mountain. Traveling would be impossible. He heard
the distant sound of a bell, and knowing that the telephone was calling,
he ran down the stairway to the great room. Julie had risen and was
looking at the instrument with dilated eyes, as if it sounded a note of
alarm, as if their happy escape was threatened by a new danger. John
believed that she had fallen asleep before the heat of the fire, and
that the ring of the telephone had struck upon her dreaming ear like a
shell.

"It's he! It's the terrible prince himself!" she exclaimed, her
faculties not yet fully released from cloudy sleep.

"Very likely," said John, "but have no fear. Zillenstein is only six
leagues away at ordinary times, but it's six hundred tonight, with the
greatest storm that I've ever seen sweeping in between us."

He took down the receiver and put it to his ear.

"Who is there?" asked a deep voice, which he knew to be that of Prince
Karl.

"Castel, Your Highness."

"You arrived without accident?"

"Wholly without accident, Your Highness. We reached the lodge a few
minutes before the storm broke."

"The lady, Mademoiselle Lannes, is safe and comfortable?"

"Entirely so. Your Highness. The maid, Suzanne, is preparing her room
for her."

"You found Muller there waiting for you according to instructions?"

Some prudential motive prompted John to reply:

"Yes, Your Highness, he had everything ready and was waiting. I
presented your letter at once."

"You have done well, Castel. Keep the lady within the house, but the
storm will do that anyhow. Do not under any circumstances call me up,
but I will call you again when I think fit. Bear in mind that the reward
of both you and Muller shall be large, if you serve me well in this most
important matter."

"Yes, Your Highness. I thank you now."

"Keep it in mind, always."

"Yes, Your Highness."

His Highness, Prince Karl of Auersperg, replaced the telephone stand
upon the table in his bedroom at Zillenstein, and John Scott hung up the
receiver in the hunting lodge on the mountain.

"It was Prince Karl," he said to Julie, who still stood motionless
looking at him. "He wanted to know if you were safe and comfortable and
I said yes. He said he would call us up again but he won't."

He lifted a chair and shattered the telephone to fragments.

"It might afford a peculiar pleasure to talk with him," he said, "but
it's best that we have no further communication while we're here. An
incautious word or two might arouse suspicion and that's what we want
most to avoid. When he fails to get an answer to his call he'll think
that this huge snow has broken down the wire. Most likely it will do so
anyhow. And now, Miss Julie, Suzanne has your room ready for you. If you
wish to withdraw to it for a little while you'll find dinner waiting you
when you return."

"And the day of the abandoned hotel in Chastel has come back?"

"But a better and a longer day. We're prisoners here together on the
mountain, you and I, and your chaperon, servant and sometime ruler,
Suzanne Picard, who I find is not as grim as she looks."

There was a spark in his eyes as he looked at her, and an answering fire
leaped up in her own. He was in very truth a perfect and gentle knight,
who would gladly come so far and through so many dangers for her and for
her alone. He was her very own champion, and as her dark blue eyes
looked into the gray deeps of his her soul thrilled with the knowledge
of it. Deep red flushed her from brow to chin, and then slowly ebbed
away.

"John," she said, putting her hand in his, "no woman has ever owed more
gratitude to a man."

"And I am finding repayment now for what I was happy to do," he said,
kissing her hand again in that far-off knightly fashion.

Again the red tide in her cheeks and then she swiftly left the room, but
John threw himself in a chair before the great fire and gazed into the
coals. Wide awake, he was dreaming. He knew they would be days in the
lodge. The storm was so great that no one could come from Zillenstein in
a week. Providence or fortune had been so kind that he began to fear
enough had been done for them. Such good luck could not go on forever,
and there, too, was the man Muller who might make trouble when he came.

Nevertheless his feeling was but momentary. The extraordinary lightness
of heart returned. The storm roared without and at times it volleyed
down the chimney, making the flames leap and dance, but the sense of
security and safety was strong within him. The war passed by, forgotten
for the time. History, it was true, repeated itself, and this was the
abandoned hotel at Chastel over again, but they were in a far better
position now. No one could come against them, unless the man Muller
should prove to be a foe. And he resolved, too, gazing into the flames,
that they should not steal Julie from him here, as they had taken her at
Chastel.

Darkness, save for the gleam of the snow, came over the mountain, but
the flakes were driving so thick and fast that they formed a white
blanket before the window, as impervious as black night itself. It
reminded him of a great storm he had seen once on his uncle's ranch on
the high table land of Montana, but to him it came that night as a
friend and not as an enemy, cutting them off from Zillenstein and all
the dangers it held.

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