Lieutenant May turned toward Professor Maxon with a questioning look.
“It is he,” said the scientist.
“But the chest?” inquired the officer.
“Mlaxon’s tleasure,” spoke up Sing Lee. “Hornee him tly steal it for long time.”
“Treasure!” ejaculated the professor. “Bududreen gave up his life for this. Rajah Muda Saffir fought and intrigued and murdered for possession of it! Poor, misguided von Horn has died for it, and left his head to wither beneath the rafters of a Dyak long-house! It is incredible.”
“But, Professor Maxon,” said Lieutenant May, “men will suffer all these things and more for gold.”
“Gold!” cried the professor. “Why, man, that is a box of books on biology and eugenics.”
“My God!” exclaimed May, “and von Horn was accredited to be one of the shrewdest swindlers and adventurers in America! But come, we may as well return to the cutter — my men will carry the chest.”
“No!” exclaimed Professor Maxon with a vehemence the other could not understand. “Let them bury it again where it lies. It and what it contains have been the cause of sufficient misery and suffering and crime. Let it lie where it is in the heart of savage Borneo, and pray to God that no man ever finds it, and that I shall forget forever that which is in it.”
On the morning of the third day following the death of von Horn the New Mexico steamed away from the coast of Borneo. Upon her deck, looking back toward the verdure clad hills, stood Virginia and Bulan.
“Thank heaven,” exclaimed the girl fervently, “that we are leaving it behind us forever.”
“Amen,” replied Bulan, “but yet, had it not been for Borneo I might never have found you.”
“We should have met elsewhere then, Bulan,” said the girl in a low voice, “for we were made for one another. No power on earth could have kept us apart. In your true guise you would have found me — I am sure of it.”
“It is maddening, Virginia,” said the man, “to be constantly straining every resource of my memory in futile endeavor to catch and hold one fleeting clue to my past. Why, dear, do you realize that I may have been a fugitive from justice, as was von Horn, a vile criminal perhaps. It is awful, Virginia, to contemplate the horrible possibilities of my lost past.”
“No, Bulan, you could never have been a criminal,” replied the loyal girl, “but there is one possibility that has been haunting me constantly. It frightens me just to think of it — it is,” and the girl lowered her voice as though she feared to say the thing she dreaded most, “it is that you may have loved another — that — that you may even be married.”
Bulan was about to laugh away any such fears when the gravity and importance of the possibility impressed him quite as fully as it had Virginia. He saw that it was not at all unlikely that he was already a married man; and he saw too what the girl now acknowledged, that they might never wed until the mystery of his past had been cleared away.
“There is something that gives weight to my fear,” continued Virginia, “something that I had almost forgotten in the rush and excitement of events during the past few days. During your delirium your ravings were, for the most part, quite incoherent, but there was one name that you repeated many times — a woman’s name, preceded by a number. It was ‘Nine ninety nine Priscilla.’ Maybe she—”
But Virginia got no further. With a low exclamation of delight Bulan caught her in his arms.
“It is all right, dear,” he cried. “It is all right. Everything has come back to me now. You have given me the clue. Nine ninety nine Priscilla is my father’s address — Nine ninety nine Priscilla Avenue.
“I am Townsend J. Harper, Jr. You have heard of my father. Every one has since he commenced consolidating interurban traction companies. And I’m not married, Virginia, and never have been; but I shall be if this miserable old mud scow ever reaches Singapore.”
“Oh, Bulan,” cried the girl, “how in the world did you ever happen to come to that terrible island of ours?”
“I came for you, dear,” he replied. “It is a long story. After dinner I will tell you all of it that I can recall. For the present it must suffice you to know that I followed you from the railway station at Ithaca half around the world for a love that had been born from a single glance at your sweet face as you passed me to enter your Pullman.
“On my father’s yacht I reached your island after trailing you to Singapore. It was a long and tedious hunt and we followed many blind leads, but at last we came off an island upon which natives had told us such a party as yours was living. Five of us put off in a boat to explore — that is the last that I can recall. Sing says he found me alone in a row boat, a ‘dummy.’”
Virginia sighed, and crept closer to him.
“You may be the son of the great Townsend J. Harper, you have been the soulless Number Thirteen; but to me you will always be Bulan, for it was Bulan whom I learned to love.”
THE MAD KING (1914)
CONTENTS
PART I
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
PART II
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
PART I
CHAPTER I
A RUNAWAY HORSE
All Lustadt was in an uproar. The mad king had escaped. Little knots of excited men stood upon the street corners listening to each latest rumor concerning this most absorbing occurrence. Before the palace a great crowd surged to and fro, awaiting they knew not what.
For ten years no man of them had set eyes upon the face of the boy-king who had been hastened to the grim castle of Blentz upon the death of the old king, his father.
There had been murmurings then when the lad’s uncle, Peter of Blentz, had announced to the people of Lutha the sudden mental affliction which had fallen upon his nephew, and more murmurings for a time after the announcement that Peter of Blentz had been appointed Regent during the lifetime of the young King Leopold, “or until God, in His infinite mercy, shall see fit to restore to us in full mental vigor our beloved monarch.”
But ten years is a long time. The boy-king had become but a vague memory to the subjects who could recall him at all.
There were many, of course, in the capital city, Lustadt, who still retained a mental picture of the handsome boy who had ridden out nearly every morning from the palace gates beside the tall, martial figure of the old king, his father, for a canter across the broad plain which lies at the foot of the mountain town of Lustadt; but even these had long since given up hope that their young king would ever ascend his throne, or even that they should see him alive again.
Peter of Blentz had not proved a good or kind ruler. Taxes had doubled during his regency. Executives and judiciary, following the example of their chief, had become tyrannical and corrupt. For ten years there had been small joy in Lutha.
There had been whispered rumors off and on that the young king was dead these many years, but not even in whispers did the men of Lutha dare voice the name of him whom they believed had caused his death. For lesser things they had seen their friends and neighbors thrown into the hitherto long-unused dungeons of the royal castle.
And now came the rumor that Leopold of Lutha had escaped the Castle of Blentz and was roaming somewhere in the wild mountains or ravines upon the opposite side of the plain of Lustadt.
; Peter of Blentz was filled with rage and, possibly, fear as well.
“I tell you, Coblich,” he cried, addressing his dark-visaged minister of war, “there’s more than coincidence in this matter. Someone has betrayed us. That he should have escaped upon the very eve of the arrival at Blentz of the new physician is most suspicious. None but you, Coblich, had knowledge of the part that Dr. Stein was destined to play in this matter,” concluded Prince Peter pointedly.
Coblich looked the Regent full in the eye.
“Your highness wrongs not only my loyalty, but my intelligence,” he said quietly, “by even so much as intimating that I have any guilty knowledge of Leopold’s escape. With Leopold upon the throne of Lutha, where, think you, my prince, would old Coblich be?”
Peter smiled.
“You are right, Coblich,” he said. “I know that you would not be such a fool; but whom, then, have we to thank?”
“The walls have ears, prince,” replied Coblich, “and we have not always been as careful as we should in discussing the matter. Something may have come to the ears of old Von der Tann. I don’t for a moment doubt but that he has his spies among the palace servants, or even the guard. You know the old fox has always made it a point to curry favor with the common soldiers. When he was minister of war he treated them better than he did his officers.”
“It seems strange, Coblich, that so shrewd a man as you should have been unable to discover some irregularity in the political life of Prince Ludwig von der Tann before now,” said the prince querulously. “He is the greatest menace to our peace and sovereignty. With Von der Tann out of the way there would be none powerful enough to question our right to the throne of Lutha — after poor Leopold passes away.”
“You forget that Leopold has escaped,” suggested Coblich, “and that there is no immediate prospect of his passing away.”
“He must be retaken at once, Coblich!” cried Prince Peter of Blentz. “He is a dangerous maniac, and we must make this fact plain to the people — this and a thorough description of him. A handsome reward for his safe return to Blentz might not be out of the way, Coblich.”
“It shall be done, your highness,” replied Coblich. “And about Von der Tann? You have never spoken to me quite so — ah — er — pointedly before. He hunts a great deal in the Old Forest. It might be possible — in fact, it has happened, before — there are many accidents in hunting, are there not, your highness?”
“There are, Coblich,” replied the prince, “and if Leopold is able he will make straight for the Tann, so that there may be two hunting together in a day or so, Coblich.”
“I understand, your highness,” replied the minister. “With your permission, I shall go at once and dispatch troops to search the forest for Leopold. Captain Maenck will command them.”
“Good, Coblich! Maenck is a most intelligent and loyal officer. We must reward him well. A baronetcy, at least, if he handles this matter well,” said Peter. “It might not be a bad plan to hint at as much to him, Coblich.”
And so it happened that shortly thereafter Captain Ernst Maenck, in command of a troop of the Royal Horse Guards of Lutha, set out toward the Old Forest, which lies beyond the mountains that are visible upon the other side of the plain stretching out before Lustadt. At the same time other troopers rode in many directions along the highways and byways of Lutha, tacking placards upon trees and fence posts and beside the doors of every little rural post office.
The placard told of the escape of the mad king, offering a large reward for his safe return to Blentz.
It was the last paragraph especially which caused a young man, the following day in the little hamlet of Tafelberg, to whistle as he carefully read it over.
“I am glad that I am not the mad king of Lutha,” he said as he paid the storekeeper for the gasoline he had just purchased and stepped into the gray roadster for whose greedy maw it was destined.
“Why, mein Herr?” asked the man.
“This notice practically gives immunity to whoever shoots down the king,” replied the traveler. “Worse still, it gives such an account of the maniacal ferocity of the fugitive as to warrant anyone in shooting him on sight.”
As the young man spoke the storekeeper had examined his face closely for the first time. A shrewd look came into the man’s ordinarily stolid countenance. He leaned forward quite close to the other’s ear.
“We of Lutha,” he whispered, “love our ‘mad king’ — no reward could be offered that would tempt us to betray him. Even in self-protection we would not kill him, we of the mountains who remember him as a boy and loved his father and his grandfather, before him.
“But there are the scum of the low country in the army these days, who would do anything for money, and it is these that the king must guard against. I could not help but note that mein Herr spoke too perfect German for a foreigner. Were I in mein Herr’s place, I should speak mostly the English, and, too, I should shave off the ‘full, reddish-brown beard.’”
Whereupon the storekeeper turned hastily back into his shop, leaving Barney Custer of Beatrice, Nebraska, U.S.A., to wonder if all the inhabitants of Lutha were afflicted with a mental disorder similar to that of the unfortunate ruler.
“I don’t wonder,” soliloquized the young man, “that he advised me to shave off this ridiculous crop of alfalfa. Hang election bets, anyway; if things had gone half right I shouldn’t have had to wear this badge of idiocy. And to think that it’s got to be for a whole month longer! A year’s a mighty long while at best, but a year in company with a full set of red whiskers is an eternity.”
The road out of Tafelberg wound upward among tall trees toward the pass that would lead him across the next valley on his way to the Old Forest, where he hoped to find some excellent shooting. All his life Barney had promised himself that some day he should visit his mother’s native land, and now that he was here he found it as wild and beautiful as she had said it would be.
Neither his mother nor his father had ever returned to the little country since the day, thirty years before, that the big American had literally stolen his bride away, escaping across the border but a scant half-hour ahead of the pursuing troop of Luthanian cavalry. Barney had often wondered why it was that neither of them would ever speak of those days, or of the early life of his mother, Victoria Rubinroth, though of the beauties of her native land Mrs. Custer never tired of talking.
Barney Custer was thinking of these things as his machine wound up the picturesque road. Just before him was a long, heavy grade, and as he took it with open muffler the chugging of his motor drowned the sound of pounding hoof beats rapidly approaching behind him.
It was not until he topped the grade that he heard anything unusual, and at the same instant a girl on horseback tore past him. The speed of the animal would have been enough to have told him that it was beyond the control of its frail rider, even without the added testimony of the broken bit that dangled beneath the tensely outstretched chin.
Foam flecked the beast’s neck and shoulders. It was evident that the horse had been running for some distance, yet its speed was still that of the thoroughly frightened runaway.
The road at the point where the animal had passed Custer was cut from the hillside. At the left an embankment rose steeply to a height of ten or fifteen feet. On the right there was a drop of a hundred feet or more into a wooded ravine. Ahead, the road apparently ran quite straight and smooth for a considerable distance.
Barney Custer knew that so long as the road ran straight the girl might be safe enough, for she was evidently an excellent horsewoman; but he also knew that if there should be a sharp turn to the left ahead, the horse in his blind fright would in all probability dash headlong into the ravine below him.
There was but a single thing that the man might attempt if he were to save the girl from the almost certain death which seemed in store for her, since he knew that sooner or later the road would turn, as all mountain roads do. The chances that he must take, if he failed, coul
d only hasten the girl’s end. There was no alternative except to sit supinely by and see the fear-crazed horse carry its rider into eternity, and Barney Custer was not the sort for that role.
Scarcely had the beast come abreast of him than his foot leaped to the accelerator. Like a frightened deer the gray roadster sprang forward in pursuit. The road was narrow. Two machines could not have passed upon it. Barney took the outside that he might hold the horse away from the dangerous ravine.
At the sound of the whirring thing behind him the animal cast an affrighted glance in its direction, and with a little squeal of terror redoubled its frantic efforts to escape. The girl, too, looked back over her shoulder. Her face was very white, but her eyes were steady and brave.
Barney Custer smiled up at her in encouragement, and the girl smiled back at him.
“She’s sure a game one,” thought Barney.
Now she was calling to him. At first he could not catch her words above the pounding of the horse’s hoofs and the noise of his motor. Presently he understood.
“Stop!” she cried. “Stop or you will be killed. The road turns to the left just ahead. You’ll go into the ravine at that speed.”
The front wheel of the roadster was at the horse’s right flank. Barney stepped upon the accelerator a little harder. There was barely room between the horse and the edge of the road for the four wheels of the roadster, and Barney must be very careful not to touch the horse. The thought of that and what it would mean to the girl sent a cold shudder 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 right-hand fender; the wheels on that side must have been on the very verge of the embankment.
Delphi Collected Works of Edgar Rice Burroughs (Illustrated) (Series Four Book 26) Page 650