Calhoun,” said Dangloss.
“If anything happens, then, I am to be blamed for it,” she cried in deep distress. “I brought him to Edelweiss, and I believe in him.”
“For his own sake, your highness, and Miss Calhoun, I suggest that no opportunity should be given him to communicate with the outside world. We cannot accuse him, of course, but we can protect him. I come to ask your permission to have him detailed for duty only in places where no suspicion can attach to any of his actions.”
“You mean inside the city walls?” asked Yetive.
“Yes, your highness, and as far as possible from the fortress.”
“I think it is a wise precaution. Don’t be angry, Beverly,” the princess said gently. “It is for his own sake, you see. I am acting on the presumption that he is wholly innocent of any desire to betray us.”
“It would be easy for someone high in position to accuse and convict him,” said Dangloss meaningly.
“And it would be just like someone, too,” agreed Beverly, her thoughts, with the others’, going toward none but one man “high in power.”
Later in the day she called Baldos to her side as they were riding in the castle avenue. She was determined to try a little experiment of her own.
“Baldos, what do you think of the fortress?” she asked.
“I could overthrow it after half an hour’s bombardment, your highness,” he answered, without thinking. She started violently.
“Is it possible? Are there so many weak points?” she went on, catching her breath.
“There are three vital points of weakness, your highness. The magazine can be reached from the outside if one knows the lay of the land; the parade-ground exposes the ammunition building to certain disadvantages, and the big guns could be silenced in an hour if an enemy had the sense first to bombard from the elevation northeast of the city.”
“Good heavens!” gasped poor Beverly. “Have you studied all this out?”
“I was once a real soldier, your highness,” he said, simply. “It was impossible for me not to see the defects in your fort.”
“You—you haven’t told anyone of this, have you?” she cried, white-faced and anxious.
“No one but your highness. You do not employ me as a tale-bearer, I trust.”
“I did not mean to question your honor,” she said. “Would you mind going before the heads of the war department and tell them just what you have told me? I mean about the weak spots.”
“If it is your command, your highness,” he said quietly, but he was surprised.
“You may expect to be summoned then, so hold yourself in readiness. And, Baldos—”
“Yes, your highness?”
“You need say nothing to them of our having talked the matter over beforehand—unless they pin you down to it, you know.”
CHAPTER XV
THE TESTING OF BALDOS
A few hours later, all was dark and silent within the castle. On the stone walks below, the steady tread of sentinels rose on the still air; in the hallways the trusted guardsmen glided about like spectres or stood like statues. An hour before the great edifice had been bright and full of animation; now it slumbered.
It was two o’clock. The breath of roses scented the air, the gurgle of fountains was the only music that touched the ear. Beverly Calhoun, dismissing Aunt Fanny, stepped from her window out upon the great stone balcony. A rich oriental dressing-gown, loose and comfortable, was her costume. Something told her that sleep would be a long time coming, and an hour in the warm, delightful atmosphere of the night was more attractive than the close, sleepless silence of her own room. Every window along the balcony was dark, proving that the entire household had retired to rest.
She was troubled. The fear had entered her head that the castle folk were regretting the advent of Baldos, that everyone was questioning the wisdom of his being in the position he occupied through her devices. Her talk with him did much to upset her tranquillity. That he knew so much of the fortress bore out the subtle suspicions of Dangloss and perhaps others. She was troubled, not that she doubted him, but that if anything went wrong an accusation against him, however unjust, would be difficult to overcome. And she would be to blame, in a large degree.
For many minutes she sat in the dark shadow of a great pillar, her elbows upon the cool balustrade, staring dreamily into the star-studded vault above. Far away in the air she could see the tiny yellow lights of the monastery, lonely sentinel on the mountain top. From the heights near that abode of peace and penitence an enemy could destroy the fortress to the south. Had not Baldos told her so? One big gun would do the work if it could be taken to that altitude. Baldos could draw a perfect map of the fortress. He could tell precisely where the shells should fall. And already the chief men in Edelweiss were wondering who he was and to what end he might utilize his knowledge. They were watching him, they were warning her.
For the first time since she came to the castle, she felt a sense of loneliness, a certain unhappiness. She could not shake off the feeling that she was, after all, alone in her belief in Baldos. Her heart told her that the tall, straightforward fellow she had met in the hills was as honest as the day. She was deceiving him, she realized, but he was misleading no one. Off in a distant part of the castle ground she could see the long square shadow that marked the location of the barracks and messroom. There he was sleeping, confidently believing in her and her power to save him from all harm. Something in her soul cried out to him that she would be staunch and true, and that he might sleep without a tremor of apprehensiveness.
Suddenly she smiled nervously and drew back into the shadow of the pillar. It occurred to her that he might be looking across the moon-lit park, looking directly at her through all that shadowy distance. She was conscious of a strange glow in her cheeks and a quickening of the blood as she pulled the folds of her gown across her bare throat.
“Not the moon, nor the stars, nor the light in St. Valentine’s, but the black thing away off there on the earth,” said a soft voice behind her, and Beverly started as if the supernatural had approached her. She turned to face the princess, who stood almost at her side.
“Yetive! How did you get here?”
“That is what you are looking at, dear,” went on Yetive, as if completing her charge. “Why are you not in bed?”
“And you? I thought you were sound asleep long ago,” murmured Beverly, abominating the guilty feeling that came over her. The princess threw her arm about Beverly’s shoulder.
“I have been watching you for half an hour,” she said gently. “Can’t two look at the moon and stars as well as one? Isn’t it my grim old castle? Let us sit here together, dear, and dream awhile.”
“You dear Yetive,” and Beverly drew her down beside her on the cushions. “But, listen: I want you to get something out of your head. I was not looking at anything in particular.”
“Beverly, I believe you were thinking of Baldos,” said the other, her fingers straying fondly across the girl’s soft hair.
“Ridiculous!”
