Truxton King

At every step she was screaming in the very agony of gladness: "Stand firm! Hold them! Help is coming! Help is coming!"

A last look through the window at the end of the hail had revealed to her the most glorious of visions.

Red and green troops were pouring through the dismantled gateway, their horses surging over the ugly ground-rifts and debris as if possessed of the fabled wings.

She had seen the rear line in the storming forces hesitate and then turn to meet the whirlwind charge of the cavalrymen. Her brother was out there and all was well. She was crying the joyous news from the head of the grand stairway when Truxton King caught sight of her.

Smoke writhed about her slim, inspiriting figure. Her face shone through the drab fog like an undimmed star of purest light. He bounded up the steps toward her, drawn as by magnet against which there was no such thing as resistance.

He was powder-stained and grimy; there was blood on his face and shirt front.

"You are shot," she cried, clutching the post at the bend in the stairs. "Truxton! Truxton!"

"Not even scratched," he shouted, as he reached her side. "It's not my--" He stopped short, even as he held out his arms to clasp her to his breast. "It's some one else's blood," he finished resolutely. She swayed toward him and he caught her in his arms.

"I love you--oh, I love you, Truxton!" she cried over and over again. He was faint with joy. His kisses spoke the adoration he would have cried out to her if emotion had not clogged his throat.

"Eric?" she whispered at last, drawing back in his arms and looking up into his eyes with a great pity in her own. "Is he--is he dead, Truxton?"

"No," he said gently. "Badly hurt, but--"

"He will not die? Thank God, Truxton. He is a brave--oh, a very brave man." Then she remembered her mission into this whirlpool of danger. "Go! Don't lose a moment, darling! Tell Colonel Quinnox that Jack has come! The dragoons are--"

He did not hear the end of her cry. A quick, fierce kiss and he was gone, bounding down the stairs with great shouts of encouragement.

Leaderless, between the deadly fires, the mercenaries gave up the fight after a brief stand at the terrace. Six hundred horsemen ploughed through them, driving them to the very walls of the Castle. Here they broke and scattered, throwing down their arms and shouting for mercy. It was all over inside of twenty minutes.

The Prince reigned again.

* * * * * Nightfall brought complete restoration of order, peace and security in the city of Edelweiss. Hundreds of lives had been lost in the terrific conflict of the early morning hours; hundreds of men lay on beds of suffering, crushed and bleeding from the wounds they had courted and received.