The Mad King | Page 8

urged. "He will know
what is best to do."
"He cannot make me shave," insisted Barney.
"Why do you wish not to shave?" asked the girl.,
"It is a matter of my honor," he replied. "I had my choice of wearing a green wastebasket
bonnet trimmed with red roses for six months, or a beard for twelve. If I shave off the
beard before the fifth of November I shall be without honor in the sight of all men or else
I shall have to wear the green bonnet. The beard is bad enough, but the bonnet--ugh!"
Emma von der Tann was now quite assured that the poor fellow was indeed quite
demented, but she had seen no in- dications of violence as yet, though when that too
might develop there was no telling. However, he was to her Leo- pold of Lutha, and her
father's house had been loyal to him or his ancestors for three hundred years.
If she must sacrifice her life in the attempt, nevertheless still must she do all within her
power to save her king from recapture and to lead him in safety to the castle upon the
Tann.
"Come," she said; "we waste time here. Let us make haste, for the way is long. At best we
cannot reach Tann by dark."
"I will do anything you wish," replied Barney, "but I shall never forgive myself for
having caused you the long and tedious journey that lies before us. It would be per- fectly
safe to go to the nearest town and secure a rig."
Emma von der Tann had heard that it was always well to humor maniacs and she thought
of it now. She would put the scheme to the test.
"The reason that I fear to have you go to the village," she said, "is that I am quite sure
they would catch you and shave off your beard."
Barney started to laugh, but when he saw the deep serious- ness of the girl's eyes he
changed his mind. Then he recalled her rather peculiar insistence that he was a king, and
it suddenly occurred to him that he had been foolish not to have guessed the truth before.
"That is so," he agreed; "I guess we had better do as you say," for he had determined that
the best way to handle her would be to humor her--he had always heard that that was the
proper method for handling the mentally defective. "Where is the--er--ah--sanatorium?"
he blurted out at last.
"The what?" she asked. "There is no sanatorium near here, your majesty, unless you refer
to the Castle of Blentz."
"Is there no asylum for the insane near by?"

"None that I know of, your majesty."
For a while they moved on in silence, each wondering what the other might do next.
Barney had evolved a plan. He would try and ascertain the location of the institution from
which the girl had es- caped and then as gently as possible lead her back to it. It was not
safe for as beautiful a woman as she to be roam- ing through the forest in any such
manner as this. He won- dered what in the world the authorities at the asylum had been
thinking of to permit her to ride out alone in the first place.
"From where did you ride today?" he blurted out sud- denly.
"From Tann."
"That is where we are going now?"
"Yes, your majesty."
Barney drew a breath of relief. The way had become suddenly difficult and he took the
girl's arm to help her down a rather steep place. At the bottom of the ravine there was a
little brook.
"There used to be a fallen log across it here," said the girl. "How in the world am I ever to
get across, your majesty?"
"If you call me that again, I shall begin to believe that I am a king," he humored her, "and
then, being a king, I presume that it wouldn't be proper for me to carry you across, or
would it? Never really having been a king, I do not know."
"I think," replied the girl, "that it would be eminently proper."
She had difficulty in keeping in mind the fact that this handsome, smiling young man was
a dangerous maniac, though it was easy to believe that he was the king. In fact, he looked
much as she had always pictured Leopold as looking. She had known him as a boy, and
there were many paintings and photographs of his ancestors in her father's castle. She saw
much resemblance between these and the young man.
The brook was very narrow, and the girl thought that it took the young man an
unreasonably long time to carry her across, though