Royal Flash

through the gate as it groaned back on its hinges, and with the hair prickling on my neck, but spurred by curiosity, I passed through.

The grille, I saw, cut off the end of the vault, and we were in an enclosure perhaps forty feet deep and half as wide. At the end, opposite me, a man lay on a low couch set against the wall; there was a table with a lamp beside him, and at the sound of the creaking hinge he sat up, shading his eyes and peering towards us.

For some reason I felt a nervousness that had nothing to do with the danger of my situation; I felt I was about to see something uncanny—and this although I knew what it was going to be.

'Guten abend, highness,' says Ruth, as we went forward. 'Here's a visitor for you.'

The man took his hand from his face, and I couldn't help letting out an exclamation. For there I sat, looking at me—my own face, puzzled, wary, and then in an instant, blank with amazement, the mouth open and eyes staring. He shrank back, and then suddenly he was on his feet.

'What is this?' His voice was strained and hoarse. 'Who is this man?'

As he moved, there was a heavy, clanking noise, and with a thrill of horror I saw that there was a heavy chain on his left ankle, fettering him to a great stone weight beside the bed.

'May I have the honour to present an old acquaintance, highness?' says Rudi. 'I'm sure you remember him, from your mirror?'

It was a weird experience, looking at that face, and hearing that voice when he spoke again—perhaps a trifle deeper than my own, I fancied, and now that I looked at him, he was a shade slimmer than I, and less tall by a fraction. But it was an amazing resemblance, none the less.

'What does it mean?' he demanded. 'In God's name, who are you?'

'Until recently, he was Prince Carl Gustaf of Denmark,' says Rudi, obviously enjoying himself. 'But you'd regard him as a most presumptive heir to the title, I'm sure. In fact, he's an Englishman, your highness, who has been kind enough to deputise for you during your holiday here.'

He took it well, I'll say that for him. After all, I'd known for weeks that my spitten image was walking about somewhere, but it was all new to him. He stared at me for a long moment, and I stared back, tongue-tied, and then he said slowly:

'You're trying to drive me mad. Why, I don't know. It is some filthy plot. In God's name, tell me, if you have any spark of pity or decency, what it means. If it is money you want, or ransom, I have told you—say so! If it is my life-well, damn you! take it!' He tried to stride forward, but the chain wrenched at his ankle and almost upset him. 'Damn you!' he roared again, shaking his fist at us. 'You vile, cowardly villains! Let me loose, I say, and I'll send that creature with my face straight to hell—and you, too, you grinning mountebank!' He was a fearsome sight, wrestling at his chain, and cursing like a Smithfield porter.

Rudi clicked his tongue. 'Royal rage,' says he. 'Gently, your highness, gently. Don't promise what you couldn't perform.'

For a moment I thought Carl Gustaf would burst himself with rage; his face was purple. And then his temper subsided, he strove to compose himself, and he jerked back his lips in that gesture that I had spent so many weary hours trying to copy.

'I forget myself, I think,' he said, breathing hard. 'To what end? Who you are, fellow, I don't know—or what this means. I'll not entertain you by inquiring any further. When you choose to tell me—if you choose to tell me— well! But understand,' and he dropped his voice in a way which I knew so well, because I do it myself, 'that you had better kill me and have done, because if you do not, by God's help I'll take such a revenge on you all… .'

He left it there, nodding at us, and I had to admit that whatever our resemblance in looks, he was as different from me in spirit as day from night. You wouldn't have got me talking as big as that, chained up in a dungeon—well, I've been in that very situation, and I blubbered for mercy till I was hoarse. I know what's fitting. But he didn't, and much good his defiance was doing him.

'Oh, never fear, highness,' says Rudi. 'We'll certainly kill you when the time is ripe. Remember the royal progress we have prepared for you.'

And he pointed off to the side of the great cell; I looked, and my heart gave a lurch at what I saw.

To that side the flags sloped down in a depression, perhaps a dozen feet across and about four feet deep. The sloping stones looked smooth and slippery, and at the bottom of the shallow funnel which they formed there was a gaping hole, circular and more than a yard wide. Carl Gustaf's face went pale as he, too, looked, and his mouth twitched, but he said nothing. My skin crawled at the thought of what lay beyond the mouth of that shaft.

'Merry lads, the old lords of Jotunberg,' says Rudi. 'When they tired of you, down you went, suitably weighted—as our royal guest is here—and hey, splash! It's not a trip I'd care to take myself—but your highness may not mind so much when I tell you that one of your friends is waiting for you in the Jotunsee. Hansen, his name was.'

'Hansen? Erik Hansen?' The prince's hand shook. 'What have you done to him, you devil?'

'He went swimming at the wrong time of year,' says Rudi cheerily. 'So rash—but there. Young blood. Now, your highness, with your gracious permission, we'll withdraw.' He made a mocking bow, and waved me ahead of him towards the grille.

As we reached it, Carl Gustaf suddenly shouted:

'You—you with my face! Haven't you a tongue in your head? Why don't you speak, damn you?'

I blundered out; that hellish place was too much for me; I could imagine all too clearly slithering down into that shaft—ugh! And these murdering monsters would do it to me as soon as to him, if it suited them.

Young Rudi's laughter rang after me as I stumbled through the vault; he strode up beside me, clapping his hand round my shoulders and asking eagerly what I had thought of meeting my double face to face—had it made me wonder who I was? Had I noticed the amazement of Carl Gustaf, and what did I suppose he was making of it all?

'I'll swear I hadn't realised how alike you were till I saw you together,' says he, as we reached his room again. 'It's supernatural. Do you know … it makes me wonder if Otto Bismarck didn't miss the true possibility of his scheme. By God!' He stopped dead, rubbing his chin. Then:

'You remember a few moments ago I spoke of a plan that you and I might try together? I'll be frank; it occurred to me the moment I saw you swimming in the lake, and realised that I had both the court cards in my hand, with no one but the worthy Kraftstein to interfere-and he doesn't count. The two court cards,' he repeated, grinning, 'and one of them a knave. Have a drink, play-actor. And listen.'

You'll have noticed that since my arrival in Jotunberg I had said very little—and, of course, the situation was really beyond comment. Events in the past forty-eight hours had brought me to the point where intelligent thought, let alone speech, was well-nigh impossible. The only conscious desire I felt was to get out of this nightmare as fast as possible, by any means. And yet, the hectoring way in which this cocksure young upstart shoved me into a chair and commanded me to listen, stirred a resentment beneath my miserable fear. I was heartily sick of having people tell me to listen, and ordering me about, and manipulating me like a damned puppet. Much good it had done me to take it all meekly—it had been one horror after another, and only by the luck of the devil was I still in one piece. And here, unless I mistook the look in Starnberg's eye, was going to be another brilliant proposal to put me through the mill. Open defiance wasn't to be thought of, naturally, but in that moment I felt that if I did manage to muster my craven spirits to do something on my own behalf, it probably couldn't be any worse than whatever he had in mind for me.

'Look here,' says he, 'how many of these damned Danes know that you are really an impostor?'

I could think of Grundvig and Sapten for certain; their peasant followers I wasn't sure of, but Rudi brushed them aside as unimportant.

'Two who matter,' says he. 'And on my side—Bismarck, Bersonin and Kraftstein—we can forget Detchard and that squirt of a doctor. Now—suppose our captive Prince goes down that excellent pipe tonight, and we let down the bridge to encourage your friends to attack? It would be possible to arrange a warm reception for them— warm enough to ensure that Grundvig and Sapten never got off that causeway alive, anyhow. Kraftstein could easily meet with a fatal accident during the fight—somehow I'm sure he would—and by the time the Sons of the Volsungs had fought their way in and cut up the survivors, you and I could be on our way to the shore, by boat. Then, back to Strackenz and the acclaim of everyone who has been wondering where their beloved prince has been. Oh, we could invent some tale—and who would there be to give you away? Detchard and the doctor daren't. Your Danish friends couldn't, being dead. And by this time Bismarck and Bersonin are far too busy, I'll be bound, to worry about