George leaned against him, trying hard to be brave and not to shiver. Pretending not to notice, Faro produced the bread and cheese. They were in deadly peril, but as Faro sat with his arm around George's thin shoulders, he knew that, in the seemingly unlikely event of his survival, this moment was one of the memories he would take out and treasure every day for the rest of his life.
George ate hungrily. If this was a dreadful ordeal for himself, Faro thought, how much worse for a lad who had been protected and cosseted all his short life and had always been quite clear about where his next meal was coming from? A lad who had never faced anything more threatening than a badly-thrown cricket ball in Scotland and had just survived a well-directed bomb.
'I suppose I had better get used to things like that,' said George through a mouthful of bread, nodding back the way they had come, where the acrid fumes of gunpowder still lingered in the air.
'There is a lot of it about in Germany just now, don't you think?' he added with that curious way of seeming to know what was going on in Faro's mind.
Faro stood up, dusted down the crumbs and gathered their belongings. 'We had better not be too sorry for ourselves and get to that telegraph office before we start getting hungry again,' he said, watching George wrap a piece of bread and cheese in a rather grey-looking handkerchief.
'No need to keep that - eat it if you can.'
George looked at it longingly and shook his head. 'I would like to, sir, very much. I could eat a horse, as we say at Glenatholl. But I think I'll save it, just in case.'
‘I’m sure it won’t be needed. We'll be seeing that telegraph office any minute. It can't be far away now,' Faro said encouragingly.
They had walked only a further hundred yards when they heard the sound. Not a train's distant vibration, but the sound of hooves - and close by.
'The brigands,' whispered George.
Worse than brigands, thought Faro, trained soldiers with orders to kill.
Looking round for cover, he seized George and dived behind the very inadequate shelter of a dismal-looking shrub.
They waited. The hoof beats drew nearer...
'Listen!' said Faro.
'There's only one of them,' whispered George.
'And that I think I can take care of,’ said Faro grimly. With more confidence than he felt, he took out his revolver and prayed that he did not miss, knowing that he had only a couple of bullets left.
The rider approached and Faro prepared to take aim.
A voice screamed at them.
'George! Mr Faro!'
'Anton!'
And George leapt out of his hiding-place as Anton jumped down from the horse.
The two boys embraced.
'Thank God you are safe,' said Anton and there was no need for translation of that into English.
'I thought you were both dead.'
Anton brushed his tear-filled eyes.
Faro stared in amazement, for he had never thought the lad capable of such emotion, or indeed, of any emotion at all.
'How did you escape?' asked George.
Surprises weren't over for Faro, as Anton's next move was even more out of character. He dropped on one knee, seized George's hand and said, 'Highness, you are my liege lord as well as my half-brother. I am your faithful servant until death. That I do most solemnly swear. Before this man,' he nodded towards Faro, 'who is a witness to my oath of allegiance.'
And George placed his hands upon Anton's head as one day, God willing, he would do in the Cathedral at Luxoria.
Anton stood up. The solemn moment was past. He dusted down his already grubby knees and looking suddenly rather self-conscious, he tied his horse's reins to a tree stump and in a breathless voice said, 'Do you mind if I sit down for a moment?'
George took out his handkerchief, and shook out the bread and cheese. 'I saved this for you - just in case.'
'Thank you. I'm so hungry.'
As Anton seized it and started munching gratefully, Faro, regarding this curious scene, felt as if it was suddenly out of context. Their little trio had been miraculously removed from sudden death by a railway track in an outlying district of Stuttgart but if he blinked suddenly, he felt he would find himself instead witnessing the aftermath of a cricket match in the grounds of Glenatholl College. He groaned inwardly. What would he not have given for that to be true.
As for what still lay ahead, he dared not even try to imagine.
Chapter 20
Watching Anton approvingly as he demolished the last crumbs, George said, 'We were so worried about you. We thought you were being held to ransom, didn't we, Mr Faro?'
'How did you manage to escape?' Faro asked. 'And with such a splendid horse.'
Anton sighed. 'I might as well tell you both the truth.'
'What do you mean, the truth?' demanded George.
'That I never was in any danger really. It just had to look that way, as if I was being taken hostage.' Biting his lip to hold back the tears he turned to Faro and said, 'You have no idea, sir.'
‘I rather think I have,' nodded Faro. 'George said that he thought the man who seized you whispered to you that you were not to be afraid.'
'That is true,' said George. 'That was what the brigand leader said, wasn't it?'
'That is what he said.' Anton shook his head. 'But they were not brigands.'
'I realised that,' said Faro. 'They were soldiers, weren't they?'
'Yes.' Anton stared at him in amazement. 'Members of my father - I mean, the President's private army. I recognised a few of them, a crack regiment.'
Faro remembered the sleek horses and the red bandanas that had struck a false note as Anton continued: 'It was all set up to -' he paused and looked anxiously at George,
' - to save me. When
