Come, we've got to go down to
Storm Springs."
They rode away in the starlight, leaving the postmaster alarmed and
wondering. Chauvenet and Durand were well mounted on horses that
Chauvenet had sent into the hills in advance of his own coming. Zmai rode
grim and silent on a clumsy plow-horse, which was the best the publican
could find for him. The knife was not the only weapon he had known in
Servia; he carried a potato sack across his saddle-bow. Chauvenet and
Durand sent him ahead to set the pace with his inferior mount. They
talked together in low tones as they followed.
"He is not so big a fool, this Armitage," remarked Durand. "He is quite
deep, in fact. I wish it were he we are trying to establish on a throne,
and not that pitiful scapegrace in Vienna."
"I gave him his chance down there in the valley and he laughed at me. It
is quite possible that he is not a fool; and quite certain that he is not
a coward."
"Then he would not be a safe king. Our young friend in Vienna is a good
deal of a fool and altogether a coward. We shall have to provide him with
a spine at his coronation.
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