The Slim Princess

VI

HE DE­PARTS

And now, in or­der to give a key to the sur­pris­ing per­for­mances of Alexan­der H. Pike, it will be nec­es­sary to call up cer­tain bi­ograph­ical da­ta.

When he was in the Hill School he won the pole vault, but lat­er, in his re­al col­le­giate days, he nev­er could come with­in two inch­es of 'var­si­ty form, and there­fore failed to make the track-​team.

While at­tend­ing the In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­ogy he worked one whole au­tumn to per­fect an of­fen­sive play which was to be used against “Buff” Rodi­gan, of the se­mi-​pro­fes­sion­al ath­let­ic-​club team. This play was known as “giv­ing the shoul­der,” with the so­lar plexus as the point of at­tack. The pur­pose of the play was not to kill the op­pos­ing play­er, but to in­duce him to re­lin­quish all in­ter­est in the con­test.

Fur­ther­more, Mr. Pike, while spend­ing a month or more at a time in New York City, dur­ing his post-​grad­uate days, had worked with Mr. Mike Dono­van, in or­der to keep down to weight. Mr. Dono­van had il­lus­trat­ed many tricks to him, one of the best be­ing a low feint with the left, fol­lowed by a right cross to the point of the jaw.

While the two bronze-​col­ored guards stood hold­ing him, Mr. Pike rapid­ly took stock of his ac­com­plish­ments, and for­mu­lat­ed a pro­gram. With a sud­den twist he cleared him­self, sprang away from the two, and jumped be­hind a tree. One sol­dier start­ed to the right of the tree and the oth­er to the left, so as to close in up­on him and re­take him. This was what he want­ed, for he had them “spread,” and could deal with them singly.

He used the Dono­van tac­tics on the first guard, and they worked out with shame­ful ease. When the sol­dier saw the left com­ing for the pit of his stom­ach, he crouched and hugged him­self, there­by ex­tend­ing his jaw so that it wait­ed there with the sun shin­ing on it un­til the young man's right swing came across and changed the mid­dle of the af­ter­noon to mid­night. Num­ber one was ly­ing in pro­found slum­ber when Alum­nus Pike turned to greet num­ber two.

The sec­ond sol­dier, hav­ing wit­nessed the feat of pugilism, dou­bled his fists and ex­tend­ed them awk­ward­ly, com­ing with a rush. Mr. Pike sud­den­ly squat­ted and leaned for­ward, bal­anc­ing on his fin­ger-​tips, un­til num­ber two was about to fall up­on him and crush him, and then he arose with that rigid right shoul­der aimed as a cat­apult. There was a sound as when the air-​brake is dis­con­nect­ed, and num­ber two curled over limply on the ground and made faces in an ef­fort to re­sume breath­ing.

Mr. Pike picked up his mag­azine and put it un­der his coat. He but­toned the coat, smiled in a pale, but placid man­ner at Kalo­ra, who was still im­mov­able with ter­ror, and then he pro­ceed­ed to vin­di­cate his “prep school” train­ing. He ran over to the canopy tent, un­der which the re­fresh­ments had been served, pulled out one of the poles and, point­ing it ahead of him, ran straight for the wall.

Kalo­ra, watch­ing him, re­gard­ed this as a whol­ly in­sane pro­ceed­ing. Was he go­ing to at­tempt to poke a hole through a wall three feet thick?

Just as he seemed ready to flat­ten him­self against the stones, he dropped the end of the pole to the ground and shot up­ward like a rock­et. Kalo­ra saw him give an up­ward twist and wrig­gle, fling him­self free from the pole and dis­ap­pear on the oth­er side of the wall, the cam­era fol­low­ing like the tail of a comet. As he did so, num­ber two, com­ing to a sit­ting pos­ture, be­gan to shriek for re­in­force­ments. Num­ber one was up on his el­bow, re­gard­ing the af­fairs of this world with a dreamy in­ter­est.

For­tu­nate­ly for the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al, the par­tic­ipants in the ex­plod­ed gar­den-​par­ty had es­caped at the very first op­por­tu­ni­ty.

Count Mala­gas­ki, great­ly per­turbed and al­most in a state of col­lapse over the un­hap­py af­fair in the gar­den, was re­turn­ing to his apart­ments when the sec­ond sur­pris­ing episode of the day came to a noisy cli­max.

He heard the up­roar and had the two guards brought be­fore him. They re­port­ed that they had found a stranger in the garb of an in­fi­del seat­ed with­in the se­cret gar­den chat­ting with the Princess Kalo­ra. They did not agree in their de­scrip­tions of him, but each main­tained that the in­trud­er was a very large per­son of for­bid­ding ap­pear­ance and ter­rif­ic strength.

“How did he man­age to es­cape?” asked the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al.

“By jump­ing over the wall.”

“Over a wall ten feet high?” de­mand­ed the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al.

“With­out touch­ing his hands, sir. He was very tall; must have been sev­en feet.”

“If you ev­er had an atom of gray mat­ter, ev­ident­ly this stranger has beat­en it out of you. Hur­ry and no­ti­fy the po­lice!”

Kalo­ra's can­did ver­sion of the whole af­fair was hard­ly less startling than that of the guards. The stranger had come over the wall sud­den­ly, much to her alarm. He at­tempt­ed to con­verse with her, but she stern­ly or­dered him from the premis­es. He was ex­ceed­ing­ly tall, as the guards had said, and very dark, with rather long hair and curl­ing black mus­tache. He ad­dressed her in En­glish, but spoke with a marked Ger­man ac­cent.

This de­scrip­tion, faith­ful­ly set down by Popo­va, was car­ried away to the se­cret po­lice of Mo­rove­nia, said to be the most as­tute in the world. They were in­struct­ed to watch all trains and guard the fron­tier and, as soon as they had their pris­on­er safe­ly put away in the low­er dun­geon of the mu­nic­ipal prison, they were to no­ti­fy the Gov­er­nor-​Gen­er­al, who would pri­vate­ly pass sen­tence.

A crime against any mem­ber of the ruler's house­hold comes un­der a sep­arate cat­ego­ry and need not be tried in pub­lic ses­sions. For en­ter­ing a roy­al harem or ad­dress­ing a wom­an of ti­tle the sen­tences range from the basti­na­do to soli­tary con­fine­ment for life.

No won­der Kalo­ra wait­ed in trem­bling. Like ev­ery oth­er provin­cial she had much re­spect for the in­dige­nous con­stab­ulary. She did not be­lieve it pos­si­ble for the pleas­ing stranger to break through the net­work that would be wo­ven about him.

Shun­ning her fa­ther and sis­ter, and shunned by them, she wait­ed many sleep­less hours in her own apart­ments for the in­evitable news from be­yond the walls.

Next morn­ing there came to her a cheer­ing and ter­ri­fy­ing mes­sage.