03 The Princess of the Chalet School (21 page)

Rufus showed her. Pulling at her dress to persuade her to get up, he made for the rock wall. She followed him, stumbling with weariness, and presently they found themselves right under it. The dog turned to the left and she went with him. For four hundred metres they went forward, then a little stream blocked the way.

Joey dropped beside it. She was done. Not even the knowledge that Elisaveta was being tortured could have got her to her feet again just then. She lay over a boulder, worn out to the verge of tears. Rufus let her lie.

The scent had died again at the water’s edge, and he knew no reason to go farther. He plunged breast-deep into it and drank thirstily.

For minutes together Jo lay where she had fallen. Finally she pulled herself up and followed the dog’s example. The cold water refreshed her, and she remembered that she had another roll in her pocket, as well at the
Blaubeeren Torte
. She fished them out, and, dividing scrupulously with Rufus, ate every crumb. Then she looked round for some sort of shelter for the night.

The air on these
alpes
is very chilly at night, even in the heart of summer, and the dews are heavy. Joey knew that it would be madness to stay where she was. She had a very dislike of being ill, and, in any case, Madge would have had worry enough when she found them without having to nurse one of them through an illness.

She looked up to the sky with a very weather-wise air. It was a clear night and the starts were blazing in the sky. The moon had not yet risen; she was nearly in the last quarter and would not come out till much later.

Still, the stars gave enough light for Joey, and the sky told her that it was likely to be a fine night. She turned and looked at the dark mass of the rock-wall consideringly. It was more than likely that there would be some little hollow of cleft in it, where she could lie. She was so sleepy that she didn’t much mind where it was, so long as she could go to sleep.

She decided to cross the little stream and see what there was to be had on the other side. It was only narrow, though it was fairly deep, considering. She went back a few steps and took a run, clearing it easily.

Then she went cautiously forward, keeping to the wall. She had barely taken three steps when she heard a sound that almost caused her heart to stop beating. It was the call of an owl, uttered three times in succession.

Jo stopped dead. Elisaveta was here. She had not expected it. Yet when she came to think of it, it was one of the best places in which she could have been. The huge boulder in the path would stop most people from trying to get any farther on, for they would think that it was impossible to go on. Quite likely there were caves in the limestone; and it was obvious that no cattle were herded here. If there had been she must have heard something of them, for in the Tyrol every cow wears a bell round its neck, and the tinkling sounds of the bells carry far, especially on such a still night as this was. If there were no cows on the
alpe
then there would be no human beings. Nobody, therefore, would be there to report the arrival of the three strangers.

Finally, it was comparatively near the Aachen See. Joey felt as if she had walked at least a hundred miles that day, but she knew that she could not have done even a quarter of that distance. Therefore they were well within the circuit of the Tiern Alps. Anyone looking for the child would naturally expect her abductor to have taken her as far away as possible, and, if it were not for Joey’s Guidecraft, she might have been where she was all the summer without anyone’s suspecting where she had been put. Joey suddenly felt very pleased with herself.

She could not let the cry pass without giving Elisaveta the assurance that help was near at hand. She repeated the call once. Then she went on feeling her way very carefully and pausing between each step to listen.

It was as well that she did so. She had just moved forward very cautiously when she heard the sound of voices, so near that she almost gave herself away by starting. She let herself down on to the long grass.

Rufus dropping behind her with the same noiseless movement. It was a pet trick of his which Jo had taught him for the sake of showing Grizel that, big as he was, he could move without a sound. Perhaps the wise dog also scented danger. At any rate he ‘froze’ as Joey had done, and they were practically invisible in the deep shadow of the crag. Two figures appeared coming out of the wall, so it seemed, and Joey recognized them at once as being Ternikai and Cosimo. They spoke in Russian and she listened with all her might.

The Prince seemed to be in a bad temper. ‘Bah!’ he sneered to his friend. ‘It was but an owl! You ought to be a woman, Ternikai! You have such sensitive nerves!’

Ternikai did not answer. Perhaps he was too furious at his master’s taunt.

The Prince went on presently, ‘I shall make stiff terms, I can tell you, after all the trouble we have had to get the brat up here. My arms still ache with hauling her up that last bit of the path!’

Ternikai, who, as Joey had surmised, had had the heaviest part of the carrying, still said nothing. The Prince took a look round at the sky and the
alpe
, and then turned to go back to the place whence he had come. Joey could smell his cigarette – he smoked the best to be had, and she noted that fact; then he turned to the other. ‘She will sleep to-night,’ he said. ‘Also, I think she does not as yet suspect?’

‘No, Highness,’ replied Ternikai.

‘Good! Then there will be no need to keep guard to-night, so we will both rest. To-morrow, I go down to the pass, and will get into Germany, from where it will be an easy matter to conduct negotiations. Carol adores the child’s footprints, and he will go to any lengths to get her back. Upon my word, I’ve a good mind to make him abdicate!’

He burst into an uproarious laugh at his own joke. Then he went off, and Ternikai, after a final look round, followed him. Joey waited until they were well inside, then she gave the owl’s call again, and after that she settled down to wait in a corner of rock, where, with Rufus forming a barrier between her and the outer world, she was soon asleep.

Jo was so worn out that she slept soundly, in spite of the knowledge that Cosimo and his jackal lay within a few metres of her, and that the most difficult part was still to come. She guessed that it had taken the two men all their time to get Elisaveta to this place. However she was going to get the child back was a problem that might have puzzled wiser heads than hers. She made no attempt, however, to solve the enigma yet; instead, she snuggled down under the rock-wall and slept as only a tired child can sleep.

Rufus, who had also borne the burden of the day, slumbered profoundly, and it was the early dawn when he woke. Jo was still far away, unconsciously rivaling Bianca’s well-known powers, and when the big dog moved and stretched himself, she never stirred.

With the rising of the sun Prince Cosimo set out for the pass and the little village of Miedern Riss on the Isar, where he hoped to get a boat man to take him as far as possible – to Toltz, where he intended to get the train to Munich. From Munich, if things went badly, it would be easy for him to go on to the Schwartz Wald, where his foster-mother lived – one of the very few beings who loved him. She, as he knew, would do anything for him, and he was relying on her to help him in his disgraceful plans.

The dark shadows of the western slopes of the mountain still held the
alpe
in their grip, and he passed the dog and the child without even suspecting that they were there. Clad in his well-word
Jäger
costume, with his face half-hidden in a heavy beard and his hair down to his shoulders, there was little to connect thim with the Prince Cosimo of Mont Carlo, and Paris, and Vienna, who had earned for himself the reputation of being one of the best-dressed young men in Europe. He swung whistling over the crisp crass and set off down the path, while Joey and Rufus slept the sleep of the weary; while Ternikai yawned widely, and went back to his bundle of hay in the cave where they had sheltered the night before; and while Elisaveta tossed uneasily on the heap of rugs they had arranged for a bed for her, muttering continually in her sleep.

Rufus, being of a hardy breed, needed less slumber than anyone else, and before the dew was off the grass he had roused up, stretched himself, and then gone to the stream to get a drink of water. Joey was the next to waken. It seemed to her as if she were coming up from a deep silence; then she heard the faint tinklings of the cow-bells from the valley, far below, and sat up suddenly, bumping her head with considerable force against the low roof of the little hollow in which she had been curled up.

‘
Blow
!’ she remarked very definitely. Then she looked round. Rufus was standing beside her, wagging his tail, and looking very pleased with himself. Joey flung an arm round his neck. ‘Where have you been, you old scoundrel?’ she asked, hugging him. He bestowed a wide and wet kiss on her face, and she drew back. ‘I love you, old thing, but I don’t love your kisses. I wonder what we can catch for
Frühstück
? Shouldn’t think there’s much up here.’

She got up cautiously, listening for any sound; but Signor Ternikai was tired. He knew that Elisaveta couldn’t possibly get away from there unaided, and he saw no reason why he should not make up for lost time. Also, he was too old to recuperate as easily as Joey had done. She was stiff and sore after yesterday’s strenuous work, but she plunged her head and face in the stream and soon felt better. Then she went cautiously, on all fours, along the
alpe
till she had got round the curve and was out of sight of the cave, after which she rose to her full height and indulged in a few twists and wriggles to being her muscles back to themselves.

Food for herself was not so hard to find as she had feared, for she presently came to a small patch of wild strawberries, and as there were plenty of ripe ones she had a good feast, and felt ready to defy all the evil princes in Europe if it were necessary. Rufus was another matter, however. He couldn’t eat fruit, and she felt worried about him. Rufus settled the matter himself. He found a baby rock-rabbit, and it vanished down his throat in two mouthfuls before his horrified mistress could prevent it. ‘You old cannibal!’ she said. ‘How
could
you? It was only a baby, too!’

Rufus wagged his tail apologetically. He looked ashamed of himself, though he really could not see why she was vexed with him. It was only a rabbit, and there were thousands of them, and he was hungry.

‘It’s all very well,’ Joey scolded him. ‘But how would
you
like to be jumped on and eaten when you had only come out to play for a little? You wouldn’t like it at all, and you oughtn’t to have treated the bunny that way, and you know it!’ He looked at her solemnly. She suddenly relented, and, flinging her arms round his neck, hugged him violently. ‘Never mind, old boy! You had to eat something, hadn’t you?’

Then she got up from the ground where she had been sitting and went on to the south-east of the mountain, where the
alpe
ended in a bare mountain-slope strewn with boulders. Jo looked at it consideringly. ‘I wonder if we could get down there, instead of going by the path?’ she said aloud. ‘If we could only get down to where the forest begins, we could soon get home. It would be a big lift, too. It would cut off all that part of the pass.’ Then her mind wandered to her sister. ‘I hope they found my signs all right,’ she said to Rufus.

However, she knew that she must not rely on this too much. She must be prepared to do something herself.

The question was – what? She looked down the steep side of the mountain again. It would be difficult, she thought, but not impossible.

Finally she decided to go back to Elisaveta and see how she was to get her friend away from Cosimo and Ternikai. How she was to do
that
, Joey had not the least idea; she supposed she should think of something when the time came. She turned, and went back the way she had come. She had just reached the stream when she suddenly stopped. There was her friend, washing her face in the water. Neither Cosimo nor his underling was there. Joey suspected a trap. With a word to the dog, which he obeyed at once, she dropped to the ground and lay still. Elisaveta finished her ablutions and then stood up, tossing back the long curls from her face as she wiped her hands on a big handkerchief. No one came to her, so Joey decided to risk something. After all, even if they were caught, she had no doubt but that the others would come before long, and then they would both be safe. She lifted herself a very little, and uttered a low ‘Coo-oo!’ Elisaveta heard, and promptly turned and stared so plainly in the direction it had come that if anyone
had
noticed it at once. No one was there, however, so it didn’t matter, but Joey resolved to give her friend lessons in the art of concealment as soon as possible. Now she raised her hand and rapidly morsed ‘All’s well!’ Then she sank back. She had done what she could; it was up to Elisaveta to make the next move.

The Princess took a look round; then she leaped over the stream, and came running to Joey, who wriggled in serpentine fashion towards the rock. Elisaveta followed her, and presently they were both safely in the shadow.

‘Will they miss you?’ asked Jo.

Elisaveta shook her head. ‘Cosimo went away this morning, and Ternikai sleeps even now,’ she said.

‘Can you climb?’ asked Joey.

‘A little. I am tired, but I don’t mind that. Oh, Joey, help me to get away now, before they can do anything to daddy! I heard them talking last night. I couldn’t hear all they said, but I heard enough to know that Cosimo has some horrid plan of making grandpapa and daddy give him what he wants and saying they will hurt me if they don’t. He wants money, and says that there would be fresh taxes on the people, and it would be so bad for them. Let’s go at once, Joey.’

Joey looked at her doubtfully. Elisaveta looked very white and tired, and not fit for the scramble they would have if they went by the way she had chosen. Still, it might make difficulties if Cosimo got in his messages first, so she made up her mind to risk it. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Come on!’