"I have no claim on your trust," he said to his late sovereign, "no claim on your mercy--but my services may be useful. I ask no high command, I merely crave to be put somewhere in the firing-line, where I can put a bullet into the heart of the cursed American." A silence followed this savage request. Then Karl turned to General Bilderbaum. "What say you, General?" he asked. "Do you like the look of your new recruit?" "No, sire," said the old soldier bluntly. "I have some blackguards in my command, but no double-dyed traitor such as this." "What!" Von Hügelweiler's nerves,--never well under control,--were raw and ragged from his recent bitter experience, and by no means improved by the forced and hasty journey he had undertaken to Weissheim. With a cry of rage and indignation he swung round on the plain-spoken old General, maddened at the insult, and raising his fist as though to avenge it with a blow. But, as on a previous occasion, the General's wife was near at hand to protect the sacred person of her lord and master. Boiling with indignation, she hurled her ample person at the mutinous captain. Von Hügelweiler gave ground--he would have been a Samson had he not done so. And he stepped, not on to the snow, not on to the plank that crossed the run, but on to the surface of the bob-sleigh track itself. He might have trodden on a cloud or a trembling bog for all the foothold it afforded, and with a cry he fell, the Frau von Bilderbaum falling heavily and incontinently on him. Hands were stretched out, but too late. Before the General could clutch the skirt of his devoted partner, the ill-assorted pair,--struggling, writhing, uttering noises of wrath and fear,--had commenced the descent of the "bob" run. Nothing could stop their downward progress. Swifter and swifter the terrified twain glided, impotent hands clutched at the frictionless banks, and impotent heels were pressed fiercely and fruitlessly on to the glassy surface of the track. Down they went, the Captain struggling and swearing, the woman struggling and bellowing. The pace grew. They became disengaged. Von Hügelweiler slithered swiftly on his side, Frau von Bilderbaum rotated slowly in a sitting posture, descending with ever-growing momentum. Up a banked curve she swung, fat arms were raised frantically, a roar of pathetic discomfort shook the frosty air, and the devoted woman disappeared from view round a bend of the track. Much of the colour had left General Bilderbaum's face. No one laughed, for the ludicrous mishap might well be a prelude to a serious, even fatal, accident. Saunders climbed up a high mound of piled snow, from which the further bends of the track might be visible.