"There are some men at work lower down sweeping the course," he said, speaking clearly for all to hear. "They have heard the cries and they are preparing to stop them. Two have put their brooms across the track--but the speed is gathering. They have stopped her--no! the impetus was too great--the sweepers are rolling backwards in the snow. Wait! the pace is checked--others are helping. They've got her. Now--ah! Hügelweiler's on the top of them! What a collision! She's up, unhurt! It's all right, General; your good lady is safe and sound of limb. She's had a shaking, but her nerves are good, or I'm no judge of physiology. Go down and look after her." "Aye, and after Hügelweiler, too," spluttered the veteran. "I've a heavy reckoning with that young scoundrel that will take some paying, or I'm not the son of Karl Bilderbaum the Fierce." "I wonder,"--said Karl, as soon as General Bilderbaum had left to recover his hapless spouse,--"I wonder whether this man Von Hügelweiler might not prove a valuable addition to our force. He seems to have the enemy's discomfiture, if not our interests, very much at heart." "Where would you put him?" asked Saunders. "I should put him where David put Uriah the Hittite," said Meyer. "Where he has himself asked to be put--in the firing line." CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR RIVAL INFLUENCES Von Hügelweiler had spoken true when he said that the expedition had started against Weissheim. Two days after Trafford had so narrowly escaped the violence of the Weidenbruck mob the various regiments were entrained at the great terminus in the Bahnhofstrasse. The sight of men being despatched to kill their fellow-men always rouses enthusiasm in the human breast, and there was abundance of flaunting banners, martial melody, and sounding cheers from the stay-at-homes. And in the rolling of drums and the reverberation of cheers Gloria herself seemed to have forgotten her original prejudice against the campaign. And as the engine screeched and the royal train, decked with the green and yellow bunting of her House, moved slowly from the station, she felt a Queen going forth to re-conquer a rebellious province, a just instrument of picturesque vengeance, rather than the player of the unwelcome role of blood-guilty adventuress. She put her head out of the window, and bowed and smiled and waved her hand, a thing of girlish excitement with the minutest appreciation of the underlying grimness of the situation.