They looked where Karl had been--and there was no one. The man in the woollen helmet, too, had disappeared, and the short individual in the private's uniform was likewise nowhere to be seen. "A bob-sleigh,"--explained Saunders, still short of breath, regaining with assistance the coveted foothold of the path,--"they pushed him on to a bob-sleigh which was anchored to the bough of a fir-tree. The little soldier man took the helm, and the other sat guarding the King with a revolver in one hand and the brake-lever in the other." "After them!" cried old Bilderbaum excitedly, letting go his wife's hand so that she relapsed again into the treacherous quagmire of mocking powder. "After them!" "After them!" repeated Meyer scornfully, rubbing his bruised throat. "We might do an heroic eight miles an hour down this slippery path. _They_ will be going forty, at least. We might as well chase the moonbeams!" "What are we to do?" asked Saunders desperately. "That is a question that fools always ask themselves when their folly finds them out," returned Meyer bitterly. "Unfortunately there is no answer to it." CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO THE CONQUERING KING "Brake!" called a high feminine voice, issuing strangely from the moustached lips of the soldier who steered the abducting bob-sleigh. The gentleman in the woollen helmet applied the brake, and a sharp turn in the run was negotiated in safety. "How is Karl?" asked the Princess Gloria, for it was she who was manipulating the wheel at the "bob's" prow. "Coming to, I think!" Trafford shouted back; "this cold air would restore a corpse." They were in the straight now, and the pace was terrific. Downward they tore through realms of icy air, while the night wind pushed at their throats, brought floods of moisture to their eyes, and roared a wild melody in their deafened ears. It was an exhilarating experience, and even without the added excitement of their desperate deed would have set the blood racing in their veins. But with the excitement was mingled a very definite sense of shame, in Trafford's case at any rate. Their action had been justified by success, and morally, perhaps, by its absolute necessity in their desperate plight, but it painfully resembled an act of treachery. "What became of Father Bernhardt and Doctor Matti?" asked Gloria presently. Trafford leaned forward and answered at the top of his voice: "They must have been killed! Our weight started the 'bob' before I intended, and we were a hundred yards down the track before I could get my hand to the brake. It was impossible to go back." "Will they catch us, do you think?" "Impossible! We are travelling at the rate of an express train. Another twenty minutes of this, and we shall reach the point where Colonel Schale's flying detachment has arranged to wait for us."