The keepers approached to seize him. He warned them off with a proud gesture, and drew himself up. "It is not necessary," he said; "I will go of my free will." CHAPTER XLI Schloss Berg--The King's Death At four in the morning Ludwig left Neuschwanstein. In the first carriage sat Dr Müller and two keepers. In the second was the King, quite alone. By the side of the coachman sat the head keeper from the madhouse at Munich, and close at the rear of the carriage rode a man who had orders sharply to watch his Majesty, and give a sign at the slightest suspicious movement. Dr Gudden, a police officer, and several keepers followed afterwards. When Ludwig had taken his seat in his equipage he said to the doctor; "You do not object, of course, to my taking leave of my servant?" Mayr stepped up to him; but the conversation seemed too long to Dr Gudden. "Make haste, so that we can get off," he repeated several times. Mayr sobbed aloud as his master drove off. Some persons were standing outside to see the sorrowful train; the King returned their greeting with amiability. At the first turn of the road he rubbed a clear space with his hand on the damp window, and looked back at Neuschwanstein, which he had loved so dearly, and which has never since been inhabited. He looked ill; his complexion was ashy white, his glance irresolute. The horses were changed three times. At the last stage, Seeshaupt, the landlady approached, and respectfully saluted his Majesty. He asked her for a glass of water. As he handed her back the empty glass he thanked her cordially. Weeping, she called after the carriage: "Behüt Gott, Majestätt." The new Commission had relinquished the plan of taking him to Linderhof, as it was known that one of his jægers was collecting people in the Tyrol to help him over the border. While the carriage, unhindered, was nearing Berg, one hundred and twenty peasants were standing ready to rescue him in the vicinity of Reutte. After waiting for two days they learned that the King had driven another way. It was Dr Gudden who had decided on Schloss Berg as his prison; this was the more wanting in consideration, since it was there that he had spent his happy youth. Ludwig had learned to know this physician while he was treating his brother, Prince Otto, and cherished a peculiar antipathy to him. "Gudden looks at me in such a curious way," he said several times to his mother's Grand Mistress of the Court. "I only hope he won't discover something to say about me too."