The young Prussian pulled himself up with due regard for his office.
Just for a moment his conceit had been a little overborne by the
presence of the Prince.
"Yes, Excellency," he said, with a sharp return to his military habit.
"It is an imperative order that I conduct, without delay, Herr Leder
von Bersac----"
"Ach, so!" exclaimed the Prince, his eyes suddenly flashing and his
whole manner absorbing all his recent blandness in a quick-rising heat.
"Does the Captain-General think he can give his orders to men under the
command of Prince von Hertzwohl? Your Captain-General has yet to learn.
And those who serve under him also. My nephew, Herr Leder von Bersac,
is under the command of his uncle, and no one else. Your
Captain-General knows that as well as I. The regulations of Borga are
no concern of mine. But when I visit this pestilential place its
manners are. Convey to your Captain-General that the manners of Borga
had best be improved. I shall not visit here again until I have seen
that they are. You can go back, and tell him that I leave at once, and
that Herr Leder von Bersac has no time to comply with any order issued
by the military governor of Borga."
The tide of the Prince's anger was too swift for the youthful
Prussian's armor of official effrontery. He came near to withering
before it. It was only the understanding of Von Salzinger's supreme
command in Borga that helped him to weather the storm. He waited one
moment to see if anything further was to be said, then, under the stern
eyes of the Prince, he saluted and departed, darting up the
companionway with hurried steps, and made his way ashore to the
telephone station on the landing-stage.
Had he paused to glance about him he might have been surprised that the
Prince's threat had been so promptly put into execution. As it was he
did not notice even that the gangway followed him ashore, almost
immediately in his wake. But these things, however they might have
surprised him, were no real concern of his. It was for him to report
promptly to the Captain-General, and make matters as safe as he could
for himself.
By the time he reached the telephone station the vessel was gliding
silently from the landing-stage.
The throb of the powerful engines told Ruxton Farlow all he wished to
know. He sighed quietly, and it was the outward expression of the
relaxing of his feelings.
He was smiling into the face of the man before him.
"Well?" he said.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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