Long live the king Author:Guy Newell Boothby Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. I have described the ignominious fashion in which our family, led by the giant inn-keeper, made its way into the hole in the cliff, and thus esca... more »ped the soldiers who would certainly otherwise have arrested us. As soon as Gabriel, my father's valet, who was the last of our party to enter, had disappeared, the innkeeper's son, who remained outside, once more covered the aperture with brush-wood, thus effectually concealing its existence. Provided the soldiers did not become aware of our subterranean hiding-place, as they were scarcely likely to do, we had every right to consider ourselves safe, at least for the time being. Much to our relief, the small tunnel through which it was necessary for us to crawl was only a few feet in length; for this reason we seemed scarcely to have entered it before our guide informed us that we might stand upright. He then struck a match, and its light enabled us to see that we were standing in a large cave, the walls of which streamed with moisture. Taking a torch, made of some resinous wood, from a small box covered with a sack, he fired it and turned to us again. "It is for your Majesty to say what we will do now," he observed, addressing my father. "Do you prefer to wait until the soldiers have gone, and then return to the inn, or will you permit me to guide you across the mountains to the border, by a track which is difficult but safe, and which will shorten the distance by nearly one half? I await your Majesty's orders!" The King turned to my mother as if for her opinion. Her mind was promptly made up. "Let us endeavour to reach the border, by all means," she answered. "There is nothing to be gained by returning to the inn, and there is always the risk of the soldiers finding us there. The sooner we are under the prote...« less