Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/260

SOPHY OF KRAVONIA too carefully. He presented a broader aim; but the mattress masked him nobly.

There was another shot—the northwest corner of the mattress this time. But the mattress was on the river's edge. The next instant it was floating on the current of the Krath, and Sterkoff's sentry was indulging in some very pretty practice at it. He hit it every time, until the swift current carried it round the bend and out of sight.

The whole thing seemed strange and rather uncanny to the sentry. He grounded his rifle and wiped his brow. It had looked like a carpet taking a walk on its own account—and then a swim! Superior officers might be accustomed to such strange phenomena. The sentry was not. He set off at a round pace to the guard-room; he did not even stay to notice the white rope which dangled in the air from a first-floor window. Had he stopped, he would have heard Markart's invincible, drug-laden snoring.

Lepage had separated himself from his good friend and ally, the mattress, and dived under water while the sentry blazed away. He welcomed the current which bore him rapidly from the dangerous neighborhood of the Palace. He came to the surface fifty feet down stream and made for the other side. He could manage no more than a very slanting course, but he was a strong swimmer, lightly dressed, with an in-door man's light kid shoes. He felt no distress; rather a vivid, almost gleeful, excitement came upon him as he battled with the strong, cold stream. He began to plume himself on the mattress. Only a Frenchman would have thought of that! A Slavna man would have run away with unguarded flanks. A Volsenian would have stayed to kill the sentry, 242