Page:Hope--Sophy of Kravonia.djvu/304

SOPHY OF KRAVONIA "Precisely. Which turn do you mean to take?"

Markart looked round again. "I shall sit here for a bit longer," he said. He finished his liquor, thereby, perhaps, adding just the touch of openness lacking to his advice, and, leaning forward, touched Lepage on the arm.

"Do you remember the Prince's guns—the guns for which he bartered Captain Hercules?"

"Ay, well!" said Lepage.

"They're on the river, up at Kolskoi, now. I should keep my eye on them! They're to be brought to Slavna. Who do you think '11 bring them? Keep your eye on that!"

"They're both scoundrels," said Lepage, rising to go. Markart shrugged his shoulders. "The fruit lies on the ground for the man who can pick it up! Why not? There's nobody who's got any right to it now."

He expressed exactly the view of the two great neighbors, though by no means in the language which their official communications adopted. Stenovics knew their views very well. He had also received a pretty plain intimation from Stafnitz that the Colonel considered the escorting of the guns to Slavna as a purely military task, appertaining not to the Ministry of State, but to the officer commanding the garrison in the capital. Stafnitz was that officer, and he proposed himself to go to Kolskoi. Suleiman's Tower, he added, would be left in the trustworthy hands of Captain Sterkoff. Again Stenovics fully understood; indeed, the Colonel was almost brutally candid. His letter was nothing less than plain word that power lay with the sword, and that the sword was in his own hand. Stenovics had got rid of King Sergius only to fall under the rule of Dictator Stafnitz! Was that to be the end of it? 286