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Updated: May 12, 2025
The direct road between Lustadt and Tafelberg is but little more than half the distance of that which Coblich and his companions had to traverse because of the wide detour they had made by riding almost to Blentz first, and so it was that when they cantered into the little mountain town near midnight Barney Custer and Lieutenant Butzow were but a mile or two behind them.
Barney took the carbine and replied, then both of them disappeared into the wood. For the balance of the day they tramped on in the direction of Lustadt, making but little progress owing to the fear of apprehension. They did not dare utilize the high road, for they were still too close to Blentz.
"Some of you go back and search the street behind the inn they may not have come this way." The speaker was in the motor car. "We will follow along this road for a bit and then turn into the Lustadt highway. If you don't find them go back along the road toward Tann." In her excitement the Princess Emma had not noticed that Barney Custer still held her hand in his. Now he pressed it.
It is a lonely spot, far from any habitation. As the Princess Emma approached the fork she reined in her mount, for across the road to Lustadt a dozen horsemen barred her way. At first she thought nothing of it, turning her horse's head to the righthand side of the road to pass the party, all of whom were in uniform; but as she did so one of the men reined directly in her path.
About all that he could afterward recall with any distinctness was the terrified face of Coblich, as he rushed past him toward a door in the opposite side of the room, and the horrid leer upon the face of the dead trooper, who foolishly, had made a move to draw his revolver. Within the cathedral at Lustadt excitement was at fever heat.
Even now with all the proofs of reality about him, it seemed impossible that this scene could be aught but the ephemeral vapors of a dream that Leopold of Lutha, the coward, the craven, could have become in a single day the heroic figure that had loomed so large upon the battlefield of Lustadt the simple, modest gentleman who received the plaudits of his subjects with bowed head and humble mien.
"That before you are many hours older, your highness, you will be queen of Lutha." The Princess Emma turned toward her tardy escort that had just arrived upon the scene. "This person has stopped me," she said, "and will not permit me to continue toward Lustadt. Make a way for me; you are armed!" Maenck smiled. "Both of them are my men," he explained.
"You said that Leopold was dead," he said accusingly. Peter regained his self-control quickly. "Coblich is excited," he explained. "He means that the impostor has stolen the body of the king that Coblich and Maenck had discovered and were bring to Lustadt." Von der Tann looked troubled. He knew not what to make of the series of wild tales that had come to his ears within the past hour.
Hemmed in between the two lines of allies, the Austrians were helpless. Their artillery was captured, retreat cut off. There was but a single alternative to massacre the white flag. A few regiments between Lustadt and Blentz, but nearer the latter town, escaped back into Austria, the balance Barney arranged with the Serbian minister to have taken back to Serbia as prisoners of war.
Shells were bursting in the trenches, the forts, and the city. To the south a stream of terror-stricken refugees was pouring out of Lustadt along the King's Road. Rich and poor, animated by a common impulse, filled the narrow street that led to the city's southern gate.
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