SOPHY OF KRAVONIA
"May I go and see them and cheer them up a bit, sir, instead of coming with you to the Palace?" asked that good-natured young man.
"If his Royal Highness gives you leave, certainly," agreed the General.
The Commandant liked Markart. "Yes—and tell them what fools they are," he said, with a smile.
Markart found the imprisoned officers at wine after their dinner; the men had resigned themselves to fate and gone to bed. Markart delivered his message with his usual urbane simplicity. Lieutenant Rastatz giggled uneasily—he had a high falsetto laugh. Lieutenant Sterkoff frowned peevishly. Captain Mistitch rapped out a vicious oath and brought his great fist down on the table. "The evening isn't finished yet," he said. "But for this cursed fellow I should have been dining with Vera at the Hôtel de Paris to-night!"
Whereupon proper condolences were offered to their Captain by his subalterns, who, in fact, held him in no small degree of fear. He was a huge fellow, six feet three and broad as a door; a great bruiser and a duellist of fame; his nickname was Hercules. His florid face was flushed now with hot anger, and he drank his wine in big gulps.
"How long are we to stand it?" he growled. "Are we school-girls?"
"Come, come, it's only for one evening," pleaded Markart. "One quiet evening won't hurt even Captain Hercules!"
The subalterns backed him with a laugh, but Mistitch would have none of it. He sat glowering and drinking still, not to be soothed and decidedly dangerous. From across the square came the sound of
92
