“There, now we have a clear road, make haste! Make haste!”
The driver, sweating, said, “This is not a clear road, it is only a road through a merely crowded street — don’t you see the people?”
“Ride them down, then!”
“Ride the people down?”
“It would not be our fault but that of the enemy, for it is a definition that the enemy determines the conditions of the war!”
“I tell you, Boss, it’s witchcraft — witchcraft — witchcraft!”
“Don’t bray in my ear, you jackass!” The Brigand Boustremovitch spat three times and rapped thrice on the table. The mention of the mere possibility of witchcraft made him uneasy... of course he had already had a great deal to be uneasy about. There had been, for example, the thunder-storm. Peals of thunder and bolts of lightning and the day sky as dark as night; bad enough; but it was plain that all that was happening only overhead the old Dalmatian Palace — all roundabout as they looked, lo!, the land was bright and clear! And after that had come the hail-storm, hail-stones big as plums — but only on top of , the henchmen wailed.
And after that had come the rain of frogs. And after that. . .
“Who’d y’ think’s doin it all?” demanded the Boustremovich.
“Who else?” his henchman asked, jerking his head towards the upper secret cell. “You don’t think somebody that big is going to travel around without he’s got his private wizard, do ya?”
The Brigand struck the table with his huge fist. “I’ll cut his throat with my own hands,” he cried. “He’ll be dead when they get him after the ransom, but we won’t be here by then.” Yet still he did not move; and now suddenly the walls oozed a liquid red as blood and a most offensive foetor filled the room; from outside and overhead began a most discordant screaming. The Brigand unsheathed his long curved knife and, with fearful curses, ran out into the courtyard where the by now very old umbrella pines still grew and dropped their needles — and every time he turned towards his destination, the immense convocation of eagles ceased to soar and circle, and, swooping, darted, claws outstretched, screaming, for his eyes.. . .
Up in a tower in another part of the city were four men in uniforms without insignia of any sort. They stood at the windows and gazed out with telescopes. “The set time is very near,” said one of them, “and it is possible the clockwork in the infernal machine might go off early.”
“Is it possible that we will learn what in Hades is going on down there?”
A third said that he was also very curious, but they would simply have to wait. “Until we either see or hear the explosion. Or both.”
“Good God!” exclaimed the fourth. “Is it possible that the Emperor has for some or any reason left the Imperial Palace and that this is the reason for the commotion?”
There were gasps of dismay; then the first speaker said, “It is not possible, he is a creature of indestructible habit. However. I suggest that we coordinate our sightings. Let us each look out on a different direction and say what we see; agreed? Very well. North, what do you see?”
“Incredible congestion. A tangle of traffic. Nothing seems to be moving. Nothing at all.”
“Just so. South?”
“A vast throng of people, choking the streets. They are all on their knees. Can they all be praying?”
“Who knows? As I am East, I — No. No. That cannot be. My eyes are suffering from retinal strain. West, will you please make your report?”
“Yes. I see lines of halted tram-cars, lines of halted canal-and river- boats, lines of halted railroad trains. Well East, will you now report?”
After another silent moment, East said, in an oddly-stiff voice, “I see the old Dalmatian Palace, wherein lives the paroled and pardoned Brigand Boustremovitch. I see... I see… Well, I see American Redfaced Indians in full feathers and war-paint and I see American Farvestern covboyii in fringed buckskins and they are all on horseback and they are riding round and round the old Dalmatian Palace and firing upon it and now I see a figure strongly resembling the American Minister in the odd horse-drawn vehicle he drives and he is blowing a trumpet and now just now I see an absolutely incredible vehicle which appears to contain a church-organ yet is clearly propelled by steam like a railroad engine and yet as you all know there are no railroad tracks in that part of the city. What can it mean? What does it all mean?”
His companions did not tell him what it all meant. Silently, they had one by one joined him and were gazing through their own telescopes out the east window.
Major James Elphonsus Dandy was not riding around the walls of the old Dalmatian Palace, however. Not quite. For one thing, he had slowed down just a bit to get another piece of sheet-music ... something from Mazeppa would, he thought, be suitable.
Up in his secret cell, Magnus III and IV was on his feet. He was quite angry. In the larger sense, he had no idea where he was; in the narrower sense, he knew a cell when he saw one. He shouted and he heard shouts, but he also heard thunder and lightning and what sounded (he decided after a puzzled moment) like hail. And... did he hear... frogs? He gazed at the door. He tried the door. It was, unsurprisingly, locked. So he threw himself against it. Often. Although Magnus (“Count Calmar”) was young and rather strong; and although the door-frame had been already set somewhat askew by the shell of the Old French Gun; and although the door seemed to give a bit; stilclass="underline" it did not open. So he stood back and thought. But he could think of nothing. Nothing, that is, except that his being here was all the fault of the Frores; what did they want of him with their incessant demands? Who were they, anyway, that the benign and far more efficient methods of the Scands were not good enough for them? Who were they, in their poor and difficult little country with its tiny fields half-way up ragged, rugged mountains and their rocky and inhospitable coast forever split by craggy fiords and their misty forests and unnavigable rivers full of shoals and falls — who were they — to make demands? Well, whoever, he would teach them a lesson: he would sell them to the Swedes!
Magnus did not know, and neither did Jim Dandy, that when the Patriot-Poet Burli Grumbleson was so suddenly asked to put his great National Poem to music it had equally suddenly occurred to him that a certain piece from Mazeppa would suit it perfectly; hence: the immortal anthem, Froreland Forever, now, suddenly and amidst a welter of other strange and baffling sounds, soaring through the air via the medium of a steam calliope. Magnus may have heard a steam calliope before, he may not; his reaction was not to the medium but to the song. Instantly tears gushed from his eyes. “Froreland!” he cried. “My poor country, my native land, Froreland! Froreland!”