Gaydon lashed the horses into a gallop, the horses strained at their collars, the carriage raced out of the town and up the slopes of the Brenner.  The princess Clementina had been rescued from her prison.

“But we must keep her free!” cried Wogan, as he blew through his gloves upon his frozen fingers.  “Faster!  Faster!”

The incline was steep, the snow clogged the wheels, the horses sank deep in it.  Gaydon might ply his whip as he would, the carriage might lurch and leap from side to side; the pace was all too slow for Wogan.

“We have lost twelve hours,” he cried.  “Oh, would to God we were come to Italy!” And turning backwards he strained his eyes down through the darkness and snow to the hidden roofs of Innspruck, almost fearing to see the windows from one end of the town to the other leap to a blaze of light, and to hear a roar of many voices warn him that the escape was discovered.  But the only cry that he heard came from the lips of Mrs. Misset, who put her head from the carriage and bade him stop.

Gaydon brought the horses to a standstill three miles out of Innspruck.

CHAPTER XV

Wogan jumped down from his box and ran to the carriage-door.

“Her Highness is ill?” he cried in suspense.

“Not the least bit in the world,” returned Clementina, whose voice for once in a way jarred upon Wogan’s ears.  Nothing short of a positive sickness could justify the delay.

“What is it, then?” he asked curtly, almost roughly, of Mrs. Misset.

“You carried a packet for her Highness.  It is left behind at the tavern.”

Wogan stamped impatiently on the ground.

“And for this, for a petticoat or two, you hinder us,” he cried in a heat.  “There’s no petticoat in the world, though it were so stiff with gold that it stood on end of itself, that’s worth a single second of the next forty-eight hours.”

“But it contains her Highness’s jewels.”

Wogan’s impatience became an exasperation.  Were all women at heart, then, no better than Indian squaws?  A string of beads outweighed the sacrifices of friends and the chance of a crown!  There was a blemish in his idol, since at all costs she must glitter.  Wogan, however, was the master here.

“Her Highness must lose her jewels,” he said roughly, and was turning away when her Highness herself spoke.

“You are unjust, my friend,” she said.  “I would lose them very willingly, were there a chance no one else would discover them.  But there’s no chance.  The woman of the tavern will find the bundle, will open it; very likely she has done so already.  We shall have all Innspruck on our heels in half an hour;” and for the first time that night Wogan heard her voice break, and grieved to know that the tears were running down her cheeks.  He called to O’Toole,—­

“Ride back to the tavern!  Bring the packet without fail!”