“And here is a purse of gold for you.  See that you serve me well in this matter, and there is another purse at the end of it.  Now go at once!”

John touched his cap, sprang into the seat and started the great automobile up the mountain road.  He could not look back, but he knew instinctively that the prince had gone into the castle as silently as he had come from it.  And he was alone at the wheel with Julie and Suzanne inside.  In very truth chance or fortune had moved the pawns for him in a way that the most skillful player could not have equaled.  For a moment, the whole world seemed to swim beneath his feet.

The night was dark and cold, and although the road up the slope showed for a long distance in the moonshine the top of the mountain was wrapped in mist.  A wind began to blow and he felt raw and damp to his face.  But there was nothing to check his exultation.  Come wind or rain or snow they were all one to him.  He was away from Zillenstein, out in the great free world and Julie was with him.  Auersperg himself, unknowing, had provided the way and he was sending them not only in comfort but in luxury.  John knew the big automobile.  It was the prince’s own and it was surely equipped in a princely way.  The man who bad brought it to the gate had been forced to go away and he, John Scott, and Prince Karl of Auersperg alone knew where they were going.  All the better!  He laughed under his breath as he handled the wheel with hands now skilled and sent the great automobile along the smooth white road that stretched away and away up the mountain side.

At a curve a mile or more distant, he could look down almost directly upon Zillenstein.  The vast castle was bathed in whitish mists floating up the valley in which it loomed gigantic and enlarged, a menacing creation that had survived far beyond its time.  He shuddered at the thought that Julie and he might still be there, had not fortune been so kind, and then, pressing the accelerator, he sent the machine forward a little faster.

The road owing to the steepness of the ascent now wound a great deal, but it was smooth and safe, and the automobile, despite its size, had an organism as delicate as that of a watch.  It obeyed the least pressure of his hand, and his exultation became all the greater when he fully realized that he had such a powerful mechanism at hand, subject to its lightest touch.  The thought, in truth, had come to him that he might turn back into the valley, and seek escape from the mountains.  But consideration showed that the idea was foolish.  So large a machine by no possibility could escape from the valley.  It was better to go on.

The cold increased sharply.  He expected a fall in the mercury owing to the ascent, but it was greater than the height alone warranted.  All the signs betokened foul weather.  The castle was now wholly lost in great masses of vapor and the moon was withdrawing from the sky.  The wind had an edge of ice.  He knew that mountains were the breeding place of storms and he made another increase of speed in order that they might reach the hunting lodge before one broke.