"Burroughs, Edgar Rice - The Mad King" - читать интересную книгу автора (Burroughs Edgar Rice)

"Is there no asylum for the insane near by?"

"None that I know of, your majesty."

For a while they moved on in silence, each wondering
what the other might do next.

Barney had evolved a plan. He would try and ascertain
the location of the institution from which the girl had es-
caped and then as gently as possible lead her back to it.
It was not safe for as beautiful a woman as she to be roam-
ing through the forest in any such manner as this. He won-
dered what in the world the authorities at the asylum had
been thinking of to permit her to ride out alone in the first
place.

"From where did you ride today?" he blurted out sud-
denly.

"From Tann."

"That is where we are going now?"

"Yes, your majesty."

Barney drew a breath of relief. The way had become
suddenly difficult and he took the girl's arm to help her
down a rather steep place. At the bottom of the ravine there
was a little brook.

"There used to be a fallen log across it here," said the
girl. "How in the world am I ever to get across, your
majesty?"

"If you call me that again, I shall begin to believe that
I am a king," he humored her, "and then, being a king, I
presume that it wouldn't be proper for me to carry you
across, or would it? Never really having been a king, I do
not know."

"I think," replied the girl, "that it would be eminently
proper."

She had difficulty in keeping in mind the fact that this
handsome, smiling young man was a dangerous maniac,
though it was easy to believe that he was the king. In fact,
he looked much as she had always pictured Leopold as
looking. She had known him as a boy, and there were many
paintings and photographs of his ancestors in her father's