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

castle. She saw much resemblance between these and the
young man.

The brook was very narrow, and the girl thought that it
took the young man an unreasonably long time to carry her
across, though she was forced to admit that she was far
from uncomfortable in the strong arms that bore her so
easily.

"Why, what are you doing?" she cried presently. "You
are not crossing the stream at all. You are walking right up
the middle of it!"

She saw his face flush, and then he turned laughing eyes
upon her.

"I am looking for a safe landing," he said.

Emma von der Tann did not know whether to be frightened
or amused. As her eyes met the clear, gray ones of the man
she could not believe that insanity lurked behind that laugh-
ing, level gaze of her carrier. She found herself continually
forgetting that the man was mad. He had turned toward the
bank now, and a couple of steps carried them to the low
sward that fringed the little brooklet. Here he lowered her
to the ground.

"Your majesty is very strong," she said. "I should not have
expected it after the years of confinement you have suffered."

"Yes," he said, realizing that he must humor her--it was
difficult to remember that this lovely girl was insane. "Let
me see, now just what was I in prison for? I do not seem to
be able to recall it. In Nebraska, they used to hang men for
horse stealing; so I am sure it must have been something
else not quite so bad. Do you happen to know?"

"When the king, your father, died you were thirteen years
old," the girl explained, hoping to reawaken the sleeping
mind, "and then your uncle, Prince Peter of Blentz, an-
nounced that the shock of your father's death had unbal-
anced your mind. He shut you up in Blentz then, where you
have been for ten years, and he has ruled as regent. Now,
my father says, he has recently discovered a plot to take
your life so that Peter may become king. But I suppose you
learned of that, and because of it you escaped!"

"This Peter person is all-powerful in Lutha?" he asked.

"He controls the army," the girl replied.