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

So the poor child, beside thinking him a king, thought
herself a princess! She certainly was mad. Well, he would
humor her.

"Then I should call you 'your highness,' shouldn't I?" he
asked.

"You always called me Emma when we were children."

"Very well, then, you shall be Emma and I Leopold. Is
it a bargain?"

"The king's will is law," she said.

They had come to a very steep hillside, up which the half-
obliterated trail zigzagged toward the crest of a flat-topped
hill. Barney went ahead, taking the girl's hand in his to help
her, and thus they came to the top, to stand hand in hand,
breathing heavily after the stiff climb.

The girl's hair had come loose about her temples and a
lock was blowing over her face. Her cheeks were very red
and her eyes bright. Barney thought he had never looked
upon a lovelier picture. He smiled down into her eyes and
she smiled back at him.

"I wished, back there a way," he said, "that that little
brook had been as wide as the ocean--now I wish that
this little hill had been as high as Mont Blanc."

"You like to climb?" she asked.

"I should like to climb forever--with you," he said
seriously.

She looked up at him quickly. A reply was on her lips, but
she never uttered it, for at that moment a ruffian in pictur-
esque rags leaped out from behind a near-by bush, con-
fronting them with leveled revolver. He was so close that
the muzzle of the weapon almost touched Barney's face. In
that the fellow made his mistake.

"You see," said Barney unexcitedly, "that I was right
about the brigands after all. What do you want, my man?"

The man's eyes had suddenly gone wide. He stared with
open mouth at the young fellow before him. Then a cunning
look came into his eyes.