OMPERTZ IS PUZZLED
“I wonder----”
“Ah!”
“Whether it would be possible to get this letter given to the Princess.”
“You wonder, Captain?”
Countess Minna was becoming disdainful. She had come suddenly upon
Ompertz in the park, and he had startled her as much by his unexpected
question as by his abrupt appearance. But she had quickly recovered
herself.
“It is scarcely a matter to speculate about. Give your letter to the
first usher or page you see.”
She was thrilled with curiosity; but thought she knew better than to
show it.
Ompertz laughed. Perhaps he saw inquisitiveness peeping through the
mask of dignity. “That would hardly do,” he objected. “I should have
said, given secretly.”
Her curiosity now was intense, nevertheless she contrived to look
indignant.
“Then I should say the question you might speculate about is whether
the Princess would care to receive it,” she returned.
“True enough,” he assented heartily, “if it came from so humble a
person as myself. I am but a messenger.” He paused, as loving to
tantalize her. But she gave no voice to the curiosity that was in her
eyes. “It is from Lieutenant von Bertheim.”
“Ah!” she made a quick movement, then checked herself. “I suppose,” she
said sarcastically, “you have been commissioned to bait a trap for the
Princess, and are, as usual, dutifully obeying orders.”
The thrust called forth a little laugh. “Anyhow, I disobeyed orders
pretty thoroughly last night,” he returned, “or the hand that wrote
this would never have held pen again.”
She was still mystified, but her expression softened.
“Will you explain?” she asked, still coldly.
“With pleasure,” he replied. “Since I must admit that if ever a man’s
position stood in need of explanation mine does at the present moment.
The lieutenant got me, a stranger, out of a tight corner once. It was
not his fault that I got squeezed into it again, and then, unknown to
us both, he gave me a chance of slipping out a second time. Then came
the part I might all my life have regretted playing, but happily that
is spared me. You see, gracious Countess, I did not know who it was I
was set to catch, nor did the Chancellor who set me to catch him. But
for an opportune moonbeam last night, I might now have been mourning
a friend, and Princess Ruperta a lover. But now we are allies; I have
gone over, driven at the point of a rascal’s dastardly stiletto. Pfui!
I am at least a gentleman, and, as such, claim to consort with men of
honour--and here is my credential.”
With a bow, he held out a sealed note. “I am fortunate to have
encountered you, noble Countess.”
She took the note, looking at him curiously. “You lay in wait for me,”
she suggested suspiciously.
“Indeed I did,” he answered frankly. “How else should I have hoped
to get that all-important message to the Princess? And my lying in
ambush had another reason. His Excellency the Chancellor and Captain
von Ompertz have fallen out. I am in his black books--thick volumes,
I guess; there should be a price on my head; but to repair a wrong
against friendship I am content to run the risk.”
Minna seemed to be debating a question with herself. Presently she
said: “I, in turn, have a letter for the Lieutenant.”
He bowed, but, perhaps from innate delicacy, forebore to offer himself
as messenger. “It is of great importance,” she pursued.
“Yes? Ah!” he laughed. “You were doubtless on your way to the old
sun-dial.”
She flushed, and the suspicion returned to her face in full force.
“The sun-dial,” she repeated. “You know--ah! and I, too, know now how
and by whom we have been betrayed.”
He gave an assenting sign. “In pursuance of duty, which is, happily,
mine no longer.”
“Spy!”
“I have been, I blush to confess, for a few hours,” he admitted, with a
sigh and a rueful face; “but that, you may trust me, is over. The dark
cloak never sat comfortably upon me. Many a man of my mind and in my
position would have called himself a patriot, but I will not quarrel
with the more opprobrious term.”
“Once a spy, always a spy,” she said resentfully.
Plainly her words cut him and he winced.
“I deserve that,” he returned, “and yet in my case it is far from
true. I was forced to do a thing I loathed to save my neck, and I
swear to you, Countess, by the honour of a soldier, by the Judge,
before Whom, if I am caught here, I shall very soon stand, that, had I
known the identity of the man I was employed against, had I known the
false tongue, the treacherous heart of my employer, I would have gone
whistling to my death before I would have sullied my poor hacked shield
with the stain of that business.”
There was nothing of the spy about him now. His words rang true as her
instinct told her. Still she would give in her belief grudgingly.
“I will entrust you with the letter if you are likely to have an
opportunity of delivering it,” she said, a little more dubiously than
was needful. She was not going to forgive too easily. “I presume it
will go into your hands, whether I give it to you here or leave it
under the sun-dial.”
“Assuredly,” he agreed cheerfully, ignoring the ungraciousness of her
speech. “Since my friend, the Lieutenant, has commissioned me to seek
for a letter which might lie there.”
“And which he would not trouble to seek himself,” she said with a
little pout.
“The Lieutenant,” he returned, “has heard family news which compels him
to leave for Beroldstein to-night.”
She went pale. “He leaves to-night?”
“That, I wager, is the purport of the letter I have given you. It is
settled, and I accompany him.”
The last words were spoken with a touch of triumph, as finally giving
the lie to Minna’s suspicions, but she seemed too distressed to notice
it. “Oh, how unlucky,” she exclaimed with a troubled look. “But perhaps
after all it does not so much matter. There is no harm in telling you
what must soon be no secret. The Princess also takes her departure
to-morrow. Not of her free will, far otherwise. We are sent by that
hateful Chancellor to the fortress of Krell.”
Ompertz opened his grey eyes. “This will be news for the Lieutenant.”
“Oh, the Lieutenant,” Minna cried ruefully. “I begin to wish we had
never seen him. It is all through him that we are to be banished to
that terrible, dreary, barbarous Castle of Krell. Ugh! We shall die or
go mad with melancholy in a fortnight!”
“The fortress of Krell,” said Ompertz with a grimly reminiscent smile.
“I know it. It would be a dull place enough for a soldier. But for you
and the Princess? No; it is decidedly not a lady’s bower.”
“And now,” she continued petulantly, “when a knight errant is sorely
needed, he must needs ride off home--for family reasons. Ah!” she
suddenly brightened, “why should not his departure render our horrible
exile unnecessary? If only it could be known to the Baron.”
“The Baron,” Ompertz replied dryly, “should be just now in a state
of doubt whether our knight errant has not taken his departure for
another world. But, gracious Countess,” he continued seriously, “were
it not that royal princesses are dangerous game to pursue, since that
ugly mastiff, treason, puts his nose in, and spoils the sport, I would
suggest a more spirited line of action than a retreat.”
“I dare say you would,” she retorted, “and get us all imprisoned for
life, even if we were lucky enough to keep our heads on our shoulders.
A month at Krell will be bad enough.”
But the soldier was busy with his plan of action. “You are not there
yet,” he said; “and, if I might lay a plan, never should be. The sooner
I carry this news to our friend the better. If he is of my mind he will
not let his lady-love suffer imprisonment for his sake. Pfui! It is
worse than cowardly to coerce a woman with fortresses and dungeons. I
am more than ever ashamed to think I ever took service under that old
dastard. Now, you will keep a sharp eye for one or both of us to-day?
We may not come till night-fall, but you shall hear of us before many
hours are past, and our Lieutenant’s family affairs may go to limbo.
Now, am I to have the honour of bearing the letter?”
She could not but hold it out to him. He took it with a bow which had
perhaps a touch of mockery in it, at any rate there was a look of
amused satisfaction in his face. “I thank you, gracious Countess,” he
said, “not only for the letter but for the token that your confidence
in this poor soldier is established.”
“I hope it may be,” she said. Ompertz bowed again and they parted.
The soldier was somewhat surprised on joining von Bertheim and
delivering his message to find that the lieutenant did not fall in as
eagerly as he had anticipated with a certain heroic plan he had formed
on his way to the city. His manifest hesitation was a puzzle to the
honest soldier. “Surely, my friend,” he remonstrated, “you are never,
after all the lady and you have gone through for one another, you are
never going to allow that scheming old wretch to pack her off to a
forsaken billet like the fortress of Krell? I have seen the place;
the sight is enough to make a sexton shudder. To a warm-hearted girl
like Princess Ruperta it would mean the devil’s own torture. And, once
inside those walls, I doubt if you would have so much as a chance of
getting sight of her, much less speech with her again till this pitiful
laggard, Prince Ludwig, chooses to come and fetch her out.”
“I do not propose,” Ludovic replied, “to leave the Princess in Krell
fortress. I am only considering whether I have not a better, or at
least a less risky, plan than yours for getting her out.”
“By my faith,” said Ompertz, “I have no plan for getting her Highness
out of Krell once she is in. That would be beyond my powers of
strategy. But she is not there yet, and if we are men she need never
be. I tell you, my young friend, there is only one man who, without an
army at his back, would get the lady out of Krell; and that is he who
would come with an order for release signed, ‘Rollmar.’”
“You scarcely understand the situation, my good friend,” Von Bertheim
said thoughtfully. “But you will soon. Captain Anton de Gayl has gone
to make preparations for our journey to-night.”
Ompertz was looking at him uneasily. But he forebore to ask the
question which his face and manner suggested. Perhaps the other
comprehended this, for he said, “I am going now to the Chancellor.”
“To the Chancellor?” the soldier echoed in surprise. “Then the horses
your friend is ordering will have a lighter load to-night than he
bargains for.”
Ludovic put a friendly hand on his shoulder. “I think not, captain. I
can take care of myself, even with Chancellor Rollmar.”
Ompertz looked at him in wonder and a little admiration. “Well,” he
muttered as Ludovic went out, “that is either the bravest fellow or the
biggest fool I ever met in all my wanderings. They talk of fool’s luck;
he has had enough of that to prove a regular skinful of folly.”
Ludovic took his way to the Chancellor’s. As he went along the
principal thoroughfare of the city a horseman came clattering down
it, meeting him; a man who, by the singularity of his dress as well
as by a certain official importance in his manner and pace, stood out
from the rest of the traffic. As the rider drew near, Ludovic turned
suddenly into a shop he happened to be passing. It was done evidently
from an impulse, as though to avoid recognition. He made a trifling
purchase almost at hap-hazard, and then pursued his way. He had not
gone far when he met his friend Anton de Gayl, who came up with a face
of concern.
“You saw that fellow?” von Bertheim asked.
“Ursleur? Yes; and what is more, have spoken to him. He brings serious
news.”
“Ah! The King----?”
“Is dead.”
“Yours prepared me for that. Poor uncle! I am sorry, though we never
quite agreed. I wish I had been there.”
“Yes,” Anton replied gravely. “It would have been well, Prince, for
more reasons than one.”
“What do you mean, Anton?” the other demanded quickly, noticing the
significance in his tone.
“Ursleur has brought Rollmar news which must be bad for you. It seems
that your cousin Ferdinand has taken advantage of your absence at this
critical moment to declare that you are dead. He has by this probably
got himself proclaimed King, seeing that he is the next heir after you.”
“You really gather that?”
“I do indeed. Things were in a commotion when Ursleur left, and
decidedly shaping that way. I do beseech your Highness to hurry back as
fast as horses can take you. It is madness to linger here.”
“Yes, it is madness,” the new King replied, taking a few agitated steps
to and fro. “Madness! and yet----” He paused in perplexity.
“Once proclaimed, Ferdinand will be difficult to dislodge,” Anton
pursued. “You know what the mob is, and he has taken care to keep
himself popular.”
“How my dear cousin will thank me for having played into his hands,”
the King exclaimed with a short laugh of mortification. “Still, I have
not been quite the mad fool he must think me; and how could I foresee
my uncle’s accident?”
“At least your Highness will not delay your return An hour now may make
the difference of a kingdom.”
The King was silent for a moment. “I start to-night.”
“To-night?” Anton de Gayl exclaimed in a tone of remonstrance. “And it
is yet hardly noon!”
“Nevertheless, I cannot start earlier.”
“Under pardon, your Highness, it is madness.”
The King smiled. “Perhaps. Yes, yes, it is madness, yet none the less
inevitable.”
His friend laughed. “I think I can understand,” he said a little
bitterly. “For only one thing does a sane man fling away a kingdom.”
Ludovic laid his hand affectionately on the other’s shoulder. “Your
impatience is justified, my dear friend,” he said. “I know my interests
are yours. But there is another thing, besides love, for which a man
may risk his crown, and more, his life; that is honour.”
“Honour? Yes. But surely----”
“This is a complicated affair of mine, my dear Anton; and one which
this business of my uncle’s death and Ferdinand’s usurpation have made
tenfold more difficult. The very act which calls me home post-haste at
the same time makes it impossible to avoid a few hours’ delay.”
De Gayl could say no more; so they returned together, the King seeming
to abandon the intention with which he had set out.