Norman Benedict had reached the office of the _Trumpet_ in time to add
a startling feature to the ten o’clock “extra” of that enterprising
journal. A long cable despatch from Rexopolis, announcing the death of
King Sergius III., the vain clamorings of the people for the appearance
of his successor, the still popular Prince Carlo, and the certainty of
an immediate choice by the populace of a provisional President, was of
itself sufficient to make the “extra” notable. But Benedict had been
enabled, by a combination of foresight and good luck, to give the readers
of the _Trumpet_ a startling explanation of Prince Carlo’s absence from
Rexopolis at this great crisis. On the night upon which Prince Carlo had
lost a kingdom, Norman Benedict had gained a promotion.
Gerald Strong and his wife had sat in their library late that evening,
wondering why Ned and Kate had not returned, when the butler brought
in to them the late edition of a newspaper whose startling head-lines
seemed to tremble with excitement. They had barely finished reading the
astounding details of a pregnant international crisis, when the arrival
of the carriage that bore to their door a dethroned king, a fatherless
youth, upon whose shoulders rested a great burden demanding an heroic
sacrifice, broke in upon their conversation.
While the somewhat disjointed explanations of the truants were doing
their utmost to add to the confusion of Mrs. Strong’s mind, her husband
had taken Prince Carlo by the hand, and, telling Ned to accompany them,
had led the guest he had known as Count Szalaki into the library.
“I have read the whole story,” said the banker, when they found
themselves alone. “You have suffered a great wrong, Prince Carlo. You
have my heartfelt sympathy.”
He took the young man’s hand, and continued, very gently, “I have sad
news for you.”
Prince Carlo gazed at him with eyes that were full of agony.
“He is dead?”
“Yes,” answered Gerald Strong. “He died this afternoon.”
A change came over the face of the son of kings. The dread certainty that
confronted him seemed to affect him like a call to arms. He stood more
erect, the lines around his mouth grew firm, and his voice was cold and
hard, as he said:
“Mr. Strong, may I ask you to tell me all that you have heard?”
“You will find the facts, as far as they are known, in this despatch from
Rexopolis.”
Prince Carlo took the newspaper and eagerly perused the two columns
outlining the situation at his capital. While he was reading, Ned Strong
said to his father:
“How did you know, father, that Count Szalaki was the crown prince?”
“The _Trumpet_, Ned, has a long account of the occurrences that have made
our manor-house unpleasantly notorious.”
“Ha!” cried Ned. “Our friend Mr. Benedict has been very energetic.”
“Furthermore,” continued Mr. Strong, “I have several despatches to-day
from our representative in Vienna, who has been clever enough to suspect
that Count Szalaki might be the Crown Prince Carlo.”
An exclamation of mingled astonishment and anger broke from Prince Carlo
at this moment.
“Fejeravy!” he cried. “Fejeravy for President! It is impossible! Traitor!
Fejeravy, whom we have trusted for years as our most loyal subject! It is
incredible!”
Prince Carlo sank into a chair wearily. The treachery of the man who had
been his father’s closest adviser overwhelmed him for a moment. Suddenly
he looked up at his host, his jaw firmly set and a gleam in his eyes that
proved that a new incentive had come to him urging his return to his
distracted fatherland.
“There is a steamer leaving for Southampton in the morning?” he asked,
eagerly.
“Yes,” answered Gerald Strong. Then he seated himself beside the prince,
and said, gently:
“You will forgive me, Prince Carlo, if I take the liberty of a much older
man, not well versed in the etiquette of courts, to ask you if your
return at such a crisis as the present is not foolhardy?”
“Mayhap,” cried the prince, a note of recklessness in his voice. “But
think not that I am friendless because a few of my people have been tools
in a traitor’s hands. A hundred years ago the madmen of France informed
the world that kings and their God were dead. Short-sighted, deluded
dreamers! They slew in the name of Freedom, and brought forth—Napoleon.
I shall go back, not to bring peace, but a sword. Fools that they are,
to think that my people, loving me, will listen forever to the voice of
Fejeravy.—Fejeravy, the Judas of my house! It is not for naught that we
who hold the thrones of Europe are bound together by the ties of blood.
What madness blinds my people? If I were dead, mayhap their crazy scheme
would have some hope of victory. But behind me, as my allies, stand
all the kings and emperors of the world. At my back are armies before
which Rexania’s rabble rout would fly like chaff. Mad as was the scheme
that sought to make me abdicate my throne to please the wishes of a few
adventurous rebels in this New World that I shall never see again, it was
not more futile than the effort of my people to set up for themselves a
government against which every court in Europe will be arrayed.”
Prince Carlo arose and paced the room restlessly. Gerald Strong and
his son remained silent. They seemed to be gazing from a mountain-top
upon some wild and bloody scene in ancient history. To these calm,
unimpressionable Americans the future that called to this pale-faced
youth seemed to be made of the warp and woof that form the texture of
the visions of the night. Of what did he speak? Of an alien army under
his command, placing him upon a throne stained with the blood of his
own countrymen! He represented the very incarnation of Reaction calling
with confidence upon its ancient allies, Blood and Iron. And yet he was
a gentle youth. His smile was charming as he took the hand of his silent
host and said:
“Forgive me for boring you with my selfish thoughts. You have been very
kind. How much I thank you, I cannot say. And now, time presses. I have
much to do, in small ways, before the steamer sails. May I trouble you to
ask Miss Kate if I may say farewell?”
Ned Strong left the room and returned a moment later.
“My sister will see you in the drawing-room,” he said as he re-entered
the library. “And then, if you wish, I will place myself at your service,
Prince Carlo, until your departure.”
A moment later father and son were left alone. They remained silent for
several minutes, attempting to readjust their wandering thoughts to the
quiet exigencies of their own environment.
“I have another piece of news for you, father,” said Ned, after a time.
“Yes?”
“I am sure,” he explained, with an effort at playfulness, “that Mr.
Benedict has not announced it in his ‘extra.’ Mrs. Brevoort has promised
to be my wife.”
* * * * *
Prince Carlo of Rexania stood for an instant, white and trembling, upon
the steps that led from Gerald Strong’s doorway. Upon his lips he still
felt the kiss of a loving and sorrow-stricken girl. The bell in a distant
church-steeple was striking midnight.
“Come,” he said, gently, placing a hand upon Ned Strong’s arm,—“come,
comrade, I need a friend to-night; for the world seems very sad.”
THE END.
A PRINCESS OF THE RHINE.
CHAPTER I.
“Three aces! Your majesty is in luck! Shall we make it a jack-pot?”
King Rudolph XII., of Hesse-Heilfels, solemnly acquiesced in this
suggestion by a nod of his gray head. His small, greenish-gray eyes
gleamed with excitement, and the flush on his heavily moulded face bore
witness to the wicked joy he was deriving from a new game of chance.
Rudolph was a true Schwartzburger in his fondness for gambling. There is
a legend of the Rhine which tells how one of Rudolph’s lineal ancestors,
who occupied the throne of Hesse-Heilfels three centuries ago, lost his
kingdom on a throw of the dice and his honor by a thrust of the sword.
The courtier who had won a kingdom from his liege lord did not live to
tell the tale of his good luck. The house of Schwartzburger has never
neglected heroic measures when it has been confronted by a great crisis.
To gamble with a king of Hesse-Heilfels has always required not only
skill but courage.
That Jonathan Edwards Bennett, a rolling stone from Litchfield County,
Connecticut, United States of America, had dared to teach King Rudolph
of Hesse-Heilfels the mysteries of the American game of poker, spoke
well for the Yankee adventurer’s boldness. One of the first stories
that Bennett had been told upon entering Rudolph’s kingdom had turned
upon the fate of a commercial traveller from the United States who had
managed to penetrate to the sacred presence of the testy monarch. The
drummer had offered to equip the army of Hesse-Heilfels with bicycles at
so low a figure that the suspicions of King Rudolph had been aroused.
Becoming convinced by a series of searching questions that the commercial
traveller could not fulfil the promises he had made, the proud but
irascible Schwartzburger confiscated the Yankee’s watch and loose change.
He then gave orders that the stranger be driven beyond the borders of the
kingdom. Rudolph XII. prided himself upon always being just, though he
might be at times severe.
King Rudolph of Hesse-Heilfels and Jonathan Edwards Bennett of
Connecticut played poker amid luxurious and romantic surroundings.
The favorite castle of the Schwartzburgers caps a hill overlooking
the distant Rhine, but somewhat out of the beaten line of travel. The
Schwartzburgers have always cherished a dislike for tourists, and under
Rudolph XII. the little kingdom of Hesse-Heilfels has been jealously
guarded from the prying eyes of fussy travellers, who, as His Majesty
had often remarked, were apt to lead the good people of the country into
temptation. Four hundred years ago a Schwartzburger who had been crowned
king of Hesse-Heilfels had said: “The divine right to fleece resides in
the person of the king, and when exercised by a subject becomes treason.”
One of the most learned professors at the University of Heidelberg some
years ago wrote a treatise to prove that this remark was, on the face of
it, an Irish bull, and could not, therefore, have been uttered by a King
of Hesse-Heilfels. A great controversy over this question arose in the
German universities, and the matter is still under discussion. It has
served at least one valuable purpose, in furnishing another outlet for
pent-up erudition. German scholarship needs constant relief of this kind,
and what is known as the Schwartzburger Irish-Bull problem has been of
great service to the congested erudition of the university towns.
The castle of the Schwartzburgers in which we find the reigning king
pursuing his studies in poker under the tutorship of a wandering genius
from Connecticut was built late in the thirteenth century, and “was
restored,” as the guide-books say, early in the present century by King
Rudolph’s father. “The restoration is incomplete,” Bennett had said to
the king, a few days after he had been admitted to the royal circle.
“Your castle is picturesque but unhealthy, romantic but rheumatic, with
too many relics and too few conveniences. What you need at once, your
majesty, is sanitary plumbing, a few passenger and freight elevators, and
an electric lighting plant.”
King Rudolph had gazed suspiciously at the smooth-faced, smooth-tongued
youth, whose nervously energetic manner was aggravated by his efforts to
make his meaning clear in the German tongue. Bennett was a well-equipped
linguist, but the German dialect spoken in Hesse-Heilfels was new to him.
He was by temperament loquacious and restless, and it annoyed him to find
that his vocabulary was frequently defective when he was endeavoring to
convince the king that a certain line of action was imperatively and
immediately necessary. King Rudolph had rejected, for the time being,
the suggestions thrown out by Bennett regarding repairs to the castle,
and had devoted such hours as he could snatch from affairs of state to
learning the ins and outs of the game of draw poker. The result was that
Rudolph XII. and Jonathan Edwards Bennett spent twelve hours of every
twenty-four in the king’s private apartments—with royalty and democracy
separated by only a table, a pack of cards, and a set of ivory chips.
Already the kingdom had begun to feel the effects of Rudolph’s example,
for the palace sets the fashions in Hesse-Heilfels, and when the king
plays poker in his castle the peasant in the valley is anxious to learn
the difference between a royal flush and a full house. When Jonathan
Edwards Bennett taught Rudolph XII., the reigning Schwartzburger, to play
jack-pots he started a poker avalanche that poured down from the castle
into the valleys and eventually caused the most serious upheaval in the
modern history of the kingdom of Hesse-Heilfels.
“If your luck continues, your majesty,” remarked Bennett, as he shuffled
the cards and gazed thoughtfully through the open window toward the
distant mountain-tops, “I shall be compelled to mortgage my farm in
Litchfield County, Connecticut.”
There was silence in the stately old chamber for a moment, broken only
by the ticking of an antique clock that had punctuated the lives of many
generations of Schwartzburgers. King Rudolph thrust a trembling hand
through his scanty gray locks and smiled slyly.
“What’s the farm worth?” he asked, eagerly seizing his five cards and
looking at them anxiously.
The expression upon Bennett’s clear-cut, pale, and rather handsome face
did not change. He gazed stolidly at his hand, and calmly discarded
three of his five cards. A close observer would have noted, however,
that the dark eyes of the youth glanced now and then at the king’s heavy
countenance and seemed to read the very soul of his royal opponent.
“The farm is worth a contract to renovate your castle,” answered the
Yankee coldly.
“What do you mean?” cried the king, as he again added a small pile of
Bennett’s chips to his own store.
“I mean this, your majesty,” answered the American. “I’ll make a bet with
you—the cards to decide the wager—by the terms of which you are bound
to win. We’ll throw a cold hand for the stakes. See? If your cards beat
mine, you own my farm. If I win, you are to sign a contract authorizing
me to take charge of the internal improvements not only of your castle
but of your kingdom. I am to make this castle a modern residence, to
improve the roads in your kingdom, and to put a little snap and ginger
into your people. You are falling years behind other civilized lands. You
need my services, your majesty, as a Moses who shall lead you out of the
desert of the past into the flowery plains of the future. See? It was a
lucky day for you when I entered your kingdom.”
The Schwartzburgers have never been noted for quick-wittedness. Their
minds have always moved slowly, unless their temper was aroused. The only
way to make a Schwartzburger think and act hastily is to stir up his
anger. At this moment Rudolph XII. was gazing at the Yankee in a dazed
way. He seemed to be striving dully to find a ray of light by which to
throw the American’s startling proposition into effective relief. He
evidently harbored a vague suspicion that he was in imminent danger of
losing his royal and time-honored prerogative of fleecing the wandering
sheep that came within his reach. The idea of subletting a portion
of his royal authority to a comparative stranger was not attractive.
Furthermore, King Rudolph realized that by delegating to Bennett
the authority he craved, he would arouse the antagonism of the most
influential and powerful subjects of his realm.
Nevertheless, the king of Hesse-Heilfels was fascinated by the chance
of winning an estate in America. To his mind “a farm in Connecticut”
represented a domain from which vast wealth might be derived. Rumors
of the fabulous riches possessed by American tourists who had at times
visited his castle had made a strong impression upon King Rudolph.
Furthermore, the microbe of poker was at work in the royal blood. The
fever caused by jack-pot germs was having its delirious influence upon
the king’s mind.
“By a cold hand,” remarked the king slowly, “you mean that we stake
everything on one deal?”
“Yes,” answered Bennett, “we throw the cards face upward and make our
discards openly. It is very simple. Shall I proceed?”
At that instant the doors behind Bennett’s chair were thrown open and
a girl of eighteen hastily entered the apartment. The American turned
toward her, flushed perceptibly, and arose from his seat.
The Princess Hilda, the king’s niece, paid not the slightest attention to
Bennett, but approached the king with a look of determination upon her
handsome face. Her cheeks were slightly reddened from excitement, and her
dark blue eyes seemed almost black as they rested upon her royal uncle.
There was silence for an instant. The opening of the doors had tempted
a breeze from the mountains to enter the palace through the windows and
shake the antique hangings as it passed. It caressed Hilda’s golden hair
gently as she stood before the king and said:
“Pardon me, your majesty, but I have news—state news—that brooks no
delay. No other messenger seemed quite fitted for the task, so I have
come to tell you that——”
King Rudolph raised his hand with an angry gesture.
“You must wait, princess. Is it not enough that I should be vexed with
cares of state by my ministers and secretaries without being interrupted
in my too few hours of relaxation by you? Furthermore, there _is_ an
affair of state—a most important affair of state—here at issue at this
moment. Come, mein Herr Bennett, throw the cards! Wait, Hilda, do not be
offended! Watch my luck, princess! You shall stand here to bring me good
fortune. Whichever way it goes, you say, mein Herr, I win? So be it! I
take your word! Let’s draw. Forgive me, princess; I know your news will
keep.”
CHAPTER II.
“Pardon me, your majesty,” said Bennett, holding a pack of cards
unshuffled in his hand. “I hesitate to cross your will, but if the
princess really has important news——?”
The speaker looked up at the Princess Hilda deferentially, but his
intercession in her behalf met with no reward. Far from seeming pleased
at his support, she turned her back upon him, her face white and set, and
gazed reproachfully at her king and uncle.
“Throw out the cards,” commanded King Rudolph sternly. “Am I to be
told by a chit of a girl how to rule my kingdom? Remain where you are,
Princess Hilda, and see me win a province in the land across the sea.”
The little group at that moment presented a picturesque tableau. In that
old castle within which the centuries had seen enacted many tragedies,
comedies, farce-comedies, and burlesques, lost to the world forever for
lack of imminent playwrights, an episode in a stirring drama was about to
take place against an appropriate _mise-en-scène_.
The king’s face, flushed with the excitement of the crisis, wore an
expression of mingled cupidity and impatience. His fat, reddish hand
rapped the table nervously. Opposite to him sat Bennett, a prey to
conflicting emotions, but outwardly calm. He had hitherto been too much
occupied in gaining an influence over King Rudolph to notice the beauty
of Princess Hilda, but as she stood there, cold, disdainful, silent,
while the breeze gently caressed her golden-brown hair, the American
adventurer felt tempted to throw the mischievous cards into the king’s
face and beg forgiveness from the princess on his bended knees.
“Count von Hohenlinden,” began the princess stubbornly.
The king put up his hand deprecatingly.
“The Count von——!” Princess Hilda got no further.
“I draw to my pair of knaves,” cried King Rudolph, thrusting three
useless cards aside excitedly.
“You do, indeed,” said Hilda, under her breath, and glancing pointedly
at Bennett. She had not lowered her voice sufficiently to prevent the
American from catching the drift of her remark. He tossed three cards
toward the king.
“Four of a kind!” cried the delighted Schwartzburger, pointing at the
cards triumphantly. “My jacks will take your farm, Herr Bennett.”
“But I draw to queens,” remarked the American quietly and casting a quick
glance at Princess Hilda. “Ha, was I not right? Are not the queens on my
side? Look at that, your majesty! Four queens! I win my contract. Das ist
wahr!”
King Rudolph gazed blankly at the cards before him. By a marvellous
stroke of luck the American had beaten the king’s four jacks. Novice
though he was at poker, the Schwartzburger realized that he had lost the
stakes at a moment when the chances were a thousand to one in his favor.
“Gott im Himmel!” he cried angrily, hurling the pack of cards through the
window, while his greenish-gray eyes glared fiercely at his opponent,
“what mad devil is in the cards?”
“I had wonderful luck,” said Bennett gently, rising from his seat and
glancing imploringly at the princess.
“The Count von Hohenlinden, Your Majesty,” cried Hilda, paying no
attention to Bennett.
King Rudolph arose from his chair. He was a short, thickset man, clumsy
in movement, and much too heavy for his height.
“Will you be quiet, niece?” he exclaimed, his breath coming and going
with asthmatic friction. “Let me understand this gentleman. Herr Bennett,
you have won the cold hand——”
“And the marble heart,” muttered Bennett mournfully.
“As I understand it,” went on the king, “you purpose to put this castle
and the roads, parks, bridges, and forests of my kingdom into a condition
more worthy of the nineteenth century than is their present status. Am I
right?”
“That is the proposition, your majesty.”
“But there are many difficulties in the way, Herr Bennett. I will meet
with resistance at every point. I have ministers—a prime minister,
heads of departments, red tape, precedent, national prejudice, and a
large family of impecunious relatives, already in alliance against you
and your projects. Ach Himmel! I thought my four jacks would solve my
difficulties—and now I am worse off than ever.”
The Princess Hilda had retired to a window and was gazing pensively out
upon hills and valleys over which the Schwartzburgers had lorded it for
many generations. Here and there between the hills she could catch a
glimpse of the stately Rhine, as it flowed serenely past the castellated
summits where Romans, Teutons, and tourists had fussed and fretted
through the centuries. Suddenly the king turned toward her.
“Count von Hohenlinden,” he cried. “You spoke of him, my princess. He
is my financier. I need his advice. Have you news of him, Hilda?” The
princess turned and approached the king.
“The countess came to me this morning in tears,” she said quietly. “Count
von Hohenlinden has gone.”
“Gone?” cried King Rudolph in amazement. “Gone where?”
“No one knows. I fear, your majesty—I fear from what the countess
said—that—that—he is a defaulter.”
“Mein Gott! Mein Gott!” exclaimed the king, sinking into a chair. “It
cannot be! And yet—and yet—he had full control of my treasury. He told me
yesterday—but what matters it what he said then? Call von Schwalbach to
me. I tell you, Herr Bennett, if my prime minister has allowed the count
to loot my treasury I will have his life. Quick! call a page and send him
for von Schwalbach.”
“Alas, your majesty,” said the princess soothingly, “von Schwalbach has
also disappeared. It is said that he and the count left the kingdom last
night, riding their wheels through a secret pass in the hills.”
The countenance of royalty had turned white with dismay. The king seemed
to be stricken helpless at one blow.
“My best friends gone,” he muttered. “Gone—thieves that run off in the
night! And I—I have trusted them with my purse, my honor, my very life.
Tell me, Hilda,” he went on, almost hysterically, “what caused this
downfall of men whose word was always as good as gold, men who have been
found faithful to their trust for years?”
The broken king looked up pathetically at his golden-haired niece. She
smiled sadly down at him, and then turned frowningly toward Bennett, who
stood, with one hand resting upon the card-table, watching the melancholy
scene before him.
“One thing alone caused the ruin of the men you trusted,” she said, and
paused.
“And that was?” cried the king eagerly.
“Poker!” answered the princess simply.
Bennett stepped back as though struck by a blow in the face, while the
king sprang to his feet and puffed helplessly for a moment.
“Donner und Blitzen!” blurted King Rudolph, shaking his fist at the
American, whose white lips and flushed cheeks gave evidence of his inward
agitation. “You are responsible for this, Herr Bennett! You sneak into
my kingdom and tell me you have news from a better world than mine. You
tell me that I and my people are ‘behind the times.’ I give you room
in my palace and you complain that we have no gas, no electricity, no
telephones, no cable cars to climb the hills, no new castles. All is
old, you whisper, time-worn, covered with lichen, useless, dead. And I,
the only fool of all the Schwartzburgers, listen to you and grow cold to
my old counsellors. You talk of progress—and give me poker. You speak
of grandeur—and make me a gambler. You point to a rainbow—and pick my
pockets. It is enough. I have learned my lesson. Go, Herr Bennett—and may
the curse of the King of Hesse-Heilfels be with you to the end.”
King Rudolph sank back into his chair, panting for breath.
At this instant a man burst into the room unannounced, dragging with him
a page who had sought to check his impetuosity.
The intruder was a comical figure at his most dignified moments, but at
this instant he looked as if he had escaped from a light opera company,
just when the audience was roaring at his best joke. He was not over
four feet three in height. His hair was tousled and of a light yellow
hue. His features were large, especially his nose. Under the influence
of great excitement his eyes bulged from his head as if in search of
mislaid spectacles. He was attired in a green velvet jacket and small
clothes, with a frilled shirt and a small sword at his side. In his hand
he carried a green cap, from which a long black feather trailed along the
floor.
“Your majesty, pardon me,” he cried, falling upon one knee before the
king. “I protest to the throne. I know that I am right! Nicht wahr?”
In spite of the solemnity of the crisis, King Rudolph laughed aloud, the
Princess Hilda smiled, and an expression of hope rested upon Jonathan
Bennett’s disturbed countenance. The sudden change in the king’s mood was
encouraging.
“Rise, Cousin Fritz,” said the king jocosely. “You never appeal to the
king in vain. What is your grievance. Perhaps your troubles may prove for
the moment a counter-irritant to mine.”
“Because I’m called the king’s jester, Your Majesty, they think I’m a
fool,” said the little man, readjusting the feather in his cap. “But I’m
not the fool that I look, am I, Schwartzburg?” Here the dwarf winked
gayly at the king. Then his anger seemed to return. “Gott im Himmel!” he
cried, “they gave me the lie, me, Cousin Fritz, who could tell the truth
in Latin and Greek at the age of six. It’s an outrage, your majesty.”
“But what was the cause of all this?” asked the king, beginning to look
bored and casting uneasy glances at Bennett, upon whom the royal curse
had not had the intended effect.
“The cause, your majesty?” repeated the dwarf. “Cause enough. They said
I lied when I told them that four of a kind beat a full house. Think of
that, Herr Bennett. They took my money—and I held four aces.”
CHAPTER III.
“Bennett ’82 cannot be explained by any known law,” a Yale professor had
once remarked. “He may astonish the world by his genius, or end a short
career as a tramp. The splendor of his inherent possibilities emphasizes
the dangers that surround such a temperament as his.”
Ten years had passed since Bennett had been graduated, not without
honors, from Yale, but he had not as yet fulfilled the professor’s
prophecy. He had not made the world ring with his name; neither had he
sunk to the level of a knight of the road. There still remained a chance,
however, that the foresight of the professor would be vindicated. Bennett
was now thirty-two years of age. He had assiduously cultivated the gifts
that had led the Yale professor to ascribe to him the peculiarities
and possibilities that appertain to genius. Bennett had become an
accomplished linguist, a poet, a musician, a diplomatist, and a schemer.
But he had neglected the means and methods that lead to permanent
success, and his love of adventure had served to make him more of a
tramp than a celebrity. The returns from his genius must still be marked
“scattering.”
The erratic nature of the man was well illustrated by his invasion of the
kingdom of Hesse-Heilfels. One evening in Berlin he had listened to a
description of King Rudolph’s picturesque domain. The eccentricities of
that petty monarch had aroused Bennett’s curiosity, and he had determined
to make a study at close quarters of a royal establishment that still
retained many of the peculiarities of mediæval monarchies.
Bennett had been fortunate enough to find luck as his ally upon entering
the confines of Hesse-Heilfels. At the very first inn in the kingdom
in which he had laid aside his knapsack, he had learned that King
Rudolph was suffering from a severe indisposition that had baffled the
skill of the court physicians. It did not take Bennett long to come
to the conclusion that the reigning Schwartzburger was suffering from
inflammatory rheumatism, an affection that Bennett numbered among his
family heirlooms. “Litchfield County may be short on romance, but it
is long on rheumatism,” he said to himself. “I think I can cure King
Rudolph.”
There is no necessity for dwelling upon the details of Bennett’s success
as a court physician. He had written a carefully worded letter offering
his services to the afflicted monarch “free of charge unless a cure
is effected.” King Rudolph, weary of suffering and disgusted with the
impotence of his own doctors, had sent for the young American and, much
to the astonishment and annoyance of the court, had given him full charge
of his royal person. The cure effected by the gifted amateur had won
him the friendship of the king, and the enmity of the court circle. In
spite of his suavity, Bennett had been unable to make himself popular
in a household in which the good-will of the king must be purchased
at the expense of general detestation. The feeling against Bennett was
intensified, of course, because of his foreign birth. Never before, in
the long and polychromatic history of the House of Schwartzburg, had a
stranger from a land far over sea become at a bound an influential factor
in shaping the destinies of the kingdom of Hesse-Heilfels. Upon the door
of his bedchamber one morning, Bennett had found inscribed in chalk, the
words, “Geben sie acht. Halt!” The warning had opened his eyes to the
fact that the enemies he had made were bold and determined. But he had
smiled mockingly, rubbed the chalk from the panel, and made his way,
humming a merry catch, to the king’s apartments.
Nevertheless Bennett was not in a joyous mood as he gazed at the
moon-kissed river and mountains from a balcony adjoining his apartments
on the evening of the day upon which our tale opens. Although the king
had apologized in the afternoon for his bitter denunciation of the
American in the morning, Bennett realized that his hold upon royal favor
was insecure, and that as Rudolph’s rheumatism improved, and his fondness
for poker decreased, the end of his adventure would impend.
Twenty-four hours before this Bennett would have felt no special
annoyance had a decree of perpetual banishment from the kingdom of
Hesse-Heilfels been enforced against him. But as he puffed cigar smoke
into the balmy air and gazed dreamily at the silver thread that gleamed
between the distant hills, the face of the Princess Hilda—proud, cold,
and beautiful—seemed to taunt him, defy him, fascinate him. His pulse
beat wildly as the temptation to break this haughty woman’s pride, to
make her eyes grow gentle at his approach and her lips melt into smiles
as he addressed her, swept over him.
The hopelessness of his longing was clear to him. The princess looked
upon him as a quack, an adventurer, a man to be shunned and despised. She
had never vouchsafed to him a word, a glance, the slightest recognition
of his existence. To win her regard seemed to be impossible. The sceptre
of Hesse-Heilfels was as much within his reach as the good-will of the
Princess Hilda. Nevertheless, Jonathan Bennett, soothed by tobacco,
lulled by the glories of a summer night, haunted by the swarming spirits
of the storied Rhine, dreamed his dream of love and conquest and allowed
his wild fancies to lead him far from the vulgar plane of poker, sanitary
plumbing, and “sure cures” for rheumatism.
“Ach, mein Herr, but you look like an archangel planning a crime.”
Bennett sprang up from his seat in dismay. He had carefully locked
the doors of his apartments, and this sudden invasion of his privacy
smacked of the supernatural. Cousin Fritz, with a mocking smile playing
across his gnarled face, displayed a mischievous joy in the American’s
consternation.
“Be seated, Herr Bennett,” cried the dwarf, bowing with exaggerated
politeness. “I owe you an apology—but this is one of my jokes. Is it not
a good one? Ha—ha!” He danced up and down the balcony with weird agility
for a moment. Then he seated himself upon the stone coping and tilted
his feathered cap sideways upon his overgrown head.
“You will forgive me,” said Bennett gently, offering the jester a cigar,
which the latter accepted with much ceremony, “if I ask you how you
managed to surprise me so successfully?”
Cousin Fritz winked knowingly and blew a cloud of smoke into the air.
“I’ve lived in this castle a thousand years,” he answered solemnly. “It
has taken me all that time to learn its secrets. Hist, Herr Bennett, they
think it’s my business to amuse the king. Nonsense. That’s my pleasure.
My work for a thousand years has been to discover all the mysteries of
this old castle. I know them all now. What is the result? I’ll tell you,
Herr Bennett, and I’ll tell you why I tell you. You made those scoundrels
return my money this afternoon. Four aces! The robbers! But they took
your word on poker, Herr Bennett—although they hate you. Do you hear me?
They hate you.”
The dwarf chuckled with inward glee. He seemed to rejoice in Bennett’s
unpopularity.
“And what,” asked Bennett, not wholly pleased with the jester’s untimely
jocularity, “what has been the result of your thousand years of discovery
in this ancient pile? You started out to tell me.”
“It has been,” answered the dwarf, seeming to weigh his words carefully,
“it has been to make me king. These puppets come and go and wear the
crown and hold the sceptre, but through the centuries I am monarch of
Hesse-Heilfels. I could tell you tales that would make your black hair
turn white, tales of my power—of _my_ power, the jester, Cousin Fritz, a
buffoon for a thousand years!”
There was something so uncanny in the little wizard’s words and manner
that Bennett could hardly repress a gesture of abhorrence. A madman
smoking a cigar in the moonlight on a balcony overlooking the Rhine was a
creature so out of touch with nineteenth-century ideas that Bennett was
tempted to believe that he had fallen asleep and had been attacked by a
nightmare.
Suddenly Cousin Fritz hopped down from his perch and sprang toward
Bennett. The movement was so sudden that the American had no time to rise.
“Look there,” whispered the dwarf, pointing with trembling hand toward a
group of trees at the edge of the park, several hundred feet in front of
them. “Do you see those shadows among the trees?”
Bennett’s eyes followed the little man’s gesture. He could make out the
figures of several men who had gathered in a group beneath the trees. The
moon painted their shadows black against the greensward.
“Do you know what they seek?” asked the dwarf, shaking with inward
laughter. “They seek your life, Herr Bennett! Isn’t that a joke? I
couldn’t make a better one, could I?”
The American felt an almost irresistible impulse to hurl the uncanny
creature into the abyss beneath them. The dwarf’s idea of humor did
not appeal to Bennett. As a Yankee he possessed a keen appreciation of
the ludicrous, but the prospect of assassination did not strike him as
laughable. Cousin Fritz—abnormally sympathetic as he was—realized that
his companion was not in a joyous mood.
“Don’t be alarmed, Herr Bennett,” he said, “what I tell you is true. I
heard those men planning your death. They hate you because my cousin
Rudolph has grown fond of you. But, never fear, I will save you
from their machinations. Did I not tell you that I had been King of
Hesse-Heilfels for a thousand years? Well, the king is on your side. I
decree that you shall not die. Do you doubt my power to save you? Look
here!”
The dwarf sprang with wonderful agility upon the coping and stood
upright, his crooked figure standing out against the sky like a
silhouette to the eyes of the astonished American. Seizing his cap the
king’s jester waved it frantically to and fro, as if making a signal to
the men at the edge of the park.
“Come here, Herr Bennett,” he cried. “See? Am I not king? Have they not
obeyed my command? See? They are gone?”
Bennett gazed searchingly at the trees beneath which the group had stood
but a moment before. There was nothing there but the moonlit glory of the
forest.
CHAPTER IV.
“Gute Nacht, Herr Bennett! Schlafen Sie wohl!”
The dwarf, smiling mischievously, disappeared through the entrance and
Bennett closed the heavy oaken door and carefully bolted it. His madcap
visitor had refused to satisfy his curiosity upon several important
points, and the American made ready for bed with a disturbed mind. Was
Cousin Fritz really his friend? That the dwarf was crazy he had no doubt,
but his insanity was not dangerous if he was actually well disposed
toward the stranger. But the dwarf’s mysterious and sudden appearance,
his signal to the men Bennett now called “the conspirators,” and his
stubborn refusal to answer the questions put to him, combined to cast a
doubt upon his sincerity.
“The situation is certainly depressing,” soliloquized Bennett, as he
slowly doffed his clothes. “The king blows hot and cold, and, so far as I
can learn, is handicapped by an empty treasury. The Princess Hilda holds
me in contempt and suspicion. The crazy jester is not a safe ally. As for
the court at large, there is not a man or woman in the circle who would
not be glad to see me driven out of the kingdom. It is more than probable
that there is a conspiracy on foot against my life. And what do I gain by
remaining here? Not one glance from her wonderful eyes, not a smile from
her sweet lips; nothing but cold, contemptuous indifference. Nobody, so
far as I know, has ever called Jonathan Edwards Bennett a fool, but he
deserves that name to-night. Heigh-ho! a rolling stone gathers no moss,
but it gets a great many hard knocks.”
With this melancholy reflection, Bennett, with a farewell glance at the
moonlight pouring in at the windows—which he had taken care to fasten
with bars—turned on his pillow and wooed the fickle goddess whose duty
it is to reknit the raveled sleeve of care. He was about to win a great
victory in his coquetting with sleep, when he was startled into a sitting
posture by a rap on the panel of the door he had recently bolted.
Bennett’s first thought was that he had fallen into a doze and had been
the victim of a mild attack of nightmare. He listened intently. The
breeze from the hills, defying the broken windows, stirred the heavy
hangings surrounding his old-fashioned bed, and the mysterious noises
that haunt an ancient castle at night fell upon his ear. Suddenly a
gentle rap again echoed from the opposite side of the chamber. The
American pushed aside his bed curtains and stole softly toward the door.
The ease with which Cousin Fritz had defied bolts and bars had not tended
to allay Bennett’s growing distrust of his surroundings.
“Who’s there?” he asked in a low voice as he reached the door. There was
a silence for an instant. Bennett, who prided himself upon his courage,
was ashamed to realize that his heart was beating with an abnormal
celerity.
“I come from the princess,” answered a woman’s voice. “I have a message
for Herr Bennett.”
“Wait just a moment, then,” said the astonished American, hurrying
toward the chair upon which he had placed his clothes. That Princess
Hilda wished to communicate with him was a fact so surprising that his
agitation increased. His hands trembled as he hurriedly donned his
garments and endeavored to render his toilet worthy of the audience
before him.
Presently he unbolted the great door, and against the moonlight that
streamed through the corridor he saw the figure of one of the princess’s
waiting-women.
“Let us go as quietly as possible,” she said. “The Princess Hilda will
receive you in the Hall of Armor.”
They crept softly along the corridor and down a flight of stone steps
that seemed to lead them from the moonlight into the black depths of
eternal gloom. The woman rapped on a small door at the foot of the
stairway. As they awaited the answer to her signal, the thought flashed
through Bennett’s mind that he had placed himself in the power of those
who might prove to be his enemies. He sought in vain to read the face
of the woman at his side. Instinctively he placed his hand upon his hip
pocket, in which he had always carried a revolver. A moment later he
felt ashamed of his fears. The small door had been thrown back, and upon
his startled gaze broke a vision that recalled his youthful dreams of
romance.
Through the stained-glass windows of a great hall the moonlight streamed
in multicolored beams. Like a mediæval army mustered at midnight stood
the grim figures of the armored Schwartzburgers. Long black shadows,
weird and wavering, made effective background for the polychromatic
glories of this dazzling scene.
And there in the foreground, the moonlight caressing her golden hair,
stood the Princess Hilda, a vision of beauty amid the relics of old wars
and the steel-clad presentments of her blood-stained ancestors. The
clear-cut face, the stately figure, the regal simplicity of her attire,
seemed to make her at that instant the very incarnation of all that was
noblest in the mediæval cult. She appeared to be a spirit from the past
haunting the scenes where chivalrous warriors in the days of old had paid
the homage of death in return for the smile of love.
Bennett felt dazed by the unexpected beauty of the picture that met his
eyes. For a moment he doubted the reality of the scene before him. Was
he dreaming? Was it not certain that a love song, followed by a martial
chorus, would soon recall him to his senses; that he would find himself
not in a castle but in an opera house?
Suddenly the voice of the princess convinced him of the reality of his
surroundings.
“Herr Bennett, accept my thanks. It was kind of you to come to me.”
The words were unexpected. They placed the princess under obligation to
a man she had hitherto treated with contemptuous indifference. But her
voice was cold and formal. Bennett realized that, like the figures of
her ancestors, she was clad in armor. Theirs was of steel, hers of pride.
“It would be the greatest pleasure of my life to serve you, Princess
Hilda,” said the American, the tone of his voice leaving no doubt of his
sincerity.
There was silence between them for a time. In some remote corner of the
castle a door creaked on its hinges. The waiting-woman made a gesture of
impatience somewhere in the shadows, and a piece of armor clanked angrily.
“If that is true,” said the princess, with less coldness in her tones
than before, “I shall put you to the test at once. Herr Bennett, I am in
sore distress.”
How great a sacrifice it was for this proud woman to meet him thus
secretly and to confess that he could be of service to her in her hour
of trouble, Bennett was sufficiently generous to realize. Irresponsible
in many ways, brilliant but erratic, the American was essentially a
gentleman. Furthermore, he had never felt for a woman the reverential
admiration that the golden-haired vision before him inspired. There
was something unearthly in the influence she exercised over him at
this moment. The glory of renunciation—the crowning beauty of the age
of chivalry—seemed to affect him as he stood there in the shimmering
moonlight, a modern knight-errant vowing fealty to a high ideal at a
mediæval shrine.
“I repeat,” he said, “my promise to serve you as best I may.”
“Then I implore you, Herr Bennett,” went on the princess in a low voice,
“to leave the kingdom at once. The harm you have wrought may never be
wholly undone, but you can, at least, save us from further disaster.”
“It shall be as you wish, Princess Hilda,” he said sadly. “But tell me,
is the crisis more threatening than I had feared?”
“I do not know,” she answered, a melancholy smile playing across her
face. “The king is driven to his wit’s ends, and to-night he had news
from below that fills him with consternation. As you know, his brother,
my uncle Wilhelm, plots for his dethronement. His emissaries throughout
the kingdom are fostering discontent. The recent defalcations have
emboldened the schemers and the feeling against the king is on the
increase. There is only one thing that can save us, Herr Bennett. If
it is noised abroad in the morning that you have left Hesse-Heilfels,
never to return, his majesty’s subjects will take heart and rally to his
support. Am I not right?”
Her appeal to his judgment pleased Bennett. Furthermore, he knew that
the conclusion she had reached was sound. Nevertheless, the sacrifice
he was about to make was greater than she could understand. That a
Yankee adventurer should dare to harbor for a princess of the house of
Schwartzburg a feeling akin to love was a possibility that, he well knew,
she could not comprehend.
“I fear,” he said gloomily, “that you are not wrong, Princess Hilda, in
looking upon me as the Jonah who is sinking the ship of state. It is
well, perhaps, that I should go at once. But give me leave to say that
in obeying your commands I feel a joy that is begotten of my power to
repair in part the wrongs that I have done to you, and a sorrow that
springs from the thought that I shall never look upon your face again.”
Impulsively he stepped forward, and bending his knee kissed the cold hand
she held out to him. Then he arose, gazed for a moment at her white, sad
face, and turned and left the hall.
How he reached his apartments, Bennett never knew. That he groped for
many minutes in a darkness that seemed eternal, bruising himself in his
efforts to find the moonlit corridor, he remembered later on; but the
bitterness of his renunciation—fantastic though his love might be—was
the one feeling that dominated him during that midnight passage through
unknown hallways and up shadow-haunted stairs.
As he glanced around his bedchamber a conviction came over him that it
had been entered since his departure. He had found the oak doors closed,
as he had left them, but there was something in the appearance of the
apartment—he could not say just what it was—that convinced him that some
one had paid him a visit during his absence. He approached the bed and
pulled aside the curtains. Upon one of the pillows a piece of note-paper
had been pinned. Seizing it nervously, Bennett hurried to a window,
through which the moonlight was still streaming. Scrawled in pencil, the
paper bore the following lines:
“Come to the king at once when you return. He is in grave
danger, and so are you. This is not a jest.
COUSIN FRITZ.”
CHAPTER V.
The inn at which Jonathan Edwards Bennett, some weeks before the present
crisis, had learned that King Rudolph XII. was afflicted with rheumatism,
had become the centre of high pressure for politics and poker. “Destroy
the inns and wine-shops in your domain, and you will never be bothered
by conspiracies,” a diplomatist and scholar had once written to a former
king of Hesse-Heilfels. “I prefer my inns and my rebels to the loss of
the former,” the conservative Schwartzburger had answered. It is highly
probable that the king in this instance displayed more wisdom than the
diplomatist.
The ancient hostelry to which reference was made in a former chapter
presented a picture of unwonted gayety on the moonlit night that had
brought so many adventures to the distraught American at the castle. The
wine that has made the Schwartzburger vineyards famous the world over has
served to give to the inhabitants of Hesse-Heilfels a vivacity that is
not generally characteristic of the German nation.
It is not too much to say, in illustration of the foregoing proposition,
that King Rudolph’s subjects were the only people in the empire who would
have become fascinated by the game of draw poker at what might be termed
“one fell swoop.” Beneath their phlegmatic exterior, the inhabitants of
Hesse-Heilfels conceal temperaments highly impressionable and excitable.
“Give me one card, Heinrich,” cried a short, fat, red-faced man, glancing
slyly at the dealer and solemnly placing his discard on the table.
“Mein Gott, that looks as if he was drawing to a flush,” exclaimed one
of the opponents, throwing away his hand and gazing ruefully at his lost
“ante.”
Grouped around the four players in a rear room on the ground floor of the
inn were ten or twelve men, varying in years from youth to old age. Their
garb was picturesque and many-hued. Green or brown caps, velveteen coats,
and low shoes combined to make their costumes pleasing to the eye of an
observer sensitive to artistic effects. The eighteenth century in costume
had met the nineteenth century at poker, and the outcome was a scene
worthy the brush of a Dutch painter.
“Bring wine,” cried one of the discouraged gamblers, who had lost
steadily for an hour or more. “This is the devil’s game! Here, you
smug-faced Wilhelm! Repeat a paternoster over my chips. It will break the
spell Satan has cast upon my luck.”
“Heinrich wins again!” murmured the group of onlookers. “It is
marvellous.”
“Ach, Heinrich,” exclaimed a large-eyed, tow-headed youth, “have you been
taking private lessons at the castle?”
A general laugh followed this sally, and the game went on. Suddenly a
rich voice arose from a corner of the room that lay concealed in shadow.
“Hush, it is Carl! Let’s hear his new song!” cried the group surrounding
the gamblers. The four players withdrew the chips they had placed in
the centre of the table and suspended their game for a while. No sound
interfered with the thrilling effect of the baritone’s clear, full tones.
I.
A king in his castle was gay one day,
And he called for his poker chips.
And he cried: “Ach Gott, for a brave jack-pot,
With the red wine at my lips.”
II.
And he played for stakes with a wight that night
Who came from the world below.
And the king at nine was touched by wine,
While the game was getting slow.
III.
“I’ll bet my soul,” cried the king, to bring
The fever he longed for back,
And a wicked smile he showed the while
As he shuffled the potent pack.
IV.
“Your soul I’ll win, but not, by Gott,
On the turn of a fickle card!”
And the devil laughed, as the wine he quaffed,
And called the king his “pard.”
V.
From nine to twelve, not long in song,
Was enough for the devil’s game;
And the king was lost, as the cards he tossed
In the face of the imp to blame.
The applause that awarded the singer’s effort was neither loud nor
enthusiastic. This open commission of the crime of _lese majesté_ in a
public inn sent a thrill of astonishment through the crowd, and with one
impulse the poker players threw down their cards and arose from the table.
“White livers!” cried the voice of the singer. “Are you afraid of
shadows?” Carl, the famous baritone, stepped forward into the centre
of the room. He was not only the best singer and the most accomplished
musician, but also the handsomest man in Hesse-Heilfels. “Gamblers,
wine-bibbers, cowards! I blush for my country when I look at you!”
Carl Eingen was the only man in Hesse-Heilfels who would have dared
to utter such words to these men, flushed as they were with wine. But
his influence over them was strong, and they gazed upon his clear-cut,
impassioned face with affection and admiration. He looked every inch a
leader as he stood there bareheaded, his dark, curly hair adding to the
beauty of his well-shaped head and pale, strong countenance.
“What have you done?” he went on sternly. “You have allowed a stranger
from across the sea to become the head and front of this ancient realm.
You sit here, playing the game he taught your king, while your country
goes to ruin and the castle upon yonder hill becomes a plague-spot that
throws a blight upon a whole people. Are you men—or simply wine-vats?
Where is the manhood that made your ancestors great in war and men of
force in peace? You have heard that in every inn, in every house in
Hesse-Heilfels our countrymen, gone mad over a foolish game of chance,
spend their days and nights playing poker. You have heard that chaos
reigns at the castle, that the kingdom is placed in peril by a ruler who
has become the tool of an adventurer, a man who has no claim upon the
king, no right to our regard. Again I ask you, are you men? Think not
that the people have no rights. The King of Hesse-Heilfels is absolute
in power, but I say to you, my friends, that he forfeits his divine
right when he gives that power to a trickster, to a man of alien blood
who loves us not. Do you weigh my words? Tell me, my countrymen, do I not
speak the truth?”
“Ja wohl, Carl!” cried one of his hearers. “You are right. We will do as
you direct, eh, my friends?”
A murmur of assent arose from the awed and penitent throng. One of the
poker players seized the cards and chips that lay upon the table and
hurled them passionately through the open window.
“Lead on, Carl,” he cried. “We’ll follow you to the death.”
“Lead on, Carl. You’ll find that we are men,” shouted another.
“Down with the Yankee!” cried a third.
“Wilhelm for king!” came from the rear of the room.
“Ja! Ja! Wilhelm, Wilhelm!” arose the cry as the crowd poured from the
hot and smoke-choked room into the cool, soft night outside, where the
light of the gentle moon threw its silvery glory upon a scene well fitted
to rouse in the hearts of men a love of fatherland.
Carl Eingen hurried to the front, and turning toward his overwrought
followers, said sternly:
“No noise! Remain as silent as the night. We cannot overthrow a dynasty
by childish chatter. The man who utters a sound is a traitor to Wilhelm,
the rightful King of Hesse-Heilfels.”
“Tell me, Carl, what is your plan?” asked one of the revolutionists,
pushing his way through the throng to the leader’s side. “You can’t
depose a king with a few half-drunken men.”
Carl Eingen gazed searchingly at the pale, drawn face of the speaker.
“Have no fear, Conrad,” he said, convinced that he addressed a man not
stirred by the fumes of wine. “The guards at the palace are on our
side. From every part of the kingdom our friends are hurrying toward
the castle. This is no midsummer night’s madness, Conrad. It is simply
a very small part of a deep-laid scheme, conducted possibly from Berlin
and approved by one who is greater than the king of Hesse-Heilfels. These
men with us I shall use for a special purpose. The brunt of this business
is borne by others, but to me has been entrusted the capture of Herr
Bennett, the Yankee. I saw that I could carry my point with our friends
here if I said the right word at the right time. Their enthusiasm,
however, is spasmodic, and their lukewarmness, their dread of the awful
punishment that might come to them, will return to them anon. But there
is inspiration in sharp work. We must give them no time to think, Conrad!
Just whisper to Heinrich that it is our purpose to capture the Yankee in
his bed. It will revive their waning spirits and act like wine upon their
blood.”
A hoarse murmur of approval again arose from the hurrying throng as they
learned the special object of their expedition. Then in absolute silence
they stole beneath the trees of the park toward the castle.
“There,” said Carl Eingen, taking Conrad by the arm and pointing to a
balcony that jutted out from one of the corner towers of the castle,
“there is where the Yankee sleeps.”
“I think I see some one moving up there,” whispered Conrad excitedly. On
the instant the figure of the dwarf, an uncanny shape seemingly begotten
of the madness of their rebellious dreams, appeared upon the stone coping
of the balcony.
“It’s Cousin Fritz,” exclaimed Conrad hoarsely. “Is he in your secret?
See how he waves his cap.”
“Back, men!” cried Carl excitedly. “Get into the shadow of the trees.
No, Conrad, that madcap dwarf is loyal to Rudolph, but he knows our
plans. In trying to win his support I fear we have allowed him to learn
too much of our design. He may be crazy, but he’s very clever. Confound
such blundering! We should have captured Cousin Fritz and locked him up
to-day. He knows every nook and corner of the castle, and is an ally
worth a thousand men with guns. But come, let us move! We’ll find friends
and counsellors across the park. Silence, there! Forward, men, and make
no noise—on the peril of your lives.”
CHAPTER VI.
Jonathan Edwards Bennett found himself in an uncomfortable predicament.
He had solemnly promised to leave the kingdom at once, and he felt that
the pledge he had given to the Princess Hilda implied an obligation upon
his part to refrain from seeing Rudolph XII. again. On the other hand,
he had no desire to risk his life in an effort to escape. That he was
surrounded by enemies he could not doubt. He recalled the silhouette
made by the conspirators against the moonlight, and it assumed a new
significance to his mind as a black menace. To leave the castle at this
moment would be to face mysterious perils that he had no wish to confront.
If he obeyed the command in the jester’s note he saw before him two
unpleasant possibilities. If Cousin Fritz played him false, he might walk
straight into the enemy’s trap. If, on the other hand, the king really
awaited his coming, his recognition of the summons might look to Princess
Hilda like treachery to her and disloyalty to his pledged word.
Bennett musingly approached a window and looked forth upon a scene that
would have thrilled him, at a happier moment, with its calm beauty. The
moon, now high in the heavens, smiled benignly upon a sleeping world. A
gentle breeze whispered midnight gossip to the nodding tree-tops. Man
and his restless passions seemed out of place in such surroundings. But
suddenly upon Bennett’s astonished sight broke a vision that drove from
his mind all idea of nature’s benignity and concentrated his thought upon
the diabolical activity of man.
As if by magic, the castle seemed to be surrounded by dark forms moving
hither and thither with a certain military precision. They appeared
to come from the forest and to obey the will of some leader who had
carefully matured his plans. Bennett opened the casement and leaned
forward. He could hear the distant words of command and the subdued tramp
of marching men. That he was wide awake he knew, but the inexplicable
scene before him caused him for an instant to question his own sanity.
“Ha, you doubt my word?” whispered a rasping voice at the American’s
elbow. “You imperil precious lives because, forsooth, you will not look
upon the jester as a friend. Herr Bennett, let me tell you you are madder
than your servant, Cousin Fritz.”
The dwarf chuckled with raucous merriment at his grim joke. Then he
seized Bennett’s arm and drew him away from the window.
“There is no time to lose,” whispered the dwarf excitedly. “The king will
not listen to reason. He refuses to admit that his crown, his castle, his
very life are in peril at this hour. Come with me and tell him what you
saw from yonder window. Then throw him a hand at poker for life or death,
eh? We must be gay, Herr Bennett, even though Brother Wilhelm has placed
his hand upon our sceptre and would hurl us from the throne. We must be
gay, nicht wahr?”
In another moment Bennett and his madcap guide were hastening toward King
Rudolph’s audience chamber.
“The Princess Hilda, and two or three of the king’s most loyal gentlemen
you will find here,” said the dwarf, as they approached the king’s
apartments. “I want you to persuade my Cousin Rudolph that he is backing
a bobtailed flush against a full house. Isn’t that correct, Herr Bennett?
A bobtailed flush against a full house?”
“But what is your plan,” asked Bennett feverishly. “Is this really an
armed effort to dethrone the king?”
“It is indeed—an effort armed to the teeth. You and I, Herr Bennett, are
the only loyal subjects left at this moment to Rudolph XII., one hour
ago king of Hesse-Heilfels. I have been looking for an outbreak for some
years back. I am used to them, Herr Bennett. During the thousand years
I have passed as the real ruler of Hesse-Heilfels, I have seen many
uprisings of the people, and I have learned to detect the preliminary
symptoms. Wilhelm has played his cards well. He has waited until the time
was ripe. Now he ‘calls,’ and Rudolph holds no hand.”
“And you, Cousin Fritz?” asked Bennett, marvelling at the strange
creature at his side.
“And I? I remain true to Rudolph. I can afford to, Herr Bennett. Am I
not, after all, the eternal king of Hesse-Heilfels? I was king before
the Schwartzburgers came, and I shall reign when they are gone. I lose
nothing by clinging to Rudolph’s falling state. And he has always been
kind to Cousin Fritz! But let us hurry on, Herr Bennett. Every moment is
now of value, if we would persuade the king that he must take to flight.”
Bennett stumbled forward through the dark corridor, clinging to the
dwarf’s arm and wondering vaguely if the night’s adventures would never
come to an end. It seemed to the American as if he had crowded into
the space of a few brief hours an experience stolen in some mysterious
way from a year in the life of a mediæval knight-errant. “We live by
thoughts, not years; by heart-throbs, not in figures on a dial,” he
murmured to himself as they reached the outer doors of the king’s
audience chamber.
A striking tableau met their eyes as they passed from the gloom of
the corridor into the lighted hall. King Rudolph, pale, dishevelled,
wild-eyed, stood in the centre of the chamber, gazing helplessly at the
two courtiers who had remained loyal to him on this night of Brother
Wilhelm’s triumph. The Princess Hilda, her face white, but calm, stood by
his side and seemed to be whispering words of comfort to the discomfited
monarch.
As Rudolph’s eyes rested upon Bennett an expression of hope crossed his
face.
“Is it true, Herr Bennett?” he cried. “Tell these men they lie. Tell them
my castle is not infested by my brother’s friends! Tell them they dream
wild dreams on a peaceful summer night. What means this wild scurrying to
and fro? Speak, Herr Bennett. You, at least have not lost your wits.”
The American strove to catch Hilda’s eye, but the princess studiously
avoided his gaze.
“Your majesty,” said Bennett solemnly, “I have seen from my windows a
sight that convinces me you stand in great peril. I cannot doubt the
evidence of my senses. This may be the end of the nineteenth century, but
there appears to be a middle-age deviltry going on to-night, and you and
I—if you will pardon my frankness—seem to be the victims.”
“You blunder there, Herr Bennett,” said the king, with a touch of dignity
that was worthy of his royal pretensions. “You are the cause—I am the
victim.”
Cousin Fritz had been dancing impatiently round the room.
“You waste time, Cousin Rudolph,” he cried recklessly. “You can’t stand
here and put down a revolution by a royal edict. You don’t hold a card in
your hand that is worth drawing to. Leave the table and the stakes to the
winners and wait for better luck.”
King Rudolph, with a gesture of despair, turned toward the dwarf.
“Treachery from friends and wisdom from the mouths of fools! It’s all
of a piece! Go on, Cousin Fritz! What do you suggest? Your advice is
as valuable to-night as that of the men who have pushed me toward this
precipice.” The king glanced pointedly at Bennett and the two loyal
courtiers who lurked in the background.
“Your only chance, Cousin Rudolph,” said the dwarf coolly, stepping
forward and bending his knee with solemn mockery before the king, “is to
follow my guidance. Your guards have proved false, and within another
ten minutes the hirelings of Wilhelm will be at yonder door. What will
happen then, who can say? A brother who would seize your crown will not
hesitate to take your life. But his lawlessness will not find favor
long with the good people of Hesse-Heilfels. To-night they follow the
lead of evil counsellors. To-morrow they will see the horror of their
deeds. To-morrow, Cousin Rudolph, you will again be king in their hearts.
To-night they serve your rival’s schemes.”
“But this is hardly to the point, Cousin Fritz,” said the king gently.
“You may speak the truth, but to-morrow has not come. We must act, and
act at once.”
“Follow me, then,” cried the dwarf, springing to his feet and seizing
the hand of Princess Hilda. “Hark! Hear that? They are coming toward us.
Quick now! There is no time to lose.”
Drawing the princess with him, Cousin Fritz disappeared behind a heavy
curtain that concealed a portrait of a famous Schwartzburger, who had
held the throne of Hesse-Heilfels nearly two centuries ago. When King
Rudolph, Bennett, and the two courtiers drew the curtain aside, the
portrait had disappeared and a black hole in the wall met their eyes. Out
of the darkness came the voice of Cousin Fritz.
“Come on! Come on! Don’t stop to draw cards. This isn’t poker. Do you
hear me? We aren’t playing jack-pots, your majesty. We’re making history.”
In another instant the curtain had fallen into place and the audience
chamber remained lonely and silent in the half lights. Suddenly an uproar
outside the heavy doors arose and into the room rushed a crowd of
white-faced, eager men.
“Gott im Himmel! where is he?” cried a hoarse voice. And behind the
curtain the Schwartzburger of other days smiled in the darkness—and
remained silent.
CHAPTER VII.
Cousin Fritz led the way through the impenetrable darkness, holding the
princess by the arm. Behind them came Bennett, guiding the king by the
sound of the dwarf’s harsh, insistent voice. Count von Reibach and Baron
Wollenstein, the loyal courtiers, stumbled along in the rear, muttering
impatiently now and again as they collided with some obstacle in their
course or lost sight in the gloom of the fugitives in front of them.
“Courage, friends,” cried Cousin Fritz, cheerfully, “we’ll find a place
of safety and comfort very soon.” He and the princess had paused to await
the approach of their companions.
“We go down these stairs,” explained their guide, as the four men grouped
themselves behind him. Scratching a match against the stone wall at his
right hand, Cousin Fritz showed them a flight of steps that seemed to
run downward into the blackness of everlasting gloom. The Princess Hilda
trembled as if with cold.
“We didn’t come here for burial, Cousin Fritz,” remarked King Rudolph
testily, leaning forward and gazing into the abyss.
“No, your majesty, you came here to escape it,” returned the dwarf
sarcastically. He struck another temporary light, and taking the hand
of the princess began to descend the steps. It required a good deal of
courage to follow this madcap guide into the bowels of the earth, but
the men behind him seemed to have no choice in the matter. For some time
past they had obeyed his orders, and at this juncture there seemed to be
no good reason for rejecting his leadership. Bennett was the only one of
the party who harbored the slightest distrust of the dwarf’s loyalty.
Circumstances had combined to prove to him that Cousin Fritz was worthy
of the trust reposed in him, but the American, suspicious by temperament
and habit, crept down the stone steps into the chill blackness with
great reluctance. He had grown very weary of the seemingly inexhaustible
resources of the old castle in the way of unpleasant surprises, and he
hesitated to place himself beyond all possibility of escape from the
antique structure.
There was one circumstance, however, that gave Bennett unalloyed
satisfaction in this hour of peril and discomfort. The social barrier
between the Princess Hilda and himself had been broken down at one blow.
They were both fugitives, and, although she might hold him responsible
for the downfall of King Rudolph, he was, nevertheless, in a position to
be of great service to her in the crises that were sure to confront them
in the near future. As he caught a glimpse of her stately figure in the
flickering gleam thrown by a match lighted by the dwarf, as they reached
the bottom of the long stairway, a sensation of ecstatic triumph thrilled
Bennett’s soul. Down here in the damp depths of this gigantic cellar
there were no kings, no princesses, no counts, no barons. They were all
adventurers. The equality begotten of misfortune had placed the American
upon a new plane, and he rejoiced at the prospect that opened before his
mind’s eye. It would go hard, indeed, if he could not prove his fealty
to the princess by a method less heroic, perhaps, but more satisfactory
than that of voluntary banishment. Nevertheless, he realized that at this
moment the princess looked upon him as a perjured and recreant knight, no
longer worthy of rank on the lists of chivalry.
“What next, Cousin Fritz?” asked King Rudolph, puffing heavily and
peering anxiously around him. “We seem to be in the wine cellar.”
“We are, your majesty,” answered the dwarf. “We are surrounded by
vintages worth a king’s ransom. Pardon me, your majesty. I didn’t mean
to be personal. But, follow me a little further, and I will fulfil my
promise regarding your safety and comfort.”
A moment later the fugitives stood in a large, damp room, in which Cousin
Fritz seemed thoroughly at home. He scurried about, lighting candles,
pushing pieces of antique furniture toward his guests and keeping up a
running fire of comment on the honor paid him by a visit from royalty.
Now and then he would drop a sarcastic remark that suggested to Bennett
the line of thought the dwarf’s mind was pursuing. Cousin Fritz, monarch
of Hesse-Heilfels for a thousand years, was proving openly at last that
he was more powerful than any temporary monarch who held the throne in
the eyes of a short-sighted world. Here in his secret apartments was the
real centre of royalty in Hesse-Heilfels. Could he not afford to let the
petty kings up above fret their lives away while he, to whom a century
was but a single day, reigned undisturbed, but all-powerful, over the
realm they thought was theirs?
“Your majesty needs repose,” said Cousin Fritz imperiously, pointing
toward an ancient divan in a distant corner of the room. “You are out of
spirits, out of breath, and out of danger. Lie down and take your rest.
We have much to do later on, and we must begin the day fresh from a
little sleep.”
King Rudolph gazed blankly at the dwarf. The deposed monarch seemed to
feel the severe physical exertion he had undergone, and his breath came
and went with painful effort. He stumbled toward the divan and stretched
himself thereon with a groan. The princess stood by the side of his rude
couch and gently rubbed the brow from which a crown had so recently
fallen. In a moment the king had dropped into a restless sleep and was
snoring with a royal indifference to the comfort of others curiously
characteristic of the Schwartzburgers.
Cousin Fritz deferentially approached the Princess Hilda, and, taking her
hand, led her to a corner of the room that lay deep in shadow. Pulling
aside a heavy, moth-eaten curtain, the dwarf pointed to an inner and
smaller room and said:
“Your apartment awaits you, princess. In the hurry of our departure I
forgot to summon one of your women to attend you. I will repair this
oversight at once, however. I hope you will forgive my carelessness.”
A sad smile played across the wan face of the princess.
“I need no assistance, Cousin Fritz,” she said gently. “Do not risk your
life for my sake. You must not return to my apartments.”
The dwarf laughed gayly. “I go and come as the humor sways me,” he said
proudly, “and no man says me nay. Sleep for a time, sweet princess, and
when you awake you will find a woman by your side. Aufwiedersehen, and
may you sleep well.”
He dropped the curtain and skipped lightly toward von Reibach and
Wollenstein, who stood in deep converse in one corner of the room,
glancing furtively now and then at Bennett, who was seated in a chair
near the centre of the apartment, moodily reviewing the startling events
of the long night.
“You will do me the honor, gentlemen,” said the dwarf cordially, but
with a note of command in his voice, “you will do me the honor of making
yourselves comfortable for a time. You will find these old couches fitted
for an early morning nap. As for me, I must return to the upper halls.”
Bennett overheard the dwarf’s final words. They reawakened his slumbering
suspicion. As the count and baron, acting upon the hint thrown out to
them by their host, prepared themselves for sleep in a shadow-haunted
alcove, he strode up to Cousin Fritz. Placing his hand upon the dwarf’s
shoulder, he said:
“You are about to return to the upper part of the castle. I go with you,
my friend.”
A mocking smile played across the unsymmetrical face of the dwarf. He
read Bennett’s mind at a glance.
“As you will, Herr Bennett. My advice to you would be to get a little
sleep while you may, but your company on an expedition that is not
without some slight peril would be a pleasure and a comfort to me. Come,
then, there is no time to lose.”
They had hardly passed from the room into the gloom of the cellar when a
thought crossed Bennett’s mind that caused him to seize the dwarf’s arm
and hold him motionless for a moment.
“These men,” he whispered, “why have they remained loyal to the king?
Count von Reibach first. Why does he cling to Rudolph’s fallen fortunes?”
Cousin Fritz chuckled silently. Then he answered in low, rasping tones:
“Von Reibach is a ruined man. He has lost his all at poker, and fears to
face his creditors.”
“And Baron Wollenstein?”
“Oh, Wollenstein,” answered the dwarf, “Wollenstein is in love with the
Princess Hilda.”
“The devil you say!” muttered Bennett profanely. Suddenly he seized the
dwarf’s hand in a grip of iron.
“Tell me, man, why do you leave us here at this time?”
Cousin Fritz uttered an exclamation of anger, and attempted to withdraw
his hand from the American’s grip.
“Gott im Himmel, Herr Bennett, why do you distrust me?” he asked
petulantly. “You’re the shortest-sighted clever man I ever knew. I’m
about to run some risk, if you must know it, in order to bring back a
waiting-woman for the princess. I made a miscalculation, and must atone
for it. Are you satisfied?”
A hot flush rose to Bennett’s cheeks, who felt ashamed of the injustice
he had done to the loyal little man at his side.
“Go then,” he exclaimed cordially, “and forgive me, Cousin Fritz, for my
impertinence. Hereafter I shall trust you fully. As for me, I think it
best that I should return to your rooms. Do you understand me?”
“I think I do, Herr Bennett,” answered the dwarf, laughing mockingly as
he disappeared in the darkness.
The American turned and groped his way toward the room he had just left.
He opened the heavy door softly. The candles in the grim apartment were
still lighted, but heavy shadows danced blackly here and there as the
flames wavered in the draught. Bennett glanced around the apartment
apprehensively. Suddenly from a distant corner two figures made toward
him hurriedly. He realized instinctively that the count and baron had
been plotting his destruction.
Closing the door behind him he leaned against it, and drawing his
revolver from his hip pocket held the weapon in front of him. The
flickering candle-light was reflected by the gleaming steel.
“Hold hard, my friends,” said Bennett coolly, “a step farther in my
direction means a bullet for the man who makes it.”
CHAPTER VIII.
Bennett’s face was pale but smiling as he witnessed the dismay of his
baffled foes. That his possession of a pistol at this crisis had saved
his life he had not the slightest doubt. The count hated him because he
had introduced poker into the kingdom; the baron, with the jealous eyes
of a lover, saw in the American a possible rival for the favor of the
princess. Furthermore, the courtiers realized, doubtless, that if they
were captured in the company of the American their chance of winning
pardon from Wilhelm, the successful usurper, would be slight.
All this passed through Bennett’s mind as he leaned against the great
door and pointed his weapon first at the count and then at the baron,
taking a mischievous pleasure in their not unnatural disquietude. Hardly
a sound broke the stillness. A rat gnawed noisily somewhere in the
woodwork. The asthmatic breathing of the deposed king could be heard,
irregular and ominous.
Suddenly a swishing of skirts startled Bennett and his foiled assailants,
and the Princess Hilda, white and anxious, stood between them. The
American returned his revolver to his pocket and folded his arms silently.
“What does this mean?” asked the Princess sternly, turning from one to
another of the trio. “Is it not enough that we are driven like rats into
a hole? Why should you quarrel? Herr Bennett, why have you threatened
the lives of these men? Are they not unarmed? And you stand there, like
a highwayman, pointing a pistol at their heads. Speak, sir! Have you
nothing to say?”
Bennett’s face, flushed at first, had grown white and drawn.
“I have nothing to say, your royal highness,” he answered in a low voice.