THE HONOR OF A LADY-IN-WAITING.
Dick recalled now his collision with the fallen body of Mesmer, and the
general tumble that had ensued in the tower, and he remembered having
noticed previously the bright color of the Count's cloak. "Doubtless the
Count got mine or some one's else, in the scramble, and so no one is
robbed," thought Dick.
He foresaw that he would be speedily pursued towards Melsungen. He had
not lived in the wilderness of Pennsylvania to be at a disadvantage in
the neighborhood of a German forest, nor had he learned the ways of the
American Indians for nothing. So he very soon rode into the woods at the
left, and, having penetrated to some distance from the road,
deliberately turned northward towards the ruined tower, deeming that to
be the safest place for him to hide while considering the situation. The
captured conspirators once removed from it, the tower would have been
left unguarded, and yet no one would suppose that he would return at
once to a place where he had recently stood in such great danger.
Riding on through the forest, he reached an eminence, from which the
descent on the northeastern side was abrupt and steep. Here, over the
tops of trees that were rooted where the precipice began to be less
steep, he got a view of the country lying east and north, small parts of
which country were clear of woods. Through one of these open spaces,
directly east, a procession of troops, some mounted, some on foot, was
moving towards the southeast. Dick's heart fell at the sight, although
he could have expected nothing better. It was the march of his captured
comrades, under an escort of remounted horse-guards and of a company of
foot, to the prison-fortress of Spangenberg. He counted the prisoners,
whom he could easily distinguish from their guards. All who had met in
the tower that afternoon were there but himself. So Gerard must be among
them. How, Dick asked himself, could their plot have been discovered?
And now he looked northward, towards the tower, which the prisoners must
have left about two hours before. He could make out its dark, round,
stone top in the midst of the thick copse. While he was gazing at it, he
saw two figures on horseback emerge from the copse and proceed across a
clear space towards that part of the forest where the hunt had been in
progress. One figure, stout and erect, Dick instantly knew to be the
Landgrave's; the other, so completely cloaked as to be unrecognizable by
any lines of shape, was that of a woman. The two soon entered the
farther woods by a narrow bridle-path, and were lost to view.
"An assignation," thought Dick. "No sooner does the Landgrave clear the
tower of conspirators than he uses it for a purpose of his own. To-day's
hunt is remarkable for the number of people who have slipped away from
it."
He now pressed on to the tower. At some rods from it, he dismounted and
tied his horse. He then advanced cautiously, to make sure that the place
was deserted. Suddenly he stopped, at sound of a furious gallop on the
road from Cassel to Melsungen. While he listened, the horse's footfalls
came to an abrupt stop. After a few minutes of silence, there arose the
sound of some one treading crisp leaves, and forcing a way through
underbrush. Dick grasped his sword and waited, knowing he would have to
face but one person,--for the galloping had been of a solitary horse.
The newcomer soon appeared on foot, among the trees. It was Captain von
Romberg, in great excitement and alarm.
"You are still here!" he gasped, seizing Dick's hand. "Thank God, I am
in time!"
"In time for what?" asked Dick.
"In time to save you and our comrades. Come, the others are in the
tower, are they not?"
"The others are on their way, under a guard, to Spangenberg."
"My God! Then I am too late! I thought I might give a half-hour's
warning! We have been betrayed!"
"So it is evident. What do you know of it? Come, my dear Count, sit here
on this log, and tell me."
The two sat down together at one side of the doorway, outside the tower.
"I got word from--a certain lady," began Von Romberg, in a half
breathless, heart-broken voice, "to come to her at once, as she was
suddenly at the point of death. This was a short time before I was to
have started for the meeting this afternoon. When I entered her room I
found her perfectly well, but in great trepidation. She said I must not
leave her house till night. When I insisted on going, now that I had
found she was not ill, she broke down, and told me everything. You must
know she is the--she is on close terms with the secretary of
Rothenstein, minister of police. Through this secretary she had learned
that we have all been terribly tricked. Our conspiracy was instigated
with the Landgrave's own authority! It was an idea of old Rothenstein's,
and the villain who carried it out was Mesmer!"
"But,--I don't understand. Why should the Landgrave authorize a
conspiracy against himself?"
"In order to have a reason, in the eyes of his subjects and of other
powers, for removing certain objectionable persons from his way. You are
an Englishman, St. Valier a Frenchman. Without a good pretext he would
not dare have you two imprisoned, lest your governments might call him
to account. Moreover, if he took any arbitrary step against yourself,
the people might think he was secretly angry at you for having saved the
Landgravine's life. And then, this woman told me, there is a lady whose
hatred the Landgrave does not wish to incur, and he would incur it by
causing your destruction; but now it will appear that you have brought
destruction on yourself by plotting high treason."
"What a diabolical scheme!"
"You see, my dear Wetheral, we, who have supposed ourselves to be
conspirators, are the ones who have really been conspired against. All
was perfectly arranged. Even the choice of officers by lot was so
managed by Mesmer, who conducted the drawing, that you and St. Valier
were designated."
"The base-hearted Landgrave would remove both her protectors! But what
proof will there be against us, beyond Mesmer's testimony? And will not
Mesmer's testimony betray the Landgrave's whole design?"
"Mesmer will give no testimony. They have proof sufficient, of the kind
they desire. This very afternoon they found the signed compact in your
room; they knew from Mesmer exactly where it was hidden. Mesmer will not
even appear among the accused. It was part of the plan that he should be
allowed to escape, and to stay out of the country till the others were
disposed of. To that escape and absence, the rest of us would attribute
his not being punished with us,--and not to his having sold us to the
Landgrave. Thus the world was to be kept from knowing the despicable
part this wretch had played. And now mark how little these villains
trust one another. Fearful, I suppose, lest the Landgrave would after
all let him suffer, in order to make sure of his silence, Mesmer
stipulated that he should be allowed to escape at the moment of arrest.
Mesmer once inside a prison, he doubtless thought, the Landgrave might
consider a dungeon--or a grave--the safest place for a man who possessed
the secret of so detestable a transaction. And, to keep his treachery
the more hidden, he provided that the arrest and his apparent escape
should be entrusted to an officer not acquainted with him."
"But how then could the officer know which man was to escape?"
"Mesmer was to be distinguished by a cloak of a particular color," said
Romberg.
"The devil!" cried Dick, smiling despite all circumstances. "And the
cloak happened to be on me at the time of the escape."
"Listen!" said Romberg, abruptly. "Some one is coming."
The sounds of an approach were indeed heard from the side towards the
depths of the forest. The two gentlemen rose, and grasped their swords.
A moment later a man stepped into view, whom they both recognized by
sight. He was a French valet of the Landgrave's.
"Pardon, messieurs!" he exclaimed, after a start of fright at so
suddenly coming upon the two threatening-looking gentlemen. "I have come
here merely to look for a riding-whip dropped by Mademoiselle de St.
Valier a short time ago." And he stepped into the tower, where he began
to search with his feet the paving, which was in comparative darkness.
For a moment Dick's heart was stilled. The blood left his cheeks; power
left his voice. He followed the valet in. "Do you mean to say that
Mademoiselle de St. Valier was here in this tower a short while ago?" he
asked, in a forced voice, when he could speak at all. He remembered the
cloaked lady riding from the copse with the Landgrave.
"Yes, monsieur," replied the lackey, adding in a significant tone, "and
in very excellent company. Ah, here is the whip, and very far back in
the tower, too."
"You rascal!" cried Dick, his energy returning with vehemence, and
seized the valet by arm and neck. "Do you dare say that Mademoiselle de
St. Valier was in this tower alone with the Landgrave? Come into the
light, you miserable cur, that I may see the lie on your villainous
face!" And Dick dragged the fellow from the tower.
"Let me go, monsieur!" whimpered the lackey, wriggling in terror. "_Mon
Dieu_, is it the fault of a poor servant if a lady-in-waiting allows
herself to be seduced by the Landgrave? Don't make an honest man pay for
the sins of a prince's harlot!"
"My God, Romberg, do you hear that?" cried Dick, throwing the valet to
the ground. "And do you _see_ that?" he added, picking up the whip, of
which he now recognized the curiously formed handle, though his last
sight of it had been on that New Jersey road where, three years and a
half ago, he had volunteered to recover her stolen miniature.
Von Romberg, who had begun to understand the situation in a general way,
shook his head sadly, and said, with quiet tenderness, "We must not
expect too much of the sex, my friend."
Dick sank down on the log, dropping the whip, and began to weep like a
child. The wild suspicion had seized him that Catherine might have
favored the prospective marriage to himself either as a cloak for a
liaison with the Landgrave or as a refuge on the possible termination of
such liaison. The valet, making no attempt to recover the whip, now used
his opportunity to rise and dash off through the woods.
Suddenly Dick started up, and faced his kindly, pitying friend.
"I will find out!" he cried. "The thing is too damnable for belief. I'll
not hold a woman guilty till I've seen with my own eyes, or heard from
her own lips. I will go to her as fast as my horse can carry me!"
"But," said Romberg, in great alarm, grasping him with strong arms
around the body, "is she in Cassel?"
"She is in the palace. Don't delay me, Romberg, for God's sake!"
"But they will arrest you. You are guilty of high treason, man. They are
doubtless searching for you now. It is madness and suicide to go to the
palace. My friend, would you throw yourself into the Landgrave's hands?"
For Dick, exerting all his strength, was violently getting the better of
Romberg's hindering embrace.
"I would learn the truth!" he cried. "If that lackey lied, I shall
either escape again or be content to die. I would rather die and know
her pure, than live forever and doubt her honor." And, hurling Romberg
away from him, he was free.
"And what if you find the story true?" called Romberg after him, in a
voice of sympathetic dismay.
"I will kill the Landgrave!" cried Dick, and bounded through the bushes,
towards his horse.
* * * * *
Late that night Catherine de St. Valier sat in her apartment in the
palace, accompanied only by one of the inferior attendants, a girl named
Gretel, who was devoted to her. At one side of the chamber a pair of
curtains concealed the alcove in which the bed was. At the other side
was a door communicating with a corridor. The chamber window overlooked,
at some height, an open space--a kind of small park--at the rear of the
palace. Outside the window was a little balcony, and not far away was
one of a few tall trees that grew in the small park. On a dressing-table
was a candelabrum, with but one of its branches lighted, so that the
interior of the room was dim to the sight. The night had recently
clouded over, and only at intervals could the moon be seen through the
dark window.
Catherine sat on a small couch, her face as pale as death, gazing at the
opposite wall with wide-open eyes, in which grief and horror had given
way to a kind of trance-like stupor. Now and then she would give a
slight start, and a tremor would pass through her body, which was
attired in a loose white gown lightly confined at the waist. At such
moments she would turn her eyes furtively towards the door leading from
the corridor. Near this door sat the maid, Gretel, silently watching
with pitying eyes the half dead lady-in-waiting.
Suddenly the window, which was made of two casements running each from
top to bottom, was flung rudely open, and in from the balcony stepped a
man, who immediately stood still and looked around until his eyes fell
on Catherine.
She rose quickly to her feet, and, with bowed head, said, in a low and
lifeless voice:
"You find me waiting, your highness."
"Highness!" echoed the intruder. "Then you did expect him. It is true.
My God!"
She gazed at him like a woman struck dumb with astonishment, then
staggered to the dressing-table, took up the candle, and moved swiftly
towards him, holding the light so as to illumine his face.
"It is his spirit," she whispered, having made sure that the features
were those of Wetheral. The girl, Gretel, now gently took the light from
Catherine's hand, lest Catherine might, in her half swooning condition,
drop it, and replaced it on the dressing-table.
"It is no spirit, mademoiselle," said Dick, in a broken voice, "but a
living man who might better be dead, for his last hope is killed, his
faith crushed, his heart torn with misery! Oh, my God, my God! Oh,
Catherine, Catherine!" And he fell prostrate on the couch, hiding his
weeping eyes upon his arm, and yielding his body to be shaken by sobs.
Catherine stood looking at him, while her bewildered ideas approached a
definite shape. But, before she could speak, he sprang to his feet, his
grief having been succeeded by a wave of fierce and bitter reproach.
"So I was right when I called you faithless before the whole assembly
that night!" he cried. "So you have fooled me from the first! Oh, was
there ever such cunning? How I have been deceived by your guileless air,
your innocent face, the truthful look of your eyes! Great God, is
anything to be trusted in this world, when a woman who seems so pure and
noble proves to be not only the harlot of a prince but the lying
betrayer of an honest man, who loves her with all his soul? Why have you
nothing to say?" he demanded, with a fresh access of rage. "Haven't you
the grace to defend yourself? Oh, for God's sake, deceive me again! Lie
to me, and I will believe you. Let me have any reason, even the
smallest, to delude myself with the fancy that you are still mine. Deny
these accusations! Deny that you expected the Landgrave here to-night."
"I cannot deny what is true," she said, quietly and sadly.
"Oh, you admit it!" he cried, wounded and enraged beyond all control.
"You brazen Jezebel, I will kill you!" He grasped her by the neck, and,
as she yielded instantly to his movement, forced her to her knees. As he
made to clutch her throat she threw back her head, disclosing the white
and delicate skin on which he formerly would not have inflicted the
tiniest scratch for the world. "Oh, I cannot," he sobbed, pressing his
lips against the tender throat, and breaking down completely. "Oh,
Catherine, Catherine!" He raised her, and stood with his arms enfolding
her. But, after a moment, he released her and stepped back, saying,
plaintively, "To think that you are not mine to embrace! To think that
you are the Landgrave's!"
"The Landgrave's!" she echoed. "No, not yet the Landgrave's, for you are
not dead, and I am still a living woman."
"What do you mean?" asked Dick, startled into a kind of wild hope.
"He told me you were dead,--that you had been shot while trying to
escape--"
"Who told you, Catherine? What do you mean? Tell me, quickly." He took
her hand, and made her sit beside him on the couch.
"The Landgrave told me,--and Von Rothenstein, and others who were
there. You see, I was at the hunt, with the Landgravine. We all heard of
the terrible conspiracy, and of the arrests; and, while we were talking
about it in the forest, the prisoners were taken by, where we could see
them all,--the conspirators, arrested for high treason. And one of them
was Gerard, my brother Gerard."
"And the whole court saw them led past?"
"Yes, with Gerard, my dear brother. When I was told that these men were
going to prison and would surely be put to death--oh, it was terrible to
think of,--my brother, little Gerard, as we used to call him, my mother
and I. _Mon Dieu_, I would give my life to save him, and so I rode in
search of the Landgrave, to beg that he would save Gerard. Some of the
officers told me where to find him,--in the tower where the conspirators
had been caught. I went there, and begged him on my knees for Gerard's
life. He sent away the Count von Rothenstein and the others who were
there, and listened to me. At last he said there was a way in which I
might save Gerard, though my brother was one of the officers of the band
and deserved death even more than the others did. I said I would give my
life to save Gerard's,--for I knew that you, my love, would not blame me
for that. But the Landgrave said it was not my life he wished, it was--"
"I understand!"
"I would not consent to that, even to save my brother. When the
Landgrave became more urgent, and began to speak of my duty as a sister,
I said that what he asked was not mine to give, that I was pledged to
another. And then he told me you were dead, that you had been shot while
trying to escape when the conspirators were captured. For a time I could
not speak. He called back the minister of police and the others, and
asked them to assure me that you had been killed. When I could no longer
doubt, something seemed to have died within me. I felt that I was no
longer a living woman, that my life had gone out at the news that you
were dead."
"My poor beloved!"
"Then the Landgrave sent away the others, and spoke again of Gerard,
saying that one of whose treason there was so much proof would certainly
be condemned, and that only an arbitrary order of the sovereign could
cause him to be released. The thought came to me that it was no longer a
living woman that the Landgrave demanded for my brother's life, that I
was no more Catherine de St. Valier, and that if I should consent to
save Gerard it would be giving the Landgrave not myself but a soulless
corpse. Oh, do you not understand?"
"Yes, yes, _I_ understand. _I_ can imagine all you felt!"
"It was agreed that a messenger of the Landgrave should go with Antoine
to Spangenberg, with everything necessary for Gerard's release and his
flight to France. The Landgrave was not to present himself before me
until he could bring proofs, with Antoine as an eye-witness, of Gerard's
departure from Spangenberg. I was waiting for him when you came in by
the window. So distracted I was, that, for the moment, I supposed the
Landgrave had taken that way of entrance for the sake of greater
secrecy."
"It was I, who, for the sake of secrecy, chose that way," said Dick. "I
was shot at in escaping from the tower, but they were not my countrymen
behind the muskets! I went back to the tower, and saw the Landgrave
riding away, alone with a lady. While I was at the tower, a lackey came
to seek the lady's riding-whip. When he said the lady was you, and when
I saw it was your whip he found, I was mad with jealousy and doubt,
grief and fear, and I should have died had I not come to find out the
truth. A friend, who had tried to hold me back, followed and overtook me
outside the city, persuaded me to enter Cassel with caution, and offered
me his aid. We left our horses in the woods outside the city, obtained a
boat from a peasant, rowed down the Fulda after dark, and thus got into
Cassel without crossing the bridge or meeting the guard. Romberg waited
at the river while I hastened to the palace. I had learned from Gerard
which was your window,--and, thank God, one can approach it without
passing near the guards at the palace doors. I climbed yonder tree--as I
have climbed many a tree in America--and swung by a branch to the
balcony." He had risen to point out the tree, and she had followed him.
"Thank God you came in time,--that I knew before it was too late!" she
said, turning her eyes up to his with a grave and tender gaze.
"Thank God you still are mine!" he replied, clasping her again in his
arms, and pressing a kiss upon her lips.
There came a cautious knock on the door. Catherine gave a start.
"The Landgrave," she whispered, "coming to the appointment!"
She gazed up at Dick, in questioning silence. Gretel, who evidently
understood the situation, cast an inquiring look at Catherine, and stood
as, if awaiting orders. No one in the room moved.
The knock was repeated. Dick had now made up his mind. "He brings proof
of Gerard's safety?" he whispered, interrogatively.
"Yes, or he would not be here," replied Catherine, under her breath.
Dick motioned Gretel to come close to him. "Open the door, in a moment,"
he said to the girl, "but do it in a fumbling way, so as to delay him
as long as possible." Dick then led Catherine quickly into the alcove,
the curtains closing behind them.
There was a third knock, a little louder and more insistent. But Gretel
could now be heard at the door, which she first locked and then
unlocked, in order to carry out Dick's instructions. When she finally
opened it, the Landgrave stepped swiftly in, retaining the noiseless
tread he had used in the corridor. His triumphant, expectant face, when
he saw only Gretel in the room, took on a look of sharp disappointment.
"The devil!" he said, in a kind of quick growl. "No one here?"
The maid, not knowing what to say, pretended to be absorbed in fastening
the door, which she had promptly closed.
Noticing the curtained alcove, the Landgrave started towards it; but he
had not crossed the room when Catherine appeared, instantly letting the
curtains fall to behind her.
"At last, mademoiselle," said the Landgrave, joyfully, putting forth his
hand to grasp her own.
But she stood back aloof, and said, "The proofs of my brother's release,
your highness?"
His highness received this temporary rebuff with resignation. "Be sure,
I have brought them," he said. "Have the maid call your man-servant, who
is in the corridor, arrived this minute from Spangenberg."
[Illustration: "FREDERICK II. RECOILED A STEP OR TWO."]
Gretel opened the door and called softly, "Antoine!" Immediately the
old servant entered, bowing with a grave deference that was full of
dignity. He wore riding-boots, and carried in one hand his hat and whip,
in the other a folded piece of paper, which he now held out to
Catherine. She took it to the candle-light, and read the few lines
hastily scribbled in pencil. It was a message from Gerard, and told of
his release.
"You saw him safe out of the prison?" she then asked Antoine.
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"On a good horse, and provided with money?" she continued, quoting from
the letter.
"Yes, mademoiselle, with my own eyes; and well out of the town, with a
passport to assure his not being stopped anywhere on the road."
"Then wait in the corridor, Antoine. Will you, too, Gretel, wait there?"
The Landgrave looked surprised at these orders, but, before he could put
his disapprobation into more than a frown, the two servants had left the
room. Catherine stepped at once to the door, locked it, withdrew the
key, and started towards the alcove. The Landgrave's frown gave way to a
smile of eager gratification, and he made to grasp her in his arms as
she passed him. But she eluded his embrace, and ran towards the alcove.
With a look of amused enlightenment, as if he thought her flight a mere
trick of coquetry, he ran after her; but his arms, again extended in the
hope of clasping her, closed on nothing as the curtains fell behind her.
His highness laughed, and, pressing forward, opened the curtains to
follow her.
And, instead of the woman he had thought himself about to possess, he
saw, standing where the curtains met, that woman's lover, the man he had
tried to destroy, the man he had reported dead, the man for whom his
soldiers were even now scouring the roads in the vicinity of his
capital.
The look on that man's face added nothing to the Landgrave's pleasure at
the unexpected meeting.
Frederick II. recoiled a step or two, and stood for a moment as if
petrified, his jaw moving spasmodically without producing any speech.
Dick stepped out from between the curtains, keeping his eyes fixed on
the Landgrave's. Catherine now stood looking forth from the alcove,
affrightedly watching for what terrible thing might next occur.
The Landgrave recovered himself, and made for the door.
"You forget it is locked," said Dick. "It is true, you might call for
help, but if you did I should kill you. Do not look incredulous. I know
that ordinarily you are a sovereign prince, with a people and an army
behind you, and that I am a hunted man, the least powerful in your
dominion. But at this moment we are on fairer terms, with just what
powers nature gave us, except that I have a sword and you have not. So
now it is the weaker man that is my subject, the stronger man that is
your prince!"
The Landgrave looked at the door, Dick's sword, then at Catherine.
"Treachery!" he said, in a voice deprived of strength by his feelings.
"For this I freed your brother, mademoiselle, trusting you implicitly.
It seems one needs more assurance than the honor of a lady-in-waiting!"
"Your highness may recall," said Dick, "that her promise was made on
your assurance that a certain person was dead. Did that lie, and the
plot by which her brother was tricked into his peril, comport with the
honor of a sovereign prince? But this is wasting time and talk.
Mademoiselle de St. Valier and I intend to leave this palace unhindered
and unpursued. It rests with you as to the state in which you shall be
left behind."
The Landgrave looked bewildered. It seemed incredible that a ruling
prince should be so helplessly placed, in his own palace, but a second
glance assured him that this was no dream,--that the locked door, the
sword in Dick's hand, and the expression on Dick's face, were very
actual facts.
"Mademoiselle de St. Valier shall never go," his highness said at last.
"As for you, I will let you pass out free. I cannot forget the service
you rendered the Landgravine."
Dick gave a short laugh of derision. "Can I not get it through your
thick skull," he said, "that I am the one in position to offer terms?
You sovereign princes of Germany, we are told, have absolute power, but
you seem to be very stupid. In my country, we are quicker to grasp a
situation. It is a country, too, that has recently declared all men to
be, in their rights, created equal. So you see that, to me, the blood of
a prince is no more sacred than another man's!"
At this moment there came from the door one of those creaking or
straining sounds that seem to occur unaccountably.
The Landgrave gave a start of elation, as if this sound betokened an
interruption. But Dick instantly flashed his sword before the
Landgrave's eyes, and said:
"If any one breaks in while I am here, he will find something stretched
on the floor, and to-morrow the people will cry 'Long live the
Landgrave!' for your son. You see that each moment we lose is as
dangerous to you as to me, because it brings the possibility of
interruption."
The noise at the door proved to signify nothing; whereupon the
Landgrave, who had given a shudder at Dick's picture of the possible
morrow, now showed as much relief as he had first shown pleasure.
"Then what do you request?" asked the Landgrave, trying to conceal, by
his best pretence of dignity, his inward rage and chagrin.
"I request nothing," said Dick. "I demand nothing. I merely offer to
leave without harming you, on condition that you will not give any alarm
of our departure, or orders for our pursuit."
"Very well, I agree," said the Landgrave, with a readiness that made
Dick laugh again.
"Of course you do, for you think you can break the condition, and have
us stopped by your guards before we are out of the city, or even out of
the palace. I must provide against that."
"I give you my word of honor, neither to leave this room nor to make any
alarm, till daybreak."
"It seems, one needs better assurance than the honor of a sovereign
prince," said Dick, imitating the Landgrave's own words with a slight
alteration. He then took from his pocket a phial given him at the
riverside by Romberg, who had provided himself, on hearing of the trick
played on the conspirators, with means of self-destruction in case of
capture. Dick quickly took up a pitcher of water from the table, poured
some of it into a glass, uncorked the phial with his teeth, and dropped
a small portion of the liquid into the water. Meanwhile, Catherine,
foreseeing Dick's plans, put on a hooded cloak, and gathered up her
purse and what small things of value she desired to retain.
"Drink this," said Dick to the Landgrave, from whom he had not for an
instant taken his eyes.
"What do you mean?" said the Landgrave, turning pale.
"To make it easier for you to keep your princely word, your highness!
Don't be afraid. It takes more than this quantity to kill a man. What is
here will merely enable you to pass the few hours till daybreak in
sleep. It would be a pity so great a prince should suffer from insomnia
or ennui during that length of time! Drink, man! I am becoming a little
bored with this place, myself."
An impatient movement of the sword--which weapon Dick had so managed as
to check every one of his highness's numerous impulses to rush upon
him--ended Frederick's hesitation. He petulantly drank the contents of
the glass, and handed it back to Dick, who motioned him to put it on the
table and to go to the couch.
"Call Antoine," said Dick to Catherine, following the Landgrave close to
the couch on which the latter dropped.
Noiselessly Catherine unlocked the door and let in the two servants.
Gretel, as soon as she saw what was up, begged to be taken along, and
found a cloak for herself in the room. Antoine, at Dick's whispered
direction, took coverings from the bed in the alcove, and knotted them
together so as to form a means of descent from the balcony. Meanwhile,
Catherine had relocked the door and possessed herself of the phial,
which Dick had placed on the table.
"Come," said Dick, taking Catherine's hand and leading the way towards
the open window, when at last the Landgrave slept. "Put out the light,
Antoine, and let us hasten. In a few hours, that old snoring rascal will
be a prince again!"