"AS YOUR HIGHNESS WILL"
The perplexing difficulty of my position was extreme. The eyes of both
men were fixed on me, noting every expression that crossed my face,
waiting upon my lightest word, and eager to show their allegiance to me
as the new head of the house.
A career of magnificent promise lay invitingly at my very feet, and I
had but to utter a word to step into a position of power and influence.
Moreover, every chivalrous instinct of my nature was stirred with a
desire to save the beautiful girl I had seen from the clutch of the man
threatening her with worse than ruin; while my red-hot desire for
revenge on the man himself was prompting me to stay where I was until at
least I could expose and punish him.
His sin against me had been the one absolutely unforgivable. He had
married my sister; and too late we had discovered that at the time he
was already married. The blow and the shame had killed her and broken my
mother's heart; and over my sister's coffin I had sworn to have his life
for hers. But he had fled, and no efforts of mine had been able to find
him up to the hour of my own supposed death. And now here he was
delivered into my hands, and actually in the very act of repeating his
foul offence. Fate had surely brought us together in this dramatic
fashion. I could not disclose my identity to him; but I could be the
agent to detect this new sin, and could thus myself punish him for the
old.
With my pulses throbbing with this fire, was it likely that I could make
an instant decision in accordance with the dictates of mere surface
conventionality? I held back from the decision, and even then might have
persisted in avowing the truth, when the man himself came ruffling into
the room. His strong, dark, coarse features wore an expression of
bullying assertiveness; his manner was that of the lord of the place
toward an interloper; and he spoke to me in the hectoring tone of a
master toward an inferior servant. The personal contact with him, the
sound of his voice, the insolent look of his heavy eyes, and my old hate
of him were like so many knots on a whiplash goading me to fury.
"I heard you had come, but I suppose you know your errand is a fruitless
one."
Had I been the most contemptible lickspittle on the meanest and
greediest quest, his expression could not have been worse. I saw the
other two men exchange a rapid glance.
"What do you deem my errand?" I asked quietly.
"Oh, that's plain enough," he answered, with a sneer. "You've come after
what you can get. The Prince probably sent you by these agents of
his"--with a contemptuous sweep of the hand toward them--"some wonderful
account of the good things in store for you here, and very naturally you
came to gather them. But the Prince's death has knocked the bottom out
of that barrel," and he laughed very coarsely. "There's nothing here for
you except an empty title, and a beggarly old castle mortgaged from the
bottom of the old moat to the tip-top of the flagstaff. That and a mess
of very hazardous intrigue is all you can hope for here."
This speech, coarse and contemptible as it was under such circumstances,
was not to be compared with the ineffable brutality of the manner which
marked its delivery. I was astounded that any man could so behave; but I
saw his motive instinctively.
He had heard little of me except as a meek-spirited student, likely to
shy at any danger, and his object was to frighten me away.
"And who are you, then?" I asked. "These gentlemen have told me nothing
of the position of matters here."
"Then the sooner you know something the better. Have the goodness to
leave us, Captain von Krugen."
The latter started, as I thought angrily, at the sharp imperious tone in
which he was addressed, and glanced at me in some hesitation.
"Do you hear me, sir?" exclaimed von Nauheim, still more sharply; and
then, getting no sign from me, the two men left the room. "That fellow
gets more presuming every day. The Prince made far too much of him; but
I'll soon have a change. So you don't know the position of things here,
eh, Mr. Student? Do you set much store on your life?" And he eyed me
very sharply, expecting to see me wince.
I did not disappoint him. I started and, in a tone of some alarm, asked:
"Why? There is no danger of that sort here, is there?"
"Do you know how your late cousin, Gustav, lost his?"
"What do you mean?"
"Ah, I thought the question would surprise you. I'm not going to tell
you everything, because these matters are for men of action, and not
bookworms. He died in a duel, forced on him for the sole reason that he
was the Prince's next heir."
"Oh, but that cannot be possible," I cried, as if incredulous.
"Possible," he echoed, with a laugh. "Can you fight? I mean, do you
think you can stand before the finest swordsmen or the picked shots in
all Bavaria?"
"I don't see the necessity."
"Perhaps not--just yet," he returned dryly. "Poor Gustav didn't--but the
time came none the less. The man who puts on the mantle of the dead
Prince upstairs must look to find little in the pockets except
challenges."
"But what of you? Who are you? Why do you tell me this?"
"Because I dislike attending funerals," he replied, with a grim laugh.
"Besides, I am a soldier; and it's my business to fight. You have
probably heard my name already. I'm the Count von Nauheim, and the late
Prince's daughter is my betrothed wife."
"And you mean, I suppose, that all the Prince's wealth will pass to the
daughter?"
"That is the Prince's will. And you weren't in time to get him to alter
it, you see," he sneered; but I let the sneer pass for the moment.
"Then you will be the head of the family in all but the name--the
husband of the daughter, the owner of the wealth, and the guardian of
its honor?"
"You can put a point with the clearness of a lawyer," he said.
"Have you, then, fought the man who killed the son Gustav?"
As I asked the question I kept my eyes fixed steadily on his, and all
his bluster could not hide his discomfiture.
"These are things you don't understand," he said bruskly. "There is much
behind--too much to explain to you."
"But if you say that my cousin Gustav was murdered, that you know this
to be so, that fighting is your business, and that you are the guardian
of the family's honor, why have you not called the murderer to account?"
"I tell you you don't understand these things. We don't manage matters
like a parcel of swaggering student duels."
"Apparently not," I answered in a studiously quiet tone. "Students would
say in such a case that you did not fight because--you dared not."
"You speak with a strange license, and if you are not careful you will
get yourself into trouble!" he cried furiously, trying to frighten me
with a bullying stare. "You won't find every one ready to make such
allowances for your _gaucherie_ as I am. You will have the goodness to
withdraw that suggestion."
"I will do so with pleasure the moment I know you have challenged the
man you call a murderer, or have repeated in his presence what you have
said about him to me."
His surprise at this unexpected tone of quiet insistence on my part was
almost laughable; but he tried to carry it off and bear me down with his
boisterous, bullying manner.
"You had better take heed how you presume on my forbearance toward one
in your position, or even the fact that you are nominally a member of
the family will not prevent me from giving you a pretty severe lesson."
"You mean, I suppose, that, although you dared not challenge the man who
killed Gustav, you think you might tackle me with impunity. That is not
a very high standard of courage," and I shrugged my shoulders, and
curled my lips in contempt, as I added, "If that is all the protection
the Gramberg honor can rely upon, God save the family reputation."
The sneer drove him mad, and the blood rushed to his face, until every
one of his coarse features glowed with his passion.
"With the Prince lying dead in the castle, this is not the time for such
a matter to be settled; but I will not suffer such an insult even from
you to pass unpunished. Why should you seek to force a quarrel on me at
such a time?"
"You forget the quarrel is of your making," I answered coolly. "The
moment you entered this room you insulted me by saying I had come here
for what I could get, and sneered that I was too late to induce the
Prince to alter the will leaving his property to his daughter. In my
view that will is perfectly just and right. Then for some object, I know
not what as yet, you tried to frighten me into running away from the
place altogether. You have mistaken your man, sir. I have no hankering
for the late Prince's wealth; but what you have said of yourself is more
than enough to prove that the honor of my family is not in safe keeping
when left in your hands. As there is nothing but that honor, I will
accept that part of the inheritance."
Rage, hate, threats, and baffled malice were in the look he turned on me
at this.
"You wish to make me your enemy?"
"At least I have no wish to make you my friend," I retorted.
"You will live to repent this bitterly!" he cried, with an oath. "We
will have no meddlers here in the path of our purpose," and, still more
enraged by the smile which the threat evoked from me, he went hurriedly
out of the room.
Truly my years of self-repression had wrought a great change in me. Five
years before his hot insolence would have so fired me that I would have
made him answer for it on the spot; but now I could hold my anger in
check and wait for my revenge. But this little conflict was my first
live experience for five years, and the sense of it pleased me.
When the man had left me I had no longer any scruples about going
forward with my new character. There was no one to be robbed of a
fortune, no one to be supplanted in a coveted position--nothing but an
overpawned castle to be gained. There was apparently a dangerous
intrigue to be faced, and a sweet girl's honor to be saved, and a
treacherous villain to be exposed and punished--not the kind of
inheritance which many men would covet. But then few men were ever
placed in my situation.
I was thinking hard over all this when my two captors came back into the
room hurriedly, both very angry. Von Nauheim had seen them after leaving
me, and had vented his anger on them. They asked me now excitedly if it
was my wish that they should leave the castle immediately after the
Prince's funeral. I listened to them very quietly. I had already had
pretty strong evidence of the lengths to which their zeal for the
family's affairs would induce them to go; and von Nauheim's hostility
to them was a powerful recommendation in my eyes.
"I beg you to be calm, gentlemen," I said, "and to bear in mind that I
know very little of the position of affairs here. I have understood from
you that you were both largely in the late Prince's confidence--indeed,
you have given me pretty good proof of that since yesterday. But beyond
that I do not know what your relations here have been in the past."
"We have been for years in the Prince's confidential service; I myself
enjoyed his closest confidence," answered Captain von Krugen. "But my
allegiance is to the head of the house. I recognize no one else."
"And you desire to remain in that service?"
"I have no other wish in life, sir," he replied earnestly.
"Nor I," assented the other.
"If you were in his confidence, you will know that the late Prince has
left to his successor no means of maintaining a large retinue."
"What I am and all that I have I owe to your late uncle," said the
captain in the same earnest tone. "I ask nothing else than to place my
sword and my fortune alike at your disposal. And I can speak for
Steinitz here. Our liberty and lives are indeed at issue in the present
crisis; and if all is not to fail ignominiously now, we must have a
strong hand and a clear head in command."
There was no mistaking the man's sincerity, and, usurper though I was,
the offer touched me.
"I believe you absolutely, Captain von Krugen, and you, Herr Steinitz,"
and I gave them my hand. "But, all the same, I do not know what crisis
you mean. Tell me freely."
"I tried to tell you on the journey here, but you prevented me. Do you
know the history of your family--the lineage on the side of the late
Prince's wife?"
"I know very little. Speak as freely as if I knew nothing. You will not
try my patience."
"Steinitz, see that there is no one about; and keep guard outside the
door that no one enters."
He paused while the younger man withdrew, and then, leading me to a deep
window-seat at the end of the room, began to speak in a low tone:
"There is a traitor somewhere among us, and thus the greatest need for
caution. For a long time previous to his death your uncle was engaged in
a task that involved the highest issues of State. The extreme discontent
at the antics of the madman who is now King of Bavaria induced a number
of the more prominent and bolder men in the country to plot his
overthrow. There is a slip in his ancestry, and the disappearance of a
certain Prince Otto, who was the heir to the throne, let in the younger
branch of the family, through whom the title has descended to the
present King. Otto was supposed to have died; but he was only eccentric.
He lived in secret retirement, married, and left a son. From that son,
who was unquestionably the rightful heir, the late wife of your uncle
came in direct descent. She was the only child of the eldest line, and
by right she should have reigned as Queen. As you know, she died, and
left the two children--Gustav, who was killed in a duel, and the
daughter, who is in the castle at this moment."
"Do you mean----?" I began when he paused.
"I mean that the Countess Minna von Gramberg should at this moment be
the Queen of Bavaria; and that by God's help we shall all live to see
her crowned."
His dark face flushed and his eyes glowed with the enthusiasm of this
speech.
My own feeling was more wonderment than enthusiasm, however. If this
most hazardous and ambitious scheme were afoot, what could be the
meaning of von Nauheim's share in it as the betrothed husband of a
future queen?
"The Prince's first intention was of course to put his son on the
throne, and matters were indeed well ripe for this, when unfortunately
he became embroiled in a duel and was killed. That duel we believe to
have been forced on him--murder in all but the actual form."
"And the man who killed him?" I asked.
"A noted Italian swordsman, Praga, hired and paid, as we believe, for
his work."
"Hired? By whom?"
"By the family who stand next in succession to the throne. The King, as
you know, has no children, and the succession passes to the Ostenburg
branch of the family. That was my master's main hope. Our claims are
stronger than theirs; and we had on this account secured the support of
most of the prominent men in the country."
"Well?" I asked, for he paused with a gesture of disappointment.
"Count Gustav's death threw everything back. Where they had been ready
to stand by a man, some of them drew back, frightened, from supporting a
young girl--and, unless a bold stroke be made now, everything may be
lost."
"What bold stroke do you mean?"
"Like that planned before. Everything was ready. We thought the
Ostenburg agents had not a suspicion of our plans. We had resolved to
take advantage of the mad King's fancies to lure him out on one of those
wild midnight drives of his, and then to seize his person and put one of
ourselves into his place, made up, of course, to resemble him; and to
let the dummy play the part of King long enough to enable us to get the
madman where he ought to have been long since--into restraint. Then the
dummy was to throw aside his disguise and declare that he had been
acting by the King's orders; that the latter had abdicated and had
proclaimed the Count Gustav his successor, as being the rightful lineal
heir. We should have done the rest. It was a brave scheme."
"It was as mad as the King himself," said I. "But what then?"
"It was just before things were ripe that the other side got wind
through some treachery somewhere; and the count was killed in the duel."
"Well?"
"Half the cowards drew away. But they will all come back the moment they
see us strike a blow; and it was to have you close at hand, helping in
the good work, that the Prince sent for you."
"And the Count von Nauheim?"
"The Prince had supreme confidence in him. He was not with us at first;
but his coming secured us the help of a very large and influential
section of the people--enough to turn the balance, indeed, and make the
scheme certain of success. The Prince welcomed him heartily enough, and
cheerfully complied with the condition fixed by those for whom he
acted--that the Countess Minna should be given to him in marriage."
This made me thoughtful, knowing as I did the man's character.
"And the daughter herself?"
My companion frowned, drawing his dark brows close together, and pursed
up his lips, as he replied ambiguously:
"Neither man nor woman at such a time can think of any but reasons of
State."
"You mean that she consented to give her hand, but could not give her
heart with it."
"I mean more than that, sir, and I must speak frankly to you. The
Countess Minna has never favored the scheme, but has strongly opposed
it--and opposes it still. Women have no ambition. She has no longing for
a throne; and now that her father is dead I fear--well, I do not know
what she may do. If you will urge her, she is her father's daughter, and
will, I believe, go through with it. But much will depend upon you."
"And if she does not go on with it--what then?"
"We are all pledged too deeply to draw back now, your Highness," he
answered, very earnestly. "We must either succeed or fail--there is no
middle course; and failure means a prison or a convent for the Prince's
daughter, and worse than ruin for the rest of us. As for yourself, you,
I warn you, will be the certain object of attack, for there is no safe
obscurity here. The enemies of your Highness's house will never rest
satisfied while a possible heiress to the throne remains at large, or
while those who have helped to put her there are alive and at liberty.
As I told you at Hamnel, we are playing for desperate stakes, and must
play boldly and like men."
Before I had time to reply we heard Steinitz in conversation with some
one outside the door, and a moment later he opened it, and said that the
Countess Minna was anxious to see me, and was coming to the library for
that purpose.