Edward S. Van Zile

“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.”

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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.”

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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.

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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:

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.

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.

Count von Reibach and Baron Wollenstein gazed at the American in amazement. His generosity was inexplicable.

The Princess Hilda stood silent for a time, plunged in deep thought. Then she said firmly:

“Give me your revolver, Herr Bennett.”

He removed the weapon from his pocket and placed it carefully in her outstretched hand.

“A wasp is harmless without his sting,” muttered the baron under his breath. Count von Reibach, more generous than his colleague, placed his hand upon the latter’s mouth and whispered to him to remain silent.

The Princess Hilda had retreated toward her apartment. Before she dropped the curtain she turned and looked at the little group behind her. In one hand she held the pistol, while with the other she drew the curtains aside. The picture that she made at that moment in the flickering light, with the fitful gleams playing on her golden hair, while heavy shadows behind her threw the outlines of her tall figure into strong relief, Bennett never forgot. Suddenly she dropped the curtain and disappeared. The deep gloom of the apartment seemed to return on the instant, and the American turned sadly toward his foes. Deprived of weapon, he had determined to sell his life, if the struggle were forced upon him, as dearly as he might. To his astonishment, however, he saw Count von Reibach approaching him with an outstretched hand.

“You are a gentleman, Herr Bennett,” said the count cordially, “in spite of the fact that you go to extremes.”

“Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes,” muttered Bennett coldly, not accepting the count’s hand. “You must acknowledge, sir, that by going to extremes I took the only course open to me at the moment.”

Count von Reibach smiled grimly. “The fact is, Herr Bennett, that we had formed no diabolical design, the baron and myself. For certain reasons—reasons of state, as our unhappy king would say—we felt that your presence here was inopportune, and we had decided to—to——”

“Assassinate me,” remarked Bennett curtly.

“Not at all. You do us grave injustice, I assure you. It is just possible that, had you not checked our impetuosity at the right moment, we might have imprisoned you in an empty wine-cask somewhere in the cellar, but we had no wish to take your life. The Count von Reibach and Baron Wollenstein are not cut-throats, Herr Bennett. And let me assure you we appreciate your generosity in refusing to accuse us to the princess.”

The Baron Wollenstein had listened sullenly to his comrade’s rather lame apology. He gazed with stubborn enmity at Bennett, and then said to the count:

“Come, von Reibach, let’s get some sleep. The fact is. I’m ausgespielt. As for this—gentleman, let me assure him that we have no further intention of interfering with his liberty. Come, count.”

The two courtiers retired toward a dark corner of the room, not far from the entrance to Princess Hilda’s apartment. Here they stretched themselves upon a dilapidated piece of furniture that had once served as a regal couch for a reigning Schwartzburger. Bennett could hear their guttural voices as they talked together in low tones for a time. Then silence, broken only by the king’s labored breathing and the occasional snores of the exhausted courtiers, reigned in the old lumber-room, made barely habitable by Cousin Fritz’s efforts.

The Princess Hilda, upon her return to the inner room, had thrown herself fully dressed upon the improvised bed prepared for her by the dwarf, and had vainly attempted to forget her woes in sleep. The horrors of her situation forced themselves persistently upon her mind and the events of a long and dreadful day allied themselves in opposition to peaceful slumber. It seemed an age since she had stood beside King Rudolph in the morning and had attempted to impress him with the seriousness of the crisis that confronted them. The downfall of her uncle, and their undignified flight, had occurred with such suddenness that she had not yet been able to grasp their full significance. Then a strange, inexplicable feeling stole over her and she realized, with a sensation of shame, that in this dark hour she took comfort in the presence of Herr Bennett. Annoyed by this discovery, she turned restlessly upon her pillow and again attempted to forget her woes and weariness in sleep.

The lower regions of the castle of the Schwartzburgers were not wholly under the control of Cousin Fritz. His sway was disputed by the rats, liberty-loving creatures having no respect for the rights of property nor reverence for royalty. A rat-hole, running clear through the wall, opened like a speaking-tube just where the shapely ear of the Princess Hilda rested as she lay quiet, fervently praying for sleep. Suddenly her wandering thoughts were recalled from the borderland of oblivion by the stern realities of her surroundings. She heard distinctly the guttural voice of Baron Wollenstein as he said to Count von Reibach:

“You are too soft-hearted, Count. Our only safety lies in Herr Bennett’s death. Mark my words, it is his life or ours in the end. This is no time for gentle deeds and kindly words. We’ll be captured in this hole, as sure as Wilhelm reigns. If we kill Bennett and conceal his body, we can prove to Wilhelm that we followed Rudolph in the interest of the new rÉgime. Verstehen Sie? Am I not right?”

The horrified princess could not catch the count’s answer. She strained her ear in vain, but the rat-hole no longer served her purpose as an eavesdropper. How long she lay motionless she knew not, but after a time the snoring of the conspirators convinced her that they had ceased their plotting for a time and were plunged in sleep.

The princess arose softly, grasped the revolver that she had placed on the floor near her bed, and stole toward the entrance to the chamber. As she pulled aside the curtains and glanced furtively around the larger room she saw that one candle still burned dimly in a corner near the main entrance. By its flickering gleams she could make out the figure of the exhausted American as he lay, sprawled in broken slumbers, in an antique chair near the door through which he expected the return of Cousin Fritz.

As she approached Bennett a feeling of mingled tenderness and repentance came over her. This man had been in peril of his life, and she had harshly accused him of a crime. Was it not more than possible that she had always misjudged him; that he had found it impracticable to fulfil the oath he had sworn to her in the Hall of Armor? Surely he had not promised to leave the castle before the morning, and the morning, she imagined, was only just breaking. She glanced down at his white, clear-cut face, rendered almost ghastly by the dim light in contrast with his black, luxuriant hair.

“Herr Bennett,” she whispered gently, bending forward and placing a hand upon his shoulder. He awoke on the instant and their eyes met.

“Take your pistol,” she said simply. “You are still in grave danger. I did you an injustice.”

He had sprung to his feet, a mournful smile playing across his face.

“Your royal highness,” he said, “I thank you from my heart—not for the weapon but for your words.”

A flush arose to her cheeks and there came into her eyes a light as sweet as the dawn that drove the shadows from the hills outside.

CHAPTER IX.

The Princess Hilda opened her eyes wearily. She had slept for several hours, but her first sensation as she woke was one of utter misery. Sleep had brought with it no refreshment, no exhilaration. The mere joy of living, that so often thrilled her in the morning, she seemed to have lost forever. The twilight that reigned in this subterranean apartment, the sudden recollection of the grim disasters of the previous day, the discomfort that resulted from sleeping fully dressed, and the sensation of utter loneliness that came over her, combined to render her awakening painful. She turned impatiently upon her couch. Suddenly a smile of joy lighted her sad face. Fraulein MÜller, her favorite attendant, a plump, red-cheeked young woman of twenty, was seated by her side.

“Good morning, your highness,” cried the maiden cheerily. “You seem glad to see me.”

“I am indeed,” said the princess warmly. “This has been, Gretchen, oh, such an awful night! I feel as if, somehow, my youth had gone forever; that I shall always be an old, old woman.”

Fraulein MÜller laughed gayly. “It is not so bad as that, my princess. Lie quiet for a while and I will make you young again. See, I have brought with me many things that you need. I was heart-broken until Cousin Fritz, who can crawl through cracks in the floor or fly through the ceiling, stood suddenly by my side and told me to dry my tears and make ready to attend you. There were wild doings in the castle last night, and I sat with the other women in your apartments trembling at the awful sounds we heard. When Cousin Fritz appeared and told us that you were safe, we took him in our arms and kissed him until he kicked and swore and called us hard names. Then we dropped the wicked little angel and I got a few of your things into a bundle and followed him into the bowels of the earth. It wasn’t much fun, your highness, to creep through the darkness with that crazy little villain at my side, laughing wildly at my fears and pinching me now and then to hear me cry out with fright. But when I saw you lying here alone, I felt that I could hug Cousin Fritz. His head is queer enough, but he has a heart of gold.”

As she thus talked on, while she loosened the Princess Hilda’s hair and brushed out the golden-brown locks, the feeling of despair that had come over the royal fugitive departed. The princess was by temperament a sanguine, sunny-natured girl, cold and haughty toward those she could not trust, but cordially affectionate with her intimates. Her attendants had been recruited from the best families in the kingdom, and it was known throughout Hesse-Heilfels that the Princess Hilda, in spite of her proud bearing, was a very lovable creature.

“Tell me, Gretchen,” she said, glancing anxiously at Fraulein MÜller, who was at that moment spreading a morning dress upon the bed, “tell me what has happened up above? Are the people—my people, as I loved to call them—really thirsting for my blood?”

Fraulein MÜller laughed aloud. She was one of those rare creatures whose gayety cannot be suppressed by the most dismal surroundings.

“It was rumored when I came away, your royal highness, that your Uncle Wilhelm was bitterly disappointed at your disappearance. He is, it is said, anxious to get word to you that his plans did not include any change in your status at court. He has spread abroad the impression that he has deposed King Rudolph simply to save Hesse-Heilfels from ruin. He has no intention, it is reported, of altering your position in the kingdom. Somebody told me that he had made the remark that your uncle would still be king, but sane instead of mad.”

“Hush, Fraulein MÜller,” said the princess sternly. “These walls are not to be trusted—as I well know—and I would not have King Rudolph hear what you have just said for worlds. How little Uncle Wilhelm knows my heart! King Rudolph has been to me a father since my childhood. Sane or mad, king or exile, he deserves my loyalty and love. Listen, Gretchen! I would die with Rudolph in this rat-hole sooner than return to Wilhelm’s court and countenance his treachery by silent acquiescence. I have striven to prevent this awful crisis. I have labored to turn my Uncle Rudolph from his mad ways. I have failed. But let it not be said that the Princess Hilda of Hesse-Heilfels changes her colors with the fortunes of her house. If loyalty to Rudolph means imprisonment, or even death, I shall follow his banner to the end.”

She stood there, flushed, defiant, beautiful, her eyes dark with the fervor of her passion; a girl no longer, for the stern discipline of evil fortune had made her a woman in a night. Never again would her heart dance merrily with the mere gayety of youth. She had lost something of the precious vivacity of girlhood, but in its place had come the strength and firmness that add a touch of grandeur to maturity.

Fraulein MÜller gazed at her mistress with admiration. Never before had the maiden she had served seemed so thoroughly a queen as at this moment when she stood, a fugitive skulking in a cellar, bereft of everything that makes royalty impressive, and voiced to a single listener the noblest sentiments of loyalty. Above her shone the bright light of the summer sun, awakening a people who would gladly welcome her return to the pomp and state that had been hers throughout her life. Above her reigned a king who would place her by his side and reward her allegiance to his cause with power and dominion. In contrast with all this, what was offered her? An existence of wretched discomfort in the damp darkness of a rat-haunted chamber. A miserable present and an uncertain future. The companionship of ruined men, of a king whose crazy folly had hurled him from the pinnacle of power into the abysmal depths of despair and ruin. Here was a girl of eighteen, upon whom nature had lavished all her gifts, and to whom the world bowed down in loving homage, confronted by a choice from which the boldest man would have shrunk back in dismay. And the Princess Hilda gave up the sunshine for the darkness, the light of day for the gloom of night, the pleasures of the gladsome world for the grim shadows of a living tomb! Is it strange that in Hesse-Heilfels you should hear it said that in the Schwartzburger blood there is a strain of heroism that breaks out now and then, as the generations come and go?

Something of all this passed through Fraulein MÜller’s mind as she gazed at the princess with eyes that looked upon her royal mistress with new reverence. She bent forward and kissed Hilda’s hand with loving deference. There were tears on the Fraulein’s cheeks as she smiled up at her mistress, from whose face the flush of excitement had departed.

“Ah, Gretchen,” said the princess wearily, “you must not weep! Surely, nothing can be gained by tears. But to be a woman is so hard! How powerless we are! Oh, for a man’s arm to-day, Gretchen! Were I a prince, do you know what I would do? If they had driven me down into this hole, I would find the powder magazine and blow those rebels into bits.”

Fraulein MÜller laughed merrily. The ludicrous side of a situation always appealed first to her mind.

“Would it not be a grim revenge?” she cried. “But I fear, your highness, we would not live to enjoy it.”

At that moment a knock at the door recalled them to the exigencies of the hour. Fraulein MÜller ran merrily toward the entrance.

That she and her mistress were not wholly alone was a reassuring thought.

“Who’s there?” she cried, smoothing back her hair from her brow and rearranging her skirts. The habits of a court are not quickly lost, even in a cellar.

“Cousin Fritz, my Lady MÜller. An envoy from the reigning King of Hesse-Heilfels, Rudolph XII. I crave audience of the Princess Hilda.”

Fraulein MÜller, smiling at the madcap’s pompous words, threw back the door. The dwarf instantly rushed in, turned quickly and pinched her arm with mischievous force, and then hurried forward, to throw himself upon one knee before the princess, the feather of his jaunty cap trailing on the floor.

“Your royal highness,” said he ceremoniously, his harsh voice penetrating to the furthest corners of the room. “Your liege lord, the King of Hesse-Heilfels, commends himself to you with loving words and commands your immediate presence in the dining-hall. Such is the message he ordered me to give you. Personally let me add, your royal highness, that this morning we draw to a full larder, and, if your appetite is good, I should advise you to take a hand in the game.”

The Princess Hilda could not restrain a smile at the dwarf’s words, but she felt a pang of annoyance at hearing again the poker jargon that had become synonymous, to her mind, with ruin and disgrace.

“Tell the king, Cousin Fritz,” she said, rising and moving toward the door, “that I will be with him at once.”

CHAPTER X.

Wilhelm IX., King of Hesse-Heilfels by the divine right of grand larceny, gazed from a window in the castle at the rising sun; emblematic, as he reflected, of himself and his fortunes. He was a younger, better built man than his brother, Rudolph the Deposed. His legs were much longer than his brother’s, thus making his head cooler. There was an old saying in Hesse-Heilfels to the effect that “a Schwartzburger with short legs always toddles into trouble.” His superiority in length of limb had had much to do toward rendering Wilhelm’s usurpation successful. The impressionable and somewhat superstitious people of Hesse-Heilfels possessed an hereditary conviction that the longer the legs of a Schwartzburger the better fitted he was to rule the kingdom. When, therefore, it was whispered that Wilhelm plotted to seize the sceptre the Heilfelsans were drawn irresistibly to his cause. They preferred a long-legged Schwartzburger, of good habits, as king, to a short-legged gambler who was over-fond of wine.

Wilhelm’s face, pale and drawn from the stress of an exciting night, wore a smile of triumph as he looked forth upon the picturesque domain that he had so easily made his own. Backed by the people of Hesse-Heilfels, and sure of recognition at Berlin, he felt that he was safely seated upon a throne that he had long wished to occupy. Presently he turned from the window, and beckoned to a man who had recently entered the room and stood awaiting the pleasure of royalty.

“What news, Herr Schmidt?” asked Wilhelm eagerly, “is there any clew to my lost relatives? My brother can’t perform miracles. He must be concealed somewhere in the castle.”

“We have searched the building from top to bottom, your majesty, but can find no trace of Rudolph, the Princess, nor the Yankee. But a strange story has come from the Princess Hilda’s waiting-women. How much truth there is in it, I do not know.”

“We’ll find out at first hand,” said King Wilhelm, seating himself in a chair by the side of a small round table. “Summon all her women to my presence.”

Herr Schmidt hurried from the room.

“Carl Eingen, a word with you,” said Wilhelm, and the handsome baritone approached the king and deferentially bent the knee.

“As I understand it,” said Wilhelm, “the capture of this American adventurer was left to you, Carl Eingen. Why did you fail to obey orders?”

The tall youth turned pale, but answered firmly:

“The failure cannot be laid at my door, your majesty. I obeyed in detail the instructions I received. The weak spot in our scheme lay in the fact that we put too little stress upon the cleverness of Cousin Fritz.”

“Cousin Fritz?” cried the king in astonishment. “The madcap dwarf? Surely he could not have foiled you all! What had he to do with the affair?”

“An hour or so before we made the general advance upon the castle, your majesty, Cousin Fritz was seen—I saw him myself—dancing wildly on the balcony in front of the American’s apartment. The dwarf is the only man in the kingdom who knows all the underground secrets of this ancient castle. I have no doubt that he has led Rudolph and the rest to a place of, at least, temporary secrecy.”

“Just who are missing, Herr Eingen?” asked Wilhelm.

“Rudolph, the Princess Hilda, Baron Wollenstein, Count von Reibach, Herr Bennett, and Cousin Fritz.”

“That is all?”

“So far as I can learn, no one else has disappeared from the castle since our entrance.”

“It is strange,” mused the usurper. “So large a party, it seems to me, could not vanish in one instant without leaving some clew behind them. You say, Herr Eingen, that the cellars have been thoroughly explored?”

“Yes, your majesty. I led the exploring party myself. There is, beneath this castle, a labyrinth of passages, cellars, dungeons, and lumber rooms that taxed our patience severely, but we groped into every nook and corner, and found nothing to reward our search.”

At this moment Herr Schmidt returned, followed by a group of young women whom the events of the night had rendered hysterical. At a sign from Wilhelm, Herr Schmidt led his bevy of distraught maidens toward the usurper.

“Now understand me,” said Wilhelm sternly, “I shall imprison you in a body if you all insist upon talking at once. Furthermore, I object to tears. You have nothing to cry about if you will obey your king. Do you comprehend me? Your king, Wilhelm IX., by the grace of God monarch of Hesse-Heilfels. You there, in front, answer my questions! What is this wonderful tale that I hear has been spread abroad from your corner of the castle?”

Carl Eingen, his countenance disturbed, was anxiously glancing from face to face of the trembling women, seeking some one he could not find. In answer to Wilhelm, a maiden standing nearer to royalty than the others said, her voice tremulous with emotion:

“This morning, your majesty, about four o’clock, Cousin Fritz suddenly appeared, as if by magic, among us. He ordered us to make a bundle of things most necessary for the Princess Hilda’s comfort. Then he went away, accompanied by her royal highness’ favorite attendant.”

Carl Eingen gazed at the speaker earnestly, while Wilhelm said:

“Her favorite attendant? Who may that be?”

“The Fraulein MÜller, your majesty.”

Carl Eingen’s face turned white. He had long loved Fraulein MÜller, and her non-attendance upon Wilhelm had filled him with dismay. “Weren’t you in the cellars at that hour, Herr Eingen?” asked Wilhelm sternly.

“I was, your majesty—with twenty men with torches.”

“And you heard no sound—no footsteps—no echoes?”

“None, your majesty, that the vastness of the vaults would not explain.”

The usurper sat silent for a time, deep in thought. Now and again one of the waiting-women would sob hysterically. Carl Eingen’s impatience grew apace. He longed for action, for some physical outlet for the anxiety that oppressed him. He had seen little of Fraulein MÜller since she had been taken into the household of the Princess Hilda, but his boyhood had been spent in her companionship. He could not remember the time when he had not loved her. Her bright face and sunny nature had been to him for years a solace and a hope. That she had been lured into the perils that surrounded the path of the royal fugitives, he could not now doubt. The conviction filled him with dismay. He longed to begin at once a renewal of the fruitless search he had made in the early morning. He watched the changing expressions on Wilhelm’s face anxiously. Presently the usurper spoke:

“Come here, Herr Schmidt,” said Wilhelm, a cruel tone in his deep voice. “Seat yourself at this table and write as I direct. Are you ready? Go on then. ‘To the people of Hesse-Heilfels, greeting: I, Wilhelm IX., by the grace of God king of Hesse-Heilfels, do call upon you to render up to me, dead or alive, the person of one Cousin Fritz, a dwarf, who has held, under my predecessor, the office of Court Jester. To the man or men who shall bring to my castle the body of said Cousin Fritz shall be paid the sum of five hundred marks. Given under my hand and seal, at the castle of Heilfels, this tenth day of August, 189—.’ There, I think that may be effective in crushing out the last sparks of rebellion in this afflicted land. Have a hundred copies of that proclamation made at once, Herr Schmidt. See to it that they are exposed in every wine-shop in the kingdom. Take a few of them, Herr Eingen, and affix them to the walls in the most remote corners of the cellars under us. Oh, one moment, Herr Schmidt; add to the proclamation that a full pardon will be granted to any one who has been in rebellion against Wilhelm IX., in case he aids in the capture of Cousin Fritz. That may have an effect upon Reibach and Wollenstein, if they should see the notice. As I remember them, those two men are among the worst products of Brother Rudolph’s worm-eaten vineyard. And now, gentlemen, let us break our fast. Ladies, I bid you good-morning. It is my fondest hope that you may have your mistress with you again at the earliest possible moment.”

Wilhelm arose and the audience was at an end. With a heavy heart, Carl Eingen joined Herr Schmidt and prepared for another descent to the weird regions beneath the castle. Meanwhile the people of Hesse-Heilfels had begun the day under a new rÉgime, and the whisper went abroad throughout the kingdom that indulgence in the game of draw-poker would be construed as the crime of lese majestÉ.

CHAPTER XI.

Carl Eingen had searched, as he believed, the most remote corner of the wine-cellar. He had taken with him no companion upon his subterranean bill-posting expedition, and, courageous though he was, he could not control a feeling of nervous discomfort as he fastened the grewsome proclamation of King Wilhelm to what he imagined was the last outpost in this tortuous hole in the ground. He had affixed type-written copies offering a reward for the capture of Cousin Fritz, dead or alive, to wine casks, stone walls, and wooden pillars in various parts of the cellar, and he breathed a sigh of relief at the thought that his grim task was at an end. Suddenly a harsh, shrill voice, just above his head, cried out:

“Ha Carl Eingen, I’m worth five hundred marks, eh? I’ll throw you double or quits for my body. What say you?”

Carl started in affright, and dropped the hammer he held in his hand. Perched upon a huge hogshead sat Cousin Fritz, his feathered cap upon his head, smiling down mischievously at the astonished youth.

“Will you come up and take me?” asked the dwarf maliciously, moving his short sword in the air and then making a few defiant passes at his antagonist. “Do you need money, Carl? Five hundred marks! It is a large sum.”

Carl Eingen remained silent, but he could not suppress a smile as the ludicrous features of the situation impressed him. Suddenly the dwarf’s mood changed.

“You’re a good fellow, Carl Eingen, in spite of your rebellious nature,” he said gently. “I don’t believe you’d murder me in cold blood. That’s more than I could say of several men I know. As times go, Carl, it’s high praise.”

“I think, Cousin Fritz,” said Carl quietly, “that you’d better come with me without more ado. You’re sure to be captured down here and you might be run to earth by somebody who would think it less trouble to take you dead than alive. I promise you that I’ll do my best to make easy terms for you with the king.”

“What king, Carl?” asked the dwarf mockingly. “You may not know it, but I am the real, the only king of Hesse-Heilfels. In the long run I dictate my own terms—and they are always accepted, Carl Eingen. Do you call Brother Wilhelm king? Nonsense! He’s only an upstart who struts about up above for a time and then falls to sleep like the rest. Hesse-Heilfels has only one king—and he never dies. But enough of this, Carl! I won’t come to you and you can’t capture me. Nevertheless, I prefer you as an ally to a foe. I’ll make you a proposition.”

Carl Eingen frowned and strode nervously up and down, almost within reach of the dwarf’s pointed shoes. He felt absurdly conscious of his momentary impotence. He was keenly alive to the possibility that he would be obliged to return to Wilhelm and confess that he had been outwitted by the dwarf. Furthermore, Cousin Fritz was in possession of a secret that Carl Eingen longed to solve. Upon the hogshead above him sat the captor of Fraulein MÜller, and her lover burned to get word of her. He knew, right well, that only by diplomacy could he make Cousin Fritz reveal the truth concerning her abduction.

“Go on,” said Carl smoothly, “let me hear your proposition, Cousin Fritz.”

The dwarf chuckled with inward merriment. Then he bent forward, his hand still upon his sword, and said:

“You think me mad, Carl Eingen, but you’d do well to back my hand at this crisis in the game. In this case one king beats a royal flush. I’m the king, and I know my power. Let me tell you, Carl Eingen, that you will never see again a face that you love nor hear a voice that has grown dear to you unless you heed what I shall say. It has come to a contest between your loyalty and your love. If you remain true to Wilhelm, you will be false to your love. If you place your mistress above your king in your heart, you must forswear Wilhelm. Do you follow me?”

There was a sane intensity in the dwarf’s manner that Carl Eingen had never observed before. It impressed him even more than the madcap’s words.

“And if I abandon Wilhelm, Cousin Fritz?” asked Carl earnestly.

“You shall see your love again, Carl Eingen.”

“And otherwise?”

“The sweet face of Gretchen MÜller shall smile upon you only from the shadows of the night, when memory haunts your pillow and drives sleep routed from your couch.”

Carl Eingen looked about him restlessly. The dark mysteries of this weird cellar appeared to cast upon him an uncanny spell. He seemed to be plunged into a shadow-haunted realm in which laws that were new to him prevailed. The dwarf, smiling with conscious power, seemed to exert a hypnotic influence over the impressionable youth, whose artistic sensibilities rendered him extremely sensitive to the influences of a romantic environment.

Furthermore, the threat uttered by the dwarf had had its effect. Carl Eingen longed passionately to gaze once more upon a face that had been for years the fairest sight earth held for him. The possibility—remote and unreasonable as it seemed—that this little mischief-maker could remove Gretchen MÜller forever from his ken thrilled him with unspeakable dread. Instinctively he seemed to realize that Cousin Fritz was not wholly a vain boaster, that he was not without some portion of the boundless power he claimed.

“Well, Cousin Fritz,” said Carl at length, his voice hoarse and unsteady, “I will go to this point, and no further. If you will lead me at once to Fraulein MÜller, I give you my word that I will take no advantage of what I have learned, that neither Wilhelm nor any of his people shall know that I have met you down here.”

The dwarf laughed mockingly and sprang to the floor. “It’s unconditional surrender, even on those terms,” he cried. “What I have left undone, Fraulein MÜller will accomplish. Look here, Carl Eingen! See how powerless you were.”

Cousin Fritz skipped merrily toward the proclamation that offered a reward for his capture. Removing it from the wall he playfully tore it into small pieces. Suddenly, to Carl’s amazement, a black hole gaped at them where the paper had rested but a moment before.

“In here, Carl,” cried the dwarf, scrambling through the aperture. “You thought you had reached the end of the cellar. This is merely the entrance, my friend.”

For a moment the youth hesitated. When, after much squeezing and a good deal of discomfort, he stood beside Cousin Fritz, his guide’s figure was almost lost in the deep gloom.

“Come on,” said the dwarf, seizing Carl’s hand. “We have not far to go; we are taking a short cut to my apartments—the real centre of royalty in Hesse-Heilfels.”

A moment later they stepped out into a passageway that soon led them to the main entrance of the rooms in which the dwarf had ensconced Rudolph XI. and his small suite. Cautiously opening the heavy door, Cousin Fritz tightly gripped Carl Eingen’s arm and silently pointed to the scene before them.

In the centre of the hall the deposed king was seated at a table, at the opposite side of which Count von Reibach shuffled a pack of cards. Between them were small piles of pebbles that roughly served as chips. Baron Wollenstein, with a surly expression upon his heavy face, appeared to watch the game, but his restless eyes constantly turned toward a group at the farther corner of the room. The Princess Hilda, attended by Fraulein MÜller, was seated in an antique chair of state, against the back of which her head rested as she gazed upward at Herr Bennett. The American, oblivious of the threatening glances of Baron Wollenstein, was bending forward talking earnestly to the golden-haired princess. A smile played across her face as she listened to his words.

“There, Carl Eingen,” whispered the dwarf mischievously, “is the game as it stands. Will you draw cards?”

“Yes,” answered the youth hoarsely as he met the eye of Fraulein MÜller, who turned white with amazement as she caught sight of him.

CHAPTER XII.

There was nothing in the topic upon which Bennett was discoursing to the Princess Hilda to arouse the jealousy of Baron Wollenstein. The American was speaking eloquently, but impersonally, of his native land. The events of the night and the ominous inaction of the morning had rendered the princess a willing listener to the voice of a man to whom, she felt, she had shown great injustice. Woman-like, having reached the conclusion that she had not treated him with fairness, she now went to the extreme of trusting Bennett fully. Her discovery of the utter baseness of Wollenstein and von Reibach added to the longing she felt to prove that the American was not unworthy of her regard.

“It is true,” said Bennett smilingly, “that my beautiful country is not made picturesque by antique castles, but, your Royal Highness, you must admit that I have no cause to hold it in contempt for that reason.” He glanced around the gloomy apartment meaningly.

The princess understood him, and her eyes were sympathetic as they met his. “But an old castle has its advantages,” she remarked, with forced gayety. “It is crystallized history, is it not? Furthermore, it may offer a place of refuge in time of trouble.”

“Ah,” said Bennett, loyal to his American prejudices, “that is just the point. In my country, we need no underground cellars to escape the wrath of man. We use them for another purpose. But don’t think me narrow-minded, Your Highness. I appreciate the advantages your country offers to the tourist, to the lover of romance, but, as a place of residence, I must admit that I prefer Litchfield County to Hesse-Heilfels.”

The Princess Hilda sat silent for a moment. Her mind dwelt upon the ruin this man had wrought in the land she loved. She had been forced to the conclusion that the disaster he had brought to Hesse-Heilfels had been the outcome not of malice, but of mischance. Nevertheless, he had been the motive force, at the outset, that had overthrown the rÉgime of which she was a part. How far was it becoming for her to accept his friendship? She could not answer. Of her own free-will she had thrown down the barrier between them, and it was too late, perhaps, to reconstruct it.

The Princess Hilda was only eighteen years of age. The full significance of the political revolution of which she was a victim had not yet come to her. Had she possessed a wider and deeper experience of the ways of the world, the embarrassments that surrounded her would have impressed her more deeply. But she was very young, and, it is the peril and the privilege of youth to make light of difficulties that appear insuperable to the eyes of maturity. Furthermore, the princess was undergoing a novel experience that possessed for her a dangerous fascination. The rigid etiquette of the old-fashioned court in which she had spent her girlhood had precluded the possibility of frank and sympathetic intercourse with young men. An American girl of eighteen is apt to be as wise as a serpent, though harmless as a dove. She is sure of herself. She takes pride in the conviction that she understands men. What she has failed to learn of the peculiarities of human nature from experience, she has derived from literature and the drama. She makes her dÉbut in society a full-fledged woman of the world. If she is clever, her epigrams are as pointed at eighteen as they will be at twenty-eight.

But a German princess develops more slowly. She is hedged around by safeguards erected on the theory that there should be no royal road to worldliness. She is moulded by ceremonies and fashioned by precedents. She is deprived by birth of the divine right to choose a husband. At eighteen she has become merely a more or less ornamental piece in a royal game of chess. The American girl of the same age is years older than the German princess.

Let it not be imagined, however, that Jonathan Edwards Bennett found the Princess Hilda of Hesse-Heilfels too young and unsophisticated to be interesting. While her recent experiences may not have assumed in her mind their ultimate significance, they had had, nevertheless, a marked effect in changing her mental attitude toward many subjects. At one blow she had been thrust into an entirely new relationship to the universe at large. Heretofore, she had been led to believe that the sun rose and set merely for her own royal pleasure and profit. Suddenly even the light of that luminary had been denied to her. The immediate effect of this deprivation had been educational. For the first time in her life she had been brought face to face with the fact that royalty itself is subject to the chastisement that fate so freely bestows upon lesser mortals.

“Tell me, Herr Bennett,” she said after a time, glancing significantly at the poker-players in the centre of the room, “what will be the outcome of all this? We can’t live here all our days. I should become an old woman in a year if I could never see the sun, never hear the wind among the trees.”

A smile played across her shapely mouth, but her eyes were sad as they looked up at the pale, handsome face above her.

“Do you know, your royal highness,” said Bennett, lowering his voice, confidentially, “I have come to the conclusion that the solution of the puzzle rests with Cousin Fritz. It is a novel experience for me to suspend my own judgment and trust to another man to get me out of difficulties, but the little madcap’s cleverness and loyalty have had a hypnotic effect upon my will. More and more do I find myself inclined to follow his lead, to await his commands, and to trust to his ingenuity to get us out of this amazing scrape.”

The Princess Hilda assented. “Cousin Fritz,” she said, “has become, I fear, our only hope. What he can do for us now I can’t imagine, but, Herr Bennett, there is some satisfaction in the thought that we can never be worse off than we are at present.”

The American uttered a few words of perfunctory acquiescence. He envied her the undismayed optimism of extreme youth. The conviction had come upon him that they might easily be placed in a more undesirable position than they occupied at that moment.

“Herr Bennett,” said the princess, a slight flush of embarrassment coming into her cheeks. “I was pleased to hear you speak so kindly of Cousin Fritz, but let me urge you to beware of the others. Cousin Fritz is your friend. The others hate you.”

Bennett smiled gently. “Thank you for your warning, Princess Hilda. I know well that they seek my life. But I have no fear of them. Some years ago, your royal highness, I was mining in Colorado, and,——”

It was many a long day before the Princess Hilda heard the conclusion of the anecdote Bennett was about to relate. Something in her face had caused him to turn and glance toward the entrance. He caught a glimpse of Cousin Fritz making a gesture toward them, and then his eyes rested in dismay upon the tall, martial figure of Carl Eingen.

“Good God, we are betrayed!” exclaimed Bennett, stepping forward and placing his hand upon the handle of his revolver.

At that instant a groan, wrung from a strong man in physical agony, arose from the centre of the room, and King Rudolph, who had sprung up from the poker table as Fritz and Carl appeared at the doorway, fell senseless into the arms of Baron Wollenstein.

“Put up your pistol, Herr Bennett,” piped Cousin Fritz, excitedly. “This man is our friend. Here, put the king on this couch! Get some wine, Fraulein MÜller. Hurry. Baron Wollenstein, put his head down! There! Are you all paralyzed? Can’t you make haste? Will you take a bluff from death? I won’t. There, see! Cousin Rudolph opens his eyes! Give him wine! That’s right! He’ll be every inch a king before long! Come, now, stand back and let him sleep! That’s right. Sleep, Rudolph! Sleep!”

Without dissent or hesitation they had all obeyed the dwarf’s directions to the letter, and as they stood grouped around the couch, upon which Rudolph lay breathing stertorously, the thought suddenly flashed through their minds, in sympathetic accord for the moment, that Cousin Fritz was no vain boaster when he claimed to be the real ruler of Hesse-Heilfels.

CHAPTER XIII.

“Frankly, your royal highness,” said Herr Bennett to the princess fifteen minutes later, “there are symptoms in the case that worry me. At first, I thought his majesty was attacked by a simple fainting fit, caused by his sudden rising at the table. His breathing, however, and other indications lead me to believe that he is in a very precarious condition.”

They stood together apart, while Fraulein MÜller and Carl Eingen, conversing in low whispers, watched beside the prostrated king.

Count von Reibach and Baron Wollenstein, not unnoticed by Cousin Fritz, had left the apartment together.

“We must have a talk at once, Count,” Wollenstein had said to his fellow-conspirator. “Come into the cellars with me. We won’t be missed at this moment.” Unknown to them, the dwarf had stolen into the dark vaults by their side so close to them that he could hear every word they said.

“Is he hard hit, Baron?” asked Count von Reibach. “It looks to me like apoplexy.”

“I think it is,” answered Wollenstein, taking his companion by the arm and groping toward a better lighted portion of the cellar that lay beyond them. “He’s been a sick man for some time back, Count. I’m inclined to think that the suddenness of his overthrow has precipitated an attack that could not have been long delayed.”

“And what, to your mind, is our best play at this juncture, Baron?” asked von Reibach impressively. The serious nature of the crisis that confronted them had suddenly broken upon his not very active mind. His companion made no answer, but stood still, his head turned to one side.

“The very thing,” whispered Wollenstein hoarsely. “Read that, Count! How it got here I can’t imagine, but it’s a wonderful stroke of luck at this juncture.”

Count von Reibach followed his companion’s gaze and saw before them a type-written placard, the contents of which the reader has already learned.

The count indulged in a weak whistle to relieve his astonishment. “Dead or alive!” he exclaimed. “It ought to be easy, Baron. I could put the dwarf in my pocket—if I could get my hands on him.”

Wollenstein grunted deprecatingly, “We cannot afford to take any chances, Count,” he said emphatically. “We are in a desperate position. Our heads are forfeit to the state unless we can take our fatted calf with us when we go above as returning prodigals. It’s all very well to talk about capturing the dwarf alive, but you can’t catch rats in this infernal cellar by chasing them. Our only chance lies in seizing Cousin Fritz and rendering all opportunity of escape impossible at one stroke. It’s easily done. Let me get hold of the little imp once and Wilhelm shall have a court jester, dead or alive, as the case may be.” There was a cruel menace in the baron’s voice that was carefully noted by a dwarfish eavesdropper.

“What was that?” asked the count, starting nervously and gazing into the shadows with straining eyes.

“Ach Gott! Are you scared by rats?” muttered the baron sarcastically. “Now come to the point, Count! Do you understand me? We must act, and act immediately. Our only hope lies in the capture of the dwarf. We must set about it at once, and take him—dead or alive.”

“Yes, dead or alive,” repeated Count von Reibach mechanically, seizing his companion’s arm and turning to retrace his steps.

There came a snapping sound, as though a trap had been sprung somewhere in the darkness. The floor slipped away in creaking grooves and at the edge of the abyss stood Cousin Fritz, smiling maliciously as he gazed down into the blackness. A dull sound, as if huge rubber balls had struck the centre of the earth, came up through the grewsome hole.

“Two of a kind!” cried the madman, in a shrill, penetrating voice. “Two of a kind—and I’ve discarded them!”

He whistled gayly as he scurried back toward his apartments. Now and then he would break into song and his keen voice would startle the bats from slumber in the furthermost recesses of the great vaults.

“Two of a kind! Two of a kind! Two of a kind!” he cried with hysterical energy now and again. “Two of a kind, but a very small pair! Ha, ha! I had no use for two of a kind, two of a kind, two of a kind!”

Suddenly he stood still and listened intently. “The King is dead, long live the King!” he shouted, and the cellar re-echoed the weird cry. “The King is dead! Live the King!”

At that moment Bennett had placed a detaining hand upon the Princess Hilda’s arm. The cumulative force of the adventures through which they had passed together had rendered ceremoniousness out of place at this juncture.

“The need of aid from above has passed, your highness,” said Bennett gently. “I beg you to remain here. The King is——”

“Is dead,” added the princess sadly.

At that instant far down the cellar they heard the dwarf’s voice crying shrilly: “The King is dead! Live the King!”

Bennett gazed at the princess in amazement.

“’Tis Cousin Fritz’s voice. But how did he know? How did he know?”

CHAPTER XIV.

“Are you very tired, your highness?”

Bennett peered down at the pale face at his side. He held a candle in his hand as they groped slowly forward in a tunnel that Cousin Fritz ascribed to the Romans. Beyond them gleamed another unsteady light, carried by Carl Eingen. Now and then they could hear a penetrating voice raised in song or lowered in soliloquy as Cousin Fritz guided them toward their goal.

The Princess Hilda and Fraulein MÜller had laid aside their court attire and had donned peasant costumes, of a very antique cut, which Cousin Fritz had obtained from his collection of old-fashioned trumpery, a collection from which the social history of Hesse-Heilfels for several generations could have been reconstructed by an imaginative writer.

The princess looked up at Bennett, a merry gleam in her dark blue eyes:

“I’m tired, yes; but not of action. I am weary of imprisonment. I long to reach the end of this tunnel. I feel as though I were approaching the sunlight after being buried alive for centuries.”

“But, tell me,” he persisted, his voice low and vibrant, “will you never regret your decision? Think of what you have given up. When you donned that peasant’s dress you laid aside a future that shone with the splendors of high state. That simple cap upon your head replaces a queen’s diadem. The sacrifice, your highness, is more than I can ask.”

“Why will you tease me?” she cried with petulant playfulness. “When I put off my court dress, I gave up forever the title of ‘your highness.’ What has that title brought to me? Nothing but weariness and pain.”

Just beyond them she could see Carl Eingen with his arm around the waist of Fraulein MÜller. “Do you think,” asked Hilda, her eyes dancing as they met Bennett’s, “do you think that Gretchen would wish to return to my court with the knowledge that Carl Eingen was forever an exile from the kingdom?”

Bennett trembled with a sensation of ecstatic triumph. His mind recalled the thought that had inspired him when he followed the Princess Hilda into the cellar on the night of the king’s overthrow. In this subterranean realm there would be no kings and princesses. They would all be fugitives, placed upon a plane of equality by the levelling power of misfortune. Beyond his wildest dreams, that thought had been prophetic. By no conscious effort upon his part, he had won the confidence, perhaps the love, of this woman at his side. The hand of sorrow had laid its grip upon her young heart, and in the hour of her misfortune she had looked at life with eyes that saw all things from a new point of view.

“It is strange,” she whispered as they stole forward through the damp and narrow passageway, “it is strange that I should feel for my old life no regret, no desire to return to the tawdry glories of a court. But do you know, Herr Bennett, I feel that I would rather die in this old cellar than go back to my people, to be stared at by the gaping crowds, to hear the murmur of their senseless chatter as they told each other the tale of my burial and resurrection. Ugh! The very thought of it is horrible.”

They hurried on in silence for a time.

“I shall live with Carl and Gretchen,” she said musingly, when they had turned a corner in the tunnel and had again caught sight of the candle in Eingen’s hand. “We will go to some quiet spot and till the soil and forget the treachery that drove us from our fatherland. I shall be happy in their happiness—and forget—forget—forget!”

Bennett bent down until his face almost touched hers.

“You must not forget,” he whispered, “that there lives a man whose only wish on earth is to know that your heart is light, that your eyes are bright with the joy of life, that no shadows fall across your path.”

Suddenly through the tunnel came the shrill voice of the dwarf, chanting mischievously the refrain, “Two of a kind.” Then a mocking laugh followed the words into the echoing vaults far behind the fugitives.

The Princess Hilda shuddered, and placed a light hand upon Bennett’s arm.

“Do you know what he did to them?” she asked nervously.

“He won’t tell me,” answered Bennett; “all that he will say is that they were ‘a small pair’ and he ‘discarded’ them.”

Again the princess shuddered, and quickened her steps. Suddenly the candle carried by Carl Eingen flickered vigorously, and almost succumbed to a damp draught. The princess glanced up at Bennett joyfully.

“Look at Carl’s candle,” she exclaimed. “Do you know what that means, Herr Bennett? We are near the entrance, or rather, the exit to the tunnel. The Rhine, Herr Bennett, the dear, old Rhine is waiting to take us to its heart.”

Her voice trembled with excitement and she stumbled as she darted ahead. By a quick movement Bennett’s arm caught her as she fell forward. Forgetful of everything but his burning love, he held her pressed against him as he rained passionate kisses upon her lips and cheeks.

“I love you, Hilda, I love you! I love you!” he whispered wildly. “You are my queen! my queen! Do not tremble so! See, I will be gentle! Just one more kiss, my darling! One more kiss! One more kiss!”

“Two of a kind, two of a kind, two of a kind,” cried a harsh voice, close at hand. “There, Carl Eingen, is the river, and here’s the boat! Pull it up close to the wall. That’s right. Ha, ha! I must discard again! This time it’s two pair! Two pair! Ha, ha!”

Carl Eingen had entered the flat-bottomed boat and had placed the oars in the rowlocks, after seating Fraulein MÜller in the stern.

The Princess Hilda and Herr Bennett stood upon the stone-work that jutted out from the tunnel’s opening. The breeze that swept across the bosom of the Rhine caressed their cheeks and made free with Hilda’s golden locks. Behind them stood Cousin Fritz, cap in hand, as though he did the honors of his mansion to home-going guests. Bennett gave his hand to the princess and she seated herself by Fraulein MÜller’s side.

“Come, Cousin Fritz,” cried Bennett, his voice vibrant with the joy that filled his soul, “into the boat! Quick! We can afford to take no risks—Wilhelm’s sentinel may have sharp eyes. Quick, I say!”

Cousin Fritz stepped back into the tunnel. His small, white wizened face became a ghostly vision against the black depths behind him.

“Farewell,” he cried in his thin, mocking voice, “farewell! My kingdom needs its king, and I return! Remember Cousin Fritz, King of Hesse-Heilfels for a thousand years! Farewell!”

Bennett pushed the boat into the current and jumped aboard. With powerful strokes Carl Eingen urged the clumsy craft toward the centre of the stream. Suddenly across the black waste of waters between them and the shore came a piercing voice as they heard the disjointed words:

“Two pair! Discard two pair! Draw to kings! Ha, ha! Draw to kings! Ha, ha!”

CHAPTER XV.

September in the Berkshire hills makes Litchfield, Connecticut, an attractive place to people of leisure who like to watch nature as she doffs her summer garb of green and yellow and dons the purple and scarlet raiment that autumn provides for her.

Upon the broad piazza of a hotel commanding a wide view of a hill country unrivalled for beauty in the new world sat several men and women indulging in the idle gossip that falls from the lips of people who have nothing more serious confronting them than a game of golf or a drive through the woods.

“Anything interesting in the Trumpet, Hal?” asked a youth, attired in a most unbecoming golf costume, glancing at a young man who held in his hands a copy of the latest issue of Litchfield’s weekly newspaper.

“Calvin Johnson has put a new coat of paint on his barn,” answered the news-reader solemnly. “Mrs. Rogers spent Sunday with friends in Roxbury.”

“Oh, stop it, Hal,” cried a vivacious young woman, putting up her hand imperiously. “You’ll drive us all away if you keep on.”

“Wait a moment! Let me read you something of more interest,” said the young man with the newspaper impressively. “This is the piÈce de rÉsistance of the week’s Trumpet:

“‘We take pleasure in informing our readers that Jonathan Edwards Bennett, an old resident of Litchfield, has returned from a long sojourn in Europe and has reopened the Bennett homestead on Main Street. Mr. Bennett is accompanied by his wife. Rumor has it that Mrs. Bennett is a daughter of one of the oldest and most aristocratic families in central Europe. Mr. and Mrs. Bennett are entertaining their friends, Mr. and Mrs. Eingen, of Germany, who will remain in Litchfield until late in the fall. The Trumpet is informed that Mr. Bennett will take up his residence permanently in Litchfield. It is understood that he will devote much time to politics. We congratulate our fellow-townsmen upon Mr. Bennett’s return to his native heath and take pleasure in bidding him welcome.’”

“That explains it, then!” exclaimed the vivacious young woman excitedly. “That must have been Mrs. Bennett we saw yesterday, Marion. She is really a beautiful woman, with magnificent golden hair and the dearest blue eyes! She’s a perfect love! Isn’t she, Marion?”

“She is, indeed,” answered the girl appealed to.

“Jonathan Edwards Bennett,” repeated one of the men who had listened to the Trumpet’s choice tid-bit. “He was in my class at Yale. A clever fellow, but restless. They used to say of him that he would be famous or a failure before he had been out in the world five years.”

“And has he been a success?” drawled the youth in the golf suit.

“Of course he has,” cried the vivacious young woman, “hasn’t he married a beautiful girl with golden hair and blue eyes? Surely, he could ask nothing better of life than that.”

Could Jonathan Edwards Bennett have heard these words he would have acknowledged that the vivacious young woman spoke the truth.

THE END.