A Dash .. .. .. For a Throne Part 52

"What name is that? Or what do you say it is?" he asked when I paused.

"I decline to tell you;" and with that I turned on my heel and walked to the back door.

Again the bell was rung, and the two men entered.

"Detain the prisoner in the ante-room," cried von Augener peremptorily; "and send the chief of the police to me at once. I'll find a way to make you talk," he added angrily to me.

I was led out into the ante-room, and the men mounted guard over me, the rest of those present, who were lolling and chatting idly, staring at me with some curiosity. I cared nothing. My temper was still excited, and my pulses throbbing with anger, as I sat paying scant heed to what went on around me.

Suddenly there came a change. Every man in the room leapt to his feet and stood rigid at attention. A strong, firm, somewhat harsh voice was heard, which I knew well; and, like the rest, I rose instinctively as I saw the Emperor enter the room, followed by two officers of his suite. A single, hurried, sweeping glance of his appeared to notice everything in the place, and after a rapid, lightning look in my direction, the eyes dwelling on my face for one second, he pa.s.sed through the door and entered the room which I had just left. When I resumed my seat my heart was beating fast, no longer with anger against von Augener, but with the thought of meeting again under such altered circ.u.mstances the powerful and remarkable monarch who, as a Prince, had been my intimate companion.

I hoped and more than half believed that he had come so that he might be present at my examination. I guessed he would have been told the hour fixed for it, and, let the risks be what they might, I resolved that the opportunity should not pa.s.s, if I could possibly help it, without my obtaining an audience. I would put everything to the hazard in order to lay before him directly the true story of the plot from Minna's point of view, and I would back my statement with an avowal of my ident.i.ty. A quarter of an hour later the door was opened again--and how anxiously I had kept my eyes glued to it may be imagined--and I was ordered to return alone into the room. My excitement, as I rose to obey, was so intense and unnerving that it was all I could do to command myself sufficiently to be able to walk steadily into the presence.

CHAPTER XXVIII

THE EMPEROR

When I entered the room the second time, old von Augener was still sitting at the table, and the Emperor was standing at one of the windows, his stern, strong profile showing to me clear cut and hard against the light. I halted just inside the door, and stood gazing at him. I was in a sense half fascinated by the crowd of emotions which his presence roused. To me he was still what he had always been--the type of much that is best and highest in mankind, while his actual greatness and n.o.bility were magnified many times by the glamour of my old personal affection for him. Had he known who I was, what, I wondered, would have been the manner of my reception? As I entered the room the two members of the suite left it, and we three--the Emperor, von Augener, and I--were left alone. Ignorant though the harsh old man was of my ident.i.ty, yet the hate and hostility which he had felt for me originally appeared to motive him now, for he scowled to the full as angrily as on that day when he had come to my cabin to pa.s.s the virtual sentence of death upon me.

"Now," he called suddenly, with a sharp, rasping jerk of his voice, for he saw that my eyes were fixed on the Emperor, "stand here, if you please," and he pointed to a spot in front of his table. "You refused to speak a few minutes since, and to tell me what you know of this matter.

Perhaps you will do so now since his Majesty has graciously vouchsafed to give you another chance."

The harshness of his manner did more than anything else could have done to collect my somewhat scrambled wits.

"I did not refuse to say what I knew--I refused to submit to insinuations that were insulting to me. I told you that if you would question me without insult I would reply. I am only too anxious to make known every fact in my possession, and it was my intention to solicit an audience of his Majesty for that purpose."

The old bully listened with very ill grace to this, and would have frowned me down had he dared; but I was not to be stopped by him.

"You have told me how you went to Gramberg, and you allege that you remained there to protect the Countess Minna from a plot against her.

How came you as a stranger to know anything about such a plot?"

"I was told that the Count von Nauheim was the acknowledged representative of a powerful section of the Gramberg supporters here in Munich, and that it was a part of the compact that he should have the countess as his wife; the alleged reason being the desire to secure to that section a direct share of the influence which the throne would naturally wield. As I knew that the count was already married, and a man of the vilest and most infamous character, the inference of treachery lay on the surface."

"The inference might affect the man himself, but how do you know that others were aware of his character?"

"The fact itself was a sufficient motive to induce me to try and save the girl from such a man--the proofs that others were concerned with him came afterward and gradually."

"What proofs?"

"That von Nauheim, at the instigation of others, had virtually murdered the Countess Minna's brother at the moment when a former plot was rife to carry the throne and put the Count Gustav upon it. The murder was in this wise;" and I told the story of Praga's duel.

As I spoke, unfolding the story gradually and with such skill as I had at command, I saw the face by the window growing darker and gloomier and sterner every minute.

"There is a nest of vermin here that needs clearing out," exclaimed von Augener at the close. "How do you know all this?"

"From Praga himself, who extorted the confession of the whole plot from von Nauheim both in writing and afterward in the presence of the Countess Minna and myself. Praga was himself attacked in turn by the agents of these men, because he had refused to do what they wished--to murder me. By a lucky stroke of fortune, it was I who chanced to come to his help."

"What attempts have been made on you, and, in your opinion, why?"

For answer I described the means by which I had at the meeting managed to make my life necessary for the carrying on of their scheme.

"There was a plot within a plot," I said--"an open plot, of which the securing of the crown for the Countess Minna was the object ostensibly; and a secret one, which aimed at her ruin, to make her unfit to become Queen by mating her with a man already married, or to ruin her by putting her into his power for an object infinitely more foul and vile.

It was against that I had to fight, and to fight almost single-handed;"

and I went on to describe at length many of the incidents of the past few weeks.

"Why did you not come to Berlin, sir?"

The question came from the Emperor, who wheeled round on me as if clinching an accusation, while he stared fixedly at me, those searching, piercing, wonderful eyes of his boring into my head.

"You would have spared us all this trouble."

"I should have spared myself also the humiliation of having no sufficient answer to your Majesty's question," was my reply. "I see it now. My motive was that I feared the enmity of the Ostenburg family would reach the Countess Minna wherever she might be. I was told, and believed that indeed, that they would suffer no Gramberg rival for the throne to remain alive and at liberty. I knew that they had compa.s.sed the death of the brother and had plotted a dishonor worse than death against the countess herself, and I believed there were no limits to their venom and hostility."

"But how could you hope to save her by allowing things to go on?" he asked again after a pause in the same sharp, indicting tone.

"I thought I had devised a scheme by which I could put the countess in a position of such strength that she could dictate virtually her own terms, and so secure that liberty which I feared they would never otherwise concede. My plan was to allow the conspiracy to go forward for putting the countess upon the throne, to postpone the marriage with von Nauheim, and then to watch for and thwart the attempt I knew would be made to get her into their power; and at the same time to deliver a counter-blow and to get the Ostenburg heir, the Duke Marx, into my own hands. I calculated that then I could make my own terms in the countess's interests."

"'Fore Heaven, sir, you don't lack daring to play fast and loose with thrones in this way," cried von Augener; while the Emperor stood sternly silent, revolving what I had said.

"Tell me the rest," he said abruptly.

"My scheme broke in my hands, because I was myself betrayed to them. The Baron Heckscher succeeded in gaining information of my plans, or rather of that part of them which I had made for the safe-keeping of the countess, and he outwitted me at the last moment," and I described the whole ruse by which Minna had been carried off at the ball and Clara Weylin put in her place.

The story was interesting enough to them, and both listened closely.

When I ended, von Augener bent to read some of the papers on his desk, in order, as I saw, to compare what I had told him with what had been previously reported to him.

But the Kaiser needed no notes; that extraordinary memory of his carried every detail, item, and particular, and as I was telling him my version he was comparing it link for link with what he already knew, in a process of subtle mental a.n.a.lysis.

"And your next step?" he asked sharply after a short pause.

"To make my possession of the Duke Marx perfectly secure, and then to warn Baron Heckscher that I held the duke as a hostage for the safety of the countess."

"Do you mean to admit that you openly threatened to use violence on the person of the duke, the heir to the throne?" asked von Augener, as if aghast at my temerity in venturing on such a confession.

"I threatened it, and I meant it too," I replied, in a voice firm enough to prove that I was in earnest.

"You can see the heinousness of that offence?"

"It was not a tenth part so bad as the offences of the Ostenburg party.

They had actually murdered one heir and threatened another. I had chosen a course and was compelled to carry it out my own way. But I knew the baron would never drive me to an extreme step of that kind. While I held the duke in p.a.w.n the baron was helpless and had no option but to yield to me. And this I made him understand," and with that I gave them a full report of my last interview with Baron Heckscher, and of the compact we then made--that Minna should be given up to me and the Duke Marx set at liberty, the condition being that the former should go away and leave the latter at liberty to come forward when called to the throne, and that there should be a subsequent definite renunciation by Minna of all claim to the crown.

"A pretty ring of king-makers, indeed!" exclaimed von Augener.

"And that 'compact,' as you term it, was carried out?" asked the Emperor.