A prince of lovers

LUDOVIC VON BERTHEIM walked back now through the nearly deserted streets towards the heart of the city. Small wonder was it that his manner was preoccupied, his face set in characteristic thought. The last hour had brought him an adventure such as might befall the lot of few men, even in days when manners were freer, life less circumscribed, and adventures more plentiful. Judged from his expression, the train of his thought led to very complex considerations, there was doubt, there was pleasure, anger, exultation, doubt again, ever recurring, the whole capped and bound by determination. Once he stopped and, turning, stood looking at the moon-bathed towers of the palace. Only for a moment or two till an impatient gesture swung him round and sent him again on his way.

He had not gone far, however, when he was roused from his abstraction by a hubbub in the street. Recalling his mind to his surroundings, he saw under the half-extinguished lights of an inn adjoining a play-house an excited group round what seemed to be two quarreling men. To avoid the vulgar obstruction, he crossed the street and walked quickly on. He had not gone more than a hundred paces when there came up behind him the sound of running footsteps. A man, bare-headed, and with a naked sword in his hand was flying as though for his life. The fellow wore military dress, and instead of, as his pace and condition suggested, panting with fear, he laughed as he ran. His whole appearance was so extraordinary that Ludovic, standing by to let him pass, could not help saying, “What is the matter, friend?”

The man checked his speed and gave a searching look at his questioner.

“Come!” he cried, catching Ludovic’s sleeve and trying to drag him on. “Get me out of this for the love of Heaven. Come, or I am a dead man!”

There was no fear in the fellow’s face, indeed he seemed to take his situation as a joke, but his appeal was somehow so irresistible that Ludovic found himself hurrying on by his side.

They had not gone far, however, when sounds of pursuit were heard.

“They are after us still, the dogs,” the man panted. “This comes of making myself cheap with canaille and crossing swords with a cowardly bully.”

“You have run a man through?” Ludovic asked.

“Something like it. No; he ran himself on to my point, clumsy brute. But I doubt not it is a hanging matter. Don’t empty your lungs any lower on my account, friend. It is not worth it. I am obliged for your company but we will part here. Perhaps we may meet again in the next world, it is not likely in this.”

In spite of his devil-may-care speech there was a refinement about the man which rather interested Ludovic in him. The signs of pursuit were now uncomfortably near. “No, no,” he urged quickly. “You must not be taken like this, man. You know the Jena Platz?”

“Well.”

“Take this key, it will open the door of number eleven. I will throw these people off the scent and join you presently. Quick! Down there! It will take you straight.”

With a gasp of thanks the man darted off down the street so narrow that its high houses screened all moonlight from its roadway. Ludovic ran on along the wider thoroughfare at a pace which allowed the pursuers to draw well in sight of him. As he came into view they gave tongue like hounds; he sped on at a leisurely swing; they, with the zest of following an imagined blood-trail, came on now with a rush, caught him and prepared to pull him down. But as he turned and faced them they saw that he was the very contrast of their man. They howled for disappointment.

“Where is he? You have seen him running, the big fellow? He has killed a man. Which way did he take?”

“I saw him, yes; and ran after him. But his legs were better than mine and I lost sight of him in this street. You will catch him if you do not waste time. He cannot be far away.”

One or two grumbled and looked suspicious, but the more ardent man-hunters ran on and the spirit of the chase was contagious. It was clear as the flooding moonlight that Ludovic was not the man nor one of his feather. He was left alone.

Without loss of time he turned his steps towards his lodging in the Jena Platz. His new acquaintance had not only found an asylum but had made himself quite at home therein; his comfortable attitude suggested nothing of a fugitive taking sanctuary. However, he received his host and preserver with a hearty expression of gratitude.

“You drew the dogs off cleverly; it was a good deed,” he remarked with the glib coolness of a man whose wits and muscles have kept him going in an adventurous world; “a good deed, and one that will be recompensed elsewhere better than I can ever hope to repay it. You have a snug billet here; ah, well, it is my own fault if it is better than I have been accustomed to of late. Your face is unfamiliar, sir,” he scrutinised him coolly. “No matter for that. It is the face I would have wagered on for a handsome action. You are new to this precious city of peacocks and kites with the big vulture hovering over all?”

“You mean the Chancellor? Yes. I have been here but a week. I come from Drax-Beroldstein.”

“Ah! That’s a fine bold land, with hot-headed men and pretty women. Yes; I have loved and fought there—as in a good many lands besides. But in truth I began to find the climate of your Beroldstein a trifle too warm for my complexion. I never could keep out of the blaze, you understand; it takes a sober fool to walk always on the shady side, and though I may have folly enough and to spare, sobriety is a vice I cannot confess to.”

“Then you are just as well outside of Beroldstein,” Ludovic laughed. “Will you fill a glass now? You may stand in need of refreshment after your late exertion.”

He pointed to a side table on which decanters stood. His visitor showed no backwardness in pouring out a glass of spirits and tossing it off.

“Ah, yes,” he observed with a meditative smack of the lips; “it was a ticklish affair. Always a woman; that is my experience, and I have tossed about the world enough to speak of its tides and currents, squalls and tempests with authority. Look now. At the play to-night—an infernally silly piece—a girl laughed at me. Could I help that? Or laughing back? The play was dull and the girl was pretty. What would you have? I am no priest to look like a saint and think like a devil. Well, our interchange of courtesies seemed to give offence to a smart fellow with a hawk’s eye and a rabbit’s heart, who wanted to monopolise the lady’s glances. Was it my fault again if she preferred to look at my shock head than at his wonderful moustachios turned up to his eyes? The less my deserts the greater my gratitude. And this brave fellow, like many another, mistook gratitude for love. Anyhow he grew consumedly jealous, and when the play was over and I was ready to escort the lady through the crowd he tried to jostle me away. Jostle me!” He laughed, merrily scornful. “Me, who have fought in half the countries of Europe; whose sword and a stout heart and arm behind it (pardon a passing boast) are my stock-in-trade. Naturally I did not give way, never yet quailed before a pair of fierce moustachios—pah! Albrecht von Ompertz frightened of a tuft of hair!—and never shall. He had to carry it boldly before the lady, and when two men are bold and not agreed, why, it means cold steel. He waited for me by the tavern, mad with rage and jealousy or—well, poor fellow, they will never trouble him again in this world. And so I have brought my neck uncomfortably near the hempen cravat. It was only when my point stuck in that I remembered the new decree against brawling. Well, what’s done is done; one cannot blow the fire with burst bellows or get a dance out of a fellow with a skewered lung.” He drained off another glass of spirits; his situation seemed to affect him as little as though it were but the loss of a few pieces at play.

“Von Ompertz, then your name is?” Ludovic said.

“Add Captain,” the other replied with a mock bow and a flourish. “Devotedly at your service; I would say everlastingly did not that seem a big word from a man who has but a few more breathing hours before him. But for those you can command me, and what is more to the point, my sword.” He took it up from the couch on which he had thrown it and glanced down the blade. “Don Moustachio’s hot blood has bubbled away, it seems. Ah, this good little fellow and I have been through some tight squeezes, I tell you; some warm encounters, official and private, for personal considerations and for imperial motives. I have held commissions in pretty well half the states of Europe.”

“A free-lance, Captain?”

“Just so.” He threw his arms out and then pushed back the shock of hair that fell across one side of his face like a half-drawn curtain.

“I love two things in a lesser degree, but they are comparative trifles as my old General Freiherr von Aremberg observed after Schweidnitz when he heard that a church full of people had been fired and its contents roasted. Yes, I have a keen nose for a quarrel, international or individual, and it is worth something to be free to follow one’s sympathies, although that usually means enlisting on the weaker side. Well, if it is all over now, I’ve lived my life and with plenty of pepper to spice it.”

All through Captain von Ompertz’ voluble talk his host had been quietly observing him with amused interest. “You must get away, Captain,” he said. “A man of your resource and experience is surely not going to hang about and be taken.”

“Not if I can help it,” the other replied cheerfully. “But get away is easier to say than to do in this country where Rollmar, the old spider, has his feelers out on every side. It is nothing but a big net, sir. We can move about, but we cannot fly, and when he wants to be down on us the spider moves quickest.”

“And you, devotee of freedom, stay here,” laughed Ludovic.

Ompertz gave a shrug. “The place is lively and is a good point from which to scan the horizon for a war cloud. And now—donnerwetter! what the devil did that fool with the moustachios want to draw on me for?”

It was arranged that Captain von Ompertz should stay there in hiding till a chance occurred of getting away in safety. His host left him comfortably stretched on a couch with a cloak wrapped round him. But when in the early morning Ludovic entered the room, his guest had flown, leaving a few scrawled lines of apology.

“I am none the less grateful because I cannot be a burden to you. The chance of escape over the net is as fair to-day as it will be to-morrow, and I hate suspense. If I get clear away you shall hear from me (though I know not your name); if not you will assuredly hear of me. A thousand thanks from your grateful servant, A. v. O.”