A prince of lovers

“NO news of Prince Ludwig?” the Duke enquired.

The Chancellor shook his head. “None. He seems to have cut himself off from news. It is tiresome.”

“After all,” said his highness, “there is no great hurry.”

“There is hurry,” Rollmar contradicted. There were occasions when he did not concern himself to be too deferential to his master, and this was one of them. “It is quite time that the Prince at least showed himself. The effect on the Princess of this indifference may be disastrous.”

“I hardly think that,” the Duke objected with a weak man’s decision; a stupid man’s confidence in his own judgment. “Omne ignotum——”

“The application of the aphorism is wide,” rejoined Rollmar bluntly, “but it does not embrace royalties.”

“Oh?” questioned the Duke, feeling that it had very often included himself.

“No,” the schoolmaster maintained with an expression of something like contempt for his royal pupil. “Decidedly not where political expediency is in the air. If it were a simple lieutenant of cavalry, now, instead of the heir to a throne, the pro magnifico might apply. A young soldier has possibilities to every woman, a prince only to those of the middle classes.”

“You don’t know Ruperta.”

“I know women,” the Councillor retorted dryly. “Royalty has no charms for them until they are over thirty-five.”

“Oh, you think so?” the Duke said doubtfully, having no more definite argument ready. “I thought a good deal more of it before I was that age than I do now.”

“Is it possible?” The Duke looked for the sneer he knew was there, but it was only to be felt, not seen, so he had no excuse for offence. “Your Highness was not—a woman.”

That was the worst of Rollmar; his cleverness was useful, indispensable, his stinging tongue abominable. Duke Theodor often wished his minister less able, that he might afford to do without, or at any rate, with less of him. To have it conveyed to you daily, even under the cloak of homage, that your crown covers a pair of ass’s ears is galling; it needs a full and constant supply of self-opinion for its constant rejection. Happily in Duke Theodor’s case the flow showed no signs of failing.

“You think,” he suggested, drawing back from the thin ice at its ominous crack, “you think my daughter will take offence at the cavalier way in which Prince Ludwig seems inclined to treat the business?”

Rollmar protruded his under jaw. “I don’t know whether the Princess will take offence, but the question is whether she may not take a fancy to someone else, someone visible and tangible, which Prince Ludwig at present is not.”

“I should hope,” said the Duke pompously, “my daughter would not do that.”

“I should hope so, too,” Rollmar added dryly.

“It is impossible,” his highness declared, nettled at the doubt in the other’s tone.

“It is not only possible, but highly probable,” the Chancellor declared boldly.

“What makes you say that, Baron?”

“My knowledge of human nature, your Highness.”

There was no denying that knowledge which had often done the state good service. So the Duke did not think it wise to protest further.

“You have suspicions?” he enquired.

“Happily, none—as yet.”

“What do you propose? To find this young man and bring him to his senses?”

“Precisely; your Highness’s forethought has anticipated my intention.” The astute old man made a point of always crediting the royal brains with any little balance that might be due to them.

“It would be well to have the affair settled,” the Duke murmured, hoping he might not be called upon to suggest a plan for the reclaiming of the Prince.

“It must be settled,” the Minister returned stooping over his papers.

The note of determination was enough to show that the furtherance of the object might well be left to the wily old brain for its best accomplishment. The Duke dismissed the subject with a yawn of relief. The discussion of family arrangements with Rollmar had usually the result of making him feel uncomfortable. The armour-plate of mere dignity is a trifle thin for the shots of intellect.

“To change the subject, I hope your Highness is resolved to second my efforts in the direction of order by strictly enforcing the brawling edict,” the Chancellor observed, in a tone less of enquiry than injunction.

“Why, certainly, certainly,” his highness responded.

“A man was killed in the streets a few nights since,” Rollmar continued; “outside the Hof-Theater. This sort of thing is abominable and cannot be permitted. Brawling leads to riot and riot to revolution.”

“Heaven forbid,” ejaculated the Duke.

“It must be put down with a strong hand.”

“Assuredly, Baron. I leave that to you.”

“Clemency is entirely out of place, your Highness.”

“None shall be shewn. Is the offender in this case under arrest?”

“Unfortunately not, Sire. But he is well known, and is sure to be taken. I have made a point of insisting that he shall not escape.”

“Good. Yes, we must put down disorder even at the cost of a little disagreeable severity, eh, Baron?”

“Better tighten the strap than lose the helmet,” Rollmar observed with grim sententiousness, and took his leave.

In his cabinet he heard that the peccant Captain von Ompertz had been caught and clapped into jail. “That is well,” he commented in a tone that promised scant mercy for the rollicking sabreur.

Doubtless it was because his chief thoughts just then were concentrated on the alliance he had determined to bring about, that when a scrawled note from the newly caged one was apologetically laid before him in which the prisoner insisted that if an interview were granted him he could lay before the Chancellor a certain fact that had come to his knowledge which might have an important bearing on the projected marriage, he, after tossing the message aside contemptuously, astonished his subordinate by ordering Captain von Ompertz to be brought to him. Presently the jovial swashbuckler was ushered in and, at a sign from the Minister, left alone with him.

“Well, Captain, so you are caught at last. What have you to say?”

Rollmar had lifted his head from the writing before him and, leaning back, regarded the prisoner with a careless but none the less searching look. A greater contrast between two men could hardly have been found. The standing figure, big, brawny, workmanlike, with the round, weather-tanned face crowned by a mass of thick fair hair, the shabby half-military dress with the empty scabbard eloquent of duress, the air jaunty with its suggestion of an unquenchable spirit; then the other personality, mind, as it were, confronting matter, small, wizened almost, the dress neat but scrupulously simple, the face seamed with a lifetime of deep thought and restless ambition, placid now as he surveyed the rough man at his ease, save for the suggestion of energy and power in the fierce, inscrutable eyes fixed on his visitor. To do von Ompertz justice it must be said that he never for a moment seemed to quail under the glance in which could be read life or death with the chances all inclining towards the latter.

“Yes, Excellency; I have been caught, unfortunately,” the soldier replied bluffly. “My own fault. I was fool enough to come back like a fox to my hole when I might easily have scampered across the frontier.”

“The law,” observed Rollmar, with his characteristic trick of sententiousness, “is ever ready to acknowledge its indebtedness to a criminal’s own want of common-sense.”

A shadow of sternness fell over the prisoner’s face as he said, “Your pardon, Excellency, I am no criminal.”

“You are a law-breaker,” Rollmar returned coldly. “A brawler, a manslayer.”

“I drew in self-defence,” von Ompertz protested hotly.

The only reply was a shrug.

“My only offence was that I happened to be a better swordsman than the man who attacked me.”

The Chancellor took up a pen and beat it carelessly on his hand. “I do not propose to try the merits of the case,” he said with cutting indifference to the other’s protest. “That is for the judge. You have a communication to make to me. I have no time to waste in listening to anything else.”

For a moment, so stinging was the old man’s tone, Ompertz looked as though he would meet it by a hot refusal. But the irritation was put aside as he replied with a laugh, “I thought it as well to justify the condition I am going to make.”

Rollmar raised his eyebrows. “Condition?”

“Naturally,” the prisoner returned boldly. “I am not going to throw a chance away. A secret of state importance has come to me in extraordinary fashion. I want my liberty; not much to ask, since my only crime was to prevent myself being run through by a moustachioed booby who was the real brawler.”

“His Highness,” said Rollmar, “has declared to me within the hour that he will show no mercy towards disturbers of the peace.”

“Then my secret will go to the gallows with me. And to the woeful disturbance, I fear, of his Highness’s peace.”

The inscrutable old man was probably anxious, certainly curious, but he did not show it. “I can but lay your case before the Duke,” he said with a shrug. “It all depends upon the nature of this secret of yours. It may be nothing; it may be known to us.”

“It is neither, Excellency.”

“It concerns——” the Chancellor reached for the missive as though he had forgotten the contents, “the royal marriage? Ah! What can you know of that?” he questioned scornfully.

“Something your Excellency would and his Highness would not care to know,” Ompertz answered bluntly. “Something affecting the honour of the royal house.”

The Chancellor gave in his mind a shrewd guess. “Just so,” he observed indifferently. “Connected with the Princess?”

“Perhaps. I shall not say till I have your Excellency’s assurance of pardon and liberty.”

“H’m!” Rollmar leaned back and seemed to ponder whether it were worth while to make such a bargain. The busy, plotting brain soon had an expedient to meet the case.

“You had better speak out Captain,” he said, with the suggestion of a threat.

“With pleasure against an order of release under your Excellency’s hand,” the undaunted Ompertz persisted.

Rollmar laughed. “You are a bold fellow.”

“It is my trade,” the prisoner returned simply. “As a free man I shall be happy to place my boldness at your Excellency’s disposal.”

The old minister gave a half-amused, half-contemptuous glance at the pertinacious mercenary. The pawn in his game might well be saved for a future sacrifice. He drew a piece of paper towards him and wrote a few lines. “There, Captain, you are a free man. I trust you have something of value to pay for your passport.” He tossed the paper across the table and lay back in his chair his glittering eyes burning like symbolic lamps of craft and power.

“If I satisfy you not as to that, Excellency,” Ompertz said sturdily, “I will tear up this paper and go back to my cage. I am an honest man, noble if I cared——”

“Go on, tell me. I have no time for your family history,” Rollmar interrupted.

“This, then, it is, Excellency. I have said that a foolish impulse brought me back here into the net which was spread for me. I thought I might lie perdu in a snug place I know of, but to get there unrecognised proved not so easy as I imagined. Chut! When once a man has a price on his head there is a hue and cry ready for him at every corner. So it was that I found myself in the city unable to go forward or retreat for fear of detection. But I contrived to climb unseen into the royal park, and lay hidden there all the afternoon. Then as dusk came on I heard the baying of hounds, and suddenly bethought me of the patrol with their dogs that I had been told made the tour of the park every evening. Here was a pretty predicament; after all my trouble, to be run down like a rat in a trench; so I came out of my lair and looked round for a line of escape. I felt fairly certain the patrol would confine their attentions to the outer belt of the park where the covert was thickest.”

“So?” The Chancellor took a mental note of the shortcoming.

“I had plenty of time,” Ompertz continued, “to make a bolt to avoid them, since, from the sound, the dogs were still at a good distance off. To climb the outer wall was risky, as I might thereby slip as it were out of the rain into the gutter. The other alternative was to make for the palace buildings and lurk there till the patrol had passed, trusting to my native wit and acquired impudence to carry me through if challenged. At least I was not likely to be recognised in those high quarters.

“It would not do to run, as I might pass into view, so I walked soberly across the park, boldly, as though coming from the gate on business at the Palace. My plan appeared to succeed; I got under cover of the buildings without exciting any serious notice, and ensconced myself in the porch of the royal chapel. Scarcely, however, had I taken my stand there when I heard voices on the other side of the door. In a second I had slipped away and was behind one of the buttresses. The owners of the voices came out and went off. Then it occurred to me that while the patrol was on its rounds I might best be hidden in the chapel. I went in softly and for better security—I hope the sacrilege may be forgiven me, but reverence must give place to necessity—I crept under the altar and lay there snug and safe from observation. As soon as I judged it was safe to get back to the plantation, I was preparing to creep out, when I heard a heavy footstep, and then, to my dismay, the locking of the door. Well, as I found myself a prisoner I resolved to make the best of the situation. A church is not, I must confess, the place I would choose to pass a night in; I prefer livelier quarters. But I am used to the fortune of war, and my billet was dry, if somewhat dusty. So I crept back under the altar where I found some cloths, and made myself so comfortable a bed that being dog-tired, Excellency, I went off to sleep as in any four-poster.

“When I woke and had occupied some moments in realising where the devil, or rather, in the name of the saints, I was, I peeped out under the altar-cloth and saw it was night, although the moonlight enabled me to see round the place pretty clearly. I was just crawling out to stretch my limbs which were aching somewhat from the penitential hardness of the holy floor, when I became aware that I was not alone in the chapel. I am coming now, Excellency, to the kernel of my secret.” Von Ompertz had by this acquired an easy confidence from the intense interest with which the fierce eyes were fastened on him.

“Go on,” Rollmar said curtly.

“The shadow,” he resumed, “of a human figure crossed one of the pillars, then the figure itself came into my view. A lady.”

“Ah!” The exclamation was involuntary, but it told that the disclosure had been half anticipated.

“The lady,” von Ompertz continued, “was the Princess.”

The minister did not give the sign of surprise for which the other paused. “Go on,” he commanded again.

“She came towards me, then turned off by the organ. Under the strange circumstances a little curiosity was perhaps pardonable, seeing that, lying as I was in the deep shadow, its indulgence was safe. What was the Princess doing then all alone in the dark? I crawled forward till I could see round the screen behind which she had disappeared. Then I witnessed an unexpected sight, Excellency. I am a man of honour, and not even to save my neck would I have divulged what I saw to any one in this world but yourself.”

With a slightly cynical curve of the lip, Rollmar nodded him on. Ompertz came a step nearer and continued in a lower tone.

“The Princess was standing by an open door in the organ. From out the opening a figure appeared—a man’s.”

“He came from the organ?”

“Even so, Excellency; from the inside of the organ. They stayed there talking together. Unfortunately the man stood in the darkness. I could just make out his form, but not clearly enough to be able to identify his face were I to see him again. But the Princess stood where a streak of moonlight showed her face and—well, one has only two eyes, and if one had twenty the Princess would engage them all.”

“Go on with the story,” Rollmar said with quiet austerity.

Ompertz gave a bow of compliance. “They spoke together for some time, but in so low a tone that I could catch no word. Then I got a great start. So intent was I with observing the pair—for although I felt it was unfair, yet I dared not move back to my hiding-place—that I did not notice another lady who had entered the chapel and came now so close as almost to tread on me. Luckily she seemed in such a fluster that she did not see me. I lay still, scarcely daring to breathe.

“‘Princess!’ she cried. ‘Come! it is time. You will be missed!’

“She moved away towards the door. And then, Excellency, I saw the Princess kiss the man. They separated on that. Her Highness hurried away, while the other lady took her companion to the door which I heard unfastened and locked again. That is all, Excellency. I had to stay there half-starved till morning, and when I got outside my hunger led to my arrest. After all, it was my duty to——”

Rollmar held up his hand with a silencing gesture. He was thinking rapidly, acutely, and what he wanted was facts not comments. Those he could supply shrewdly enough himself.

“So you never saw the man’s face?”

“No, Excellency. His face was never in the light.”

“Should you recognise his voice?”

“Possibly.” Ompertz felt it his cue to make himself indispensable.

For several minutes there was silence in the room. The Chancellor had motioned Ompertz to a chair, and himself sat plunged in such intense thought as, indeed, the information called for. Perhaps, had the airy swashbuckler had an idea of the part he himself was occupying in that busy cogitation he might not have sat quite so comfortably assured of his fortunes. However, expediency was on his side, and for the moment all was well with him.

The silence was oppressive, the atmosphere of the room heavy, the ticking of the great clock so monotonous that the soldier of fortune, whose night’s rest had been disturbed of late, could hardly smother a yawn. But he told himself he had played his trump card at the right moment and waited but to draw his winnings.

At length the long deliberation came to an end; the expedient had been determined on, and Rollmar spoke.

“I am glad to know, Captain von Ompertz, that you are fully alive to the importance and, above all, to the delicate nature of the secret which chance has revealed to you. It is fortunate, Captain von Ompertz, that it is to a man of honour that this compromising affair has become known.” Ompertz bowed, as accepting a deserved compliment.

“I say,” Rollmar continued with an inauspicious light in his eyes, “it is fortunate for all parties concerned, directly and indirectly—yourself included.”

The suggestion was unmistakable, the soldier’s second bow was given in less comfort than the first.

Sitting with his thin, white, cruel hands clasped before him, the hands that had woven many a web and signed many a doom, the Chancellor resumed.

“What you saw, my good Captain, was a dangerous sight for any man to see. But I have confidence, as I say, in your honour, your chivalry,” (Ompertz bowed again with rising confidence) “and I mean to trust you.”

“The trust with which your Excellency is pleased to honour a poor soldier shall never be repented,” was the mercenary’s fervent assurance.

The Chancellor pursed his lips as though to intimate he would take care of that.

“It is,” he proceeded, “obviously imperative that this discovery should be confined to the——” he unclasped the long fingers and counted on them—“the five persons who already know of it. I shall, at any rate for the present, take upon myself to keep even his Highness in ignorance. You will understand, Captain, that state as well as personal interests demand that this foolish affair must be crushed at once. It is in the highest degree unfortunate that the other party in this affair is unknown, unrecognisable. Still, that is now merely a question of a few hours. I propose to employ you, Captain, on this secret service.”

“I am greatly honoured, Excellency.”

“With you,” Rollmar went on, ignoring the other’s flourish of acknowledgements, “with you inconvenient explanations will be unneeded. You will understand. For the time being you are in my service. Here,” he wrote a few words on a slip of paper, “is an order on my Comptroller for pay against any present necessities. Furbish up your wardrobe, and report yourself to me every day at noon and six o’clock. I may have instructions for you. In the meantime keep your eyes and ears open, live quietly, respectably, and, above all, remember that a hint of your secret cancels your pardon.”

“Excellency,” Ompertz protested in his grandest manner, “your threat does me less than justice. The honour of the Princess is safe in my keeping; safer than if my life were as important to me as your words imply.”

Rollmar gave an impatient nod of dismissal. “That is all, Captain. Report yourself at six o’clock.”

Ompertz turned towards the door, then looked back. “The identity of the inhabitant of the organ, Excellency? Shall I——?”

The Chancellor waved his hand impatiently. “You may leave that to me,” he interrupted grimly.

When von Ompertz was gone he struck a bell. “Maurelli,” he said to the attendant. A keen-eyed under-officer came in.

“I have given Captain von Ompertz his liberty for certain reasons,” the Chancellor explained, in the quick peremptory tone of a man accustomed to handle all the various levers of the State-machine. “I have a use for him. Until I give orders to the contrary let an eye be kept on him, not too closely. I do not wish the Captain to leave the city or get drunk.”

“I understand, Excellency.”

A motion of the hand and the Chancellor was alone to work out his strategy.