"No, no, no, a hundred times no. But I am glad you like my dress and--I will try to bear myself to-night so as to be worthy of--of all you have dared for me."

"G.o.d grant we may all come safely through it, and that to-night may see you Queen indeed," I replied fervently; and I was putting my lips to her hand as a sign of my homage, though I meant more, when she drew her hand hastily away.

"I am not Queen yet," she exclaimed; and I was wondering at the meaning of this little action all the time I was donning my courtier's garb. Her changefulness puzzled me. Sometimes I hoped--well, I scarce know what I was not fool enough to think; and at others I feared. But my hopes were stronger than my fears on that account, and had there not been such important work on hand that night I think I could not have resisted putting the ball to far other use than its promoters had projected.

I could not drive with her to the palace, as it was necessary that I should arrive alone, and I had procured an invitation for her in another name. Von Krugen was to be in constant attendance upon her, with urgent instructions never to let her out of his sight; and Steinitz, who was also garbed as a courtier and carried a sword, was to be an additional guard, remaining at a distance and keeping in touch with me, so that I might know where to find Minna at the instant I needed. In order that there might be no difficulty in my recognizing her, supposing there were another domino of the same color and shape, we had had a small cross of red silk sewn on each shoulder.

I was very busy with my thoughts and full of anxiety as I drove away. So far as I could see now, my plans were complete. I had the Duke Marx in my hands; I had outwitted my opponents and could produce Minna at the very moment when they, reckoning on her absence, would have pledged themselves over the hilt in her cause; no one had breathed a hint to show that my a.s.sumption of the part of the Prince was more certainly known than a few days previously; and I had a fairly accurate knowledge of my opponents' tactics and aims, while they were ignorant of mine.

It was probable enough that my appearance at the ball safe and sound after von Nauheim's attempt on me would cause some consternation, and no doubt I must be well on my guard for the rest of the evening.

I was very late in entering, but that would only give color to the supposition that I had been trapped by von Nauheim; and I thought I might perhaps turn it to account by surprising something out of the men who did not expect me.

With this object I fastened my mask very firmly--it was a large one, and hid my features successfully; and, taking a hint from my old stage experiences, I humped up one of my shoulders, limped on one leg, and in this way hobbled, with the gait of an old man, into the ball-room.

It was a brilliant scene indeed. The magnificent suite of rooms was decorated in the most lavish manner, each in a different style and period; and the garish blaze of light in places contrasting with the soft, seductive tints of others, the artistic combination of decorative coloring, the changing play of the electric fairy lamps of every conceivable hue, the grouping of hundreds of palms and ferns with contrasting ma.s.ses of gorgeously colored flowers, a thousand guests in all the exuberant splendor of the most exquisite costumes, and the sparkling glitter of myriads of jewels, made up a scene of positively gorgeous fascination.

To me it was a great stage, on which all the people present were but supers, walking, dancing chatting, laughing, and love-making, to fill up time until the really important characters should have their entrances called.

Near to the door, as I entered, a clown was fooling clumsily and awkwardly, and pa.s.sing silly jests in a disguised voice with all who pa.s.sed him.

I knew him directly. It was the mad King, and on the sleeve of his clown's tunic I saw the mark that told us who he was. Round him in busy hum I heard loud whispers about the greatness and cleverness of the King, and every now and then he would stop his silly jesting to listen to these comments.

"'Tis easy to see thou art a soldier, old hobbler," he called to me, and ran and planted himself in my path, and peered up in my face.

"Why's that, clown?" I asked in an old man's voice.

"Because thou canst not help shouldering arms," he cried, humping up his own shoulder in ridicule of mine; and at the silly jest the crowd round burst into roars of loud Court laughter, with cries of "How excellent!"

"What wit!" "Who is this great jester?" and a hundred other notes of praise of his wonderful clowning.

I pa.s.sed on, not ill pleased to have been mistaken for an old man, and I made my way slowly round the grand rooms, looking for the men I had to meet, and wondering why the King was still at large. I kept turning to look back at the place where I had met him, and when at length I saw that he had gone I judged that this meant he had left to change his costume, and that the occasion of that change would be seized for the purposes of the plot. And just as I noticed that a voice which I recognized as the Baron Heckscher's fell on my ear.

"It is long past the hour. Something may have happened."

"I have suspected him from the first. It spells treachery," said another.

It was Herr k.u.mmell.

I had reached the far end of the suite of rooms, and at the back of me was a deep alcove or small ante-room, at the mouth of which the two men were standing, some others being farther inside. I guessed they were speaking of me, and I stood concealed by one of the pillars which supported the domed roof, and kept my back to them, listening with all my ears.

"I do not wish to think that," answered the baron in a tone of a.s.sumed reluctance. "But what you have told me is very extraordinary."

"He has purposely put her out of our reach. You will never find her. I am for letting matters pa.s.s. If he were here I would tell him to his face what I think."

It was certainly nothing less than a disaster that the two men who, of all those in the scheme, were really loyal to Minna, and should have been of the utmost value in co-operating with me, were, through the unfortunate turn of things, suspicious of me and hostile. I could, of course, do nothing now to undeceive them; but it was an additional aggravation that Minna's supposed disappearance should have been made to appear as the result of my treachery.

"We cannot go back now," I heard the baron say. "Indeed the curtain has drawn up already. The King has gone for his change of dress."

They turned then into the alcove to join the rest, and I moved away.

Soon afterward I dropped the shuffling gait of an old man and walked to the alcove with quick, firm footsteps.

"Good evening, gentlemen," I said. "I am late, but that is no fault of my own."

My arrival produced an evident surprise, and even the astute Baron Heckscher showed some signs of it.

"You are indeed very late, Prince," he said. "We had begun to fear that you were going to fail us at the last moment."

"Have you found the Countess Minna?" asked k.u.mmell. "Or perhaps you have been detained searching for her?"

His tone rang with contempt, and he made no attempt to hide his suspicions of me.

"That is a question we should put to Baron Heckscher here," I answered in a tone which made the latter start and look at me. "I mean, of course, that he almost pledged his word to find her in time for to-night's work. Have you any news, baron?"

"I have every hope that all will yet be right," he said.

"Those who hide can find," said k.u.mmell.

"They can, and I wish they'd be quick about it," I a.s.sented curtly. "But we have no time now for discussion. We have to act. And I shall be glad to be informed how matters stand. Are all the arrangements complete?"

k.u.mmell and his friend Beilager, the baron, and I had been standing apart from the rest, who were grouped together, engaged in a low but animated conversation, of which I did not doubt I was the subject. Baron Heckscher moved across to the larger group as I put the question, and I took advantage of the moment to say to k.u.mmell in a low, earnest tone:

"You have done me the ill turn to suspect me, and before the night is out you will have cause to admit your error. I shall rely upon you implicitly to stand by your loyalty in what is to come to-night.

Afterward we can have an explanation if necessary," and without giving him time to reply I went after the baron.

A short and hurried statement of the present position of things followed, the pith of which was that all was in readiness, and we might expect the news at any moment that the final coup was to be made.

A few minutes later a messenger hurried into the alcove and spoke to the baron, who then turned to us, and in a low tone said:

"Gentlemen, the King is ours. G.o.d bless the new ruler of Bavaria."

A murmured echo of the words from all present was drowned by a loud fanfare of trumpets and thumping of drums from the other end of the domed hall, and these heralded, as we knew, the coming of the King's subst.i.tute. We moved out at once to take our places for the big drama, and I looked round anxiously for the dark domino of Minna. As I caught sight of her in the distance I found that my heart was beating with quite unusual violence and speed.

CHAPTER XVII

CHECKMATE

The entrance of the mad King's understudy had been arranged with scrupulous eye to effect. The King himself had ordered all details, and they were carried out exactly as he had planned, on a scale of ostentatious and almost insane extravagance in which he was wont to indulge.

The supposed King was made up to represent a Chinese Emperor, the full robes offering effectual concealment of any difference between the figures of the King and his subst.i.tute. His head was bald save for the ornamental head-dress and the long, coal-black pigtail. His features were entirely concealed behind the skin mask of a painted Chinese face drawn very tight, lifelike, yet infinitely grotesque; and his robes were gorgeous and most costly, embroidered with thousands of jewels in the quaintest and weirdest of Chinese designs.

He was seated in a royal palanquin, bore by eight bearers in most hideous garbs, each wearing a skin mask of the same kind as the central figure; and as they put down their burden in the middle of the hall they turned in all directions, and set their faces grinning and mouthing and grimacing with a most weird effect. The palanquin itself was decorated and bejewelled with the same lavish prodigality with which the lunatic King was accustomed to squander his people's money in trifles and fooling.

So gorgeous and costly was every appointment of it, indeed, that even while the spectators marvelled at its brilliance they cursed the wastefulness that made it practicable.

But it was quite impossible to mistake the whole thing for anything but a royal freak; and those present did not need the private mark that was, as usual, on the arm to reveal to them that the bowing, grinning, sumptuously apparelled figure that sat amid the cushions of the palanquin, squeaking out gibberish in a high-pitched voice as though indulging in Chinese greetings, was their King.