So, though with the stress of wars and other things I had mostly forgotten, yet I said not only that, but the little Prayer of Childhood he had taught me. And then I kissed him as I used to do when I bade him good-night.

"Yes," he said, softly, "it is true, after all. You are mine own only son. Hugo--I am glad you have come so far to see your father before he dies."

I told him how I had come, and brought Dessauer forward, introducing him as one great in the kingdom where I was, and to whom I was much beholden. He shook him by the hand with grave, intent courtesy, and again looked at me.

"Now, father," said I, "we have no long time to bide with you, lest the new Duke come upon us. We must hie us back to our lodging with the Bishop Peter, lest we be missed."

My father smiled.

"Ye will live but sparely there!" said he, with a flicker of his ancient smile.

"Tell us how you came to this," said I, "and, if you can, why Helene, our little Helene, stands so terribly accused."

My father paused a long time before he began to answer.

"It is not easy for me to tell you all," he said. "I know and I have the words, but, somehow, when I try to fit the words to the thing, they run asunder and will not mix, like water and oil. But see, Hugo, here is an elixir of rare value. Drop a drop or two on my tongue if ye see me wander. It will bring me back for a time."

CHAPTER XLII

PRINCESS PLAYMATE

Then began my father to tell the story slowly, with many a pause and interruption, now searching for words, now racked with pain, all of which I need not imitate, and shall leave out. But the substance of his tale was to this effect:

"After you had left us, the Dukedom went from bad to worse--no peace, no rest, no money. Duke Casimir took less and less of my advice, but, on the contrary, began again his old horrors--plundering, killing, living by terror and in terror. He threatened Torgau. He attacked Pla.s.senburg. He stirred up hornets' nests everywhere. At home he made himself the common mark for every a.s.sa.s.sin.

"Then suddenly came his nephew back, and almost immediately he grew great in favor with him. Uncle and nephew drank together. They paraded the terraces arm in arm. I was never more sent for save to do my duty. Otho von Reuss rode abroad at the head of the Black Hors.e.m.e.n.

"But, at the same time, to my great joy, arrived the Little Playmate back to me. She was safer with me, she said. So that, having her, I needed naught else. She came with good news of you, making the journey not alone, for two men of the Princess's retinue brought her to the city gates."

"The Princess!" I cried; "aye, I thought so. I judged that it was the Princess who sent her back."

Dessauer motioned with his hand. He saw that it was dangerous to throw my father off the track. And, indeed, this was proven at once, for my unfortunate interruption set my father's mind to wandering, till finally I had to drop certain drops of the red liquid on his tongue. These, indeed, had a marvellous effect upon him. He sat up instantly, his eyes flashing the old light, and began to speak rapidly and to clear purport, even as he used to do in the old days when Duke Casimir would come striding across the yard at all hours of the night and day to consult his Justicer.

"What was I telling?" he went on. "Yes, I remember, of the home-coming of Helene under honorable escort. And she was beautiful--but all her race were beautiful, all the women of them, at any rate. But that is another matter.

"So things went well enough with us till, as she went across the yard one day to meet me at the door of the hall as I came out, who should see her but the Count Otho von Reuss. And she turned from him like a queen and took hold of my arm, clasping it strongly. Then he gazed fixedly at us both, and his look was the evil-doer's look. Oh, I know it. Who knows that look, if not I? And so we pa.s.sed within. But my Helene was quivering and much afraid, nestling to me--aye, to me, old Gottfried Gottfried, like a frightened dove.

"After this she went not out into the court-yard or city any more, save with me by her side, and Otho von Reuss lingered about, watching like a wolf about the sheepfold. For, as I say, he was in high favor with Duke Casimir, and had already equal place with him on the bed of justice.

"Then there came a night, lightning peeping and blazing, alternate blue and ghastly white--G.o.d's face and the devil's time about staring in at the lattice. I lay alone in my chamber. But I was not asleep. As you know, I do not often sleep. But I lay awake and thought and thought. The lightning showed me faces I had not seen for thirty years, and forms I remembered, black against eternity. But all at once, in a certain after-clap of silence that followed the roaring thunder, I heard a voice call to me.

"'My father--my father" it cried.

"It was like a soul in danger calling on G.o.d.

"I rose and went, clad as I was in the red of mine office (for that day I had done the final grace more than once); even so, I ran down the stairs to the room of my little Helene.

"The lightning showed me my lamb crouched in the corner, her lips open, white, squared with horror, her arms extended, as though to push some monstrous thing away. A black shape, whose, I could not tell, I saw bending over her. Then came blackness of darkness again. And again my Helene's voice. Ah, G.o.d, I can hear it now, calling pitifully, like a woman hanging over h.e.l.l and losing hold: 'Father--my father!'

"'I am here!' I cried, loudly, even as on the scaffold I cry the doom for which the malefactors die.

"And the room lit up with a flame, white as the face of G.o.d as He pa.s.sed by on Mount Sinai, flash on continuous flash. And there before me, with a countenance like a demon's, stood Otho von Reuss."

I uttered a hoa.r.s.e cry, but Dessauer again checked me. My father went on:

"Otho von Reuss it was--he saw me in my red apparel, and cried aloud with mighty fear. If G.o.d had given me mine axe in my hand--well, Duke or no Duke, he had cried no more. But even as he turned and fled from the room I seized him about the waist, and, opening the window with my other hand, I cast him forth. And as he went down backward, clutching at nothing, G.o.d looked again out of the skylights of heaven, and showed me the face of the devil, even as Michael saw it when he hurled him shrieking into the nether pit.

"Then I went back and took in my arms my one ewe lamb.

"Many days (so they brought me word) Otho lay at the point of death, and Duke Casimir came not near me nor yet sent for me. But by that very circ.u.mstance I knew Otho had not revealed how his accident had befallen.

Yet he but bided his time. And as he grew well, Duke Casimir grew ill. He waxed more and more like an armored ghost, and one day he came here and sat on the bed as in old times.

"'I know my friends now,' he said, 'good Red Axe of mine, friend of many years. I have had mine eyes blinded, but this morning there has come a mighty clearness, and from this day forth you and I shall stand face to face and see eye to eye again, as in the days of old!'

"Then being athirst, he asked for something to drink. Which, when our sweet Helene had brought, he patted her cheek. 'A maid too good for a court--one among a thousand, a fair one !' he said; and pa.s.sed away down the stairs, walking with his old steady tread.

"But even at the steps of the Hall of Justice he stumbled and fell. They carried him in, and there in the robing chamber he lay unconscious for a week, and then died without speech.

"When he was dead, and ere he had been embalmed, there arose a clamor, first among the followers of Otho von Reuss, and after that among those of the Wolfsberg who expected that they would be favored by the new Duke.

It was first whispered, and then cried aloud, that the death of Duke Casimir had been compa.s.sed by witchcraft and potions.

"Cunningly and with subtlety was spread the report how my daughter and I had worked upon Duke Casimir. How he had gone to our house, drunken a draught, and then died ere he could come to his own chamber. But as for me, I went on my way and heeded them not. For just then the plague, which had stricken the Duke first, stalked athwart the city unchecked, and all through it this Helene of ours was as the angel of G.o.d, coming and going by night and day among the streets and lanes of the town. And the common folk almost worshipped her. And so do unto this day.

"Now perhaps I did not heed this babble as I ought to have done. But there came one night--how long ago I have forgotten--and with it a clamor in the court-yard. The Black Riders, the worst of them, fiends incarnate that Otho had of late gathered about him, thundered upon us without, and presently burst in the door.

"I met them with mine axe at the stair-head, and for the better part of an hour I kept them at a distance. And some died and some were dismembered. For at that business I am not a man to make mistakes. Then came Otho limping from his fall and shot me with a bolt from behind his men. And so over my body as I lay at the stair-head they took my love and left me here to die. And the new Duke will not kill me, for he desires that I shall see her agony ere my own life is taken. For that alone the fiend keeps me in life!

"And that," said my father, feebly, "is all."

But just as he seemed to ebb away a wild fear startled him.

"No," he cried, "there is yet something more. Hugo, Hugo, keep me here a little! Hold me that my mind may not wander away among the racking-wheels and the faces mopping and mowing. I have something yet to tell."

I held him up while Dessauer poured a drop or two of the potent liquid into his mouth. As before, it instantly revived him. The color came back to his cheeks.

"Quick, Hugo, lad!" he cried; "give me that black box which sits behind the block." I brought it, and from this he extracted a small key, which he gave me.

"Unlock the panel you see there in the wall," he said.

I looked, but could find none.

"The oaken k.n.o.b!" he cried, sharply, as to a clumsy servitor.

I could only see a rough k.n.o.b in the wood-work, a little worm-eaten, and in the centre one hole a little larger than the rest.