CHAPTER XI.
Carl Eingen had searched, as he believed, the most remote corner of the wine-cellar. He had taken with him no companion upon his subterranean bill-posting expedition, and, courageous though he was, he could not control a feeling of nervous discomfort as he fastened the grewsome proclamation of King Wilhelm to what he imagined was the last outpost in this tortuous hole in the ground. He had affixed type-written copies offering a reward for the capture of Cousin Fritz, dead or alive, to wine casks, stone walls, and wooden pillars in various parts of the cellar, and he breathed a sigh of relief at the thought that his grim task was at an end. Suddenly a harsh, shrill voice, just above his head, cried out:
“Ha Carl Eingen, I’m worth five hundred marks, eh? I’ll throw you double or quits for my body. What say you?”
Carl started in affright, and dropped the hammer he held in his hand. Perched upon a huge hogshead sat Cousin Fritz, his feathered cap upon his head, smiling down mischievously at the astonished youth.
“Will you come up and take me?” asked the dwarf maliciously, moving his short sword in the air and then making a few defiant passes at his antagonist. “Do you need money, Carl? Five hundred marks! It is a large sum.”
Carl Eingen remained silent, but he could not suppress a smile as the ludicrous features of the situation impressed him. Suddenly the dwarf’s mood changed.
“You’re a good fellow, Carl Eingen, in spite of your rebellious nature,” he said gently. “I don’t believe you’d murder me in cold blood. That’s more than I could say of several men I know. As times go, Carl, it’s high praise.”
“I think, Cousin Fritz,” said Carl quietly, “that you’d better come with me without more ado. You’re sure to be captured down here and you might be run to earth by somebody who would think it less trouble to take you dead than alive. I promise you that I’ll do my best to make easy terms for you with the king.”
“What king, Carl?” asked the dwarf mockingly. “You may not know it, but I am the real, the only king of Hesse-Heilfels. In the long run I dictate my own terms—and they are always accepted, Carl Eingen. Do you call Brother Wilhelm king? Nonsense! He’s only an upstart who struts about up above for a time and then falls to sleep like the rest. Hesse-Heilfels has only one king—and he never dies. But enough of this, Carl! I won’t come to you and you can’t capture me. Nevertheless, I prefer you as an ally to a foe. I’ll make you a proposition.”
Carl Eingen frowned and strode nervously up and down, almost within reach of the dwarf’s pointed shoes. He felt absurdly conscious of his momentary impotence. He was keenly alive to the possibility that he would be obliged to return to Wilhelm and confess that he had been outwitted by the dwarf. Furthermore, Cousin Fritz was in possession of a secret that Carl Eingen longed to solve. Upon the hogshead above him sat the captor of Fraulein Müller, and her lover burned to get word of her. He knew, right well, that only by diplomacy could he make Cousin Fritz reveal the truth concerning her abduction.
“Go on,” said Carl smoothly, “let me hear your proposition, Cousin Fritz.”
The dwarf chuckled with inward merriment. Then he bent forward, his hand still upon his sword, and said:
“You think me mad, Carl Eingen, but you’d do well to back my hand at this crisis in the game. In this case one king beats a royal flush. I’m the king, and I know my power. Let me tell you, Carl Eingen, that you will never see again a face that you love nor hear a voice that has grown dear to you unless you heed what I shall say. It has come to a contest between your loyalty and your love. If you remain true to Wilhelm, you will be false to your love. If you place your mistress above your king in your heart, you must forswear Wilhelm. Do you follow me?”
There was a sane intensity in the dwarf’s manner that Carl Eingen had never observed before. It impressed him even more than the madcap’s words.
“And if I abandon Wilhelm, Cousin Fritz?” asked Carl earnestly.
“You shall see your love again, Carl Eingen.”
“And otherwise?”
“The sweet face of Gretchen Müller shall smile upon you only from the shadows of the night, when memory haunts your pillow and drives sleep routed from your couch.”
Carl Eingen looked about him restlessly. The dark mysteries of this weird cellar appeared to cast upon him an uncanny spell. He seemed to be plunged into a shadow-haunted realm in which laws that were new to him prevailed. The dwarf, smiling with conscious power, seemed to exert a hypnotic influence over the impressionable youth, whose artistic sensibilities rendered him extremely sensitive to the influences of a romantic environment.
Furthermore, the threat uttered by the dwarf had had its effect. Carl Eingen longed passionately to gaze once more upon a face that had been for years the fairest sight earth held for him. The possibility—remote and unreasonable as it seemed—that this little mischief-maker could remove Gretchen Müller forever from his ken thrilled him with unspeakable dread. Instinctively he seemed to realize that Cousin Fritz was not wholly a vain boaster, that he was not without some portion of the boundless power he claimed.
“Well, Cousin Fritz,” said Carl at length, his voice hoarse and unsteady, “I will go to this point, and no further. If you will lead me at once to Fraulein Müller, I give you my word that I will take no advantage of what I have learned, that neither Wilhelm nor any of his people shall know that I have met you down here.”
The dwarf laughed mockingly and sprang to the floor. “It’s unconditional surrender, even on those terms,” he cried. “What I have left undone, Fraulein Müller will accomplish. Look here, Carl Eingen! See how powerless you were.”
Cousin Fritz skipped merrily toward the proclamation that offered a reward for his capture. Removing it from the wall he playfully tore it into small pieces. Suddenly, to Carl’s amazement, a black hole gaped at them where the paper had rested but a moment before.
“In here, Carl,” cried the dwarf, scrambling through the aperture. “You thought you had reached the end of the cellar. This is merely the entrance, my friend.”
For a moment the youth hesitated. When, after much squeezing and a good deal of discomfort, he stood beside Cousin Fritz, his guide’s figure was almost lost in the deep gloom.
“Come on,” said the dwarf, seizing Carl’s hand. “We have not far to go; we are taking a short cut to my apartments—the real centre of royalty in Hesse-Heilfels.”
A moment later they stepped out into a passageway that soon led them to the main entrance of the rooms in which the dwarf had ensconced Rudolph XI. and his small suite. Cautiously opening the heavy door, Cousin Fritz tightly gripped Carl Eingen’s arm and silently pointed to the scene before them.
In the centre of the hall the deposed king was seated at a table, at the opposite side of which Count von Reibach shuffled a pack of cards. Between them were small piles of pebbles that roughly served as chips. Baron Wollenstein, with a surly expression upon his heavy face, appeared to watch the game, but his restless eyes constantly turned toward a group at the farther corner of the room. The Princess Hilda, attended by Fraulein Müller, was seated in an antique chair of state, against the back of which her head rested as she gazed upward at Herr Bennett. The American, oblivious of the threatening glances of Baron Wollenstein, was bending forward talking earnestly to the golden-haired princess. A smile played across her face as she listened to his words.
“There, Carl Eingen,” whispered the dwarf mischievously, “is the game as it stands. Will you draw cards?”
“Yes,” answered the youth hoarsely as he met the eye of Fraulein Müller, who turned white with amazement as she caught sight of him.