“Loyal?” He pronounced the word with an intense scorn. “Karl Fink loyal! Come, speak out; how much must I give you to conceal me in some place where Maximilian will be likely to pass alone?”
“Nothing. It is no use to tempt me. I will not. I dare not,” he protested, with a tremor in his voice.
Johann’s look became threatening.
“Sit down,” he said. “I see that I must talk to you. I must remind you of some things that you have forgotten—things that happened before you turned a courtier. You lie under the misfortune of having had a moment of courage in your past, Karl—a fit of manly independence. You were whipped into it, I think, by old King Leopold; and in that fit you fled to Stuttgart.”
Karl interrupted. He had grown very pale, and his teeth were almost chattering.
“Don’t speak of that,” he implored. “Don’t remind me of that.”
“I must remind you,” was the deliberate answer. “I must remind you of a certain meeting-place behind the Arsenal.”
“Hush! Not so loud, for God’s sake!”
Johann returned a contemptuous smile, and continued in the same tone—
“I must remind you of a certain brotherhood composed of other Franconians who had felt the weight of Leopold’s hand, and of a night when a certain youth was initiated and swore—do you recollect the oath?”