"To make my possession of the Duke Marx perfectly secure, and then to warn Baron Heckscher that I held the duke as a hostage for the safety of the countess."
"Do you mean to admit that you openly threatened to use violence on the person of the duke, the heir to the throne?" asked von Augener, as if aghast at my temerity in venturing on such a confession.
"I threatened it, and I meant it too," I replied, in a voice firm enough to prove that I was in earnest.
"You can see the heinousness of that offence?"
"It was not a tenth part so bad as the offences of the Ostenburg party. They had actually murdered one heir and threatened another. I had chosen a course and was compelled to carry it out my own way. But I knew the baron would never drive me to an extreme step of that kind. While I held the duke in pawn the baron was helpless and had no option but to yield to me. And this I made him understand," and with that I gave them a full report of my last interview with Baron Heckscher, and of the compact we then made—that Minna should be given up to me and the Duke Marx set at liberty, the condition being that the former should go away and leave the latter at liberty to come forward when called to the throne, and that there should be a subsequent definite renunciation by Minna of all claim to the crown.
"A pretty ring of king-makers, indeed!" exclaimed von Augener.
"And that 'compact,' as you term it, was carried out?" asked the Emperor.
"Yes, sire. But everything was jeopardized at the eleventh hour by the villany of the man von Nauheim, who made a bold effort to break away with the countess, having as his confederate her aunt, the Baroness Gratz."
"You scatter your charges with a free hand, young man. Every one appears to be a rogue but yourself," ejaculated von Augener, whose malice apparently prompted him to see and put my conduct in the worst light.
The Emperor lifted a protesting hand, however.