A Dash for a Throne

by Arthur W. Marchmont

"Ah, you do not like him," I answered. "But there is no room for dissensions among ourselves. Let it go no farther."

"Have you any commands to give, your Highness? If I am to take them from him, I am to leave the castle."

This was intended to see if I should exercise my authority.

"You will not leave, Captain von Krugen," I replied promptly. "Heaven knows there is too much need of a faithful friend at such a juncture." He bowed, and his eyes lighted with pleasure at my words. "And now," I added, "we will discuss together what has to be done, and try to settle the arrangements."

There were, of course, many arrangements to be made, and the consultation occupied a long time. As a result I issued a number of directions such as seemed best, including those for the funeral, which I fixed for three days later.

Then I had to consider my own matters, and to mature a plan which I had formed after my interview with the Countess Minna. I felt that I could not continue the deception in regard to myself; and I resolved that I would use the interval before the funeral to try and find the real von Fromberg, and bring him to the castle to take his own position. I would come with him, and, by using the knowledge I possessed, help him in a task which, if he had a spark of honor in his nature, he could not but undertake.

The next day I took the captain so far into my confidence as to tell him there was an urgent private matter to which I was compelled to attend, and that I must return to Hamnel for that purpose. I told him to keep the fact of my absence as secret as possible, saying merely that I was out riding or walking, and that I would return soon. If the countess asked for me, he was in confidence to tell her the truth, and to assure her that, in any event, I should be back before the day of the funeral. Moreover, he was to keep a most vigilant watch over everything and everybody, and if my presence was urgently needed to telegraph to me to Hamnel. But to no one was he to give that address.

I started early, and the same evening arrived at Hamnel, but failed to find von Fromberg either in his own name or in mine; and theft I hurried on to Charmes. There I caught him at the house of the Compte de Charmes, whose daughter, Angele, he was to marry.

At first he was like an emotional girl. He rushed into the room, and would have embraced me had I not prevented him, while he loaded me with thanks and praise for having helped him to get free from his uncle by not declaring myself; while, with all this, he was profuse and gushingly voluble with his apologies.

He acted like an hysterical fool, bubbling over with silly laughter one moment and shedding equally silly tears the next. He was ridiculously light-spirited and happy, until his fantastic hilarity angered me. He appeared to think that, as he had become a Frenchman, he ought to behave as a sort of feather-headed clown.