And with that I rushed away.
CHAPTER IX
MY PLAN OF CAMPAIGN
The first effect upon me of Praga's story was to rouse and thrill every pulse of passion in my nature. I could not think connectedly, and as I plunged along through the early morning to von Nauheim's house I was impelled by an overwhelming desire to call that villain instantly to account. Insane plans flitted through my head of dashing into his room and making him fight me to the death; and I gloated in the belief that I could kill him.
But as the air cooled my fever my steps slackened their speed, my judgment began to reassert its rule, and I saw that I should make a huge mistake if I allowed myself to be led in such a crisis by the mere impulses of blind rage. I had another to think of beside myself. He was waiting up for me, no doubt curious and anxious to learn what I had been doing; but I dared not trust myself to be with him then; so I sent a message that I was unwell, and I hurried at once to my rooms.
Then I made the first practical admission that I felt myself in peril; for I searched the rooms carefully to see that no one was concealed in them, and I looked carefully to the fastenings of the doors to make certain that no one could get in while I slept. I resolved also to buy myself arms on the following day. I could not sleep, of course. I lay tossing from side to side all through the hours of the dawn, thinking, puzzling, speculating, and scheming; striving my hardest to decide what I ought to do.
After what I had seen in the attack on Praga, I could not doubt that my own personal danger was great. My cousin Gustav's fate had shown that the men I had to deal with were infinitely cunning in resource and absolutely desperate in resolve. Where, then, might I look for any attack? I judged that it would be most likely to come in some shape that would be difficult to trace to its authors; and I felt that I must guard against getting embroiled in any quarrel, must go armed, and must be always most vigilant and alert when I found myself in circumstances that would lend themselves to my being attacked with impunity.
I own that I did not like the prospect. I don't think I'm a coward, and claim no greater bravery than other men; but the thought that any moment might find me the mark for an assassin's dagger or bullet tested my courage to the utmost. My main problem, however, was of course as to what I should do in regard to the plot. There were undoubtedly a number of men pledged to support Minna's cause; loyal, true, faithful men of honor, who had risked much for her and would uphold her to the last; but how was I to distinguish the false from the true? If I could do that, my path would be plain enough. I could reveal the whole business to them, and we could together take means to checkmate the inner treachery. But I could not distinguish them; nor on the other hand could Minna in honor desert them.
There was the alternative of flight, of course; I could return to Gramberg and rush the girl across the French frontier; but in addition to the distaste for abandoning those who had been true to her, there were other solid reasons against the flight. I could not see that there was any permanent safety for Minna that way. As Praga had put it, it was a canon of the Ostenburg position that there should be no Gramberg claimant to the throne left alive or fit to claim the throne; and I did not doubt for a moment that she might still be the object of attack wherever she went. Their arm would be long enough to reach her. Thus flight would thwart the Ostenburg scheme, but it would not achieve what was far more important to us, the safety of all concerned.