“Who’s there?” she cried, smoothing back her hair from her brow and rearranging her skirts. The habits of a court are not quickly lost, even in a cellar.
“Cousin Fritz, my Lady Müller. An envoy from the reigning King of Hesse-Heilfels, Rudolph XII. I crave audience of the Princess Hilda.”
Fraulein Müller, smiling at the madcap’s pompous words, threw back the door. The dwarf instantly rushed in, turned quickly and pinched her arm with mischievous force, and then hurried forward, to throw himself upon one knee before the princess, the feather of his jaunty cap trailing on the floor.
“Your royal highness,” said he ceremoniously, his harsh voice penetrating to the furthest corners of the room. “Your liege lord, the King of Hesse-Heilfels, commends himself to you with loving words and commands your immediate presence in the dining-hall. Such is the message he ordered me to give you. Personally let me add, your royal highness, that this morning we draw to a full larder, and, if your appetite is good, I should advise you to take a hand in the game.”
The Princess Hilda could not restrain a smile at the dwarf’s words, but she felt a pang of annoyance at hearing again the poker jargon that had become synonymous, to her mind, with ruin and disgrace.
“Tell the king, Cousin Fritz,” she said, rising and moving toward the door, “that I will be with him at once.”
CHAPTER X.
Wilhelm IX., King of Hesse-Heilfels by the divine right of grand larceny, gazed from a window in the castle at the rising sun; emblematic, as he reflected, of himself and his fortunes. He was a younger, better built man than his brother, Rudolph the Deposed. His legs were much longer than his brother’s, thus making his head cooler. There was an old saying in Hesse-Heilfels to the effect that “a Schwartzburger with short legs always toddles into trouble.” His superiority in length of limb had had much to do toward rendering Wilhelm’s usurpation successful. The impressionable and somewhat superstitious people of Hesse-Heilfels possessed an hereditary conviction that the longer the legs of a Schwartzburger the better fitted he was to rule the kingdom. When, therefore, it was whispered that Wilhelm plotted to seize the sceptre the Heilfelsans were drawn irresistibly to his cause. They preferred a long-legged Schwartzburger, of good habits, as king, to a short-legged gambler who was over-fond of wine.