The dwarf sprang with wonderful agility upon the coping and stood upright, his crooked figure standing out against the sky like a silhouette to the eyes of the astonished American. Seizing his cap the king’s jester waved it frantically to and fro, as if making a signal to the men at the edge of the park.
“Come here, Herr Bennett,” he cried. “See? Am I not king? Have they not obeyed my command? See? They are gone?”
Bennett gazed searchingly at the trees beneath which the group had stood but a moment before. There was nothing there but the moonlit glory of the forest.
CHAPTER IV.
“Gute Nacht, Herr Bennett! Schlafen Sie wohl!”
The dwarf, smiling mischievously, disappeared through the entrance and Bennett closed the heavy oaken door and carefully bolted it. His madcap visitor had refused to satisfy his curiosity upon several important points, and the American made ready for bed with a disturbed mind. Was Cousin Fritz really his friend? That the dwarf was crazy he had no doubt, but his insanity was not dangerous if he was actually well disposed toward the stranger. But the dwarf’s mysterious and sudden appearance, his signal to the men Bennett now called “the conspirators,” and his stubborn refusal to answer the questions put to him, combined to cast a doubt upon his sincerity.
“The situation is certainly depressing,” soliloquized Bennett, as he slowly doffed his clothes. “The king blows hot and cold, and, so far as I can learn, is handicapped by an empty treasury. The Princess Hilda holds me in contempt and suspicion. The crazy jester is not a safe ally. As for the court at large, there is not a man or woman in the circle who would not be glad to see me driven out of the kingdom. It is more than probable that there is a conspiracy on foot against my life. And what do I gain by remaining here? Not one glance from her wonderful eyes, not a smile from her sweet lips; nothing but cold, contemptuous indifference. Nobody, so far as I know, has ever called Jonathan Edwards Bennett a fool, but he deserves that name to-night. Heigh-ho! a rolling stone gathers no moss, but it gets a great many hard knocks.”
With this melancholy reflection, Bennett, with a farewell glance at the moonlight pouring in at the windows—which he had taken care to fasten with bars—turned on his pillow and wooed the fickle goddess whose duty it is to reknit the raveled sleeve of care. He was about to win a great victory in his coquetting with sleep, when he was startled into a sitting posture by a rap on the panel of the door he had recently bolted.