Kings in Adversity

by Edward S. Van Zile

Bennett’s first thought was that he had fallen into a doze and had been the victim of a mild attack of nightmare. He listened intently. The breeze from the hills, defying the broken windows, stirred the heavy hangings surrounding his old-fashioned bed, and the mysterious noises that haunt an ancient castle at night fell upon his ear. Suddenly a gentle rap again echoed from the opposite side of the chamber. The American pushed aside his bed curtains and stole softly toward the door. The ease with which Cousin Fritz had defied bolts and bars had not tended to allay Bennett’s growing distrust of his surroundings.

“Who’s there?” he asked in a low voice as he reached the door. There was a silence for an instant. Bennett, who prided himself upon his courage, was ashamed to realize that his heart was beating with an abnormal celerity.

“I come from the princess,” answered a woman’s voice. “I have a message for Herr Bennett.”

“Wait just a moment, then,” said the astonished American, hurrying toward the chair upon which he had placed his clothes. That Princess Hilda wished to communicate with him was a fact so surprising that his agitation increased. His hands trembled as he hurriedly donned his garments and endeavored to render his toilet worthy of the audience before him.

Presently he unbolted the great door, and against the moonlight that streamed through the corridor he saw the figure of one of the princess’s waiting-women.

“Let us go as quietly as possible,” she said. “The Princess Hilda will receive you in the Hall of Armor.”

They crept softly along the corridor and down a flight of stone steps that seemed to lead them from the moonlight into the black depths of eternal gloom. The woman rapped on a small door at the foot of the stairway. As they awaited the answer to her signal, the thought flashed through Bennett’s mind that he had placed himself in the power of those who might prove to be his enemies. He sought in vain to read the face of the woman at his side. Instinctively he placed his hand upon his hip pocket, in which he had always carried a revolver. A moment later he felt ashamed of his fears. The small door had been thrown back, and upon his startled gaze broke a vision that recalled his youthful dreams of romance.

Through the stained-glass windows of a great hall the moonlight streamed in multicolored beams. Like a mediæval army mustered at midnight stood the grim figures of the armored Schwartzburgers. Long black shadows, weird and wavering, made effective background for the polychromatic glories of this dazzling scene.

And there in the foreground, the moonlight caressing her golden hair, stood the Princess Hilda, a vision of beauty amid the relics of old wars and the steel-clad presentments of her blood-stained ancestors. The clear-cut face, the stately figure, the regal simplicity of her attire, seemed to make her at that instant the very incarnation of all that was noblest in the mediæval cult. She appeared to be a spirit from the past haunting the scenes where chivalrous warriors in the days of old had paid the homage of death in return for the smile of love.