"I believe that expresses his mental attitude towards me very well," he said.
"It was the mad paradox of an absintheur," Von Hügelweiler interrupted. "He was half drunk and wholly dangerous, and I left him. I roused the people against Trafford, but the scoundrel defended himself cunningly, and in the end the devil-ridden Bernhardt turned up and rescued him with a troop of Dragoons."
"And why are you here?" asked General Bilderbaum.
"For one thing, there are two hundred kronen on my head in Weidenbruck," replied Von Hügelweiler. "That makes the place unhealthy. Neither do I desire to serve that delightful trinity, the wanton Queen, the dipsomaniac priest, and the verdomte American."
"But why come here?" persisted Bilderbaum, growing, if possible, still redder in the face.
Von Hügelweiler ignored the speaker, and turned to Karl.
"I have no claim on your trust," he said to his late sovereign, "no claim on your mercy—but my services may be useful. I ask no high command, I merely crave to be put somewhere in the firing-line, where I can put a bullet into the heart of the cursed American."
A silence followed this savage request. Then Karl turned to General Bilderbaum.
"What say you, General?" he asked. "Do you like the look of your new recruit?"
"No, sire," said the old soldier bluntly. "I have some blackguards in my command, but no double-dyed traitor such as this."