The heavy curtain was held back for him, and the Emperor passed through. So thick were the walls that the recess between the outer and inner curtains might almost itself be termed a small apartment. Motioning away the attendant, who would have drawn back the inner curtains also, the Emperor himself drew them aside and entered.
At a large table, littered with documents and lit by a small Roman lamp, sat a haggard, careworn man, at whom Rodolph had to look twice or thrice before he recognised his faithful servitor and firm and loyal friend, Baron von Brunfels. His dark hair had become sprinkled with grey since Rodolph last saw him, and as the Emperor stood motionless with his back against the crimson hangings the great love he felt for the man lit up his eyes, while remembrance of the anxiety he must have caused the Baron by an abrupt and long unexplained disappearance gave Rodolph a thrill of pain. He had never before realised what that disappearance had meant for Baron von Brunfels. Although there was no sound in the room, the Baron looked suddenly up, craned forward and peered across the table, gazing with startled anxiety into the comparative darkness at the other end of the room. The Emperor, with clanking spurs, took a rapid step or two forward.
"Rodolph!" cried Brunfels, in a husky undertone, springing to his feet. He seemed about to advance, but something failed within him, and he leaned heavily against the table, crying, with a sob in his voice:
"I thank God! I thank God!"
The young Emperor strode quickly to his friend, his hands upraised, and brought them down on the shoulders of the Baron, whom he drew towards him in a cordial embrace.
"My old friend," he said, repressing with difficulty the emotion that threatened to overmaster him. "My dear old friend, you are not more glad to see me than I am to see you. But I have brought an insistent personage with me other than Rodolph, and he clamours for attention."
"He! Whom?" replied the Baron, looking about him with apprehension, fearing that his friendly greeting might have had a witness, and that thus unwittingly he had embarrassed his sovereign.
"The Emperor is here, Brunfels, with weighty matters on his mind that will permit of no delay. The Emperor has at last arrived; I doubt if you have ever met him before."
"He will have most cordial welcome and support from me."
"He counts upon you, as on no other in the world. How many men have you encamped on the Rhine?"