I stopped. The Emperor was staring at me with a look of such intentness as I have never seen on any human face before or since. He had drawn himself to his full height; and every muscle of his sinewy, powerful, tireless frame was at full tension, while his breath was labored, and came and went through his dilated nostrils as though the pa.s.sing of it were a pain.
But he made no answer.
"One of the lads, sire, the one whose life was in danger, was the future ruler of the mighty German empire; the other"--I paused again, and then suddenly threw myself on one knee before him--"was your Majesty"s most miserable subject, the Count Karl von Rudloff, whose shameful, violent deed against you later has now been punished by five years of bitter remorse and hopeless solitude. I am that unhappiest of men."
"Von Rudloff?" cried the Emperor, now in amazement, while the older man sprang to his feet, and both stood looking down at me in unbounded astonishment.
CHAPTER XXIX
COUNT VON RUDLOFF
The effect of my announcement was supreme. I myself was deeply affected, and in the moments of critical silence during which the Emperor and his old confidential adviser stood gazing at me I could not raise my head to meet their looks.
The Kaiser was the first to speak.
"You have amazed me. I know you now, but I did not. What was the meaning of your pretended death? Rise, I do not wish you to kneel to me."
There seemed a little hope in the last sentence. I got up slowly.
"It was not premeditated, sire. I gave my word to Count von Augener here--"
"Stay," interposed the Kaiser quickly, turning a frowning face to his adviser. "What is this?"
"I should prefer to discuss these matters in private with your Majesty,"
was the answer, not without what appeared to me to be some anxiety.
"Would you prefer to retire at once?"
"As your Majesty pleases."
This reply was given with great reluctance.
"Be it so, then," and the old man went away, giving me a glance of hate as he pa.s.sed.
I did not understand the meaning of this development, and stood waiting in silence for the Imperial command to speak.
The silence lengthened itself into minutes, and, when I ventured to glance at the Kaiser, I was disconcerted to find that he was staring at me fixedly, and, as it seemed, very sternly. But there were certain symptoms of unrest and agitation that made me believe that he was forcing himself rather to repress every trace of the feelings I had roused.
When at length he spoke, his voice had a depth and vibration which told me, who knew him so well, how strongly he was moved.
"Why have you done this? Why deceive me with a gorgeous lie of your death and funeral? Why never declare yourself till now?"
There was much more reproach than anger in the tone, and I began to hope again.
"May I tell your Majesty plainly all that occurred? When that mad thing happened on the yacht--a madness that will be an ever-pressing grief and shame to me to my dying hour--I went out feeling that only death at my own hands could wipe out the disgrace of it. I should have killed myself that night but for the reflection that my death might come to be publicly a.s.sociated with what had happened. Then, the next day, Count von Augener came and told me that unless I was dead within a week my death would be an infamous one. The threat was unneeded, sire. That day I went to Berlin to Dr. Mein S----."
And I went on to give him a succinct account of all the circ.u.mstances by which the old doctor had led me to believe that I was dying, and had played out the drama of my funeral while I lay in his house unconscious.
"I set out from Berlin," I continued, "to make the career which the old man had spoken of, and my first effort was on the stage. There I learnt the secret of disguise, and became what you see me, to all intents and purposes another man in appearance. A little more than a year ago the doctor died and left me his large fortune, and I was once again set roaming, alive, but without a life to live, when I was carried, against my will and in spite of my protests, to Gramberg, and plunged into the seething cauldron of intrigue there. The rest your Majesty knows, and it remains only for me to say that the one wild hope I had in carrying the intrigue forward was that I might perhaps so control the position here in Munich as to prove myself of service to you, sire, and be able to plead it as a ground for your pardon."
His Majesty had made no comment during the whole narrative, and now he stood for some moments without making a reply. He stared steadfastly at me the whole time with an expression of sombre, stern melancholy. When he spoke at length it was in the firm, quick, decisive tone which he used when his mind was made up and his course chosen.
"I accept your story absolutely, for I believe you incapable of intentional deceit toward me. So far as the Countess Minna is concerned, it will be my personal care to see that she is righted, and her enemies thwarted."
He ceased as abruptly as he had spoken.
"May I thank you----" I began.
"You have no right to speak for her," he interrupted shortly.
I took the rebuff in silence, and stood wondering what he would say as to my own affairs. There came another long, trying pause.
"You did wrong, very wrong," he burst out, with sudden vehemence, speaking almost pa.s.sionately. "I have been badly served in your matters.
You were no more to blame than I myself, and you have made me bear for five years the secret fear that I drove you to your death. And I have cares enough without that."
He stopped, and I looked up as if to speak, but he silenced me with a gesture; and the grandeur of his dignity awed me. I recognized the supremely unselfish magnanimity of his act, and I longed to put my feelings into words; but I fell back abashed and speechless before the sense of intense power and majesty which surrounded him like a subtle, magnetic force. He stood buried in thought, wholly self-absorbed for some minutes; and then in the same abrupt manner broke the silence to dismiss me.
"Leave me now, and remain in the ante-room. I will see you later or send you my decision as to yourself."
I backed to the door, bowing, and had all but reached it in silence when a hasty movement of his caused me to look up.
"Stay," he cried, and he came toward me with his quick, firm stride. "I cannot let you go like this. I am glad you are living. You come back to me out of the past that is, and must be, dead; and our friendship is one of the dead things in it. An Emperor has no friend but his G.o.d. Still we were friends once, and this is our more proper parting."
He held out his hand to me, and took mine and clasped it; and at the clasp of it my blood thrilled in accord with a thousand thoughts and promptings. I carried his hand to my lips.
"If your Majesty will give me a chance of serving you again in any capacity, my life shall be ever at your bidding."
I spoke from my heart, and my voice trembled under the strain of my feelings.
"I believe you. But you yourself have made it difficult. Save for that, what might we not have been!"
There was no sternness or harshness in this. It was not my Emperor who spoke, but for one fleeting instant it was the personal lament of my old true friend whose friendship I had cast away. The words brought the tears to my eyes, and I could not look up at him, though I knew his eyes were bent upon me, and judged that their light was a kindly one. A moment later the mood pa.s.sed with him, or was crushed back by the relentless power of his stern will. He drew himself up to his customary, rigid, soldier-like att.i.tude, and said in the short, sharp tone of a military command:
"And now leave me."
I backed out, and took my place in the ante-room, a prey to a tumultuous rush of emotions which flooded upon me, preventing for the moment any attempt at consecutive thought. My mind was a maelstrom, in which hopes, regrets, fear, and delight were mingled in an indistinguishable whirlpool.
Presently, out of the roar and rush of inchoate emotions, three thoughts began to dominate me.
Regret--bitter, maddening, and unavailing--for the years I had lost and the career I had thrown away; wrath, wild and vengeful, against the old enemy of my family, von Augener, for the treachery of his action toward me; and delight, infinitely sweet, that Minna"s safety was secured, and that, after all, it was I who had secured it.
The last outweighed the others, and I lost myself in the maze of a love reverie as I sat there, picturing the joy that would leap from her eyes and the light that would gladden her beautiful face if only I could be the messenger of the good news. And it was to be so.
After I had waited I know not how long, for time goes unmeasured in love dreams, some one came and addressed me by a name that made me jump to my feet and stare at the messenger like one half beside himself.