CHAPTER VIII
PRAGA'S STORY
My thoughts as I walked with my devil-may-care companion to his roomswere busy enough. How could I get out of him what he knew withoutcompromising myself, and how explain that I was no longer HeinrichFischer, the actor, but the Prince von Gramberg, without starting hissuspicions? My hasty exclamation that I could help him to his revengehad been exceedingly foolish, and I was at a loss to know how far Icould trust him to keep any secret.
He took me to his rooms, and very comfortable quarters they were. Inoticed, too, that he was far better dressed than I had ever seen him inFrankfort. He was a dark, swarthy, lean-faced, lithe fellow, and hisblack eyes, keen and daring, noticed my look of questioning surprise,and he laughed, showing his gleaming white teeth in the lamplight.
"Not the first time I owe my life to that little fellow," he said,laying his sword-stick, an ordinary-looking stout malacca cane, on thetable. "A workman should never travel without his tools, remember that,my friend. And so you are surprised to see me so comfortably placed, eh?Well, I am a man of means, and live at my ease--at least I was. Butshall I tell you?"
"By all means," said I, throwing myself into a chair, anxious to get himto talk freely.
"First let us drink; and I may thank the Holy Virgin and you--butespecially you, I think--that my throat is still sound enough to swallowgood liquor--the one thing in life the loss of which makes one think ofdeath regretfully."
And he tossed off a glass of wine.
"Are you wounded?" I asked.
"A scratch somewhere on my arm--may God blight the hand that dealt it!"He changed in a moment from a light tone to one of vehement passion, andthen as quickly back again to one of cheery chatter. "If He doesn't, Iwill; so that's settled. Let's see to the scratch, though." He took offhis coat, examined the hurt, and I bathed it and bound it up carefully."A mere nothing," he said, "for me, that is--not for him."
For a moment or two he moved about the room as if occupied, and then heturned to me, and with a light laugh, but a piercing look from his dark,glittering eyes, he asked:
"And now, tell me, who are you?"
"The Prince von Gramberg," I answered instantly.
I was, indeed, half prepared for the question, for I had been studyinghim carefully. The answer pleased him.
"Good. You are not afraid to tell me the truth. But I knew it. You hadbeen pointed out to me here in Munich--pointed out, do you understand,for a purpose. And I said to myself, the Prince von Gramberg andHeinrich Fischer are the same person. Why? And when I could not answerthe question I thought to myself: I will wait. Here is a secret. It maypay me to keep my tongue still. So you see I know you."
"You were going to tell me about yourself. That will interest me morethan your speculations as to my reasons for turning actor for a year ortwo."
I spoke with an air of indifference.
"The canaille!" he exclaimed angrily, with a bitter scowl. "They weresick of me. I know too much. I am dangerous. I will no longer do theirwork; and so, by the fires of hell, they think to get rid of me! Wait,wait, my masters, and you shall see what you have done." He threw hisright arm up, and clenched his fist with a most dramatic gesture. "Itwas surely their evil genius sent you my way just now. Do you know hownear death you are at this moment?" he asked; "or you would be, if I hadtaken up their cursed work."
"I shall know a great deal better if you will speak clearly," I replied,not letting him see how his question surprised me.
"I will. I don't know whether you wish me to regard you as a Prince orplay-actor; but, whichever it is, you saved my life to-night, and if Iturn against you may I go to hell straightway."
"You can please yourself what you call me. I am the Prince von Grambergin fact, whatever I may have seemed formerly."
"And I am Juan Praga, the Corsican. Not French, or Italian, or German,or any of the dozen different damned parts I have played; but JuanPraga, the Corsican. I left Frankfort before you did--about eighteenmonths ago--and I wandered about the country till my reputation as afencer, and my lack of it in other things, first set me up as a masterin Berlin, and then brought these devils to me. They approached meslyly, stealthily, like cats, flattering my skill, and saying there wasgood work for my sword. And with lies they brought me here to Munich. Iknew nothing except that there was money to be made, and the life of aman of pleasure to lead. I suspected nothing; even when one of them cameand told me my skill as a swordsman had been called in question, myhonor impeached, and myself charged with being an impostor, and that ifI could not clear myself I must be off for a rogue."
"I begin to see," I exclaimed when he paused.
"Yes, yes, you will guess what it meant," he replied, nodding his headvigorously. "But I could not then. And it came out gradually that theman who had dared to say this was young Count Gustav von Gramberg. Idemanded to meet him face to face and give him the lie. Reluctantly, asit seemed--by the nails of the Cross! it was the reluctance of infernaltraitors--they agreed and promised that we should meet. Then they firedhim with wine, and fed him with a lie about me; and when we met we werelike two tigers thirsting to be at one another's throats. You know whathappened!" he exclaimed, throwing up his hand again. "We quarrelled, Istruck him, he challenged me; and when we met I ran him through theheart."
"It was murder for you to fight a man like that with swords," I criedsternly.
"It was murder, Prince," he answered slowly. Then he added, with volublepassion, "Deep, deliberate, cold-blooded, damnable murder; but I was notthe murderer. Mine was the hand, but theirs was the plot; and I neverrealized it till they came to me and told me that they had planned itsevery detail and step, that I was in their power; and that if I dared tofalter in any order they gave me, they would have me charged openly as amurderer, and swear to such a story as would have me on the scaffold ina trice. What could I do? I was powerless. I raged and swore, and cursedfor an hour; but they had me fast in their clutches, with never a chanceof escape. But they did not know me."
He broke off and chuckled with demoniacal cunning, filled himselfanother bumper of wine, and drained the glass at a gulp.
"What did you do? And who are the men?"
He looked round at me with a leer of triumph, and, spreading out hishands with a wide sweeping gesture, he laughed and said:
"I spread a net, wide and fine and strong, and when all was right Ibaited it for a coward--a thin-blooded, hellish coward--and I caughthim. You know him well enough; and if you saved my life just now, I cansave yours in return. I snared him here to these rooms with a lie that Iwas ill and dying and wanted to make my peace with Heaven and confess;and he came running here in white-livered fear of what I should tell.That was ten days ago; and in the mean time, for weeks and months I hadbeen probing and digging, and spying and discovering, till I had suchknowledge of their doings as made a tale worth one's telling to anyinquisitive old fool of a priest--and I let my lord the count have aninkling of this."
He leant back, laughed, and swore with glee.
"He came. I was in bed all white and shaking," and he illustrated thewords with many gestures; "and my voice was feeble and quavering, like adying pantaloon's, as I gurgled out what I meant, and said, 'I havewritten everything in a paper.' You should have seen his eyes glint atthis. He urged me to be careful, not to speak too freely; and he askedto see the paper. I told him it was in a desk, and when he went to getit and his back was to me I was out of bed and upon him in a trice. Ithrust him back into a chair and stood over him with my drawn sword,vowing by all the calendar that I would drive it into his bowels if hedared to so much as utter a squeak; and, by the Holy Ghost! I meant ittoo."
"Well?" I cried impatiently when he paused.
"Ho, but your white-livered, pigeon-hearted, sheepish coward is a prettysight when his flesh goes gray, and his haggard eyes, drawn with fear,stare up at you from under a brow all flecked with fright-sweat. I wishyou could have seen him. Well, I held him thus, told him all I knew, andmade him write out a conf
ession of the true means by which the youngcount had been lured to his death, the object of it all, and the storyof the double plot this treacherous villain is carrying on. I had foundout much, guessed more, and made him fill in what I didn't know. Morethan that, too, I made him promise me certain definite rewards when theplot succeeded, and to take me in with the rest as one of them--to workwith them now and share with them afterward."
"You are one of them?" I cried.
"You saw the answer to that to-night by the old church. They played thegame shrewdly enough. When I had let him go, one or two of the otherscame to me and wished me to attend a meeting. I promised; but I am not alunatic, if their fool of a King is. No, no; I would not. Then theychanged and said there was another quarrel to be picked with you, myfriend; to send you to call on the young Count Gustav. But I said no;that you were a great swordsman, better than myself, which was a lie ofcourse--but lies are everywhere in this Munich--and that I would notmeet you. So they will find some other end for you. Then the next littlefriendly attention for me was the interview which you interruptedto-night."
The effect of this recital upon me, so quaintly and so dramaticallytold, may be conceived; and I sat turning it over and over and judgingit by the light of what I myself already knew.
"And what are you going to do now?" I asked at length.
"Sell what I know to the best purchaser--unless you can do what yousaid, help me to my revenge. I know you are in this; though you littleguess the part they have cast for you."
"What's your price? I can take care of myself," I answered.
"Revenge is my chief point. I am a Corsican; and, by the Holy Tomb! I'llnever stay my hand till I've dragged the chief villain down."
"You mean?" I asked.
"That snake von Nauheim--the Count von Nauheim. The Honorable Count, amember of the aristocracy. A lily-livered maggot."
He changed from irony to vehement, ungovernable rage with swift,tempestuous suddenness.
"To whom will you sell your secret? The Ostenburgs?"
At the mention of the name he turned and looked at me intently, thelight of the lamp throwing up the strong shadows of the face; and hestood staring thus for a full minute. Then he laughed.
"So you haven't guessed the riddle yet, eh? You're a deal simpler than Ithought." He came close to me, sat down, and put his face right intomine, turning his head on one side and closing one eye with a gestureof indescribable suggestion. "Have you never asked yourself how it wasthat with all these people so dead set on putting a Gramberg on thethrone they should take the trouble to get the heir of that renownedfamily killed?"
"Yes, it was because the Ostenburg agents got wind of the plot."
"Pouf!"
He laughed in my face and threw his hand up, and then rose and filledhimself another glass of wine, tossing it off like the rest.
"You can play a good game, no doubt, Prince, but you don't know thecards you hold. If your young relative was killed by the Ostenburgs,what the devil's hoofs was von Nauheim doing in that boat? And what thedevil's tail does he want to set me on to you for? Does he think theGramberg chances are to be improved by first killing off the heir andthen getting rid of you, the girl's chief protection? I know all aboutMinna von Gramberg, and the plot to put her on the throne. I know this,too, that she has no more chance of sitting on that throne than I haveof eating it. Body of Bacchus, man, these are foul fiends you areleagued with and want knowing."
I began to see everything now, and my pulses quickened up withexcitement; and I guessed what was coming.
"What is your aim in all this?" he asked suddenly.
"I have come to Munich to see exactly how matters stand."
"And nicely they've fooled you, maybe--or at least they might have doneso if you hadn't been lucky enough to be within sound of my shoutto-night. I'll give you the key to the whole thing. There's a plotwithin a plot, and all the Grambergs are being fooled. This type ofinnocence, von Nauheim, is the tool of the Ostenburg interest. Theindignation against the King is all genuine enough; the people wouldwelcome his abdication to-morrow, and wouldn't seriously concernthemselves even if the abdication came by way of a dagger-thrust or apistol bullet. But the Ostenburg faction dare not force the abdicationfor two reasons: because, in the first place, the people on your sideare strong enough to make a fight of it; and, in the second, if a fightdid come, no one can say what line the people at Berlin would take. Itis quite possible that they would swoop down and clear both sides out.What these precious Ostenburgs have to do, therefore, is to get theCrown without a suspicion of treachery."
He broke off with another of his sardonic laughs, and took more wine.
I did not interrupt, and a moment later he continued:
"Then came your old Prince as a stalking-horse. He wanted to make a grabfor the throne, fostered the discontent and rebellion, put his sonforward, and sounded the people here as to his chances. The Ostenburgsknew of it directly, of course, and laid a clever, devilish plot toprofit by it. A large number of the wealthiest and most influentialsupporters appeared to favor your Gustav; they warmed, made indirectovertures, and then went over in a body, making it a condition that theman they put forward as one of their leaders, von Nauheim, should marryyour old Prince's daughter. By the bag of Iscariot, a shrewd stroke! ThePrince saw nothing, and agreed, and that's the reason of thatlove-match."
"A damnable scheme!" I exclaimed, between my teeth.
"Wait, wait," he said calmly, laying a hand on my arm. "Your Gustav wasin the way, and it is a canon of the Ostenburg code that there shall beno Gramberg claimant to the throne alive, or, at any rate, fit to claimit. So the quarrel and the duel were engineered, and there remained onlythe Countess Minna. Then they had a stroke of luck. The old Prince died,and the girl alone remained, helpless and friendless, except for you.Your turn will therefore come, and then this is the plan: The plot toplace the Countess Minna on the throne will go forward gayly, is goingforward now, in point of fact. But--and mark this carefully--at thecritical moment your Countess Minna will have vanished, and then see theposition. The mad King will be gone, the throne will be vacant, the cryof the conspirators and of Munich will be for the new Queen, and therewill be no Queen to answer. What next? Why, that the thoughts of all menwill turn to the Ostenburgs--the loyal, faithful, true, innocent,do-nothing Ostenburgs--and the Duke Marx, their heir, will consent, whenthe matter is forced upon him by the united populace, to mount thethrone. No taint of suspicion against him, no thought of treachery,actually an opponent of the movement against this mad royalty, a stanchupholder of the right divine of monarchs--he will be hailed by all asthe only possible successor to a King who cannot be found, and Berlinwill rejoice to see an ugly trouble got over in this easy fashion. Now!"he exclaimed, with a grin full of meaning, "you can see much wherebefore you could see nothing at all."
"And what of the Countess Minna?"
He paused, and then answered in a low, guttural voice, and with a lookof deep, suggestive meaning:
"Von Nauheim will see to that. There is something in regard to him I donot know; but I do know that, married to him, she would be impossiblefor a Queen, for he is of the scum of the gutter, and there is worsebehind, I believe. But von Nauheim is no stickler for ceremonies. He maynot marry her at all; and, ruined by him, you may guess what her chancesof the throne would be."
"Hell!" I cried, leaping to my feet in fury.
He had got inside my impassiveness now, and I was like a madman at thethoughts he had raised.
"I must see you to-morrow. Ride ten miles out on the Linden road, andwait for me at noon. I shall go mad if I stay here longer."
And with that I rushed away.