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 PRINCE RODERICK
 
 Put not your trust in princes.
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES BRINSLEY- RICHARDS 
 
 AUTHOR OF ' SEVEN YEARS AT ETON,' ' THE DUKE's MARRIAGE,' ETC. 
 
 IN THREE VOLS.— VOL. I 
 
 LONDON 
 
 RICHARD BENTLEY & SOX, NEW BURLINGTON ST. 
 
 ^SulilisfjErs in ©rtiinarg to I&et iHajcstg tfje ©u£m 
 
 1889 
 
 A II rights reset ved
 
 v, 1 
 
 
 
 K 
 
 X 
 
 \ 
 
 LOVINGLY 
 
 Setiicateti to 
 
 MY WIFE 
 
 ' In her it never was my chance to find 
 A thought uncandid, or a word unkind ; 
 The gentlest spirit with the bravest mind.
 
 7 
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 My uncle, the Bishop of Surrey, who must 
 have found me a troublesome relative, for 
 he had plenty of his own young ones to 
 provide for, wrote to me one day saying 
 that he thought he could at last put a good 
 appointment in my way, and he requested 
 me to call on him the next morning. 
 
 The situation offered was that of private 
 secretary to Prince Roderick of Kronheim. 
 His Royal Highness wanted an English 
 secretary in order that he might practise 
 
 VOL. I I
 
 2 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 our language, and he stipulated sundry 
 conditions not usual in connection with 
 such posts, and which, as it happened, I 
 could fulfil. His secretary was to be : 'An 
 orphan of good education, not engaged to 
 be married ; fond of dangerous sports, able 
 to ride, skate, and sing. A tall man, very 
 particular about his dress, and of good 
 nerve at the card-table preferred.' 
 
 The Bishop looked slightly shocked, 
 but amused, as he read from a letter bear- 
 ing the stamp of a British Legation. 'All 
 this is written to me by my old friend. Sir 
 George Malmsey, our Minister at Sabel- 
 burg. I should have expected him to say 
 that he wanted a double first-class man, 
 but nothing is said about double or single 
 first-class : so I may indulge in a piece of 
 nepotism.' 
 
 ' And do you really advise me to accept.^'
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 ' Why not, if they accept you ? We 
 must tell them that you never took a uni- 
 versity degree, but that you were five years 
 in the dragoons and could say, Militari 
 non sine gloria. Ah ! but how about the 
 other line in that ode, Vixi puellis nuper 
 idoneus ? You are not engaged to be mar- 
 ried, Dandie ? ' 
 
 ' No, sir.' Dandie was a school nick- 
 name corrupted from my name of Ferdi- 
 nand. 
 
 'We are right on that score then, but 
 stay, here is a sequel to the letter,' and the 
 Bishop scanned the paper at arm's length 
 through his spectacles. ' The Prince is a 
 little eccentric . . . ' 
 
 ' H'm, that means insane . . . ?' 
 
 ' No. Sir George does not say insane. 
 He writes : " The Prince is a little eccentric. 
 From what I have seen of him and from
 
 4 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 all I hear I should take him to be a man of 
 talent who frets under the restraints of his 
 position. He talks well, and can be very- 
 amiable, but is not liked. I daresay he has 
 an ugly temper, but please treat this as 
 confidential.'" 
 
 My good uncle closed the letter, remark- 
 ing mildly that the temper of all princes 
 was like a nettle and required careful hand- 
 ling. As for Prince Roderick's require- 
 ment of ' an orphan, unengaged,' he pre- 
 sumed this proviso meant simply that His 
 Royal Highness desired a secretary who 
 had no strong ties in England, and could 
 therefore attach himself to another country. 
 ' For the rest, Dandie,' he said seriously, 
 ' this is a chance, and I would not let it slip.' 
 
 I had inherited a small Irish property, 
 but my tenants had decided not to pay 
 their rents, and that is why I had left the
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 army. Soldiering on seven-and-sixpence 
 a day would have been a fine feat, but it 
 was above my ambition. I had been told 
 that if I freely renounced my rents and set 
 up as a penitent landlord I might be elected 
 to the House of Commons in the beggar- 
 my-neighbour interest, and be salaried out 
 of a fund raised by Irish kitchen-maids in 
 America. I had also received an offer to 
 sell wines on commission in houses where 
 I was invited to evening parties and five 
 o'clock teas. I might have become the 
 secretary of a club for bringing the two 
 sexes together ; and an old schoolfellow, 
 who was doing capitally as a bookmaker, 
 had proposed that I should go partners 
 with him — a suggestion which my uncle 
 the Bishop, who imagined that bookmaking 
 must be connected with publishing, had at 
 first earnestly advised me to accept. But
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 this offer of becoming secretary to Prince 
 Roderick was the first eligible thing that 
 had fallen in my way since I had laid aside 
 my helmet and red coat ; and of course I 
 did not let the chance slip. 
 
 So my uncle wrote Sir George Malmsey 
 an extremely conscientious letter, in which 
 he described me as a good-natured dunce 
 in whose fingers sovereigns melted like 
 butter. Talk of jobbery ! why, the good 
 old man would rather have lodged and 
 boarded me in his over- populated palace 
 for the remainder of his life than have 
 written a line about me to which he could 
 not have sworn as an affidavit. I laughed 
 outright w^hen he handed me his letter to 
 read, and was more than surprised when 
 an answer arrived within a week, snatching, 
 as it seemed to me, somewhat eagerly at 
 my services, and promising me a salary
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 equal to the full pay of a colonel in our 
 army, besides free quarters. 
 
 My orders were to start at once ; and 
 now I ought to have emulated the consci- 
 entiousness of my uncle by informing him 
 that although not engaged to be married 
 (the determined attitude of my tenants on 
 the rent question debarred all idea of sup- 
 porting a wife), yet I had a hope that if 
 something or other turned up, Connie 
 Davenant, my old General's daughter, 
 would put her pretty portionless hand in 
 mine. I did say a word or two on the 
 subject, but the Bishop only exclaimed, 
 * Pish-tush ! ' and advised me to say nothing 
 about this to my aunt if I wished to preserve 
 her good opinion. My Aunt Episcopa 
 took very severe views of the portionless. 
 
 ' Something enough to provide two 
 daily rations of bread and cheese,' was the
 
 8 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 way in which I had once stated my hopes 
 to Connie, whose reply was : ' Bread would 
 be enough for me, Ferdie,' and I believe 
 the dear little girl would have been con- 
 tent with a crust for that matter. But 
 Mrs. Davenant was on the watch — a 
 motherly, frank-spoken, domineering wo- 
 man, shrewd with the experience of garri- 
 son towns. Connie had three hungry 
 brothers at school and two younger sisters. 
 Half-pay, agricultural depression, and in- 
 vestments at two per cent, kept the family 
 funds at low tide ; and then I was in Mrs. 
 Davenant's bad books because I had not 
 exchanged into a West Indian regiment. 
 Bermuda, she said, had a firstrate cli- 
 mate, and was just the place for a young 
 man who had no business to think of 
 marrying. 
 
 One word, however, had to be spoken
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 to Connie before I went to Kronheim. I 
 called in Cromwell Road at a few minutes 
 before six, calculating that the last after 
 noon visitor would be gone, or going, and 
 that I might possibly be invited to stay for 
 dinner. The stone balcony with its ger- 
 aniums and pink awning received a wistful 
 glance from me as I knocked at the door, 
 for I had caught sight of Connie in a light 
 blue foulard dress ; but she was talking 
 with Fred Lemesurier, the man with an 
 eyeglass, a white hat, and a red tie, who is 
 heir to a peerage and sits for a Radical 
 constituency in Parliament. We ex- 
 changed opinions about this gentleman in 
 two glances that crossed over his shining 
 amber head, but not a word in private 
 passed between us ; and I was not invited 
 to dinner. Lemesurier had this favour, 
 and pulling out his watch talked of going
 
 lo PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 home to dress. ' No, pray don't dress,' 
 said Mrs. Davenant, 'we shall be quite 
 alone.' 
 
 Mrs. Davenant was tall and handsome, 
 always very smartly dressed in imperial- 
 looking silks, and she wore becoming caps 
 made of about four square inches of point 
 lace. She had a good-humoured twinkle 
 in her eyes, and these always looked you 
 straight in the face. She stood on no 
 ceremony with me, for when I was a ' sub ' 
 in her regiment had I not fetched and 
 carried for her, driven her in drags, rowed 
 her on rivers, led her cotillons for her and 
 kept her visiting list ? 
 
 On this occasion she was charming ; for 
 she was delighted to hear that I was going 
 abroad. ' Such a nice place Kronheim, 
 and just the post for you. I am sure you 
 will be marrying a German wife soon.
 
 I PRINCE RODERICK ii 
 
 Mind you bring her here, even if she is 
 mad on Wagner.' This was said loud 
 and laughing, so as to reach Connie's 
 ears. 
 
 When Mrs. Davenant was called away 
 for a moment to give a domestic order 
 she made some imperceptible sign to the 
 General, who marched up to me with a 
 one, two, three, like a relief sentry. My 
 old chief was a little man with a blue 
 spotted neckerchief, a creaseless frock coat, 
 gray trousers and gaiters. When angry, 
 he twisted a moustache which was white 
 as cotton wool : when pleased, he winked 
 and prodded you in the ribs. He was a 
 fierce Tory, and wagging his head towards 
 Lemesurier, who was still on the balcony, 
 he said : ' We're taking that fellow in 
 hand. I'm hanged if a week ago he didn't 
 think the army estimates too high.'
 
 12 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 But not a word could I get with Connie. 
 I had to go, and there was a squeeze — a 
 long squeeze of the hand — with just one 
 more glance, which mamma observed. 
 Accordingly Mrs. Davenant followed me 
 out of the drawing-room, and, closing the 
 door, spoke to me on the landing. 
 
 * Dandie — Mr. Meredith, I have a word 
 to say to you. You must not be writing 
 to Connie from abroad or think of her any 
 more, for you can't marry her.' 
 
 ' Well, but ' 
 
 ' There's no but about it : and it's not 
 fair on the child that you should spoil her 
 chances in life. So don't let me see your 
 good-looking, good-for-nothing face again 
 until you or she are married.' 
 
 'That's hard lines, Mrs. Davenant.' 
 
 ' It's duty, Mr. Meredith : so good-bye. 
 You can write to me if you like, for you
 
 I PRINCE RODERICK 13 
 
 and I are old friends. There now, be off 
 with you.' 
 
 Three days after this I arrived at Kron- 
 heim. Sir George Malmsey's carriage 
 was waiting for me at the railway station 
 and drove me to the Legation, where I 
 was to stay for the night. There was a 
 dinner-party, and I had only time for a few 
 minutes' conversation with Sir George — a 
 bluff and hearty old gentleman with more 
 of the country squire than of the diploma- 
 tist about him — before going up to change 
 my things. When I came downstairs the 
 drawing-room had its gathering of guests. 
 I was introduced to a small shrivelled man 
 with spectacles, and a broad yellow riband 
 across his waistcoat, to whom everybody 
 spoke with great respect, and who was 
 Count Hochort, Prime Minister of the
 
 14 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 country. It seemed to me that he scrutin- 
 ised me very narrowly ; and I fancied — 
 though I could not have said why — that 
 he was displeased to find that I spoke 
 German. Several times during the dinner 
 I met his cold sharp eye, which was 
 fastened on me with an expression neither 
 friendly nor unfriendly, but prying. 
 
 I paid little attention to this, for I 
 was seated beside a lovely and agreeable 
 English girl, a Miss Meadowes, who was 
 on a visit to Sabelburg with her mother 
 Lady Springfield. She had a face and 
 figure like those girls whom Mr. Du 
 Maurier is so fond of sketching. Tall, 
 dark, with sparkling eyes, sedate and self- 
 possessed in manner, but full of talk, 
 she made a delightful companion. After 
 dinner, when we joined the ladies in the 
 drawing-room, she sang a couple of Eng-
 
 I PRINCE RODERICK 15 
 
 lish songs in a beautifully-trained soprano 
 voice, and I turned over the leaves of her 
 music for her. This led me to sit beside 
 her after the singing ; but she became 
 silent and absent, till, supposing I had tired 
 her, I made a pretence of moving away. 
 But suddenly she cast a curious glance on 
 me, and rising, said : 
 
 * Sir George has one of the prettiest 
 conservatories. You ought to see it.' 
 
 I followed her : but my astonishment 
 may be imagined when, as soon as we 
 were alone, she turned and whispered 
 eagerly : 
 
 ' Mr. Meredith, excuse this boldness in 
 a perfect stranger, but do you know why 
 you have been brought here ? ' 
 
 * I have been offered an appointment,' I 
 began, stammering. 
 
 ' Then, for God's sake take care,' she
 
 i6 PRINCE RODERICK chap, i 
 
 interrupted. ' I can say no more than this, 
 for I know little, but if you have friends in 
 England who would grieve if anything 
 happened to you — go home.' 
 
 ' One question,' I asked quickly. * Is 
 this Prince Roderick mad ? ' 
 
 ' No, it's worse than that,' she answered 
 breathless; 'but I can't say more. If I 
 learn more you shall know. There's some- 
 body coming.' 
 
 She abruptly left me ; and turning 
 round I saw Count Hochort, whose glance 
 followed the retreating girl like a hawk's.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 All this was not so good as a dose of 
 chloral for making one sleep. I lay awake 
 in bed several hours thinking over Miss 
 Meadowes's warning, but without seeing 
 how I could profit by it, except by keep- 
 ing on the look-out. Evidently there was 
 something wrong about Prince Roderick ; 
 but Miss Meadowes had rather overdone 
 it by saying that this something was worse 
 than madness. 
 
 The singular conditions of my engage- 
 ment recurred to me. * Fond of dangerous 
 sports, and with a good nerve at the card- 
 
 VOL. I 2
 
 i8 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 table' To the mind of a young lady it 
 might seem that a prince who had a 
 passion for hunting wolves and bears, and 
 who risked laro^e sums at baccarat, was 
 more dangerous than a peaceable lunatic. 
 So perhaps Miss Meadowes had only been 
 animated by a flattering anxiety for my 
 limbs and morals. 
 
 If she had been a bread-and-butter 
 miss this explanation would have satisfied 
 me. Recollecting her face and manner, it 
 did not ; and I was haunted by presenti- 
 ments of strange things. But to go home 
 and say that I had been scared away from 
 Kronheim by a girl was out of the ques- 
 tion. If I was booked for an adventure 
 I must through with it. 
 
 Breakfast was brought to my room in 
 the morning, and at ten o'clock a Court 
 carriage came to fetch me. Sir George
 
 II PRINCE RODERICK 19 
 
 Malmsey met me in the hall, and said 
 cheerfully, ' My duty to Prince Roderick, 
 and mind you come to us when you have 
 nothing better to do. By the by, there's 
 a message from Lady Malmsey with this 
 book, which she promised to lend the 
 Prince. Will you please take charge of 
 it ? It's Herbert Spencer's last volume. 
 
 I must have stared at the book, for the 
 minister smiled and said something about 
 ' hard nuts for princely teeth to crack' 
 Had the volume been the Manual of the 
 Perfect Card-Player, or Wild Sports in 
 the trackless Desert, my night thoughts 
 would have received confirmation, but 
 Herbert Spencer threw me into fresh 
 perplexities. 
 
 The carriage was a brougham, with a 
 pair of finely-trotting greys. The servants 
 wore blue liveries with orange facings. We
 
 20 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 drove through the principal streets of the 
 town, which were teeming with the usual 
 bustle of continental cities on a sunny 
 morning. Cafes, restaurants, and tram- 
 ways everywhere. Plenty of priests, 
 market-women in picturesque costumes, 
 and swarms of officers and soldiers in 
 uniforms of Prussian cut. The carriage 
 passed through a much-gilded gate, where 
 two sentries presented arms, while a big 
 door porter, dressed like a beadle, bowed, 
 sweeping his cocked hat level with his 
 knees. We drove through a courtyard 
 carpeted with thick gravel, and so to a 
 door, where the officer on guard received 
 me, lifting a white-gloved hand to his 
 helmet and clicking his heels smartly 
 together. 
 
 My regimental servant, Joe Trotman, 
 whom I had brought with me, took charge
 
 II PRINCE RODERICK 21 
 
 of my luggage, which followed the carriage 
 in a small Court omnibus ; and I was 
 ushered upstairs at once to a suite of 
 apartments on the second floor, which a 
 major-domo, in black silk stockings and 
 with a steel chain round his neck, respect- 
 fully informed me were to be mine. The 
 rooms were large and contained handsome 
 ungainly furniture of the Empire style, at 
 least eighty years old. Oil portraits of 
 princes in out-of-date uniforms hung on 
 the walls. In some of the rooms the 
 chairs and sofas were coloured red, in 
 others yellow. Drawing-room, study, bed- 
 room, dressing-room were all e7i suite, and 
 looked on to a garden with trim -kept 
 flower - beds, gravel walks, and white 
 statues. 
 
 I had to wait nearly an hour — time 
 enough for Joe to unpack most of my
 
 22 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 things — before the major-domo reappeared 
 and said, * Seiner konicrliche Hoheit lass 
 bitten' (The Prince is ready to receive 
 you). 
 
 I had never seen a photograph of the 
 Prince, but had made a mental picture of 
 him which I guessed would not be realised. 
 At first sight he impressed me as a highly 
 intelligent and agreeable man. He was 
 wearing that neat undress German uni- 
 form, the long double-breasted frockcoat, 
 buttoned up to the shoulder and with the 
 high red collar, which makes any man look 
 smart. He was a little over twenty-five, of 
 middle height, with brown wavy and curly 
 hair parted down the centre, and a short fair 
 beard. There was dignity in his manner, 
 but affability decidedly predominated as 
 he returned my bow and motioned me to 
 a seat.
 
 II PRINCE RODERICK 23 
 
 ' It is very good of you that you came 
 to Kronheim, Captain Meredith,' he said 
 in fluent though incorrect EngHsh ; ' but 
 I must tell you that it is Count Hochort 
 who said to me I must have an English 
 secretary, and I really do not know what 
 we shall find for you to do. You like 
 shooting, riding ? ' 
 
 ' Very much, sir,' I answered, seeing 
 a drove of bears already loom on the 
 horizon. 
 
 * It is well, then. And the other 
 accomplishments of a secretary are no 
 doubt yours? You speak French, German ?' 
 
 * French poorly, German a little better, 
 sir,' I said, surprised; 'but your Royal 
 Highness will excuse me for remarking 
 that I was not engaged as a good linguist. 
 I hope there has been no misunderstand- 
 ing ? '
 
 24 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 ' Oh no — at least I know nothing about 
 it,' replied the Prince, lighting a cigarette. 
 ' It is the King who appoints members of 
 my household, and Count Hochort advises 
 his Majesty ; I pray you tell me how you 
 were engaged.' 
 
 I recapitulated the conditions stated in 
 Sir George Malmsey's letter to my uncle ; 
 and I could not make out from the Prince's 
 physiognomy whether he were offended. 
 Whatever may have been his first feelings, 
 he heard me attentively to the end, and 
 then laughed. 
 
 ' I remember to have once said to 
 Count Hochort that I hoped if ever he 
 gave me a new secretary in place of Dr. 
 Grinzener he would choose me a man who 
 knew a horse from a cow : for you see I 
 have no State business, and my correspond- 
 ence is more about sport than politics.
 
 II PRINCE RODERICK 25 
 
 However, I say again you are very wel- 
 come, Captain Meredith. And now tell 
 me ; you dined at your Legation yesterday, 
 and you met there a most beautiful young 
 lady. Miss Meadowes. Are her parents of 
 the highest aristocracy ? ' 
 
 ' Lord Springfield is of old family, sir. 
 He was in the diplomatic service.' 
 
 ' Yes, I know ; but his daughter is very 
 proud. Are all the young ladies in Eng- 
 land so proud ? I have not found them so 
 when I have visited London.' 
 
 There was a gentle tap at the door, 
 and an aide-de-camp brought in a letter. 
 While the Prince read it I took a discreet 
 survey of the study, but without discover- 
 ing in it any marked indications of the 
 owner's character or tastes. The writing- 
 table was a heavy bureau encumbered 
 with papers. The book-shelves contained
 
 26 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 volumes of all kinds, set without arrange- 
 ment, for valuable editions in gold-lettered 
 calf and morocco were flanked by yellow 
 French novels. On the walls hung por- 
 traits, landscapes, pictures of battles, 
 trophies of arms, antlers, a rackful of 
 costly canes and riding-whips, a glass case 
 of curious old watches, and another case, 
 which held a number of odd things, such 
 as bits of rusty iron, and rags which must 
 have been relics. There were a good 
 many valuable knick-knacks lying about — 
 silver cigar-cases, match-boxes, pocket- 
 books ; and the floor was strewn with rich 
 furs, the finest being a huge white bearskin 
 spread over a divan. 
 
 The Prince having read his letter, 
 told me he was going out. ' I will send 
 Grinzener to you,' he said, 'and you can 
 settle with him about your work. You
 
 II PRINCE RODERICK 27 
 
 will dine with me to-night. Have you a 
 uniform ? ' 
 
 Holding a Yeomanry commission, I had 
 brought a uniform with me, but I had only 
 contemplated wearing it at Court balls, and 
 I thought it as well to explain my present 
 military position. 
 
 * Yes, yes ; but wear your uniform,' said 
 the Prince. ' Everything is military here. 
 The babies are born with spurs on, and 
 the nurses lull them to sleep with kettle- 
 drums.' 
 
 Thereupon with a nod he intimated 
 that my audience was over.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Prince Roderick was heir-presumptive to 
 the throne of Kronheim : that is, he was 
 nephew of King Franz, who had only a 
 daughter. Prince Roderick was unmar- 
 ried, and the next in succession to him was 
 Prince Wolfgang, who had married the 
 King's daughter, and had a family increas- 
 ing at the rate of three in two years, 
 including twins. 
 
 This much I had learned from the 
 Almanack de Gotha. For my information 
 as to Prince Roderick's fortune and general 
 manner of life I was indebted, during the
 
 CHAP. Ill PRINCE RODERICK 29 
 
 first few days of my stay at Sabelburg, to 
 my servant Joe, for I scarcely spoke to 
 anybody else. 
 
 Returning to my rooms after my audi- 
 ence with the Prince, I felt more puzzled 
 than ever about Miss Meadowes's warning. 
 There was something ludicrous in the con- 
 trast between the Prince as I had found 
 him and the Prince whom my imagination 
 had pictured ; for I had nearly made up my 
 mind that I should have to do with a 
 young gentleman of weak intellect, or 
 with a sullen, passionate creature of vicious 
 instincts. Although no particularly good 
 judge of character, I felt already persuaded 
 that I should never be Prince Roderick's 
 master, though it was possible he might 
 acquire ascendency over me. I confess I 
 liked him. 
 
 Nobody took any notice of me for several
 
 30 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 hours. Dim suspicions that I was the 
 victim of a practical joke disturbed me 
 ever and anon ; and I could not but reflect 
 that the terms of my engagement, having 
 been formulated without the Prince's know- 
 ledge, were exceedingly impertinent to 
 him. 
 
 I kept pulling out my watch, but not 
 knowing whether I was at liberty to go out, 
 there was nothing for it but to kill time 
 until Dr. Grinzener turned up. I stared 
 into the garden, tried to write a letter, and 
 made ineffectual attempts to read. At 
 last, when two o'clock arrived without any 
 signs of luncheon, I rang for Joe, who 
 came up wiping his lips from his own 
 dinner in the servants' hall. 
 
 ' Joe, just try and find out what are the 
 hours for lunching and dining here.' 
 
 A quarter of an hour had not elapsed
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 before two powdered footmen came in 
 carrying a couple of silver trays. These 
 were set on a table in the study. The 
 fare provided was a mayonnaise of trout, 
 some paid de foie gras, a dish of cutlets, 
 fruit, two bottles of wine, red and white, 
 and a bottle of aerated waters. The foot- 
 men were going to wait, but I dismissed 
 them. One then requested that I would 
 ring for coffee when I was ready. 
 
 ' They keep a firstrate table downstairs, 
 sir,' remarked Joe, as he removed the 
 plates, 'and most of the stable servants 
 are English. I dined with the two head 
 coachmen and head groom, all English, 
 and I don't think I ever saw finer horses, 
 sir — nearly a hundred of 'em.' 
 
 *We are not in the Royal palace, are 
 
 we ? 
 
 No, sir ; we are in Prince Roderick's
 
 32 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 own palace. His Royal HIghness's sister, 
 the Princess Dorothea, lives here with her 
 ladies ; but they've got a wing to them- 
 selves. The Prince don't live much here, 
 as I'm told. He's got a grand place on a 
 lake : they call it Griinsee, and another 
 place right on the top of a mountain, 
 where he goes for 'is shooting.' 
 
 ' Wolves, I daresay ? ' 
 
 ' Lots of them, sir, it appears, and boars, 
 a kind of wild pig, so to say, not much seen 
 out of furrin parts. The dinner to-day, 
 sir, is at five o'clock. It's a grand affair 
 in honour of one of the Austrian arch- 
 dukes, and the guests 'ave to muster at 
 half-past four.' 
 
 Joe said nothing more then ; but later, 
 as I was dressing, he observed that Prince 
 Roderick was not so popular in the country 
 as his cousin Prince Wolfgang.
 
 Ill PRINCE RODERICK 33 
 
 * They say Prince Wolfgang is a smart 
 officer, sir, always a soldierin'. Prince 
 Roderick don't much care for the army. 
 But Prince Roderick spends a lot of money, 
 while Prince Wolfgang has a lot of babies.' 
 
 ' It's curious that Prince Roderick 
 shouldn't yet have married.' 
 
 ' Aye, sir. I asked Mr. Bobbs — he's the 
 head coachman — why his Royal Highness 
 didn't marry the King's daughter instead 
 of Prince Wolfgang doing it ; but it seems 
 there's all kinds of stories about that. 
 Prince Roderick 'as been engaged several 
 times to be married, but the matches was 
 always broken off.' 
 
 ' I must remind you, Joe, that it's your 
 duty to avoid speaking about the Prince 
 downstairs,' I interrupted at this point. 
 
 ' I'll be very careful, sir,' replied Joe, 
 
 * but the conversations isn't what you might 
 VOL. I 3
 
 34 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 think, sir. There ain't nothing mysterious 
 about 'em. The hall for the upper servants 
 is a large place, and servants coming in at 
 all moments callin' out for their dinners. 
 There's a special sort of upper footman 
 they call ckassoor, who sits beside the 
 Prince's coachman, and stands behind the 
 Prince's chair at meals. He wears a 
 cocked hat with white feathers like a 
 general, and appears to think a deal of 
 himself. As he don't do any work in the 
 w^ay of handing plates and dishes about, 
 except waiting on the Prince himself, as 
 it seems, he hears all the conversation at 
 table ; and when he comes down among 
 the other servants he reports it all quite 
 free at the top of his voice.' 
 
 ' Is the household a large one ? ' 
 ' Yes, sir, it is indeed. Grooms, foot- 
 men, cookboys in white caps and aprons —
 
 Ill PRINCE RODERICK 35 
 
 there'd be enough to remount two troops 
 with 'em ; and there's a goodish number 
 of females too. In one of the rooms I 
 saw at least twenty housemaids eating o' 
 their dinners and talkin' aw^ay in German 
 like the cockatoos at the Zoological 
 Gardens.' 
 
 I had just put on my uniform — which 
 was much like that of the loth Hussars, 
 but with silver lace instead of gold — when 
 a card was brought me bearing the name, 
 * Dr. Felix Grinzener, Royal Court Secre- 
 tary to H.R.H. Prince Roderick.' 
 
 I walked into the drawing-room and 
 saw a fat man with black clothes, a bald 
 head, and a round pink face like a ripe 
 peach, having a quiet laugh to himself 
 opposite a looking-glass. He was stupe- 
 fied at the sight of me in my military 
 glory, and became grave for a moment.
 
 36 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 but only for a moment. His face then 
 broke out into broad smiles again, and 
 remained grinning. He addressed me as 
 ' Dear colleague.' He patted my hand 
 between two plump warm hands of his 
 own, on one fat finger of which glittered 
 an enormous agate ring. He ogled me 
 quite affectionately through his tortoise- 
 shell-rimmed double eyeglasses, and at 
 every remark I made he either gave an 
 enjoyable little laugh of assent or nodded 
 gleefully, stroking his chin with a soft noise 
 of a razor passing over lather. 
 
 I never saw a jollier man than this Dr. 
 Felix Grinzener. 
 
 He was not short, nor ill-favoured. He 
 reminded me of a good comic actor in 
 high comedy on the stage. Off the stage 
 comic actors are preoccupied with exercises 
 of memory, and their complexions have
 
 Ill PRINCE RODERICK 37 
 
 been spoilt by whitening and rouge. But 
 Dr. Grinzener (he was a Doctor of Laws) 
 seemed to have not a trouble on his mind, 
 and his smooth brow had no more wrinkles 
 on it than a ball of lard. All the wrinkles 
 were wanted for his cheeks and chins, 
 which were everlastingly puckered up with 
 merriment. 
 
 It was contagious merriment too, which 
 set me laughing, though I should have 
 liked to know what I was laughing about. 
 The learned Doctor made no attempts at 
 being funny ; his good-humour was that of 
 the man who sits on the box of a stage- 
 coach ready to split his sides at the smallest 
 pleasantry of the coachman's, or at the 
 most common occurrences on the roadside. 
 Yet it was easy to see that he was no fool. 
 When it came to giving me instructions 
 about my work, he pretended that I should
 
 38 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 have very little to do, and might gad to 
 and fro as I pleased ; nevertheless he con- 
 veyed some very precise and startling 
 instructions. 
 
 ' Pray always be at home, my dear 
 colleague, between ten and two — day and 
 night — that is, if you can.' Every instruc- 
 tion was put in this polite requestful way. 
 ' Never be away from the palace more 
 than two hours at a time without leaving 
 word with the equerry in attendance where 
 you may be found. If you want a 
 carriage, order one from the stables. As 
 you ride, two saddle-horses will be at your 
 disposal. If you like to go to the Opera 
 or the Court Theatre, this red card, which 
 bears your name and the Prince's seal, 
 will admit you to the Equerries' box. 
 When summoned to attend upon his 
 Royal Highness, pray be so good as
 
 Ill PRINCE RODERICK 39 
 
 always to carry a loaded revolver in your 
 pocket/ 
 
 ' I beg your pardon. What did you 
 say ?;' I asked, eyeing the peach face hard. 
 
 * Aha ! The Prince might be attacked, 
 you see — and — and, aha ! you would be 
 glad to defend him,' answered the jolly 
 Doctor, without the slightest embarrass- 
 ment. He was speaking in elegant 
 copious German, without any of that 
 hemming, hawing, which characterises the 
 speech of Englishmen, and he now pulled 
 a comic newspaper from his pocket. ' Pray 
 do me the favour to look at this.' 
 
 ' It's the German Kladderadatch! 
 
 ' Yes, a most amusing and never-to-be- 
 rivalled publication. Well, you and I 
 might be apart and yet wish to communi- 
 cate with each other. Letters by post or 
 hand may miscarry or be opened, but
 
 40 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 newspapers are safe. So if you receive a 
 Kladderadatch by post pray look through 
 it for a letter with a small dot under it. 
 Then look for other dots. The further 
 dotted letters will make up brief messages, 
 and, my dear colleague, may I beg you 
 to deliver these messages instantly to the 
 Prince?' 
 
 ' If the Prince will give me a general 
 permission to do so,' I answered, gazing 
 again very intently at my dear colleague. 
 * In fact, Herr Doctor, you must excuse 
 me for saying that if I am to obey this last 
 instruction, and the other order about 
 the revolver, they must be given me in 
 writing.' 
 
 ' I was prepared for that,' chirped Dr. 
 Grinzener, and he drew a letter from his 
 pocket. ' See here, this is addressed to you, 
 and contains all I have said to you so far.'
 
 Ill PRINCE RODERICK 41 
 
 ' And may I show the paper to the 
 Prince ? ' 
 
 * If you could have the great goodness 
 not to do so I would prefer it ; but act as 
 you please. And now a word more of 
 private advice. Never speak to his Royal 
 Highness about marriage.' 
 
 'Why not?' 
 
 ' Because it is a painful subject to him : 
 he has had many disappointments. You 
 would not like to pass for a matchmaker, 
 aha ! But I hear the dinner bell. I have 
 the honour, my dear colleague. Your 
 obedient servant. My office is on the 
 ground floor, and if you want to see me, 
 send a newspaper rather than a note — a 
 newspaper with dots. My humble compli- 
 ments.' 
 
 It was half-past four, so I buckled on 
 my sword and put on my busby. A
 
 42 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 regimental band had begun playing in the 
 courtyard as I entered the reception-room, 
 which was already crowded with officers in 
 uniform. The Master of the Household, 
 a lean and courtly old general, received 
 the guests and gave me a benign greeting. 
 My appearance occasioned some whisper- 
 ing, but nobody spoke to me, although 
 every officer whom I passed drew his 
 heels together and bowed from the waist. 
 I suppose scarcely anybody knew who I 
 was. Gradually the guests arranged them- 
 selves in order of military rank along the 
 two sides of the room, leaving the spaces 
 in the middle clear. I took a place among 
 the captains, and overheard the two officers 
 next me say in an undertone : 
 
 ' So he's really going to be married this 
 time?' 
 
 ' Yes, a morganatic marriage, privately
 
 Ill PRINCE RODERICK 43 
 
 in the chapel of the palace. He tried 
 hard to prevail on the King to give her 
 the title of princess, for she would not 
 consent without that ; but the King 
 refused ; and so this afternoon, as I hear, 
 she gave way.' 
 
 ' Hasn't she any title, then ?' 
 
 ' She's English — a Miss Meadowes. 
 Her father is an English lord. They 
 were saying at the Club that an English 
 officer has come over to give her away 
 in place of milord Springfield, who is 
 ill.' 
 
 ' Hush !' said the other, giving his friend 
 a nudge, upon which both looked round 
 suddenly at me, and remained silent. 
 
 At this moment an official rapped a 
 white wand on the floor ; some folding- 
 doors were thrown open, and Prince 
 Roderick appeared, walking to the left of
 
 44 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 an Austrian archduke, and followed by a 
 train of aides-de-camp. 
 
 The Archduke wore a white tunic with 
 red trousers, and carried a cocked hat 
 with green plumes. Prince Roderick was 
 in light blue infantry uniform as a Colonel 
 of the Guards, and was covered with 
 diamond stars. Both Princes walked down 
 the room, bowing to right and left as they 
 went, and passed through the open doors 
 at the farther end of the room into a 
 magnificent banqueting-hall. 
 
 The blaze of wax candles in crystal 
 chandeliers, the mass of gold plate and 
 flowers on the table, the gorgeous liveries 
 of some thirty footmen, made up a striking 
 picture ; and the memt of the dinner was 
 evidently the work of a knowing French 
 cook. The band in the courtyard con- 
 tinued to play throughout the dinner as
 
 Ill PRINCE RODERICK 45 
 
 only the military bands of Germany can 
 play. 
 
 I have noticed that men who are accus- 
 tomed to very good dinners do not, as is 
 commonly believed, grow tired of rich 
 things and diet themselves. They do this 
 when their stomachs give way — not before. 
 Prince Roderick ate lobster and truffles as 
 if they were rarities to him, and he drank 
 champagne and claret freely. These wines 
 soon excited him, and he talked with the 
 utmost gaiety to all the guests who were 
 within earshot. 
 
 At our end of the table the wine pro 
 duced a similar exhilaration on my neigh- 
 bours, and they dropped into conversation 
 with me. I told them who I was, and 
 admitted having unwillingly overheard 
 some of their remarks. 
 
 * Is this story about the Prince's mar-
 
 46 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 riage really true ?' I asked. ' I met Miss 
 Meadowes last night, and not a hint of the 
 matter reached me.' 
 
 ' It's quite true,' answered one of the 
 officers. ' Miss Meadowes refused him 
 several times ; but to-day he was so press- 
 ing, and she so stung by the King's refusal 
 to ennoble her, that she consented. Sir 
 George Malmsey is in a great flurry.' 
 
 After dinner the company adjourned to 
 a picture gallery, where coffee, cigars, and 
 cigarettes were served. Prince Roderick, 
 who appeared in the highest spirits, went, 
 coffee-cup and cigarette in hand, from 
 guest to guest, chattering and saying 
 pleasant things. From all I observed I 
 should not have judged him to be un- 
 popular, though it struck me that he some- 
 times unbent a little more than a prince 
 should, if he wishes to preserve distances.
 
 Ill PRINCE RODERICK 47 
 
 At last he noticed me, and approached 
 smiHng. 
 
 ' Well, you have seen Dr. Grinzener ? 
 What do you say of his English ? ' 
 
 ' He spoke only German with me, sir.' 
 
 ' Oh ! that's his fun ; he talks English 
 to perfection. Did he caution you to 
 bring a rifle and a sword-bayonet with you 
 whenever you came to see me ?' 
 
 ' He did say something about a 
 revolver,' I replied, nearly in a whisper. 
 
 ' That's his craze, to think me in danger, 
 ever since a man shot at me. But you 
 needn't take the trouble. If I were 
 assassinated, and you shot a bullet at my 
 murderer, it would not bring me to life 
 again.'
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 To imagine that I hasted to the British 
 Legation next morning to inquire if 
 Prince Roderick's engagement with Isabel 
 Meadowes were a fact would be to make 
 a wrong guess. Miss Meadowes was a 
 stranger to me, and Prince Roderick's love 
 affairs were no business of mine. Fore- 
 seeing that I should soon be a witness of 
 extraordinary things, I felt that the time 
 had come for strictly minding my own 
 concerns ; in fact, I was so apprehensive 
 of getting mixed up in intrigues that I 
 kept aloof from the Legation altogether.
 
 CHAP. IV PRINCE RODERICK 49 
 
 I passed an idle week. Dr. Grinzener 
 gave me no work to do, and the Prince 
 did not send for me. Two State banquets 
 were held in the palace, but I was not 
 invited. During three days I lunched 
 and dined at the Equerries' mess, but I 
 noticed that the officers were on their guard 
 in speaking before me. There were some 
 very gentleman-like young fellows among 
 them, whose tastes mated perfectly with 
 mine ; and one in particular, a Count 
 Richard Sonnenthal, seemed rather dis- 
 posed to make friends with me. But, 
 acting apparently under orders, they all 
 maintained a polite reserve touching every 
 question connected with their country. 
 Not one of them ' took me up ' by advis- 
 ing me to go and see this or that, or by 
 volunteering to go out with me. One 
 
 day Sonnenthal laughingly began a story 
 VOL. I 4
 
 50 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 about some Court scandal in which there 
 was a dash of poHtics, but I caught a 
 glance that was sped to him by one of his 
 brother officers, and which made him 
 abruptly turn the conversation. 
 
 Annoyed at this, but not desiring that 
 my presence should be a damper on the 
 company, I ceased to attend the mess, and 
 asked to be served in my own rooms. 
 This appeared to give considerable satis- 
 faction to the major-domo who superin- 
 tended the servants on my floor, and Joe 
 soon told me why. 
 
 ' This is the most wasteful place I've 
 ever been in, sir,' he exclaimed, answering 
 some remark of mine about the delicate 
 food that was always brought to me. ' Do 
 you know, sir, that nothing that's served at 
 the Prince's table or at any other table in 
 the palace ever comes up a second time ?
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 51 
 
 Meats, wines, sweets, candles, flowers, is 
 all the perquisites of servants. What's 
 left in the glasses goes to one servant, the 
 wine left in the bottles goes to another, 
 and a third gets the uncorked bottles that 
 remain on the sideboard. It's the same 
 with the other things. Some of the hotel- 
 keepers send regularly to the palace every 
 day to buy the leavin's ; and when there 
 has been a banquet the tables d'hote, I'm 
 told, 'ave a fine time of it.' 
 
 ' I see they always send me up two 
 bottles of wine,' I said; * you can tell the 
 butler I never drink white wine ; and half 
 a bottle of red will do very well for me at 
 dinner. At luncheon I'd rather have 
 beer.' 
 
 ' I'll give the order, sir, but I doubt if 
 it'll reach the kitchen. That gentleman 
 with the steel chain will draw your two 
 
 LIBRARY ^ 
 UNIVERSITY Of ILLINOIS
 
 52 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 bottles all the same and keep the one you 
 don't want for himself. I have my rations 
 of wine and beer regular, and there they 
 stand whether I want 'em or not. Prince 
 Roderick must be a very rich man, sir, to 
 pay for all this squanderin'.' 
 
 The Prince s extravagance must have 
 been great indeed to shock Joe, who had 
 not been used to much economy in our 
 regiment — one of the fastest in the service. 
 I must here mention that Joe Trotman had 
 been my servant from the day I joined the 
 2 2d Dragoons. He had served with me 
 in Egypt, and I had bought his discharge 
 when I threw up my commission. He 
 was a capital valet, and a steady, sober 
 fellow, whose only defect perhaps was a 
 long tongue. All that he said was truth, 
 however, for he had not imagination 
 enough to invent ; and he would relate
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 53 
 
 things that astonished him in a simple, 
 straightforward way like a boy. He was 
 a Cambridgeshire man, born in a racing 
 stable at Newmarket, and had hoped to 
 become a jockey, but nature had decided 
 otherwise for him by giving him six feet 
 of stature, though leaving him with such 
 lankiness of limb that there seemed to be 
 material in him for two jockeys. He had 
 bright blue eyes, and a thickly freckled 
 complexion that matched oddly with his 
 hair and moustache, which were of a dull 
 black. The truth is that his hair was red, 
 but having been nicknamed ' Ginger ' in 
 the regiment, he had taken to using dye, 
 which gave his whole head a remarkable 
 appearance. He had some sense of 
 humour, and could not live anywhere 
 without taking a keen interest in his 
 surroundings. I do not think he put
 
 54 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 prying questions, but his attitude as a 
 deeply attentive and surprised listener 
 encouraged other servants to talk before 
 him, and all that he heard was faithfully 
 retailed to his master. 
 
 Sabelburg was an artistic centre, and 
 had a pretty large colony of English and 
 American painters. One afternoon, being 
 out for a solitary walk, I fell in with a 
 young artist whom I had known in 
 London, Harold Crowe — a rather wild 
 and noisy youngster with a taste for 
 practical joking and showy clothes. If 
 Harold Crowe had been obliged to draw 
 for a living he would have distinguished 
 himself, for he had a genuine talent for 
 portrait painting, and especially — though 
 he disowned it — for caricature. Unfor- 
 tunately he had too much money to work 
 diligently at his easel, and therefore idled
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 55 
 
 and amused himself. He rented a large 
 studio, which twice a week was crowded 
 with brother artists and laughing girls, 
 most of them models, who chorused songs 
 and drank beer. In the evening Crowe 
 was generally to be found at the Opera or 
 at the Court Theatre, or at the Nobles" 
 Casino, where high play was carried on. 
 Occasionally, but not often, he patronised 
 the Wurstel Keller (Sausage Cellar), an 
 underground tavern where his compeers of 
 the palette emptied countless schoppes and 
 held intellectual assizes arraigning artists, 
 authors, and musicians all the world over 
 for summary trial and almost invariable 
 condemnation. 
 
 In my loneliness I fastened upon 
 Harold Crowe, and I went twice to the 
 Opera w^ith him ; but not in the Equerries' 
 box. I noticed that he knew a great
 
 56 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 many people and exchanged free and 
 easy nods with several officers of Prince 
 Roderick's household. He was a hand- 
 some fellow with a fair complexion, a 
 short pointed Cavalier beard and waxed 
 moustache, superlatively dandified, con- 
 ceited, and an arrant poseztr, but always 
 amusing In conversation, and In his 
 principles a perfect gentleman. He was 
 held In some respect at Sabelburg because 
 he had fouQ^ht two or three duels with 
 officers on slight provocation, and had got 
 the best of these encounters. 
 
 The Opera, which received a liberal 
 subvention from the King's civil list, was 
 admirably conducted. Its orchestra and 
 chorlsts were famed all over Europe. The 
 prima donna, whom we saw in the parts of 
 Elsa In Loheng^Hn and Margaret in 
 Gounod's Faust, was a splendid creature,
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 57 
 
 a perfect type of the fleshy, blue - eyed, 
 fair-haired German girl, naively natural in 
 her acting, and trained to a point in the 
 use of her ringing voice. 
 
 ' That's Mira Vogelsang, your Prince's 
 bonne amie' whispered Harold Crowe. 
 ' Look at her diamonds ! ' 
 
 ' An old flame, I suppose ? ' 
 
 ' No, she's in favour still — at least she 
 was yesterday. They say the Prince is 
 going to be married to Miss Meadowes, 
 but that wouldn't matter, for he has the 
 morals of a sweep. This girl is Viennese ; 
 her real name is Mina Vogel, and the 
 people here treat her coldly because they 
 say she gets the best parts owing to 
 Roderick's influence, and she has quite 
 wiped the eye of the local favourite, Olga 
 Klangmiiller. She's a jolly girl, though. 
 I'm painting her portrait, and at our last
 
 58 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 sitting the Prince came in and chaffed me 
 about not having given her a double chin. 
 Look at her now bowing to him.' 
 
 Sure enough, Mira's fine singing had 
 carried away the pubHc, who were applaud- 
 ing loudly. The Prince clapped his hands, 
 and she, turning towards the Royal box. 
 made a deep curtsey. 
 
 ' There are times when she quite trans- 
 ports you,' said Harold ; 'and if you go 
 to the Fassbrau restaurant after the per- 
 formance you find her tackling a huge 
 veal chop and a potato salad, every slice 
 of which she carries to her mouth with a 
 knife. By the by, I wish you would get 
 Prince Roderick's permission for me to go 
 and paint during a fortnight at his Castle 
 of Griinsee. It's a grand place.' 
 
 ' Why don't you ask him yourself ? ' 
 
 ' I should have to catch him in the
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 59 
 
 humour. He's a queer fish. To-day he'll 
 clap you on the back, to-morrow he'll 
 frown if the colour of your necktie doesn't 
 happen to suit him. Last year he flung 
 poor Mira into the lake at Griinsee because 
 she put her arm round his neck after they 
 had been singing a duet by moonlight. 
 It is said, too, that he shot one of his 
 secretaries for cheeking him, and since 
 then all the members of his household, 
 including old Grinzener, carry a defensive 
 arsenal in their coat-tails.' 
 
 ' Come, I say, isn't there a good 
 deal of loose gossip about the Prince ? ' I 
 asked, though, as it may be imagined, this 
 last remark gave me food for reflection. 
 
 * I daresay there is some loose gossip,' 
 answered Harold. ' There can be no 
 doubt, however, that the Prince does lead 
 the devil of a life at Griinsee. He gets a
 
 6o PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 few friends and fine women round him, and 
 they Hve in the past, as he calls it. One 
 day they all dress up in Lottis Quatorze 
 style, and have a band of harps and fiddles 
 to play Lulli's music to them while they 
 dance gavottes on the grass. Another day 
 they clatter about in the twelfth -century 
 armour, and eat roast peacock stuffed 
 with cloves, shredding the drumsticks with 
 their fingers, because forks would be an 
 anachronism. Another day Roderick im- 
 personates Lucullus, and he has a gang of 
 Montenegrins who dress up as gladiators 
 and do battle with a mangey lion bought 
 from a strolling menagerie. You should 
 read what the Badstadt Gazette says about 
 your Prince. It's a scurrilous little paper 
 published in the neighbouring kingdom, 
 and, as I believe, subsidised by the Prime 
 Minister of this country, who is doing all
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 6i 
 
 he can to get Prince Roderick put out of 
 the succession.' 
 
 ' Oh ! that's his game, is it ? ' 
 
 ' Well, yes. The old King and Count 
 Hochort would do anything to make 
 Roderick renounce his claims, for they 
 are afraid that he would drive this old 
 coach of a kingdom to blue smash with 
 all brakes up. You see, Prince Wolfgang, 
 the King's son-in-law, who is a jolter- 
 headed, pudding -faced sort of man, will 
 give no trouble as a constitutional king. 
 That is the reason why I suspect a great 
 deal of underhand wirepulling was prac- 
 tised to prevent Roderick from marrying a 
 princess of his own rank ; for, of course, if 
 he married and had a son, Wolfgang's 
 chance would be gone.' 
 
 ' And if he married Miss Meadowes ? ' 
 
 ' That would be as though he were not
 
 62 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 married at all, and the combination would 
 suit old Hochort and the King exquisitely. 
 It could only be a morganatic marriage. 
 Roderick's wife would have rank as 
 countess, but he would be stopped from 
 marrying anybody else. I am rather 
 sceptical, though, about that marriage, 
 precisely because it has been announced 
 in the Badstadt Gazette, and because I 
 observe that the people who talk most 
 about it are Hochort's friends. Some- 
 thing must have happened ; but if Roderick 
 has decided to marry Miss Meadowes he 
 must have made up his mind to renounce 
 the crown for her sake ; and, from what 
 I know of him, I should consider this 
 highly improbable.' 
 
 I now imagined that I had got a good 
 insight into Prince Roderick's character 
 and into the machinations that were at
 
 IV PRINXE RODERICK 63 
 
 work round him. Harold Crowe con- 
 tinued his confidences when we next met 
 at the Opera. Mira Vogelsang was playing 
 Margaret in Faust, and, after the garden 
 scene, in which she had acted and sung 
 with impassioned force, the coldness of the 
 audience, always manifested when she first 
 appeared on the stage, quite melted, and 
 she was enthusiastically called before the 
 curtain. Prince Roderick stood up in his 
 box, smiled to the girl, and seemed de- 
 lighted with her success. No bouquets 
 were thrown, because the rule of the Opera 
 — and a very sensible rule too — forbade it. 
 
 ' The Prince is evidently very fond of 
 music,' I observed to Harold. 
 
 ' Yes, his emotion just now was all for 
 the singing, not for the woman. He cares 
 little for any woman, and poor Mira her- 
 self has no delusions on that point.'
 
 64 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 'Do you mean that she's not fond of 
 him ? ' 
 
 * Mira Hkes anybody who is kind to her. 
 Her eyes swim if you give her a bunch 
 of violets. But as for adoring Prince 
 Roderick, you'll understand the difficulty 
 when you know him better.' 
 
 ' I must say he impressed me favour- 
 ably.' 
 
 Harold gazed for a moment at the tips 
 of his lavender gloves before he replied. 
 ' There's a Turkish proverb which says, 
 " He that seeks a friend without faidts shall 
 live withoztt friends y Your Prince Rode- 
 rick uses mankind to make lemon-squash 
 with : he just squeezes out what there is 
 in his acquaintances and then flings them 
 aside. He has an infernally sharp tongue, 
 and cuts at your defects, whatever they 
 may be, without ruth. Add to this that
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 65 
 
 he is variable as April. He'll talk, 
 drink, and spend to excess ; then suddenly 
 clap his body under martial law, condemn 
 himself to cold water and hard reading, 
 and make everybody believe that he is 
 going to turn monk or republican. He 
 wants a woman to manage him, but she 
 would have to be an uncommonly clever 
 woman for such a task.' 
 
 * Have you heard anything more about 
 the Meadowes marriage ? ' 
 
 ' No ; but you ought to be better posted 
 on that subject than any of us, for Isabel 
 Meadowes and her mother are both liv- 
 ing under the same roof as you, on a visit 
 to Princess Dorothea, Roderick's sister. 
 So at least the Badstadt Gazette says. 
 I suppose you have not become ac- 
 quainted with Princess " Dot," as we 
 
 call her.?' 
 
 VOL. I 5
 
 66 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 * No ; her wing of the palace is quite 
 separate from her brother's.' 
 
 'She's a character,' exclaimed Harold, 
 laughing. ' Her nickname will do equally 
 well in the English or French sense, for 
 she is a little doll of a thing and has a tre- 
 mendous do^ (dowry). But old Hochort 
 has been marring her matrimonial plots as 
 he did Roderick's, for fear lest she should 
 make a great alliance and raise up friends 
 for her brother, to whom she is quite sub- 
 missive. The poor little soul was brought 
 up as an ''unattached religionist," so as to 
 be open to any handsome offer, and when 
 she had her first love affair with a Russian 
 Grand-duke, an Archimandrite was fetched 
 from Moscow to prepare her for the Ortho- 
 dox Greek Church. The Russian match 
 having been broken off, an Austrian Arch 
 duke came forward, and the Princess Dot
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 67 
 
 was taken in hand by a learned Jesuit. I 
 don't know how things are going with her 
 now, but perhaps you will see her at the 
 English Church to-morrow, and listening 
 hard to the sermon, for she is extremely 
 pious.' 
 
 The next day was Sunday. I had then 
 been ten days at Sabelburg, and pricking 
 inclinations w^ere in me to write and ask 
 Prince Roderick whether his Royal High- 
 ness had any real need of my services. To 
 be fed and paid for doing nothing was de- 
 rogatory ; and I began to be afraid that I 
 must be secretly the laughing-stock of the 
 household. Joe was evidently curious to 
 know what my business was, but he brought 
 me news from the servants' hall that Prince 
 Roderick was soon going to Griinsee, and 
 this prospect induced me to take patience. 
 
 Joe's principal crony, Mr. Bobbs, the
 
 68 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 coachman, was either ignorant of the 
 rumours about Prince Roderick's marriage 
 or else deemed it prudent not to discuss 
 them at the loquacious table over which he 
 presided. At all events Joe spoke not a 
 word to me on the subject, and I made a 
 point of never encouraging his propensity 
 to gossip by asking questions. I did not 
 even ask him whether he was aware that 
 some English visitors were staying with 
 the Princess Dorothea, but I ascertained 
 from him that the palace had only one gar- 
 den ; and from the moment of learning this 
 I sat down by an open window to watch if 
 Isabel Meadowes would come out. I de- 
 termined that if I could accost her alone in 
 the garden for only one moment, I would 
 make the venture, and try to get some 
 elucidation from her lips of the mysteries 
 in which I had been living.
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 69 
 
 She did come out on that Sunday 
 morning. We were in the first days of a 
 warm June, and she was dressed for walk- 
 ing in some pretty summer material, with 
 hat and gloves on. The garden was all 
 abloom with roses. Isabel Meadowes 
 walked up to a bush of ' Mardchal Niels', 
 plucked one for her corsage, and quickly 
 returned indoors. It was of no use for me 
 to go down into the garden, but I started 
 for church, making certain I should see 
 her there. 
 
 Her mother, Lady Springfield, was at 
 church, but Isabel was not. I remained 
 to the end of the service, and then slipped 
 to the door to see the whole congregation 
 — a tolerably large one, for are not the 
 English like swallows abounding in all 
 lands ? Lady Springfield, who was a florid 
 lady, in brown watered silk, passed me with
 
 70 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 a gracious bow, but stepped at once into a 
 Court carriage and was driven away. At 
 this moment red-faced Sir George Malm- 
 sey caught me by the arm and said — 
 
 ' I have a note from Count Hochort 
 saying the King wishes to see you, so you 
 had oetter meet me at the palace to-morrow 
 at ten, as his Majesty gives audiences every 
 Monday.' 
 
 ' Shall I go in uniform — a Yeomanry 
 uniform ? ' 
 
 ' Oh yes ; if you've any clothes with lace 
 wear 'em. I say, this is a pretty business 
 about Miss Meadowes, isn't it ? ' 
 
 * I have heard something about a mar- 
 riage/ 
 
 * Aye, don't talk to me about it,' and Sir 
 George raised both hands aloft, his habit 
 when anything disturbed him. 'When I 
 first heard of it you might have knocked
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 71 
 
 me down with a broomstick — I mean a 
 feather. I said to Lady Springfield, "This 
 is the sheerest infatuation, ma'am. My 
 honest and plain advice to you is to go to 
 the devil — I mean to your excellent hus- 
 band — and take his advice." Ah, you 
 should have heard the setting down I gave 
 her ; for I say, you know, it's quite too 
 positively monstrous that an old harridan 
 — I mean a respectable woman like that — 
 should go hunting a Prince about with 
 threats of an action for breach of promise 
 and heaven knows what all.' 
 
 ' Is Prince Roderick reluctant, then ?' 
 
 'Prince Roderick be d . H'm, ah 
 
 well ! I mean bless the man ! I should 
 think he was as dogsick of petticoats by 
 this time as any human being can be. No ; 
 it's Lady Springfield who's at the bottom 
 of it all, and this very morning, an hour
 
 72 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 before coming to church, I wrote to her 
 and said, " As the Queen's representative 
 here, I beg to tell your ladyship officially 
 and privately that I'll see you at — at — " I 
 forget what was the place I mentioned — 
 *' before I allow the marriage to take place 
 at the British Legation." By Jove ! the old 
 thing grinned at me like a cat during the 
 service as if nothing had happened ; and 
 I shouldn't wonder if the marriage came 
 off privately this very week in Prince 
 Roderick's palace ; but mind you, I wash 
 my hands of the matter, so does Lady 
 Malmsey, and I wish you would tell the 
 Prince that from me.' 
 
 ' If I see the Prince I'll not fail to give 
 your Excellency's message.' 
 
 * Mind you do, and say that I shall take 
 him for a bigger fool than he looks — ahem, 
 you know how to word that pleasantly —
 
 IV PRINCE RODERICK 73 
 
 if he lets himself be intimidated by that 
 confounded old catamaran. By Jove ! it's 
 lucky I'm not given to strong language, for 
 all this is enough to make the Pope swear.' 
 I went home feeling very glad that I 
 had not spoken with Isabel Meadowes that 
 morning, for what blunder might I not 
 have committed in speaking with her ? 
 Had I not been fast heart -bound to 
 Connie Davenant, I must have attributed 
 to jealousy some of the sensations which 
 oppressed me. Certainly the uppermost 
 thought in my mind was one of mortifi- 
 cation and anger that a girl so beautiful 
 and gifted as Isabel Meadowes should be 
 forced by a scheming mother on to a man 
 who had no love for her, and who by all 
 accounts was an eccentric spendthrift and 
 rake. As for my own position, it was now 
 becoming plain. If this marriage came off
 
 74 PRINCE RODERICK chap, iv 
 
 I should at once send in my resignation, 
 for I could not remain to be suspected 
 as an Englishman of having been in 
 some way a party to Lady Springfield's 
 manoeuvres. 
 
 When I entered my rooms I found a 
 copy of the Kladderadatch lying on the 
 table. 
 
 I took it up mechanically, without at first 
 remembering that Dr. Grinzener had chosen 
 this paper as a medium for occult com- 
 munication with me. As soon as I recol- 
 lected this I opened the paper and noticed 
 some very small dots under certain of the 
 letters. The message which they spelt 
 ran as follows : — 
 
 * Come without fail to-day, four o'clock, 
 to Northern Railway Station.'
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Why had Dr. Grlnzener sent me this 
 cryptographic message ? Had it any re- 
 ference to the Prince's marriage ? I con- 
 cluded that it must have. Not being at 
 all fixed in my own mind as to Dr. 
 Grinzener's character, I was nevertheless 
 convinced that he never acted without a 
 sufficient reason ; and the more singular 
 his action the more likely was it that his 
 reason must be cogent. 
 
 It need scarcely be added that I did 
 not at all like this mysterious summons to 
 attend at a railway station. I felt I was
 
 76 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 being drawn into a conspiracy against my 
 will. Yet mere curiosity impelled me to 
 keep the appointment. 
 
 Joe had leave to go out for the after- 
 noon, so at luncheon I was waited upon 
 by one of the footmen in blue and orange 
 liveries. When the tray had been re- 
 moved I drew a chair near the window, 
 and, with an unread English newspaper 
 on my lap, mused as I smoked a cigar and 
 gazed into the garden. 
 
 Presently a little lady with a pink face 
 and fluffy flaxen curls, whom I guessed 
 must be the Princess Dorothea, tripped 
 down the steps of a terrace, preceded by 
 a big Danish dog with a silver collar, 
 and followed by Lady Springfield, Isabel 
 Meadowes, and a burly shambling old man 
 who wore the dress of a Lutheran clergy- 
 man. The party was almost immediately
 
 V PRINCE RODERICK ']^ 
 
 joined by Prince Roderick, who came 
 from the opposite side of the building. 
 His military frock was open, showing a 
 white waistcoat underneath, and he wore a 
 regimental cap of white nankeen. 
 
 No greetings were exchanged, so the 
 Prince had evidently met the ladies before 
 on this day. The party began to saunter 
 along the alleys, the Prince walking in 
 front with Lady Springfield, while the 
 Princess Dot, who held a Japanese paper 
 sunshade, Isabel, the clergyman, and the 
 dog strolled at a few paces behind. 
 
 I of course withdrew from the window, 
 but with some shame at what I was doing, 
 and which I only excused to myself on 
 the ground that I must in self-defence 
 observe all that was going on, I took up 
 a position behind the curtain, whence I 
 could see without being noticed. Isabel
 
 78 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 was thoughtful ; the Princess Dot very 
 merry, and her frank laughter resounded 
 like a schoolgirl's. Once she brought her 
 group to a standstill while she executed on 
 the grass two or three steps of a jig, 
 apparently for the instruction of Isabel. 
 A few minutes later she proceeded to 
 illustrate some lunges in fencing, which 
 she did by closing her sunshade and mak- 
 ing prods at the old clergyman, to the 
 great excitement of the Danish hound, 
 who gambolled about barking in a deep 
 baying voice. At last the Princess Dot 
 twined her arm round Isabel's waist and 
 danced indoors with her, the clergyman 
 going with them. Prince Roderick and 
 Lady Springfield remained in the garden, 
 and I could see their conversation was 
 animated. 
 
 The Prince bit his nails and sometimes
 
 V PRINCE RODERICK 79 
 
 Stood Still making gestures and talking 
 volubly. Lady Springfield shook her 
 head, drew her black lace mantle close to 
 her as though offended, and on one occa- 
 sion walked right away from the Prince. 
 He stood for a moment irresolute, then 
 overtook her, and there was some 
 more earnest dialogue. At length these 
 two parted also, and the Prince returned 
 towards his own apartments, his hands 
 deep in his trouser pockets, and his head 
 bent. 
 
 It was now three o'clock, and it occurred 
 to me that as a railway station was mixed 
 up in my affairs I had better put on a light 
 suit and a low-crowned hat, so as to look 
 as if I were going to travel. I hesitated 
 as to whether I ought to take my revolver; 
 but I hate these foolish weapons, which, 
 besides other inconveniences, make the
 
 8o PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 pocket of a well-fitting coat bulge out. 
 I even rejected the idea of a thick stick, 
 and chose a slender cane ; but I provided 
 myself well with money, and threw a dust- 
 cloak over my arm. 
 
 It was a lovely afternoon, and the streets 
 were thronged with people going out to 
 spend the evening in the Bier-Gartens of 
 the suburbs. All the shops were closed 
 and the ca/<^s almost deserted. Countless 
 droshkies (open flies), their cushions in 
 white cotton covers, were carry^ing family 
 parties tricked out in Sunday best — the 
 women all fanning themselves and the men 
 all smoking. 
 
 The railway station was at some dis- 
 tance from the palace, and when I arrived 
 there punctually at four, there were crowds 
 hurrying in to catch suburban trains. Dr. 
 Grinzener was waiting for me on the steps
 
 V PRINCE RODERICK 8i 
 
 of the principal entrance, and looked the 
 embodiment of respectability with his 
 panama straw hat, well-starched shirt front, 
 gray silk gloves, and ivory-headed walking- 
 stick. He laughed from ear to ear as he 
 shook hands, but said not a word, and led 
 me to the first-class waiting-room, where, 
 greatly to my surprise, I found Isabel 
 Meadowes, whom I had seen an hour 
 before in the palace garden, now dressed 
 in travelling costume and holding a small 
 bag. 
 
 She coloured, but looked gravely into 
 my eyes as she said in a low voice — 
 
 ' Excuse me for this, Captain Meredith; 
 I have telegraphed to my father to join me 
 at Ostend, and I am going there by this 
 evening's express. But I shall get into 
 the train at Lilienthal so as to avoid ob- 
 servation. Do you mind travelling as far 
 
 VOL. I 6
 
 82 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 as Lilienthal with me ? it is about twenty 
 miles off. I wish very much to speak with 
 you.' 
 
 Dr. Grinzener had disappeared. 
 
 Isabel had already taken the tickets, 
 and as the train was to start in a few 
 minutes we passed on to the platform ; but 
 there was difficulty in finding a first-class 
 compartment with two vacant seats, and 
 when at last we succeeded, the two seats 
 which we obtained were apart and on the 
 same side of the carriage — nor did it occur 
 to the two polite Germans who occupied 
 the intervening places to move so that 
 Isabel and I might sit together. This 
 prevented me not only from holding con- 
 versation with Isabel, but from observing 
 her during the crawling progress of the 
 train. 
 
 An hour was occupied in doing the
 
 V PRINCE RODERICK 83 
 
 twenty miles, for the train stopped at every 
 station. When we aHghted at LiHenthal 
 Isabel said she had never been to this 
 town before, and suggested that we should 
 seek an open-air restaurant. Taking 
 counsel of a flyman, we learned that the 
 favourite Lusthaus lay on the other side of 
 LiHenthal, about a mile off; so we entered 
 his trap and were driven through a charm- 
 ing old town with wooden-framed houses, 
 having three and four stories of attics in 
 their slanting roofs. Storks built their 
 nests between the chimneys, and stood in 
 rows on the mossy ridges. The bells of 
 two or three ancient churches were ringing 
 for evening service, and groups of placid 
 tradesfolk and clean-faced children lounged 
 in open doorways or sat upon chairs on 
 the pavements under old-fashioned sign- 
 boards hung upon wrought-iron brackets.
 
 84 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 We were driven to a delightful park 
 upon a wooded hillside, which commanded 
 a prospect of valley with half a dozen 
 villages and a winding river. Here was a 
 restaurant in which a garrison band was 
 playing, and hundreds of people were 
 seated at white tables consuming beer, 
 coffee, milk, ham, cold sausage, and such 
 things. The easy mixture of classes, the 
 good behaviour of everybody, the general 
 contentment, are always very pleasant 
 things to notice in these German pleasure 
 resorts, which cannot be matched in 
 England, and which indeed raise the 
 question as to what rank the English, 
 who require so much nursing from their 
 legislators in the w^ay of licensing laws, 
 hold in civilisation. 
 
 Isabel was too attractive not to be 
 stared at, but the Germans stare at every
 
 V PRINCE RODERICK 85 
 
 one artlessly and not rudely. It is to be 
 presumed that we passed for a newly- 
 married couple, and I dare say I came in 
 for much — to me — inaudible congratulation 
 on the possession of such a wife. We 
 made our way to an arbour and ordered 
 coffee, which was brought in a few minutes, 
 and excellent coffee it was. The band was 
 playing the ?^Iarch from the Tannhduser. 
 
 'This is a strange adventure,' began 
 Isabel, smiling to set us both at ease. ' Shall 
 I pour out for you .^ One lump or two ? ' 
 
 'Two lumps, please.' I had by this 
 time studied every feature of Isabel's, and 
 every detail of her neat travelling costume. 
 Perhaps she caught my look of admiration, 
 for she changed colour a little before she 
 said — 
 
 ' I have taken a great liberty with you, 
 Captain Meredith, but owing to the posi-
 
 86 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 tion which you now hold, I wished to 
 speak to you, and it was necessary for 
 your own sake that I should do so. You 
 have heard that I was to be married to 
 Prince Roderick?' I nodded. 'Well,' 
 she resumed, with heightened colour, 
 ' believe me when I say that I never sus- 
 pected until a few days ago what use was 
 being made of my name. I shall never 
 be Prince Roderick's wife. I would not 
 marry him if I could become a queen by 
 doing so — no, and not if he could give up 
 his rank for my sake, and were willing to 
 make the sacrifice.' 
 
 My share in such a conversation could 
 only be a silent one. Isabel, in a trem- 
 bling voice, proceeded — 
 
 ' I have been cruelly toyed with and 
 betrayed. When I came on a visit to 
 Sabelburg with my mother. Prince Rode-
 
 V PRINCE RODERICK 87 
 
 rick paid me great attention. Knowing 
 all I do now I do not condemn him for his 
 conduct towards me. Still, I think he 
 should have been more considerate. I 
 understood little about his position, nor 
 did I guess that there were insuperable 
 bars to his marriage with a girl in my con- 
 dition. Prince Roderick can be very 
 fascinating ; but enough of this. All was 
 at an end between us, so far as I was con- 
 cerned, from the moment I heard about a 
 morganatic marriage and saw that Prince 
 Roderick's feelings towards me were not 
 what I had foolishly believed.' 
 
 She had grown pale now, but her voice 
 was more steady. 
 
 * The excuse for Prince Roderick is 
 that he is surrounded by wicked plotters/ 
 she continued. ' I know that the project 
 of a morganatic marriage with me was
 
 88 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 much favoured by some persons at Court, 
 and I believe now that the Prince only 
 feigned to be in love with me, so that he 
 might seem to enter into the views of his 
 enemies and secure some time of peace for 
 himself by throwing them off their guard. 
 I am sure he is in love with somebody 
 else, but with whom is more than I can 
 guess, and I trust he may be able to keep 
 his secret ; for it is certain that misunder- 
 standings would be sown between him and 
 the young lady, whoever she may be. 
 Poor fellow, I pity him from the depth of 
 my heart. With such a fine nature as he 
 has in some things, he deserves better 
 than the fate allotted to him ! ' 
 
 ' It is your opinion, then, that he has a 
 fine nature ? ' 
 
 ' He has noble strivings after good, 
 with a faulty judgment and a weak char-
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 acter ; but I trust you will remain his 
 friend, Captain Meredith, and, God help- 
 ing, keep him from harm. And I wish 
 you would carry him this letter from me, 
 in Vv^hich I say that I entirely forgive him. 
 Let him not trouble himself about what he 
 has said and done to me. All, except a 
 very compassionate memory of him and 
 sincere good wishes for his future, shall be 
 effaced from my mind.' 
 
 The girl's voice broke here, and tears 
 started to her eyes. 
 
 After a pause she resumed her narra- 
 tive, and explained how her mother had 
 been acting. This she did with the utmost 
 tact and dutifulness, notwithstanding which 
 she could not but make it manifest that 
 the worldly-minded Lady Springfield had 
 been rendered quite giddy by the prospect 
 of a Royal alliance. Count Hochort had
 
 90 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 told her that if the Prince married Miss 
 Meadowes the marriage could only be mor- 
 ganatic for the present, but that when the 
 Prince succeeded to the Crown he might 
 get a law passed to sanction the match and 
 raise his wife to the throne. On the other 
 hand, the Prime Minister hinted that if 
 the Prince would forthwith renounce all 
 rights to the succession for himself and his 
 heirs for ever, the King might be disposed 
 to confer a high title on Miss Meadowes, 
 so that she could marry on a footing of 
 equality and become the lawful right-hand 
 wife of the Prince. It thus seemed to 
 Lady Springfield that the marriage was a 
 thing to be sought after for either issue, 
 and she had sought after it to the extent 
 of informing Prince Roderick that after all 
 that had happened he was bound in 
 honour to wed Isabel.
 
 V PRINCE RODERICK 91 
 
 ' But with all this I have had nothing 
 to do,' concluded Isabel with quiet dignity, 
 ' and it was to put an end to negotiations, 
 humiliating to me, and distressing to the 
 Prince, that I have run away.' 
 
 * Had Lady Springfield any notice of 
 your intention ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' No ; but the Princess Dorothea was in 
 the secret and assisted me. She is a good 
 little thing, but terribly uncompromising 
 about Royal rank, and I believe she dis- 
 liked me thoroughly while she thought 
 that I was bent on marrying her brother. 
 When I made a confidante of her she at 
 once became my ally, invited my mother 
 and me to stay with her, and connived at 
 my escape to-day. If I had been staying 
 with my mother at an hotel I could not 
 have gone away without a most painful 
 scene. In fact, my mother, who is per-
 
 92 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 suaded that she was acting for my good, 
 has treated me Hke a child throughout the 
 whole affair — never telling me what passed 
 between her and the Prince. Most of 
 what I know was communicated to me by 
 the Princess Dorothea.' 
 
 'And what part has Dr. Grinzener 
 played ? Do you trust him ? ' 
 
 ' I trust him thoroughly,' answered Isa- 
 bel. ' He is the Prince's friend, and poli- 
 tically Count Hochort's adversary. Were 
 Prince Roderick to reign, Hochort would 
 be dismissed from office, and Dr. Grin- 
 zener would become chief minister ; and 
 now this brings me to the part of my story 
 which concerns yourself.' 
 
 She looked round and dropped her 
 voice, though the band was playing some 
 of Verdi's most brazen music, so that I had 
 to strain my ears to catch her words.
 
 V PRINCE RODERICK 93 
 
 ' I have told you that the Prince is being 
 plotted against by a clique of powerful 
 and unscrupulous enemies, and I believe 
 that you were appointed to be his secretary 
 in the hope that you would encourage him 
 in the extravagance and profligacy which 
 have so much injured his reputation. For- 
 give me for saying that the description 
 furnished of you by your friends in Eng- 
 land made you appear to be a man v/hose 
 influence would be rather for evil than 
 good. When I met you at the Legation 
 I thought that I read your character in 
 its true light, and I recollected that my 
 brother in the army had spoken of you in 
 the highest terms — so highly indeed that I 
 felt reassured, and determined to warn you.' 
 
 ' I remember meeting your brother,' I 
 said ; ' but I am afraid he is a little of an 
 enthusiast.'
 
 94 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 ' No ; he told me that you were a brave, 
 upright gentleman, and esteemed by every 
 one of your brother officers. That is quite 
 enough. But, Captain Meredith, I am 
 afraid that you may, unconsciously to your- 
 self, be used as an instrument for the 
 Prince's ruin. So be ever on your guard. 
 Every thoughtless act which the Prince 
 commits is exaggerated in society, and 
 printed with absolutely false details in bad 
 newspapers. The Prince struggled long 
 against these calumnies, but found it of no 
 avail, and has now grown reckless — too 
 reckless. Possibly the calumnies may 
 gather in force now that the Prince is 
 supposed to be under the influence of a 
 frivolous Englishman — for that is the re- 
 putation which is being prepared for you. 
 A good deal of what the Prince does will 
 be laid to your charge, but worse than this
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 may happen ; for if the Prince should come 
 to sudden mischief — a thing which I dread 
 without divining whence it may come — you 
 might be made a scapegoat.' 
 
 ' This is getting serious, isn't it ? ' I re- 
 marked, with an effort to treat the matter 
 Hghtly. 
 
 ' Has it not struck you as curious that 
 you should have been employed because 
 you were an orphan and not engaged to be 
 married — which seemed to indicate that 
 you had nobody to care for you ? Trust a 
 girl's shrewdness for seeing farther into 
 these matters than experienced men. I 
 know that the Prince is encompassed with 
 dangers, and you yourself must remain in 
 peril unless you leave his service.' 
 
 ' After what I have heard it would be 
 impossible that I should desert him — un- 
 less he dismisses me.'
 
 96 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 'That's right: remain by him,' said 
 Isabel with a grateful look. ' You may be 
 the means of his salvation. For myself, I 
 shall go away with a light heart, knowing 
 that the Prince has a true friend in you.' 
 
 It was growing late now, and we had to 
 go so that Isabel should catch her train at 
 Lilienthal. We drove back to the station, 
 and on the way I spoke only of her journey. 
 She made sure that her father would meet 
 her at Ostend, and that her mother 
 would promptly follow her. ' But there 
 can be no more question of the marriage,' 
 she added ; ' my flight will have extricated 
 Prince Roderick from his difficulty.' 
 
 On the platform at the station she asked 
 me once more not to forget her letter to 
 the Prince. ' See at least that it reaches 
 him,' she said, ' even if you do not deliver 
 it yourself.'
 
 V PRINCE RODERICK 97 
 
 ' I will deliver it with my own hands, 
 Miss Meadowes.' 
 
 ' I think it will be better so. He will 
 know then that you are acquainted with all 
 the circumstances, and he will make no 
 attempt at concealment. It is a weakness 
 of his to make mysteries, and no wonder, 
 seeing what his position is. Perhaps he 
 will be vexed for a day or two, but perceiv- 
 ing how I have trusted ydu, he will under- 
 stand you to be faithful, and will look to 
 you for further help.' 
 
 The train from Sabelburg entered the 
 station, and Isabel shrank back a little be- 
 hind me to watch if any person of her 
 acquaintance alighted. But no familiar face 
 appeared ; and I handed her into a coupd, 
 arranging with a good-natured guard that 
 he should take her under his protection 
 
 and see that nobody intruded on her. 
 VOL. I 7
 
 98 PRINCE RODERICK chap, v 
 
 * Good-bye,' she said, holding out her 
 pretty hand through the window ; ' good- 
 bye, and thank you so much.' 
 
 'Thank yotc,' I replied; 'and will you 
 grant me a favour — may I write to you ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, do, and direct your letters under 
 cover to my father. I will tell him to give 
 them me.' 
 
 The train started, and Isabel waved me 
 another good-bye as I raised my hat. 
 
 'That's a orood sfirl,' I reflected; and 
 somehow it gave me pleasure that she was 
 not going to be Prince Roderick's wife.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 I WAS spared the trouble of requesting an 
 audience from Prince Roderick the next 
 morning, for he sent me through an 
 equerry an Invitation to lunch with him at 
 one o'clock. It will be remembered that 
 before this I had to go through the cere- 
 mony of presentation to the King. 
 
 King Franz gave private audiences 
 twice a week, In the morning. In one of 
 the largest rooms of the palace were wont 
 to assemble all sorts and conditions of men 
 and women, who had received, or were 
 anxious to receive, favours from the Crown.
 
 loo PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 They came to thank or to importune his 
 Majesty. Officers on promotion, inventors, 
 authors, widows, peasants, all presented 
 their letters of audience to a chamberlain 
 and sat down on velvet settees or roamed 
 about, peering at pictures, until the aide- 
 de-camp at the door of the King's study 
 called out their names. Sometimes one 
 saw rueful sprigs of nobility waiting to get 
 a good wigging from the Royal lips, for his 
 Majesty was very particular about the 
 morals of his nobles, and he had been 
 known to box the ears of titled youngsters 
 who had misbehaved so as to cause public 
 scandal. 
 
 These Royal audiences were a precious 
 corrective to the system of parliamentary 
 government which nominally existed at 
 Kronheim. There are British subjects 
 who have no more chance of ever getting
 
 VI PRINCE RODERICK loi 
 
 a private talk with the Queen than they 
 have of ascendinof to the summit of the 
 Himalayas ; but in King Franz's do- 
 minions everybody who had anything to 
 say worth his Majesty's attention could 
 obtain a private hearing by asking for it. 
 Except when people came in deputations, 
 every person was received singly, and laid 
 his business before the King alone — no 
 minister or secretary being present. The 
 King would have stared at the doctrine that 
 a constitutional sovereign should do nothing 
 but sanction laws voted by a parliament. 
 Parliaments pass, but kings endure ; and 
 there was probably not a man in the 
 country but had more faith in the sagacity 
 and rectitude of old King Franz than in 
 the word of his ministers. 
 
 Sir George Malmsey joined me at ten 
 o'clock in uniform, with the red riband of
 
 PRINXE RODERICK 
 
 a K.C.B. round his neck; and before he 
 had finished shaking hands with persons 
 of his acquaintance in the room our turn 
 of audience came. 
 
 We were ushered into a large well- 
 lighted study, with a carpet so thick that 
 the heaviest tread of a cavalry boot would 
 have been noiseless upon it. An elderly 
 gentleman in military undress, and with- 
 out a single medal or decoration, came 
 forward, shook hands with Sir George 
 Malmsey, and returned my bow. He 
 had white hair, moustache and whiskers, a 
 care-worn face, and a keen but not unkind 
 eye. 
 
 ' Well, Sir George, your fair country- 
 woman, Miss Meadowes, has left us,' he 
 said in English, for Sir George could not 
 speak a sentence of German and King 
 Franz disliked French.
 
 VI PRINCE RODERICK 103 
 
 ' I was not aware of it, Sire,' answered 
 the British Minister, astonished. 
 
 ' Yes, she left yesterday evening to join 
 her father/ Then turning to me the King 
 said in German, * You are wearing the 
 Egyptian medal, Captain ? ' 
 
 'Yes, Sire.' 
 
 'But you have left the army? It's a 
 pity — you must have been a fine dragoon.' 
 
 That was all. A nod to me, another 
 handshake to Sir George, and we both 
 retired — the King turning his back so that 
 he might not see our backs as we went 
 out — such being the custom. 
 
 ' I say, that's something new about Miss 
 Meadowes,' remarked Sir George as we 
 went downstairs to his carriage. ' Had 
 you heard of the matter ? ' 
 
 ' Yes, I saw Miss Meadowes off.' 
 
 ' The devil you did ! ' Then with a
 
 I04 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 pathetic outburst — ' I'm hanged if I'm not 
 always the last man to get a bit of news. 
 I sometimes say to my young fellows at 
 the Legation, " It's doosed lucky you've 
 not got to act as retrievers, for, egad ! you'd 
 bring me my partridges Lor' knows when." 
 It's too bad, 'pon my soul, that things 
 should be going on without my knowledge. 
 Well, tell me about it — was there much 
 squalling ? Old Lady Springfield must 
 have been in fits. I suppose Prince 
 Roderick had bundled them both out — 
 eh, what ? ' 
 
 Sir George under his cocked hat shaped 
 like a half- moon was a figure for a car- 
 toon as he listened to as much of Isabel 
 Meadowes's story as I thought it right to 
 tell him. The fact that Isabel had eone 
 of her own free-will, and that she re- 
 pudiated all design of marrying Prince
 
 VI PRINCE RODERICK 105 
 
 Roderick, was what I chiefly had to im- 
 press ; and I did this without mention- 
 ing the clandestine circumstances of her 
 departure. 
 
 * D d if I beheve a word of it,' 
 
 ejaculated his Excellency, * and Lady 
 Malmsey will say the same. The Prince 
 is a catch, and those two women set their 
 heads together to trap him ; but he's a fox, 
 and he's got away. Thank goodness for 
 it, as I'm saved a deal of bother. But 
 egad ! I must write to old Springfield. 
 This is certain to bring on his gout, and 
 he'll be swearing at me through the tele- 
 graph wires.' 
 
 I was never to learn whether Lady 
 Springfield had gone into fits on discover- 
 ing how Isabel had caused her schemes to 
 miscarry. As 3 pebble drops into a pool, 
 her ladyship disappeared from Sabelburg ;
 
 io6 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 but SO little was known, even at Court, 
 about the true facts of the case, that people 
 continued to gossip for some days about 
 the cominor marriage. The Badstadt 
 Gazette, always well informed, soon an- 
 nounced that the match had been broken 
 off, but made political capital out of the 
 affair by hinting that the Prince had scared 
 away his English sweetheart by his mad- 
 ness. It was by the reiteration of such 
 charges as this, tending to show that 
 Prince Roderick was a man whom no sane 
 woman could tolerate, that accumulations 
 were added to the load of unpopularity 
 under which his foes hoped to crush him. 
 
 Joe informed me just before luncheon- 
 time that Prince Roderick was going to 
 Griinsee on the morrow. Mr. Bobbs, the 
 coachman, had received his marching 
 orders, and was to leave town that night
 
 VI PRINCE RODERICK 107 
 
 with some of the carriages and horses. 
 ' But he don't take many, sir, for it seems 
 the Prince has quite a separate estabhsh- 
 ment out there ; and most of the servants 
 and horses here, they just remain in town 
 for months and eat their 'eads off. I sup- 
 pose we are going too, sir ? ' 
 
 * I have not heard.' 
 
 ' I think we must be going, sir, for Mr. 
 Bobbs said he was to take horses down 
 for you.' 
 
 The movements of Royal princes never 
 cause much disturbance in domestic ar- 
 rangements, for everything is smoothly 
 settled for them by the officers of their 
 households. I was quite prepared to hear 
 of Prince Roderick's removal to summer 
 quarters, as in June few of the great 
 families remained in town ; and, in fact, 
 the Prince had rather overstayed his usual
 
 io8 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 date for departure. At the same time 
 Joe's tidings were welcome, for it became 
 obvious that the Prince must to-day put an 
 end to my suspense regarding my duties 
 in his service. 
 
 Having to deHver Isabel's letter, I 
 trusted I might find the Prince alone, but 
 he was in company with that young Count 
 Richard Sonnenthal whom I have already 
 mentioned as having shown friendly dis- 
 positions towards me at the Equerries' 
 mess. The three of us lunched together 
 in a small room overlooking the garden ; 
 and I perceived that the Prince had invited 
 Sonnenthal on purpose that he and I might 
 become good comrades. There was no 
 difficulty about that ; but a few minutes 
 were enough to show that Sonnenthal was 
 nothing more to the Prince than a rousing 
 boon companion. His talk was all about
 
 VI PRINCE RODERICK 109 
 
 horses' hocks, ballet dancers' pirouettes, 
 and coups at dcartd. He drank gaily at 
 table, so did the Prince ; but he could 
 stand liquor and the Prince could not. 
 After two long glasses of beer and a 
 bottle of champagne — for they mix these 
 drinks in Germany without compunction — 
 Sonnenthal was as fresh as paint ; but the 
 Prince was all flushed and much too talk- 
 ative, though he kept his head. 
 
 ' I am going to take you to Griinsee 
 to-morrow,' he said In German. ' You'll 
 find the place dull, for we lead humdrum 
 lives. My sister keeps house for me, and 
 our only amusements are music and 
 fishing.' 
 
 'Your Royal Highness forgets the 
 preaching,' laughed Sonnenthal. 
 
 ' Oh yes, you will get lots of that,' said 
 the Prince. ' My sister is very impatient
 
 no PRINCE RODERICK Chap. 
 
 to know you, and I hope you are well 
 versed in theology, for she will put you 
 through your facings. She collects the 
 clergy of all the surrounding villages, and 
 one after another they give us sermons 
 on wet afternoons. Sonnenthal here has to 
 sit and take notes. Do you paint or sketch ? ' 
 
 ' Only a little, sir.' 
 
 ' That would be a resource for you, as 
 we have good scener}'. I saw you at the 
 Opera the other day with Harold Crowe — 
 an amusing fellow and a clever artist. I 
 wish you could prevail upon him to come 
 with us and paint me portraits of some of 
 our peasants and their women-folk — amaz- 
 ing types, some of them.' 
 
 ' Crowe would like it above all things, 
 sir,' r said, and mentioned something of 
 what my friend had told me on this 
 subject.
 
 VI PRINCE RODERICK iii 
 
 ' By all means invite him, then. Who 
 ever heard of my refusing an artist per- 
 mission to come to Griinsee ? I don't 
 take them to my place on the top of the 
 Nebelberg, for they can't stand being 
 dressed in bearskins and hearing the 
 wolves howl at night, but everybody is 
 welcome to Griinsee.' 
 
 ' Harold Crowe will esteem it a great 
 favour.' 
 
 ' Write him a letter, then, in my name, 
 and tell him our special train starts at two 
 to-morrow.^ 
 
 After coffee the Prince and Sonnenthal 
 sat down to play dcaide in a smoking-room 
 ornamented with trophies of pipes from all 
 countries and times. Richly - jewelled 
 chibouks, well-coloured meerschaums, and 
 common clays smoked black as ebony, 
 were all there. As I was examining the
 
 112 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 collection the Prince said between two 
 deals — ' If you ever come across a curious 
 pipe, better coloured than any of those, 
 just buy it for me.' 
 
 After an hour's play the Prince had 
 lost a couple of thousand marks (^loo), 
 which he seemed to consider a mere trifle. 
 He paid the money in banknotes which 
 he drew from his pocket. Sonnenthal 
 then took his leave, and the Prince led 
 me into his study. Here I at once handed 
 him Isabel's letter. 
 
 ' I am much obliged to you for having 
 escorted Miss Meadowes yesterday,' he 
 began before breaking the envelope. ' Dr. 
 Grinzener has told me all about it, and I 
 am glad that you should have been initi- 
 ated into the details of this disagreeable 
 business.' 
 
 So saying he proceeded to read the
 
 VI PRINCE RODERICK 113 
 
 letter, standing. I could see that it pro- 
 duced an impression upon him. A forced 
 smile came to his lips. He sat down and 
 folded the letter, but reopened it and read 
 parts of it again. This he did more than 
 once, and he talked absently, making re- 
 marks without catching my answers. 
 
 At last he coughed and collected him- 
 self. His features w^ere still red, and his 
 eyes glistened. Apparently he was trying 
 to throw off a weight of anxiety and 
 succeeded, for his manner became cheer- 
 ful and almost flighty. 
 
 'Well, you will get ready to start to- 
 morrow, please. I don't think that I have 
 anything more to say than this at present, 
 except that you will be my only secretary 
 at Griinsee. Dr. Grinzener remains in 
 town, and perhaps he is going to leave my 
 
 service.' 
 
 VOL. I 8
 
 114 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 ' It would be convenient if he could 
 give me some initiation into my duties,' 
 I submitted. 
 
 ' There is hardly time for that, nor is it 
 necessary. You will only have to answer 
 letters according to my directions. Dr. 
 Grinzener, I believe, is going to have the 
 offer of a high government appointment, 
 and he can't refuse it without forfeiting 
 his claims to promotion in the civil service 
 — which cannot well be done in this 
 country. Perhaps I ought to tell you 
 that Count Hochort is removing him from 
 my service purposely, and I must add that 
 the Prime Minister and I are not the best 
 of friends. Doubtless you have heard 
 this ? ' 
 
 I could only bow. 
 
 ' I intended you should hear it,' pro- 
 ceeded the Prince. ' I left you for so
 
 VI PRINCE RODERICK 115 
 
 many days alone that you might pick up 
 all the flying rumours about me. No 
 doubt you have heard some surprising 
 things ; but you know about the man who 
 said he should like to hear the dog's 
 version of a story. When we are alone 
 at Griinsee you shall hear the dog's 
 version.'
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Prinxe Roderick's summer palace of 
 Grtinsee was one of the most enchanting 
 places in Europe. It stood on an island 
 about half a mile in breadth and two miles 
 in circuit, close to one shore of a beautiful 
 lake, famed in countless poems for its clear 
 green waters. The farther shore, five miles 
 distant, was shaded by rocky hills with 
 sloping forests of pine. Each hill had its 
 ruined castle. Beyond the hills and far 
 away rose an amphitheatre of mountains 
 crowned all the year with snow. 
 
 Between the island itself and its nearer
 
 CHAP. VII PRINCE RODERICK 117 
 
 shore the water was five furlongs in 
 breadth, and flowed gently like an emerald 
 river. It was fed by springs which had 
 their source north of the island, and were 
 strong enough to form a current. This 
 nearer shore was an undulating valley of 
 pasture land, for the hills that embraced 
 the lake on three sides, like gigantic arms, 
 joined hands at a point one hour's flight 
 for a swallow from the water's edofe. 
 
 The island itself contained a park of 
 noble trees and lawns for deer ; a palace 
 in the Italian Renaissance style with tiers 
 of terraces ; and gardens of several kinds 
 designed with genius and kept with unre- 
 mitting care. Flowers, fountains, orchards, 
 groves, an aviary, hot-houses, pretty pavil- 
 ions and groups of statuary, charmed the 
 eye wherever it looked. 
 
 All this could be taken in at a glance
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 from the balconied windows of the rooms 
 which I occupied, but the prospect was 
 one at which no man could ever tire of 
 gazing. It changed its aspects with the 
 time of day and the weather, but its 
 beauty never altered. The saffron sun- 
 light of morning, the orange tints of after- 
 noon, the silver of the moonbeams or the 
 gray mists of rain, brought one point or 
 other of the scenery into prominence, but 
 only to impress more deeply the grand 
 effect of the whole. The eye found repose, 
 the mind thought, and the soul peace in 
 the contemplation. The view was now 
 glorious in its brilliant colouring, now 
 sombre in its dark shades, but always 
 superb. 
 
 The room in which I breakfasted at 
 Grlinsee faced the nearer shore, where 
 there w^as a landing-stage with dazzling
 
 VII PRINCE RODERICK 119 
 
 white marble steps. The Prince's fairy 
 steam-launch with red and white pennon 
 and a swan at the prow was moored here, 
 and across the green water came a gig with 
 eight oarsmen in Greek sailor dress plash- 
 ing their oars in a swift steady stroke. 
 Several villas were dotted over the slopes 
 of the valley on this side, and one of them, 
 mantled with clematis and roses, belonged, 
 as I was soon to learn, to Mira Vogelsang. 
 Shortly after breakfast the Prince sent 
 for me. I found him no longer in uniform, 
 but in a sort of Tyrolese Jager costume, 
 which remained his habitual dress. His 
 manner was subdued, and he must have 
 risen early to write, for a great many sheets 
 of foolscap covered with his handwriting 
 were scattered over his desk. I subse- 
 quently learned that he was writing a book, 
 partly autobiographical, which dealt very
 
 I20 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 freely with German history and contem- 
 porary politics. The Prince pointed to a 
 small pile of letters on a side-table and 
 said — 
 
 ' You will have to answer a collection 
 like that every day according to my pen- 
 cilled instructions on the envelopes. If 
 you find difficulties with the German, the 
 clerk in the secretary's office, who has been 
 trained by Grinzener, will assist you. He 
 can draft the letters and you need only 
 sign them. For the rest, amuse yourself 
 as you please. We have plenty of boats 
 if you want to sail or row : there are stables 
 on the two shores of the lake, so that if 
 you wish to make excursions you have 
 only to telephone for horses or trap to be 
 waiting for you when you land. As for 
 tennis, you will find a firstrate court on 
 the lawn under your windows. You and
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 Crowe are too EnQ^lish not to have broucrht 
 rackets with you.' 
 
 Harold Crowe's rooms were next to 
 mine, and many a good game of tennis we 
 had on the capital piece of ground which 
 had been laid out for the purpose. Son- 
 nenthal sometimes joined us, but our re- 
 creations were not much to his taste ; he 
 preferred billiards when cards were not 
 available, and after a day or two sought 
 relief from what he called the fzLvchtbare 
 Traurigkeit of country life, by going to 
 flirt among the villas and cottages of the 
 vale. An innkeeper's pretty daughter, with 
 two long plaited tails of hair, engaged 
 a great deal of his time ; and Harold 
 Crowe, led astray by him, took an artistic 
 fancy for a blue - eyed goose - girl with a 
 patched petticoat, whom he sketched day 
 after day until he turned her head. Events
 
 122 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 SO shaped themselves, therefore, that I was 
 left much alone. There was no common 
 gathering at breakfast or luncheon ; and 
 until the Princess Dorothea arrived with 
 her ladies — two weeks after us — the Prince 
 did not always appear at dinner. 
 
 He led no life of seclusion, for I often 
 met him strolling about the grounds, and 
 at such times he was ahvays ready for a 
 chat. He was very fond of feeding the 
 birds in his aviary, and would stand for an 
 hour throwing breadcrumbs to peacocks, 
 flamingoes, and golden pheasants, who 
 kept on dry land, or to pelicans, swans, 
 and ducks, who swam on a large artificial 
 pond set with islands of rockery. Another 
 of his diversions was to be rowed over the 
 lake late in the evening. His gig would 
 be preceded at some distance by the steam- 
 launch, which carried musicians and some-
 
 VII PRINCE RODERICK 123 
 
 times a female singer on board. The 
 musicians were Montenegrins, and very 
 wild were the strains of their string instru- 
 ments. The singer was generally Mira 
 Vogelsang ; and sometimes the crew of the 
 Prince's boat — these men were Greeks — 
 would catch up the song started from the 
 launch. When the air was still, the songs 
 would float from a long way over the 
 water, and would reach me as I leaned 
 over my balcony, often strangely moved. 
 
 The Prince always went alone on these 
 excursions, but while making no mystery 
 about them, never alluded to them. They 
 gave him a pleasure which, no doubt, 
 might have been spoilt by unappreciative 
 observations or mockery. 
 
 One thing which I speedily noticed was 
 that whenever the Prince went out of doors 
 he was followed by a body-servant dressed
 
 124 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 in Jager costume like himself, but armed 
 with a short dirk which hung at his belt, 
 and with an axe-headed mountaineer's staff. 
 This man's name was Tristan : he was the 
 Prince's foster-brother, and somewhat like 
 him in face and figure. Tristan was in 
 command of the keepers, sailors, and watch- 
 men, and under his directions the island 
 was well guarded. There was not a soldier 
 in uniform about the place, and not an 
 officer except Sonnenthal ; but some sailors 
 always hung about the landing-stage of 
 the mainland and on that of the isle ; and 
 after dark some of those Montenegrins who 
 scraped the fiddle so well were stationed 
 about the park as sentries. These Tristan 
 inspected at unforeseen hours, always going 
 his night rounds with an enormous mastiff 
 called Hacko. Provisions and letters were 
 brought to the island by the Prince's
 
 VII PRINCE RODERICK 125 
 
 sailors in a launch. Nobody was allowed 
 to land on the island without permission 
 being asked for and received through the 
 telephone. 
 
 There was not only a telephone in the 
 palace, but a telegraph station and electric 
 lighting. The house was fitted with every 
 modern appliance for comfort, and fur- 
 nished in modern style with the utmost 
 luxury and with superlative good taste. 
 It was not, like the palace in Sabelburg, 
 Crown property, but Prince Roderick's 
 own home, bought with his money, and 
 furnished throughout under his orders. 
 He was one day talking to me about his 
 various residences, and remarked that he 
 took no pleasure in his town palace. 
 
 ' I am not master there. The greatest 
 extravagance prevails, but I am powerless 
 to check it, for every servant has vested
 
 126 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 interests consecrated by usage from time 
 immemorial. If I try to alter anything, I 
 am brought into conflict with high stewards 
 and great chamberlains. Here at Griinsee 
 I spend five times less than in town, but 
 then I can control my own accounts, and I 
 employ mostly foreign servants.' 
 
 ' Does your Royal Highness find them 
 better than natives?' I inquired innocently. 
 
 ' It's not that ; but the servants here 
 are my very own,' said the Prince. ' I have 
 brought them to this country, and can send 
 them back. They have nothing to expect 
 from anybody except me.' 
 
 Sallies of this kind, which were 
 frequent in the Prince's conversation, 
 coincided little with the anecdotes which 
 Harold Crowe had told me about the 
 wild doings at Griinsee. I recalled these 
 one day as Harold and I were sitting
 
 VII PRINCE RODERICK 127 
 
 under a tree after an hour at tennis, and he 
 admitted that it looked as if somebody had 
 been ' laying on the colouring thick.' 
 
 * There's truth in the stories about the 
 masquerading though. At the Swan Inn 
 over the water you can see a picture taken 
 from some illustrated paper, which repre- 
 sents the Roman /e^e; and Lisbeth Riedl 
 — she's Sonnenthal's flame — told me that 
 she and her father, old Andreas, had to 
 dress up two years ago in classic style and 
 keep a popina, in which they sold atro- 
 cious swipes and wine in earthenware jars 
 with oil at the top. The fun lasted 
 two days, and part of it consisted in 
 doing without umbrellas when the rain 
 came.' 
 
 'We have these y^^^i" costumdes'in Eng- 
 land. I don't see they are extravagant.' 
 
 ' Nor do I, and I shouldn't mind helping
 
 128 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 to organise a novelty. Sonnenthal was 
 present at one, and he says they were 
 something more than masquerades, for all 
 the guests were expected to learn parts 
 and to enter into the spirit of the thing. 
 People who said anything out of date, used 
 spectacles, watches, pencils, or such things 
 of our time, or who forgot themselves by 
 blowing their noses in the nineteenth- 
 century fashion, had to pay forfeits. It 
 requires pretty severe study, mind you, to 
 act up to character in parts like that.' 
 
 ' And how about the gladiators and the 
 mangey lion ? ' 
 
 'The lion exists,' observed Harold. 
 ' He's somewhere in the park now, and 
 they often let him loose at night.' 
 
 ' To ^ frighten the chickens into the 
 poultry-yard, I suppose.' 
 
 ' Probably. Lisbeth is my informant,
 
 VII PRINCE RODERICK 129 
 
 and she says she has often shivered under 
 her bedclothes from hearing the beast's 
 roar, and wondering whether he wouldn't 
 take it into his head to cross the water. 
 I'll tell you what,' broke off Harold, rising 
 and making a ball dance on his racket, 
 ' Prince Roderick is our host, so he's a 
 brick, but don't let us conclude that we've 
 got his measure because we are leading a 
 pot-mt-fe2i sort of life while he shuts himself 
 up to write his memoirs.' 
 
 * How do you know he is writing his 
 memoirs ? ' 
 
 ' He makes no secret of it. He intends, 
 
 they say, to fire a big boom one of these 
 
 days in a way to convince the world that 
 
 his head isn't empty. I only hope for his 
 
 sake that he won't overshot his gun and 
 
 make it burst.' Saying this, Harold cut a 
 
 ball over the net and added : ' A man 
 VOL. I 9
 
 I30 PRIiNXE RODERICK chap. 
 
 doesn't get the reputation of Mephisto- 
 pheles unless he plays the deuce sometimes. 
 Tm anxious to see what will be done with 
 us — or at least with you — when the scrib- 
 bling fit is over.' 
 
 I was curious too ; but at that moment 
 I was thinking that I would go and try to 
 get a look at the lion before dinner. I 
 had noticed a circular buildingr at an ex- 
 tremity of the island, and thither I bent my 
 steps, whilst Harold went up to his room. 
 An unmistakable smell of menagerie re- 
 vealed that this must be the den, and as I 
 was going the round of the building to find 
 the entrance I came upon Tristan, alone 
 and pensive, with his back to a door, and 
 his dog crouching at his feet. 
 
 * Want to see the lion, sir ? ' he asked, 
 saluting gravely. 
 
 I said Yes, and Tristan unlocked a door,
 
 VII PRINCE RODERICK 131 
 
 admitting me at one step into a circus. It 
 differed from ordinary circuses in this, that 
 the auditorium consisted of only one circle 
 of seats, and the arena was covered by 
 an immense iron cage. The roof of the 
 building was of glass, so that light poured 
 in. 
 
 No lion in captivity ever had a finer 
 prison. There was space in plenty for 
 rambling, an arrangement of tree branches 
 for climbing, a cave for shade and retreat, 
 and a thick flooring of sand. In the 
 calm enjoyment of these luxuries a mag- 
 nificent lion and lioness reclined side by 
 side. 
 
 ' Are they only kept for show ? ' I 
 asked. 
 
 ' His Highness cannot bear to see wild 
 animals caged,' answered Tristan. ' He 
 saw this lion in a menagerie jumping
 
 132 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 through flaming paper hoops, and he was 
 so moved to pity that he bought him. It 
 was impossible, however, to turn the animal 
 into the streets or send him back to his 
 home in Africa, so this place was built for 
 him. The lioness was bought afterwards 
 to keep him company. Would you like to 
 see the lion loose, sir ? ' 
 
 ' I don't mind.' 
 
 Tristan opened a gate in the cage, 
 stepped in, and with a wave of his staff 
 sent the lioness growling into the cave. 
 He then came out, held the gate wide 
 open, and called to the lion, who at an easy 
 trot ran by him and past me through the 
 passage and into the open air. Here he 
 made for a plot of grass, turned round and 
 stared. 
 
 He was such an imposing creature in 
 his well-fed sleekness that one could not
 
 VII PRINCE RODERICK 133 
 
 but eye him respectfully. But when I saw 
 this king of beasts shake himself like a 
 poodle, scratch his left ear with his right 
 leg, and finally roll himself on the grass 
 with his four paws up, I could not help 
 laughing. The situation was rendered 
 additionally ludicrous by the conduct of 
 Hacko, Tristan's dog, who sheltered him- 
 self trembling behind me, and poked his 
 nose sniffing between my knees. 
 
 Tristan, without a smile, made another 
 call to the lion, who uprose and advanced 
 till he stood between us, his mane touchino- 
 my hand. Hacko, with his tail between 
 his legs, had retired behind a tree, shiv- 
 ering. 
 
 Then Tristan, who was a strong serious 
 fellow with dreamy eyes, looked at me and 
 said : 'It's not every man who would have 
 shown your nerve, sir. If the Prince be
 
 134 PRINCE RODERICK chap, vii 
 
 ever in danger, I hope we may stand by 
 his side together.' 
 
 The compHment was agreeable ; yet it 
 was not without relief that I saw King 
 Lion restored to the society of his 
 grumbling wife.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 * You have won golden opinions from Tris- 
 tan,' said the Prince to me next morning. 
 His 'scribbling fit' had abated, and look- 
 ing out of the window at the sunHt lake, 
 which sparkled like a vast sheet of crystal, 
 reflecting the blue of the sky, he remarked 
 that it was fine weather for an outing. ' Do 
 you feel inclined for a ride ? If so, be ready 
 in half an hour. Come dressed as you 
 are.' 
 
 I had promised Harold Crowe that, if 
 free, I would go out with him for a sail on 
 the lake, so having put on a pair of boots
 
 136 PRIXCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 with spurs I went to tell him of the change 
 in my arrangements. 
 
 ' Well, perhaps you can join us later,' he 
 suggested. ' Sonnenthal and I are going 
 to lunch at the " Swan," for I have some 
 painting to do there.' 
 
 Palette and mahlstick in hand, he was 
 rubbing some colour into the portrait of his 
 pretty goose-girl. 'That's Frida Siiss,' 
 he said, ' but I can't get her cheeks right. 
 I want the nectarine tints, and I'm making 
 English pudding apples.' 
 
 ' You are doing a capital picture, 
 though.' 
 
 ' Do you really think so ? ' he asked, 
 pleased. ' You see I must work in earnest, 
 for I am anxious to paint a good set of peas- 
 ant types for the Prince before I go. I've 
 not come here to play the cheery idler.' 
 
 I thought as Harold said this that his
 
 VIII PRINCE RODERICK 137 
 
 opinion of the Prince had improved since 
 we came to Griinsee, and that he wished 
 to stand well with him. 
 
 Joe brought me my riding-whip and a 
 message requesting me to meet his High- 
 ness at the landing-stage. I went there 
 and found the launch under steam. After 
 I had waited a few minutes the Prince 
 came out unattended, and we started with- 
 out delay. 
 
 The launch had a sumptuous cabin and 
 a deck with an awning. Here we sat on 
 easy-chairs, and were carried along at a 
 swift smooth rate, without much puffing 
 from the engine or noise from the screw. 
 The little ship, English made, with a 
 powerful Clyde engine, cut the water 
 straight as a dart, and the four Greeks on 
 board were able seamen who knew their 
 business.
 
 138 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 We were making for the farthermost 
 point north of the Griinsee, a village called 
 Steindorf, where the horses were to await 
 us. The nearer shore being exposed to 
 the sun, our course lay diagonally across 
 the lake, so that we might get under the 
 shadow of the tree-robed hills which skirted 
 the opposite side. As we passed from the 
 limpid light green water of the sunny ex- 
 panse, in which the bows of the launch 
 ploughed two long trails of glassy bubbles 
 without foam, we seemed to glide into dark 
 water of infinite depth, for the hills cast a 
 shade of several hundred yards' breadth. 
 The scenery, which had been light and 
 lovely before, became grand from this 
 point ; and the engine slackened speed to 
 enable us to get a good view of an island 
 half a mile from the outer shore, on which 
 stood the stately ruin of a temple.
 
 VIII PRIN'CE RODERICK 139 
 
 I had spied this island through the tele- 
 scope from the palace, but knew nothing 
 about the building on it. As we came 
 abreast of the islet the Greek sailors re- 
 moved their red bonnets and signed them- 
 selves. Prince Roderick, who was smoking, 
 turned his head towards me to watch the 
 effect which the building produced. I now 
 observed that the ruin was that of a new 
 temple which had never been completed. 
 
 ' You have heard of Hugo Schwarzfeld, 
 the architect,' he said. ' The poor man has 
 gone mad, and this is his unfinished work ; 
 but I am tired of telling the story to my 
 guests, so I have had it printed. Read 
 this.' 
 
 He handed me a printed card in a 
 mahogany frame with a handle like that 
 of a bill of fare in a London club, and I 
 read —
 
 I40 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 The Temple on Swan Island 
 
 This temple was designed by Hugo Schwarzfeld. 
 It was to be dedicated to Human Greatness — not to 
 the greatness won on battlefields or by statesman- 
 ship, or by masterworks of genius; for this great- 
 ness meets with sufficient honour and reward. But 
 to the greatness of noble deeds done in obscure 
 places. To the strength of heart which keeps a 
 man honest under temptation, just under provoca- 
 tion, generous in poverty, unselfish in suffering. To 
 the daring and self-sacrificing spirit, to the patience, 
 untiring kindness, and magnanimity which have en- 
 nobled individuals of the human race and established 
 the claim of man to be above the beast. 
 
 To this greatness, which is the attribute of no re- 
 ligion, people, or class — which exists everywhere and 
 is seldom found, or when found, recognised — to this 
 greatness which can bear to be ignored and despised, 
 but which now and then reveals itself in soul-stirring 
 deeds that cannot be hidden, and which console man 
 for the infinite baseness of some among his fellow- 
 creatures — to this greatness it was intended to raise a 
 memorial. 
 
 The architect caught the idea of the founder, en- 
 larged it, became impassioned by it, and lost his
 
 VIII PRINCE RODERICK 141 
 
 reason in the effort to give his thoughts expression in 
 art. His work is unfinished. 
 
 People — ignorant people — now say that the artist's 
 genius, released from his body, haunts the island under 
 the form of a brilliant light, which hovers over the 
 ruins at night. 
 
 The light has been seen, if one may trust the word 
 of people who say so ; and if these again can trust 
 the evidence of their own senses. But men of science 
 doubt even that much. 
 
 Men of science have given explanations of the 
 light, but none of them agree. 
 
 ' Hugo Schwarzfeld is a great man,' ob- 
 served the Prince, without waiting for any 
 remark of mine. ' Out of my httle Ggg he 
 hatched an eagle ; but I was not prepared 
 for the grandeur of his schemes, and, truth 
 to say, it would have required a larger 
 fortune than I possess to carry them out. 
 The story goes that it was I who drove 
 Schwarzfeld out of his mind ; the fact is, 
 I had to tell him frankly that I could not
 
 142 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 afford the twenty million marks or so 
 which he talked of spending. Then he 
 made an attempt to kill me.' 
 
 ' Literally, sir ? ' 
 
 ' Oh yes, and I had a narrow escape. I 
 came down one morninor to look at the 
 works, and found Schwarzfeld had collected 
 a quantity of blasting powder, vowing that 
 his temple, as you see it now, was unworthy 
 of its destination, and that he w^ould make 
 a clean sweep of it. I saw he was deliri- 
 ous, and gently remonstrated with him, but 
 he flew into a fearful passion, accusing me 
 of being a renegade to my own idea and 
 of grudging money. When he had worked 
 himself up into a frenzy he sw^ore that he 
 and I should perish together in the ruins 
 of our misbegotten monument ; and making 
 a rush at one of the powder barrels, cracked 
 the head w^ith a hatchet and dropped a
 
 VIII PRINCE RODERICK 143 
 
 lighted fuse into the hole. I had just time 
 to skip behind one of those pillars when 
 the slab of marble on which I had been 
 standing was blown into a thousand frag- 
 ments. Schwarzfeld was picked up for 
 dead twenty yards off. Pleasant, wasn't it?' 
 
 * I suppose he was put under restraint 
 after that ? ' 
 
 ' Yes; and we hushed up the affair as far 
 as possible. But the most fantastic fables 
 remain current about my share in the rais- 
 ing of this temple. Some say that I aimed 
 at founding a new religion, and that poor 
 Schwarzfeld and I celebrated unholy rites 
 together. Others are convinced, on the 
 strength of some drawings found among 
 Schwarzfeld's cartoons, that we were build- 
 ing a shrine of erotic love, which was to be 
 stocked with the portraits and statues of 
 good-looking jades.' Here the Prince
 
 144 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 laughed, and said that he cared not a 
 ducat for most pretty faces, as some 
 accounted prettiness. * So far as my ideas 
 of a gallery went, it would have been filled 
 with portraits of good people, but doubtless 
 some of them would have been uncouth 
 enough, and I question if there would have 
 been many women among them, at least 
 young and pretty women.' 
 
 Could my strange master be a miso- 
 gynist ? was the question that occurred to 
 me ; and Prince Roderick, as though an- 
 swering my thoughts, proceeded — 
 
 ' It would be a large gallery that could 
 contain the portraits of all the good women 
 whom you might gather out of any one 
 small town, ay, or from any village, though 
 countrywomen are harder than those in 
 towns. Women are generally good : the 
 bad ones are the exception, and these have
 
 VIII PRINCE RODERICK 145 
 
 been degraded by men. Man has all the 
 defects of women, such as they are, and 
 those of his own sex besides. His selfish- 
 ness makes a brute of him as compared 
 with the ordinary woman, even when he is 
 at his best as a man. As for the great 
 deeds which women will accomplish for 
 love, they are not to be numbered or 
 measured, and, thank God, there are some 
 loving unselfish men too. But in the 
 dedication of our temple I was thinking 
 rather of loveless ones, and of deeds done 
 without calculation of reward. That which 
 is done for love is repaid. Ingratitude 
 does not defraud it ; for love sufiBces to 
 itself. But the deed which sets a man's 
 own misunderstanding wife against him, 
 which loses the woman her lover — the 
 deed which gets no support at the time 
 
 of its accomplishment — which causes only 
 VOL. I 10
 
 146 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 pain and doubt to the doer, but which is 
 nevertheless persevered in for results that 
 will appear in after time — this is indeed 
 greatness. But perhaps it was only a 
 crazy thought to try and give artistic 
 symbols to such greatness ; and I am not 
 sure that I can myself define what I sought 
 to do, and I see how easily the sublime in 
 Schwarzfeld's plan and mine could have 
 merged into the ridiculous.' 
 
 The launch was scudding over the dark 
 water, and the overhanging pines formed 
 a vault above our heads. Swan Island 
 was a speck behind us, and we could see 
 the steeple of Steindorf Church tapering 
 above the white cottages of a hillside 
 village. One more islet had to be passed : 
 it was called Rose Island, and the frag- 
 rance of a thousand bushes in flower was 
 wafted to us as we shot by it. Pointing to
 
 VIII PRINCE RODERICK 147 
 
 a promontory, the Prince suddenly ejacu- 
 lated — 
 
 ' That's where I threw poor Mira Vogel- 
 sang into the lake ; I presume you have 
 heard all about it.' 
 
 ' Not much, sir ; something vague.' 
 ' I was sure you had heard something,' 
 rejoined the Prince bitterly, 'and I'll wager 
 you were never told that I nearly lost my 
 life in rescuing the girl. She had been sing- 
 ing to me in a boat one of the divinest songs 
 ever composed, and I was under the com- 
 plete thrall of it, when the silly thing ab- 
 ruptly wound up with a vulgar jingle from 
 some Viennese music-hall song, and threw 
 her stout arms round my neck. Startled 
 from my dream, and forgetting where I 
 was, I gave her an impatient shove, and 
 over she went, plump ! Der Tettfel ! 
 she weighs a hundred kilogrammes,
 
 148 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 and pulled me down three times as though 
 her struggling limbs had been Rhine 
 weeds. Happily there were sailors in 
 the boat, and we were both pulled out. 
 If Mira had got drowned my enemies 
 would have raised a cr)^ of cold-blooded 
 murder, and I should have been handed 
 over to the mad doctors.' 
 
 ' Who are your enemies, sir ? Excuse 
 the question, but I may be better able to 
 serve you if I know to what dangers you 
 are exposed.' 
 
 I spoke these words on the impulse of 
 the moment, for I felt I must seize this 
 opportunity of telling the Prince that he 
 could depend on me, and ask him to trust 
 me. Not a muscle of his face moved. He 
 hesitated just for a moment, and a careless 
 smile broke over his intelligent features as 
 he replied —
 
 VIII PRINCE RODERICK 149 
 
 'Count Hochort and a strong Court 
 party wish to keep me from the throne, as 
 I am sure you know. They blacken my 
 character, and hope that I shall grow dis- 
 mayed by my own unpopularity and abdi- 
 cate my rights. But this I shall not do, 
 and when they discover how determined I 
 am, perhaps they will let me alone. At 
 all events these enemies would not, I 
 think, take my life. I have other enemies 
 — political fanatics — who think I have be- 
 trayed them because they have misunder- 
 stood me. These men would stick a knife 
 between my shoulders if they dared, or 
 could, but I do not fear them. I have 
 other enemies, again, in persons whom I 
 have obliged but have been compelled to 
 drop because they became tiresome ; and I 
 am now on the way to making new enemies, 
 more powerful and dangerous than any of
 
 I50 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 the Others, by designs on which the happi- 
 ness of my Hfe depends, and in which I 
 mean to succeed or die. But here we are 
 at Steindorf.' 
 
 The launch drew up alongside a small 
 pier, and I saw in the road beyond two 
 horses held by liveried grooms and a 
 throng of villagers watching to see us 
 land. All heads were bared as the Prince 
 stepped over the gangway, and an old 
 man, who was the burgomaster, advanced, 
 hat in hand, to pay some compliments. 
 The Prince answered courteously, but de- 
 clined an invitation to go up to the burgo- 
 master's house and refresh himself. A 
 village girl stood with a bouquet which she 
 had evidently come to present, but was too 
 bashful to do so. The Prince called her 
 forward, took a flower from the nosegay, 
 and stuck it into his buttonhole ; then
 
 VIII PRINCE RODERICK 151 
 
 kissed her hand, to her great confusion, 
 and sprang lightly into the saddle. 
 
 ' We have a sharp ride before us,' he 
 muttered to me half in a whisper, as he 
 spurred his horse into a canter.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 We were well mounted, and after we had 
 cantered clear of the village our horses 
 settled into a smart trot. We rode away 
 from the lake, and it was soon shut out of 
 sight by our turning the foot of a hill. 
 For some distance we rode along a road 
 between two hills, then branched off, 
 ascended high ground, and entered a wood. 
 Here I lost my bearings. I had not been 
 taking attentive notice of the ground we 
 crossed, for, having to ride a neck's length 
 to rearward of the Prince on his left, and 
 to keep my ears open to catch his Royal
 
 CHAP. IX PRINCE RODERICK 153 
 
 Highness's casual remarks, I had also to 
 restrain my horse from lessening the 
 respectful distance which should divide a 
 prince from his equerry. My horse being 
 the more spirited of the two, this was not 
 easy. The brute pulled hard at the snaffle, 
 tossed at the curb, and if touched with the 
 spur would have shot past the Prince like 
 a ball from a catapult. As this was my 
 first trial on horseback, I was anxious to 
 show that I could ride properly ; the more 
 so as I began to suspect that this par- 
 ticularly mettlesome beast had been se- 
 lected for me on purpose to test my skill. 
 
 We were about twenty minutes in the 
 wood, now trotting, now walking down a 
 zigzag track with gentle gradients, till we 
 debouched on to an open road winding 
 down the sides of a hill for a couple of 
 miles. I had expected to find hills on our
 
 154 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 left, but they were on our right, so I was 
 quite out in my topography. Up to the 
 moment of our entering the wood, all the 
 peasants whom we met had recognised the 
 Prince and saluted him humbly. But 
 beyond the wood he was not known. 
 Countrymen occasionally touched their 
 hats out of civility to us as strangers ; but 
 there was no recognition. 
 
 Putting his horse at an amble as we 
 descended the hill, the Prince pointed to a 
 village in the plain and told me we would 
 dismount there, and that he would leave 
 me for several hours as he had a visit to 
 pay. He might be absent all the after- 
 noon, he said, so that he would make an 
 appointment with me for six o'clock. 
 
 ' You needn't spend a dull time though, 
 for there are some interesting ruins of an 
 abbey in the neighbourhood, and about
 
 IX PRINCE RODERICK 155 
 
 three kilometres off an odd little market 
 town called Badstadt. But if you ride, 
 keep your horse fresh for our return to 
 Grlinsee ; and at the inn please speak to 
 me only in English, for I don't want any- 
 body to know who I am.' 
 
 There was nothing for it but to obey 
 without asking questions. We dismounted 
 at the inn, and whilst I followed the ostler 
 to the stables the Prince went on his way. 
 It was in no wise singular that he should 
 part company with me ; but I had not 
 expected it, and could not shake off a 
 childish feeling of annoyance that he 
 should have vouchsafed me no hint as to 
 where he was going. After all I had seen 
 and heard, my sense of responsibility had 
 become too acute to be pleasant. 
 
 I had not the least idea as to where I 
 was, and was afraid to ask. Lest any
 
 156 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 cyphers or crowns on our saddlery should 
 betray the Prince's identity I examined 
 every article when the horses had been 
 stalled ; then feeling I should best avoid 
 curiosity by going out as though I knew 
 my way, I started for a stroll along the 
 high road, determined to be guided by the 
 finger-posts. 
 
 Half an hour's walk brought me to a 
 guard -house with a striped sentry-box, 
 where a soldier, not wearing the uniform 
 of Kronheim, stood sentinel. Apparently 
 I had reached the frontier of the kingdom. 
 No passport was requested, and I walked 
 on ; but uneasy meditations returned. 
 When the Prince proposed our riding 
 excursion I imagined it was an impromptu 
 thought, but it seemed now that he must 
 have formed a plan, and had perhaps gone 
 on some escapade into the neighbouring
 
 IX PRINCE RODERICK 157 
 
 State. Of course he had a right to leave 
 the kingdom, but why had he not taken me 
 a little into his confidence ? 
 
 Presently, however, I turned to gaze at 
 the landscape, and noticed a large country- 
 house or chateau, standing upon a hill on 
 the Kronheim side of the border. A 
 peasant woman was passing, and I asked 
 her to whom the place belonged. She 
 spoke in patois, but I caught the words 
 Princess Sophia of Kronheim, and this 
 reassured me, for I knew that the lady 
 named was Prince Roderick's aunt, and 
 there was nothing improbable in the 
 inference that he had gone to spend an 
 afternoon with this relative. 
 
 The nearest market - town was called 
 Badstadt. It was the place where the 
 Gazette which was always slandering the 
 Prince was printed. As it was market
 
 158 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 day I passed up the crowded main street 
 without attracting observation. Country 
 gentlemen in dirty gaiters, farmers and 
 drovers, were haggHng for cattle and pigs, 
 and the door of the principal hotel, ' Kaiser 
 Max,' was blocked up with shabby gigs and 
 ill-groomed nags. Nothing is so rare in 
 Germany as to see a gentleman's trap well 
 appointed. 
 
 A bookseller's shop stood near the inn, 
 and some Baedeker's Gtcides in German 
 were exposed in the window. This was a 
 relief, for I went in and bought one, and 
 while waiting for my luncheon of stewed 
 beef and beer in the eating-room of the 
 hotel — a place reeking of onions and 
 tobacco — I was enabled to take a lesson in 
 geography. It appeared from the map 
 that we were much nearer to the palace of 
 Griinsee than I had thought, our ride
 
 IX PRINCE RODERICK 159 
 
 having brought us round to the valley side 
 of the lake. The hills which skirted the 
 road I had just walked were those which 
 closed the prospect of waving grass land to 
 be seen from the palace when one looked 
 towards the near shore. 
 
 The Guide recommended the ruined 
 Cistercian Abbey, of which the Prince had 
 spoken, as a place worth seeing, so thither 
 I bent my steps after doing my best with 
 the stewed beef in its sauce of chopped 
 girkins and prunes. The ruins were in 
 charge of a sacristan, who belonged to an 
 adjoining village church, and I was amused 
 at the old fellow's attempts to be facetious 
 at the expense of the departed monks. 
 He must have learned his pleasantries 
 from parties of American tourists and Ger- 
 man students, who somehow always talk 
 as if these monks must have been merry
 
 i6o PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 dogs. The sacristan was rather abashed 
 by my remarking that the sleeping arrange- 
 ments of the friars did not betoken a very 
 joyous style of living. The dormitory was 
 in good preservation — a large stone hall, 
 with no provision of any kind for firing, 
 and it must have been perishingly cold in 
 winter. 
 
 As we came out of the abbey an old 
 woman with a gipsy face stood offering 
 photographs at a crumbling ivied gate, 
 where lizards were to be seen ducking in 
 and out of crevices. 
 
 ' Does your grace want his fortune 
 told ? ' she asked ; and willing, like Robin- 
 son in Richard Doyle's book, to encourage 
 native industry wherever I went, I held 
 out my hand with a mark in it. 
 
 ' You have come from far and you have 
 far to go ; but you are not home yet,' she
 
 IX PRINCE RODERICK i6i 
 
 crooned, shaking her head. ' Beware your 
 companion! Bhit, blut !' (Blood, blood!) 
 
 ' You say that because you think I am 
 a soldier.' 
 
 But she only repeated Bhtt, blut ! and 
 closing my hand quietly pushed it from her. 
 
 I made sure that the hag had seen me 
 riding with Prince Roderick, and that his 
 evil reputation had suggested this little 
 scene of soothsaying, the which troubled 
 me not at all. It was now time to return 
 to the inn where we had left our horses. 
 I arrived there shortly before six, and sat 
 down in an arboured garden by the road- 
 side, ordering some coffee. The day had 
 been gloriously fine, but had now turned 
 sultry, and the sky was overcast. I ex- 
 pected every minute that the Prince would 
 appear ; but a whole hour passed, then 
 another, and there were no signs of him. 
 
 VOL. I II
 
 i62 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 The sky was now heavy with clouds, and 
 a wind was rising. 
 
 ' We shall have rain to-nio^ht,' remarked 
 the landlord, coming out to take a look at 
 me. ' Have you far to ride, gracious sir' 
 i^gnddiger He7'7^) ? 
 
 'To Steindorf,' I replied, fancying that we 
 might return by the road that had brought us. 
 
 'To Steindorf is far,' said the landlord, 
 in his stolid German way ; and as he 
 seemed disposed to prolong our conversa- 
 tion, I asked him to show me to a room 
 where I could wash my hands. 
 
 I was now growing rather alarmed, and 
 for the first time it struck me as curious 
 that the Prince should not have brought a 
 groom with him. If he had been going to 
 visit his aunt it would have been only 
 natural that he should have been escorted 
 by a servant, and have stabled his horse at
 
 IX PRINCE RODERICK 163 
 
 the Sckloss ; nor did there seem to be any 
 reason why a mystery should have been 
 made on the subject with me. 
 
 As darkness came on I could no longer 
 conceal from the landlord that I was 
 anxious about my companion ; but being 
 debarred from speaking frankly, I could 
 only say that he had gone to pay a visit, 
 and I concluded he had been detained for 
 dinner. To give myself some countenance 
 I ordered lights to be brought and some- 
 thing to eat ; but I could neither eat nor 
 drink, and paced the little bedroom with 
 boarded floor wondering how long I might 
 have to wait, and at what hour it might be 
 my duty to send a messenger to Sonnen- 
 thal and take him into council. 
 
 The wind had become boisterous, the 
 rumblino^ of thunder was heard, and 
 soon it began to pour in torrents. The
 
 i64 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 diamond -paned casement rattled on the 
 hook that kept it open, and had to be 
 closed. It was nearly ten o'clock, and the 
 situation was becoming serious ; for it was 
 extremely improbable that the Prince 
 would come and join me for a night ride 
 in such weather. My last hope was that 
 he might send to give me news of himself 
 and allay my fears. 
 
 The window being shut, and the wind 
 and thunder raging outside, I could hear 
 little of what was going on in the house. 
 All at once, however, I fancied there were 
 sounds of horses' hoofs, and a minute later 
 the landlord came in, saying — 
 
 ' Your companion, gracious sir, is down- 
 stairs, and mounting.' 
 
 I paid for my refreshments and the 
 stabling, and was down the staircase in a 
 trice, the landlord crying after me —
 
 IX PRINCE RODERICK 165 
 
 ' You can have beds in the house, 
 gracious sir. Don't start out to ride on 
 such a night as this. Gott im Himmel ! 
 it's a dreadful night ! ' 
 
 An ostler was holding my horse. 
 and had thrown a sack over the saddle 
 to keep it dry in the downpour. By the 
 light of the oil lamp hanging over the 
 yard gate I caught sight of the Prince 
 already mounted and in the road. He 
 called out something to me which was 
 inaudible, and gave a loud laugh, then 
 turned his bridle and galloped off, I fol- 
 lowing as fast as I could. Astonished 
 exclamations were uttered by half a dozen 
 loafers who had sallied out of the tap-room 
 to see us start. 
 
 I was too thankful at having the Prince 
 with me again safe and sound to expect 
 either explanation or apology from him.
 
 i66 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 In fact I ceased to think of the anxieties he 
 had caused me, having quite enough to pre- 
 occupy me in keeping my horse from 
 bolting. We were going at a furious rate, 
 and the Prince's horse, which was a strong 
 galloper and not nervous, kept three 
 lengths ahead of mine in a steady stride. 
 My horse went on playing tricks, swerved 
 at every white stone, shied and snorted at 
 the lightning, and twice, when claps of 
 thunder pealed, slewed right round and tried 
 madly to go back. The rain descended piti- 
 lessly, my arms were heavy from the water 
 that soaked my sleeves, and streams poured 
 down my neck off my hat. I had never 
 had such a ride. We were not going by 
 the road which had brought us from Stein- 
 dorf, and this at least was satisfactory, as 
 I guessed the Prince was making for home 
 by the shortest way through the grass
 
 IX PRINCE RODERICK 167 
 
 valley. He knew the road, for he pounded 
 along without stopping, till we came to a 
 hill where he had to slacken speed, and 
 there I overtook him. He spoke not a 
 word, but bent his head to the storm and 
 rode on, patting his horse's neck. A thick 
 muffler (which he had not worn in the 
 morning) was round his throat, and con- 
 cealed almost the whole of his face, as I 
 noticed once when a plunge of my horse 
 brought me abreast of him. As soon as 
 level ground was reached he set off again 
 at a good trot, and upon our coming 
 to the brow of the hill, and beginning 
 the descent on the other side, he went 
 away at a renewed gallop, much too fast 
 even for a firstrate rider down such a 
 road. To be sure the road was broad, but 
 I had to weigh upon my near rein to keep 
 to the hillside, for any curvet of my horse
 
 i68 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 on a Steep like this would have sent us 
 rolling Heaven knows where. 
 
 From the top of the hill lights could be 
 seen in the valley, but as we approached 
 the base these vanished ; for a stretch of 
 woods began half way down the hill, and 
 continued for a short distance over the 
 plain. The noise of the trees, as the wind 
 rushed through them, rustling their millions 
 of leaves, bending the trunks and making 
 the rotten branches crack, was bewildering. 
 However, our down-hill gallop ended, and 
 dashing across a high road, which separated 
 the declivity from the level part of the wood, 
 charged into an avenue which was pitch 
 dark. 
 
 Rapidly as we crossed the road I be- 
 held a man dart from behind a tree close 
 to the Prince's horse. The same moment 
 there was a double flash, which I took for
 
 IX PRINCE RODERICK 169 
 
 lightning, and two sharp reports. But 
 these were unmistakable. They were gun 
 shots. I had ridden past the man as into 
 the darkness of a cavern, and could not see 
 what had happened. But I heard a cry, 
 with the sound of a fall, a terrified shriek 
 from the horse in front — the shriek of a 
 wounded horse, too well known to cavalry 
 soldiers — and some hideous cracklingf of 
 twigs. The horrible truth broke upon me 
 that the Prince had been shot, had fallen off 
 his horse, and was being dragged along 
 with his foot in the stirrup ! 
 
 How I reined in, dismounted, and 
 stumbled over a prostrate body, cannot be 
 described. The Prince's horse had fallen, 
 and was lying on his back kicking in death 
 convulsions. I had passed the bridle of 
 my horse through my arm lest he should 
 decamp, but he reared and tugged so
 
 I70 PRINCE RODERICK chap, ix 
 
 violently that I had to engage in a struggle 
 with him, and clutch him tight by the 
 nostrils, before I could make him stand 
 steady, while I groped for the Prince and 
 raised him. 
 
 Something warm trickled over my face 
 and hands, and I knew it to be blood. 
 The body was quite inert : no sigh or 
 breath came from the lips. I felt for the 
 wound, but my hand slipped in blood ; and 
 at a new movement from my horse, which 
 jerked me aside, the body glided off my 
 arm, the lifeless knees bent, and it rolled 
 heavily on to the sodden road. 
 
 ' O God ! what shall I do ? ' I cried 
 aloud for help in the utter darkness, shout- 
 ing again and again with all my might. 
 But no sound could be heard except the 
 wind, the rain, and the rustling of those 
 millions of leaves.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 To leave the Prince lying in the rain whilst 
 I rode off for help was not to be thought of. 
 With infinite difficulty I raised the body 
 again and hoisted it on to my saddle, then 
 remounted, and held it in my arms. The 
 head lolled on my shoulder, and the legs 
 dangled over the horse's neck. Luckily 
 the horse gave no more trouble. Whether 
 cowed by my tussle with him, or frightened 
 by the expiring neighs of the other horse, or 
 fatigued by the extra weight which he had 
 to carry, he walked quietly, with his head 
 lowered, and his sides heaving as he panted.
 
 172 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 What my reflections were as we wended 
 our way through the dark wood at a funeral 
 pace I cannot say. I knew that I was 
 carrying a corpse, for, pressing my hand to 
 the heart under the shirt, I felt it had 
 stopped beating ; and bending my ear to 
 the mouth, I could not catch a breath. A 
 heavy charge of swan-shot, so far as I could 
 make out, had shattered one side of the 
 head. Several of the shot slipped into my 
 hand as I was fingering the clotted hair. 
 
 But I had to strain my eyes for a light. 
 When we emerged from the wood it was 
 still raining so hard and the sky was so 
 black that I could hardly see twenty paces 
 ahead ; however, this was no longer ob- 
 scurity, and I urged my horse into a slow 
 trot. Another mile was covered without 
 our meeting a human creature. At last I 
 came to a wayside cottage. All the shutters
 
 X PRINCE RODERICK 173 
 
 were closed, but I pulled up, hallooed at 
 the top of my voice, and struck the shutters 
 with my riding-whip. 
 
 Presently sounds could be heard. The 
 door was opened, and a man in a night-cap 
 came out holding a lantern. But when he 
 had lifted the light to my face and seen my 
 ghastly burden, he uttered a whoop of 
 terror, ran indoors and barred himself in. 
 Nothing could bring him out again. 
 
 ' It's Prince Roderick,' I shouted ; ' for 
 goodness' sake come and help me.' 
 
 ' Go to the Swan Inn,' cried the man 
 from the inside, and would make no other 
 answer, so I had to continue my ride. 
 
 I might have tried at other cottages, 
 but, seeing some lights in the distance, 
 rode on. The Swan Inn I supposed to 
 be the same which Harold Crowe and 
 Sonnenthal frequented, and if so I was
 
 174 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 sure of assistance there, and was besides 
 near to Griinsee. While considering this, 
 I came upon a blacksmith's forge with 
 an open shed contiguous. The forge was 
 closed, but guiding my horse into the 
 shed I descried a trough with a bundle of 
 hay in it. Carefully slipping off the 
 saddle and holding the dead body of my 
 hapless master, I carried it into the shed 
 and laid it on the earth ; then made a bed 
 and pillow for it with the hay, and removed 
 it gently to this rude couch. I did this 
 because I could now be free to ride off 
 to the inn in haste. 
 
 A few minutes' gallop brought me to 
 the doorway. Fiddling and dancing were 
 going on in the principal room — the noisy 
 dancing of peasants, with stamping of shoes 
 and uproarious laughter. I jumped off 
 my horse, but forgot that I was covered
 
 X PRINCE RODERICK 175 
 
 with blood and that my clothes were 
 soaked. I had no sooner entered the 
 ballroom, which opened on to the road, 
 than dismayed shouts arose ; girls screamed 
 and escaped into corners ; the music 
 ceased — a thrill of horror ran round. 
 Dazzled by the lights, and too much over- 
 come to articulate, I stood for a moment 
 faltering so hoarsely that nobody under- 
 stood me. 
 
 ' Prince Roderick has been shot.' 
 
 ' Good heavens, what's the matter, 
 Meredith ?' and Harold Crowe advanced 
 towards me elaborately attired in evening 
 dress. ' We have a wedding party here,' 
 he added to explain his presence. 
 
 ' A shutter, lanterns, and a doctor,' I 
 repeated in German. ' Prince Roderick 
 has been shot.' 
 
 'When? where? who did it?' While
 
 176 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 consternation was depicted on every face, 
 questions were pressed upon me from all 
 sides, and the scene of late mirth was con- 
 verted into one of wild confusion. A 
 village gendarme, who was one of the 
 guests, pushed some of the company aside 
 and put me a series of interrogatories. 
 While I answered him as best I could I 
 caught sight of myself in a looking-glass, 
 and saw what a frightful object I was. 
 
 'Whose blood is that upon you, sir?' 
 asked the gendarme. 
 
 ' The Prince's. I am not wounded 
 myself. ' 
 
 ' Here, take this glass of wine,' said 
 Harold. ' You can hardly speak.' 
 
 The women were huddled together 
 round the bride, a fine girl, whose face 
 was now whiter than her dress. The 
 bridegroom, a young fellow with a large
 
 X PRINCE RODERICK 177 
 
 favour of coloured ribbons on his jacket, 
 sought to console her ; but he too joined 
 the men who were hurrying about to fetch 
 the lanterns, and the top of a deal table to 
 serve as a stretcher. 
 
 Somebody ran off to rouse the village 
 doctor. The rest of us started for the 
 forge, Harold trudging beside me through 
 the mud in his patent-leather shoes. The 
 women clustered in the doorway trembling; 
 and remained watching — some sobbing 
 too — till we came back. 
 
 I walked in front, and on reaching 
 
 the shed took a lantern and held it over 
 
 the face of the dead Prince. But the 
 
 features were so disfigured by gore as 
 
 to be undistinguishable. The gendarme 
 
 stooped and felt one of the hands. 
 
 'Quite dead!' he said, and there fell a 
 
 scared silence upon all, while the rain pat- 
 voL. I 12
 
 178 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 tered dismally on the slated roof of the 
 shed. 
 
 The lanterns cast a lurid light around, 
 and the hushed whispers that broke out 
 had a ghostly sound. Six men lifted the 
 body, laid it on the stretcher and covered 
 it with a blanket. Then we returned with 
 it slowly to the inn. 
 
 It was laid on the floor of the ballroom. 
 This was the ordinary tavern room, the 
 thick rafters of which had been decked with 
 garlands of paper roses and bunches of 
 greenery for the wedding feast. The 
 village doctor, a gray-headed little man, 
 had arrived, and stood all ready with his 
 coat off and his shirt sleeves tucked up. 
 
 'Quick, the sponge and water,' he said, 
 and kneeling beside the body he began 
 to wash the face, whilst I held up the 
 head.
 
 X PRINCE RODERICK 179 
 
 A mute circle of eager faces watched 
 the operation ; then a chorus of murmurs 
 broke out as Harold Crowe exclaimed — 
 
 ' Why, that's not the Prince ; it's 
 Tristan ! ' 
 
 It was Tristan. The servant had 
 apparently died for his master. 
 
 I could not at first realise it. Explana- 
 tions were asked of me, and I gave them 
 without any presence of mind, stating 
 things exactly as they had happened. But 
 the general impression was that I had 
 deceived myself, and I soon ceased to urge 
 the contrary, perceiving that my first 
 allegations tended to bring a charge against 
 the Prince of having wilfully caused him- 
 self to be personated by his servant. 
 
 My relief was so intense that moment- 
 arily it stifled all feeling of compassion for
 
 i8o PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 the poor fellow who had been killed. A 
 like feeling, and some sense of the ridicu- 
 lous as regards me, provoked a smothered 
 laugh or two among the bystanders. 
 Tristan had never been popular, and 
 tongues began to wag about him pretty- 
 freely. 
 
 * He had a rough way,' grumbled one, 
 
 * and wasn't kind to the poor.' 
 
 * Ay, he had many an enemy,' observed 
 another. ' You would have thought he 
 was lord of Grlinsee from the way he 
 went on.' 
 
 ' You couldn't get near the Prince 
 whilst he was there,' cried a woman. 
 
 * If you tried to cross over to the island 
 he set on those ugly Greeks to bark at 
 you.' 
 
 Everybody seemed convinced that 
 Tristan had been murdered in revenge
 
 X PRINCE RODERICK i8l 
 
 for doings of his own ; and such was 
 Harold Crowe's opinion. 
 
 ' You say that Tristan did speak to you 
 at the inn ? ' he asked of me in a whisper. 
 
 ' Yes ; he called out to me from the 
 road, but I could not hear what he said.' 
 
 ' Probably he told you that the Prince 
 had sent him.' 
 
 ' I daresay that was it.' 
 
 But in my own mind I was not per- 
 suaded. If Tristan had come to me with 
 a message from the Prince he would have 
 taken my orders, and w^ould not have 
 ridden in front of me all the way. And 
 then I recollected the comforter which he 
 wore concealing his features. 
 
 The village doctor had dropped the 
 sponge and had put on his coat, as though 
 the discharge of menial offices to a dead 
 servant could be left to less eminent hands.
 
 i82 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 I myself took up the sponge and washed 
 poor Tristan's cold face, till Andreas Riedl, 
 the landlord — a husky red -nosed man — 
 suggested that the body should be carried 
 to another room. 
 
 * I ordered the crew of the launch to 
 come over for me at midnight, and they 
 are waiting now,' said Harold; 'we had 
 better take poor Tristan over to the island.' 
 
 But this was objected to by the gen- 
 darme, who remarked that the chief of the 
 police must view the body. So the corpse 
 was carried into a spare bedroom. 
 
 * Take off the clean sheets and fetch 
 some old sacks,' cried the landlord as he 
 led the way. 
 
 The night's merriment of the wedding 
 party had been quenched. The bride had 
 retired crying at the evil omen for her 
 nuptials ; and some men hung about the
 
 X PRINCE RODERICK 183 
 
 bar, sulky that they could not resume the 
 fun. I overheard sundry scoffing remarks 
 about myself. 
 
 * He must be pretty green,' said one, 
 and the rest laughed. 
 
 After I had washed, and wiped the 
 stains from my clothes, Harold and I 
 returned to the island. We found many 
 of the servants astir, for they had heard 
 of the murder. The death of Tristan con- 
 cerned them as he was the head servant, 
 but there was only excitement — no sor- 
 row — in their demeanour. Nobody had 
 thought it necessary to go and inform 
 Count Sonnenthal, who was in bed, so 
 Harold and I went to his room and awoke 
 him. 
 
 ' I don't see what we can do,' yawned 
 the aide-de-camp, when he had rubbed 
 his eyes and propped himself on an elbow.
 
 i84 PRINCE RODERICK chap, x 
 
 ' The Princess Dorothea arrived this 
 evening,' observed Harold. ' Ought not 
 Meredith to send her a message ? ' 
 
 ' The Princess will hear of the matter 
 from her women/ said Sonnenthal. ' Mere- 
 dith can send her a message, but it won't 
 be delivered till morning. I suppose that 
 when she's up she'll want to hear all 
 about it.' 
 
 ' But how can I communicate with the 
 Prince ? ' I asked. ' Have you any idea 
 where he may be ? ' 
 
 'On the spree, of course,' answered 
 Sonnenthal, ' but where, there's no guess- 
 ing.'
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 As may well be imagined, the advice 
 which Isabel Meadowes had given me 
 recurred often and often during that wake- 
 ful night. Without any fault on my part 
 I had been involved in a dark business 
 which for an hour or two had seemed to me 
 fraught with possibilities of my utter ruin. 
 
 Twenty times, as I carried Tristan's 
 dead body through the wood, believing it 
 to be the Prince's, I had thought that I 
 might be accused of having had a hand 
 in the Prince's murder. The only witness 
 of the deed, I might at least be re-
 
 i86 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 proached with not having made haste to 
 catch the assassin. Why had I not 
 turned rein, dashed after the man, and 
 ridden him down ? 
 
 It is easy to say Why ? after the event. 
 Conning over all the details of the scene, 
 it was quite clear to me that I had acted 
 for the best, and that pursuit of an armed 
 murderer at night, and through a dark 
 wood which I had never crossed before, 
 would have been useless. Now that 
 Tristan proved to be the man killed it 
 did not much matter how I had acted ; 
 but my night thoughts would mix them- 
 selves up with the fancy which had terri- 
 fied me in the wood — when I discerned 
 how every detail of that night adventure 
 might be turned to my injury by the 
 Prince's enemies if they cared to sacrifice 
 me as a scapegoat.
 
 XI PRINCE RODERICK 187 
 
 An officer who has commanded in an 
 engagement sits down to write his report 
 on the affair while the facts are fresh in 
 his mind. It occurred to me that I could 
 not do better than commit to paper every 
 incident of the day, from the moment of 
 our landing at Steindorf, that I might 
 have accurate memoranda in case I had to 
 give evidence on oath. It took me about 
 three hours to draft my report, correct it, 
 and make a clean copy ; and after this, as 
 I could not sleep, I wrote a pretty full 
 letter to Isabel Meadow^es, lest some 
 garbled version of the events should reach 
 her through the newspapers. Neither in 
 the report nor in the letter was there any 
 suspicion mentioned as to the Prince's 
 having intended to deceive me. 
 
 For as I wrote I could not but acknow- 
 ledge to myself on how slender a stem my
 
 i88 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 suspicions rested. The argument on which 
 I most relied, namely, that Tristan had 
 ridden in front of me, crumbled into no- 
 thing when I remembered that Tristan 
 knew the way and that I did not. It was 
 natural therefore that he should gallop in 
 front. As to his having mounted without 
 having personally delivered the Prince's 
 message to me, that might have been from 
 want of manners or hurry ; or perhaps the 
 poor man had sent me a proper message 
 through the landlord, which the latter had 
 not repeated as it was given. 
 
 I say that my suspicions were frail ; but 
 I had an intuitive conviction that there had 
 been an attempt at personation. The 
 Prince had told me that he was embarked 
 on an enterprise which might raise up 
 enemies more powerful and dangerous than 
 any he yet possessed. Might he not, in
 
 XI PRINCE RODERICK 189 
 
 pursuance of his designs, have wished to 
 absent himself from Griinsee for a day or 
 two without his absence being suspected 
 by the spies who, doubtless, lurked in his 
 household ? After my conversation with 
 the Prince on board the launch I could not 
 readily admit Sonnenthal's idea of a mere 
 spree. 
 
 But whithersoever my reasoning led me, 
 one question always remained. Had the 
 murderer intended to kill Tristan or the 
 Prince ? Until this point was cleared up, 
 I must consider the Prince's position as 
 precarious, and my own troubles as not 
 yet over. 
 
 In the morning I received a summons 
 from the Princess Dorothea. 
 
 Her Royal Highness also requested 
 that Sonnenthal and Harold Crowe should 
 wait upon her. The former she knew well.
 
 I90 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 the latter slightly. I must mention that 
 Harold, who was always practising high- 
 art combinations in dress, turned out for 
 this occasion in a suit of delicate sage 
 green, with a salmon silk neckerchief. 
 Sonnenthal was in Jager clothes, for Prince 
 Roderick expressly forbade the wearing of 
 military uniforms at Grlinsee. 
 
 As we all three stood bowing in a row- 
 to the Princess Dot, that little lady turned 
 the whites of her eyes towards the ceiling 
 and whispered audibly behind an open 
 book of theology to an elderly countess, 
 who was her chaperon and Mistress of the 
 Household — 
 
 * Ah ! mon Dieu ! quel doux spectacle : 
 trois beaux hommes ensemble.' 
 
 The Princess could only be described as 
 a funny little thing. Not pretty, nor plain, 
 nor dwarfed ; she was tiny, and had the
 
 XI PRINCE RODERICK 191 
 
 ways of a kitten. Her cheeks were like 
 two pink bonbons ; her golden hair fluffed 
 into a mop of diminutive curls ; she en- 
 deavoured to make her blue eyes look 
 large by always keeping them wide open. 
 She had generally but two moods — comical 
 gravity and paroxysms of giggling. The 
 possessor of dainty little feet and baby 
 hands, she exhibited these attractions with 
 the utmost complacency, thrusting one 
 rosetted slipper after another from under 
 her dress, clasping her fingers and making 
 her jewelled rings flash in the sun. Her 
 dresses were of Paris make and fitted her 
 exquisitely. French was her favourite lan- 
 guage, and her mind was nourished on 
 German devotional works and French 
 novels. There were a number of domestic 
 pets round her — a screaming macaw on a 
 perch, two nestling lovebirds in a cage.
 
 192 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 goldfish in an aquarium, a pair of gray 
 Persian cats on the carpet, her huge Danish 
 dog with the silver collar, and stuffed dogs 
 — deceased from over-feeding — all about 
 the room. 
 
 ' Captain Meredith, Countess Von 
 Marchfeld,' said the Princess, introducing 
 me to her chaperon (a well-bred old lady 
 of silent disposition), and then followed a 
 second introduction to H.R.H.'s reader, 
 Baroness Bettina Von Schnupff, a tall 
 and sentimental young person with a long 
 nose. 
 
 ' What a dreadful night you must have 
 had ! ' exclaimed the Princess, ogling me 
 behind her book. 'I do so hope you have 
 not caught cold. And now please do 
 tell me about the murderer ; was he very 
 violent and shocking ? ' 
 
 * I hardly saw him, madam.'
 
 XI PRINCE RODERICK 193 
 
 ' But he had red hair, hadn't he ? I am 
 sure all murderers have red hair. This is 
 a horrible end for poor Tristan ; but do you 
 know, it's a strange thing his dog Hacko 
 could never agree with mine, and my Sultan 
 is a sweet dog — quite a human being, I 
 should say, if human beings were sweet.' 
 
 She put up her book to her lips and 
 tittered, looking round to the Countess, 
 who smiled, and to the Baroness Bettina, 
 who bent her pointed nose over a 
 volume and had an internal convulsion, 
 which jerked her black silk shoulder-blades 
 towards her ears. 
 
 Sonnenthal lauo^hed. We all laus^hed. 
 It was very amusing. 
 
 * Mr. Crowe, you ought to paint a pic- 
 ture of Hacko and Sultan being reconciled 
 over Tristan's grave,' continued the Prin- 
 cess. ' It would be very touching; it would 
 
 VOL. I 13
 
 194 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 really. Oh, I'm not laughing — hee, hee. 
 I mustn't laugh any more. I'm too giddy. 
 Captain Meredith, I wanted to say some- 
 thing to you, but I've forgotten it. Oh, 
 it's this. Some time ago, when I believed 
 in purgatory, I should have been very 
 anxious for poor Tristan ; but now I don't 
 believe in purgatory any more, not at all. 
 Do you ? ' 
 
 ' Not at all. Princess ; none of us,' echoed 
 Sonnenthal, with a slight mimicry of her 
 tone. 
 
 ' Oh, you believe in nothing. Count — 
 hee, hee. I'm ashamed of you. But 
 Captain Meredith looks as if he knew that 
 he had a soul. It's a way with the Eng- 
 lish. I wish you'd tell me, Captain, do you 
 ever think about paradise ? ' 
 
 ' Perhaps not so often as I ought, 
 madam.'
 
 XI PRINCE RODERICK 195 
 
 * Oh, you ought to think about it, for 
 it's the place we're all going to. I'm ever- 
 lastingly thinking about it, though I don't 
 want to go too soon. Hee, hee. But now 
 I want to put you a very serious question. 
 You needn't give me an answer at once, 
 but can think over it a few days, for it's 
 puzzling me a great deal. Let me see 
 how to put it. Well, do you believe that 
 there are classes in paradise, or that 
 we shall all be mixed up together, my 
 coachman, my maids, and I ? Somehow 
 I can't picture my coachman with wings 
 and a gold crown, unless he gets a new 
 body ; and if he changes his body, what 
 will be left of him ? ' 
 
 *We must seriously ponder over that 
 point,' remarked Sonnenthal. ' I see 
 in it a new subject for a picture by 
 Crowe — *' The Vestiary of Paradise " —
 
 196 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 St. Peter serving out new bodies to 
 coachmen.' 
 
 * I'm not talking to you, you're too 
 horrid,' giggled the Princess. 'After a 
 cruel affair like this my thoughts naturally 
 turn to solemn subjects. Indeed, if this 
 had happened a year ago I should have 
 burned a large taper and paid for masses, 
 and I should perhaps have gone a pilgrim- 
 age ; but now I don't believe in candles, 
 masses, or pilgrimages — not at all.' 
 
 * Not at all; none of us do,' echoed 
 Sonnenthal, upon which the Baroness 
 Bettina Schnupff had another good fit of 
 shoulder-spasms. 
 
 * This will be most distressing to my 
 brother,' proceeded the Princess, disregard- 
 ing the aide-de-camp. ' I can't bear to 
 write to him, for I hate being the bearer 
 of bad news.'
 
 XI PRINCE RODERICK 197 
 
 ' Ought not I to communicate with the 
 Prince, madam ? ' I asked. 
 
 ' Oh no,' said Princess Dot, and threw 
 a quick glance at me. ' My brother is 
 staying with our aunt, the Princess Sophia, 
 and will be back to-morrow, unless he 
 hears of the murder and comes back 
 sooner. Bad news travels so fast that he 
 is pretty sure to hear of it, so why disturb 
 him ? ' 
 
 I felt certain from the Princess's., manner 
 of saying this that her brother was not on 
 a visit to his aunt ; and she must have 
 read in my glance, which met her s, that I 
 disbelieved her. She changed colour a 
 little, put on her air of comical gravity, 
 and condescendingly dismissed us, saying 
 we were to be sure and let her know how 
 Hacko bore his bereavement. 
 
 ' And oh ! I have just had a beautiful
 
 198 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 thought,' she exclaimed, clasping her hands 
 ecstatically as we retired. ' I will give 
 Hacko a silver collar just like Sultan's. I 
 will really, and the two dogs shall look 
 like brothers. Dear Bettina, mind you 
 write to the jeweller to-day, this very 
 morning, about the collar. Oh, isn't it 
 sweet to be doing good ? ' 
 
 ' We'll all wear silver collars ; we'll all 
 look like brothers,' proposed Sonnenthal. 
 
 * Go , along you,' cried the Princess, 
 shaking her forefinger. ' You are material 
 — you don't understand the raptures of the 
 spirit.' 
 
 Prince Roderick did not return to 
 Grlinsee that day, or the next. Mean- 
 while the police were investigating the 
 circumstances of Tristan's murder, and I 
 was called to assist. A party of us 
 on horseback, consisting of Sonnenthal,
 
 XI PRINCE RODERICK 199 
 
 Harold, a chief constable, two gendarmes, 
 and myself, rode over the whole ground 
 which had been the scene of our adven- 
 ture. The spot where Tristan had fallen 
 was plainly marked by the stains of blood 
 and by the carcase of his horse, which lay, 
 cold and stark, across the avenue. 
 
 ' Poor Caesar ! the Prince's best charger,' 
 remarked Sonnenthal ; ' there isn't his 
 match in the stables.' 
 
 * What's this ? ' exclaimed one of the 
 gendarmes, who had extracted a letter 
 from the pocket in the dead charger's 
 saddle. He gave it to the chief constable, 
 who handed it to me. 
 
 ' It's addressed to you, sir.' 
 
 The direction was in the Prince's hand. 
 As I opened the letter and read its con- 
 tents all eyes were fastened on me. The 
 writing was in ink, not hurried, and the
 
 200 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 paper that which the Prince used in his 
 private correspondence, with the words 
 Castle Griinsee embossed ; so that the 
 letter had evidently been penned deliber- 
 ately before the Prince set out w^ith me on 
 his day's excursion. 
 
 It ran thus in English — 
 
 Tristan will give you this if you recognise him. 
 Excuse my ruse, but I wish to spend three days away 
 from Grunsee without anybody knowing of it. If I 
 had told you, I must have begged you to practise 
 duplicity for my sake, which is not my desire, unless 
 necessary ; but if you recognise Tristan, please do as 
 he bids you. He has my instructions. Destroy this. 
 
 R. 
 
 'The Prince tells me that he shall be 
 absent three days,' I said, handing the 
 letter to Sonnenthal and Harold. There 
 was an excuse for not giving it to the 
 chief constable, who was presumably ignor- 
 ant of English, but he was eying me so
 
 XI PRINCE RODERICK 201 
 
 intently that I dared not keep the letter to 
 myself. 
 
 * The contents of the letter are quite 
 private,' said Sonnenthal, coming- at once 
 to my rescue ; and this satisfied the con- 
 stable, who appeared not to reflect that it 
 was odd Tristan should have kept the 
 letter in his saddle, instead of giving it to 
 me as soon as we had met. 
 
 I re-read the letter and was going to 
 tear it up, w^hen Sonnenthal whispered, 
 ' Don't do that till you're alone — the 
 policeman suspects something.' 
 
 We had dismounted and went on foot 
 over the distance — about a hundred yards 
 — between the place where Tristan had 
 fallen and that where he had been shot at. 
 
 We soon discovered the spot where the 
 murderer had stood to take aim, for under 
 a tree lay two empty swanshot cartridges
 
 202 PRINCE RODERICK chap, xi 
 
 with the name of the maker, 'Brown, Lon- 
 don,' on the brass. 
 
 * These are the very cartridges the 
 Prince uses for wildgoose-shooting,' ejacu- 
 lated Sonnenthal. 
 
 ' What did you say. Count ? ' asked the 
 chief constable. 
 
 ' I said these were sporting cartridges,' 
 repHed Sonnenthal evasively. 
 
 A shade overspread his face, for another 
 discovery had been made — the sheath of a 
 hunting-knife. 
 
 We examined the object without a 
 word, but we were both grave. 
 
 Prince Roderick had been wearing that 
 sheath, or one identically like it, when he 
 went out with me.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SoNNENTHAL also rccogniscd the sheath. 
 He had often seen the Prince wear it, and 
 knew it by some scratches on the leather. 
 Neither of us, however, gave a hint of 
 this to the police. Not till we were alone, 
 at the end of the day's search, did we 
 speak to each other freely. 
 
 One assumes a heavy responsibility by 
 concealing material facts from the police 
 in an investigation as to crime. So we 
 both felt, but our self-excuse was that we 
 could not be positively sure about the 
 sheath. German hunting - knives are
 
 204 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 made much after one pattern — besides, if 
 we had spoken out we should immedi- 
 ately have conveyed an impression to the 
 chief constable and gendarmes that it 
 was the Prince himself who had murdered 
 Tristan. 
 
 It was absurd to think that the Prince 
 had committed such a crime — absurd, that 
 is to say, unless he were partially insane, as 
 some of his enemies pretended him to be. 
 
 Harold put out a timid feeler in this 
 direction when he, Sonnenthal, and I sat 
 talking together in an undertone in my 
 rooms, before dinner. 
 
 ' Isn't the Prince rather addicted to 
 looking upon the people around him as 
 spies ? ' 
 
 Sonnenthal, whose devil-may-care spirits 
 had forsaken him, shook his head. ' The 
 Prince knows that there are spies among
 
 XII PRINCE RODERICK 205 
 
 his servants. He told me that one of his 
 footmen was a mad doctor ; but he is on 
 his guard against these people, and cares 
 litde for them. All whom he trusts have 
 been well tried.' 
 
 * I suppose Tristan was quite incapable 
 of treachery ? ' said Harold. 
 
 ' If Tristan had been false to his 
 master he would have deserved to be 
 shot,' declared Sonnenthal emphatically ; 
 ' but the poor fellow was true as steel.' 
 
 ' Of course I was only thinking of what 
 people might whisper if they heard about 
 the Prince's cartridges and knife,' observed 
 Harold apologetically. 
 
 * There wouldn't be much whispering : 
 people would clamour outright that the 
 Prince had done the murder ; and that is 
 apparently why the sheath was left to 
 throw suspicion on him.'
 
 2o6 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 ' All this goes against the theory that it 
 was intended to murder the Prince him- 
 self,' said Harold. 
 
 ' I don't know,' demurred Sonnenthal, 
 * the murderer may have thought he was 
 shooting at the Prince, and may have in- 
 tended to cast suspicion on one of his 
 servants, perhaps on Tristan himself If 
 the Prince had been killed, the finding of 
 the cartridges alone would have told heavily 
 against Tristan, who had charge of the gun- 
 room. These were peculiar cartridges, 
 made purposely to the Prince's orders.' 
 
 * They carried a much heavier charge 
 than we commonly use in England,' I 
 remarked. 
 
 * There was only one gun in the 
 armoury which they fitted,' muttered Son- 
 nenthal, ' and I have never seen anybody 
 except the Prince shoot with it.'
 
 XII PRINCE RODERICK 207 
 
 This made us glum and silent ; in fact 
 the whole case was a mystery, and we 
 could only await the Prince's return for 
 its unravelment. 
 
 But before the Prince reappeared Son- 
 nenthal and I were cited to Mullheim, the 
 justiciar}^ town of the district, to be ques- 
 tioned by the King's Procurator, and this 
 time we had to tell the whole truth. 
 Sonnenthal corroborated my evidence as 
 to the sheath, and admitted that he could 
 swear to it. As to the cartridges, he re- 
 peated what he had told Harold and me. 
 Reticence would have been criminal, nor 
 was there any reason why we should hide 
 from a magistrate, interrogating us in 
 private, that which we should have 
 scrupled to bruit abroad. The Procu- 
 rator requested me to produce Prince 
 Roderick's letter, but I had destroyed it.
 
 2o8 PRI^XE RODERICK chap. 
 
 which was awkward, as the magistrate 
 drew unfavourable inferences from the 
 fact. He was a typical provincial magis- 
 trate, elderly, slow-going, and very nervous 
 at having to handle a case in which a 
 Prince of the blood was concerned. Son- 
 nenthal and I, being Court officials, were 
 big persons in his estimation, and he was 
 afraid to press us closely : he did not even 
 venture to keep his clerk in the room to 
 take down our depositions, but wrote 
 them out himself, laboriously, with a hard 
 steel pen, and made a great mess with the 
 sand which he used for drying his ink. 
 
 ' This case must be withdrawn from my 
 jurisdiction, gentlemen,' he said at length. 
 ' Have you any objection to sign these 
 depositions ? ' 
 
 We had none, and signed — the Pro- 
 curator intimating that orders had been
 
 XII PRINCE RODERICK 209 
 
 telegraphed to him from Sabelburg to 
 transmit all the documents to the Minister 
 of Justice. 
 
 There is a law in Kronheim, as in most 
 continental countries, that causes touching 
 members of the reigning family, however 
 remotely, may be removed from the com- 
 mon tribunals and referred to the private 
 adjudication of the Sovereign. From what 
 happened in this instance, however, it was 
 amply proved to me that the Prince had 
 determined enemies in high places, for a 
 couple of days later the Badstadt Gazette 
 published every scrap of the evidence 
 which Sonnenthal and I had given in 
 ca^nera. The pestilent little paper pro- 
 fessed to have sent a special reporter to 
 the scene of the murder, and grouped all 
 the facts (to which it added a string of 
 inventions) so as to point suspicion at the 
 
 VOL, I 14
 
 2IO PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 Prince. Finally, it announced that Prince 
 Roderick had absconded and could not be 
 found. 
 
 At the time when the journal pub- 
 lished this the Prince was already back 
 at Griinsee. 
 
 I can never forget the evening of his 
 return — three clear days after the murder. 
 He had been on a far journey and had 
 heard nothing of what had occurred. The 
 first information was given him by the 
 boatmen who ferried him over to the 
 island. He went straight to his study and 
 rang for me. I found him in a horrible 
 state of agitation, walking to and fro, sob- 
 bing hysterically, and crying — 
 
 ' Oh my poor Tristan — my only true 
 friend ! O God, what have I done that 
 all this should befall me ? ' 
 
 Some time elapsed before the first out-
 
 XII PRINCE RODERICK 211 
 
 burst of his grief had spent itself. It was 
 genuine grief. No comedian could have 
 called up such tears or such agdny of 
 expression. Throwing himself into an 
 arm-chair in an attitude of complete pros- 
 tration he at last told me to relate all 
 that had happened. 
 
 I began a succinct account, but omitted 
 nothing. When I came to the relation of 
 how I had lifted Tristan in my arms and 
 ridden with him through the dark, trying 
 in vain to find help, he buried his face in 
 his hands and sobbed again like a woman. 
 I was myself much moved, and faltered 
 often before I reached the end of my story. 
 
 The finding of the cartridges and sheath 
 was the point in my narrative which brought 
 the Prince in some measure to himself. 
 Drying his eyes, he listened with anxious 
 attention, and said in a broken voice —
 
 212 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 ' After leaving you I went to a house 
 — a small shooting -lodge, which I own 
 near the frontier — and changed my 
 clothes. I left my hunting -knife ; and 
 I know my double - barrel swanshot 
 gun was there. They must have been 
 stolen.' 
 
 * Was the lodge in charge of anybody ? ' 
 'Yes, an old woman.' 
 
 ' A gipsy-faced woman ? ' I asked, think- 
 ing of the hag whom I had encountered 
 at the ruined abbey. 
 
 * No, an old woman who was once my 
 nurse — Tristan's mother.' 
 
 I reported my interview with the gipsy, 
 having already mentioned it in my legal 
 depositions. 
 
 ' That will have to be inquired into,' 
 moaned Prince Roderick. ' I cannot guess 
 who stole the things. But from what you
 
 XII PRINCE RODERICK 213 
 
 say I gather that every circumstance of 
 my journey has become pubHc ? ' 
 
 ' Everything is known, sir, except where 
 your Royal Highness went.' 
 
 * That's just my luck,' wailed the Prince. 
 * Everything I do turns to my confusion. 
 Yet I have done no wrong. I have been 
 to Ems, and I may tell you now, since 
 secrecy is no longer possible, that I am 
 paying my addresses to the daughter of 
 an emperor. I love her, she loves me ; 
 and some of her relations favour my suit, 
 but others would be strenuously opposed 
 to it were they to hear of the matter ; and 
 I know that by our own Royal family 
 and ministers such counterplots might be 
 worked as would cause the engagement 
 to be broken off My object in going to 
 Ems was to advance preliminaries so far 
 that this engagement could not be marred
 
 214 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 by perfidious intrigues as the others have 
 been. If I could have had my way the 
 Princess Blanche and I would have been 
 privately married this very week, and I 
 might then have defied my enemies.' 
 
 He took a photograph from his pocket, 
 gazed at it with piteous despair, and handed 
 it to me — 
 
 ' There she is — my good angel ! but I 
 have lost her now. They will put a bar 
 between us. O God ! it's too bad.' 
 
 It was a very sweet and good face upon 
 which I looked. The truthful eyes even 
 told me that they would not turn away 
 from the man before me in his abandon- 
 ment, if he only remained trustful and 
 brave. I spoke a few hopeful words to 
 raise the afilicted Prince's spirits. ' Slander 
 would not shake the constancy that was to 
 be read on this face,' I said.
 
 XII PRINCE RODERICK 215 
 
 But it was a pity that I should have 
 learned his love story just at that time. 
 Failure always looks mean. If the Prince 
 had absented himself for a few days with- 
 out my knowledge, I might afterwards, on 
 discovering how he had deluded me, have 
 felt some confidence in his playing a game 
 of finesse with his adversaries. But beaten, 
 self- upbraiding, and wringing his hands 
 over the misfortunes which he had occa- 
 sioned, he did not appear too well able to 
 take care of himself. His stratagem, hav- 
 ing failed, seemed puerile. His remorse 
 and despair, though natural and creditable, 
 betokened anything but self-reliance. 
 
 The Prince detained me far into the 
 night, as though loath to be left alone with 
 his own thoughts. It was hardly surpris- 
 ing that he did not seek communion with 
 the Princess Dot in his troubles. Her
 
 2i6 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 Royal Highness sent a message desiring to 
 speak to him, but he answered that she 
 should see him next morning. He ended 
 by informing me that we must both go to 
 Sabelburg on the morrow, as he would 
 have to see the King and give an account 
 of his movements. Before I left him he 
 wrote a telegram to the King to announce 
 his intention. 
 
 * I must establish my alibi,' he said 
 bitterly, ' and I must lay before the people 
 at Court all that I have been trying to hide 
 from them. Never mind ; they shall hear 
 strong words from me this time. They 
 have driven me to bay, and I'll teach them 
 that they have presumed too long upon my 
 patience. If they exasperate me further, 
 I'll make all Germany ring with their 
 infamy.' 
 
 The Prince had committed a dynastic
 
 XII PRINCE RODERICK 217 
 
 offence by leaving the kingdom without 
 the Sovereign's permission ; and King 
 Franz, who exacted obedience from his 
 Royal family, was likely to place him under 
 arrest for it. We travelled to the capital 
 next day, and Prince Roderick had a very 
 long interview with the King. He returned 
 from it flushed and with a fire of excitement 
 in his eyes. 
 
 ' The King has ordered me to remain a 
 month at Griinsee,' he said ; ' but I spoke 
 out my mind to him in Count Hochort's 
 presence. I asked that the Prime Minister 
 might be summoned, and I threw into the 
 old viper's teeth all the foul intrigues which 
 he had spawned. The King is innocent of 
 these things — he is a gentleman, and he 
 looked astounded ; but Hochort gasped. 
 If I sit but one day on the throne that 
 scoundrel shall run for his life.'
 
 2i8 PRINCE RODERICK chap, xii 
 
 While the Prince was speaking to me, a 
 letter was brought to him from the King. 
 His cheeks burned as he read it, and he sat 
 down to write I know not what hasty 
 answer. Here is the King's letter, which 
 was shown me some days afterwards — 
 
 My Nephew — I heard with sorrow the disre- 
 spectful words which you addressed to-day to my faith- 
 ful Minister, and I feel obliged to tell you that your 
 whole conduct does not seem to me that of a dutiful 
 relation or a wise prince. You complain of enemies 
 and intrigues ; but your enemies are of your own 
 making, and the intrigues exist only in your imagina- 
 tion. If it have entered our minds to wish that you 
 were not placed so near the throne, it is because our 
 grave concern for the welfare of our kingdom must 
 make us doubt whether your character is that of a 
 man who could make a nation happy. I commend 
 you to Heaven's guidance. Franz R.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 Tristan was buried, his dog got a silver 
 collar from Princess Dot, and his murderer 
 remained undetected. Policemen came 
 occasionally to the palace, fetching me to 
 confront vagabonds and poachers who had 
 been arrested on suspicion, but the police 
 never got a real clue. Tristan's mother 
 went out of her mind on hearing of her 
 son's death, and died soon afterwards. It 
 was never possible to elicit from her 
 whether any man had called at the shoot- 
 ing-lodge and, to her knowledge, carried 
 away the Prince's gun and hunting-knife.
 
 220 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 All that she could be made to say was : 
 ' Tristan foretold it.' 
 
 The gipsy woman w^ho had cautioned 
 me against my companion was kept for a 
 long time in prison, and cross-questioned, 
 as is usual on the Continent, by an examin- 
 ing magistrate ; but she turned out to be a 
 common vagrant, who disclaimed all pre- 
 tentions to the Black Art, and vowed that 
 she had only warned me because she had 
 seen me riding with Prince Roderick, who 
 was said to be passionate. 
 
 The Prince talked of offering 20,000 
 marks (^1000) for the apprehension of the 
 murderer, but I believe he was forbidden 
 to do so — ostensibly because the payment 
 of blood-money was repugnant to the cus- 
 toms of the kingdom, but truly because the 
 Government felt no strong desire that the 
 murderer should be caught. His capture
 
 XIII PRINCE RODERICK 221 
 
 and trial, whether public or private, must 
 have kept people gossiping for months 
 about Prince Roderick, and this was a 
 thing which both his enemies and those 
 high persons who were merely solicitous 
 for the credit of the Royal family had an 
 equal interest in averting. Perhaps the 
 Prince's enemies apprehended that his 
 latest love-affair coming to light and being 
 widely discussed might cause a public 
 reaction in his favour ; and they preferred 
 that he should suffer from the uncanny re- 
 putation which Tristan's murder, so long 
 as it remained undiscovered, was sure to 
 bring him. 
 
 For it is certain that most of the 
 country people round Grlinsee believed 
 Prince Roderick guilty of the murder. 
 They did not loathe him for it. They 
 imagined that there must have been some
 
 222 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 dark secrets between the Prince and Tris- 
 tan, which the latter had betrayed ; and as 
 they hated Tristan they were glad of his 
 punishment — nay, the idea that the Prince 
 could put a treacherous servant to death 
 with impunity rather added to the mys- 
 terious awe which he inspired. As for 
 me, many were persuaded that I was 
 the Prince's accomplice, and possibly the 
 actual perpetrator of the crime, having 
 been hired in England for the special 
 purpose. I did not hear of this till some 
 time afterwards ; but it eventually reached 
 me that Harold Crowe and Sonnenthal 
 had taken my defence very warmly at the 
 Swan Inn against village wiseacres, who 
 obstinately repeated : 'He's a stranger. 
 He was alone with Tristan, and w^e saw 
 him covered with blood. Poor men have 
 been hanged for less.'
 
 XIII PRINCE RODERICK 223 
 
 I must here give a letter which I re- 
 ceived from Isabel Meadowes in answer 
 to that which I wrote informing her of my 
 ghastly adventure — 
 
 Dear Captain Meredith — My father gave me 
 your letter unopened, and we read it together. We 
 are very much obUged to you for having written so 
 fully about that most sad and cruel murder. How 
 soon the troubles which I predicted have come to 
 pass ! I did not know Tristan, but I have heard him 
 spoken of as a most devoted servant and trusty ad- 
 viser. The Prince's enemies must, I cannot but fear, 
 feel a wricked joy that he has been deprived of so 
 valuable a help, for, so far as I could see, it was always 
 their purpose to isolate him. My father says these are 
 a girl's foolish fancies, and I think I ought to tell you 
 this, for my father, w^ith his long diplomatic experience, 
 knows the ways of the world better than I do. He 
 says this is not an age of Machiavellian statecraft, and 
 he takes the common view of Prince Roderick as 
 being a fanciful and tiresome young man. You must 
 by this time be able to judge of this for yourself, and 
 I can only hope that your opinions will coincide with 
 my father's rather than with mine. I should be happy 
 indeed to believe that men no longer hatch unscrupu-
 
 224 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 lous plots for political objects, and that my suspicions 
 to the contrary are — what my father declares them to 
 be — a girl's romantic delusions. Some kind friend 
 keeps sending us the Badstadt Gazette^ which has been 
 taking such liberties with my name. I see the num- 
 ber w^hich has arrived this morning tries to make it 
 appear that no other save the Prince himself could 
 have murdered Tristan. How odious this is ! What 
 words are strong enough to stigmatise the sinfulness 
 of men who can write such things ? Would you mind 
 telling me confidentially if it be true that the Prince is 
 
 courting Princess Blanche of ? One of the 
 
 Society papers in London reports a rumour to this 
 effect, and I most devoutly hope it is the case that 
 he has bestowed his affections so worthily. I told you, 
 and I repeat it, that there are noble points in his 
 character, and it rejoices me to infer from your letter 
 that you do not intend flinching in your services to- 
 wards him, trying as these services must be under the 
 present distressing circumstances. My father trusts you 
 will call on us w^hen you next come to London. — Be- 
 lieve me, very truly yours, Isabel Meadowes. 
 
 Prince Roderick, who did not read the 
 Badstadt Gazette, was ignorant of a great 
 deal that was said about him out-of-doors.
 
 XIII PRINCE RODERICK 225 
 
 He showed a deep affliction at Tristan's 
 death. He put on mourning, and gave 
 orders that a black marble monument 
 should be erected over his foster-brother's 
 grave, with sculptured reliefs representing 
 the murder and my ride through the wood 
 with the corpse in my arms. The best 
 sculptor in the kingdom was entrusted with 
 this work, and came several times to Griin- 
 see with designs. I had to give him two 
 sittings ; and Harold Crowe made sketche^s 
 for him with Tristan's portrait and mine — 
 both very well done. The Prince himself 
 wrote this inscription for the monument — 
 
 Tristan Hardmuth, 
 
 The dearly loved foster-brother, friend, and guard of 
 
 Prince Roderick of Kronheim, 
 
 Foully murdered on the 20th June 188-. 
 
 He waits for the day when ' things long hidden shall 
 
 be revealed.' 
 
 'Vengeance is mine,' saith the Lord. 
 
 VOL. I 15
 
 226 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 Except when conferring with me about 
 this monument, or when giving me instruc- 
 tions about my secretarial work, the Prince 
 during several days hardly saw me. He 
 shut himself up, wrote much, and took soli- 
 tary rambles over the island, looking always 
 unutterably dejected. I think he fretted at 
 the thought that the Princess Blanche's 
 name was now being bandied from mouth 
 to mouth ; but in this his fears were exag- 
 gerated. The German papers made but 
 timid references to the love story ; and 
 even the Badstadt Gazette was cautious 
 in its remarks, and rather strove to throw 
 doubt upon the romance — another proof 
 that this journal was informed from a 
 knowing source. 
 
 In the meanwhile Harold Crowe and 
 Sonnenthal both left the palace. Harold 
 felt he could not decently prolong his visit
 
 XIII .PRINXE RODERICK 227 
 
 in a house of mourning, and went away 
 after making a most creditable set of peas- 
 ant sketches, which he intended to convert 
 into oil pictures as a present for his host. 
 Sonnenthal, who found life intolerable 
 without cards, took the excuse that his 
 three months' duty as aide-de-camp had 
 expired, and he was succeeded by a 
 brother cavalry officer. Count Sigismund 
 von Stolz, one of the most empty-headed 
 and punctiliously polite men I have ever 
 met. 
 
 It thus befell that I was thrown again 
 on my own resources ; but no longer in 
 idleness, for I had a great deal of work to 
 do. I became almost the only medium of 
 intercourse between the Prince and his 
 household ; the duties which had been 
 Tristan's gradually devolving upon me in 
 addition to those which had been Dr.
 
 228 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 Grinzener's. This was exceedingly trouble- 
 some. The Greek and Montenegrin ser- 
 vants were an ill-conditioned set of men, 
 who evinced no inclination to obey me. 
 Tristan must have governed them with 
 a hand of iron ; to me they were almost 
 unmanageable. When it did not suit them 
 to understand me they pretended not to 
 know German. I fastened upon one 
 man who was captain of the gig, a certain 
 Bojo Klephtovitch, and him I made re- 
 sponsible for the execution of my orders. 
 He was a fellow with a face like brown 
 leather and an evil scowl. He disliked 
 me from the first as much as I disliked 
 him ; and once or twice I caught him 
 wilfully ignoring orders which I had given. 
 I must say, however, that the first time 
 I spoke to the Prince about my difficulties, 
 he caught up his hat at once, summoned
 
 XIII PRINCE RODERICK 229 
 
 all the out-door servants, and harangued 
 them in set terms. Although a kind 
 master, Prince Roderick brooked neither 
 familiarity nor slovenly service, and still 
 less disobedience, from the domestics on 
 his private estate ; nor did he, as some 
 masters do, think any matter of household 
 discipline beneath his notice if his attention 
 were seriously called to it. Whether there 
 were mischief in the kitchen or in the 
 stables, he would repair promptly to the 
 scene of disorder, and he left delinquents 
 no choice between immediate unsulking 
 submission or instantaneous dismissal. 
 The pity was that he always spoke too 
 angrily, and remembering how his per- 
 emptory commands must have stung when 
 repeated in Tristan's less polished language, 
 I understood how detested this confidential 
 servant must have been. A creeping
 
 230 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 suspicion came over me that Bojo Kleph- 
 tovitch perhaps knew more of the murder 
 than he chose to say, and I kept an eye on 
 this man. 
 
 Doubtful, nevertheless, as to whether 
 the lurking assassin had not meant to kill 
 Prince Roderick, I paid close attention to 
 the guarding of the palace and island day 
 and night. At all hours of the night I 
 went rounds of inspection accompanied by 
 Joe Trotman, who carried a lantern (and 
 who became an object of hatred equally 
 with me), and by Hacko, Tristan's dog. 
 I had always a loaded revolver in my 
 pocket, and many a time I regretted that 
 I had despised Dr. Grinzener's warning by 
 going out unarmed on the day of my 
 excursion with the Prince. It tormented 
 me to reflect that if I had been armed 
 with a revolver I might have made an
 
 XIII PRINCE RODERICK 231 
 
 attempt to follow the murderer and might 
 have got a shot at him. 
 
 Poor Hacko took kindly to me. He 
 was not a dog of the first order of intelli- 
 gence, and after a few days of uneasy 
 sniffing and casual howling, gave up 
 wondering why his master had disappeared. 
 Not so with the lion, who had been 
 Tristans pet. There was a servant to 
 feed him and the lioness, but day after day 
 the lion watched couchant for Tristan's 
 coming, and every time the door of the 
 circus opened he sprang to his feet with 
 mane erect and eyes staring. The noble 
 brute was not to be consoled. He rejected 
 my advances with dignified silence, and 
 when alone emitted sullen moans. The 
 lioness, who, after the manner of the ex- 
 emplary members of her sex, concentrated 
 her affections in the domestic circle, licked
 
 232 PRINCE RODERICK chap, xiii 
 
 her lord's ears with sympathy from time to 
 time ; but at dinner ate up a large portion 
 of his untasted meat with her own ; and at 
 night she roared loud enough for the pair 
 of them. So in one way and another the 
 days passed, and in the enjoyment of the 
 ever - bewitching scenery and the home 
 comforts of Grlinsee I might have lived 
 content with my strange lot, had not the 
 Princess Dorothea taken it into her little 
 head to make large demands on my time. 
 These demands grew, for the lady was 
 whimsical and exacting, till at last, faute de 
 mieux, I suppose, I was singled out for a 
 pronounced flirtation on her Royal High- 
 ness's part. 
 
 I approach this chapter with diffidence, 
 for the whims of a royal princess are not 
 things to be trifled with.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 The Princess Dot had no notion of a life 
 without love, nor of love without pleasures 
 — innocent pleasures of course. 
 
 She had always to be sighing for some- 
 body, with pretty lip-sighs which did not 
 come up very deep from the heart, but 
 which made her vastly interesting to her 
 ladies — at least so she fancied — and lent a 
 zest to her thoughts about herself. 
 
 Her Grand -duke and her Archduke 
 having proved unfaithful, she had dis- 
 missed them from her mind along with the 
 religious tenets which she had been nearly
 
 234 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 espousing for their sakes. Neither of 
 them had produced an impression deep 
 enough to spoil a night's rest. The 
 religious teaching which they had been 
 indirectly the means of conveying had 
 possibly left more lasting memories ; but 
 these had been folded up for the present, 
 like fine linen in lavender, to be used again 
 if occasion should require. 
 
 The Princess Dot had come to Griinsee 
 intending to amuse herself during a couple 
 of summer months by organising /^/^^, and 
 inviting the nobility and gentry of the 
 neighbourhood to them. She had done 
 this for two or three years ; and these 
 festivities, in which she always played the 
 leading feminine part, pleased her well. 
 But Tristans death and the consequent 
 mourning condemned us all to solitude ; 
 the Princess Dot felt as though there
 
 XIV PRINCE RODERICK 235 
 
 were too many hours per diem on the dial 
 plate of the clock. Her companions, 
 the Countess Marchfeld and the Baroness 
 Schnupff, were not recreative. She had a 
 chaplain of whom more anon. He was 
 the Lutheran clergyman whom I had seen 
 with her in the garden of the winter 
 palace, a Dr. Ochsmunder, founder of the 
 sect of Philaletheans or Lovers of Truth ; 
 but the exhortations of this good man only 
 sufficed for her occasional entertainment. 
 So it was that, casting about for new 
 diversions, she found me. 
 
 I was called to translate a passage 
 from a volume of Scotch sermons for her — 
 that was how it began. After this I met 
 her every day in the garden ; and if I was 
 not in the way when wanted, she coolly 
 sent for me. The old Countess sat by 
 and worked at a never-ending piece of
 
 236 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 tapestry, the Baroness Schnupff read an 
 ever - abounding collection of dry books. 
 The Princess Dot, habited in some bright 
 costume, renewed almost every day, went 
 chatting and chirruping like a bird of 
 paradise, and seldom drew her ladies into 
 the conversation, save when she turned to 
 them for smiling assent to remarks which 
 they had not heard. There was always a 
 delightful assumption on the Princess 
 Dot's part that she could condescend to 
 any familiarity with me, as, being not even 
 a baron, I hardly counted in the scale of 
 created things. ' Man fa7igt von de7i 
 Baronen an,' said a Prince Windischgratz, 
 and this was precisely Princess Dot's 
 opinion. I made myself agreeable, how- 
 ever, and we soon became intimate. She 
 told me of her likes and dislikes, and re- 
 galed me with the sort of Court news
 
 XIV PRINCE RODERICK 237 
 
 which had an especial savour for her — 
 why the King of Wurstburg would not 
 stand sponsor to the King of Kalksburg's 
 baby ; how the Grand-duke Rothbart was 
 furious that the Czar had not worn the 
 proper pantaloons of the Zuydersee Hus- 
 sar regiment of which he had been ap- 
 pointed honorary colonel ; how sweet it 
 was of Queen Brunhilda to take a pinch of 
 snuff every morning in her breakfast &gg 
 as a penance for having laughed when she 
 heard the Pope sneeze. Princess Dot had 
 gossip of this description by the yard, and 
 when she was tired of rolling it out like a 
 telegraph tape, she sometimes clapped her 
 hands for a change and plied me with 
 questions. Then dialogues on this model 
 would ensue — 
 
 ' Now let's have a game of '' favourites." 
 Tell me your favourite colour.'
 
 238 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 ' That depends : a blue sky is all right, 
 but a blue nose ' 
 
 ' Or a blue stocking, eh ? What a 
 funny man you are ! Do you like women's 
 books ? Have you ever known a lady 
 writer with ink-smudges on her fingers ? 
 Who is your favourite author ? ' 
 
 ' The same rule applies as to colour. 
 But the man who signs the banknotes is 
 always pleasant to read.' 
 
 * What has he written ? I don't under- 
 stand,' she replied naively. 
 
 ' I promise to pay — nothing else ; but 
 it's good style, and the public are always 
 calling for more editions.' 
 
 ' People are very mercenary,' said the 
 
 Princess Dot wisely. ' Now, I never 
 
 touch a banknote, and I should be quite 
 
 content to live in a village without a 
 
 pfennig in the world. I should go about
 
 XIV PRINCE RODERICK 239 
 
 the country with a tambourine, my dog 
 Sultan, and a white monkey. What is 
 your ideal of happiness ? ' 
 
 ' To follow your Highness and make 
 chums with the monkey/ 
 
 ' And your idea of perfect wretched- 
 ness ? ' 
 
 ' To be suddenly packed off without 
 knowing how I had offended either of 
 you.' 
 
 She laughed and seemed pleased ; for 
 she fished for compliments with the most 
 artless bait imaginable. Sometimes Count 
 Stolz joined us, but she looked upon him 
 as an intruder, pulled faces behind his 
 back, or mimicked him by strutting with 
 both arms to her sides in an affected 
 military swagger. Stolz was a magni- 
 fiicent soldier, whose photograph might 
 have served on the advertisement of an
 
 240 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 elixir for making the beard grow ; for he 
 had a beard falling to his chest. He could 
 sit for hours in silence thinking absolutely 
 of nothing ; but he had an automatic man- 
 ner of springing to his feet and making 
 elaborate bows to persons whose position 
 entitled them to such courtesies. Every 
 time we met he performed his salaams as 
 though we were entire strangers. 
 
 Dr. Justus Ochsmunder would also come 
 out now and then to enjoy the cool of the 
 evening. He was a large man, with a 
 beard like Stolz's, but white. He wore a 
 wideawake, without the customary band, 
 and his coat was exempt from the two 
 buttons which tailors sew at the back of 
 the waist. These are small matters ; but 
 as founder of the sect of Philaletheans, Dr. 
 Ochsmunder would be a party to no decep- 
 tion. What is the use of buttons that are
 
 XIV PRINCE RODERICK 241 
 
 not meant for buttoning, and why should a 
 hat sport a superfluous band ? 
 
 The first time that I met Dr. Ochs- 
 munder and said, ' How do you do ? ' he 
 answered calmly — 
 
 ' I have sometimes a pain in my left 
 leg ; in the hot weather my hands are 
 often prickly ; my doctor says there is too 
 much fat in my body — that is the state of 
 my health.' 
 
 ' Dr. Ochsmunder speaks nothing but 
 truth,' tittered the Princess. ' He would 
 rather be hanged than pay a false compli- 
 ment. Wouldn't you. Doctor ? ' 
 
 ' I could not be hanged for such a 
 matter,' declared the Doctor simply. 
 
 ' But suppose I were a queen absolute, 
 and had you taken to the foot of the gal- 
 lows, and said, Swear I'm an angel, or 
 
 they'll put a rope round your neck.' 
 VOL. I 16
 
 242 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 ' If you were a queen absolute it would 
 be my duty to obey you,' answered 
 Ochsmunder ; ' but the words which 
 you would put into my mouth would be 
 yours, not mine : so there would be 
 no lie.' 
 
 ' Then you don't think me an angel ? ' 
 
 ' No.' 
 
 ' How refreshing it is to hear a man 
 speak out the truth like that,' exclaimed 
 the little Princess. ' I declare I quite love 
 you for your courage. Dr. Ochsmunder, 
 and you mustn't think that I am ever the 
 least bit offended when you say such 
 things.' 
 
 Everybody has heard of the sect of 
 Philaletheans, and how there are two 
 parties in that Association of fearless 
 people. The Radical Philaletheans assert 
 that the whole truth must be told, the
 
 XIV PRINCE RODERICK 243 
 
 Conservatives allow that part of it may be 
 kept back. For instance, is a man bound 
 to say that he thinks another a fool ? The 
 Radicals vow that he is ; the Conservatives 
 hold that there are means of conveying 
 the idea without words. Dr. Ochsmunder, 
 wavering between the two factions, was 
 trying to steer a middle course. He 
 practised unlimited veracity towards his 
 inferiors, but bridled his tongue at 
 Court. 
 
 Dr. Ochsmunder was guiding Princess 
 Dot along the paths of the Lutheran 
 faith in case she should be next wooed by 
 a Protestant prince. One afternoon, as he 
 and Stolz were walking to and fro out of 
 earshot, she said to me rather too low for 
 her ladies to hear — 
 
 ' You have heard me speak of the 
 Grand-duke Rothbart. There is a project
 
 244 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 for marrying me to him. Do you feel 
 jealous?' 
 
 ' Yes.' 
 
 ' But what do you mean by that ? 
 Would you lose your luncheon if I married 
 Duke Rothbart ? You see I have a hard 
 and fast rule for deciding how precious 
 people are to one another. There is one 
 loved person in the world for whose sake 
 we live, and if that one person be removed, 
 all the world becomes dark, and we can 
 neither eat, drink, sleep, nor feel awake. 
 But all the other people on the earth 
 might be tied together by the neck and 
 thrown into the sea, and we should feel 
 hungry at the usual hour just the same.' 
 
 This was a poser, but it had to be faced. 
 ' I should certainly lose my luncheon. 
 Princess, if you were thrown into the 
 sea.'
 
 XIV PRINCE RODERICK 245 
 
 ' Take care, you are saying a great deal.' 
 
 ' I think I could say more, though, for 
 I'd wish Duke Rothbart in the sea.' 
 
 ' And me on dry land ? ' 
 
 ' And you on a hill ever so high above 
 the sea level.' 
 
 She began tripping about, sang tra la 
 la, and approaching her macaw, who had 
 been brought out to take the fresh air, 
 poked a finger near his beak. The parrot 
 pecked, and Princess Dot ran towards me 
 with a little shriek. 
 
 'Oh, the naughty bird, he has bitten 
 me ! See my finger !' 
 
 The finger which she held up to me 
 had just one drop of blood, which looked 
 as if it had been caused by a needle-prick, 
 but I professed deferential sympathy, and 
 staunched the wound with her handker 
 chief, she trembling the while.
 
 246 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 ' Oh, don't you think it may be 
 poisoned ? Ought not the wound to be 
 sucked ? I am so afraid to do it myself.' 
 
 The hint was broad enough, and I 
 lifted the finger to my lips, upon which a 
 shiver thrilled over her, and she fell into 
 my arms with a well -simulated faint- 
 ing fit. 
 
 Of course the ladies with Dr. Ochs- 
 munder and Stolz had bustled forward, 
 and we half carried the Princess to a 
 bench, but she revived almost immediately, 
 shed a tear or two, laughed, and said 
 languidly — 
 
 * I feel better now. Don't kill the poor 
 bird. I wouldn't for the world that any- 
 thing were hurt for my sake. Thank you 
 all so much ; and you, Captain Meredith, I 
 can never forget your devotion. Did you 
 see what he did, Dr. Ochsmunder ? he
 
 XIV PRINCE RODERICK 247 
 
 was ready at once to jump into the fire 
 for me.' 
 
 ' There was no fire, ' said the downright 
 Doctor. 
 
 ' But if there had been one he would 
 have jumped,' exclaimed the Princess with 
 a stamp of her foot. ' I cannot bear you, 
 Doctor, when you throw doubt on people's 
 devotion. I verily believe now that if I 
 were in a fire you would let me burn.' 
 
 ' No, I should try to pull you out.' 
 
 'Who cares about being pulled out?' 
 exclaimed Princess Dot with a pout. ' I 
 like people to leap into the fiames, and off 
 towers, and into cataracts. Fancy being 
 hauled out of danger by a long ugly pole 
 with claws at the end like an iron spider's 
 legs. I would rather die.' 
 
 * You wouldn't say so if it came to the 
 point,' insisted Dr. Ochsmunder.
 
 248 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 * Yes I would,' cried the Princess, with 
 her look of droll dignity; ' and I forbid you 
 ever to come near me with a long pole. 
 Dr. Ochsmunder. I won't have it, and it's 
 most unkind of you to suggest such a thing.' 
 
 The day after this we had a water-party 
 to Rose Island in the Prince's gig. Stolz 
 and the Doctor were invited, but sat in the 
 bows, whilst I had a place in the stern 
 beside the Princess. She exchanged 
 glances with me behind her fan, and 
 mocked at the Baroness Schnupff, who 
 held on tight to the rail and looked as if 
 she were going to be sea-sick. She beat 
 down her skirt that I might sit close to 
 her, and she gave me a water lily for my 
 buttonhole. It was all very nice. 
 
 * Can you swim ?' she asked, as the eight 
 oars pulled the boat swiftjy through the 
 green water.
 
 XIV PRINCE RODERICK 249 
 
 * Yes ; ' and I was afraid that she was 
 going to throw herself overboard to test 
 my prowess. She did look very curiously 
 at the water more than once ; but her eyes 
 roved to the boathook with the iron claws, 
 and perhaps this made her change her 
 mind. 
 
 'It's a pity lilies fade/ she said, as we 
 wandered over Rose Island. 
 
 ' That won't prevent my keeping this 
 one,' I answered, pretending to kiss the 
 large flower in my coat. 
 
 ' Won't it ? ' she murmured, and became 
 pensive. Our eyes met ; she blushed, and 
 hardly spoke all the way home. 
 
 Our next outing: was on horseback. 
 Stolz, the Baroness Schnupff, and two 
 grooms completed our party. The poor 
 Baroness sat on her saddle like a bag of 
 nails, and she soon dropped behind with
 
 250 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 her cavalier, while the Princess Dot and 
 I galloped on in front. The Princess 
 looked uncommonly well in her silver-gray 
 habit, and rode with capital pluck. She 
 had a beautiful white mare with pink 
 nostrils and hoofs ; and, little slip of a 
 thing as she was, she let the animal go 
 at full pace, enjoying the light wind 
 which blew on her face and obliged her 
 often to bend her head to keep her hat 
 on. All the way she chattered and tittered 
 incessantly. 
 
 We rode to the scene of Tristan's 
 murder. The Princess seldom spoke of 
 that event now, but she appeared to have 
 a purpose in coming here. She made me 
 repeat all the incidents of the adventure, 
 and we rode slowly down the avenue where 
 Tristan had fallen. 
 
 * And so you caught him up in your
 
 XIV PRINCE RODERICK 251 
 
 arms like a child,' she exclaimed impetu- 
 ously. ' Ah ! f adore les hommes braves ! ' 
 We were quite alone, having left our 
 escort a good mile behind. We passed 
 into a clearance where there was turf under 
 foot, and overhead such a canopy of inter- 
 laced branches and leaves as allowed only 
 a dim light to penetrate as in a church. 
 
 The white mare arched her neck, 
 pawed the grass gently, and the Princess 
 stooped to pat her neck. Of a sudden she 
 said, turning her face away from me — 
 
 ' How many quarterings of nobility have 
 you. Captain Meredith ? ' 
 
 * Not one, I am sorry to say.' 
 
 ' Are you really sorry ? Should you 
 like to become a count '^ ' 
 
 ' I see little prospect of it, madam.' 
 
 ' I think I could get you created a 
 count,' she resumed, speaking quickly. ' If
 
 252 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 I asked the King he could not refuse. I 
 speak like this because — because I am a 
 princess and may do so. If you were a 
 prince I should have had to wait till you 
 had spoken ; but I know there are things 
 which you would not venture to say to 
 me.' 
 
 Her face was like a blush rose now, 
 and her words came fast. Instinctively I 
 pressed my horse a step nearer to hers, 
 and she let a hand droop on her saddle 
 for me to take. 
 
 'Well, Captain Meredith, if you are 
 good to me — ever so good — why, I'll 
 marry you. But you know it can only be 
 a morganatic marriage.' 
 
 There was a clatter of hoofs, and the 
 Baroness Schnupff was borne on the scene 
 gasping, her hat off, her hair down her 
 back, and her cheeks like beefsteaks. Stolz
 
 XIV PRINCE RODERICK 253 
 
 followed in good order, his shoulders 
 square, his countenance a perfect blank. 
 
 * Hush ! ' whispered the Princess Dot, 
 laying a finger on her lips and suddenly 
 recovering a very pretty composure. ' Not 
 a word of this, sir. It's a State secret ! '
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 It had taken nearly a month to bring 
 matters to this pass. 
 
 During that time I had not been un- 
 mindful of Connie Davenant in England. 
 How could I forget my first love ? Despite 
 Mrs. Davenant's prohibition I had written 
 to Connie several times, and had asked 
 one of my married cousins, a discreet and 
 obliging little woman, to convey these 
 missives privately. But I received no 
 answers, nor any verbal message encour- 
 aging me to write further ; and at last I 
 got back all my letters together unopened,
 
 CHAP. XV PRINCE RODERICK 255 
 
 with a note from my cousin saying that 
 Connie had promised her mother faithfully 
 that she would carry on no correspondence 
 with me. The next thing I heard was 
 that Connie was engaged to be married to 
 Mr. Lemesurier, the M.P. with the red 
 tie and white hat. 
 
 Connie's silence had often made me very 
 unhappy, and her infidelity rendered me 
 furious— though not so much against her 
 as against the world in general. I knew 
 that the poor child must have been teased 
 into the marriage. Mammas with many 
 children to provide for are not tender 
 when they find a little bit of romance 
 standing in the way of a match which can 
 advance the affairs of a whole family. The 
 firm maternal hand pulls up these romances 
 like weeds ; and the better the Q-'irl, the 
 less she can find to say for herself. Poor
 
 256 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 little Connie was just one of those girls 
 who would feel bound to listen to her 
 father and mother rather than to a 
 lover — an absent lover too — whom to 
 love was selfish, and, being selfish, 
 wicked. 
 
 But Connie was lost to me several 
 days before the Princess Dot offered to 
 msLvry me in the unconventional manner 
 just described, and I did not therefore 
 treat this flattering proposal as I must 
 have done had it come a few days 
 earlier. 
 
 I was not in love with the Princess 
 Dot, but I had got to like her, and was 
 disposed to consider seriously whether she 
 would not make an acceptable wife. Vaga- 
 bond as I was, what was there to prevent 
 my accepting the offer ? The slight in- 
 toxication which must be produced in any
 
 XV PRINCE RODERICK 257 
 
 man by the conquest of a princess perhaps 
 entered into my feelings ; and then the 
 entire reversal of the positions commonly 
 occupied by the man and the girl In such 
 affairs lent a piquancy to the adventure. 
 The Princess Dot was intimately per- 
 suaded that she was doing me a great 
 honour, and she felt very good — though 
 with occasional misgivings of conscience 
 and alarms at her own boldness — in being 
 so condescending. I suppose that the idea 
 of my refusing her offer never entered her 
 head. 
 
 Our engagement was to be secret, and 
 all the negotiations which it necessitated 
 were to be carried out by the Princess, 
 I being powerless in the matter. She 
 played her part of mystery fairly well, 
 but with not more of the talent for dis- 
 semblance than all her sex have : in fact 
 
 VOL. I 17
 
 258 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 princesses, who are accustomed to see all 
 their whims gratified, do not excel in the 
 concealment of their emotions. 
 
 Our relations remained outwardly un- 
 altered. I approached her with the usual 
 formalities ; and she tried to throw a spice 
 of indifference into her manner of address- 
 ing me. But she was quick to watch the 
 effect which her words produced ; she was 
 always throwing unobserved glances at 
 me, and she would linger in doorways, 
 embrasures, and secluded plantations so 
 that we might be just for a moment alone 
 while I squeezed her hand and kissed it. 
 The first time that I could safely do it, I 
 caught her in my arms and kissed her on 
 the lips. ' Oh ! ' she exclaimed, and dis- 
 engaged herself crimsoning ; but she did 
 not so contrive that I should have no 
 other opportunities of repeating my caress.
 
 XV PRINCE RODERICK 259 
 
 And I VOW it was very pleasant to kiss her, 
 to feel her little arms clinging to me, and 
 to see the genuine impulses of girlhood 
 break, butterfly-like, from the chrysalis of 
 princess-ship and etiquette. 
 
 I doubt whether the Countess von 
 Marchfeld and the Baroness von Schnupff 
 were our dupes. Ladies have a deep 
 penetration in love affairs, and a sign by 
 which the Princess betrayed herself was, 
 that she talked too much about me when 
 I was not present. Prince Roderick 
 noticed this, and said to me one day : 
 ' You seem to have quite turned my sister's 
 head ; ' but he was miles from imagining 
 that he spoke the truth, and I had suffi- 
 cient command over my features not to 
 excite his suspicions. 
 
 The Princess was now trying to coax 
 away her brother from his solitary writing,
 
 26o PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 for she was afraid to make a confidant of 
 him while he was so self-absorbed. The 
 two were very good friends. The Prin- 
 cess had been from the first in the secret 
 of his suit with the Princess Blanche, 
 and she had backed him up staunchly. 
 She was convinced, she told me, that 
 he would become our ally ; but she 
 must watch a favourable opportunity for 
 speaking. 
 
 The Princess succeeded so far that 
 Prince Roderick consented that there should 
 be a family dinner - table every evening, 
 and he took the head of it. He was fre- 
 quently in low spirits, but had bright days ; 
 for he was much interested in his book, 
 and talked of the effect which would be 
 caused by its publication. Being rather 
 uneasy about this book, I was very glad 
 when he promised that it should not go
 
 XV PRINCE RODERICK 261 
 
 into a publisher's hands before he had read 
 it to me, and taken what he called my 
 ' frank opinion.' 
 
 Pending this time, the daily dinner- 
 party and the evenings en famille gave 
 the Princess and me countless occasions 
 for revelling in each other's society. There 
 were games at cards, billiards, the turning 
 over of albums, the sitting out on the 
 terrace to take coffee and admire the sun- 
 sets, and then the strolls in the garden 
 after dark, when wraps had to be fetched 
 and placed round her shoulders. Con- 
 sultations about her pet animals, pretences 
 at taking lessons in English, the singing 
 of duets (the Princess sang frolicsomely 
 and with an exclusive partiality for comic 
 songs), — all these pastimes brought us 
 side by side and justified any amount of 
 intimacy, chattering, and laughter. But
 
 262 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 the Princess liked billiards most, for no- 
 body save myself played the game, and 
 with the doors leading into the drawing- 
 room wide open, we were quite by our- 
 selves while the Countess worked, the 
 Baroness read. Dr. Ochsmunder napped, 
 and Count von Stolz sauntered about 
 without an idea or a word. 
 
 The Princess's love grew and mine was 
 kindling. But as she had been certain 
 from the first that I was deeply enam- 
 oured, she misunderstood the change 
 that was coming over me, and began to 
 have jealous fits at the very moment when 
 she had least cause for jealousy. 
 
 * Ferdinand, you are thinking of some- 
 body else but me,' she would say when she 
 saw my eyes wander. 
 
 ' No, you are always in my thoughts.' 
 
 ' Look into my face and swear that.'
 
 XV PRINCE RODERICK 263 
 
 Or she would assume the expression of 
 a pugnacious baby and try sarcasm. 
 
 ' So, so, my lord and master was 
 glum at dinner to-day. I must have be- 
 come a very unsightly object that he 
 couldn't spare a look for my side of the 
 table, but must needs keep talking with 
 the Baroness von Schnupff. Perhaps he 
 was fascinated with the Baroness's long 
 nose. Hee, hee ; well, my lord, Ich gra- 
 tulire ! ' 
 
 One afternoon the Princess asked me 
 to go for a walk with her and the Baroness. 
 We crossed over to the near shore of the 
 lake, and sauntered over a mile or two of 
 the valley, till we came to the Swan Inn. 
 The Princess was in the most blithesome 
 mood, and the poor Baroness had got the 
 hiccough from stifling mirth at her 
 pleasantries.
 
 264 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 * We must get you a glass of water,' 
 tittered the Princess. ' Oh ! we'll turn 
 into the "Swan," Captain Meredith. I'll 
 show you my old friend Andreas Riedl 
 and his pretty daughter Lisbeth — she's a 
 beauty if you like. How do you do, 
 Andreas — where's Lisbeth ? We're dying 
 for something to drink in this hot weather. 
 Bring us some beer, quite cold, you know, 
 in large schoppes with nice white heads.' 
 
 Andreas Riedl, who had been smoking 
 his pipe in the doorway, took off his hat 
 and bowed almost to the ground at the 
 honour the Princess was doing him. We 
 walked into the public room, which hap- 
 pened to be empty (it was the same where 
 Tristan had been laid), and Lisbeth Riedl 
 came forward, curtsied humbly to the 
 Princess, and kissed her hand. 
 
 * Well, what do you think of her ? '
 
 XV PRINCE RODERICK 265 
 
 asked Princess Dot, with a patronising 
 smile at the girl and a narrow look at me. 
 
 Lisbeth had been Sonnenthal's flame. 
 She was a fine fair-faced wench, with her 
 hair plaited in two long tails, German 
 fashion. 
 
 /Pretty well,' I answered indifferently 
 in English, but a few minutes later, look- 
 ing out of the window, I descried in a field 
 Frida Sliss, the goose-girl, whose portrait 
 Harold Crowe had painted, and I was 
 foolish enough to exclaim, ' There, Prin- 
 cess, I call that a good-looking girl' 
 
 ' Where ? which ? ' ejaculated the Prin- 
 cess, starting up so abruptly that she over- 
 turned the Baroness Schnupffs tankard of 
 beer. ' What ! that drab of a thing with 
 bare legs and a torn petticoat ? Well, I 
 never heard anything like it ! Oh dear 
 me ! a common goose-girl too ! '
 
 266 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 ' Well, she is only a beauty as goose- 
 girls go,' I said, perceiving my mistake. 
 ' Harold Crowe painted a nice picture of 
 her.' 
 
 * Did he indeed, sir ? Well, I am sorry 
 that he should have so demeaned himself,' 
 declared the Princess, mightily offended. 
 ' So your taste runs on goose-girls, does it ? 
 Oh well, it s all the same to me. Go and 
 court your goose-girl ; but it's lucky I've 
 found it out in time.' 
 
 ' My taste doesn't run on goose-girls. 
 Don't be absurd ! ' I whispered, approach- 
 ing her. But she turned, looked at me 
 from head to foot, tried to swallow her 
 beer, and nearly choked in the effort ; then 
 marched out, followed by the perplexed 
 ' Bettina.' 
 
 She was not to be appeased all the way 
 home. She would take no notice of me.
 
 XV PRINCE RODERICK 267 
 
 but talked outrageously about goose-girls 
 to the Baroness Schnupff and indulged in 
 hysterical laughing. If the Baroness 
 never suspected anything before, she must 
 have discovered then that there was some- 
 thing between us. As for me, being angry 
 with myself and with Dot I of course 
 affected to be cool and jolly — for which 
 aggravation of offence any girl, be she 
 the mildest, always feels inclined to flay a 
 man. 
 
 I think that when the Princess Dot 
 got home she had a good cry, which re- 
 freshed her. When we met at dinner she 
 was herself again. She had put on the 
 dress in which I thought she looked best, 
 and glancing slyly at me under her eye- 
 lashes broke out laughing. After dinner 
 she was wild as a mocking-bird and in a 
 humour for teasing. ' I am going to sing
 
 268 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 you a song about your goose-girl,' she 
 said. 'It's a Studenten Lied (Student 
 Song) composed by some of those gentle- 
 men from the University who hold their 
 summer kneipes at the '* Swan." I found 
 it among my music' 
 
 She sat down and rattled off this 
 ditty. The English translation is Harold 
 Crowe's : — 
 
 FRIDA 
 
 Frida the fresh was the pride of her geese, 
 
 Till one day, racing after the flock, 
 She seized on the fattest, unheeding his frowns, 
 
 And rolled him up quick in her frock. 
 
 There were tears in her eyes as she kissed that goose. 
 
 And she cried, ' It's a singular point. 
 But I've thought day and night, oh, you love of a bird ! 
 
 That you'd make a delectable joint.' 
 
 That goose was a bird of the most open mind. 
 Who called every wise man a brother ;
 
 XV PRINCE RODERICK 269 
 
 But his breast and his thighs were sacred to him 
 As presents that came from his mother. 
 
 So he shook himself free with a hiss at the maid, 
 
 Whose embrace was that of duplicity ; 
 And, with his best feathered quill, strode off, as he said, 
 
 To give his shocked feelings publicity. 
 
 The song ended in a bravura which 
 made even Stolz merry. The Princess, 
 however, watching me, fancied perhaps that 
 I was hurt at her treatment of me in the 
 afternoon ; so presently in the bilHard- 
 room she came creeping up to me and 
 said — 
 
 /Is it all over between you and the 
 goose-girl ? ' 
 
 ' All over.' 
 
 ' Then why are you so serious ? Are 
 you beginning to be impatient ? But you 
 know you mustn't be impatient. We can't 
 be married without ever so much fuss,
 
 270 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 which makes my head ache to think of. 
 You've no idea of the Httle packets of 
 arguments that I am making up ready for 
 different people. Then there will be the 
 stamping, the screaming, crying, and faint- 
 ing fits. I've got all that to go through, 
 you know.' 
 
 * Well, and when will it begin ? ' 
 
 'Ah! that's just like a man. Well, Til 
 do something to-morrow,' she answered 
 rather seriously. ' I'll speak to my brother. 
 He's been in a good humour for two 
 days.' 
 
 ' But supposing Prince Roderick should 
 object, and others should object ? * 
 
 ' I am a Princess of the Blood Royal, sir, 
 and mean to have my own way.' 
 
 ' You do, in sober earnest ? But if the 
 King puts his veto ? ' 
 
 ' Then I'll run away with you, Ferdi-
 
 XV PRINCE RODERICK 271 
 
 nand. Will you take me on your horse 
 and gallop right away with me in the 
 night, no matter where ? Oh ! I'm quite 
 serious and reasonable, and I never, never 
 give in to anybody.' 
 
 ' I shall be more hopeful now, Doro- 
 thea,' I replied, as she laid her head on my 
 shoulder and gave a poke at the billiard- 
 balls to make the persons in the next room 
 think we were playing. ' But tell me one 
 thing about these morganatic marriages, 
 for I don't understand them. Does it mean 
 that being married to me with the left hand 
 you will be allowed to take another hus- 
 band with the right ? ' 
 
 ' How ridiculous you are ! ' she laughed. 
 ' I shall be your own, your very own ; will 
 that satisfy you ? Only you know I shall 
 keep my rank ; and perhaps at State din- 
 ners I shall sit at the head of the table, and
 
 272 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 you at the bottom. But you won't mind 
 that ? ' 
 
 ' I needn't go to State dinners.' 
 
 ' Oh ! but you must, if I wish it ; and — 
 and perhaps the sentries will salute me and 
 not you.' 
 
 ' I think I can survive that.' 
 
 ' And there's another thing. The kings 
 and princes will keep on calling me 
 "Cousin," and kissing me, but that's a 
 mere form and doesn't signify. You won't 
 have the right to kiss their wives.' 
 
 I believe the Princess was quite minded 
 to speak with her brother on the morrow, 
 but something occurred to prevent it. The 
 startling news arrived that the Grand-duke 
 Rothbart of Weniggeld was coming to the 
 palace to urge his suit in due form for 
 Princess Dorothea's hand. He announced 
 a fortnight's visit, which meant a siege en
 
 XV PRINCE RODERICK 273 
 
 regie. At luncheon the Princess was full 
 of the news, and so soon as she could draw 
 me aside, she executed a little dance and 
 evinced childish glee. 
 
 ' You'll see what fun we shall have with 
 him,' she cried. 'Oh! it will be better 
 than a play.' 
 
 ' I don't quite see the fun,' I answered, 
 wishing Duke Rothbart in mid-ocean. 
 
 ' But you must look on and enjoy the 
 sport. The Grand-duke is the most ludi- 
 crous little creature you can perceive. He 
 has red moustaches a yard long, and walks 
 on the tips of his boots to make himself 
 look bigger, till he sometimes overbalances 
 himself. You will see how prettily I shall 
 pack him off.' 
 
 ' But wouldn't it be simpler not to let 
 
 him come ? ' 
 
 ' Oh no, he must come. You see, I must 
 VOL. I 18
 
 274 PRINCE RODERICK chap, xv 
 
 have the chance of openly refusing a 
 good offer. No girl can withstand that 
 pleasure. Besides, it will help on our 
 affairs, sir ; so don't look gloomy. Leave 
 it all to me.'
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 No sooner had his Serene Highness, the 
 reigning Grand -duke of Weniggeld, sig- 
 nified his gracious intention of visiting 
 Prince Roderick and Princess Dorothea, 
 than their Royal Highnesses Prince Wolf- 
 gang of Kronhelm and his wife the Princess 
 Ursula, King Franz's daughter, formed a 
 similar purpose. 
 
 There was consequently a grand sweep- 
 ing up and down of the palace. Armies 
 of housemaids went about with mops and 
 clean bedroom curtains. I was relegated to 
 an attic, for all the best apartments in the
 
 276 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 palace were wanted for the Royal and Serene 
 guests and their suites. Princess Dot dis- 
 covered that she had nothing fit to wear, 
 and started for Sabelburg with her ladies 
 to meet a dressmaker who had been 
 telegraphed for from Paris, and who 
 was ordered to prepare a trifle of twenty- 
 four costumes to be ready within ten 
 days. 
 
 Prince Wolfgang's visit was a surprise. 
 Whether it was that Prince Roderick's 
 outburst of plain-speaking in the King's 
 presence had frightened the Court ; or 
 whether it was that Prince Wolfgang 
 wished to dissociate himself ostensibly 
 from the intrigues which were being 
 carried on in his interest ; or whether 
 again the Court had decided to show 
 the world that affectionate family endeav- 
 ours were beine made to reclaim Prince
 
 XVI PRINCE RODERICK 277 
 
 Roderick ; certain it is that the utmost pub- 
 licity was given to Prince Wolfgang's visit. 
 Prince Roderick was evidently gratified, 
 and resolved to receive his guests in the 
 most hospitable style. The entire house- 
 hold of the winter palace were summoned 
 from the capital with their gala liveries. 
 Footmen began to swarm around, and 
 the kitchen regions resounded like a mon- 
 key house with the chattering of French 
 cooks. A pyrotechnician also came down 
 to arrange for a Venetian night fete with 
 illuminations and fireworks. 
 
 On one point, however, Prince Roderick 
 was inexorable : he would not allow a 
 military uniform to be worn during the 
 visits. This matter had to be settled by 
 chamberlains, and formed the theme for 
 a regular negotiation not exempt from 
 difficulties.
 
 278 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 To me the Prince frankly explained his 
 ideas. 
 
 ' Clergymen and lawyers don't parade 
 about in their gowns, and schoolmasters 
 don't wear canes strapped to their w^aists. 
 I think it s absurd for gentlemen to dress 
 themselves up with carving-knives as if 
 they were always going to kill somebody. 
 Besides, these uniforms are fatal to con- 
 versation. The man with two stars on 
 his collar daren't argue with the man who 
 has three stars, and the man with the 
 three stars is down on all fours before 
 the man with the gold or silver collar. 
 i\s for the man with the gold collar, he 
 doesn't converse : he simply pontifies, emits 
 oracles, and makes your jaws ache from 
 trying to stop yawns.' 
 
 Those, however, who know how utterly 
 unclassified a German officer of rank feels
 
 XVI PRINCE RODERICK 279 
 
 when he has to put himself into civiHan 
 garb, will understand what a remarkable 
 appearance our visitors presented on the 
 first day of their muster. Such a collec- 
 tion of bell-mouthed pantaloons and creased 
 frockcoats would have brought all the cut- 
 ters in Savile Row on to the pavement to 
 stare. Every man seemed to have cased 
 himself in a brand new shirt one size too 
 small at the collar, and had smothered his 
 hands in dogskins a size too large. Left 
 hands fumbled mechanically at the hips 
 for missing sword-hilts ; and silk hats, 
 treated like helmets, in being carried under 
 the arm, resented this usage by bristling 
 up in the nap. When evening dress was 
 put on the spectacle was no less astonish- 
 ing. Every shirt front bulged, or had 
 kinks, or showed signs of a struggle at 
 the buttonholes, where big studs had been
 
 28o PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 jammed through by main force ; and the 
 bow of almost every white tie was writh- 
 ing up towards the wearer's left ear. 
 
 The Grand -duke Rothbart was espe- 
 cially one of those men who are best con- 
 templated in uniform. He was a little imp 
 of a potentate about five foot four in height, 
 with a fierce carroty moustache, and hair 
 clipped short and standing upright over 
 his bullet head like a gooseberry's. His 
 face was purple, and his voice cracked 
 from bawling commands to his soldiers. 
 He strutted like a Dorking cock, but when 
 seen in a tight tunic, long spurs, and a 
 cocked hat, may have cut an imposing 
 figure. 
 
 His Serene Highness had the tactical 
 genius of Marshal von Moltke, as he could 
 pi*ove by a letter in the Marshal's own 
 hand. Once he had sent the Marshal the
 
 XVI PRINCE RODERICK 281 
 
 plan of a battle, and had received the com- 
 plimentary reply that it was the identical 
 plan of the battle of Sedan. Grand-duke 
 Rothbart was a boy when Sedan was 
 fought, so it became manifest that the plan 
 which he had worked out by his own in- 
 spiration would have enabled him to win 
 the battle had he commanded in chief. 
 He was now for pulverising the French. 
 The army of Weniggeld, which formed 
 two battalions and a squadron of the united 
 German forces, was in the highest state of 
 efficiency, and always ready to march upon 
 France at three days' notice. 
 
 Prince Wolfgang was a tall and grave 
 young man, with a large family and not 
 too much money. King Franz was rich, 
 but indulged his daughter sparingly with 
 supplies, having a not unfounded idea that 
 if princes are to work they must be kept
 
 282 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 on short commons. Prince Wolfgang had 
 taken to soldiering as the only pursuit 
 compatible with his means, and he was 
 really a good officer. His recreation was 
 to study surgery, and his ambition was to 
 qualify as an army surgeon. But this was 
 a secret. He was now practising opera- 
 tions in private, and his friends hoped that 
 some day he would set the seal to his 
 popularity by cutting off a leg publicly in 
 a hospital amphitheatre, and tacking the 
 title of ' Doctor ' for evermore to his other 
 dignities. 
 
 His wife, the Princess Ursula, was a fat 
 and fair lady, who was born with a good 
 temper and some common sense, but 
 had got spoilt by a raging detestation 
 for her cousins, Roderick and Dorothea. 
 She hated them for their money and 
 for Roderick's priority to her in the
 
 XVI PRINCE RODERICK 283 
 
 line of succession. Being the King's 
 daughter, she thought she had a right to 
 succeed to the throne, and had soHcited 
 opinions favourable to her claims in the 
 abstract from the Queens of England, 
 Spain, and Madagascar. Armed with 
 these, she had asked Prince Bismarck 
 pointblank whether he could not prevail 
 on the Btindesrath (Council of the Empire) 
 to abrogate the ungallant Salic Law of 
 Kronheim. 
 
 Foiled in this by the Chancellor s heavy 
 ' Nein' the Princess Ursula had taken 
 refuge in ' German patriotism,' and set her- 
 self to do the exact opposite of everything 
 that her cousins did. They adopted 
 French dresses, wines, and foreign servants ; 
 she would have none of these things. She 
 despised the French as the inventors of 
 fantastic soups. She would not wear, eat,
 
 284 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 or drink anything French if she knew it. 
 Her dresses were made by Germans out 
 of German stuffs : she gave her guests beer, 
 Rhine wines, and native stews, which were 
 described on the ' bills of fare ' by their 
 proper German names. Such a thing as a 
 memt never entered her house. For all this 
 the Princess Ursula was much liked by the 
 impoverished aristocracy and the middle 
 classes of Kronheim, who held that she set 
 a truly noble example of decent economical 
 and dignified living. Mothers blessed her 
 for inviting their girls to appear at her 
 dances in plain white muslin and thread 
 gloves ; and it must be owned that her 
 outspoken partiality for officers who lived 
 on their pay and supped off cold sausage 
 had done not a little towards raising the 
 moral standard of the Kronheim army. 
 Unfortunately the Princess's digestion hav-
 
 XVI PRINCE RODERICK 285 
 
 ing suffered somewhat from her patriotic 
 diet, she presented to me, when I saw her 
 waddle beside Princess Dot, the appear- 
 ance of a rather uncomfortable German 
 dame with a reddening nose. 
 
 I was quite lost in the throng of Equer- 
 ries and aides-de-camp who attended upon 
 the Princes, and I saw from the outset that 
 there would be little chance of my getting 
 a private word with my affianced bride so 
 long as the visits lasted. The princely 
 party and their ladies dined in a room by 
 themselves. The suites had their table 
 in an adjoining apartment, and I took the 
 bottom seat. Sonnenthal had returned on 
 duty, and we were by no means a dull 
 assemblage ; but after dinner, etiquette 
 obliged us to remain standing all the even- 
 ing. ' Sit down when you can,' was the 
 advice once given by an old courtier to a
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 young one who had asked for some maxims 
 of conduct at Court. 
 
 I was presented to the Grand -duke 
 Rothbart on the terrace during coffee. 
 There was a broad yellow riband over his 
 waistcoat. Holding his coffee - cup and 
 sucking a fat cigar, he looked up at me as 
 at a lamp-post. 
 
 ' You have been an English officer ? 
 The English have no army. They have 
 good soldiers, but that is not enough.' 
 
 I bowed. 
 
 ' Give me a hundred thousand men and 
 I would land on any part of the English 
 coast,' continued his Serene Highness. ' I 
 would march straight upon London, and 
 there would be no resistance. But happily 
 we are allies.' 
 
 ' I trust England and Weniggeld may 
 always remain friends, sir,' was my answer.
 
 XVI PRINCE RODERICK 287 
 
 Prince Wolfgang came up to me and 
 asked some sensible questions about our 
 English method of recruiting cavalry, then 
 lapsed into his favourite topic of surgery 
 and discussed wounds. He had the Ger- 
 man way of contradicting you flat when he 
 disagreed, but otherwise he was a pattern 
 of good manners. 
 
 His wife, the Princess Ursula, inquired 
 who I was, and then eyed me askance. I 
 overheard her remark to a general that the 
 English army only fought negroes, and 
 that British cavalry officers went into 
 action with bottles of soda-water and 
 brandy in their holsters. 
 . I suspect that the Princess Ursula must 
 have heard on the very evening of her 
 arrival, through maid-servants, that there 
 was something between me and the 
 Princess Dot, for she scrutinised me more
 
 288 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 closely than was required, and fixed a keen 
 eye on all the Princess's movements. The 
 Grand-duke Rothbart had drawn his chair 
 close to Princess Dot's, and was paying 
 his court to her by saying how he would 
 smash up the French whenever he met 
 them. She listened with the greatest 
 affectation of interest, clasping her jewelled 
 hands, giggling and sighing. At last 
 when the time came for the ladies to 
 retire she held out her hand to the Grand- 
 duke, who embraced It, after which she 
 danced up to Princess Ursula in a girlish 
 sort of way, and whispered something 
 which made the elder Princess endeavour 
 to look amiable and congratulatory. 
 
 All this was nothing to me, for I should 
 as soon have condescended to be jealous 
 of a jackanapes as of Grand-duke Roth- 
 bart. Besides, I had plenty to do in
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 providing amusements for the Princes 
 guests. We were in August, and the 
 shooting season had begun. Since Tris- 
 tan's death the head gamekeeper took his 
 orders from me ; and by the Prince's desire 
 I undertook to make up the shooting 
 parties. 
 
 VOL. I 19
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 We shot over the hills and woods on the 
 farther shore of the lake. Our keepers, 
 beaters, and loaders formed quite a host, 
 and the game was abundant. Hares were 
 especially plentiful. A common ' bag ' for 
 twenty guns would comprise 500 hares, 
 800 partridges and pheasants, and a score 
 of roebuck, besides a number of owls, 
 kites, foxes, and polecats. 
 
 I had to assign the places, and always 
 kept near Prince Roderick, taking what 
 game came to me with the rest. The 
 Prince was no more than a fair shot, and I
 
 CHAP. XVII PRINCE RODERICK 291 
 
 had to finish off a good many hares and 
 birds which he had merely winged. Prince 
 Wolfgang rarely missed. I saw him knock 
 over three hares which had started up 
 together : the first brace rolling over be- 
 fore his two barrels, and the third being 
 hit, at a long shot, by the second gun, 
 which he took from his loader's hands. 
 The Grand -duke of Weniggeld was a 
 poor performer ; but he had an invariable 
 joke, which consisted in exclaiming when 
 he got an unmissable shot, ' If that fellow 
 were only a Frenchman ! — bang, bang ! you 
 see he's got it.' His Serene Highness 
 always gave the supposed Frenchman the 
 benefit of both barrels, and most of his 
 birds were picked up in a state of hash. 
 
 We lunched under the trees, where 
 tables were spread for us, or in one of 
 the many shooting-lodges — pretty houses
 
 292 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 with broad verandahs and antlered stags' 
 heads decorating all the walls. The ladies 
 joined us at lunch, and Princess Ursula 
 always testified her contempt, so far as 
 good breeding would allow, at the pro- 
 fusion of cold viands and French wines. 
 
 ' No thank you, give me some mutton 
 stew, please,' she would say, rejecting 
 galantine and raised pies. There was 
 always some hot dish prepared by a 
 keeper's wife, and on this the Princess 
 fed, addinof slabs of Emmenthaler cheese 
 and draughts of Bavarian beer. 
 
 The Grand-duke Rothbart did not dis- 
 dain Gallic pd^es and Burgundy, but as he 
 thought Burgundy and Champagne were 
 provinces which ought to belong to Ger- 
 many, and would be conquered by him some 
 day, he flattered himself that he was only 
 enjoying his own by drinking their wines.
 
 XVII PRINCE RODERICK 293 
 
 Through a piece of customary sycophancy, 
 at which I connived, the head keeper 
 always creamed off a large percentage of 
 my ' bag ' and added it to the Grand-duke's, 
 so that his Serene Highness might be able 
 to cock his head at table when the scores 
 were read out. In this he never failed, 
 and the Princess Dot would chirp admir- 
 ingly— 
 
 ' How beautifully your Highness shoots ! 
 What sangfroid it must require to kill one 
 of those ugly foxes when he comes along, 
 gnashing his teeth. Oh, I know I should 
 run away and throw down my gun for him 
 to bite.' 
 
 The use of French terms plagued the 
 Princess Ursula extremely, so that one day 
 she inquired, with a forced smile, ' Is there 
 no German word for sangfroid, dearest 
 Dorothea ? '
 
 294 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 ' I daresay there is, dearest Ursula,' 
 answered her cousin ; ' but I am so dtoitrdie. 
 I sometimes forget the German for part- 
 ridge from always meeting with the bird as 
 perdrix aux choiix. ' 
 
 ' The mission of France is to cook for 
 Germany,' interposed Grand -duke Roth- 
 bart sententiously. 
 
 ' Give me my own people to cook for 
 me,' retorted the Princess Ursula indig- 
 nantly, mashing a potato with her fork. 
 ' I have read that during the siege of Paris 
 some French cooks dressed dogs so as to 
 taste like veal. Now I think that only 
 proves the natural deceitfulness of the 
 people. I trust no German will ever de- 
 base himself to make a dog taste otherwise 
 than as dog.' 
 
 ' During the siege even the tough old 
 foxes of the Zoological Gardens must have
 
 XVII PRINCE RODERICK 295 
 
 tasted like ambrosia,' opined the Grand- 
 duke, whom Burgundy was making de- 
 cidedly clever at repartee. 
 
 Half a dozen shooting excursions had 
 passed off without any incident when the 
 day for the Venetian night y^^^ arrived. It 
 was to be 2, fete indoors and out ; the island 
 to be lit up algiorno, and everybody to wear 
 masks and dominoes. For this entertain- 
 ment a great many guests were invited 
 from the capital, and came down in a 
 special train ; among them Harold Crowe 
 and Sir George Malmsey, who was attended 
 by a second Secretary of the Legation, Mr. 
 Mildmay Milkinson. 
 
 Sir George was anxious to ascertain 
 from me how things were going on at the 
 palace. ' Confoundedly queer place, eh ! 
 what ? Money chucked out in shovelfuls, 
 I suppose. No news of the murderer
 
 296 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 yet ? Coming down in the train I bet 
 Milkinson a guinea to a baked apple that 
 this marriage between the Grand -duke 
 and the Princess Dorothea would never 
 come off. You see if Milkinson don't 
 have to pay me my baked apple.' 
 
 Mr. Milkinson was one of those young 
 diplomatists who, having lived abroad since 
 his moustaches began growing, had ceased 
 to belong to his native land without having 
 got acclimatised elsewhere. When he went 
 home on leave he always prophesied the 
 early annihilation of England by coalitions 
 of foreign fleets, and was shocked to find his 
 warnings received with unbecoming levity. 
 He could speak no German, and thought it 
 a hardship to be paid for living in a German 
 country (the Foreign Office had not yet 
 discovered a country which exactly pleased 
 him). Mr. Milkinson attempted to be affable
 
 XVII PRINCE RODERICK 297 
 
 with all conditions of men ; but his life 
 was not without its severe trials, for English 
 merchants, inventors, widows, orphans, and 
 people of that kind, kept bringing com- 
 plaints to the Legation, and obliging 
 him to write letters — ' All of which is 
 Consular business, you know,' as he feel- 
 ingly explained in recounting his tribu- 
 lations. ' It's desperate hard lines that 
 you can't get Englishmen to understand 
 what a Legation is.' 
 
 Harold Crowe felt an unkind antipathy 
 to Mr. Milkinson, and was for playing some 
 practical jokes on him, but I gave a more 
 useful direction to his energies by getting 
 him to help me in the preparations for the 
 night /SU — all the administrative business 
 of which fell to me. 
 
 The palace was now over full, and we 
 had to billet guests for the night in the
 
 298 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 park lodges, at the Swan Inn, and in some 
 of the villas of the valley. An enormous 
 consignment of masks, dominoes, and black 
 wide-awakes had been sent from Sabel- 
 burg, and a vestiary had to be organised 
 where the visitors could go and choose 
 what fitted them. Refreshment tents were 
 meanwhile being erected in the park, and 
 innkeepers from the neighbourhood as- 
 sembled to take charge of them. Thus 
 Andreas Riedl came with his daughter 
 Lisbeth, and Frida Sliss, the pretty goose- 
 girl, to assist. 
 
 The launch was steaming to and fro 
 from the shore all the morning, and bring- 
 ing so many unknown faces to the island 
 that I did not like it at all. I knew, how- 
 ever, that this Venetian fete had been 
 planned on purpose that the Princess Dot 
 might have an hour's unrestrained inter-
 
 XVII PRINCE RODERICK 299 
 
 course with me. In the only five minutes 
 of privacy which she was able to snatch for 
 me during ten days, she had told me that 
 she would insist upon everybody's being 
 masked from nine o'clock till supper at 
 midnight, and that she herself would meet 
 me under a certain tree at ten o'clock, 
 wearing a domino with cherry -coloured 
 streamers on both shoulders. 
 
 ' Then we will have a talk, my Ferdi- 
 nand,' she added, letting me take both her 
 hands, 'for I love you as much as ever — 
 no, a thousand times more than ever.' 
 
 It was reassuring to hear that my 
 charmer's affection was undiminished, 
 though I have already confessed that I 
 was not modest enough to fear the Grand- 
 duke Rothbart as a rival ; but on the other 
 hand, I could not help fearing that there 
 might be danger to Prince Roderick in all
 
 PRINCE RODERICK 
 
 this masking. With so many strange people 
 about, what could be more easy than for 
 an assassin to approach him ? It seemed 
 ridiculous to take such minute precautions 
 as we did every day, and to throw these 
 all overboard for a whole evening. 
 
 A discovery which I made a few hours 
 before the masqzte began added consider- 
 ably to my apprehensions. I was now in 
 charge of the gun-room, and, thinking I 
 would make all safe in that quarter, I went 
 to remove the ammunition and look to the 
 fastenings of the doors. 
 
 As I w^as taking a survey of the racks, 
 my eye fell upon the swan-shot gun with 
 which Tristan had been killed. The place 
 where it used to stand had remained 
 vacant since Tristan's death ; but now the 
 gun had been restored to its old position. 
 There was no mistaking it, for it bore a
 
 XVII PRINCE RODERICK 301 
 
 number, and I knew that number by 
 heart. 
 
 If some power could endow inanimate 
 objects with the faculty of speaking but for 
 a moment ! I handled the gun, scrutinising 
 every part of it for a chance testimony 
 which might convict its late possessor. It 
 had been cleaned since last used : the 
 breech was well oiled, and the interior of 
 the barrels sparkled like glass. Whoever 
 had last shot with it, the man was a cool 
 hand. 
 
 Only the Prince and I ought to have 
 had keys of the gun-room, but a third key 
 might exist for all I knew, or somebody 
 might have abstracted the Prince's key. 
 The door lock had not been tampered 
 with, but it was a common lock which 
 many keys not made for it might fit. 
 Tantalising to madness was it to reflect
 
 302 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 that the gun must have been replaced on 
 that ver}' day, and that the murderer was 
 possibly moving about the grounds now, 
 chuckling at his absolute immunity from 
 suspicion. I was certain that the gun had 
 not been in the rack the day before. 
 
 Of course I sought the Prince at once. 
 I found him half-seated on the parapet of 
 a terrace, one leg dangling and a cane 
 swinging in his hand, as he talked alone 
 with Prince Wolfgang. I expected he 
 would hear me in private, but apparently 
 he did not wish his cousin to suspect that 
 there were secrets between us, for he told 
 me to speak out. 
 
 He turned pale as I delivered my com- 
 munication, but afterwards exhibited more 
 annoyance than alarm. He had been in a 
 happy mood for some days, and the con- 
 versation which I had just interrupted
 
 XVII PRINXE RODERICK 303 
 
 with Prince Wolfgang was evidently inter- 
 esting to him. The gloomy recollections 
 of Tristan's death now cropping up again 
 suddenly dashed his spirits. 'What can I 
 do?' he said fretfully. 'You ought to 
 have had a patent lock put on the door of 
 the gun-room.' 
 
 ' There Is one thing which ought to be 
 done without delay,' said Prince Wolfgang, 
 with military precision. ' Order that no 
 one shall leave the island. Summon 
 everybody, guests and servants, explain 
 what has happened, and ask If any one 
 was seen to enter or leave the gun-room 
 to-day. Out of the crowd may come 
 a witness.' 
 
 The suggestion was not bad, but Prince 
 Roderick rejected It. ' No, it would spoil 
 the night fete,' he said. 'There is one 
 consolation In this, that as the murderer
 
 304 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 has put the gun back he does not mean to 
 shoot me with it/ 
 
 ' Shall you wear a mask to-night ? ' 
 asked Prince Wolfgang. 
 
 ' Yes ; we shall all be masked, and the 
 men will wear wide-awakes of the same 
 pattern, so that I shall be safer in the 
 crowd than I ever was in my life.' 
 
 ' I think you ought to have some means 
 of communicating with your guards, sir,' I 
 said ; ' a whistle, for instance, which would 
 bring me to any particular spot when I 
 heard it.' 
 
 ' Certainly,' interposed Prince Wolfgang. 
 
 'Very well then, I'll take my dog- 
 whistle,' agreed Prince Roderick indiffer- 
 ently ; and we settled that if he sounded 
 three sharp signals, Sonnenthal and I were 
 to hurry forthwith to a certain summer- 
 house.
 
 XVII PRINCE RODERICK 305 
 
 He did not propose that Stolz should 
 be let into the secret, nor did I ; but I 
 intended that Harold Crowe should be. 
 There was a lot of dog -whistles in the 
 gun-room. I took four, and, giving one 
 apiece to Sonnenthal and Harold, concerted 
 for a second signal — one long tremolo 
 whistle — which might at any moment 
 bring us three together. In my mania for 
 precautions I confided the fourth whistle 
 to Joe Trotman, ordered him to mask, 
 and to keep an eye on the Greeks 
 and Montenegrins, particularly on Bojo 
 Klephtovitch. The private signal be- 
 tween Joe and me was to be the bar of 
 a cavalry trumpet call, which could be 
 easily imitated on the whistle. 
 
 I still had an unshakable suspicion of 
 Bojo Klephtovitch, whose alternations of 
 surliness and obsequiousness towards me 
 
 VOL. I 20
 
 3o6 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 rendered him loathsome. I had got him 
 into good discipline, but he was like an 
 ill -trained hyena, always ready to snap. 
 At evening, when all the preparations were 
 complete and the guests were dressing for 
 dinner, I w^ent for a last round of inspec- 
 tion. The Greek sailors were picturesquely 
 clustered on the steps of the landing-stage 
 in clean blue-striped shirts, white trousers, 
 and red bonnets. The Montenegrins, who 
 were to act as sentries, had donned their 
 smartest gold-embroidered jackets, lambs'- 
 wool bonnets, and scarlet sashes. They 
 were not allowed to carry arms. Bojo 
 alone had an arsenal of silver -mounted 
 flint-lock pistols, and yataghans at his 
 waist. 
 
 'You know the Prince's order about 
 arms, Bojo,' I said. ' The sentries are 
 only to carry sticks and horns.'
 
 XVII PRINCE RODERICK 307 
 
 ' I thought that on a gala day like this, 
 sir ' protested Bojo sulkily. 
 
 * No, you must put aside your arms.' 
 Bojo, whose blood purpled under his 
 
 dark skin, made as though he would 
 tear the whole arsenal from his belt and 
 dash it to the ground ; but he thought 
 better of it, and became abruptly calm. 
 I pretended to take no notice of his ill 
 temper. 
 
 * You didn't see anybody enter or leave 
 the gun-room to-day, Bojo ? ' I inquired, 
 with a searching look, as soon as he was 
 collected. 
 
 ' Yes, sir, I saw you go in this afternoon 
 ^-carrying a gun,' was the prompt answer. 
 
 * Carrying a gun ? What do you mean? 
 I only had a stick.' 
 
 ' Hadn't you, sir ? I can't say, for I 
 wasn't spying. I only saw you as I passed,
 
 3o8 PRINCE RODERICK chap. 
 
 but I could have sworn you were holding 
 a gun.' 
 
 I tried to remember whether I had 
 come to the door of the gun-room fowling- 
 piece in hand, and it occurred to me that I 
 had ; but liking the fellow's manner less 
 and less I said, ' The gun with whicih 
 Tristan was shot has been replaced in the 
 gun-room.' 
 
 ' You know the gun then, sir ? ' 
 
 * We have only suspicions ; but in any 
 case a certain gun which was stolen from 
 the armoury has been replaced, and 20,000 
 marks would be paid to any one who told 
 us who had replaced it.' 
 
 ' You would pay that money, sir ? ' 
 asked Bojo with an unmistakable sneer. 
 
 ' Not I, but the Prince.' 
 
 ' Aye ; I thought the offer didn't come 
 from you, sir.'
 
 XVII PRINCE RODERICK 309 
 
 ' What do you mean, man ? ' 
 
 ' I meant nothing, sir, but that I thought 
 that the money wouldn't come from you ; 
 and you tell me I'm right.' 
 
 Not seeing the fellow's drift, I turned 
 away and went indoors to dinner, 
 
 END OF VOL. I 
 
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