The Sign Of Flame Part 12

"Your Highnesses do not need to look at them," suggested Stadinger. "I look out that the servants do not come into the castle, but if Your Highness goes into the kitchen like the day before yesterday----"

"Well, must I not inspect my servants at times? But I shall not go into the kitchen a second time--you have taken care of that. I have my suspicions that you have gathered here all the very ugliest of the Wald to celebrate my arrival. You ought to be ashamed, Stadinger."

The old man looked sharply and fixedly into his master's eyes, and his voice sounded very impressive as he answered:

"I am not ashamed a bit, Your Highness. When the late Prince, Your Highness' father, gave me this post of rest he said to me, 'Keep order at Rodeck, Stadinger--I rely upon you.' Well, I have kept order for twelve years in the castle, and in my house particularly, and I shall do that in future. Has Your Highness any orders for me?"

"No, you old, rude thing," cried the Prince, half laughing, half angry.

"Make haste and get away. We do not need any curtain lectures."

Stadinger obeyed. He saluted and marched off.

Rojanow looked after him and shrugged his shoulders sarcastically.

"I admire your patience, Egon. You allow your servants very far-reaching liberty."

"Stadinger is an exception," replied Egon. "He allows himself everything; but he was not so much in the wrong when he sent Lena away.

I believe I should have done the same in his place."

"But it is not the first time that this old castle-keeper has taken it upon himself to call you and me to order. If I were his master he would have his dismissal in the next hour."

"If I tried that it would turn out badly for me," laughed the Prince.

"Such old family heirlooms, who have served for three generations, and have carried the children in their arms, will be treated with respect.

I cannot gain anything there with orders and prohibitions. Peter Stadinger does what he will, and occasionally lectures me just as he sees fit."

"If you suffer it--such a thing is incomprehensible to me."

"Yes, it is a thing you do not comprehend, Hartmut," said Egon more seriously. "You know only the slavish submission of the servants in your country and the Orient. They kneel and bow at every opportunity, yet steal and betray their masters whenever they can and know how.

Stadinger is of an enviable simplicity. My 'Highness' does not intimidate him in the least. He often tells me the hardest things to my face; but I could put hundreds of thousands in his hands--he would not defraud me of one iota of it. If Rodeck were in flames and I in the midst of it, the old man, with all his sixty years, would stand by me without a second thought. All this is different with us in Germany."

"Yes; with you in Germany," repeated Hartmut slowly, and his glance was lost dreamily in the dusk of the forest.

"Are you still so prejudiced against it?" asked Egon. "It cost me persuasion and prayers enough to get you to accompany me here--you fought so against entering German territory."

"I wish I had not entered it," said Rojanow, gloomily. "You know----"

"That all sorts of bitter remembrances have their origin here for you--yes, you have told me that; but you must have been a boy then.

Have you not yet overcome the grudge against it? You have the most obstinate reticence, anyway, upon this point. I have not yet heard what it really was that----"

"Egon, I beg of you, leave the subject," interrupted Hartmut, harshly.

"I have told you once for all that I cannot and will not speak of it.

If you mistrust me, let me go. I have not forced myself upon you, you know that; but I cannot bear these inquiries and questions."

The proud, inconsiderate tone which he used toward his friend did not seem to be anything new to the Prince. He merely shrugged his shoulders and said pacifyingly:

"How irritable you are again to-day! I believe you are right when you insist that German air makes you nervous. You are entirely changed since you put foot on this soil."

"It is possible. I feel that I torture you and myself with these whims; therefore let me go, Egon."

"I know better! Have I taken so much pains to catch you, just to let you fly off again now? No, no, Hartmut, I shall not let you go by any means."

The words sounded playful, but Rojanow seemed to take them wrongly. His eyes lighted up almost threateningly as he returned:

"And what if I _will_ leave?"

"Then I shall hold you like this."

With an indescribably charming expression, Egon threw his arm around his friend's shoulder. "And I shall ask if this bad, obstinate Hartmut can bring his conscience to desert me. We have lived together almost two years, and have shared danger and joy like two brothers, and now you would storm out into the world again without asking about me. Am I, then, so little to you?"

Such warm, heartfelt beseeching was in the words that Rojanow's irritation could not live. His eyes lit up with an expression which showed that he returned just as intensely the pa.s.sionate, enthusiastic affection which the young Prince bore him, even if he was, in their mutual relationship, the domineering one.

"Do you believe that for the sake of any one else I would have come to Germany?" he asked in a low voice. "Forgive me, Egon. I am an unstable nature. I have never been able to stay long in any place since--since my boyhood."

"Then learn it now here at my home," cried Egon. "I came to Rodeck especially to show you my country in its entire beauty. This old edifice, which nestles in the midst of the deep forest like a fairy castle, is a piece of forest poetry such as you could not find in any of my other possessions. I know your taste--but I must really leave you now. You will not drive with me over to Furstenstein?"

"No; I will enjoy your much-praised forest poetry, which, it appears, is already tiresome to you, as you wish to make calls."

"Yes; I am no poet like you, who can dream and be enthused all day,"

said Egon, laughing. "We have led the life of hermits for a full week, and I cannot live on sunshine and forest perfume and the curtain lectures of Stadinger alone. I need people, and the Chief Forester is about the only person in the neighborhood. Besides, this Herr von Schonan is a splendid, jolly man. You will yet meet and know him, too."

He motioned to the waiting carriage, gave his hand to his friend, sprang to his seat and rolled away.

CHAPTER XI.

Rojanow looked after him until the vehicle had disappeared behind the trees, then he turned and took one of the paths which led into the forest. He carried his gun over his shoulder, but evidently did not think of hunting. Lost in thought, he walked further and further aimlessly, without noticing the road or direction, until deepest forest loneliness surrounded him.

Prince Adelsberg was right; he knew his friend's taste. This forest poetry took full possession of him. He finally came to a standstill and drew a deep breath, but the cloud upon his brow would not dispel; it grew darker and darker as he leaned against the trunk of a tree and allowed his eyes to roam about. Something not of peace or joy was depicted in those beautiful features, which all the sunny beauty around could not erase.

He saw this country for the first time; his former home was far removed in the northern part of Germany; nothing here reminded him directly of the past, and yet just here something awoke in him which seemed to have long been dead--something which had not made itself felt in all those years when he crossed oceans and countries, when intoxicating waves of life surrounded him and he drank with full thirsty draughts the freedom for which he had sacrificed so much--everything.

The old German woods! They rustled here in the south as up there in the familiar north; the same breath floated through the firs and oaks here which whispered there in the crowns of the pines; the same voice which had once been so familiar to the boy when he lay upon the mossy forest soil. He had heard many other voices since, some coaxing and flattering, some intoxicating and enthusiastic, but this voice sounded so grave and yet so sweet in the rustling of the forest trees--the fatherland spoke to the lost son!

Something moved yonder in the bushes. Hartmut looked up indifferently, thinking that some game was pa.s.sing through, but instead of that he saw the glimmer of a light dress. A lady emerged from a narrow side path which wound through the forest, and stood still, apparently undecided as to the direction she ought to take.

Rojanow had started at the unexpected sight. It awoke him suddenly from his dream and called him back to reality. The stranger had also noticed him. She, too, seemed surprised, but only for a moment; then she drew near and said with a slight bow: "May I ask you, sir, to show me the road to Furstenstein? I am a stranger here and have lost my way in my walk. I fear I have wandered considerably from my path."

Hartmut had scanned the appearance of the young lady with a quick glance, and immediately decided to act as guide. Although he did not know the road about which she had asked--knew only the direction in which it lay--it troubled him but little. He made a deeply polite bow.

"I place myself entirely at your service, gracious Fraulein.

Furstenstein is, indeed, rather far from here, and you cannot possibly find the road by yourself, so I must beg you to accept my escort."

The lady seemed to have expected the right direction to be pointed out, and the proffered escort was evidently not especially welcome, but she may have been afraid of losing her way a second time, and the perfect politeness with which the offer was made scarcely left her any choice.

She bowed after a moment's hesitation and replied: "I shall be very much obliged to you. Please let us go."