CHAPTER TWENTY

BERNHARDT DISTURBED

While the woman whom he had helped to a throne was being secretly married to George Trafford, Father Bernhardt was sitting alone in his private apartments in the Neptunburg. The room he had chosen for his use was a small chamber on the second floor, overlooking the courtyard. The blinds were drawn, the electric light was burning, and the ex-priest was seated in a comfortable arm-chair reading the poems of Paul Verlaine. At his side were a wine-glass and a big _carafe_ containing a pale green viscous fluid. He seemed to be enjoying his relaxation, for a smile constantly flitted across his face, and as some mordant line appealed more especially to his grim humour he would repeat it several times out loud in manifest appreciation. From time to time he sipped the fluid at his elbow, and it was remarkable that each time he did so he cast a quick look behind him as if fully expecting to see someone.

A rap at the door brought a slight frown to his brow, and the knock had to be repeated before he gave the necessary permission to enter. The intruder was Von Hügelweiler.

"Well, what is it, Captain?" asked Bernhardt impatiently.

Von Hügelweiler's glance took in the nature of the other man's diversion, and a suspicion of contempt showed itself in his curling lip.

"I have news, sir," he said.

"Out with it!"

"Karl is alive!"

"So Gottfried said. The Iron Maiden seems to have grown humane in her old age."

Hügelweiler studied the man whose influence was then paramount in Weidenbruck, and his contempt grew. In common with others, he had been wont to fear Bernhardt. The burning eyes, the quick, imperious brain, the general air of reckless strength were things that impressed the well-born soldier, as they impressed the low-born mob. But Bernhardt sipping absinthe was a different person from the fire-brand of the revolution, and Hügelweiler realised that the lethargic sensualist of the arm-chair needed strong words to rouse him.

"The Iron Maiden has not grown humane," he said, "but there is a traitor in our midst."

Bernhardt sipped pensively.

"How very interesting!" he said.

"Very!" echoed Hügelweiler scornfully. "Before Karl was put into the _Eisenmädchen_ someone had removed the spikes. The pretended execution was nothing more nor less than a scheme to save the King's life."

"A most ingenious scheme."

Von Hügelweiler banged his fist on the table.

"That is one piece of news!" he cried irritably. "It does not seem to move you very deeply; perhaps my second item will affect you more. The Queen has just gone through the ceremony of marriage with Trafford the American!"

Again Bernhardt raised his glass.

"I drink to the happy pair," he said blandly.

Hügelweiler almost screamed with vexation.

"It is scandalous!" he protested, almost with tears in his eyes. "The thing must be annulled. The Queen of Grimland must not wed a commoner, a foreign adventurer, a man who at a crisis turns traitor and saves the dethroned King's life."

A spark of interest glinted into the ex-priest's eye.

"By the way," he asked, "how did you find all this out?"

The question let loose a fresh flood of indignation from the Captain. In tones of choking wrath he told how he had been forbidden the royal presence, and how Trafford had been accorded instant admission.

"That was too much for a man of my kidney," he went on. "I brushed aside the young fool who was doing duty on guard, and I followed this American pig down the corridor. I found myself in the chapel, and I hid myself in the gloom behind a pew. Then I overheard things--pretty things, pretty speeches, tales of the American's mercy, how he had saved the King's life because he disliked killing a brave man. Then these two,--the Queen of Grimland and the traitor who should have been immured in the Strafeburg,--kissed each other and were made man and wife by a damned old fool in a cassock."

"Always speak respectfully of the Church, my son," said Bernhardt with exasperating mockery. "I was, myself, one of its most shining ornaments."

"Can nothing rouse you to the seriousness of the situation?" demanded the Captain in despair.

Again Bernhardt sipped. Then he leaned back, and a slow smile spread over his face.

"You don't drink absinthe, do you, Captain?"

"No," replied the other with an expression of disgust.

"It is a strange fluid," went on Bernhardt thoughtfully. "Sometimes it clears the brain, so that one sees with extraordinary distinctness. But sometimes it obfuscates the reasoning powers, so that one cannot distinguish right from wrong. For instance, at the present moment, _Herr_ Trafford's action appears to me not a wicked, but a positively virtuous one. He saved a man from a cruel death and delivers him to freedom instead of torture."

"But the man was Karl!" expostulated Von Hügelweiler.

"I loved Karl," returned Bernhardt, unmoved, "I loved and hated him. You,--not being an _absintheur_,--cannot understand the curious mental pose that loves and hates the same being at the same time. Also I love Herr Trafford. He got me out of the Strafeburg."

Von Hügelweiler made a gesture of despair. He felt he was talking to a madman, one on whom sense and argument were useless and unavailing.

"But the marriage!" he said, raising his voice unconsciously to a shout in the desperate effort to drive home his point. "The marriage must be cancelled! When the truth is known that Trafford helped Karl to escape he will become the most hated man in Weidenbruck. The Queen must never unite her fortunes with such a creature."

Bernhardt gaped, as if the matter had begun to bore him.

"Then the truth must not be known," he said, between his yawns.

"But it shall be known!" cried the soldier angrily. "I shall proclaim it myself from the housetops. The mad American must be whipped out of the country."

"Captain von Hügelweiler," said the ex-priest solemnly, "just now I was enjoying two things: some deliciously bitter poetry and some deliciously bitter liquid. At the present moment I am incapacitated by your disturbing presence from enjoying either. Do I make myself plain?"

Von Hügelweiler turned to go with a stifled oath.

"A fine time for dissipation!" he said, as a parting shaft. "The fortunes of the country are at stake, and Bernhardt, Father Bernhardt, the people's leader, the man of the hour, swills absinthe and absorbs the pernicious writings of a decadent poetaster."

In a flash the ex-priest was on his feet, with blazing eyes and an air of almost terrible menace. Von Hügelweiler thought he had been talking to a sodden drunkard. He found himself confronted by the embodiment of masterful and savage energy.

"You fool!" cried Bernhardt in tones of withering contempt. "May not a man rest? May not a strange man rest in a strange way? I do the work of a hundred--must not the brain be fed and the nerves braced to meet the strain?"

The Captain shrugged his shoulders weakly. Despite his own strong feelings, the other's imperiousness cowed him.

"Go!" continued Bernhardt, pointing to the door. "Go, and hold your peace! Tell nobody this tale of Karl's escape and who contrived it. Tell no one this tale of the secret marriage in the Chapel Royal. I forbid you to speak. The nation's destinies are in my keeping, not yours."

Von Hügelweiler went to the door, smarting under the lash of the tongue.

"Has the American bewitched you, as he has bewitched Gloria von Schattenberg?" he asked, summoning up a spark of courage before quitting the room.

"Aye," retorted Bernhardt, "he has certain very fascinating qualities. He is a man, Von Hügelweiler. Pray to your God, if you believe in Him, to make you one."

And with an oath on his lips, and wrath and rebellion in his heart, Von Hügelweiler flung himself from the ex-priest's chamber.