The Youth of the Great Elector Part 12

"And to-morrow night the nuptials must take place!" cried the count.

The Princess shrank back and a glowing blush overspread her cheeks. "So soon--to-morrow night?" she murmured. "My G.o.d! this haste--"

"Is necessary, if the marriage is ever to take place at all, Princess.

There is a common but very wise proverb which says, 'Strike while the iron is hot.' Strike, Princess, strike, for I tell you what does not happen to-morrow night will be utterly impossible the day after. We have fortunately our secret agents everywhere, as well here as at the courts of Berlin and Konigsberg, and we therefore know that both Count Schwarzenberg and the Elector have sent their messengers here to induce the Electoral Prince to a speedy departure, and to threaten him with his father's wrath in case he should allow himself to marry the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine."

"But that is abominable!" cried the Princess, with tears in her eyes. "One of these messengers," continued the count, "and indeed the messenger of Count Schwarzenberg, as I suspect, has already arrived this evening, and the Electoral Prince has already received him. The other will probably come to-morrow, and if you then still delay, if you do not surprise the Prince in the first storm of his indignation, and thereby lead him to bind himself to you by a secret marriage, then all is lost, and the two powers Hollandine and France are conquered by Brandenburg and Austria."

"That shall not be!" cried the Princess, jumping up, and with hasty steps moving to and fro. "No, we are not to be conquered! They shall not tear my beloved from me!"

"Well, Princess, if you are firmly resolved, then I beg as a favor to be allowed to be of service to you."

"Yes, help me--advise me."

"I have counted upon your love and your energy, Princess, and therefore have already drawn up a stated plan. Will you hear it?"

"Not merely hear, but execute it, too, if it is at all practicable," cried Ludovicka, while she remained standing in the center of the room, and turned her large, flaming eyes upon the count, who had likewise arisen and advanced smilingly toward her.

"Well, then, Princess, the plan is short and simple. The Prince makes you to-night his offer of marriage."

"Yes, this very night," said she, proudly.

"He swears that he will marry you as soon as possible."

"Oh, you may be sure of that; he will swear it to me."

"Own to him that you have friends on whose aid and a.s.sistance you can count, but let him not suspect who these friends are. Then lead the conversation to the Media Nocte--But, my heavens!" exclaimed the count, interrupting himself, while he looked as if accidentally at the clock, "it only wants now a few minutes of two o'clock, and the Electoral Prince will certainly come punctually, and therefore will be here directly. I have written out all that it is necessary that you will have the complaisance to do between this and to-morrow. Read it over at your leisure, and impress it rightly upon your mind. Here is the paper, and may my writing find a hearing and favor! If such be the case, as I hope and desire, then will your highness have the goodness to open your window a little at ten o'clock and display from it an orange-colored ribbon. All the rest will take care of itself, and what your highness has to do is on the paper. I hasten to withdraw, that your highness may have time to read my writing."

"But if the Prince should come now?" asked Ludovicka anxiously--"if he should see a man descending from my window?"

"You are right, Princess; that is to be dreaded; and I, too, have considered that. I will not leave through the window."

"Not through the window? But in what other way would you--"

"Go away, would you say? By yonder door! I know perfectly well that it leads into the Princess's private apartment, and thence into the antechamber. Oh, I know the Castle Doornward well, for is it not the residence of the Electress of the Palatinate and her fair daughter the Princess? Therefore I have had drawn out for myself an exact plan of it. Moreover, your waiting maid Alice awaits me in the antechamber.

Forgive her for not having been able to withstand the persuasions of her compatriot, the magician Ducato. Alice will permit me to slip out of the castle by a back door. And now, adored Princess and exalted Electress of the future, permit your most faithful and devoted servant ere he depart once more to press your beloved hand to his lips, and to tell you how inexpressibly happy--and, alas! how inexpressibly wretched--it makes him that he can and--must a.s.sist in marrying the Princess Ludovicka to the Electoral Prince."

With a bewitching smile the Princess held out her hand to him. "Count d'Entragues," she said, "I shall be eternally grateful to you for your self-sacrifice and good faith. I shall esteem myself happy if some day I may find an opportunity of proving this to you. Farewell!"

He pressed a long, glowing kiss upon her hand. "Farewell!" he said. "When I see you again, Princess, I shall accompany you to the altar, and must witness the transformation of the Princess Ludovicka into an Electoral Princess of Brandenburg, and in my heart will be prayers, but also tears!

Farewell!"

He sprang up, crossed the room with light, quick steps, unbolted the door, and vanished behind the curtain. The Princess watched him until he had disappeared, and, after she had convinced herself that he was actually gone, and had bolted the door again, she took out the paper and read over its contents slowly and with most serious attention.

As she read, brighter and brighter became her face, constantly more radiant the smile upon her rosy lips. "Yes," she cried, after she had twice read it through, "that will do--it shall be so! To-morrow in the Media Nocte I will--"

A loud shrill whistle sounded. "He comes!" whispered she, "he comes!"

With trembling hands she thrust the paper into a casket belonging to her writing table, and hurried to the window to open it and lower the rope ladder.

At this moment the whistle rang forth for the second time, its tones following one another in quick succession.

"It is he--it is my beloved," murmured Ludovicka, and with a happy smile she listened out into the night.

II.--THE ELECTORAL PRINCE.

The Princess had not long to wait. The groaning and creaking of the rope ladder already betrayed the presence of its burden. Ludovicka leaned farther out of the window and saw the dark shadow mount higher and higher; already she heard his breath, and now--oh, now he was there, swung himself in at the window, and without saying a word, without seeing anything but herself, only herself alone. He fell on his knees before the Princess, flung both arms round her waist, and, looking up at her with a beaming smile, whispered, "I thank you, Ludovicka, I thank you!"

She bent down to him with an expression of unutterable love, and their bright eyes met in a tender glance. They formed a beautiful picture, those two youthful figures combining in so lovely a group. She, bending over him with a look brimful of love, he gazing up at her with animated, radiant eyes. The full light of the wax candles in the silver chandelier illuminated his countenance, and Ludovicka looked down upon him with a smile as blissful as if she had now seen him for the first time.

"You are handsome," she whispered, softly, while with her white hand she stroked his dark-brown hair, which fell in long waving curls, like the mane of a lion, over both powerful shoulders. "Yes, you are handsome," she smilingly repeated, and playfully pa.s.sed her hand over his features, over the lofty, thoughtful brow, the energetic, slightly prominent, aquiline nose, over the full glowing lips, which breathed an ardent kiss upon the hand that glided past.

"Now let me look into your eyes and see what is written in them,"

continued Ludovicka, and she stooped lower over the kneeling youth, and looked long into those large, dark-blue eyes, which gazed up at her, l.u.s.trous and bright as two twinkling stars.

"Have you read what is in my eyes?" he asked, after a long pause, in which only their glances and their beating hearts had spoken to one another.

"Have you read it, my Ludovicka?"

With a charmingly pouting expression she shook her head. "No," said she sadly, "I can not read it, or perhaps there is nothing in them, or at least nothing for me!"

He jumped up, and, throwing his arms around her neck, leaned his face close against hers, flashed his burning glance deep into her eyes, and in doing so smiled a blissful, childlike smile.

"Now read," he said, almost imperiously--"read and tell me what is in my eyes!"

She slowly shook her head. "There is nothing in them," she whispered.

"But, indeed, how can I know? The Electoral Prince Frederick William is so very learned, and it is only my own fault that I can not read what is in his eyes. It is written in Latin, or perhaps in Greek!"

"No, you mischievous, you cruel one," cried he impatiently. "You just will not understand and read what is plainly and intelligibly written in my eyes. My heart speaks neither Latin nor Greek, but German, and the eyes are the lips with which the heart speaks."

"Well then, tell me, Cousin Frederick William, what is in your eyes?"

"I will tell you, Cousin Ludovicka Hollandine. They say: I love you! I love you! And nothing but I love you!"

"But whom? To whom are these three little words addressed?"

"To you, you heartless, you wicked one, to you are these words addressed.

But not little words are they, as you say; they are great words, full of meaning: for a world, a whole human life, my whole future, lies in these three words--I love you."

He embraced her and pressed her close to his heart, and Ludovicka leaned her head upon his shoulder and looked up at him with moist and glowing eyes. He nodded smilingly to her, and then took her head between his two hands and gazed long and rapturously upon her beautiful face.

"So I have you at last, and hold you, my golden b.u.t.terfly," he said gently. "You are mine at last, and I hold you fast by your transparent wings, so that you can not flutter away from me again to fly up to the sun, the flowers, the trees! O my b.u.t.terfly! you pretty creature, made of ethereal dust and rainbow splendor, of air and suns.h.i.+ne, of lightning flashes and icy coldness, are you actually mine, then? May I trust you?

Think not I am only a poor little flower on which you may smilingly rock yourself an hour in the suns.h.i.+ne, and enjoy the perfume which mounts up from its heart's blood, and the love songs which its sighs waft to you in the breeze! Tell me, you b.u.t.terfly, will you no more flutter away, but be true and never more distress and torment me?"

"I have never wished to distress and torment you, cousin."