Part 76 (1/2)

And did you not tell me you loved Helen?”

”More than my life!”

”And you refused all that splendor to remain faithful to your old flag?”

Oswald shook his head.

”No, Berger!” he said; ”I am not good and great enough for that, as you think in your goodness and greatness. She could never be mine. Too many things had happened that could never be forgiven and forgotten. I had preferred others to her, and she had preferred another man to me. That Prince Waldenberg was her betrothed.”

”Why do you say _was_?”

”Because I found them leaving town. She had recollected at the last moment that she had a heart in her bosom whose longing not all the riches of the world could satisfy.”

”Strange! strange!” murmured Berger. ”You, both of you: the baron's son who makes common cause with the people, and the low-born man's son who sits among princes, are rivals for the favor of the same lady! And she rejects you because she has no suspicion of your n.o.ble birth, and she accepts the prince because she thinks that the same blood flows in his veins, of which he is so proud! What a pity the world does not know this and must not know it! They might possibly find out then what the difference is between n.o.ble blood and common blood!”

”You, at all events, do not seem to value the difference quite as much as formerly. I can remember the time when you thought it morally impossible to be the friend of a n.o.bleman.”

”You allude to my friends.h.i.+p with Oldenburg,” said Berger, calmly. ”I tell you, Oswald, if there ever was a man who deserved to be loved and honored, Oldenburg is that man. If any man could ever have reconciled me with the world, Oldenburg would have been that man. If I ever could humble myself before any man and acknowledge him to be my lord and master, that man is Oldenburg. I know you hate him because the woman whom you have forsaken thinks more of him than of the whole world. That is not fair, Oswald. Oldenburg has also spoken of you like a friend. I should be very happy, Oswald, if you could be reconciled with each other before I leave you forever.”

”My turn comes first!” said Oswald. ”Do you know what you once told me in Grunwald? 'You will die before me,' you said, 'for the Big Serpent is tough of life, and you are too soft, far too gentle for this hard world.'”

”That was long ago. This last year has made the Big Serpent dull and feeble. But what is that?”

A noise, coming from a low restaurant with steps leading up from the bas.e.m.e.nt, made both men jump up from their seats. They seized their arms and hurried, followed by other men of the same barricade, to the place, where now several shots were fired. These were the same shots which Oldenburg had heard when he was roused from his effort to seek rest on his barricade in Broad street.

CHAPTER XVII.

Albert Timm had stopped, after his violent altercation with Oswald, looking after his faithless friend and laughing so loud and so bitterly that the pa.s.sers-by had looked at him in surprise. Then he had hurried away in another direction, murmuring violent words, gnas.h.i.+ng his teeth, and shaking his hands at imaginary enemies. Albert Timm was savage, and from his point of view he had reason to be furious. He was in a desperate position. The debts he had left behind him in Grunwald and elsewhere were not particularly pressing--he was great in bearing such burdens!--but the small sum he had brought with him to town was at an end; and even if that could be borne, all his bright prospects for a brilliant future had been suddenly blown to the winds and burst like a many-colored soap bubble.

Cursing the world and himself, he had thus walked through several streets before he reached that part of town where the rising was general. He delighted in it not because he had any sympathy with the cause of the people or liberty, but because he felt instinctively that in such times, where all is turned upside down, he--the man without a home, the adventurer--could lose nothing, and possibly gain much. This thought restored to him his full elasticity. He hurrahed merrily with the crowd, he chimed in with the cry: To arms! to arms! and had real pleasure in finding the excitement growing apace as he came nearer the place of his destination, the Dismal Hole. Thus he reached Broad street just at the moment when Oswald and Berger approached it from the other side. He noticed both, also Mr. Schmenckel, who had come by appointment to have an interview with Berger. By no means desirous to be seen by his enemies he slipped aside, and was about to creep into Gertrude street when some one seized hold of his coat. When he looked around he found himself face to face with his friend and patron, Jeremy Goodheart.

”Well, how did matters go?” asked the detective, who had in the meantime become Timm's friend, and was fully initiated in his intrigues.

”All up!” sighed Timm, angrily. ”Lost my labor and my trouble! All up!

I could roast the two rascals!” He pointed at Oswald and Schmenckel.

”Hem, hem!” said the policeman. ”You must tell me that at leisure. Come to Rose; but let us first hear what the mad professor has to say.”

”Do you know him?” asked Timm.

”Hus.h.!.+ We know him. Deceived people!--all right! To arms!--excellent!

Just wait!--we'll catch you! And there comes the tall baron, who makes such revolutionary speeches at the election meetings! Why, there is the whole nest of them!--build barricades!--hurrah! Bravo!--hurrah! All men to the barricades! Hurrah!” cried the detective, and waved his hat with admirably feigned enthusiasm. Then he seized Timm by the arm and said: ”Now we must get away quickly or the fellows will shut us up here with their barricade.”

The two companions crept down Gertrude street and disappeared in the Dismal Hole.

Mrs. Rose Pape received them with unusual cordiality.