THE PRINCESS
DEHRA
BY
JOHN REED SCOTT
AUTHOR OF “THE COLONEL OF THE RED HUZZARS,”
“BEATRIX OF CLARE,” ETC.
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOR
BY CLARENCE F. UNDERWOOD
PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1908
Copyright, 1908, by John Reed Scott
Published May, 1906
Printed by J. B. Lippincott Company
The Washington Square Press, Philadelphia, U. S. A.
TO
THE REAL PRINCESS
THE PRINCESS DEHRA
I
THE RECALL
For the first time in a generation the Castle ofLotzen was entertaining its lord. He had come suddenly,a month before, and presently there hadfollowed rumors of strange happenings in Dornlitz,in which the Duke had been too intimately concernedto please the King, and as punishment had beenbanished to his mountain estates. But Lotzeniawas far from the Capital and isolated, and thepeople cared more for their crops and the amountof the tax levy than for the doings of the Court.And so it concerned them very little why the redbanner with the golden cross floated from the highestturret of the old pile of stone, on the spur of themountain overhanging the foaming Dreer. Theyknew it meant the Duke himself was in presence;but to them there was but one over-lord: the Dalberg,who reigned in Dornlitz; and in him they hadall pride—for was not the Dalberg their hereditarychieftain centuries before he was the King!
True, the Duke of Lotzen had long been the HeirPresumptive, and so, in the prospective, entitled totheir loyalty, but lately there had come from acrossthe Sea a new Dalberg, of the blood of the greatHenry, who, it was said, had displaced him in theline of Succession, and was to marry the PrincessDehra.
And at her name every woman of them curtsiedand every man uncovered; blaming High Heaventhe while, that she might not reign over them, whenFrederick the King were gone; and well preparedto welcome the new heir if she were to be his queen.
At first the Duke had kept to the seclusion of hisown domain, wide and wild enough to let him rideall day without crossing its boundary, but after atime he came at intervals, with a companion or two,into the low-lands, choosing the main highways, anddallying occasionally at some cross-road smithy fora word of gossip with those around the forge.
For Lotzen was not alone in his exile; he mightbe banished from the Capital, but that was no reason fordenying himself all its pleasures; and the lightsburned late at the Castle, and when the wind wasfrom the North it strewed the valley with whisps ofmusic and strands of laughter. And the country-sideshook its head, and marveled at the turning ofnight into day, and at people who seemed neverto sleep except when others worked; and not mucheven then, if the tales of such of the servants asbelonged to the locality were to be believed.
And the revelry waxed louder and wilder as thedays passed, and many times toward evening thewhole company would come plunging down themountain, and, with the great dogs baying beforethem, go racing through the valleys and back againto the Castle, as though some fiend were hot on theirtrail or they on his.