“A sea-serpent and a dozen elephants.  I have fought against them with all my might.  ‘Your highness,’ I said, ’we cannot accommodate any more animals, and as to the sea-serpent, such a beast will need water and we have no pond at Rodeck.  And if the elephants do come we’ll have to chain them to trees in the forest, I know no other way.’”

“‘That’s just the thing’ his highness answered, ’just chain them to the trees, that’ll be very wild and picturesque, and we’ll send the sea-serpent to board at Fuerstenstein; the castle fish-pond is big enough.’  Herr Schoenau, he will people the whole neighborhood with these monsters, I believe.”

The head forester laughed aloud, and gave the steward, who seemed to enjoy his special favor, a hearty slap on the shoulder.

“But, Stadinger, have you really taken all this in earnest?  You ought to know the prince better.  He certainly does not seem to come back any steadier than he went away.”

“No indeed, he does not,” sighed Stadinger.  “And what his highness does not devise for himself, Herr Rojanow hatches for him.  He is the worst of the two.  It’s hard lines that such a dare-devil should be quartered on us.”

“Rojanow?  Who is he?” asked Schoenau, all attention now.

“I hardly know, but he’s come with the prince, who cannot live without him.  He met this friend in some heathen country.  Maybe he is a half-heathen, or Turk; he looks enough like one, with his dark face and strange eyes.  And the fellow, with his airs and orders acts as if he were the lord and master of Rodeck.  But he’s as handsome as a picture, handsomer even than our prince, who, by the way has given orders that Herr Rojanow is to be obeyed in all things just like himself.”

“More than probable it’s an adventurer with whom the prince is amusing himself,” murmured Schoenau, and aloud he said:  “Well good-bye, Stadinger, I must meet my brother-in-law now, and don’t lose any sleep over the sea-serpent.  When his highness threatens you with it again, tell him I will gladly keep it for him in our fish-pond, but I must see it alive first.”

He nodded laughingly to the old steward and stepped down to the entrance gateway.  Frau von Eschenhagen and her niece were already there, and a minute after he joined them, the carriage turned into the broad, smooth road and was driven rapidly up to the great entrance.

Regine was the first to greet the travelers.  She pressed her brother’s hand so heartily that he was forced to draw it back.  The head forester was somewhat diffident; he had a certain feeling of shyness in the presence of his diplomatic brother-in-law, whose sarcastic tongue he secretly feared.  But Toni did not allow “his excellency” her uncle, or his wife, either, to ruffle her wonted composure.

The years had not treated Herbert von Wallmoden so gently as they had his sister.  He had aged perceptibly; his hair was grey now, and the sarcastic lines around his mouth had deepened.  But he was the same cold aristocrat as ever, perhaps even a shade colder and more distant.  With the exalted position to which he had attained, the feeling of superiority, which had ever been his chief characteristic, seemed to strengthen.