Upon the completion of this act of vandalism, the Victor of Rodova turned to the steward.
"Haf the goodness to inform his grace," he said, "that the King of Illyria accepts entire responsibility for the writing on the wall. It is the writing on the wall for him and for his country."
As we went towards the motor cars which awaited us at a side entrance, we had to pass down a flight of stone steps. In the descent the King was seized with a sudden and momentary faintness. He reeled, and had it not been for the promptitude of the ever-watchful Chancellor he must have fallen.
"Dat is the writing on the wall for the people of Illyria," said the Victor of Rodova with humorous stoicism as he recovered himself.
Upon the return to Dympsfield House, three telegrams in cypher were waiting for the King. Two secretaries, who with divers other unofficial members of his suite were staying at the Coach and Horses, were in possession of the library, which had been placed at the royal disposal. At dinner that evening we were informed that the Teutonic display of red fire had provoked a grave internal crisis in Illyria. The National Bank was about to suspend payment; Consolidated Stock was at fifty-nine; and his Majesty must leave these shores in the course of Saturday.
I could not repress a sigh of relief, although, to be sure, this was no more than the evening of Wednesday.
"Old Vesuvius is beginning to rumble again," said the King, with a laugh that sounded rather sinister, "but he cannot make us believe in him. How say you, my child?"
He looked across the table at the Princess, who was as pale as death.
Here was the indication of the final and supreme crisis for her and for her husband, and the hearts of those to whom she had come to mean much were torn with pity. Elemental, uncontrollable forces had her in their toils.
Fitz, too, had all our pity. The strain of true grandeur at the heart of the man, which all that was superficial could not efface, had asserted itself in this season of anguish. A lesser nature might have taken steps to relieve his wife of the torment of his presence. But in the watches of the night he had referred the question, and now, come what must, he would meet his fate.
There was reason to believe that he had already thrown his weight in the scale on the side of Ferdinand. He had stopped short of self-immolation, it was true; he had placed another interpretation on the Voice; but it seemed to me, his friend, that his whole bearing was a piece of altruistic heroism which could have had few parallels.
"Ferdinand is right," he said as we kept vigil in my quarters. "The interests of a great people are of more account than a chap like me. I know it, and Sonia knows it too."
The words were torn from him. It was curious how this contained and self-reliant spirit yearned for the sanction that it was in the power of a sympathetic understanding to bestow. If he dealt himself a mortal wound he must have a friend at his side. If he had superhuman strength, at least he had human weakness. Men of valour are proud as a rule. Fitz in the hour of his passion had a humility, a craving for the countenance of his fellows that I could only do my best to render in a humble way. The walk of mediocrity saves us from many things, but I suppose there are seasons in the lives of some who wear its badge when we would willingly forgo its comfortable consciousness of immunity for some diviner gift.
It was as though my unhappy friend was bleeding, perhaps to death, and I knew not how to stanch his wound.
Neither of us sought our beds that night, but sat and smoked hour after hour, in silence for the most part, beside a dead fire. He wished me to be near him, almost as a dumb animal yearns for those who show a sympathetic understanding of its pain, even if they are powerless to make it less.
As thus we sat together my mind envisaged the chequered career of my companion in all its phases. I recalled him in his first pair of trousers at his private school; I recalled him as my fag in that larger cosmogony in which afterwards we dwelt together. As his senior, in those days I had unconsciously regarded him as less than myself. But this night, as I sat with him, consumed with pity for the tragic wreck of his fortunes, I realised that he was one whose life was passed on a higher, more significant plane than mine could ever occupy.
It was good to feel that I had nothing with which to reproach myself in regard to my attitude towards him in those distant days. His fits of depression, his outbursts of devilry, his dislike of games, the streak of fatalism that was in him, his impatience of all authority, had exposed him to many hardships. But I was glad to think that I need not accuse myself of imperfect sympathy towards this fantastically odd, yet high and enduring spirit.
Thursday came and passed in gloom. Even Ferdinand, that heart of steel, was feeling the poignancy of the crisis. Throughout the day Sonia did not appear. But in the evening Irene sat with her in her room.
"If I were she," she declared to me later, with tearful defiance, "I would not go back—that is, unless they accepted my husband as their future king."
"They cannot do that."
"I think the King himself is so wrong. He hates Nevil, and he has not the least affection for poor little Marie, his granddaughter. It is a dreadful state of things."
I concurred dismally. Yet it was a state of things arising so naturally, so inevitably out of the special circumstances of the case that it seemed almost to forfeit a little of its tragic significance.
"If only she is strong enough to hold out until Saturday!" said my feminine counsellor. "But I am rather afraid. She is quite weak in some ways."
"There is a weakness, isn't there, which is a higher form of strength?"
"Can you mean that she will not be weak if she consents to return to Illyria to marry the Archduke Joseph?"
"She owes a duty to her people."
"She owes a duty to her husband and child."
Thursday ended as it began and Friday brought no solace. The Princess reappeared among us in the afternoon. She was pale and composed, and as the twilight of the January afternoon was gathering, she and Fitz rode out together. The King, at the same hour, walked in the muddy lanes with von Schalk.
"They leave us to-morrow morning at eleven," Mrs. Arbuthnot informed me, "and Sonia has not had her things packed. I believe the worst is over. She would have told me had she decided to go."
I was unable to share her optimism. From the first I had felt that the stars in their courses would prove too much for the unhappy lady. And nothing had occurred to remove that fear.
The King returned from his walk, and suave and subtle of countenance, it pleased him to toy with a cup of Mrs. Arbuthnot's tea, while he toasted his muddy gaiters at the fire.
"My daughter has not returned from her ride?"
"No, sir," I answered him.
"The last ride together," said the King, gently. "One of your excellent English poets has a poem about it, has he not?"
A thrill passed through my nerves at the almost cruel directness of the King's speech. I saw that in the same moment the eyes of Mrs. Arbuthnot had filled with tears.
"You have great poets in England," said the King, softly. "They are the chief glories of a nation, and your country is rich in them. We have great poets in Illyria also. There is Bolder. We are all proud to be the countrymen of Bolder. When you come to see us at Blaenau I think you will like to meet him."
As the King spoke in his paternal voice, I was conscious of his hand upon the breast of my coat. He had pinned a piece of black ribbon upon it, to which was attached a silver star.
"I am afraid, sir," I said, suffering some embarrassment, "no man ever did less to deserve the Order of the Silver Star of Illyria."
The King took my hand in his with that wonderful cordial simplicity that was so hard to resist.
"A friend in need is a friend indeed, Mr. Arbuthnot, as your English saying has it. And, madame, when together we lead the cotillon at Blaenau, I hope you will honour us by wearing this."
The King laid a jewel of much beauty upon the tea-table.
"Oh, sir," said Mrs. Arbuthnot, smiling faintly through wet eyelashes.
Standing before the fire, teacup in hand, the King talked to us quite simply and pleasantly and sincerely. He was a man of great power of mind and his outlook upon life was large and direct.
"You have many ways in this country that I should like to see in ours," he said. "But we in Illyria make haste slowly. The climate is not so bracing. I am afraid we do not think so forcibly. And there is a wider gulf between the rich and the poor."
There was a note of regret in the King's tone. He seemed to be turning his eyes to the future, and in the process his face grew tired and melancholy. It was then that I realised that this man of infinite vigour and power was said to be near the end of his course.
At dinner we were enlivened by his gaiety. His charm was hard to resist, so rich and full it was and so spontaneous. But my thoughts strayed ever away from the King, his wisdom and his persiflage, to those who were one flesh in the sight of God, who were dining together for the last time.
Their courage was a noble, even an amazing thing. The stoicism with which they ate and drank and bore a part in the conversation while a chasm had opened beneath their feet was almost incredible. Throughout the perpetual oscillation from comedy to tragedy, from tragedy to comedy, from comedy to tragedy again of their life together, they had borne their parts with a heroic constancy, and even in this dark phase they were equal to their task.
The die was cast. On the morrow the Princess would return to her people, marry the Archduke, and when the time came accept the throne. It was part of the dreadful covenant the King had exacted that she would never see Fitz and their child again.
I passed a night of weary wretchedness. Do what I would, I could not keep Fitz out of my thoughts. About three o'clock I rose and dressed and put on my overcoat and walked out into the garden. Somehow I expected to find him there. But there was not a trace of him, and every window in the house was dark. A spirit of desolation seemed to pervade everything—so dark and chill was the night. There was not a star to be seen.
I went back to my room, coaxed up the fire, seated myself beside it and lit a pipe. Presently I heard a footfall on the stairs. It was Irene, pale and weary with much weeping. Daylight found her asleep in my arms with her head on my shoulder.
The day of the King's departure had come at last. There was a general scurry of preparation, but precisely at eleven o'clock a procession of six motor cars started from our door for Middleham railway station, whence a special train would proceed to Southampton. It was Sonia's wish that Irene and I should accompany her to the train; and poor Fitz, half stunned as he was, determined to play out the game to the end, and with one of his odd outbursts of cynicism affirmed his sportsmanlike intention of "being in at the death."
The King, his daughter, the Chancellor, and Mrs. Arbuthnot were in the second car, preceded by a special escort from Scotland Yard. Fitz and I had the third to ourselves; the Secretaries were in the fourth; the fifth and sixth conveyed the valets, her Royal Highness's maid, and a considerable quantity of luggage.
As the procession, at the modest rate of twelve miles an hour, came into the pleasant village of Lymeswold, where our revered Vicar has his cure of souls, there was a considerable amount of bunting displayed in the vicinity of the Coach and Horses. And from the windows of the Vicarage itself depended the Union Jack side by side with the silver Star of Illyria on a green ground. Mrs. Vicar waved a white pocket-handkerchief from the gate of the manse, but the Vicar was bearing a chief part in a more dramatic tableau that had been arranged on the village green. Here the village school was drawn up, the girls in nice white pinafores and the boys looking almost painfully well washed. Each had a small flag that was waved frantically, and the Vicar standing at their head led a prodigious quantity of cheering, while Ferdinand the Twelfth took off his hat and bowed.
But all this was merely a prelude to the historic spectacle that we came upon presently. At the top of the steep hill leading to the Marl Pits, that favourite haunt of "the stinkin' Middleshire phocks," lo and behold! all the Crackanthorpe horses, all the Crackanthorpe men, not to mention their ladies, their hounds and the entire hunt establishment, even unto Peter the terrier, were assembled in full array of battle, as became the hour of eleven o'clock in the morning of a rare scenting day in the middle of January. The cavalcade lined each side of the road, and our motor cars passed through it on their lowest speed, to a running accompaniment of cheers and hunting noises and a waving of hats and handkerchiefs.
Evidently the scene had been carefully stage-managed and formed a handsome and appropriateamende. It did not fail of its appeal to the broken-hearted circus rider from Vienna. She responded by kissing her hand repeatedly, and her father lifted his hat and bowed continually as though it were a state procession.
The heart of Mrs. Arbuthnot was in pieces, but it was a great moment in the history of the clan. The china-blue eyes were brimming over with their tears, but they were still capable of radiating a subtle feminine light of triumph. The noble Master blew a blast on his horn and his aide-de-camp, Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, marked the royal progress by hoisting his hat on his whip. As we passed Mrs. Catesby, who looked very red, the brims of whose hat looked wider and whose whole appearance approximated more nearly than ever to that of Mr. Weller the Elder, I bestowed a special salutation upon her, of, I fear, somewhat ironical dimensions. The Great Lady responded by shaking her whip at me in a decidedly truculent manner.
Our procession passed on to Middleham railway station, which we reached about a quarter to twelve. A considerable crowd had assembled about its precincts. The roadway and the entrance to the station were guarded by a body of mounted police, and a small detachment of the Middleshire Yeomanry in the charge of no less a person than Major George Catesby, who saluted us with his sword.
On the platform we were received by a number of local dignitaries, and foremost among these, tall and austere, but with the faint light of humour in his countenance, was Lieutenant-Colonel John Chalmers Coverdale, C.M.G., late of his Majesty's Carabineers.
The King and his Chancellor took a brief but cordial leave of us and stepped briskly into the royal saloon; and then I felt the pressure of a woman's hand, and I heard a low, broken whisper, "Be good for my sake to Nevil and little Marie." The Princess then took the hands of Mrs. Arbuthnot in each of her own, kissed her wet cheeks, and was handed into the train by the husband she had promised never to see in this life again.
The week which followed the royal departure was a season of reaction at Dympsfield House. The tension of our recent life had been well-nigh unendurable. But now the die was cast, the problem solved; we could live and move and enjoy our being according to our wont.
To be sure the unhappy Fitz was still our anxiety. He and his small daughter were still under our roof, and would so remain until the house of his fathers had been rebuilt or until such time as he should choose some other asylum for his shattered life.
It is not too much to say that Fitz, with all his quiddity, had become dear to us. The tragic wreck of his life had called forth all that latent nobility which I at any rate, as his oldest friend, had always known to be there. His submission to the fate which he had himself invoked had seemed to soften the grosser elements that were in his clay. He had now only his small elf of four to live for. In that vivid atom of mortality were reproduced many of the characteristics of the ill-starred "circus rider from Vienna."
During the first few days a kind of stupor lay upon Fitz. He hardly seemed able to realise what had happened. He went out hunting and actively superintended the rebuilding of the Grange, almost as if nothing had occurred to him. But, all too soon, this merciful veil was withdrawn from his mind. He became consumed by restlessness. He could not sleep nor eat his food; he could not settle to any sort of occupation; nothing seemed able to engage his interest; his mind lost its stability, and slowly but surely his will began to lose that reawakened power that it had seemed to be the special function of his marriage to sustain and promote.
By the time the first week had passed we began to have forebodings. Already signs were not wanting that the demons of a sinister inheritance were silently marshalling themselves in order that they might swoop down upon him. One afternoon I found him asleep on a sofa drunk.
As Coverdale was well acquainted with his temperament and all the most salient facts in its history, and as, moreover, he was a man for whose natural soundness of judgment I had the greatest respect, I was moved to take him into my confidence.
"He must get away from England," said Coverdale, "for a time at any rate. And he must go soon."
This was an opinion with which I agreed. It happened that Coverdale knew a man who was about to start on a journey across Equatorial Africa and who proposed to form a hunting camp and indulge in some big game shooting by the way. Such a scheme appeared so eminently suited to Fitz's immediate needs that I hailed it gladly.
Alas! when I discussed this project with him he declined wholly to entertain it; moreover he declined with all that odd decision which was one of his chief characteristics.
"No," he said. "I must stay here and see to the building of the house, and I must look after Marie."
It was in vain that I launched my arguments. The scheme did not appeal to him and there, as far as he was concerned, was the end to the matter.
"I must look after Marie," he said. "We are getting her to do sums. Her mother could never do a sum to save her life."
Argument was vain. Such a nature was incapable of accepting a suggestion from an outside source; the mainspring of all its actions lay within.
The total failure of the attempt to get him to respond to so hopeful an alternative vexed me sorely. At the time it seemed to promise the only means of saving him from the danger which already had him in its toils. He grew more and more restless; his distaste for food grew more pronounced, and in an appallingly short time it became clear to us that whatever there remained to be done for him must be done at once.
We were helpless nevertheless. To anything in the nature of persuasion he remained impervious. He could not be brought to see the nearness of the danger. It was like him never to heed the question of cost. He could never have ordered his life as he had done, had he not had the quality of projecting the whole of himself into the actual hour.
Those who had his welfare at heart were still taking counsel one of another in respect of what could be done to help him through this new crisis, when a mandate was received from Mrs. Catesby to dine at the Hermitage. Fitz was included in it, but it did not surprise us that he declined an invitation which less uncompromising persons were inclined to regard in the light of a command.
It was not that he bore malice. He was altogether beyond the pettiness of the minor emotions; it was as though his entire being, for good or for evil, had been raised to another dimension or a higher power. But as he said with his haggard face, "I don't feel up to it."
Lowlier mortals, more specifically Mrs. Arbuthnot and myself, accepted humbly and contritely. We felt that a certain piquancy would invest the gathering. Not that we knew exactly who had been bidden to attend it, but Mrs. Arbuthnot's feminine instinct—and what is so impeccable in such matters as these?—proclaimed this dinner party to be neither more nor less than the public signature of the articles of peace.
Accordingly we set out for the Hermitage, not however without a certain travail of the spirit, for poor Fitz would be left to a lonely cutlet which he would not eat. As a matter of fact, when we went forth he had not returned from London, where he had spent most of the day in consultation with his solicitors.
There assembled at the Hermitage, at which we arrived in very good time, nearly every identical member of the company we expected to meet. Coverdale, Brasset, Jodey, who still enjoyed the hospitality of our neighbour, the Vicar and his Lavinia, Laura Glendinning, Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins. Also, as became one whose house provided a kind ofvia mediato that greater world of which the Castle was the embodiment, Mrs. Catesby's dinner table was graced by a younger son and a daughter-in-law of the ducal house.
Good humour reigned. It might even be said to amount in the course of the pleasant process of deglutition to a sort of friendlybadinage. An atmosphere of tolerance pervaded all things. If bygones were not actually bygones, they were in a fair way of so becoming. At least this particular section of the Crackanthorpe Hunt was on the high road to being once again a happy and united family.
The revelation of the "Stormy Petrel's" identity had had a magic influence upon an immense aggregation of wounded feelings. It was now felt pretty generally that all might be forgiven without any grave sacrifice of personal dignity. It was conceded that great spirit had been shown on both sides, but in the special and peculiar circumstances a display of Christian magnanimity was called for.
Irene was morally and wickedly wrong—the phrase is Mrs. Catesby's own—in keeping the secret so well. Of course "the circus proprietor" had deceived nobody: it was merely childish for Irene to suppose for one single moment that he would; and for her to attempt "a score" of that puerile character was positively infantile. But in the opinion of the assembled jury of matrons, plus Miss Laura Glendinning specially co-opted, it was felt very strongly that Irene had not quite played the game.
"Child," said the Great Lady, speakingex cathedra, with a piece of bread in one hand and a piece of turbot on a fork in the other, "when I consider that I chose your husband's first governess, quite a refined person, of the sound, rather old-fashioned evangelical school, I feel that it was morally and wickedly wrong of you to withhold from me ofallpeople the identity of the dear Princess."
"But Mary," said the light of my existence, toying demurely with her sherry, "I didn't know who she was myself until nearly a week after the fire."
The Great Lady bolted her bread and laid down her fork with an approximation to that which can only be described as majesty.
"Would you have me believe," she demanded, "that when you took her to your house on the night of the fire you really and sincerely believed that she was merely the wife of Nevil?"
"Yes, Mary," said the joy of my days, "I really and sincerely believed that she was the circus—I mean, that is, that she was just Mrs. Fitz."
General incredulity, in the course of which George Catesby inquired very politely of the Younger Son if he had enjoyed his day.
"Never enjoyed a day so much," said the Younger Son, with immense conviction, "since we turned up that old customer without a brush in Dipwell Gorse five years ago to-morrow come eleven-fifteen g.m."
"Eleven-twenty, my lad," chirruped the noble Master. "Your memory is failin'."
"Irene," said the uncompromising voice from the end of the table, "I cannot and will not allow myself to believe that you were not in the secret before the fire."
"Tell it to the Marines, Irene," said Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins.
"Wonder what she will ask us to believe next," said Miss Laura Glendinning.
"What indeed!" said the Vicar's wife.
"It isn't human nature," affirmed Lady Frederick.
"Very well, then," said the star of my destiny, with an ominous sparkle of a china-blue eye, "you can ask Odo."
"Odo!" I give up the attempt to reproduce the cataclysm of scorn which overwhelmed the table. "Odo is quite as bad as you are, if not worse. He knew from the first. He knew when the Illryian Ambassador came in person to the Coach and Horses and fetched her in his car; he knew when she chaffed dear Evelyn so delightfully that night at the Savoy."
"What if he did?" said the undefeated Mrs. Arbuthnot. "He didn't tell me. Did you now, Odo?"
With statesmanlike mien I assured the company that Mrs. Fitz's identity was not disclosed to our household despot until some days after her arrival at Dympsfield House.
"I am obliged to believe you, Odo," said Mrs. Catesby. "But mind I only do so on principle."
Somehow this cryptic statement seemed to minister to the mirth of the table. It was increased when the Younger Son, who evidently had been waiting his opportunity, came into the conversation.
"Odo Arbuthnot, M.P.," said he, "I expect when Dick sees what you have done to his wall he'll sue you. Anyhow I should."
The approval which greeted this sally made it clear that the incident had become historical.
"By royal command," said I; "and what chance do you suppose has a mere private member against the despotic will of the father of his people?"
"A gross outrage. An act of vandalism. Postlewaite says——"
"Postlewaite's an ass."
"Whatever Postlewaite is, it don't excuse you. He says you were all talking the rankest Socialism, and he was quite within his rights not to give you the book."
"I repeat, Frederick, that Postlewaite is an ass. If the Postlewaites of the earth think for one moment that the Victors of Rodova will turn the other cheek to the retort discourteous, the sooner they learn otherwise the better it will be for them and those whom they serve."
"Hear, hear, and cheers," said my gallant little friend, Mrs. Josiah P. Perkins, in spite of the fact that the Great Lady had fixed her with her invincible north eye.
"Ferdinand Rex one doesn't mind so much," proceeded Frederick, "and the Princess is all right of course, and von Schalk is a bit of a Bismarck, they say; but when you come to foot the bill with Odo Arbuthnot, M.P.—well, as Postlewaite says, it is nothing less than an act of vandalism. The M.P. fairly cooked my goose, I must say."
The M.P. was very bad form, everybody agreed, with the honourable and gallant exception ofla belle Americaine.
"Might be a labour member! I don't know what Dick'll say when he sees it."
"Two alternatives present themselves to my mind," said I, impenitently. "Postlewaite can either clear off the whole thing before he returns, or else append a magic 'C' in brackets after the offending symbols."
"You ain't entitled to a 'C' in brackets. You grow a worse Radical every day of your life and everybody is agreed that it is time you came out in your true colours."
"Hear, hear," from the table.
"I've half a mind to oppose you myself at the next election as a convinced Tariff Reformer, Anti-Socialist, Fair Play for Everybody, and official representative of a poor but deserving class."
"We shall all be glad to sign your nomination paper," affirmed George Catesby.
"Well, Lord Frederick," said my intrepid Mrs. Josiah, "I will just bet you a box of gloves anyway that you don't get in."
"And I'll bet you another," said Mrs. Arbuthnot.
"He's not such a fool as to try," said the noble Master.
"Frederick," said the Great Lady, "stick to your muttons. You have plenty to do to raise breed and quality. Why not try a cross between the Welsh and the Southdown? At least I am convinced that in these days the House of Commons offers no career for a gentleman."
"I've a great mind to cut in and have a shot anyway," said the scion of the ducal house, with a mild confusion of metaphor. "I don't see why these Radical fellers——"
Whatever the speech was in its integrity, it was destined never to be completed. For at this precise moment the door was flung open in a dramatic manner, and a haggard man, wearing an overcoat and carrying his hat in his hand, broke in upon Mrs. Catesby's dinner party.
The man was Fitz.
"A thousand apologies," he said. "So sorry to disturb you. But there's news from Illyria."
Such a very remarkable obtrusion enchained the attention of us all. And this was not rendered less by the self-possession of the speaker's manner.
"Ferdinand has been assassinated." Fitz's tone was slow and contained. "The Monarchy has been overthrown; Sonia is a close prisoner in the Castle at Blaenau, and her fate hangs in the balance."
"What is your authority?" said Coverdale.
"Reuter," said Fitz. "A telegram is printed in the evening papers. I happened to buy one at the book-stall as I left town."
He produced theWestminster Gazettefrom the pocket of his overcoat and handed it to the Chief Constable.
"You don't suppose," said Coverdale, frowning heavily, "that they are capable of personal violence towards the Princess?"
"At bottom they are only half civilised," said Fitz, "and when their passions are aroused they are capable of anything. You will see the telegram says the government is in the hands of a committee of the people. And no wise man ever trusts the people and never will."
This feudal sentiment was uttered in a tone of the oddest conviction.
"By Jove!" said the scion of the ducal house. "Here is the chap we are looking for."
But the intrusion of Fitz was too deadly serious for any side issue to be allowed to distract our attention.
"I apologise to you, Mrs. Catesby, for spoiling your dinner party like this," he said, "but it is my firm conviction that if the Princess is to be saved there is not a moment to lose."
"One is inclined to agree with you," said Coverdale, slowly and thoughtfully. "Has it occurred to you that anything can be done?"
Fitz's reply, given quietly enough, was characteristic of the man.
"To-day is Monday," he said. "By midnight on Thursday we shall have her out of Blaenau."
"Impossible, my dear fellow, impossible," said the Chief Constable, "if this account is correct."
"Nothing is impossible," said the Man of Destiny. "There is just time now to catch the ten o'clock to-night from Middleham. First thing to-morrow morning we will get our papers if we can, and if we can't we'll go without them. We shall be in Paris some time in the afternoon; and if all goes well by Wednesday evening we shall be in Vienna. By five o'clock on Thursday we ought to be at Orgov on the Milesian frontier, and six hours' easy riding over the mountains with a couple of baits will land us at Blaenau."
We who knew Fitz and had followed him in high affairs knew better than to venture upon criticism of this bald and unconvincing scheme. Those who did not know him could only smile incredulously.
"Sounds easy," said Lord Frederick, "but assuming, Fitzwaren, that you get to Blaenau like that, what can it profit you if the Princess is in the Castle under lock and key?"
"Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a cage," quoted the Man of Destiny. "Once we get to Blaenau we shall have her out of the Castle, never fear about that. But there is no time to discuss the matter now. If we go at once and collect our gear—so sorry, Mrs. Catesby, but absolutely unavoidable—we can be in town by twelve-fifteen, arrange about our papers and keep well in front of the clock."
The man's calm assumption that we should all unhesitatingly follow his lead and commit ourselves to this rather mad and certainly most uncomfortable enterprise was remarkable.
"There is not a minute to lose," he said. "By the way, Arbuthnot, I've told Peters to pack a kit-bag for you. And this time, old son, you had better see that you don't forget your revolver."
Under the goad of the Chief Constable's uneasy eye I was fain to gaze at the black silk handkerchief, which still bore my wrist.
"I'm afraid I'm a lame duck anyway," I said.
"You will do to hold the horses at the foot of the Castle rock. Climbing up the face of that cliff will be out of the question as far as you are concerned. Now then, you fellows," the Man of Destiny took out his watch, "you have just two minutes to finish your port and get your cigars alight and then it's boot and saddle."
"Nevil," said the imperious voice of the Great Lady, "I am really afraid you are mad."
The Man of Destiny did not deign to heed this irrelevant suggestion.
The exigencies of historical truth render it necessary to record the fact that Joseph Jocelyn de Vere Vane-Anstruther was undoubtedly the first respondent to the call. My relation by marriage drank his port wine and rose in his place at Mrs. Catesby's board. There was a fire in his eye and the suspicion of a hectic flush upon his countenance which seemed to contrast strangely with the habitual languor of his bearing.
"First thing we must do is to send a wire to old Alec," he said; "although he is certain not to be in if we send it. If we get to town by twelve-fifteen I will trot round to the Continental. The beggar is sure to be there until they kick him out, as there is a ball to-night at Covent Garden."
This reasoning may have been lucid and it may have been pregnant; at least it recommended itself to the comprehensive intellect of the Man of Destiny.
"Quite right, Vane-Anstruther. I shall hold you responsible for O'Mulligan."
"Joseph," said the Great Lady upon a stentorian note, "are you mad also?"
Hardly had this pertinent inquiry been advanced when the noble Master was on his legs.
"So awfully sorry, Mrs. Catesby," he said with a long-drawn sweetness of apology, "but it can't be helped in the circumstances, can it? I leave hounds in the care of George and Frederick. Keep Potts up to his work, George, and see that he pays proper attention to their feet. And Frederick, I charge you to make it your business to see that Madrigal has a ball every Friday."
"Reginald," said his hostess with great energy, "in the unavoidable absence of your widowed and unfortunate mother I absolutely forbid you to bear a part in this hare-brained enterprise. I really don't know what Nevil can be thinking of."
In Ascalon whisper it not, but this was the precise moment in which I found the cynical eye of the Chief Constable upon me for the second time. The eye was also wary and a little pensive, but the great man rose in his place with an air of profound rumination. He slowly cracked a walnut and then turned to the butler, with a coolness which to my mind had a suspicion of the uncanny.
"Just tell my chap to have my car round at once," he said; and then with great deference to his hostess, "a thousand apologies, Mrs. Catesby, but you do see, don't you, that it can't be helped?"
Whether I rose to my feet by an act of private volition or at the subconscious beck of another's compelling power, there is no need to attempt to determine. But somehow I found myself upon my legs and adding my own imperfect apologies to the equally imperfect ones of the Chief Constable.
"Odo Arbuthnot," said my hostess, "sit down at once. A married man, a father of a family, and a county member! Sit down at once and get on with your fruit. Colonel Coverdale! I am surprised at you."
"Finished your port, Arbuthnot?" said Fitz, calmly. "Time's about up. But I've told your chap about the car."
Consternation mingled now with the lively feminine bewilderment, but Mrs. Arbuthnot, whom Fitz's news had excited and distressed, issued no personal edict. If the life of Sonia was really at stake it was right to take a risk. Nevertheless it showed a right feeling about things to betray a little public perturbation at the prospect of being made a widow.
"Jodey and Reggie and Colonel Coverdale must go," said Mrs. Arbuthnot. "They haven't wives and families dependent upon them. But you, Odo, are different. And then, too, your wrist. You would be of no use if you went."
"I shall do to hold the horses at the foot of the Castle rock," said I, saluting a white cheek.
Fitz was already withdrawing from the room with his volunteers when Lord Frederick rose in his place at the board.
"Look here, Fitzwaren," he said. "If you have a vacancy in your irregulars I rather think I'll make one."
"By all means," said Fitz. "The more the merrier."
Bewilderment and consternation mounted ever higher around Mrs. Catesby's mahogany.
"Freddie! Freddie!" There arose a tearful wail from across the table.
"You ought to be bled for the simples, Frederick," said his hostess.
However, even as the Great Lady spoke, honest George, most conscientious of husbands, and notwithstanding his rank in the Middleshire Yeomanry, the most peace-loving of men, was understood to make an offer of active service.
"Well done, George," said his friend the Vicar. "I shouldn't mind coming as the chaplain to the force myself."
"George," said an imperious voice from the table head, "George!"
The Man of Destiny halted a moment on the threshold of the banquet hall with the frank eye of cynicism fixed midway between the Great Lady and the warlike George.
"George! Sit down!"
Finally George sat down with a covert glance at his friend the Vicar.
By the time we had got into our overcoats and mufflers and the means of travel had been provided for us, a scene with some pretensions to pathos had been enacted in the hall.
"Odo, you really ought not, but if dear Sonia really is in danger——!"
"We shall all be back a week to-night," the Man of Destiny informed my somewhat tearful monitor with a note of assurance in his voice.
Moving objurgations of "Freddie! Freddie!" were mingled with the clarion note of Mrs. Catesby's indignation.
"It is a mad scheme, and if you get your deserts you will all be shot by the Illyrians."
But Fitz and I were already seated side by side in the car. We waved a farewell to the bewildered company upon the hall steps, and then the fact seemed slowly to be borne in upon my numbed intelligence that yet again I was irrevocably committed to this latest and maddest call of my evil genius. There he sat by my side, his cigar a small red disc of fire, and he self-possessed, insouciant, dæmonic, almost gay.
The flaccid, rudderless creature of the past ten days was gone as though he had never been. It was hard to realise that this born leader of others, who courted war like a mistress, the magic of whose initiative the coolest and sanest could not resist, was the self-same broken fragment of human wreckage who twenty-four hours ago had not the motive power to perform the simplest action. But there could be no question of the magic he knew how to exert over the most diverse natures; and as we sat side by side in the semi-darkness of the car while it flew along the muddy, winding and narrow roads to Dympsfield House, I yielded almost with a thrill of exultation to the director of my fate.
We had no difficulty in reaching Middleham railway station, that familiar rendezvous, at the appointed time. Even Lord Frederick, who lived farther afield than any of us, was able, by putting a powerful car to an illegal use, to arrive on the stroke of the hour.
It was to be remarked that the prevailing tone in our coupe was one which almost amounted to gaiety. Judged by the cold agnostic eye, the scheme was only a little this side of madness. But it had the sanction of a high motive. Further, we were brothers in arms who had smelt powder together upon a more dubious enterprise; we had faith in one another; and above all we were sustained, one might even say translated, by the epic quality of an incomparable leader.
Fitz smoked his cigar and cut in at a rubber of bridge with an air of indulgent and serene content.
"It is lucky," he said, "that I know an old innkeeper on the frontier who will be rather useful if we have to go without passports. He is about a mile on the Milesian side, and will be able to provide us with horses and smuggle us across in the darkness. He will also find for us a couple of guides over the mountains."
"You say we can get from the frontier to the Castle at Blaenau in six hours?" inquired the gruff voice of the Chief Constable.
"Yes, unless there is a lot of snow in the passes."
"But if the country is in a state of revolution, aren't we likely to be held up?"
"Perhaps; perhaps not. We shall find a way if we have to take an airship. Eh, Joe?"
The Man of Destiny gave my relation by marriage a fraternal punch in the ribs.
"Ra-ther!" That hero was in the act of cutting an ace and winning the deal.
"I shall arrange," said Fitz, "for a change of horses at Postovik, which is about half way. If all goes well we shall be at the foot of the Castle rock a little before midnight on Thursday. I am thinking, though, that we may have to swim the Maravina."
"Umph!" growled the Chief Constable, declaring an original spade, "a moderately cheerful prospect on a January night in Illyria."
"It may not come to that, of course. But all the bridges and ferries are sure to be guarded. And even if they are, with a bit of luck we may be able to rush them."
As our leader began to evolve his plan of campaign it could not be said to forfeit any of its romance. But I think it would be neither fair nor gracious to Mr. Nevil Fitzwaren's corps of irregulars to say that this spice of adventure made less its glamour. We could all claim some little experience of war and that mimic sphere of action "that provides the image of war without its guilt, and only thirty per cent. of its dangers." Some of us had taken cover upon the veldt and others had crossed the Blakiston after a week's rain; and we all felt as we sped towards the metropolis at the rate of sixty miles an hour, and at the same time endeavoured to restrain the cards from slipping on to the floor, that whatever Fate, that capricious mistress, had in store for us, our hazard was for as high a stake as any set of gamesters need wish to play.
Punctual to the minute, we came into the London terminus. As on the occasion of that former adventure, we posted off to Long's quiet family hotel, with the exception of Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, who confided his kit-bag to the care of his man Kelly, and adjured him to see that a decent room was found for him, while he went "to rout out Alec at the Continental before they fired the beggar out."
"Tell him we leave Charing Cross at ten-forty in the morning," said Fitz. "That will give me time to see what can be done in the way of papers, although as far as Illyria is concerned, diplomatic relations are pretty sure to have been suspended."
Driving again to Long's Hotel, I was regaled with the remembrance of our former journey; of the incident of the cab which followed us through the November slush; of the weird sequel; of that long night of alarums and excursions, which yet was no more than a prelude to a chaotic vista of events.
I recalled the drive from Ward's with Coverdale; the slow-drawn tragi-comedy of suspense; the waiting-room at the Embassy, the plunge up the stairs, the charming player of Schumann, the presentation to her Royal Highness. I recalled the passages with the Ambassador and their terrible issue; the drive with the Princess to the Savoy; the episode of the pink satin at which I could now afford to laugh. Again I recalled ourbizarrevisit to Bryanston Square; our reception by my Uncle Theodore, his "Fear nothing" and his still more curious prevision of that which was to come to pass. I recalled our dash for this same Grand Central railway station and the merciful shattering of our hopes midway. I recalled the Scotland Yard inspector with the light moustache, the hand of the Princess guiding me through the traffic, the cool-fingered doctor, the bowl of crimson water at which I did not care to look. Finally, in this panoramic jumble of wild occurrences, the memory of which I should carry to the grave, I recalled that noble, complex, misguided emblem of our species, the Victor of Rodova, the clear-sighted, subtle yet great-hearted hero of an epoch in the destiny of nations; the father of his people, whom his children had slain even while the hand of death was already upon him.
I pictured him lying riddled with bullets on the steps of his palace at Blaenau, riddled with the bullets he had so often despised. Even from the brief account in the evening papers it was clear that the end of the Victor of Rodova had been heroic.
The smouldering volcano had burst into flame at last. A tax-gatherer had been slain in an outlying district. At the signal, a whole province, at the back of one half-patriot, half-brigand, rose up, marched armed to the Capital, and called upon the King at his palace to grant a charter to the people. The King met them alone, as was his custom, on the steps of his palace, and having listened with kindness and patience to their demands, made the reply "that he would take steps to procure the charter for his people if the peccant son who had slain a faithful servant treacherously was rendered to justice."
Whether the King deliberately misread the temper of his subjects, or whether he overestimated the personal power it was his custom to exert, was hard to determine, but in this reply which was so strangely deficient in that high political wisdom in which no man of his age excelled him, lay his doom. The leader of the armed mob, who himself had slain the tax-gatherer, laughed in the King's, face, and immediately riddled him with bullets. And as the King fell, the burghers of Blaenau poured in at the gates, the soldiers revolted because their wages were over-due, possession was taken of the Castle; and the long-deferred republic was proclaimed.
"And where were the aristocracy and the supporters of the monarchy while all this was happening?" I asked, as we sat in the lounge at the hotel having a final drink before turning in.
"Reading between the lines of the dispatch," said Fitz, "I should be inclined to say that they had conspired to throw Ferdinand over at the last and to let in the people. I can reconcile the facts on no other hypothesis."
"Why should they?"
"The aristocracy have always been jealous of his power. He has walked too much alone."
"It is hard to believe that they would yield up their country to mob law."
"They have their own safety to consider. A small and exclusive class, not accustomed to move very actively in public affairs, they have little control of events. And the army having joined with the people, their only hope is to sit on the fence and try to hold what they have."
"You are convinced of the Princess's danger?"
"There is no question of that. Having decided to make an end of their rulers, the French Revolution is quite likely to be enacted over again. They are a semi-barbarous people, and few will deny that they have suffered."
On the morrow Fitz was early abroad. The morning papers brought confirmation of the news from Illyria. The King was dead; the Crown Princess was a close prisoner at Blaenau in the hands of the insurgents; the Chancellor and other ministers had fled the country; a number of regiments had massacred their officers; and it was expected that a Committee of the People would take over the government.
At Charing Cross we found Alexander O'Mulligan already waiting for us. He was in the pink of health and his grin was extraordinarily expansive. Fitz arrived with the necessary tickets for the whole party, but had only been able to procure passports as far as the frontier. But, as he explained, this need not trouble us, as we should leave the train before we came there and make our way over the mountains in the darkness.
As our train wound its way through suburbia we began more clearly to realise the promise of a crowded and glorious week. The motive was adequate; and although the Chief Constable and myself had a sense of the profound rashness of the scheme, we shared the common faith in Fitz.
Our route was by way of Paris. It was more direct to go from Southampton, but there was very little difference in the point of actual time.
When we reached Paris, soon after five that afternoon, we learned that in spite of the representations of the Powers, the fate of the Princess still hung in the balance. We stayed only an hour and then took train again.
All night we travelled and all through the next day; and then, as Fitz had predicted, shortly after five o'clock in the evening of Thursday we had come to the township of Orgov, a mile from the Illyrian frontier on the borders of Milesia. Here we found a shrewd old peasant who had acted as the friend of Fitz on a former occasion, and with whom he had already communicated by telegraph. The old fellow shook his head over the state of affairs in the neighbouring kingdom, but provided us with a couple of trustworthy guides through the mountains and seven tolerable horses, one apiece for each member of our party.
Fitz affirmed his intention of getting to Blaenau in six hours. The innkeeper, however, declared frankly that this was impossible. The winter had been severe; heavy drifts of snow lay in the passes, and in its present state the country itself was full of danger. Indeed, our friend the innkeeper was fain to declare that, unless God was very kind to us, we should never get to Blaenau at all.
However, we were a party of nine, stout fellows, well armed and tolerably mounted. And when we started from Orgov a little after six in the evening, I do not think the sense of peril oppressed us much. Our mission was of the highest; each of us had faith in himself and in his comrades. We were a small but mobile force in fairly hard condition; and I think it may be claimed for each member of it that he had a natural love of adventure.