But as the great final major chords of the sumptuous old song rolled out above the river new courage came to him. He could not go back. He could not justify himself ever at any time at all. He realized that the plot had irrevocably succeeded: and that he was a prisoner for ever. Nevermore would he tramp the joyful mountains. To no new country could he direct his steps. To his own country and his own sweet village nevermore would he return. Love for women—the true, free love of a boy—henceforward he might never feel. Honest men he might never shake by the hand again. Severed from friends and the sweet companions of youth, he must thenceforth talk with wise or portentous or aged men.
Serious and sad, he looked at the beautiful city, shining above the shining river. He saw new visions, thought out new ideas, of a bitter and Spartan taste for a boy's sugared fancy. His soul and his conscience, his peace of mind, his friends, his love, his youth he flung down as an offering to the city. And like a man, he swore to work.
Là il vino, la luce, la nota che fremeNei nervi, nel sangue, risveglian l'ardor.Carducci.
Hardly in the history of Alsander, not when the first Kradenda laid the foundation-stone! of the Cathedral and all his warriors clashed their spears, nor yet in the silver age of Basilandron, when the youthful bands, clothed curiously, the women in gauze veils and the men in leopard skins, woke unhallowed revel beneath those sacred walls, when their trumpets blew for the bloodless battle, and the fifes played a prelude to amorous war, hardly in her days of victory or days of loveliness had the old castle square been so clamorous or splendid as on this night of the Royal feast. The sun had just set, and the afterglow was fading from the marble façade of the palace; the Queen of Night was on her throne; the bunting-covered trestle tables were prepared for a great feast which all Alsander was to attend. The wine stood ready in barrels: the huge Parisian carver, a master of his art, bared his bullock arms for the strife; servants staggered out from the castle kitchen with dishes; and already the people were beginning to assemble, for they heard the great horn of summoning blow clear and strong. The old men hobbled in on sticks, the middle-aged sniffed the viands, the young men came joyously along with laughter and the lasses. Seven thousand voices cried "Amen" to the Archbishop's meandering Latin grace: and amid an uproar of delight the Bang himself lit the vast bonfire prepared in the midst, the immemorial bonfire of the feast day, which was to be now a welcome compensation for the vanished light and warmth of the sun.
For the day was to end, as it had begun, with the full glory of mediaeval pageant, and by unbroken tradition each new-crowned King had to give a feast to his townfolk to celebrate his coronation. But this was a specially noble and glorious ceremony—it was more than a coronation: it was a re-coronation—and Alsander expected that amends would be made for the inglorious day when, amid a winter rain, a thin and draggled concourse of spectators watched the closed carriage which they were told contained a King that was no King and a man that was no man. And now, behold, they had a King indeed, who looked strangely unlike a convalescent madman—a King as young and beautiful and strong as a woman's heart could wish to break for—a King of perfect utterance and fine presence whom any loyal gentleman would be proud to serve. A King, moreover, who had already come and lived among the humblest of his people like a simple stranger. What more could Alsander desire?
Happy and blest was the table which enjoyed the company of one of those who had known the King during his stay at the Widow Prasko's. Willing enough were they all to talk, little Pedro, Father Algio, the old Widow Prasko herself, and the rest of them, as fast as they could for eating and drinking the choicer morsels and wines with which they were specially plied by their admiring boon companions. It was wonderful how many people had known the King intimately during those few weeks—with how many he had held long and confidential conversation about the politics of Alsander. It was curious how not one of them had been deceived an instant by his story of being an Englishman. Whoever heard of a foreigner who spoke Alsandrian! Of course, he pretended to speak it badly: how wise and clever and beautiful he was! They had heard to-day how he could speak the language—and so forth, and so forth.
Those who had really known the King were full, too, of the brightest fancies. What honours and rewards would be showered on them for the little services they had rendered? One poor, penniless fellow, who had once shown Norman the way, put on the most ridiculous airs after a few glasses of strong red wine. He was already enjoying the fruits of a fine pension, and wandering through the palace courts in cloth of gold.
Only Peronella sat in absolute silence by her mother's side. Not a word would she answer to any question, despite the harsh rebukes of her expansive parent. She sat and drank rather much and ate almost nothing. All those around her affected to understand her mood and ceased to trouble her with questions. It was plain the King had broken her heart. Well, was it not the high tradition of Royalty to break the hearts of humble women? thought the men of Alsander. Could the King have chosen a lovelier girl? Doubtless the King would see her again and not desert her quite absolutely for ever. The flower-like Peronella was made to be a Royal Mistress. The men of Alsander praised her beauty, her reticence and her air of sorrow, which they conceived to be if not genuine at least most nobly affected, while the women of Alsander were consumed with the most passionate jealousy and envy of the poor girl. But what of Peronella?
Peronella was a girl with a simple soul, but the simplest of souls is, after all, according to the idealists, a more wondrous and complex thing than the mechanism of the latest Dreadnought. A soul, being alive, grows and changes. Peronella had to-day discovered that she loved Norman with all the love her soul could give—and only simple folk like her can give all their souls to love. She had no preoccupation with the world save to find therein; a man to love, and she had found Norman. And now he was gone from her—taken far away. She knew her lover had abandoned her for ever!
She had become a woman. It was not this sudden Royalty that made her love the boy who so few weeks ago had come to her singing over the mountain height. It was the shock of it all—and the separation. For others might believe this tale. Others—and they became many as the wine flowed round—might whisper dark whispers, and swear that it was incredible that this bright northern-faced boy should be a Kradenda, and hint of a cunning and tremendous plot. But she alone of all the uninitiated folk of Alsanderknewwith the sure and instinctive knowledge of a woman for an absolute certainty that the re-coronation was a farce and that Norman was no more King of Alsander than she was Queen. And the sorrow on her face was but the genuine reflection of the agony of her soul, but her agony was not for her country's misfortune but for a lover lost.
But meanwhile the feast was progressing, and a clamour arose that made one think more of Flanders and the north and the gross banquets of Jordaens than of southern frugality and moderation.
The King, in the dark green uniform of an Alsandrian Colonel, with Vorza, Sforelli, the nobles, their ladies, our old friend the British Consul (in a cocked hat) and his colleagues, each of whom hoped shortly to acquire the title of Minister to so energetic a Court, were seated, together with a few very distinguished correspondents of great newspapers, who had been invited to the Royal board by special request, at a long table under the open gates, beneath the door of the castle. Arnolfo had not reappeared. The general conversation was lively and elegant: but Norman—whose ostensible knowledge of the world had to be confined to the castle walls, a few books, a few weeks in Alsander, and a year in a "home" in England, hardly dared open his mouth. This need of caution, this forced lying masquerade, and a longing not only for Peronella, but also for the companionship of the strange young man who alone seemed to have the power of turning life into a furious and careless dream made him so gloomy that Vorza was very frightened lest in some uncanny outbreak of revived mania the King should hurl his plate at the head of his newly-appointed Lord Chamberlain. Nevertheless, this sullen reserve which the King displayed suited the part he had to play (as an interesting example of scientific progress) to perfection. When, however, at times he woke up from his pensive and melancholy meditations, he was possessed with a sort of odd! feeling that he must give the newspaper gentlemen some copy, and would talk gravely of the careful reforms he would make in; the drainage of the city, the paving of the streets and the training of the militia, or sigh for his wasted youth with intense pathos, saying, too, how glad he would be when these formalities were over and he could tour round his dominions, "which are, despite a few weeks' residence in the city itself, as strange to me, sir," he said, addressing the special correspondent of theDaily Mail, "as they are to you." Towards the end of the meal, he was seized by an idea which comforted him, and became suddenly so gay that the doctor trembled for his dignity and, pretending to be concerned for his still precarious health, advised him in an audible whisper not to tire himself by too much lively conversation.
After the enormous repast was at length ended, the guests scattered for a digestive interval preliminary to the splendid dance which was to end the day. The doctor regaled some ecstatic Ulmreich medicine men with tales, all in the strictest confidence, of the surprising operations that had been performed on the King, while the King walked round with Vorza, asking the delighted Duke many questions about the government and still more about the evening's ceremonial.
"Of course I rely on you, my Lord Chamberlain," he explained, "for all ceremonial details. Though, alas! you have no experience in your duties, you have, I feel sure, that exquisite tact which as the great Court historian Brasaldo says, is the exclusive birthright of ancient and honourable families."
Vorza bowed.
"Now, I believe there is to be a dance to-night as soon as the tables have been removed."
"The musicians should be here in an hour's time, your Majesty."
"They will be good musicians, I hope."
"I believe so, Sire. They are world renowned."
"Now, my Lord, when the last King was crowned, as I read once in Brasaldo's history—one of the very few books I have read all through...."
Vorza bowed again, in deference, perhaps, to such heroic perseverance.
"The last King—my father, I mean, whom I remember but faintly, for I was such a little boy when the trouble came—danced, I believe, in accordance with traditional custom with several of the fairest maidens of the town."
Vorza was quite reassured by this token of the Royal sanity, and bowed again.
"Now, of course, for me—all thoughts of woman's loveliness have no charm: I am tool inexperienced, alas! What a youth I have had!—I have had none, rather. But since the ceremony is old and picturesque I should like to; revive it."
"But, Sire, between me and your Majesty, you have not had time to learn to dance."
This was unexpected, but Norman rose to the occasion.
"You know little of England and modern curative establishments," he said. "The regime of the whip and straight waistcoat is over, thank God, or you would not have the pleasure of my company to-night. Three days' sojourn is not quite enough for that wonderful country, my lord."
Vorza smiled, but sinister thoughts passed through his heart.
"It must have been a marvellous place indeed, Sire, this home to which the gooch luck of Alsander sent you. But will you never tell the secret of its locality? For it would be only right, between me and your Majesty, to honour the wise director with a national tribute."
"It is not his desire," said Norman, briefly. "But with regard to this dance to-night, I want to know my people. I propose that the dance should be promiscuous, and I will join it myself."
"That is quite in accordance with the best traditions of Alsander, your Majesty," said Vorza, and he promised to make the announcement in due form.
Vorza left him, and for a moment he stood alone and looked round on the scene of revel, and at that moment the uproar of gross feeders and drinkers seemed to pause a second, drowned in the vast fullness of the jasmine night. Then the musicians began from their bower among the shadowy plane trees—glorious musicians, and so glorious a music that not a man would dare to dance to it, for all that the orders were that none should wait for the Kong. All listened immobile: only the Japanese lights and those further lights the stars dared to start off dancing to such a tune. All the new power and subtlety of modern music seemed to have blended with the grand traditions of olden days to make this lovely melody: yet the melody was a waltz—a waltz-tune that the simplest could understand and that set the body dancing. Another instant and the spell broke: the music became human and the whole square which the carpenters had turned into a vast dancing floor, was alive with couples, and seemed itself to turn.
And the great sense of the unreality of the world again took possession of Norman. It seemed to him that he was a King indeed but a true King, the King in a fairy story, and might do what he will. If he was to play this splendid part, he would not play as a modern King—a tired, frock-coated slave of wearisome Ministers. He would be a King of Yvetot, of Atlantis, of the Indian Isles. He would; dance with Peronella—was it not the old! custom that he should dance with the fairest of his subjects? Would he not be the more beloved for his boldness? If he were not, what matter? The girl should be his mistress that night; to his great golden room he would lead her, and for one night he would celebrate Aphrodite. Was it not for this that she had been sent by destiny to meet him—swinging her pails beside the spring on that immortal morning? Was it not for this one night that he had played the supremest farce that ever a man played?
He started to find her, motioning away those that would accompany him. He soon caught sight of her, a little way off seated alone on a bench, as though she awaited him, and looking towards him with her eyes shining in the light of the lamp. His heart beat, and he trembled as he had never done through all his play-acting. He knew still that to steal a maiden's honour was a greater enterprise than to ravish a throne. He knew he had but one step further to take toward the girl, who sat there trembling with love to receive him. His foot was light on the ground to take that step—for what to a King is all the world?
Yet at that moment a hand was laid on his arm to arrest him. He looked round, and saw Arnolfo. The boy was clothed as ever in Alsandrian dress but of a darker hue: he was cloaked, and the silver buckles of his belt gleamed beneath the rich and sombre mantle. In this raiment, at such an hour, he looked paler than the moon, and strangely moved, yet resolute as death.
Norman knew why Arnolfo had laid the hand on his arm: he saw the will and determination on the boy's face: he knew that his scheme was known, and that it was to be frustrated. He swung round on his heel. "Leave me!" he said with passion, but his voice was not that of a King who rules the world, but of an angry boy.
"Did I not tell you to keep from women, my King," pursued Arnolfo. "Surely I am only just in time."
"It is too late! Your dramatic interventions are useless. I go where I please. You should not have left me in the lurch all these days if you wished to remain my mentor. I am master now. Leave me: we are not unobserved: you are making me ridiculous before my subjects."
"My Bang, I implore you as a friend, come away with me," said Arnolfo in a voice strangely passionate.
"A friend are you? You have made a fool of me for ever. I have got to play-act all my life. You have stolen from me my love, my liberty and my youth. You have left me alone to carry through the most perilous portion of this mad enterprise, and now, when I want to rescue a few moments of joy from the ruin of my life, you say, 'Friend! Friend!' Let me go, I tell you! Let me enjoy the glory of existence for one hour before you shut me in your dismal prison of lies for ever!"
And Norman pointed to the grim, dark, towering walls of the palace of Kradenda.
But Arnolfo, with that magic power that never failed to influence Norman—to influence him so deeply that it seemed able at times to sap his very manhood and honour—for, after all, he had suffered the utmost degradation at this boy's command—Arnolfo had already drawn Norman away and Norman was following him, why, he knew not, towards the palace.
"Come, Norman," said Arnolfo, in that low and honeyed voice of his, "a friend is better than a lover, as love is better than lust."
"For Kings!" exclaimed Norman, but whether as a question or in bitter acquiescence was not certain from the sound of his voice.
"O come with me a minute," said Arnolfo, pretending still to plead and drawing Norman further and further at each step from Briseis. "All your happiness may depend on that. Will you ruin yourself and Alsander for a pretty face? Are you going to play tyrant and drag her from the arms of her lover?"
"Damnation on duty and on you and all this farce!" replied the King, muttering low as he turned for a last look at the girl who, still visible, was now standing with bowed head, her arm around a young sapling—and still alone. "Were it not for your fool's mummery I might have had that girl in my arms. Look at her: is she not beautiful enough for you, my artist? Are not these lips red enough for the Sultan of the Indies? Where is the lover from whose arms I should drag her? Leave me, Arnolfo. Must I forget my youth."
"Give me one half-hour—alone—in the palace. After that, you shall be free of my interference for ever and return to your love If you so desire. I swear it. But come now. There is ... danger. Ah, Norman, can you not read sincerity in the eyes?"
Involuntarily Norman looked at the boy and saw in his eyes a light so strange that he was troubled. The charm of Arnolfo had already compelled him: but now his very passion surrendered to it. Without more complaint, he broke with him through the crowd, which opened to let him pass.
None ventured to attend them. The guards seemed to Norman to show as much deference in their salutes to Arnolfo as to himself. They went alone together to a little room in the tower, where a lamp was hanging—simply to aid in the general illumination, for the room was empty and unfurnished.
"Well," said Norman turning on his friend with some fierceness, "tell me your story."
The boy flushed a little. "There is no story," he said.
"But you said there was danger in what I intended to do. Not that I mind, but tell me what you meant."
"You neither were nor are in any danger."
"Then why, in God's name," cried Norman "did you bring me Here?"
Arnolfo put a finger to his lips and leant over the stone window-sill to gaze at the crowded square. "You ask why I brought you here, King of Alsander," he whispered toi Norman, who stood over him. "Oh, can you not yourself discover why? Can you draw no inspirations from the world around you? Will nothing but brutal speech make you understand? Cannot music suggest to you the truth, or the rustle of leaves, or the murmur of men down there that makes audible the silence of the stars? Is there no subtler essence in nature or your own soul ready to vibrate? Has not the Universe a dumb but smiling mouth to say why I brought you here?"
"Heavens, what weird nonsense you are talking," said Norman, catching the boy's arm, "Can you not speak straight? Or what new web of perplexity are you weaving for my destruction?"
"Leave me," said the boy with a gasp, as though Norman's clutch on his arm had hurt him. "Leave me: I will go: you shall never see me again. Keep your peasant girl, Norman Price: who shall blame you? Real kings have fared far worse."
"I want to know what you meant about the silence," said Norman looking curiously into his friend's pale face and expressive eyes. "And what my peasant girl has got to do with you."
"How can you stand almost touching me!" cried Arnolfo, leaping up from the window and facing Norman with a sort of indignation. "How can you put your hand on my arm and still not know and still be such a fool! And they talk of instinct! I am ashamed at my failure. Ah, how did I dare bring you here?"
And turning again to the window Arnolfo buried his face in his hands and wept.
"Why, you strange creature, what have you got to weep for?" cried Norman in dismay. "You trouble me with your strange ways to-night. I swear if you are unhappy I will do my best to comfort you; but do speak straight out, and do above all be a man."
The boy looked up, and through his tears he smiled, and then through his tears he laughed. And then he simply laughed very prettily and held out his right hand.
"Look at my hand a minute," he said.
Norman took the proffered hand and examined it with great embarrassment and wonder. "It is a very small hand," he said; "but I don't see what is the matter with it."
Then at last suspicion flashed across his mind. "Ah, you don't mean that!" he cried, suddenly dropping the hand and starting back.
"Good God," laughed Arnolfo rather wildly. "I can't think of any more hints to give you, barbarian! Must I strip to the waist?"
Norman gasped. "If you really are a woman, Arnolfo," he exclaimed, "I would much prefer that you did."
Then he stood motionless before her and for a time the two faced each other without a word, the King with his hand on the hilt of his sword, and the woman clasping across her body the great mantle, as though to preserve even at this hour, the virginity of her disguise.
"I am the Princess Ianthe," she said at last, with a dignity which the travesty could not obscure.
"You are a very beautiful woman," rejoined Norman, bending to kiss her hand. Then, looking at her with a rather inscrutable smile which strangely aged his youthful face, he added: "but I bitterly regret the loss of Arnolfo."
The Princess hung her head a little and seemed almost the boy again. "Is that all you have to say?" she murmured, "and yet there is nothing I would rather you had said than that."
"It was for Arnolfo I adventured on this enterprise," pursued the King gravely, "for his friendship I ruined my life to become a mummer and a thief. And now the pantomime continues—and there is no Arnolfo."
"But you have Ianthe's friendship," cried the Princess, "as you had Arnolfo's."
He shook his head. "Friendship with a woman is not a sport for kings."
"But such a friendship as ours," she rejoined, "cannot be broken by an epigram."
"It is broken," affirmed the King. "The days of friendship are irrevocably over. And I have no reason to think, Princess, although you singled me out to rule your country, and although I, when I found you a woman, was stirred with something that was not only wonder, that the halcyon days are near. And yet—I am speaking to you straight, Princess, in the English way—if you do not think we shall become more than friends I shall leave you and Alsander to-night for ever, and see what fresh adventures await me in the teeming world. Maybe some other country will greet me as its King and a princess only a little less beautiful than you, in a realm a little more fabulous than Alsander, will offer me her heart and hand. But I will simply laugh and go back home to England. One day of kingship has been enough for me."
"And is that all you have to say to a woman who has given you a Crown and to a people who are awaiting their King? Have you no fire, no pride?"
"I have a sense of honour," replied the King gravely. "For listen to me. You have given me a crown of gold, and it is a crown of thorns. You have made me a mock King. I am already weary, unutterably weary. What care I for Alsander? Is not a hedgerow in my native land lovelier than all its cypress trees? What care I for ruling—save to be the master of a straight young woman, and lord of a country farm? On one condition only will I consent to endure this foolery one more day, and that is on condition that you—the heiress of Alsander—become rightfully my Queen, for all that I am an English grocer boy. I am no fool, Princess, and I may dare to hope that you will accept this condition, for I think some such project has been in your mind all the time, through all this queer history. But I have a second condition, which is harder, and that condition is this: that if you love me, I will be your King. If you love me with all your heart and soul, as I love you, and only in that case, then we will rule our land together. And if not, Ianthe, bid farewell to me to-night—for you will never see me again. The masquerade is over: speak truth to me at last."
"You are right!" said the Princess. "Must we talk like fanciful children and waste words, we on whom depends the fate of thousands, we the rulers of Alsander! You have made your conditions: I accept the first. I will be your Queen, in name and in deed, if you will. The Princess Ianthe, O King of Alsander, has also a sense of honour. I have made you a false King—I alone can make you a true King, the consort of the legitimate Princess of Alsander. I offer to be your Queen."
"But my second condition—your love, Princess Ianthe?"
"What do you mean by love? Is it my body you mean by my love? I owe it to you if you desire it. It shall be yours—I have promised to be your Queen. Or is it that, together with my true and loyal friendship you desire? That also shall be yours, though you have rejected it, for all my life long."
"I want your love, your true love, your deep love, the love of all your soul," said the King in a low voice, gazing into her brown eyes.
"Ah! that is not mine to command."
"Will it never be mine to command, Ianthe? Speak truth. If it will never be mine, I will not be King of Alsander."
"You are almost wooing me," exclaimed the Princess, laughing a little nervously, "and I rather wish I were dressed for the part. But is it not rather fantastic to claim my love without offering your own? And is it not rather insolent," she added abruptly, as though a flash of memory had caused a flash of rage, "for a man who has given his heart to a peasant girl to demand the love of a Princess?"
"You are insincere in your reproaches," replied the King. "You know from the very sound of my words that I have forgotten all the women of the world but you. You know I stand on the threshold of Love's house: but how do I know if you will ever join me, to enter side by side?"
Ianthe laid her hands lightly on the King's shoulder. "You will not win me before you woo, ungallant heart!" said she. "But if the day comes when you decide that I am worthy of your attentions, remember that my love, like that of fairy Princesses of China or of Ind, must be won by high achievement. It may be that I could, like a woman without shame, cry out this very hour, 'I love you,' were it not that my heart is lost already, pledged to a passion which surpasses all love I can feel for man. My body's love I will gladly give to whoever, like you, is beautiful and young, my friendship to whoever, like you, is gentle and wise, but my soul's love is my love for the Holy City of Alsander. There is not a court or a garden, not a stone of the cobbles of Alsander over which I would not slaughter the lover of my body or the friend who kept my thoughts if that would keep these holy streets from pollution and slavery. I love this country as no one has ever loved it before, save he who made it, my forefather, the great Kradenda. Its air is to me a more pellucid air, its rocks more ancient, its sea more blue, its flowers more fragrant than other airs and rocks and seas and flowers. And if a man would desire to have part of this deep love—and even with a part of it to be loved as no hero was ever loved in days of old by the great-bosomed women of the Greeks, then that man must become part of Alsander. He must fight, work, strive, for the glory of the kingdom. He would have his reward: for I am not a capricious woman but one whose heart is true, girl as I am.
"But do not answer me now: the minutes are flying on: your subjects will miss you: we must go out again into the square. Quick! I hear no more the dancers laughing and the splendid music has ceased sighing among the stars; they are waiting for their King to join them. Listen! The Cathedral bells of Alsander are tolling the midnight hour."
Creep, and let no more be said.Matthew Arnold.
The prolonged absence of the King having given rise to no small anxiety, there was universal relief at his reappearance, and he was welcomed with uproarious cheers as he stepped out of the palace gates, preceded by the Royal torchbearers. The King regretted to those of his notable guests whom he chanced to meet that affairs of State should have demanded his attention even on so holiday an evening. Sforelli also, by the Royal command, told Vorza to let it be known quietly that the King's health would not permit of his dancing that evening. To counteract the disappointment of this announcement, the King went round, with "Arnolfo" in attendance, among his subjects, conversing kindly with them and especially with those who were already his acquaintance. And seeing Peronella clinging to her mother, the widow, he did not hesitate, but went up to the couple, and after thanking the old lady for the excellent care she had taken of her Englishman, he praised her cooking, especially of beans and potatoes, and the softness of her linen, and the charm of her daughter. He then asked them both to come and pay him a visit in the course of the week. But not by a look, a sign, or a glance did he show to Peronella that he still loved or even that he still wanted her, In her new wisdom, born of bitterness of heart, the girl understood that her day was over, and inwardly she cursed Norman, and the mysterious young man at his side, who had so often taken him away from her, and the day that she was born.
"Ah, Norman," said Ianthe, as they left the group, in her low and gentle tones, "I see you are playing the game bravely. But you must play it as if you loved it, for it is a game for the glory of Alsander—if you do not love Alsander you cannot love its Queen; and if you do love Alsander, then, perhaps—but, hush! There is Vorza, dodging us round the statue."
The King beckoned to Vorza, who had just appeared from behind the pedestal of the statue of Kradenda, and was walking apparently in meditation. The Duke bowed. "Your Majesty," he said.
The King felt that an explanation of his apparently intimate converse with young Arnolfo was needed.
"Count Vorza," he said, pleasantly, "this young man, for all that he is the most charming of young men and a friend of yours and mine, is importunate. It is only my coronation day—my first evening of reign—and he is already trying to interest me in affairs of State."
"He is misguided but young," said Vorza, trying to catch the King's amiable tone of banter.
"He is misguided and young," echoed the King. "I have also noted in him a certain flightiness, eccentricity and weakness of purpose. But it seems he also has ambition."
"Ambition!" said Vorza, genuinely startled. "I have known him as the gayest and most delightful young man in Alsander, but he is surely not interested in affairs of State!"
"We have been deceived, Count Vorza. He is an enthusiast. He hopes to reform us all. He desires a post in the government."
"Surely he would be out of his element in serious affairs—if your Majesty and the gracious subject of our conversation will pardon my saying so!"
"I do not know, Vorza; I do not know. We need enthusiasts, we need youth. His father, however mistaken in his views, is an able man, and the ability may be inherited. I should like to give him a place in the government—but what place? I ask your advice, my Lord Chamberlain."
"I have no hesitation in giving it, your Majesty. My poor experience is always at your service and the service of the country. If any government post be given to this young man, it must be the Ministry of Fine Arts—a post which I am sure he would fill with distinction."
"I am entirely of your opinion, Count Vorza. The appointment shall be gazetted to-morrow."
Upon which the Count withdrew, meditative but not gloomy. If such young fools were to be the King's favourites, there would be ample opportunity for him to continue wielding the supreme power in Alsander. For a moment he forgot his suspicions as he dreamt the dreams of a man whose ambition age has sharpened instead of dulled.
But late that night when guests and populace (as it had been arranged for the sake of the King's supposed weak health) had dispersed, Vorza, as he jogged home in his carriage, and looked back on the events of the day, was again seized with the conviction that both he and Alsander had been the victims of a childish, simple and audacious hoax. He raged inwardly. Suppose it were found out by some outsider, and he—he, the wise Vorza—were shown to have been miserably fooled by an English jester and a Jew doctor? Was young Arnolfo a plotter, too—had he secret instructions from his old scoundrel of a father? Either, Vorza determined, the hoax must remain unexposed or he must expose it. Pacing the quiet flags of his great hall he passed the hours till morning.
Meanwhile the King had formally dismissed his guests, none of whom were staying in the Castle, which, despite the efforts of plumbers, scullions, chambermaids and upholsterers, could only just accommodate with decency the King himself. As he entered the great gate the guard fell back, and he suddenly discovered with a queer thrill that the boy-princess had appeared from nowhere in particular and that they were walking together in the palace garden, the little ruined garden of King Basilandron, which at night, now that the little summer-houses and temples had all their graceful lines traced out with rows of Fairy lamps, had an air not of decay but rather of mystery and sweetness, so tangled were its bowers, so heavy hung the scent of roses in the air. Norman trembled, feeling the enchantment of the moonlight and all the fear that comes with the birth of passion; but he listened in silence to the silvery accents of the Princess as she told her tale.
It seems the admirable old Count Arnolfo was, as the Princess had described him to Norman when she pretended to be his son, sent to Alsander on a patriotic mission. The real son existed, but had been in America for many years; the real father was, as the Princess had depicted him, an ardent patriot, a man, however, of liberal views. He let the Princess run fairly wild—shocking a good deal the other little Royal households with whom they came into contact and giving rise thereby to the legends of her wildness that had reached even Alsander. But, naturally enough, even his liberal and easy mind would not have contemplated the possibility of his charge roaming Alsander in boy's attire. What old Count Arnolfo had done, however, was to sanction the Princess to make a journey incognito (not, indeed, that such a very unimportant and impoverished Princess would have been much disturbed by adventurers) with her trusty governess, Miss Johnson. Old Arnolfo was getting too old to wander far from home, but he felt all the same that the Princess ought to have a course of good, healthy eye-opening travel in the English fashion.
They were to go anywhere they liked except—and the old man warned them like Bluebeard admonishing his wives—exceptinto the kingdom of Alsander. And of course, like Blue-beard's wife, Ianthe was fired with a resolve to go. But she did not know how to carry out the resolve, though she often thought of simply going and leaving Miss Johnson to her fate. It was the thought of getting poor Miss Johnson into trouble that prevented her from carrying out this plan rather than any fear of the difficulties of the enterprise. So the Princess kept quiet and toured the helpless Miss Johnson round, and wrote at regular intervals letters to her guardian full of admirable descriptions of the places and monuments visited, culled from Baedeker's well-known hand-books. In the monotony of luxurious travel she all but forgot Alsander.
But one night (and as she began to say one night, Norman, who had cared little to hear the long story, was caught to attention by the music of her words)—one night in London she leant out of her window and watched the Thames shining in the light of the moon. All the dark chimneys across the water were dancing in the moonlight like heavenly towers: and she almost loved the city that till then had seemed so hateful and so dark that she could not understand why men suffered to dwell therein. Then down the embankment came a man singing—but what was he singing? Not the latest infamy of the halls, nor yet a hearty British ballad—but the Song of the Black Swans of the Kradenda which every Alsandrian knows and loves. The singer passed beneath her window: she cried out, "Who goes there singing Alsandrian in the City of London?" Miss Johnson was shocked. The singer replied in English, "Who speaks to me in Alsandrian in a voice that is like a song?" Looking more closely, the Princess saw the singer to be a venerable and beautiful old man.
"I am an Alsandrian: speak English no more," she replied to his question.
"Ah! but I must speak English," said the stranger.
"But why?"
"Because I am an Englishman, fair lady of Alsander," replied the poet, for it was he, as Norman had already guessed.
A little disappointed, as she confessed, the Princess told how, nevertheless, she called the poet to come in and see her, and to a scandalized protest from Miss Johnson merely rejoined that if he might not come in through the door he should enter through the window.
It was the poet, then, who arranged the secret visit of Ianthe to Alsander. It was he who suggested her disguise, he who made friends for her in Alsander who could be trusted with the great secret, he who managed Miss Johnson. This latter superhuman task he managed heaven knows how. But I think the little old lady was a romantic and would have come, too, had it not been necessary for her to continue the tour and post from various illustrious towns the charming letters which the Princess with the poet's aid (to lighten the touch of Baedeker) composed beforehand ready for the post. "And so ends my tale," concluded the Princess. "Three days ago Sforelli, at my request, informed my guardian of all the amazing truth: and he (stern old man!) without one comment, has ordered me back. I must obey. I leave to-night. Here ends the masquerade!"
"Poor masquerade!" cried Norman. "Is it here the curtain falls? Whatever be the strong and radiant drama of our lives on which it shall rise again, I regret the masquerade!"
Their footsteps ceased upon the garden path. The moonlight flung their stilly shadows to the tattered roses. On the pediment of Love's plaster Temple one fairy light still palely glimmered in the vast white splendour of chaste Artemis. A nightingale trilled once, then fell a-dreaming. And through the boy's learned soul passed murmurs of ages far estranged, which yet blended together and took on a nature of their own—a clear dim note of the Athenian lyre, hinting beneath all artificial chords the melody of the earth and of truth, a gavotte by Lully or Rameau, a laugh of Heine, or songs they sang at the Cremorne Gardens, twenty years ago. He felt the moonlit sky, the ruined bowers, the Temple and the roses dwindle and shapen into the scenery of a stage—as though the girl in travesty before him had made a mockery of all the linked worlds. Then suddenly he knew.
"Columbine," he said, "you will not leave me thus?"
She stepped away from him lightly, arms akimbo.
"And what are you to me, Pierrot?" she cried; "or Columbine to you?"
"To me," he answered, "you are the colour of the soul of the marble statues, and the shape of the movement of the gliding moon."
"Like her," she laughed, "I shine falsely and I shine pale. Like her, to you I am only a shape that is no shape and a colour that is no colour."
"I will chase you from shape to shape," replied the young King. "I will pursue you from hue to hue; though you change to a slim gazelle or silver fish or a little seed of corn. And when I have conquered you at last, and held you, and driven you to your true and pristine form, then victorious, as now vanquished, will I swear eternal passion at your feet."
And he knelt on one knee before her.
"Why, Pierrot!" she whispered, "you said you would not love me yet!"
"But that," he replied, "was three hours ago."
"Pursue me no more, Pierrot," she warned him. "The moon has tricked your eye: the scents of the garden have deceived your heart. Am I not still Arnolfo? am I not still a boy?"
"Columbine," he replied, "I am pleading for love. Answer me now, tell me my doom, torment me no longer, for I hear approaching the fiery wheels of your departure."
"Oh, what a thirst for words you have," sighed she. "Stay there on your knees in silence, impatient, importunate Pierrot, and wait till I choose to answer."
"They have come to take you away!" he cried. "Your dragon is roaring at the gate. Your answer, Columbine!"
"Oh, stay there kneeling as I bid you," she cried, "and forget your thirst for words. Was it your mother, boy, who gave you eyes that colour in the night? Stay there and do not speak or raise your glance till you hear my dragon rolling me away—and let me give you, in my own fashion, the silent answer of my farewell."
She spake, and the very dragon ceased to roar, as though even his steely heart recognized the bell-like voice of his mistress, commanding silence throughout the world. Haunted with expectation Norman bowed his eyes: soon he felt her presence bending over him its wings. Softly her arm stole across his shoulder, and suddenly, to his great wonder, fell over his cheek a wave of the soft and fragrant hair he had never seen; and on his lips she answered him.
Too soon she was gone: but he obeyed her to the end; ecstasy which had snatched his spirit out into the realms of fire, had left his body frozen like ice and statues and the moon. He listened immobile to her step fading down the garden: he heard the rumour of her departure. Then he rose and like a man whom life has forgotten, he walked slowly back to his royal home.
But as for Peronella, she, poor girl, had made her way home early enough, clinging to her mother, not heeding the pity, envy, laughter or ridicule of the revellers, dozens of whom pointed to her to make their comment—so famous was she now. On her arrival she paid no attention to her mother's attempts to reassure her (which consisted in the reflection that no harm had been done, and the assertion that the King would provide her with a magnificent dowry), but rushing to her room, as ten thousand million disappointed maids have done before, she flung herself on the bed and burst into tears. Then she opened her box and took out a letter. A little slip may ruin a great cause, and the conspirators, who had thought to make all their plans so neatly and completely, had forgotten about letters. And this was a letter, with a British postmark and addressed to Norman Price.
"All Alsander may be deceived," cried Peronella to herself. "But I'll be even with the liar." Peronella, after a moment's hesitation, opened the letter with a little knife, cunningly, so that it could be sealed again. It was, of course, in English, so she could not understand it. She put it under her pillow with a peasant's caution, and cried herself to sleep.
The next morning she found Father Algio—whom she sought—at the confessional.
"You do well to come to me," said the priest, kindly. "You have been away too long."
"Ah! father," said Peronella, with a not quite honest sigh.
"The ways of Princes are not our ways, Peronella, and hard is the lot of the women whose path they cross."
"Princes?" said Peronella. "Do you believe that tale? A Prince—that Englishman who said he loved me?"
"What do you mean, my daughter? Which tale?"
"Do you believe that that Englishman who came to stay with us was our King Andrea?"
"But who ever doubted it, girl?" rejoined the old priest, pretending greater astonishment than he felt, for, after all, similar questions had been in the hearts of many. "In that he came to Alsander in secret for a few days before his accession we all count it for great wisdom on his part. You must be mad, girl, to talk such treason. Could all our rulers be lying to us?"
"Well, read this letter," said Peronella. "I cannot, for it is in English. It is addressed to him under the name he had when he was with me. It arrived after he left."
The worthy priest, who had been expecting a sad confession of deviation from the straight path of virtue, was more shocked than he would have been at any weakness of the flesh, at this manifestation of coldness, pettiness and deceit. (He need not be therefore accused of having hoped for a romantic tale. His long experience told him that small sins were sometimes worse than great ones.)
"Give me the letter," he said. Taking it, he addressed the girl severely. "You have committed many sins," he said. "You have sinned in stupidly doubting your lawful King; in thinking yourself cleverer than all the rest of Alsander; in taking a letter, which was not yours; in opening that letter and in attempting to disclose its contents to another. I shall reseal the letter and send it instantly to the palace: nor will I betray my King by giving a single glance at the contents. I am most displeased with you, my daughter."
"You will think differently of me when you have read the letter," sneered Peronella, rising and departing abruptly down the aisle with a confident and cynical laugh—a laugh sad years older than her laughter of a week ago.
The old priest looked after her with melancholy eyes, then let his glance fall on the letter. He then read it.
Father Algio was a strictly virtuous and honourable old man. He must, therefore, have had good reason for acting in this strictly dishonourable fashion, doing practically thereby what he had reprimanded Peronella for doing, exactly what he had given his word not to do, and exactly what Peronella had prophesied he would do. Was it that something the girl said had struck him, and he believed in her more than he pretended to do? Was it that he had a spiritual intuition? I fear no. The envelope being open, and he equipped with a slight knowledge of the English tongue, he could not resist the temptation. Was he a fraud? No more than St Peter or King David. He was just that very common phenomenon which novelists refuse to admit—a good man doing a bad action, with no extenuating circumstances.
The letter ran in the original thus (which was not quite as Father Algio closeted in his library with a very old English dictionary rendered it into Alsandrian, but no matter):
MY DEAR SON
"Mr Gaffekin did give me your address which you never thought to send to me or write a line and I think you might have more affection for your old father with one foot in his grave than to leave him and go to foreign parts without a word not to mention robbing me of all my money which I will forgive if you will give back the money at once as I am very poor and the shop going badly, though it was a great sin and shame to rob your father and if you come back I will see you, your loving
"FATHER."
Having made out the rough sense of this the old priest tumbled his head on his beard. A quick psychologist, he knew he had before him a genuine human document, an able logician, he soon deduced the facts of the case from the given data. Then he arose, struck the table violently, swore that divine guidance had prompted him to read the letter (whereby he added the sin of hypocrisy to that of curiosity and misnamed the latter) Not only was the King an impostor, it seemed, but a vulgar thief as well. He sat in his armchair for some time, pondering on what plan he should pursue. At last he left the monastery and, taking the letter and his translation with him, he communicated them in a secret interview to Count Vorza that very night.
And this explains how it was that Count Vorza spent yet a second night pacing up and down his gorgeous courtyard.
Down in a deep dark hole the society plotted a horror.
It was some three weeks after the date of the last chapter that Count Vorza left the palace without giving the customary notification to his august master (who was taking his august siesta), at two o'clock in the afternoon. He passed quickly along, avoiding observation and courting the most devious by-ways, till he came at last to an obscure and squalid doorway at the end of a filthy alley.
"Who is there?" inquired a girl's treble.
"Regnestro."
"Invenu."
He followed into a bare and horrible cellar, damper than a subaqueous vault. This was the Temple of Conspiracy, or shall we say Counter-Conspiracy? correctly chosen, according to all traditions, an utterly unnecessary, even dangerous, choice, for the house of Peronella would have been a far safer resort than this most suspect vault. But no Alsandrian conspirator could have enjoyed himself or felt at ease in less mysterious, less uncomfortable surroundings. Truly the scene was picturesque enough to satisfy the most theatrical appetite: and the motives of the conspirators themselves in plotting against the impostor were various enough to give psychological interest to the melodrama. Dark girder beams projected low, so that the tallest had to stoop: and illumination was produced day and night from a sickly and evil-smelling lamp. Nor were the individuals here assembled less in keeping with the true spirit of second-rate tragedy that pervades the novels of the good old school of Harrison Ainsworth. Here was Cesano, his arms folded, his back to the wall, confident in his power of fascination, aglow with a foretaste of revenge. Peronella had avowed herself sick enough of her English Grocer-King, when Cesano, bursting with Father Algio's tremulous confidences, flung himself at her feet. But there was a fine, large step between hating Norman and loving Cesano: and the girl had by now regained enough spirits to tease quite heartlessly her sombre suitor. She also laughed a little at the conspiracy, but enjoyed being important. She tried at first to give herself the black air of a desolate Ariadne: but soon discarded it in the delights of plotting. She had grown up very swiftly—her beauty was a flourish of trumpets—but how the charm had fled! She was entrusted with the task of admitting the conspirators into the cellar upon the pronouncement of the password. She had taken to practising with a very expensive revolver which she had made Cesano give her, and also to smoking cigarettes, to the distress of Father Algio, who was seated beside her on a packing case. Cesano, whose presence we have remarked, had chosen the darkest corner of the cellar to glower in. Other conspirators prowled round. The lamp was giving out more smoke than ever and the room was stifling. No one could have kept quite sane in such an atmosphere for half-an-hour.
The venerable form of Vorza was greeted with respect and enthusiasm.
"Has anything happened, Duke Vorza?" inquired Peronella, whose modesty was decreasing, before anyone else could get in a word.
"Nothing," said Vorza. "The notice will be round the town in an hour's time: Cuvas has worked well: the whole town will be in the castle square and the usurper will meet his doom."
"What doom?" inquired Peronella, meekly.
"Oh, I doubt if we shall have to take formal proceedings against him. The mob will tear him to pieces, I imagine. Lynch law—those damned republics have taught us something, after all. Ah! is that Cuvas?"
Peronella opened the door and Cuvas, the weary-looking editor of theAlsandrian Gazette,stepped into the room, a stick of a man.
"You have managed splendidly," said Vorza to him.
"I am very tired. You do speak loudly, by the way. I could hear you right outside."
"What, talking about the probable end of our mock King?"
"Yes, and I did not like your talk entirely. Couldn't you ensure his safety? It would be rather a stroke. You see, very luckily the usurper made no attempt against King Andrea but simply put him into an asylum, as we have discovered. Wouldn't it look well in the eyes of Europe if we treated the usurper with the same leniency? Lynching doesn't look well, you know: it doesn't look well."
Cuvas was a man of peace, and not quite such a fool as the others, as will be seen.
"Why, what an absurd idea!" exclaimed the Duke. "You are a queer man, Cuvas, or I would have to call you a coward."
"It would give Alsander such a bad name in the world, brutally to destroy a man who, after all, has done little harm and some good, and we must remember we belong to a civilized State and are now engaged in making history. That is the way things are worked nowadays, you know. Look at Portugal, and Turkey and China. I repeat, the grocer has set a good example."
"You dare praise him for not having killed your lawful King!" cried Father Algio.
"You dare compare the foul deposition of a legitimate monarch to the upsetting of a a low-born, vile, foreign impostor!" cried Vorza.
"Of course not," said Cuvas. "But I deprecate excitement. I deprecate bloodshed. It's the style in which you write your article, not what you say in it, that draws the populace. It's the way you conduct your revolution, not the justice of your cause, that appeals to the diplomats. You must remember that to some people there would be a good deal to be said for the impostor."
"Good things to be said of a grocer!" exclaimed Cesano.
"A Persian cobbler founded Persia's best dynasty," said Cuvas. "And a grocer is not worse than a cobbler. And in England, all things are different: I have heard that in that country grocers may be the friends of Kings and have been ennobled."
"Those English!" groaned Vorza, with contempt. "We are Alsandrians, not Persians, or English, and God be praised! But why to-day of all days do you trouble us with literary dissertations, Cuvas? What has this grocer done that you should defend him before he dies?"
"Well, he has worked already, and worked hard, in the interests of the country. He has begun to dredge the river and pave the streets, and light the town. He is already planning a new railway."
"He?" said Vorza. "Do you think he does anything? He spends half his time shut up with that scoundrelly Jew doctor, whom he would have made Prime Minister if I had let him."
Cuvas thought to himself that Vorza had had many years of power, and yet that more had been done for the country in the last three weeks than during all the years of his regency. However, he had no idea of angering the Count, and held his peace.
"Come, Cuvas," said Father Algio. "Remember what work we have in hand. We have the honour of our country to avenge. We have the Right to fight for. Nothing but death awaits impiety like this. I knew the young man. I could even have loved him once. He may be lowly born, but he looks and acts like a King. I admit it. Truly he has played a fine game with this country with the fiend's aid. But were he my own brother he could not be spared now. He has mocked at religion, fooled the Church, driven out the anointed King, blasphemed the holy oil. His sacrilege is heavy on him, and on this land, and only blood can wipe out our infamy. I am an old man, a feeble man, yet if he were now to come into this room I would tear him with my own hands, and the Queen of the Skies would give me strength to do it. Do not waver, do not flinch, for you are about a high and holy business."
"I wish they would come!" interrupted Peronella, with some impatience, quite irresponsive to this outburst of sacerdotal fervour.
"While we are waiting for the true ruler of this land let us betake ourselves to prayer," continued the priest, not heeding her.
"I hear them!" exclaimed the girl, starting up and leaping to the entrance. There was a sound of a carriage stopping outside and much commotion at the door.
"We have him!" came a reassuring voice, and three guardsmen entered, weary, perspiring, bedraggled and unkempt, bearing with them on a litter none other than the real King Andrea.
"We had to fight our way through the asylum," said the excited guards, in answer to a wind of questions. "There was no other way to get at him. The patients have all escaped and are gibbering in the open fields. Some must have perished: we have had a dreadful time."
They continued vivifying their experiences. Father Algio paid them no attention, but went to the bier and kissed the hand of Andrea, who heard not, felt not, cared not, for he was very sound asleep.
"Where is Makzelo?" asked Cuvas of the guardsmen, cutting short the tale of their heroism.
The guards who had been ordered by Sforelli to catch and imprison Makzelo had never been able to carry out their orders, and that subterranean person had sold Vorza some very decent information at a very decent price.
"Ill, couldn't come," briefly replied the man to whom the question was put: and the others smiled.
"He is not a desperately brave man," said Vorza "But we owe much to his connivance. Ah! his Majesty is opening his eyes!"
And Vorza, who was in general a fairly courageous person, but had not lost that uncanny fear of lunatics to which was due the possibility of the amazing substitution, edged away rapidly.
Royalty opened its eyes, blinked, shut them again, then opened them, stared at Peronella, sat up on his litter, and in a stridently audible voice declared to the assembled company:
"I want her: she must be my Queen!"
His eyes glowed with anticipation. All kept silent, half wondering, half horrified, half amused.
"Come here," continued Andrea, "do come here!"
"The devil take you!" muttered the girl, retreating to the end of the room.
"Do not speak like that to the King," said the priest.
"Come here. I command you. This time I must be obeyed," pursued the old maniac, and a dread sight he was with his stubbly beard and unholy light in his eyes. "They are always taking me away from you! I have waited such a long time—I want to kiss you! Will no one bring her here? This world is all full of traitors and liars."
"Go to him," said Vorza to Peronella. "Cesano, persuade her!"
Peronella's face flushed hot with disgust. The King rose right up and tottered towards her. She instantly put her hand to her girdle and levelled her pistol at him.
"Put him back!" she said, with a quietness almost hysterical.
They had to obey her, well knowing her determined spirit; and fearing the King would become violent the guards strapped him down upon his litter, but fortunately the jolting of the carriage had tired him thoroughly and he slept once more.
"It seems almost a pity," said Cuvas, softly, "to dethrone so active and enterprising an usurper merely to put that driv— that unfortunate King in his place."
He spoke half to himself, but the others heard him. They all began to talk at once with the angry remonstrance of men who feel that they may be in the wrong.
"What is progress?" said Vorza. "We have been happy for a thousand years and will be for another thousand if we are left alone."
"Nothing can come of lies but failure," said Father Algio.
"We are in it to the death now," said Cesano.
"Oh! that is true: so am I. And we have not the slightest prospect of failure. I only said it had a regrettable aspect," said the editor. "And I wondered if any of the people might think so, too, and not be over-anxious to join us when the moment comes!"
"Oh, Cuvas!" said Vorza, in what he took for a light, bantering tone. "You always were a damned old Liberal at heart. But the people of Alsander are staunch and true, and love the old principles, the beauty of their religion, the glories of their city. They do not want their churches desecrated by an unbeliever, their city made boisterous by ugly trains, their pure torrents debased to turn buzzing ma-chines, their river bed all churned up into mud by dredgers, their virgin mountains defiled by smoke and steam."
"But they have shown no discontent," objected the editor, not daring to taunt Vorza for declaring his hatred of the reforms of which he had a few minutes ago delicately suggested himself as the real author.
"You spend all your day on a stool, Cuvas. What do you know about the hearts of our people? You have no time to do anything but transcribe telegrams. The people do not mind, because they are so pleased to have their King returned to sanity. What did I hear an old man say but a few hours ago? He said that no one could become sane straight at once, after all those years; that one might forgive all this reforming nonsense at first, and that he wished anyone might have cured the Sovereign but that hellish Jew of a doctor!"
"Curses on him!" said Father Algio.
"Are you content now, Count Cuvas?" said Vorza.
The title was only in part in jest: ennoblement was the understood reward of complicity.
"You are right: I am well contented," said Cuvas. "I have, of course, some ideas which I do not share with you, but in this business command me. I have joined your conspiracy because I cannot stand immorality and imposture," he added, with dignity. "Still, I can but think it only right to remark once in public—now that it cannot affect our action—what I have so often remarked to you in private—that it would have been no imposture but sound policy to ask old Count Arnolfo whether the rightful heir to the throne, the Princess Ianthe, were not fit to conduct a regency."
Considerable stir was caused by these words of Cuvas, which reflected thoughts which many a conspirator had been waiting for some one else to utter.
"And I have answered you as many times," cried Vorza, turning on him in a veritable fury, "that I have clear evidence that Count Arnolfo's own son was implicated in this dastardly plot. A fine person to ask for information or advice, your Arnolfo! Let us first of all get Andrea safely restored, and then we can talk about a Regency!"
"Well, well," said Cuvas, "you are our leader!" He said it in a tone of resignation which was entirely false, for Cuvas was by no means the simple-souled Conservative-Liberal he seemed. His little speeches, as well as his actions, were a cunning preparation for all eventualities. Two days ago he had sent a trusty messenger to Count Arnolfo to inform him truly not only that the King of Alsander had proved a grocer, but also that the said grocer was in imminent peril of his life and throne.
"Is it nearly time?" called one of the guards. "I hear a noise outside."
Vorza, the only man of the party who possessed a watch (for in Alsander you go by the cathedral bells), looked at it, and cried, "So it is!" The little company hesitated and each of them turned cold for a moment with the terror of excitement. Outside there was a clattering and shouting in the streets, the curious persistent sound of people running all in the same direction.
"Come!" said Vorza. "Where is the wine?"
The wine, or rather spirit, was produced from a bottle in the corner, and poured out into a great bowl, from which each drank in turn, pledging the sleeper in their midst. Then with a shout of "The King! The King!" and with revolvers pointing carelessly aloft and an Alsandrian banner borne by Peronella in the van, the little party streamed out into the alley, and hardly were they in the street when their shout seemed to re-echo all round them and a tremendous cry rose up, thunderous, to heaven, "The King! The King!"
When you paint a battle-scene let every inch of the foreground be dabbled with blood.Leonardo da Vinci.
On this very day the King was inspecting the throne-room in the company of Dr Sforelli, who was a person endowed, like most of his race, with a sound artistic instinct. They were gazing on the broken plaster cupids, the faded chinoiseries and singeries, and the immortal lion throne of the Kradenda.
"You must have this renewed," observed Sforelli, stroking his swarthy beard. "It will make a splendid and royal hall."
"Some day," said the King. "Not while there remains a road unpaved or a street lamp unlit in the city of Alsander. Not till my harbour is deep enough for all the navies of the world. And then it shall not be renewed, it shall be cleaned of all the plaster and paint, and left to stand with the ornament of its proportion and no other, save the lion chair of the first Kradenda."
"It rings false, sir. You think you will attain the high ideal of artistic restraint by taking away all the art like your Galsworthy. These little monkeys running up the vine leaves are so well done that I doubt if you would find out of France a painter fit to repair them. Those engaging Chinamen have an idiotic expression which fills the heart with delight. If you do not want them here, where I admit they are out of keeping, you must not destroy them but have them transferred to form a lady's bower, for which some day there will be room in the palace. And when your Majesty has stripped the walls of these pretty things it would be, not merely inaesthetic, but mean-spirited, unroyal, to leave the vast walls white. The great Kradenda would not have left them white, he who himself, the story tells, planned the rose pattern mosaic beneath the cathedral dome. If you say these Chinamen, these monkeys, are vilely out of place, you must find a design that will be in place and keeping."
"Allegorical figures," said the King, sardonically. "Justice with her eyes bandaged, Plenty with a cornucopia, War scowling, Peace smiling, Charity giving away a loaf of bread, Labour with a very red body and big calf muscles smiting at a forge, Commerce watching her ships, Wool Industry watching her sheep, and similar genial devices, such as I believe you see in the offices of banks."
"Do you really think a conventional subject hinders a painter's inspiration?" replied the doctor. "The Italians painted twenty thousand Madonnas and more than half are worth a glance. And if the figure of Peace was tiring in the bank, have you seen the figure of Peace in the Town Hall of Siena? I know of a poor painter starving in Paris who would wreathe your allegory in blazing sunshine by frescoing the walls in little squares; and I know of another, who is starving at Munich, who, by a cunning exaggeration of hollows and curves, would make your figures supernatural and sublime as Michael Angelo's apostles."
"You have made me think, Sforelli," said the King, "that there is just a chance that we may discover a better method even than that. It may be you spoke more truly than you knew when you said that King Kradenda would not have left these walls bare. Who knows if we may not discover under the preserving whitewash of inappreciative fools marvels like those men say await the conquering Crusader who scratches off the Moslem paint from St Sophia? But damn St Sophia! Tell me," continued the King, abruptly changing the subject, "what is the earliest possible date for the projected visit of the Princess Ianthe to my court?"
"As I have informed your Majesty," the doctor courteously replied, "the negotiations are not yet concluded. We hope, however, in about two months' time...."
"It is intolerable!" interrupted the King. "Three weeks have already passed, and now...."
He stopped short on the entry of a lackey who handed him a letter bearing an English postmark.
"That," exclaimed the doctor, "I can recognize from afar as the hand of our friend the old Poet."
Norman tore open the letter, and the lackey having retired, read aloud as follows:—
"DEAR SIR,—
"I hope I am not taking too strange a liberty in writing to you a somewhat personal letter, presuming on a single meeting and a short acquaintance. My only claim upon your attention is that I recommended to you a plan of action which you, subsequently to my advice but of course independently of it, did in the end follow. I would not for a minute presume, sir, to imagine that you were in any way influenced by the random words of one whom you must have taken for a most ridiculous old dotard. It is, indeed, in order to dispel the bad impression I must have made on you by my eccentric dress and appearance that I am writing to you now. May I assure you that these follies were entirely due to some cerebral affection, overpowering indeed, but quite temporary, and probably induced by the extreme heat of the sun? You will remember it was a very hot summer's day when I entered your establishment to purchase some tobacco. May I even go further, and assure you that, apart from these sudden outbreaks and disturbances, I have led a most regular life, was for several years in a city office, and was once mayor of my borough; that I am not addicted to any criminal practices; and that I am, at home, a thoroughly respected and respectful member of civihzed society? But, as I say, I was in a state of mind totally foreign to my saner and better self that afternoon of last summer; and owing, I believe, to the cause above suggested, the unusual, almost volcanic, heat of the day—I had been seeing visions and dreaming dreams after reading Adlington'sApuleius,a book of which I am extremely fond. The sight of anApuleiusbetween the hands—pardon my bluntness!—of a provision dealer in a small and remote village upset my nerves, and I talked to you, I fear, with an absurd arrogance and an offensive flattery, for which I sincerely apologize.