“What is this, sir?” he asked, bewildered.
“Princesses are expensive wives for commoners,” returned King Michael calmly, “and Roburoff had no intention of marrying Lida on a captain’s pay. I was obliged to make it worth his while.”
“Impossible, sir! You arranged the elopement with your equerry?”
“Oh no, not at all. I discovered that he was in love with her through his dropping a note of hers when we were fencing one day. After we had teased him about it a little, it occurred to me that since he had gone so far for his own pleasure, he might as well make himself useful. It was very hard to convince him, for he was quite contented to let things go on as they were, and I had to point out that the prospect for the future was not exactly to my taste. At last we came to terms, and I despatched him on a special mission, giving him credentials that would carry him anywhere (of course never dreaming of the use he would make of them), and this is the way he repays my confidence! Don’t you think we are well rid of him?”
Too much disgusted to speak, Prince Mirkovics bowed in answer. The King laughed. “Come, Prince, I must drink one last toast before I become a total abstainer, and you will join me in it with all your heart.” He touched the bell. “Bring a bottle of champagne,” he said to the servant who answered his summons. “Fill the glasses, Prince. To Queen Philippa!”
“To her Majesty Queen Philippa!” repeated Prince Mirkovics gravely, touching the glass which the King held out with his own.
King Michael was as good as his word. Twelve hours before Prince Soudaroff, despatched in hot haste to bear him the condolences of the Scythian Imperial family, and to discover how the loss of his bride seemed to affect him, could reach the hunting-box, its tenant was hastening homewards across Europe. The state of affairs in Thracia demanded his presence there, so he gave out. Arrived at his own capital, the King found that he had accidentally spoken the truth respecting the political situation, and that the course of events was all in his favour. The shock of the sudden rupture of the betrothal on which he had built all his hopes proved too much for Drakovics, the great Premier whom Cyril had driven from office, and who had in turn ousted him. The unholy compact with the Princess of Dardania which restored him to power had become void, and almost simultaneously with the arrival of the news, a stroke of paralysis dragged from his failing hands the reins which he had clutched with such persistent determination. The rest of the Ministry, deprived of their head, and painfully aware that they held their places merely at the pleasure of Scythia, were in no condition to combat the vigorous measures of their youthful monarch. Drakovics would have bowed to the storm and maintained his position, but his colleagues, left to themselves, resisted, and gave the King the excuse he wanted for dismissing them. Returning humbly, after an interview with the Scythian agent, to tender their submission, they found their places filled up. Prince Mirkovics had accepted office, and the scattered forces of Cyril’s supporters rallied round him with magical unanimity. They were of the King’s opinion. Prince Mirkovics was merely holding the premiership in trust for his leader, and very shortly the period of progress at home and high prestige abroad, which had ended with King Michael’s attainment of his majority, might be expected to return.
It was in vain that the Emperor of Scythia sought to conciliate the young King by removing Captain Roburoff’s name from the roll of his regiment, in vain that he despatched his brother, the Grand-Duke Eugen, on a special mission of friendship, in vain even that the Princess of Dardania sent her “beloved, deeply injured Michael” a heartrending message entreating him to return to Ludwigsbad, if only for a day, that she might know he had forgiven her. Prince Mirkovics pointed out to his master with a grim smile that the beautiful Grand-Duchess Sonya Eugenovna was now staying at the villa, and a polite refusal was returned. The opportunity of regaining her credit with Scythia by entangling King Michael a second time was not to be granted to the Princess.
Foiledin the hope of regaining her empire over King Michael, the Princess of Dardania turned with desperate vigour to the object which lay even nearer to her heart. It was not enough to count the days until she might hope to hear from Colonel Czartoriski of the success of his mission in acquainting Queen Ernestine with the villainy of the man who professed to love her—the Princess counted the very hours. At last the anxiously expected missive lay before her, but in the fulness of her triumph she allowed herself to gloat over her vengeance for a while before opening the envelope. When at length she drew out the letter and read it, the change that passed over her face was terrible to see. Colonel Czartoriski had not been successful. The Queen had positively refused to receive him when he presented himself at the Deaconesses’ Institution at Brutli. He tried bribery and cajolery in vain; and Princess Anna Mirkovics, the Queen’s maid of honour, who had acted as her Majesty’s mouthpiece throughout the negotiations, assured him that it was hopeless to attempt to obtain an interview. She offered to take charge of the letter of which he was the bearer; but in view of his mistress’s stringent order that he was to place it himself in the Queen’s hands, Colonel Czartoriski thought it well to ask for further instructions. The Princess of Dardania glanced through his formal phrases with a heart-sickening sense of bitter failure.
“He has been before me!” she said to herself, alluding not to Colonel Czartoriski, but to Cyril. “He has warned Ernestine that I shall try to prejudice her against him, and she is prepared to believe everything he says and nothing that I say. This explains his astonishing tardiness in first visiting Egypt and then Palestine, instead of going straight to Beyrout and the Lebanon. He has made things safe for himself already. Well, Czartoriski must wait at Damascus and watch for a chance of giving Ernestine my letter, and it may be possible to spoil their reunion in another way.”
That very day Colonel Czartoriski received a fiery telegram in cipher, which he read without astonishment as the hasty utterance of an outraged mother, dashed off in a moment of desperation. He would have been amazed to learn that the Princess had spent hours of anxious thought over the brief message.
“Do not return to tell me that the base wretch has achieved all he desired. Is there not one among the Christians whom he has betrayed to avenge the Holy Places on this renegade?”
Colonel Czartoriski’s chief impression on reading the telegram was that it was of too compromising a nature to be retained safely in his possession, and, after fixing the contents in his mind, he destroyed the paper. This done, he was able to consider the message calmly. The suggestion which it contained struck him as worthy of notice; for he had relinquished his earlier intention of challenging Cyril to a dueloutrance, reflecting that in such a conflict he was unlikely to be victorious. Although, in the frenzied state to which the contemplation of his mistress’s wrongs had reduced him, he would not have shrunk from death if he could have ensured the destruction of his foe, he felt that justice would be but poorly satisfied if Cyril killed him and escaped unscathed. Since, then, a duel was not to be thought of save as a last resort, he allowed his mind to dwell with something like complacency on the hint thrown out by the Princess. Palestine was filled with fanatical pilgrims from Southern and Eastern Europe; how probable it was that Count Mortimer might meet with a fatal accident while in the neighbourhood of one of their stations! For a minute or two it seemed to Colonel Czartoriski that such an accident was so likely as to be almost inevitable, but as soon as his brain had regained its balance he perceived that the matter was not one to be left to chance. Unless the consequences of Cyril’s present diplomacy were pointedly brought to the notice of the pilgrims, he might pass unharmed from one end of Palestine to the other. It was clearly necessary that the destined avengers should be made properly acquainted with the state of affairs—and how should this be done unless Colonel Czartoriski made it his business? At first the old soldier shrank back appalled from the idea: it was too much like hounding men on to commit murder. But the thought of the Princess’s sorrows overcame his compunction once more, and he salved his conscience with a few curt platitudes to the effect that, since the law often failed to punish the greatest offenders, it was well to ensure that justice should be done at last. Thus satisfied that it lay with him to bring criminal and punishment together, he began to ask himself how the duty might best be performed.
It is not seldom a delicate task to put in motion the slowly revolving wheels of justice, and Colonel Czartoriski realised this as he sat smoking on the verandah of his Damascus hotel and laboured at the details of his plot. It was evident that he must not appear in connection with it, since the mention of his name would lead the world to infer the complicity of the Princess of Dardania; but he found it difficult to devise any means of inciting a crowd of unlettered fanatics to the requisite degree of hatred without communicating with them directly. After various fruitless attempts to solve the problem, he threw away his cigar and strolled out into the town, hoping that some chance sight or sound might give him the enlightenment he sought. He had scarcely left the shelter of the courtyard when the help he needed presented itself. Bumping and jolting over the alternate hillocks and hollows of the street came a carriage, in which sat a tall man with flowing black hair and beard. His dark robes, and the lofty head-dress which surmounted his stern features and piercing eyes, marked him as a bishop of the Orthodox Church. Two monks sat opposite him, so obviously in awe of his displeasure that even the discomforts of the drive evoked not the slightest murmur from either of them.
“The very man!” murmured Colonel Czartoriski. “How could I have forgotten that Bishop Philaret had gone on pilgrimage?”
The reverend travellers had only snatched a very brief rest at the Greek Convent, to which they were bound, when Colonel Czartoriski entreated the honour of an interview with the Bishop of Tatarjé. His request was granted at once, for the two men were old acquaintances. Bishop Philaret had brought the whole strength of the reactionary party in the Thracian Church to swell the forces of the Princess of Dardania when she had arranged the betrothal between her daughter and King Michael, which overthrew Cyril and restored M. Drakovics to office. In return for this signal service, it was commonly understood that when Archbishop Socrates, the Metropolitan of Thracia, should be gathered to his fathers, his successor in the see of Bellaviste would be the ambitious and able Bishop of Tatarjé. The recent events in Thracia had, of course, blurred this fair prospect, and the Bishop and Colonel Czartoriski met as fellow-sufferers by a common disaster.
“If either her Royal Highness or I myself had been in Thracia, this would not have happened,” said the Bishop, as his attendant monks brought coffee and sweet jelly for the refreshment of the visitor.
“It is a European misfortune,” observed Colonel Czartoriski gloomily.
“European? it is a misfortune to the whole Church—a thing to make one shudder!” cried the Bishop. “For many years I have looked forward to this pilgrimage, but I never ventured to leave Thracia until now. Everything seems safe—the King at Ludwigsbad under her Highness’s own eye—and I set out with a quiet mind. I spend two peaceful months in visiting our brethren in Armenia and Mesopotamia, and as soon as I am once more within reach of telegraphs and newspapers, what do I learn? Why, that the old dotard Mirkovics is Premier, and the Mortimer close upon his heels!”
In common with the other members of the reforming party in Thracia, Prince Mirkovics held that his own brother, Bishop Andreas of Karajevo, would be the most suitable successor to the present Metropolitan. Bishop Philaret did not mention this fact, but Colonel Czartoriski was acquainted with it.
“And it is perfectly certain that all might have been avoided if your Greatness had not been absent from Thracia!” he said regretfully. “Do you intend to return to your diocese immediately?”
“What is the use?” asked the Bishop snappishly. “The mischief is done, and I can’t undo it any more than your mistress can. I shall stay here until the great band of pilgrims from Scythia lands at Haifa, as I intended, and go up to Bethlehem with them for Christmas. After all, I may be more useful when I return to Thracia than if I had rushed to measure my strength against the new Ministry at once, and had failed.”
“Quite so,” returned Colonel Czartoriski, with anxious cordiality. “I am certain your Greatness will find it the best plan to remain quiescent until you see a chance to strike effectually. And, moreover, there are other reasons why I should congratulate you on having undertaken your pilgrimage this year. After a very few months Palestine will be closed to Christians.”
“Closed to Christians!” cried the Bishop incredulously.
“Has your Greatness not heard that the whole country has been sold to the Jews?”
“I heard that Count Mortimer—like a discarded servant who takes to brigandage—was trying to bring about something of the sort, but in passing through Vindobona on my way to the East I fell in with Prince Soudaroff, who assured me that everything was ready for the destruction of the scheme, and the political annihilation of the Mortimer.”
“Alas! events have not stood still while your Greatness was beyond the reach of telegraphs and newspapers. Count Mortimer is so far from being annihilated that he feels it quite safe to leave Thracian affairs in the hands of Prince Mirkovics, while he himself looks after his larger interests here. He has bribed the Grand Seignior to sell the country to him on behalf of the Jews, and next Easter he intends to be crowned in Jerusalem the first king of the Jewish State!”
The manifest improbability of this forecast did not strike Bishop Philaret. “And the Holy Places?” he ejaculated.
“I believe their inviolability is to be guaranteed by the Powers. But a paper guarantee!—your Greatness knows what that is, something that the Jews will tear up as soon as the Powers need money.”
“We will preach a holy war against Mortimer and his Jews!” cried the Bishop. “The Orthodox of Scythia and the Balkans will rise in their millions, and free the Holy Places for ever from the dogs.”
“But the conflict would be terrible, even if we were successful. Let your Greatness reflect a moment. The Jews can hire soldiers—Protestants, Moslems, Pagans even—and there will be plenty of Hebrews who have been forced to serve in the Scythian armies to lead them. And if Sigismund of Hercynia should be seized with an impulse to take their part——”
“I see, I see,” interrupted the Bishop hastily. “But is there no hope of sowing dissension among the Jews? If those of one country alone could be brought to detach themselves from this infamous alliance, its power would be broken. I would support—even propose—concessions, substantial concessions, for the Jews in Thracia, if they would consent to abandon Count Mortimer’s scheme.”
“It would be useless. By means of some extraordinary system of terrorism, the originators of the plan have contrived to force all the Jews in the world to enter into combination with them. I questioned Speyerl, the Princess’s Vindobona banker, on the subject as I came out here, but he would tell me nothing. I could see that his mouth watered at the thought of the profit he might make if he broke loose from his countrymen, but he assured me he durst not do it.”
“The thought of the next world has little terror for a Jew,” said the Bishop, with a laugh. “Count Mortimer has probably made use of very mundane threats.”
“As mundane as his own hopes,” agreed Colonel Czartoriski. “Has your Greatness guessed who is to share with him the throne he intends to establish in Jerusalem? No other than your late beloved and venerated regent, her Majesty Queen Ernestine!”
Bishop Philaret sprang to his feet, and an exclamation broke from him which in a layman would have been called an oath, but from his ecclesiastical lips was doubtless a solemn curse. If there was one person whom he hated more than Cyril, it was Queen Ernestine, who had refused him the Metropolitical mitre thirteen years before, preferring to dismiss M. Drakovics and risk a revolution rather than consent to his appointment. For some minutes he strode up and down the room, alternately muttering anathemas and gnawing his beard, then halted abruptly before Colonel Czartoriski.
“See here,” he said rapidly, “I will force my way into this convent at Brutli, and demand an interview with the Queen. She knows me of old—that I do not hesitate to strike—and I will make her understand that if she desires to see her lover again alive, he must give up both the Jews and his schemes of self-aggrandisement.”
“It is useless,” said Colonel Czartoriski again. “Her Majesty will not receive your Greatness. She refuses even to see me, although I am the bearer of a letter from my august mistress. There can be no doubt that Mortimer has warned her to receive only visitors accredited by himself. You would see no one but Mlle. Mirkovics, who will tell her mistress just as much or as little as she chooses.”
“Yes, the Mirkovics girl would face the devil and all his angels in the Queen’s behalf,” said the Bishop, not perceiving with what unpleasant company he was associating Colonel Czartoriski and himself; “but,” he spoke lightly, “if this is the case, my conscience is clear. I was merely desirous of warning her Majesty to keep her lover out of harm’s way. Curiously enough, it is a fact that the pilgrims with whom I hope to travel southwards from Haifa are extremely enthusiastic—even fanatical—in their attachment to our holy and orthodox faith.”
“True,” said Colonel Czartoriski, “and Count Mortimer is travelling northwards from the Egyptian frontier. It would be sad indeed if he met with any accident.”
“Nothing could be more lamentable,” agreed the Bishop. “In fact, I feel it my duty to take precautions lest anything of the kind should occur. The simple pilgrims may quite possibly have imbibed wrong ideas of his doings, and I will therefore make a point of explaining his true character to them. I need scarcely say that I shall warn them expressly and in set terms against using any violence if they should happen to find themselves in his neighbourhood.”
“The advice is only what might be expected from your Greatness,” said Colonel Czartoriski gravely. “It would be too cruel if all the care Count Mortimer has taken to divert suspicion from his intentions—approaching his goal by such a lengthy route and such gradual stages—were to be wasted.”
“And how sad it would be if Queen Ernestine were to see a dead body carried into her convent, instead of welcoming a living lover!” cried the Bishop, his teeth displayed in a smile that could only be called wolfish.
The two plotters at Damascus and the Princess of Dardania would have been equally surprised to learn that they had credited Cyril with a greater degree of caution than he possessed. No letter had passed from him to Queen Ernestine, and it was not with the idea of concealing his true destination that he approached Palestine from the south. Two motives, the existence of which was scarcely confessed even to himself, he allowed to sway him. One was the determination to do his duty to the utmost before gratifying his personal wishes, which sprang rather from pride in his own self-mastery than from any ascetic notion of self-denial, but the other was a dread lest his humiliation should after all be in vain. Ernestine might spurn him as he had once spurned her. Cyril did not care to contemplate this possibility, but the mere thought made him willing to defer the time when it might become a fact. Attended by his three inseparable followers, he pursued his journey without hurry, and also without undue delay, halting here and there to meet the heads of a Jewish community, and explain the significance of the new state of affairs. Encouragement was little needed at this juncture, except in the case of those Jews who had hitherto regarded the Zionist movement with suspicion or dislike. All the rest appeared to have taken a step forward—the step from bondage to freedom, from despair to hope—and many were already preparing their possessions for the journey to Palestine, awaiting only the summons to start.
At Vindobona Mansfield made the acquaintance of Dr Koepfle, to whom the Chevalier Goldberg was fond of alluding as the brain of Zionism. It struck him as quaintly curious that the man who had been chiefly instrumental in arousing an enthusiasm unprecedented in modern times should himself be enthusiastic purely as a matter of business. Business-like from head to foot was Dr Koepfle, intent on giving practical form to the dreams of many generations, and crystallising the vague maxims of scattered visionaries into a workable constitution. He was not ashamed to confess that it was the intolerant Anti-Semitism of his Christian fellow-subjects that had first suggested to him the possibility of a refuge over-seas for his race. Nay, his mind was so severely practical that he had been willing to look to the New World for a colonising ground when the difficulties in the way of obtaining land in Palestine seemed insuperable. In the same business-like spirit he accepted Cyril’s co-operation, displaying neither theempressementof the Chevalier nor the distrustfulness of Dr Texelius. Cyril, on his side, declared to Mansfield that it was the most refreshing thing on earth to come across a man who was content to accept facts as they were. Capable of meeting men of the world on equal terms, Dr Koepfle was able, on the occasion of conferring with his compatriots, to pump up as much serviceable enthusiasm as assisted him to lead them in the right way, without either chilling their zeal or allowing himself to be carried away by it. With the harshness of youth, Mansfield suggested that an enthusiasm which could be folded up and put away so conveniently might merely be assumed on particular occasions; but Cyril told him that he had failed to allow for the contagious influence of the emotion dominating a crowd.
At Trieste they fell in with a Zionist of a very different type, for here Rabbi Schaul had taken up his abode for a time, in order to bestow his blessing on the members of his flock now to be found on board every steamer leaving for Palestine. Sauntering down to the quay to look for their own vessel, Cyril and Mansfield found themselves accosted by a venerable white-bearded man in shabby robes of black, who raised his hands heavenwards and called down blessings in sonorous Hebrew on the head of the liberator of Israel, following up his words by bowing low enough to kiss the hem of Cyril’s coat. Then turning to the Jews who stood around, gazing in astonishment at the homage paid by their renowned teacher to a Gentile, he explained to them in Jargon that when the Temple was rebuilt, and Messiah reigned in Jerusalem, this stranger would undoubtedly be admitted to the royal table as a guest, not as a servant like other Gentiles, and allowed to feast on the flesh of Leviathan, since it was owing to him that the desolations of Zion were about to be repaired. Mansfield listened, deeply moved, although he understood only a word here and there. He treasured up the incident for Philippa, wishing she could have witnessed it for herself, for he knew that its pathos would have touched her keenly. As for Cyril, he freed himself good-humouredly from the old man, waving aside the throng of disciples who were prepared to follow his example, and called to Mansfield to come on board quickly.
“You know, Rabbi, that I don’t care to advertise myself,” he said.
“But how are we to refrain from showing our gratitude to your Excellency?” asked Rabbi Schaul. “Here are all these sons of Israel leaving the house of bondage for the promised land, and many are gone already. Many more are going in the spring, and I myself among them. How can I forget that, thanks to your Excellency, I shall in truth keep the Passover next year in Jerusalem?”
Cyril nodded pleasantly, and took refuge on board his steamer, where he expressed to Mansfield his satisfaction that Alexandria was their destination, and not Beyrout or Haifa, for which ports these fervid Zionists were bound.
In Egypt, indeed, there proved to be little that was fervid about the patriotism of the Jewish community. Its members were as business-like as Dr Koepfle, but with this difference—that they had their own interests in view, and not those of Zion. They treated the acquisition of Palestine purely as a matter of trade. Doubtless Count Mortimer had arranged with the Chevalier Goldberg to receive a due reward for his services, and, now that his work was over, he had nothing to do with the future of the country. It was the property of the United Nation Syndicate, and they would exploit it and make the most of its commercial capabilities for the benefit of the shareholders. It was a matter for grave discontent that the land was being colonised on such a large scale by the poor city-Jews of Europe, since the aim ought to have been to secure immigrants already accustomed to agricultural life, and not necessarily belonging to the Chosen Race. At present much time, and therefore money, was being wasted in teaching the new settlers and correcting their mistakes. Mansfield listened in sorrowful and wondering disgust while these prosperous people, themselves secure in their enjoyment of liberty and property under British rule, talked glibly of the Holy Land as an estate to be worked for their own advantage, without reference to the needs of their oppressed brethren. A scheme was even proposed, and largely discussed, for making the Holy Places more valuable from a pecuniary point of view, by means of judicious selection and rearrangement.
“It is so miserably mean and degraded!” Mansfield cried angrily to Cyril, who had rallied him on his sour looks. “These people have the romance of the ages behind them, and the fulfilment of the prophecies just ahead, and they think of nothing but cent per cent!”
“You have been disillusioned, and you speak severely,” said Cyril, with great sweetness. “I am thankful I never took the trouble to set up ideals, when I see how other people suffer in seeing theirs overthrown. But why don’t you blame the tyranny of centuries, which has reduced the Jews to this lamentable condition? You know the old excuse, that because the Jew has been allowed to deal with nothing but money, he has come to think that nothing but money exists.”
“But the Jew has allowed himself to be degraded.”
“Oh, come, I see disappointment has made you merciless. Perhaps you may be induced to modify the rigour of your judgments before long. I shall be interested to see what you think of Herschel Rubenssohn, the Ghetto poet, when we meet him in Palestine. He was the pet of London society a year ago, and now he is abonâ fidecolonist.”
Itwas at a newly-established colony of Scythian Jews in the neighbourhood of Hebron that the travellers found Herschel Rubenssohn, roughly clad and labouring with his own hands like one of thefellahin. He had turned his back deliberately upon the days when English hearts had thrilled in response to his rehearsal of the tragedy of his race, and the Anti-Semites of the Continent had been lashed to frenzy by his cutting sarcasm. The pen was laid aside, and the poet was intent on the best methods of cultivating olives, and on finding new species of vines unaffected by the diseases which attacked those native to the country. Even these lowly tasks could not be performed in peace, for he was called upon incessantly to quell the disputes which arose among the pale-faced, gaberdined and ringleted denizens of the Ghetto who were his fellow-colonists. It was his duty, also, to act as interpreter for them with the Roumi authorities, and to mediate in the many misunderstandings that broke out between them and the peasants who worked for them. Cyril’s invitation to dinner he accepted with unfeigned pleasure, confessing that when he left London he had little expected ever to regard an opportunity of donning evening dress as an occasion of rejoicing. The momentary return to the old life, which he had so often contemned, after the manner of poets, as false and hollow, was a keen delight to him, and Mansfield found it hard to believe that the vague-eyed man of the world, who knew his London so thoroughly, could be one and the same with the industrious toiler of the morning. Presently, however, the curious effect produced by the contrast of the sunburnt face with the whiteness of the forehead where the hat had shaded it attracted his attention. Looking more closely at the guest, he saw that his delicate hands were roughened and blistered within, and he conceived a growing admiration for the man who had voluntarily left a life of ease for one of toil, purely in the hope of setting an example to his nation.
But this admiration was not fated to endure very long. As Rubenssohn grew accustomed to the company in which he found himself, the vagueness left his eyes. In Cyril he discovered one who appealed to a different side of his nature, and a mocking spirit took possession of him. Mansfield and the melancholy Paschics listened with bated breath while the guest embarked upon a career of destruction, sparing neither the beliefs common to mankind generally nor those of his own people. He ridiculed with the utmost impartiality the ideas of love and immortality, the tyranny of the Law, and the Messianic hopes of Rabbi Schaul. The keen arrows of his wit played round each subject in turn, disclosing with cruel certainty the weak spot or the flaw. He made no attempt to deny the degradation of his people, and in Mansfield’s view he proposed no remedy for it. He believed in the Jewish race, it seemed, and he accorded a qualified toleration to Judaism on account of its services in the preservation of the race, but his Judaism possessed neither prophecies nor the hope of a Messiah, and existed independently of any religious sanctions. Its ecclesiastical system had been evolved naturally enough during the progress of the race, and ascribed, as other nations ascribed their religions, to the guidance of a higher power. Freedom, toleration, a more natural mode of life, these things would in his view raise the Jews far above the level of other nations, and then the old fetters which had held the race together might safely be shaken off. Mansfield thought of the prosperous Jews whom he had met at Alexandria, and who enjoyed all these blessings already, and his heart rose in revolt against Rubenssohn’s philosophy. If this was to be the end, if the Jews had remained a separate people merely that in the end of the ages they might be better fed, clothed, housed, than the nations, throwing aside callously the prophecies which had cheered them and the faith that had sustained them in their sorrows, if they were to be bereft at once of hope and of religion, then the heaviest of their former woes would be a lighter curse than their new prosperity.
“I had rather be in the wrong with Lady Phil and Princess Soudaroff than in the right with Rubenssohn,” he decided, remembering how often he had listened to the old lady as she expounded her views on the Jewish question and her interpretation of prophecy, Philippa at her side concurring enthusiastically in all that was said. This time, however, he did not confide his feelings to Cyril.
Jerusalem was the next place of interest to be reached, and Mansfield had mapped out for himself a very definite plan for occupying his leisure hours here. He intended to visit all the missionary establishments in and around the city in which Lady Caerleon was interested, and to photograph them and their inmates. Any spare time was to be devoted to views of Jerusalem itself, and by dint of these labours Mansfield hoped to provide a peace-offering which would not be unacceptable to Philippa’s mother, and might even tend to soften her heart towards him. But his plans were interrupted, and his fair project brought to a premature conclusion, owing to the greed of human nature. No sooner was it known that Cyril had arrived in Jerusalem than his lodgings were fairly besieged. Jews, Mohammedans and Christians, Syrians, Levantines, Greeks, Albanians, European adventurers of all nations, crowded to wait upon him. Since the famous revelations of Dr Texelius, so promptly contradicted by the Pannonian official papers, nothing had been said of Count Mortimer as a candidate for the governorship of Palestine, but there appeared to be a general feeling that the future of the country lay in the hands of this unpretending traveller, and the time-servers would not lose their opportunity. Some of them wanted concessions and some contracts, some Government offices and some commissions in the Jewish army or police, some wished merely to gain the general goodwill of the possible ruler, and some were anxious to confer benefits on him, in the shape of invitations to their houses, or gifts of horses, carpets, and works of art, without, of course, the slightest ulterior design. Cyril disappointed them grievously by refusing alike their favours and their requests, assuring them that he was simply an agent of the Syndicate, and Mansfield developed a prickly suspiciousness that made him distrust any one who addressed him civilly. This was the result of an adventure of his own. Pausing in a back street one day to photograph a picturesque archway, he was accosted by a respectable citizen, who invited him into his garden, where was to be seen a piece of ruined wall on which no tourist’s eye had ever lighted. Mansfield accepted the invitation, took two or three photographs, and submitted to be regaled with coffee and sweetmeats, all before he discovered that his host had recognised him, and was anxious to obtain the contract for clothing the army of the Jewish State. Then he rose up and fled, with his faith in humanity sorely shattered, and kept rigidly to the beaten track until he was rejoiced by Cyril’s decision to leave the city for a short time. Business was impossible while the envoy was so persistently mobbed, and it was advisable to pay a flying visit to Jericho, since a sheikh in the neighbourhood of that place had threatened to make himself disagreeable with regard to the fords of the Jordan.
It was clear that Cyril’s movements must be kept to some extent a secret, if he was to conduct the negotiations with the Roumi authorities, for which he had come, without being pursued into the very audience-chamber by the greedy throng of privilege-hunters. Accordingly, he put the matter into the hands of the Chevalier Goldberg’s agent, who secured him quarters for the night at Jericho, in the house of a wealthy Jew, and despatched beforehand all that was necessary for comfort. In this way Mansfield and his employer were able to leave Jerusalem as if for a morning ride, and meeting, when out of sight of the city, the guide and escort provided for them, ride on at once to Jericho. The sight of the huge Scythian hospice, constructed of late years for the accommodation of pilgrims, suggested to Mansfield that their visit might have excited less remark in the place if they had sought a lodging there, but Cyril laughed at the idea.
“I didn’t know you were so anxious to see the last of me,” he said. “The monks would indeed think that their enemy was delivered into their hand, and it would be sheer ingratitude not to prepare a special cup of coffee for his benefit.”
The sheikh proved more easy to deal with than had been expected, and Cyril and Mansfield spent the evening at his village, discussing in the most friendly spirit the various matters in dispute. As the guests rode back to their quarters, passing the great fountain called Ain-es-Sultan, Mansfield directed Cyril’s attention to several lights which dotted the side of a precipitous mountain about a mile away.
“What can those be?” he said. “I didn’t see any houses there by daylight.”
“That must be Jebel Karantal, the Mount of Temptation,” said Cyril, “and the lights come from the hermits’ caves. We might ride over there in the morning, if you are anxious to see the holy men in their native dirt.”
As Mansfield reflected that the picture of a real live hermit might help to console Philippa for all the photographs he had not had time to take at Jerusalem, he accepted the offer gratefully, and did not fail to remind Cyril of it the next morning. They rode at an easy pace across the plain, with its thickets of tamarisk and thorn, starting so many partridges and other birds that the hunter’s instinct awoke in Mansfield, and he lamented more than once that they were not spending several days at Jericho, so as to get a little shooting. Arrived at the foot of the path which led up the mountain, they found standing there a horse with a European saddle, in the charge of a native servant, who told their grooms that his master, a Frank gentleman, had started about half an hour ago to make the ascent.
“We are a little late,” said Cyril. “Evidently this place is becoming popular as a tourist resort. I see a whole horde of Scythian pilgrims in the distance,” and he pointed to a dingy mass of people, bearing banners and sacred pictures, and headed by two priests in shining vestments, that was approaching from the direction of Jericho. “But they are not likely to have brought cameras with them, and we must only hope for your sake, Mansfield, that our fellow-countryman has been equally forgetful.”
Leaving their horses with the grooms, they began to make the ascent of the mountain, finding the only path that offered itself alarmingly narrow and steep. It grew worse instead of better higher up, and when they were between three and four hundred feet above the plain, Cyril wiped his heated brow and sat down upon a large stone which lay temptingly in the shadow of the rock, on a ledge into which the path widened at this point.
“I draw the line here, Mansfield. I may be getting old, but my life is valuable to me, and I don’t feel justified in endangering it by any further breakneck feats. If you are conscious of a yearning to risk your neck on that giddy ascent in front, by way of emulating a fly walking up a wall, pray go on, and I will sit here and await developments. It will be some consolation to your afflicted relatives that I am at hand to give your scattered remains decent burial.”
Mansfield had been carrying his camera under his arm, but now he slung it over his shoulder by its strap, so as to leave his hands free, laughing as he did so, and applied himself to the further climb with heroic determination, steadfastly avoiding the temptation to look downwards. If his glance strayed for a moment from the almost perpendicular path to the sheer precipice below, he felt sure that nothing could save him from making personal acquaintance with its depths. Presently he came to another ledge, which formed the approach to the mouth of a cave, but glancing into the semi-darkness within the dwelling, he caught sight of a pith helmet. It was clear that the tourist whose horse they had seen below was talking to the hermit, and Mansfield seized joyfully the opportunity of outstripping him and reaching the summit first. Another terrific climb brought him to the foot of an unsafe-looking flight of wooden steps, at the top of which an elderly monk, very fat and very dirty, stood smiling hospitably. Mansfield unstrapped his camera and photographed him in the act, then accepted his beaming invitation to mount the steps to his cave. Here he took one or two more photographs, making gallant attempts the while to talk to his host in classical Greek pronounced in the modern fashion, and smiling broadly, by way of making his goodwill evident. His conversation or his smiles, or both, seemed to win the heart of the hermit, for he found himself invited, partly by signs, to sling the camera over his shoulder again, preparatory to climbing another dizzy ascent, at the summit of which was situated the rock-hewn chapel of which his host was the guardian. This was exactly what Mansfield was most anxious to see, and he accepted the invitation with alacrity, but stepped first to the edge of the little rock platform, in order to estimate its distance from the plain.
To his surprise the greater part of the way he had traversed was clearly visible, and he could see Cyril peacefully smoking a cigar where he had left him. Receiving a wave of the hand in answer to his shout, he was about to follow his guide up the face of the rock, which at this point justified Cyril’s comparison by appearing quite perpendicular, when his attention was attracted by the sight of a crowd of people gathered round the horses and their grooms at the foot of the hill. They were the Scythian pilgrims whom Cyril had pointed out to him, and they were buzzing round the horses like a swarm of angry bees. For a moment he thought they must be intending to steal them, then he told himself that the presence of the grooms would prevent that: the pilgrims were merely examining the novel English saddles. He began the ascent, but, before passing round a projecting rock which would cut off his view, he looked down again at the plain. The pilgrims had quitted the horses, and were rushing up the path in a confused mass, priests and people mixed together, one man only being a little in advance. Mansfield’s heart misgave him, and he pointed out the crowd to the hermit; but it did not need the old man’s raised hands and look of shocked surprise to tell him that the pilgrims should have mounted the hill in slow procession, singing solemn litanies, and not with this indecorous haste. Cyril’s allusion of the day before to the monks of the Scythian hospice recurred to him, and, explaining hastily to the hermit that he must go back at once, he turned to retrace his steps. He tried to shout a warning from the platform in front of the cave; but it was evident that Cyril regarded his frenzied gestures merely as the result of an ebullition of animal spirits, for he waved his hand with the same placidity as before. Giving up the attempt to make himself understood, Mansfield addressed his energies afresh to the task of descending, which proved to be even more difficult and dangerous than that of ascending had been. He was out of sight of Cyril now; but before he had covered half the distance that separated them, a sound mounted to his ear which made him hurl away his camera and dash headlong down the path, regardless of his own safety. It was the crack of a revolver, the sound of which travelled far in the clear air.
In the meantime, Cyril, smoking quietly on his fragment of rock, and all unconscious of danger, was disturbed by the noise of angry voices. Almost as they reached his ear, a haggard man, in the flat cap and long, dull-grey coat of the Scythian peasant, rushed round the corner of the path, and recoiled precipitately on catching sight of him.
“Odd!” said Cyril to himself. “Mad, perhaps,” and mechanically his hand sought his revolver in its accustomed pocket. His fingers had scarcely closed upon it when the throng of pilgrims burst upon him with furious shouts, and he had barely time to set his back against the rocky wall before he found himself confronted by a semicircle of angry faces, clenched fists, and menacing clubs.
“Kill him! kill the renegade!” was the cry. “Kill the traitor, and save the Holy Places from the Jewish dogs!”
“You had better go on your way quietly,” shouted Cyril in his best Scythian. “I am armed,” and he drew out the revolver.
“There are stones enough!” cried a voice, and a man who had found a point of vantage flung a jagged piece of rock which struck Cyril on the temple. The sight of the flowing blood appeared to stimulate the ferocity of the mob, and deprive its members of such hesitation as they may have felt in throwing themselves upon a solitary man, for they sprang forward with a howl. Cyril had only time to fire one shot into the air, in the hope partly of attracting Mansfield’s notice and partly of frightening his assailants, before his right arm was broken by a blow from a club as he raised the revolver, which dropped from his hand. Hustled, beaten, and knocked about, the blood streaming from his face, he had one thing, and only one, in his favour, and this was that the pilgrims were so closely pressed together on the narrow ledge as to be unable to get him down and trample upon him. Presently he became aware that one of them, who must have caught it as it fell, was holding the revolver to his head. Before the trigger could be pulled, however, the voice of a priest, who had mounted upon the fragment of rock upon which the victim had been sitting, rang like a trumpet across the din.
“No shots! no shots! Will you give the heathen Roumis cause to accuse us of murder? Throw the apostate over the precipice, so that it may not be known whose hand executed judgment upon him.”
The man who held the revolver tossed it away reluctantly, and joined with the rest in attempting to hustle Cyril to the edge of the path. Crippled as he was, he fought savagely, contesting every inch of ground, determined not to give his assailants the opportunity of seizing him and hurling him down headlong. “If I go over, I won’t go alone,” was the thought in his mind; and he fixed on a huge fellow, whose efforts to catch him up bodily he had successfully foiled, as the companion whom he would clutch with his last strength and drag to destruction in his company. The unequal struggle was approaching its only possible end as Cyril was driven farther and farther from the rock. The pilgrims nearest the brink were beginning to edge away to the right and left in order to secure their own safety, thereby lessening the pressure on that side and adding to the force arrayed against the doomed man, when a bullet whizzed past Cyril’s ear and buried itself in the shoulder of the giant on whom he had decided as his comrade in the fatal plunge.
“Bravo, Mansfield!” Cyril gathered breath to shout; but before the words were out of his mouth there was another shot, and the club fell from an uplifted hand which was brandishing it over his head. Crack! crack! crack! came the sharp whip-like reports, and man after man pushed his way, cursing, out of the mass, each effectually disabled for the time, but not one mortally wounded so far as Cyril could see.
“Mansfield never fired those shots!” was his mental comment, as the number of his assailants continued to diminish, until only a few remained on the ledge, making no attempt to molest him, but looking about in bewilderment to see where the shots came from.
“Git!” said a stentorian voice which seemed to resound from overhead, and the crestfallen pilgrims, grasping the meaning of the monosyllable, embraced with thankfulness the permission accorded them to retire. Once safely round the corner of the rock, they collected their wounded and made their way down the hill. The speaker—a lean, elderly man in white clothes and a pith helmet—kept them covered with his revolver until they were out of sight, then let himself lightly down to the path, and approached Cyril, who had sunk on the ground in perilous proximity to the edge of the precipice.
“Well, sir?” he asked slowly.
“I am infinitely indebted to you,” said Cyril, looking up with difficulty as his rescuer reached him.
“Not you, sir,” was the prompt reply. “When I saw those Scythian cusses preparing a new Holy Place for themselves by conducting a Christian martyrdom on this spot, it struck me that Scythia had quite as many Holy Places in this territory as was healthy for her, so I just started in with my six-shooter right away. You bet it went to my heart not to lay out two or three of the fellows, and specially the reverend gentleman that took the rock for a pulpit; but I know the ways of the Roumi authorities, and I didn’t want my business interrupted by a judicial inquiry any more than you would. But I guess there’s a dozen or so that will carry about with ’em for some time a pleasing little souvenir of me, any way.”
While the stranger spoke, he had been helping Cyril gently back to his former seat on the stone, and now began to bind up the wound in his head with a handkerchief.
“Surely I know your voice?” said Cyril faintly. “It seems quite familiar, and yet I can’t recall where I have heard it.”
The rescuer ceased his work, and stepped back for a moment. “The same as ever!” he exclaimed in admiration. “Sir, I have many a time heard you called the first gentleman in Europe, but I never expected you would remember me, when the last deal we did together was over twenty years ago.”
“Mr Hicks of the ‘Crier’?” asked Cyril, with an uncertain smile.
“Sir, you are correct. Elkanah B. Hicks, of the ‘Empire City Crier,’ who would be sitting in the head office of that paper as news editor at this moment if he was not a fool. But he has got the wandering strain in his blood, and threw up his berth to come out here, with the excuse that it needed the best man the paper had got to fathom you, Count.”
“I am flattered. Then it was not Turkish you spoke just now?”
“No, sir. I dispersed that crowd by means of the beautiful language which is the common heritage of your nation and mine. Do you find yourself comfortably fixed now, Count?”
He stepped back again to look critically at his work, just as Mansfield, with blazing eyes and panting breath, charged down upon the ledge, revolver in hand.
“Thank God you’re safe, sir!” he cried, with something like a sob. “Where are the villains?”
“Hold him, Hicks!” cried Cyril feebly, as his secretary dashed past him in the direction taken by the fugitives. “He is suffering from the usual British malady, and yearns to go and kill something. He isn’t safe.”
“Young man,” said Mr Hicks, flinging his sinewy arms round the intending avenger, and holding him fast, “the bugle has sounded the ‘cease fire,’ and I guess you had better obey. Here’s your boss with a broken arm and pretty near bleeding to death, and no doctor in this forsaken locality but the one at the Scythian hospice. I reckon we won’t requisition his services, but I shall want your help if I am to fix things myself, old campaigner though I am. Give me that shooting-iron for the present. Those things have a nasty trick of going off of themselves when a young fellow is seeing red.”
Sobered by Mr Hicks’s speech, and very much ashamed of his temporary madness, Mansfield surrendered his revolver, and returned to Cyril’s side, feeling an irresistible inclination to choke.
“My dear youth, don’t be an idiot,” said Cyril, and the lump in Mansfield’s throat vanished instantly. He even laughed, in a husky and shame-faced manner.
“That’s better,” said Mr Hicks. “Take this chunk of wood, my young friend, and split it in two, if you have a knife about you.” He handed him one of the broken clubs with which the pilgrims had been armed instead of the regulation staves, and Mansfield succeeded in obtaining two fairly suitable pieces of wood, rounded on one side and flat on the other. The surgeon continued to improve the occasion even while the operation of setting the broken arm was proceeding, talking meditatively as he worked, perhaps with the benevolent intention of diverting the patient’s thoughts from what was going on.
“Yes, young man, I like your face, and I guess I don’t object to your grit; but you’ll have to learn how to take things. A week as a special in war time would teach you a thing or two. What’s happened to that kodak of yours, now? I saw you figuring around with it while I was interviewing the old nigger who calls himself a saint up there. You hurled it away, did you, just as if it was a rock? and all the pictures with it that you had concluded to take home to your best girl? Now what a wicked waste! Pull, pull harder; that’s right. Keep cool, young man; the frozen deep is not a circumstance to the coolness you want before you’ll make a good man at a pinch.”
With such cheerful counsels as these Mr Hicks lightened the gloom of the painful process he had in hand, but Mansfield scarcely heard them, in his anxiety for Cyril. At last the patient opened his eyes and said, “Don’t be too hard on him, Hicks. He’s a good chap all round.” The busy surgeon nodded.
“I guess I’d turn him out a better if I had him on the ‘Crier’ staff,” he said; but when the work was over, and Mansfield had gone to fetch the servants, that they might lend their aid in carrying Cyril down the path, Mr Hicks smiled confidentially at his patient.
“That young man has a heart of gold, sir, and worships your very shadow. It’s not his fault that he hasn’t enjoyed my experience, though it might have been awkward for you if I hadn’t chanced to be wandering around in these parts. I guess, if you’ll allow me, that I’ll fix my camp next to yours while you stay at Jericho. The wily Scythian will find that it’s another story when he has to do business with Elkanah B. Hicks.”
Cyril’stroubles were by no means over when he had been carried across the plain to Jericho, with infinite difficulty, upon a litter made by tying branches together with handkerchiefs and turbans. His Jewish host listened with a terrified countenance to the story of the attack, and although he did not actually entreat his guests to quit his roof, he expressed dismal apprehensions as to its safety if they remained under its shelter. Finding that they did not take the hint, he withdrew to lament the state of affairs with his family, if the sounds of weeping and wailing that followed were to be accepted as evidence. Mansfield was disposed to ridicule his conduct as the result merely of constitutional cowardice, but Mr Hicks pointed out to him the strong probability that the man’s fears were well founded. A second band of pilgrims was expected that evening at the Scythian hospice, and it was not in human nature that the morning’s assailants, thus reinforced, should resist the temptation to wipe out their defeat. That motive would be sufficient, even without the hope of killing the man whom they regarded honestly and with full conviction as Antichrist. Clearly there was no time to be lost, and after a visit to the authorities, which resulted in their posting a ragged and half-armed guard about the house, Mansfield started on a hurried ride to Jerusalem to consult the Chevalier Goldberg’s agent. It was with no small reluctance that he consented to leave Cyril, even though Mr Hicks had sworn to fight in his defence until the house fell in ruins around them. Still, not only the lives of the party but the future of the Jewish cause hung upon this day’s doings, and since Cyril was unable to decide upon the steps to be taken, the Chevalier was the most suitable person to do so.
In the course of the night Mansfield returned, half-dead with fatigue, but accompanied by an escort of soldiers, and provided with full directions for the future. Cyril was to be carried in a mule-litter to an estate belonging to the Chevalier at Urtas, some miles to the south of Jerusalem, where he could remain in safety until he was well again. The agent would send out furniture and provisions, and see that the place was properly guarded, and neither the hostile pilgrims nor the Jerusalem concession-hunters were to be allowed to know where their victim had taken refuge. A rest of an hour or so was all that was granted to Mansfield and the soldiers, for Cyril’s host was on thorns to get him out of the house. Mr Hicks, who had tacitly invited himself to remain in medical charge of the patient, ordered a start soon after daybreak, and Mansfield and he heaved a sigh of relief as they left the house, only less fervent than that of the Hebrew who had succeeded in getting rid of them. The travellers took the road to Jerusalem, but turned southwards before reaching the city, and continued in that direction until they arrived at the boundary of the Chevalier’s estate. Here the steward, at the head of a well-armed body of gardeners and husbandmen, welcomed the visitors in his master’s name, and the escort, their duty performed, accepted a hearty meal and sundry presents, and returned to Jerusalem.
Life at Urtas was at once business-like and unconventional. The estate was practically a huge botanical garden, in which experiments were made in acclimatising foreign plants and improving by scientific cultivation the products of the country. The house was merely a large native dwelling, of no great pretensions, but the agent had sent out from Jerusalem a wealth of rich carpets, bright-hued draperies, and luxurious cushions, together with the irreducible minimum of European furniture, as represented by a shaky table and four assorted chairs. His care had even gone so far as to provide a Greek cook and a box of books, the latter principally French and Italian novels of an unimproving tendency. During the first few days Cyril was unable to do anything but recline upon the cushioned divans and enjoy the Oriental luxury of his surroundings, but before long the effect of the shock he had received passed away, together with certain feverish symptoms which had alarmed Mr Hicks at Jericho. Considerably before he could fairly be called convalescent he was as busy as ever, although his broken arm forbade him to write for himself. Every day the agent forwarded from Jerusalem a huge pile of letters and telegrams, dealing with all the complicated issues raised by the political situation, and Cyril dictated the answers from his divan while Mansfield and Paschics, who had joined the party from Jerusalem, took it in turns to write, and Mr Hicks lounged in the verandah, looking in at the workers now and then with a benevolent caution not to overdo things. When the letters were finished, Paschics, who was less likely to be recognised than either his colleague or the American, would ride with them to Jerusalem, often bringing back a second instalment of correspondence with him in the evening.
Nothing relating to the affairs of Zion could be settled without Cyril’s advice, for the political barometer showed one of the curious lulls which the wise in such matters consider to herald an approaching storm. The Powers, cajoled, bribed, or threatened one by one into submitting to the Jewish acquisition of Palestine, were waiting, all dissatisfied but each reluctant to be the first to move, to see what the Jews would do. At the New Year the control of the Holy Places was to be handed over to the consular body, as representing united Christendom, and the Roumi officials would give place to a Jewish provisional government, under the suzerainty of the Grand Seignior. The formation of this Cabinet, as it might be called, was one of the most delicate tasks before the leaders of the movement. In order to uphold the theory of representative institutions, dear to the hearts of Dr Koepfle and his school, it was necessary that the members should be formally elected by the Children of Zion throughout the world, voting according to their “tents” or lodges. Whether representative institutions stood or fell, however, it was obviously indispensable that the persons chosen should not be obnoxious to the Powers, and should be willing to maintain friendly, even respectful, relations with the United Nation Syndicate. Cyril’s Balkan experience had left him little to learn in the matter of conducting an election from above, and it was to him that harassed wire-pullers appealed in every difficulty. Frantic telegrams poured in upon him when a “tent” refused steadily to vote for the candidate recommended to it by headquarters, or when all the “tents” of one country plumped for Dr Texelius, who was not one of the official candidates, to the huge delight of the Anti-Semitic press, or when, as happened in England, those Jews who were opposed to political Zionism made a vigorous attempt to capture all the “tents” of the country, with the view of electing a reactionary Cabinet. The wire-pullers did not appeal in vain, and even Mr Hicks was moved to admiration by Cyril’s strategy, giving it as his opinion that Tammany could afford to learn a trick or two from Thracia.
The result of the election was to fill the prospective Cabinet with men holding moderate views and willing to be guided; and if they were virtually the nominees of Cyril and the Syndicate, this fact was not likely to make the task of government less easy, but rather the reverse. Cyril could not but be aware, although he gave no sign of having perceived the fact, that to the Jews who were now crowding into Palestine he was the Moses of this second Exodus. They were coming, not with a wild rush, but in orderly bands, each family or individual selected by the “tent” to which it or he belonged, and allowed to start only when the necessary land had been secured in Palestine. The genius of Dr Koepfle directed this migration with almost mathematical accuracy; but Cyril’s name bulked far more largely before the world than his, and there could be little doubt that when the immigrants were invited to designate by means of aplébiscitethe man who should rule them, they would vote unanimously for Count Mortimer.
But this consummation, however devoutly to be wished, was at present merely in the clouds. The Constitution which was to be administered by the provisional government had been drawn up by the foremost Jewish jurists—which is almost equivalent to saying the principal Continental lawyers—and had gone the round of the Powers for approval and criticism. It guaranteed freedom of conscience, freedom of trade, and every political blessing that the human heart could in theory desire, to people of all creeds and all nationalities, and yet the Powers were not satisfied, although no one could suggest any improvement. The lowering state of the political sky carried Cyril’s mind back to the days when Caerleon and he had held the fort in Thracia, alone against Europe, and when the only thing that saved them from annihilation was the mutual jealousy of the Powers. “Nothing will succeed here but success,” he said to himself, as he had said then. “While each of them is waiting to see what the rest will do, we may pull the thing through.” And he chafed the more under the physical weakness which kept him tied at Urtas, when he might have been putting his fortune to the touch, and gaining not only the position which his Jewish friends desired for him, but also the happiness which up to this point he had contrived to miss in his life.
Mansfield was very happy during this sojourn at Urtas. His work was hard and the hours long, but he found time for a good deal of out-door recreation. The agent had provided horses for the party, of a very different type from the serviceable beasts which they had procured for their journeys, and Mansfield loved all horses; while in the estate and the model farm he found a whole world of delight. The steward, a shrewd and ponderous Dutch Jew, told him when he heard of his path in life that he was a good farmer spoilt, but Mansfield was quite content to regard farming as merely a holiday amusement. It would not bring him nearer to Philippa, which was what he hoped his secretaryship would do.
Sometimes Mr Hicks would join him in his rides, and generally on these occasions they went hunting, as the natives called it, dignifying with this lofty name a little quail- and partridge-shooting, for Mansfield drew the line at shooting a fox, much to the disappointment of his attendants. It was on their return from one of these rides that the American said casually—
“Say, Mr Mansfield, not come to any notion yet what your boss has got on his mind, have you?”
“On his mind?” repeated Mansfield, in astonishment. “Nothing more than the work and the political situation, I suppose.”
“I guess that would be about enough for most men,” said Mr Hicks grimly; “but there’s something else wrong with him, He’s just pining to make tracks from this place right now.”
“I haven’t noticed it,” said Mansfield, intending the remark as a snub.
“You bet your life you haven’t, Mr Mansfield. You weren’t meant to.”
“But what is it?” Mansfield turned to face his tormentor; “and how do you know anything about it?”
“Well, sir, if you saw a man fretting like a spirited horse to find himself held fast in one place, and working all he knew to keep himself from thinking, and all the time taking no proper pleasure in his work or anything, what would be your opinion of that man?”
“He might be in fear of his life,”—this was intended to be sarcastic; “or he might”—reluctantly—“be in love.”
“Sir, you have hit the very central point of the bull’s-eye. That’s what’s wrong with the boss.”
“I don’t see that it concerns you if it is.”
“There’s no lady in Palestine that he might have been on his way to interview?” continued Mr Hicks imperturbably.
“You mean that Queen—Queen Ernestine of Thracia?” asked Mansfield blankly. Could it be possible that the moral problem Cyril had propounded to him before leaving Ludwigsbad had been based upon Cyril’s own experience?
“That’s my notion,” was the cheerful reply.
“But why wait so long, and go so far round?”
“Because he’s half ashamed of coming back to her anyhow, and half of being so long about it,” said Mr Hicks concisely.
“I don’t see how you know that.”
“Sir, I was at Bellaviste when King Michael came of age. You bet I made things hum in New York with my reports of the festivities, and the other specials had to fly around to get even with me, but when it came to Count Mortimer’s dismissal the ‘Crier’ fairly took the cake. The hours I spent hanging around at that Palace, working up all the ins and outs of the affair from the servants and minor officials! But it paid, sir, it paid. I wrote up the incident for the paper in my most elegant style—real high-toned dramatic situations, heart-rending pathos, and all the rest. I tell you, Mr Mansfield, those sheets were wet with the scalding tears of the most beautiful women in America. The Four Hundred was divided; half the ladies took the Queen’s side, and half the Count’s—and where will you find a stronger testimony to the fairness with which I had done my work? There wasn’t a likeness of either of ’em left in a single store from one end of the Union to the other. And having gone into the case to that extent, you tell me I’m not even in the ring!”
“By the bye,” said Mansfield, still impenitent, “what miles of interviews you must be sending off to your paper every day now!”
“I am doing my duty to the ‘Crier,’ sir. I was sent out to keep an eye on all the proceedings in this transfer of Palestine, in which my country has as large an interest as yours, and I am informed that all the Churches in the States are subscribing to the paper since my descriptive articles on the crisis started to appear. There’s not a half-starved home missionary or a New Rush school-ma’am out West but cherishes the hope of seeing Palestine before sending in their checks at last, and they all calculate to have a share in the country. We are giving ’em what they want—not a move in this high political game but they hear of it, and if intelligent interest was allowed any weight, the territory would be ours. But since it’s not likely that your played-out old Powers will conclude to appoint America the guardian of Palestine, as they ought to do if they want the property developed to any extent, why, I am booming your boss all I know. When the pinch comes, the great American nation will hurl itself solid on the side of Cyril de B. Mortimer, and it would not surprise me if he took his stand under the fostering wings of the American eagle. He knows who are his friends, and would as lief do a deal with ’em in a friendly spirit as not. He gives me an item or two most every day for my paper, and is ready all the time to favour me with his opinions,—not like some of your fine old crusted diplomats, who wouldn’t open their mouths to save their lives. Now there was Sir Dugald Haigh, a real petrified old chunk of British oak, no less. I was in Ethiopia for the paper at the time of his Mission, close upon fifteen years ago now, and not a word to be got out of any of ’em. Kept me fooling around the servants’ quarters, trying to find out what they were doing, and wasting my valuable time. Well, there’s something mysterious about these things, any way——”
“Well?” asked Mansfield, for Mr Hicks had paused darkly.
“Well, sir, that Mission was next door to a failure.”
“Perhaps that was not altogether the fault of the Ethiopians, was it?”
“Mr Mansfield, I guess I’m a white man. You don’t find me taking sides with niggers against my own colour. No, sir. The fat was just saved by Mr Stratford, the second in command (he’s Sir Egerton now and your Ambassador at Czarigrad), who snatched it out of the fire when we were all making our wills, but Sir Dugald had no hand in it. And now, instead of prancing around in a coronet and ermine robes in the House of Lords, that old man is buried up in Scotland somewhere, cultivating oatmeal and a little literature—that is to say, he makes himself a general nuisance by writing to the ‘Times’ when there’s any question on hand connected with foreign politics.”
“Well?” asked Mansfield again.
“Well, sir, the boss is not that sort. He knows where the pay-dirt lies, as I said, and things will pan out as he means ’em to. If he concludes that he didn’t treat the lady you mentioned handsomely, he may go back to her, but if he does, it’ll be because it suits his book.”
“Look here,” said Mansfield, “if you go on making these vile insinuations against him any more, you and I shall quarrel.”
“You bet!” was the unsympathetic reply. “No, sir, when a man finds himself able to hitch his conscience and his convenience to his waggon together, all that the public can do is to admire his team. Why it should turn ugly and make nasty remarks on the harness I don’t know, and you won’t find me doing it.”
Mr Hicks swung himself off his horse as he spoke, with the air of one who dismissed the subject, for they had ridden up to the house, but Mansfield had been too much disturbed by the new ideas suggested to him to be able to banish the conversation from his mind. When work was over that evening, instead of going out as usual for a second ride, he hung about the room in which he had been writing at Cyril’s dictation, alternately rearranging his papers and trying to place Cyril’s cushions more comfortably.
“Well, Mansfield, what is it?” asked his employer at last.
“I thought—I didn’t know—it occurred to me that you might want a message taken to—to some other part of the country, as you are tied here,” stammered Mansfield.
“You are very considerate. A message to whom?”
“To the—to some one you were particularly anxious to see.”
“Come, Mansfield, out with it! Who is this mysterious person? Has Hicks been pulling your leg?”
“I knew he had made it all up!” burst joyfully from Mansfield.
“All what? I am afraid not. Did he tell you that I was on my way to ask for an interview with Queen Ernestine, when the pilgrims interfered with my plans?”
“Yes, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Cultivate a more credulous spirit. What he told you was perfectly true, and so was his further information that this delay is almost intolerable to me.”
“I’ll start to-night,” said Mansfield, reproaching himself deeply.
“You can do nothing, unfortunately. I must see the Queen myself, and approach herin forma pauperis. You know that I treated her shamefully?”
“No. You can’t make me believe that.”
“But it is true, you see. King Michael behaved to her badly enough, but it was not that which drove her into exile in Syria. She would have gone with me cheerfully to poverty and obscurity in England, but I would not take her. She entreated me on her knees, but I refused to listen.”
Cyril spoke in a hard, even voice, and when he ceased there was silence in the room. Mansfield tried in vain to think of something to say, and each moment made the silence harder to interrupt. “I would never have believed it if any one else had told me,” he groaned at last, breaking the spell with a mighty effort.
“I knew that. You and I have taken a fancy to one another, Mansfield, and I was curious to see what you would say when you knew how I had treated the woman——”
“Who loved you,” supplied Mansfield, in a tone which was at once harsh and dull.