The first day of quail-shooting found Van Bristow's guests afield.
Separated from the others, Benton and Cara came upon a small grove, like an oasis in the stretching acres of stubble. Under a scarlet maple that reared itself skyward all aflame, and shielded by a festooning profusion of wild-grape, a fallen beech-trunk offered an inviting seat. The girl halted and grounded arms.
The man seated himself at her feet and looked up. He framed a question, then hesitated, fearing the answer. Finally he spoke, controlling his voice with an effort.
"Cara," he questioned, "how long have I?"
Her eyes widened as if with terror. "A very—very little time, dear," she said. "It frightens me to think how little. Then—then—nothing but memory. Do you realize what it all means?" She leaned forward and laid a hand on each of his shoulders. "Just one week more, and after that I shall look out to sea when the sun sinks, red and sullen, into leaden waters and think of—of Arcady—and you."
"Don't, Cara!" He seized her hands and went on talking fast and vehemently. "Listen! I love you—that is not a unique thing. You love me—that is the miracle. And because of a distorted idea of duty, our lives must go to wreck. Don't you see the situation is ludicrous—intolerable? You are trying to live a medieval life in a day of wireless telegraph and air ships."
She nodded. "But what are we going to do about it?" she questioned simply.
"Cara, dear—if I could find a way!" he pleaded eagerly. "Suppose I could play the magician!"
He rose and stood back of the log.
She leaned back so that she might look into his eyes. "I wish you could," she mused with infinite weariness.
He stooped suddenly and kissed the drooping lips with a resentful sense of the monstrous injustice of a scheme of things wherein such lips could droop.
"No, no, no!" she cried. "You must not! I've got to be Queen of Galavia—I've got to be his wife." Then, in a quick, half-frightened tone: "Yet when you are with me I can't help it. It's wicked to love you—and I do."
He smiled through the misery of his own frown. "Am I so bad as that?" he questioned.
"You are so bad"—she suddenly caught his handsin hers and slowly shook her head—"that I don't trust myself on the same side of the road with you. You must go across and sit on that opposite side." She lightly kissed his forehead. "That's a kiss before exile—now go."
He measured the distance with disapproving eyes. "That must be fifteen feet away," he protested, "and my arms are not a yard long." He stretched them out, viewing them ruefully.
"Go!" she repeated with sternness.
He obeyed slowly, his face growing sullen.
"If I am to stay here until I recant what I said about your odious kingdom and your miserable throne, I'll—I'll—" He cast about for a sufficiently rebellious sentiment, then resolutely asserted: "I'll stay here until I rot in my chains." He raised his hands and shook imaginary manacles. "Clink! Clink! Clink!" he added dramatically.
"You are being punished for being too fascinating to a poor little fool princess who has played truant and who doesn't want to go back to school." She talked on with forced levity. "As for the kingdom,"—once more her eyes became wistful—"you may say what you like about it. You can't possibly hate it as much as I. There is no anarchist screaming his adherence to the red flag or inventing infernal machines, who hates all thrones as much as the one small girlwho must needs be Queen of Galavia. No,lèse-majestéis not the fault for which you are being punished."
For a while he was silent, then his voice was raised in exile, almost cheerfully.
"Destiny is stronger than the paretic councils of little inbred kings. Why, Cara, I can get one good, husky Methodist preacher who can do in five minutes what I hardly think your royalties can undo—ever."
"Oh, don't!" she stopped him with plaintive appeal. "I know all that. I know it. Don't you realize that the longer the flight into the open blue of the skies, the harder the return to a gilt cage? But, dearest—there is such a thing as keeping one's parole. I must go back, unless I am held by a force stronger than I. I must go back. I have been here almost too long."
"Cara," he said slowly, "I, too, have a sense of duty. It is to you. The open blue of the skies is yours by right—divine right. You have nothing to do with cages, gilt or otherwise. My duty is to free you. I mean to do it. I haven't finished thinking it out yet, but I am going to find the way."
Her answering voice was deeply grave.
"If you just devise a situation where I shall have to fight it all out again, you will only make it harder for me. I must do what I must do. I could only berescued by some power stronger than myself. Come, let's go back."
At dinner that same evening Mrs. Van announced to her guests that "by request of one who should be nameless," punctuating her pledge of secrecy with a pronounced glance at Benton, there would be a masquerade affair on the evening before Cara's departure for New York. She said this was to be an informal sort of frolic in fancy dress, and the only requirement would be that every grown-up should for an evening return to childhood.
On the next morning ensued a hegira from the place, the object whereof was guarded with the most diplomatic deception and secrecy.
"Why this unanimous desertion?" demanded Van indignantly from the head of the table when it began to develop that an exodus impended. "Do your appetites crave the stimulus of city cooking? Are you leaving my simple roof for the lobster palaces?"
Benton shook his head. "Singular," he commented, studying his grape-fruit with the air of an oracle gazing into crystal. "There, for example, is Colonel Centress who will probably tell you that he has had an imperative summons to confer with his brokers and—"
He paused, while the ancient beau across the table quickly nodded affirmation.
"Quite so. How did you guess it?" he inquired.
"Never talk business at table, of course, but this is a mysterious flurry in stocks—quite a mysterious flurry."
"Quite so," echoed Benton. "Nevertheless, if you were to shadow the gallant Colonel in Manhattan to-day he would probably lead you to a costuming tailor, where you would discover him in the act of being fitted with a Roman toga or a crusader's mail."
Mrs. Porter-Woodleigh shot a malicious glance at the tall foreigner whose emotionless face proved a constant irritation to her exuberant vivacity. "I understand, Colonel Von Ritz," she innocently suggested, "that you are to impersonate a polar bear."
The Galavian smiled deep in his eyes only; his lips remained sober. One would have said that he had not recognized the thrust. "I shall only remain myself," he replied. "I am allowed to be a looker-on in Venice."
Under her breath the widow confided to her next neighbor: "Ah! then it is true."
"What areyougoing to town for?" demanded Mrs. Van, looking accusingly at Benton, as that gentleman arose from the table.
"I should say," he laughingly responded, "that I am going to complete final arrangements for getting the Isis into commission, but nobody would believe me. You are all becoming so diplomatic of late!"
Von Ritz glanced up casually. "There is one very dangerous diplomacy—one very difficult to become accustomed to," he commented. "I allude to the American diplomacy of frankness."
"TheIsis? To think I have never seen your yacht!" mused Cara. "And yet you are allowing me to cross on a steamer."
"If she could be put in shape so soon," declared Benton regretfully, glancing from Von Ritz to Pagratide, "I should shanghai Mrs. Van for a chaperon and give a party to Europe. Unfortunately I can't get her in readiness promptly enough; unless," he added hopefully, "Miss Carstow can postpone her sailing-day?"
When Benton had straightened out his car for the run to the city, and the road had begun to slip away under the tires, he turned to McGuire, his chauffeur.
"McGuire," he inquired, "where is the runabout?"
"At 'Idle Times,' sir. You loaned it to Mr. Bristow to fill up the garage."
"I remember. Now, listen!" And as Benton talked a slow grin of contentment spread across the visage of Mr. McGuire, hinting of some enterprise that appealed to his venturesome soul with a lure beyond the ordinary.
In the city, Benton was a busy man, though his visit to the costumer's was brief. Coming out of the place, he fancied he caught a glimpse of Von Ritz, but the view was fleeting and he decided that his eyes must have deceived him. He had himself patronized a rather obscure shop, recommended by Mr. McGuire. Von Ritz would presumably have selected some more fashionable purveyor of disguises even had his assertion thathe would not masquerade been made only to deceive. Perhaps, thought the American, Colonel Von Ritz was becoming an obsession with him, merely because he stood for Galavia and the threat of royalty's mandate. He was convinced of this later in the day, when he once more fancied that a disappearing pair of broad shoulders belonged to the European. This time he laughed at the idea. The surroundings made the supposition ludicrous. It was among the tawdry shops of ship chandlers in the East Side, where he himself had gone in search of certain able seamen in the company of the sailing-master of theIsis. Von Ritz would hardly be consorting with the fo'castle men who frequent the water front below Brooklyn Bridge.
The few days of the last week raced by, with all the charm of sky and field that the magic of Indian summer can lavish, and for Benton and Cara, they raced also with the sense of fast-slipping hope and relentlessly marching doom. Outwardly Cara set a pace for vivacious and care-free enjoyment that left Mrs. Porter-Woodleigh, the "semi-professional light-hearted lady," as O'Barreton named her, "to trail along in the ruck." Alone with Benton, there was always the furrow between the brows and the distressed gaze upon the mystery beyond the sky-line, but Pagratide and Von Ritz were vigilant, to the end that their tête-à-têtes were few.
Neither Benton nor Cara had alluded to the man's overbold assertion that he would find a way. It was a futile thing said in eagerness. The day of the dance, the last day they could hope for together, came unprefaced by development. To-morrow she must take up her journey and her duty: her holiday would be at its end. It was all the greater reason why this evening should be memorable. He should think of her afterward as he saw her to-night, and it pleased her that in the irresponsibility of the maskers she should appear to him in the garb of vagabond liberty, since in fact freedom was impossible to her.
As the kaleidoscope of the first dance sifted and shifted its pattern of color, three men stood by the door, scanning the disguised figures with watchful eyes.
One of the three was fantastically arrayed as a cannibal chief, in brown fleshings, with cuffs upon his ankles, gaudy decorations about his neck, and huge rings in nose and ears.
The second man was a Bedouin: a camel-driver of the Libyan Desert. From the black horsehair circlet on his temples a turban-scarf fell to his shoulders. He was wrapped in a brown cashmere cloak which dropped domino-like to his ankles. Shaggy brows ran in an unbroken line from temple to temple, masking his eyes, while a fierce mustache and beard obliterated the contour of his lower face. His cheek-bones and forehead showed, under some dye, as dark as leather, and as his gaze searchingly raked the crowds, he fingered a string of Moslem prayer-beads.
The third man was conspicuous in ordinary dress. Save for the decoration of the Order of Takavo, suspended by a crimson ribbon on his shirt-front, and the Star of Galavia, on the left lapel of his coat, there was no break in the black and white scheme of his evening clothes. Von Ritz had told the truth. He was not disguised. He stood, his arms folded on his breast, towering above the Fiji Islander, possibly a quarter of an inch taller than the Bedouin. A half-amused smile lurked in his steady eyes—the smile of unwavering brows and dispassionately steady mouth-line.
The cannibal chief waved his hand. "Bright the lamps shone o'er fair women and brave men!" he declaimed, in a disguised voice; then scowled about him villainously, remembering that an affable quoting of Lord Byron is incompatible with the qualities of a man-eating savage.
The Bedouin gravely inclined his head. "Allahu Akbar!" he responded, in a soft voice.
Suddenly the caravan driver commenced a hurried and zigzag course across the crowded floor. The eyes of Colonel Von Ritz indolently followed.
Through a low-silled window a girl had just entered, carrying herself with the untrammeled freedom ofsome wild thing, erect, poised from the waist, rhythmic in motion. Her walk was like the scansion of good verse. The Bedouin caught the grace before the ensemble of costume met his eye. It was in harmony.
She wore a silk skirt to the ankles, and about her waist and hips was bound the yellow and red sash of the Spanish gipsy, tightly knotted, and falling at its tasseled ends. Her arms were bare to the elbows, and gay with bracelets; her hair fell from her forehead and temples, dropping over her shoulders in two ribbon bound braids. A tall, gray-cowled monk, whose military bearing gave the lie to his cassock, a Spanish grandee, and a fool in motley saw her at the same moment and hurried to intercept her, but with a slide which carried him a quarter of the way across the floor the Bedouin arrived first, and before the others had come up he was drifting away with her in the tide of the dancers.
"Allah is good to me—Flamencine," whispered the camel-driver as he drew her close to avoid a careless dancer.
"Why, Flamencine?" demanded a carefully altered voice, from which, however, the music had not been eliminated.
"Don't you remember?" The Arab stole a covert, identifying glance down at the tip of one ear which showed under its masking of brown hair—an ear thatlooked as though it were chiseled from the pink coral of Capri. He quoted:
"'There was a gipsy maiden within the forest green,There was a gipsy maiden who shook a tambourine.The stars of night had not the face,The woodland wind had not the grace,Of Flamencine.'"
"'There was a gipsy maiden within the forest green,There was a gipsy maiden who shook a tambourine.The stars of night had not the face,The woodland wind had not the grace,Of Flamencine.'"
"'There was a gipsy maiden within the forest green,
There was a gipsy maiden who shook a tambourine.
The stars of night had not the face,
The woodland wind had not the grace,
Of Flamencine.'"
Then the music stopped, and with its silencing came the monk, the clown, the grandee, and others.
In the insistent demand of the many the Arab had too few dances with the Spanish girl. There were Comanches, Samurai, policemen, Zulus and courtiers, who, seeing her dance, discovered that their immediate avocation was dancing with her.
Yet it wanted an hour of unmasking time when a Bedouin led a gipsy maiden from Andalusia into the deserted library, where the darkness was broken only by blazing logs on an open hearth.
When they were alone he turned to her anxiously. His voice was freighted with appeal. Her face, now unmasked, wore an expression of stunned misery.
"Dear," he asked, "how are you?"
She gazed at the flickering logs. "I should think you would know," she answered wearily. Then, with a mirthless laugh, she spread both hands toward the blaze. "I'm looking ahead—I can see it all therein the fire." Her fingers convulsively clenched themselves until blue marks showed against the pink palms.
He pushed a chair forward for her, but with a shake of her head she declined it.
"Whoever heard of a gipsy girl sitting in a leather chair?" she demanded. "It's more like—like some effete princess."
She dropped to the Persian rug and, gathering her knees between her clasped hands, sat looking into the dying blaze. "For a few brief minutes I am the gipsy girl," she added.
"And," he said, dropping cross-legged to the rug at her side, "when the caravan halts at evening, and prayers have been said facing Mecca, and the grunting camels kneel, to be unloaded, neither do we, the gipsies of the desert, sit in chairs." He swayed slightly toward her, lowering his voice to a whisper. As the soft touch of her shoulder brushed him and electrified him, his cashmere-draped arms closed around her and held her hungrily to him. The vagrant maiden of Andalusia and the caravan-driver of Africa sat gazing together at the glowing pictures in the logs as they turned slowly to ashes.
"Cara," he went on in a voice of pent-up earnestness, "we be nomads—we two. 'The scarlet of the maples can shake us like the cry of bugles going by.' Come away with me while there is time. Let us followout our destinies where gipsy blood calls us; in the desert, the jungle, wherever you say. Let your fancy be our guide—your heart our compass. Suppose"—he paused and, with one outstretched arm, pointed to the fire—"suppose that to be a camp-fire—what do you see in the coals?"
"I have already told you," she said wearily. "I see a throne, a life with all the confining littleness of a prison, with none of the breadth of an empire. I see the sacrifice of all I love. I see year upon year of purple desolation.... Purple is the color of mourning and royalty."
She fell silent, and he spoke slowly.
"I see the desert, many-hued, like an opal with the setting of the sun. I see the flickering of camp-fires and the palm-fringe of an oasis. I see the tapering minarets of a mosque, and the long booths of the bazaars. I smell the scent of the perfume-seller's stall, the heavy sweetness of attar of roses.... I hear the tinkle of camel bells.... There comes a change.... I see a mountain-pass and a mule-train crawling through the dust, I see the paths that go around the world. Which of our pictures do you prefer?"
She gave a pained, low cry, and buried her face passionately on his shoulder. "Oh, you know, you know!" she cried, in a piteous voice. "And you love me, yetyou tempt me to break my parole. If I could do it and be freed of the responsibility! If a miracle could work itself!"
"Cara," he whispered, resolutely steadying himself, "don't forget the gospel according to Jonesy. You can't dam up the tributaries of the heart. Some day you must come to me. That much is immutably written. For God's sake come now while the road is still clear. Otherwise we shall grope our ways to each other, even if it be through tragedy—through hell itself."
For a moment she gazed at him with wide eyes.
"I know it—" she whispered in a frightened voice. "I know it—and yet I must go ahead."
He rose and lifted her; then as she stood clinging to him he said: "I ask your forgiveness if I've made it harder—and one boon. Slip away with me and give me an hour with you."
"They will find me. Pagratide and Von Ritz will find me," she objected helplessly. "They won't let us be alone for long."
"Listen," he replied. "It is not too cold and the moon is brilliant. It is the last real moon for me. Come with me in my car for a while."
"You must not make love to me," she stipulated. "I am going to try to get my face properly composed—and if you make love to me, I can't. Besides, whenyou make love I'm rather afraid of you. So you mustn't."
Then, with a wild spasmodic gesture, she caught the edges of his cashmere cloak and gripped them tightly in both hands as she looked up into his eyes and impetuously contradicted herself.
"Yes, please do," she appealed.
He laughed. "Destiny says I must make love to you," he asserted, "and who am I to disobey Destiny?"
Outside, she insisted upon waiting by the bridge while he went for his car. So he turned and started alone to the point on the driveway just around the angle of the house, where McGuire, pursuant to previous orders, was to be waiting with the machine. It had been only an hour since Benton had slipped away from the dancers and consulted with McGuire in the shadow of the wall, instructing him explicitly in his duties. McGuire was to wait with the machine ready upon call. The lamps were not to be lighted. When Benton came, the chauffeur was to run the car to the point where a lady should enter it. He was at that point to leave, without words. It had been impressed on McGuire that utter silence was imperative. The chauffeur was then to follow in the runabout, acting as a reserve in the event of need. Both cars were to take a certain circuitous route to a point on the shore thirty miles distant,the runabout keeping just close enough to hold the first car in sight. McGuire had listened and understood. Yet now McGuire was missing, together with one very necessary motor-car.
As Benton stood, boiling with wrath at the miscarriage of his plans, he fancied he heard the soft muffled song of his motor just beyond the turn where the road circled the house. He bent and held a lighted match close to the gravel. On a muddied spot he found the easily recognizable tread of his tires. The car had been there. For the sake of speed he ran to the garage near by and took a swift look at the runabout. It was waiting, and, thanks to the God of Machines, would start on compression. He flung himself to the driver's seat and gave it the spark. Far away—about as far as the bridge, he calculated—he heard one short, cautious blast of an automobile horn.
Just before the last turn brought him to the bridge, where he should meet Cara, he noticed a man hurrying toward him, on foot, and recognized McGuire. Totally mystified, he slowed down the machine.
"Get in, you infernal blockhead," he called. "Tell me about it as we go. I'm in a hurry."
But McGuire performed strangely. He clapped one hand to his forehead and looked at his employer out of large, wild eyes. "Am I dippy? My God! Am Idippy?" he exclaimed, repeating the question over and over in a low, trembling voice.
"Apparently you are. Get in, damn you!" Benton ordered.
"It's weird," declared McGuire. "It's damned weird."
"Why, sir," he ran on, talking fast, now that the first shock was over and his tongue again loosened. "Either I've made a fool mistake, or else I'm crazier than hell. I waited at the place you said. You—or your ghost—came and took his seat, and waved his hand. I started the car for the bridge. He didn't say a word. At the bridge I jumped out. He was you—and yet you are here—same size—same costume—same beard—even the same beads around the neck."
They had almost reached the bridge and were slowing down when Benton, scanning the road, empty in the moonlight, grasped for the first time a definite suspicion of what had happened.
"Cara!" he shouted. "Good God, where is she?"
The chauffeur leaned over and shouted into his ear. "I'm telling you, sir. The lady's in that other car—with that other edition of you. And, sir—beggin' your pardon—they're beatin' it like hell!"
Benton's only answer was to feed gas to the sparkso frantically that the car seemed to rise from the ground and shiver before it settled again. Then it shot forward and reeled crazily into a speed never intended for a curving road at night.
The moonlight fell on a gray streak of a car, driven by a maniac with a scarf blowing back from a turban over two wildly gleaming eyes.
Back at "Idle Times" a Capuchin monk, wandering apart from the dancers in consonance with the austere proclaiming of his garb, was studying the frivolous gamboling of a school of fountain gold-fish in the conservatory. He looked up, scowling, to take a note from a servant.
"Colonel Von Ritz said to hand this to the gentleman masquerading as a monk," explained the man.
"Von Ritz," growled the monk. "He annoys me."
He impatiently tore open the letter and scanned it. His brows contracted in astonished mystification, then slowly his eyes narrowed and kindled.
The scrawl ran:
"Your Highness: If you see neither Mr. Benton, masquerading as an Arab, her Highness, the Princess, nor myself in ten minutes from the time of receiving this, take the car which you will find ready in the garage. My orderly will be there to act as your chauffeur. Follow the main road to the second village. Turn there to the right, and drive to the small bay,where you will find me or an explanation. I have been conducting certain investigations. The affair is urgent and touches matters of great import to Europe as well us to Your Highness."
When Cara, waiting at the bridge, had seen the car flash up, a bearded Bedouin at the wheel, she had leaped lightly to the seat beside him, without waiting for the machine to come to a full stop; then she had thrown herself back luxuriously on the cushions with a sigh of satisfaction, and had only said: "Drive me fast."
For a long time she lay back, drinking, in long draughts, the spiced night air, frosted only enough to give it flavor. There was no necessity for speech, and above, the stars glittered lavishly, despite the white light of the moon.
At last she murmured half-aloud and almost contentedly: "'Who knows but the world may end to-night?'"
Above the throbbing purr of the engine which had already done ten miles, the man beside her caught the voice, but missed the words. He bent forward.
"I beg your pardon?" he politely inquired.
At the question she started violently, and both handscame to her heart with a spasmodic movement. Von Ritz carried the car around an ugly rut.
"Don't be alarmed, Your Highness," he said, in a cold, evenly modulated voice which, though pitched low, carried clearly above the noise of the cylinders. "I may call you 'Your Highness' now, may I not? We are quite alone. Or do you still prefer that I respect your incognita?"
The girl's eyes blazed upon him until he could feel their intense focusing, though he kept his own fixed unbendingly on the road ahead. Finally she mastered her anger enough to speak.
"Colonel Von Ritz," she commanded, "you will take me back at once!" She drew herself as far away from him as the space on the seat permitted.
"Your Highness's commands are supreme." The man spoke in the same even voice. "I intend taking Your Highness back—when it is safer for Your Highness to go back."
He turned the car suddenly to the right and sped along the narrower road that led away from the main thoroughfare.
"You will take me back, now. I had not supposed that to a gentleman—" Her voice choked into silence and her eyes filled with angry tears.
"Your Highness misunderstands," he said coldly. "I obey the throne. If I live long enough to serveit in another reign, Your Highness will be Your Majesty. Yet even then will your commands be no more supreme to me—no more sacred—than now. But even then, Your Highness—"
"Call me Miss Carstow," she interrupted in impassioned anger. "I will have my freedom for to-night at least."
"Yet even then, Miss Carstow," he calmly resumed, "when danger threatens you or your throne, I shall take such means as I can to avert that danger, as I am doing now. Even though"—for a moment the cold, metallic evenness left his voice and a human note stole into his words—"even though the reward be contempt."
She did not answer.
"Your High—Miss Carstow,"—Von Ritz spoke with a deferential finality—"believe me, some things are inevitable."
Suddenly the car stopped.
The girl made a movement as though she would rise, but the man's arm quietly stretched itself across before her, not touching her, but forming an effective barrier.
She did not speak, but her eyes blazed indignantly. For the first time he was able to return her gaze directly, and as she looked into the unflinching gray pupils, under the level brows, there was a momentary combat, then her own dropped. He sat for a space with his arm outstretched, holding her prisoner in the seat.
"Your Highness"—he spoke as impersonally as a judge ruling from the bench—"I must remind you again that I am your escort to-night only in order that someone else may not be. What his plans were, I need not now say, but I know, and it became my duty to thwart him. It is hardly necessary to explain how I discovered Mr. Benton's purpose. It was not easy, but it has been accomplished. I have acquainted myself with his movements, his intention, and his preparations; I have even counterfeited his masquerade and stolen his car. There are bigger things at stake than individual wishes. I stand for the throne. Mr. Benton has played a daring game—and lost."
He paused, and she found herself watching with a strange fascination the face almost marble-like in its steadiness.
"Some day—perhaps soon," he went on, the arm unmoved, "you will be Queen of Galavia." She shuddered. "You can then strip away my epaulets if you choose. For the moment, however, I must regard you as a prisoner of war and ask your parole, as a gentleman and an officer, not to leave the car while I investigate the trouble with the motor. Otherwise—" he added composedly, "we shall have to remain as we are."
She hesitated, her chin thrown up and her eyes blazing; then, with a glance at the unmoving arm, she bowed reluctant assent.
"All I promise is to remain in the car," she said. "May I go back into the tonneau?"
Satisfying himself that the engine was temporarily dead, he responded, with a half-smile, "That promise I think is sufficient."
He bent to his task of diagnosis. After much futile spinning of the crank, he rose and contemplated the stalled engine.
"Since this machine went out with lamps unlighted, and I have no matches in this garb, I must go to that farmhouse up the hillside—where the light shines through the trees—. Will Your Highness regard your parole as effective until my return, not to leave the car? Yes? I thank Your Highness; I shall not be long."
The girl for answer honked the horn in several loud blasts, and he stopped with a murmured apology to silence it by tearing off the bulb and throwing it to one side.
The Colonel turned and took his way through the woods, statuesquely upright and spectral in his long Arab cloak.
Benton and McGuire had just passed the crossing where Von Ritz had left the main road, when McGuire's quick ear caught the familiar tooting of the other horn and brought his hand to his employer's arm. The car was stopped, and McGuire, by match-light, examinedthe road with its frosty mud unmarked by fresh automobile tracks, save those running back from their own tires.
The runabout turned and slipped along cautiously to the rear, watchful for byways. At the cross-road McGuire was out again. His match, held close to the mud and gravel, revealed the tread of familiar tires.
"All right, sir," he briefly reported. "The other edition went this track."
With a twist of the wheel Benton was again on the trail. Back in the side lane stood a car in which a girl sat alone, solemnly indignant.
"Cara!" Benton was standing on the step. His voice was tremulous with solicitude and perplexed anxiety. "Cara!" he repeated. "What does it mean?"
"I don't know," she responded coolly. "Something seems to be broken."
"I don't mean that." McGuire was already investigating. "What does it mean?"
She sighed wearily.
"When I foolishly agreed to play Juliet to your Romeo," she informed him, and her tones were frigid, "I didn't know that your Romeo was really only a Dromio. The other edition of you"—he flinched at the words, and McGuire choked violently—"is back there, I believe, hunting for matches."
"She's all right, sir," interrupted McGuire in triumph. "She'll travel now. It's only disconnected spark plugs and a short circuiting."
"Travel, then!" snapped Benton. "Leave the runabout here. The other gentleman may prefer not to walk home."
As he swung himself into the tonneau, the chauffeur had already seized the wheel and the car was backing for the turn. Far back up the hillside there was a crashing of underbrush. A spectral figure, struggling with the unaccustomed drapery of a Bedouin robe, emerged from the woods into the open, and halted in momentary astonishment.
"I believe I am under parole—to the other Dromio—not to run away," she suggested wearily.
"Oh, that's all right; I'm doing this and I have no treaty with Galavia," replied the gentleman pleasantly. "Hit her up a bit, McGuire."
He took one of the hands that lay wearily in Cara's lap and she did not withdraw it. She only lay back in the leather upholstery and said nothing. Finally he bent nearer.
"Dearest," he said. There was no answer.
"Dearest," he whispered again.
She only turned her head and smiled forgiveness.
"What is the matter?" he asked.
"Oh, I'm so tired—so tired of all of it," she sighed."Don't you see? I wish someone bigger than I am would take me away to a place where they had never heard of a throne—somewhere beyond the Milky Way."
He took her in his arms, and the spangle-crowned gipsy head fell heavily on his shoulder. She stretched up both arms towards the stars, and the moonlight glinted from her gilt bracelets.
"Somewhere beyond the Milky Way," she murmured, then collapsed like a tired child and lay still.
"Dearest," he whispered, "I'll tell you a secret." He paused and listened to the rhythmic cylinders throbbing a racing pulse; he looked back at the white band of road that was being flung out behind them like thread from a falling spool. He held her fiercely to him and kissed her. "I'll tell you a secret. You are being stolen. TheIsisis waiting in a little cove, and there is steam in her engines, and a chaplain on board. If it's necessary I shall run up the skull and cross-bones at her masthead. Do you hear?" Then, with a less piratical voice: "Dearest, I love you."
She looked up drowsily into his eyes. "You don't have to be such a boa-constrictor," she suggested. "You are not a cave-man, after all, you know, if youaretaking a lady without asking her." Then she contentedly whispered: "I'm going to sleep." And she did.
As the car at last swept around a curve and took theshore road, Benton caught, far away as yet, the red and green glint of tiny port and starboard lights on the bridge of theIsis, and the long ruby and emerald shafts quivering beneath in the calm waters of the bay. In the light of a low moon, swinging down the midnight sky, the trim silhouette of the yacht stood out boldly.
Cara, after sleeping through the rowboat stage of the journey, awoke on the deck of theIsisand gazed wonderingly about. In her ears was the sound of anchor chains upon the capstan.
"Is it a dream?" she asked.
"It is a dream to me, but I am going to make it real," he responded.
She went to the rail. He followed her.
"I shouldn't have let you, but I was so tired," she said, "I hardly knew where the dream began and the reality ended. Ah, I wish the dream could come true."
"This one is to come true, Cara," he whispered.
She shook her head. "Stand still!" she commanded.
He was bending forward with his elbows on the rail. Suddenly, with something like a stifled sob, she caught his head in both arms and held him close, so close that he heard her heart pounding and her breath coming with spasmodic gasps. He put out his arms, but she held him off.
"No, no; don't touch me now—only listen!"
He waited a moment before she spoke again.
"You said I was your prisoner." Her voice dropped in a tremor as though the tears would prevail, but she steadied it and went on. "I wish I were. Always I am your prisoner, but I must go back. It is because it is written."
He straightened up and took her in his arms. "I know how you have settled it," he said, "but I have stolen you. The anchor is coming up. You love me—I have claimed what is mine. It is now beyond your power, your responsibility."
"No, it is not," she softly denied. "I will not marry you—but I love you—I love you!"
"You mean that if I hold you my prisoner you will still not be my wife?" he incredulously demanded.
Slowly she nodded her head.
The man gazed off with the eyes of one stunned and slowly fought himself back into control before he trusted his voice. After a while, he raised his face and spoke in fragmentary sentences, his voice pitched low, his words broken.
"But you said—just now—back there on the road—you wished someone stronger than yourself—would take you away somewhere—beyond the Milky Way."
His tones strengthened and suddenly he almost sangout with recovered resolution, speaking buoyantly and triumphantly.
"Dearest, I am stronger than you, and I'm going to take you away—I'm going to take you beyond the Milky Way, to the uttermost stars of Love. How can it matter to me how far, if you are there?"
Again she shook her head.
"No, dear," she whispered, "you are not so strong as I, in this, because I am strong enough to say No when my heart says only Yes—and because Fate is stronger than any of us."
"Boat ahoy!" came a voice from the crow's nest.
"They have come for you," he said, speaking as through a fog. "Show them here," he shouted to an officer who was hurrying to the gangway.
Two figures came over the side, and slowly followed the first officer forward. One was a Capuchin monk, bearing himself rigidly; at his side strode a Bedouin, bedraggled, but erect and military of bearing. The original Arab turned with a sudden sag of the shoulders and looked helplessly out at the path of silver that stretched across the water below, to the moon, now sunk close to the horizon. He waved one hand in a gesture of submission and despair, and stood silent.
The gipsy girl, standing near, took a sudden step forward and stood close to him us the others approached.
"They may take me back if they wish to, now," she said, with a suddenly upflaring defiance. "But they shall find me like this!" And she flung her arms about his neck and kissed him.
The coldness of the moonlight killed the pallor of Karyl's face, but added a note of stark accentuation to his set chin and labored self-containment. Von Ritz, despite his bedraggled masquerade was as composed and expressionless as though he had seen nothing beyond the expected. With Von Ritz nothing was beyond the expected.
He had to-night counterfeited Benton's disguise; stolen Benton's car; substituted himself for the American and made a decisive effort to interrupt the kidnaping of a Queen.
Finding himself checkmated, he had joined forces with the Prince and brought the pursuit to a successful termination. His manner now was precisely what it had been last night, when his only excitement had been a game of billiards. Men who knew him would have told you that his manner had been the same on a certain red and smoky day when the order of Takavo had been pinned on his breast, in the reek and noise of a battlefield.
After a moment of tense silence, Benton took a step forward.
"At any suitable time," he said, in a voice too low for Cara to catch, "I shall, of course, be entirely at your service."
Pagratide drew a labored breath, but when he raised his head it was to lift his brows inquiringly.
"For what?" he asked in an equally low tone. "Have I asked any questions?" In a matter-of-fact voice he added: "It is growing late. If Miss Carstow has finished the inspection of your yacht, I suggest a return."
Benton recognized the other's refusal to read his motive. After all that was the best course; the only course. Pagratide stepped forward.
"Mr. Benton had the pleasure of driving you down—" he suggested, "may I have the same honor, returning?"
The girl met the eyes of the Prince, with defiance in her own.
"I am not a child!" she vehemently declared. "We may as well be honest with each other. If he had chosen to have it so, you could not have come aboard. I must obey the decrees of State!" She paused, then impulsively swept on: "I can force myself to do what I must do, but I cannot compel my heart—that ishis, utterly his." She raised both hands. "Now you know," she said. "You may decide."
Karyl inclined his head.
"I have questioned nothing," he repeated. "Will you honor me by returning in my car?"
Cara tilted her chin rebelliously.
"No," she said, "I don't think I shall. My vacation ends to-morrow if you still wish it, but to-night it has not ended. I return with Mr. Benton."
Pagratide stiffened painfully, but with supreme self-mastery he forced a smile as though he had asked nothing more than a dance—and had found it engaged.
"I must submit," he replied in a steady voice. "I even understand. But you will agree with me that they"—with a gesture toward the direction from which they had come—"had best know nothing."
Benton and Von Ritz went to the gangway, where the yachtsman bent forward to give some direction to the boat crew below.
"Karyl!" The girl moved impulsively toward the man she must marry, and laid a hand on his arm. "Karyl," she said plaintively, "if you only wanted to marry me for State reasons—it would be different. It wouldn't hurt me then to hurt you. You mean so much as a friend, but I can never be in love with you. You are being unfair with yourself—if you go on. I must be honest with you."
Pagratide spoke slowly, and his voice carried the tremor of feeling.
"You have always been honest with me, and I will make you love me. Until you marry me I have no privilege to question you. When you do, I shall not have to question you." He leaned forward and spoke confidently. "I would marry you if you hated me—and then I would win your love!"
An hour later the Spanish gipsy girl, having shown herself in the emptying ball-room with ingenious excuses for her long absence, took refuge in her own apartments.
On sailing day, Benton, at the pier, watched the steamer stand out into the river between the coming and going of ferry-boats and tugs. About him stamped the usual farewell throng with hats raised and handkerchiefs a-flutter. The music of the ship's band grew faint as a wider and wider gap of water opened between the wharf and the liner's gray hull.
Gradually the crowd scattered back through the great barn-like spaces of the pier-house to be re-absorbed by cabs, motors and surface-cars into the main arteries of the city's life. It was over.Bon voyagehad been said. One more ship had put out to sea.
Benton stood looking after a slim figure in a blue traveling gown and dark furs, pressed against the after-rail, her handkerchief waving in the raw wind.Most of the sea-going ones had retreated into the shelter of the saloon or cabin, but she remained.
Van Bristow, shivering at his friend's elbow, did not suggest turning back.
Cara stood, still looking shoreward, a furrow between her brows, her checks pale, her fingers tightly gripping the rail. She was holding with that grip to all her shaken self-command.
She saw the fang-edged skyline of lower Manhattan lifting its gray shafts through wet streamers of fog; she saw flotillas of squat ferry-boats shouldering their ways against the sullen heave of the river's tide-water; she heard the discordant shriek of their steam throats; she saw the tilting swoop of a hundred gulls, buffeting the wind; but she was conscious only of the vista of oily water widening between herself and him.
Von Ritz had long since drifted into the smoking-room where the men were christening the voyage with brandy-and-soda and dropping into tentative groups, regardful of future poker games.
Pagratide, at Cara's elbow, was silent, respecting her silence.
When at last the two had the deck to themselves and Manhattan had become a shadowy and ragged monotone, she turned and smiled. It was a smile of accepting the inevitable. He went with her to the forwarddeck where her staterooms were situated, and left her there in silence.
Von Ritz, standing apart near the threshold of the smokeroom, heard his name paged almost before the speaker had entered the door, and turned to take from the hand of the bearer a Marconigram just relayed from shore. He read it and for an instant a look of pain crossed the features that rarely yielded to expression. Then he sought out Karyl's stateroom.
Karyl turned wearily from the wintry picture of a sullenly heaving sea, to answer the rap on the door. His face did not brighten as he recognized Von Ritz.
The Colonel was that type of being upon whom men may depend or whom they must fear. Whenever there was need, Karyl had come to know that there would be Von Ritz, but also there went with him an austerity and an impersonality that robbed him of the gratitude and love he might have claimed.
Now there was a note almost surly in the expression with which the Prince looked up to greet his father's confidential representative.
"Well?" he demanded.
For answer the officer held out the message.
Karyl puckered his brows over the intricacies of the code and handed it back.
"Be good enough to construe it," he commanded.
"The King," said Von Ritz, "is ill. His Majesty wishes to instruct you in certain matters before—" He broke off with something like a catch in his voice, then continued calmly. "Recovery is despaired of, though death may not be immediate."
Karyl turned away, not wishing the soldier to see the tears he felt in his eyes, and Von Ritz discreetly withdrew as far as the door. There he paused, and after a moment's hesitation inquired:
"Her Highness goes to Maritzburg—to her father's Court—I presume?"
With his back still turned, the Prince nodded. "Why?" he demanded.
"Because—the message holds no hope—" Von Ritz paused, then added quietly "—and if Your Highness is called upon to mount the throne, it is advisable to hasten the marriage."
He backed out, closing the door behind him.
In her own cabin the girl had bolted the door. At the small desk of hersuite-de-luxeshe sat with her head on her crossed arms. For a half-hour she remained motionless.
Finally she rose and, with uncertain hands, opened a suitcase, drawing from its place among filmy fabrics and feminine essentials a small, squat figure of time-corroded clay. The little Incahuacahad perhaps looked with that same unseeing squint upon Princessesof other dynasties so long dead that their heartbreaks and ecstasies were now the same—nothing.
She placed the image before her and rested her chin on one hand, gazing at its grotesque and ancient visage.
Her eyes slowly filled with tears. Again she dropped her face on her arms and the tears overflowed.
Benton and Bristow had been sitting without speech as their motor threaded its way through the traffic along Fourteenth Street, and it was not until the chauffeur had turned north on Fifth Avenue that either spoke. Then Benton roused himself out of seeming lethargy to inquire with suddenness: "Do you remember the bull-fight we saw in Seville?"
His companion looked up, suppressing his surprise at a question so irrelevant.
"You mean the Easter Sunday performance," he asked, "when that negligentbanderillerowas gored?"
"Just so," assented Benton. "Do you remember the chap we met afterwards at one of the cafés? He was being fêted and flattered for the brilliancy of his work in the ring. His name was Blanco."
"Sure I remember him." Van talked glibly, pleased that the conversation had turned into channels so impersonal. "He was a fine-looking chap with the grace of a Velasquez dancing-girl and the nerve of a bull-terrier. I remember he was more like a grandee than atoreador. We had him dine with us—hard bread—black olives—fish—bad wine—all sorts of native truck. For the rest of our stay in Seville he was our inseparable companion. Do you remember how the street gamins pointed us out? Why, it was like walking down Broadway with your arm linked in that of Jim Jeffries!"
He paused, somewhat disconcerted by his companion's steady gaze; then, taking a fresh start, he went on, talking fast.
"Besides sticking bulls, he could discuss several topics in several languages. I recall that he had been educated for the Church. If he hadn't felt the lure of the strenuous life, he might have been celebrating Mass instead of playing guide for us. In the end he'd have won a cardinal's hat."
The fixity of the other's stare at last chilled and quelled his chatter to an embarrassed silence. He realized that the object of his mild subterfuge was transparent.
"I'm after his address—not his biography," suggested Benton coolly. "His name was Manuel Blanco, wasn't it?"
"Why, yes, I believe it was. What do you want with him?"
"Never mind that," returned his friend. "Do youhappen to know where he lived? I seem to recall that you promised to write him frequent letters."
"By Jove, so I did," acknowledged Van with humility. "I must get busy. He is a good sort. His address—" He paused to search through his pocket-book for a small tablet dedicated to names and numbers, then added: "His address isNumero 18, Calle Isaac Peral, Cadiz."
Benton was scribbling the direction on the back of an envelope.
"You needn't grow penitent and start a belated correspondence," he suggested. "I am going to write him myself—and I'm going to visit him."
Slowly, with a gesture almost subconscious, Benton slipped an unopened envelope from his breast pocket; turned it over; looked at it and slipped it back, still unopened. Then, leaning heavily on his elbow, he gazed off, frowning, over the rail of the yacht's forward deck.
The waters that lap the quays and wharves of Old Cadiz, green as jade and quiet as farm-yard pools, were darkening into inkiness toward shore. White walls that had been like ivory were turning into ashy gray behind theBateria San Carlosand the pillars of theEntrada. The molten sun was sinking into a rich orange sky beyond the Moorish dome and Christian towers of the cathedral.
Shafts of red and green wavered and quaked in the black dock waters.
Between the hulks of cork- and salt-freighters, the steam yachtIsisslipped with as graceful a motion as that of the gulls. Then when the anchor chains ran gratingly out, Benton turned on his heel and went to his cabin.
Behind a bolted door he dropped into a chair and sat motionless. Finally the right hand wandered mechanically to his breast pocket and brought out the envelope. He read for the thousandth time the endorsement in the corner.
"Not to be opened until the evening of March 5th," and under that, "I love you."
There was another envelope; an outer one much rubbed from the pocket. It was directed in her hand and the blurred postmark bore a date in February. He could have described every mark upon the enclosing cover with the precision of a careful detective. When his impatient fingers had first torn off the end, only to be confronted by the order: "Not to be opened until the evening of March 5th," he had fallen back on studying outward marks and indications. In the first place, it had been posted from Puntal, and instead of the familiar violet stamp of Maritzburg, with which her other letters had been franked during the two months past, this stamp was pink, and its medallion bore the profile of Karyl.
That she had left Maritzburg, and that she had written him a message to be sealed for a month, meant that the date of March 5th had significance. That she was in Galavia meant that the significance was—he winced.
On the calendar of a bronze desk-set, the first fourdays of March were already cancelled. Now, taking up a blue pencil, he crossed off the number five. After that he looked at his watch. It wanted one minute of six. He held the timepiece before him while the second-hand ticked its way once around its circle, then with feverish impatience he tore the end from the envelope.
Benton's face paled a little as he drew out the many pages covered with a woman's handwriting, but there was no one to see that or to notice the tremor of his fingers.
For a moment he held the pages off, seeing only the "Dearest" at the top, and the wild way the pen had raced, forming almost shapeless characters.
"Dearest," she said in part, "I write now because I must turn to someone—because my heart must speak or break. All day I must smile as befits royalty, and act as befits one whose part is written for her. Unless there be an outlet, there must be madness. I have enclosed this envelope in another and enjoined you not to read it until March 5th. Then it will be too late for you to come to me. If you came to-night, you would find me hurrying out to meet you and to surrender. Duty would so gladly lay down its arms to Love, dear, and desert the fight.
"To-night I have slipped away from the uniforms, the tawdry mockery of a puppet court, to find thepitiful comfort of rehearsing my heart-ache to you, who own my heart. In my life here every hour is mapped, and I seem to move from cell to cell. So many obsequious jailers who call themselves courtiers stand about and seem to watch me, that I feel as if I had to ask permission to draw my breath. Out in the narrow streets of this little picture town, I see dark-skinned, bare-footed girls. Some of them carry skins of wine on their heads. All of them are poor. They also are gloriously free. As they pass the palace, they look up enviously, and I, from the inside, look out enviously. I know how Richard of the Lion Heart felt when he was a prisoner in France, only I have not the comfort of a Lion Heart, and it is not written in the book of things that you shall pass outside and hear my harp—and rescue me.... One little taste of liberty I give myself. It caused a terrible battle at first, but I was stubborn and told them that if I was going to be Queen I was going to do just what I wanted, and that if they didn't like it, they could get some other girl to be Queen, so of course they let me.... There is an old half-forgotten roadway walled in on both sides that runs through the town from this horrible palace to the woods upon the mountain. There is some sort of foolish legend that in the old days the Kings used to go by this protected road to a high point called Look-out Rock, and stand there where they could see pretty much all of this miserable little Kingdom and a great deal of the Mediterranean besides. No one uses it now except me; but I do as often as I can steal away. I dress in old clothes and take the little Inca god with me and no one knows us. We slip off among the bowlders and pine trees where the view is wonderful, and as his godship presides on a moss-covered rock and I sit on the carpet of pine needles, he gives me advice. Somewhere in these woods crowds of children live. They are very shy, and for a long time looked at me wonderingly from big liquid eyes, but now I have made friends with them and they come and sit around me in a circle and make me tell them fairy stories....
"Once, dear, I was strong enough to say 'no' to you. Twice I could not be."
The reader paused and scowled at the wall with set jaws.
"But when you read this, almost three thousand miles away, there will be only a few days between me and (it is hard to say it) the marriage and the coronation. He is to be crowned on the same day that we are married. Then I suppose I can't even write what is in my heart."
Benton rose and paced the narrow confines of the cabin. Suddenly he halted. "Even under sealed orders," he mused slowly, "one may dispose of threethousand miles. They, at least, are behind." A countenance somewhat drawn schooled its features into normal expressionlessness, as a few moments afterward he rose to open the door in response to a rapping outside.
As the door swung in a smile came to Benton's face: the first it had worn since that night when he had taken leave of Hope.
"You, Blanco!" he exclaimed. "Why,hombre, the anchor is scarce down. You are prompt!"
The physically superb man who stood at the threshold smiled. The gleam of perfect teeth accentuated the swarthy olive of his face and the crisp jet of his hair. His brown eyes twinkled good-humoredly. Jaw, neck and broad shoulders declared strength, while the slenderness of waist and thigh hinted of grace—a hint that every movement vindicated. It was the grace of the bull-fighter, to whom awkwardness would mean death.
"I had your letter. It was correctly directed—Manuel Blanco,Calle Isaac Peral." The Spaniard smiled delightedly. "When one is once more to see an old friend, one does not delay. How am I? Ah, it is good of theSeñorto ask. I do well. I have retired from thePlaza de Toros. I busy myself with guiding parties oftouristoshere and abroad—and in the collection and sale of antiques. But this time, what isyour enterprise or pleasure,Señor? What do you in Spain?"
"My business in Spain," replied Benton slowly, "is to get out of Spain. After that I don't know. Will you go and take chances of anything that might befall? I sent for you to ask you whether you have leisure to accompany me on an enterprise which may involve danger. It's only fair to warn you."
Blanco laughed. "Who readsmañana?" he demanded, seating himself on the edge of the table, and busying his fingers with the deft rolling of a cigarette. "Thetoreadordoes not question the Prophets. I am at your disposition. But the streets of Cadiz await us. Let us talk of it all over thetable d'hôte."
An hour later found the two in theCalle Duke de Tetuan, blazing with lights like a jeweler's show-case.
The narrow fissure between its walls was aflow with the evening current of promenaders, crowding its scant breadth, and sending up a medley of laughter and musical sibilants. Grandees strolled stiffly erect with long capes thrown back across their left shoulders to show the brave color of velvet linings. Young dandies of army and navy, conscious of their multi-colored uniforms, sifted along through the press, toying with rigidly-waxed mustaches and regarding the warm beauty of their countrywomen through keen, appreciative eyes, not untinged with sensuousness. Hereand there a commonhombrein short jacket, wide, low-crownedsombreroand red sash, zig-zagged through the pleasure-seekers to cut into a darker side street whence drifted pungent whiffs of garlic, black olives and peppers from the stalls of the street salad-venders. Occasionally a Moor in fez and wide-bagging trousers, passed silently through the volatile chatter, looking on with jet eyes and lips drawn down in an impervious dignity.
They found a table in one of the more prominent cafés from which they could view through the plate-glass front the parade in the street, as well as the groups of coffee-sippers within.
"Yonder," prompted Blanco, indicating with his eyes a near-by group, "he with the green-lined cape, is the Duke de Tavira, one of the richest men in Spain—it is on his estate that they breed the bulls for the rings of Cadiz and Seville. Yonder, quarreling over politics, are newspaper men and Republicans. Yonder, artists." He catalogued and assorted for the American the personalities about the place, presuming the curiosity which should be the tourist's attribute-in-chief.
"And at the large table—yonder under the potted palms, and half-screened by the plants—who are they?" questioned Benton perfunctorily. "They appear singularly engrossed in their talk."
"Assume to look the other way,Señor, so they willnot suspect that we speak of them," cautioned the Andalusian. "I dare say that if one could overhear what they say, he could sell his news at his own price. Who knows but they may plan new colors for the map of Southern Europe?"
Benton's gaze wandered over to the table in question, then came uninquisitively back to Blanco's impassive face. It took more than European politics to distract him.
"International intrigue?" he inquired.
The eyes of the other were idly contemplating the street windows, and as he talked he did not turn them toward the men whom he described. Occasionally he looked at Benton and then vacantly back to the street parade, or the red end of his own cigarette.
"There is a small, and, in itself, an unimportant Kingdom with Mediterranean sea-front, called Galavia," said Blanco. Benton's start was slight, and his features if they gave a telltale wince at the word became instantly casual again in expression. But his interest was no longer forced by courtesy. It hung from that moment fixed on the narrative.
"Ah, I see theSeñorknows of it," interpolated Blanco. "The tall man with the extremely pale face and the singularly piercing eye who sits facing us,"—Blanco paused,—"is the Duke Louis Delgado. He is the nephew of the late King of Galavia, and if—"the Spaniard gave an expressive shrug, and watched the smoke ring he had blown widen as it floated up toward the ceiling—"if by any chance, or mischance, Prince Karyl, who is to be crowned at Puntal three days hence, should be called to his reward in heaven, the gentleman who sits there would be crowned King of Galavia in his stead."