"Do we make for Puntal, Your Majesty?" inquired the captain, saluting.
Louis turned coldly. "No."
The officer looked at the Duke for a moment and read defeat in his eyes.
"Where then—Your Grace?" he inquired.
Louis winced under the quick amendment of title. "Anywhere," he said shortly; "anywhere—except Puntal."
Manuel Blanco was ubiquitous during the first days following the coronation. He listened to the fragments of talk that drifted along the streets. He frequented the band concerts in the Public Gardens and drank native vintages in the wine-shops. He elbowed his way naïvely into chattering groups with his ears primed for a careless word. Nowhere did he catch a note hinting of intrigue or danger. It seemed a sound conclusion that if the plotters had not entirely surrendered their project for switching Kings in Galavia, their conspiracies were being once more fomented on foreign soil, just as the first plan had been incubated in Cadiz.
One evening shortly after the dual celebration, a steamer laden with tourists lay at anchor in the bay, outlined in points of light like a set-piece of fireworks. Hundreds of new sight-seeing faces swarmed along the narrow, cobbled streets. This would be a great night in the Strangers' Club and Blanco decided to spend an hour there.
In evening dress he moved through the gardens and pavilions of the casino on the rock, where with the coming of darkness the gayety of the town began to focus and sparkle.
The coronation of Karyl had brought to an end official mourning for the late King, and the crêpe which had palled the national insignia on all public buildings had been cleared away. With this restoration of public gayety came a liberal sprinkling of uniforms to the throngs that crowded the ball-rooms, tea-gardens and gambling halls.
Blanco was standing apart, looking on, when he felt a light touch on his shoulder and turned to find a young officer at his back who smilingly begged him for a moment in the gardens. The Spaniard noticed that the man who addressed him wore the epaulettes of a Captain of Infantry and the added stripe and crown of gold lace at the cuff which designated service in the household of the reigning family.
He turned and accompanied the officer through the wide door into the lantern-hung grounds, passing between the groups which clustered everywhere about small wicker tea-tables. There were no quiet or secluded spots in the gardens of the Strangers' Club to-night, but after a brief glance right and left the Captain led the way to a table in a shadowed niche between two doors. The light there was more shadowedand the tides of promenaders did not crowd so close upon it as elsewhere. As the two came up a third man rose from this table and Manuel found himself looking into the flinty eyes of Colonel Von Ritz.
Von Ritz spoke briefly. IfSeñorBlanco could spare the time, His Majesty wished to speak with him.
The younger officer turned back into the casino and Von Ritz led thetoreadorthrough the front gardens, where the tennis courts lay bare between the palms. The acacias and sycamores were soft, dark spots against the far-flung procession of the stars.
The street outside was crowded with fiacres and cabs. Von Ritz signaled to a footman and in a moment more Blanco and his escort had stepped into a closed carriage and were being driven toward the Palace. They entered by a side passage and the Colonel conducted him through several halls and chambers filled with uniformed officers, and finally into a more remote part of the building where they met only an occasional servant. At last they came into a great room entirely empty but for themselves. About the walls hung ripened portraits. The decorations were of Arabesque mosaics with fantastic panels of Moorish tiling. It might have been a grandee's house in Seville, patterned on the Alcazar. Evidently this was part of a private suite. Heavy portières were only partly drawn across a wide window with the sill at the floor level, andthrough them Blanco dimly saw a balcony giving out over a small garden, and commanding more distantly the harbor and town lights below. From somewhere in the garden came the splashing of a small fountain.
Here Von Ritz left his charge to himself, silently departing with a bow. For a while the Spaniard remained alone. The room was not so brightly illuminated as many through which he had come on his way across the Palace. Light filtered through swinging lamps of wrought metal encrusted with prisms of green and amber and garnet. The Moorish scheme depends in part upon its shadows. Finally a gentleman entered from a balcony. He was neither in uniform nor in evening dress. His face was smooth-shaven and pleasing.
Blanco fancied this was a secretary or attendant of some sort, and was conscious of slight surprise that as he entered the place he smoked a cigarette with a freedom scarcely fitting the King's personal chambers. At the window the gentleman halted and looked Blanco over with a frank but not offensive curiosity. Manuel returned the gaze, wondering where he had seen the face before, yet unable to identify it. Then the newcomer crossed and proffered the Spaniard a cigarette from a gold case, which thetoreadordeclined with a shake of his head.
"Gracias, Señor," he said, "but I am waiting for the King."
The other smiled, and the visitor noticed that even in smiling his lips fell into lines of sadness.
"None the less," he said pleasantly, "a man may as well have the solace of tobacco while he waits—even though he awaits a King."
The Andalusian once more shook his head, and the other continued to study him with that undisguised interest which his eyes had worn from the first.
"So you are one of the two men," he said, "who learned what all the secret agents of the Throne failed to unearth. Incidentally it is to you that the present King owes not only his Crown, but his life as well." He paused.
"After all," he went on, "it is neither your fault nor Mr. Benton's that the King could have done very well without either the Crown or his life. You restored something which perhaps he held worthless.... But that is his own misfortune."
Blanco's expressive face mirrored a shade of resentment. He had come on summons from the King and found himself listening to the familiar, even disrespectful, chatter of some underling who laughed at his Monarch and lightly appraised the value of his life while he smoked cigarettes in the Royal apartments. The Spaniard bowed stiffly.
"I observe you are in the confidence of the King," he said, in a tone not untouched with disapproval.
The other man's lips curled in amusement. After a moment he replied with simple gravity.
"I am the King."
Blanco stood gazing in astonishment. "You—the King!" Then, recognizing that the shaving of a mustache and the change into civilian clothes had made the difference in a face and figure he had seen only on the streets and through shifting crowds, he bowed with belated deference.
Karyl once more held out his case. "Now perhaps you will have a cigarette?"
Thetoreadortook one and lighted it slowly. The King went on.
"My sole pleasure is pretending that I am not a Monarch. Between ourselves, I should prefer other employment. You, for example, I am told have won fame in the bull ring—and it was fame you earned for yourself."
Blanco flushed, then, bethinking himself of the fact that he had been brought here presumably with a purpose, he ventured to suggest: "Your Majesty wished to see me about some matter?"
The other shook his head.
"No," he said slowly, "it was not really I who sent for you. It was Her Majesty, the Queen."
Before he had time for response thetoreadorcaught the sound of a shaken curtain behind him, but since he stood facing the King he did not turn.
Karyl, however, looked up, and then swiftly crossed the room. As he passed, Blanco wheeled to face him and was in time to see him holding back the portières of a door for the Queen to enter.
She was gowned in black with the sparkle of passementerie and jet, and at her breast she wore a single red rose. As she stood for a moment on the threshold, despite the majesty of her slender poise it appeared to Blanco that her grace was rather that of something wild and free and that the Palace seemed to cage her. But that may have been because, as she paused, her hands went to her breast and a furrow came between her brows, while the corners of her lips drooped wistfully like a child's.
The King stooped to kiss her hand, and she turned toward him with a smile which was pallid and which did not dissipate the unhappiness of her face. Then Karyl straightened and said to Blanco, who felt himself suddenly grow awkward as a muleteer: "The Queen."
Manuel dropped on one knee. At a gesture from Cara he rose and waited for her to speak. Karyl himself halted at the door for a moment, then came slowly back into the room. He picked up from a taboureta decoration of the Star of Galavia, and, crossing over, pinned it to the Spaniard's lapel.
"There!" he said, with a good-humored laugh. "You made me a somewhat valueless present a few days back. You will find that equally useless, Sir Manuel. You may tell Mr. Benton that I envy him such an ally."
With a bow to the Queen, the King left the apartment.
For a moment the girl stood at the door, with the same expression and the same silence, unbroken by her since her entrance, then she turned to the Spaniard and spoke directly. Her voice held a tremor.
"How is he?"
"I have not seen him since the day on the mountain," returned Manuel.
"He has, in you, a very true friend."
"Your Majesty, I am his servant," deprecated the toreador.
"If I had friends like you," she smiled, "it would matter little what they called themselves. And yet, if there is but one like you, I had rather that that one be with him. I want you to go to him now and remain with him."
"Your Majesty,SeñorBenton left me here to watch for recurring dangers. I am now satisfied that nothing threatens, at least for the present. I might, as Your Majesty suggests, better be with him."
"Yes—yes—with him!" she eagerly agreed; then her voice took on the timbre of anxiety. "I am afraid. Sometimes I am afraid for him. He is not a coward, but there are times when we all become weak. I appoint you, Sir Manuel—" the girl smiled wanly—"I appoint you my Ambassador to be with him and watch after him—and, Sir Manuel—" her voice shook a little with very deep feeling—"I am giving you the office I had rather have than all the thrones in Christendom! Will you accept it?"
She held out her hand, and taking it reverently in his own, the Andalusian bowed low over it. He did not kneel, for now he was the Ambassador in the presence of his Sovereign. "With all the Saints for my witnesses," he declared fervently, "I swear it to Your Majesty."
There was gratitude in her eyes as they met the whole-heartedness of the pledge in his. For a moment she seemed unable to speak, though there was no dimness of tear-mist in her pupils. She stood very upright and silent, and her breathing was deep. Then slowly her hands came up and loosened the flower at her breast.
"The King has decorated you, Sir Manuel," shesaid. "I don't think Mr. Benton would care for knighthood—and I could not confer it—but sometime—not now—some day after you have both departed from Galavia, give him this. Tell him it may have a message which I may not put in words. If he can read the heart of a rose deeply enough, perhaps he can find it there."
When Blanco had carefully folded the emblem of his embassy in paper and deposited it in his breast pocket, she gave him her hand again, and, turning, went out through the same door that she had entered.
Back in the town, Blanco had certain investigations to make. He knew Von Ritz's men had been too late to capture the Duke, and that the Countess Astaride had sailed by the steamer leaving for French and Italian ports. Wherever these two conspirators should meet would become the next point to watch.
Blanco felt sure that Louis would be willing to drop back into the routine of his life in Paris, freshly stocked with pessimistic memories of how a crown had slipped through his fingers. It would take driving to prevent him lagging into the inertia of sentimental brooding. On the other hand, he knew that the Countess Astaride, having gone so far, would never again relinquish her ambitions. He knew the temper of the Countess's mind from various bits of gossip he had heard and now also from what he had seen. He knewthat, while she was entirely willing to participate in a murder plot to further her designs, she was not fired solely by a lust for power. More deeply she was actuated by her wish to make Louis Delgado a man of potentiality because she loved Louis Delgado.
That love might evidence itself in savagery toward men who obstructed the road which her lover must travel to a crown, but it was a ferocity born of love for the Pretender.
Since this was true it was not probable that she would allow the matter to end where it stood. Even if she were willing, it was more than certain that Jusseret had not entered into the undertaking without some sufficient end in view. Having entered it, he would not relinquish it because the first attempt had been bungled.
That same night Manuel sent a message to theIsis, saying that he was sailing the following morning by the Genoa steamer and asking that the yacht meet the ship and take him on board. Having done that much, he went to the hotel where the Countess had stopped and told the clerk that he had news of importance to communicate to Madame the Countess, and that he wished to learn her present address. The clerk, like all Puntal, was ignorant of what important matters had just missed happening, but he had instructions from this lady to assume ignorance as to her destination. Blanco, however, showed the seal ring which she had said wouldprove a passport to her presence and which Benton had left with him. He was promptly informed that she had taken passage for Villefranche, and had ordered her mail forwarded there in care of the steamship agency.
More suggestive of a stowaway than a millionaire, thought Blanco the following afternoon, when he had come over the side of theIsisand sought out the owner of the yacht. Benton had turned hermit and withdrawn to the most isolated space the vessel provided. It was really not a deck at all—only a space between engine-room grating and tarpaulined lifeboats on what was properly the cabin roof. Here, removed from the burnished and ship-shape perfection of the yacht's appointment, he lay carelessly shaven and more carelessly dressed.
The lazily undulating Mediterranean stretched unbroken save for the yacht's stack, funnels and stanchions, in a sight-wide radius of blue. Overhead the sky was serene. Here and there, in fitful humors, the sea flowed in rifts of a different hue.
The sun was mellow and the breeze which purred softly in the cables overhead came with the caressing breath that blows off the orange groves of Southern Spain. Ahead lay all the invitation of the south ofFrance; of the Riviera's white cities and vivid countryside; of Monte Carlo's casinos and Italy's villas. Beyond further horizons, waited the charm of Greece, but the man lay on an old army blanket, clad in bagging flannels and a blue army shirt open at the throat. His arms were crossed above his eyes, and he was motionless, except that the fingers which gripped his elbows sometimes clenched themselves and the bare throat above the open collar occasionally worked spasmodically.
Blanco had come quietly, and his canvas shoes had made no sound. For a time he did not announce himself. He was not sure that Benton was awake, so he dropped noiselessly to the deck and sat with his hands clasped about his knees, his eyes moodily measuring the rise and fall of the glaringly white stanchions above and below the sky-line. At frequent intervals they swept back to the other man, who still lay motionless. It was late afternoon and the smoke-stack shadows pointed off in attenuated lines to the bow while the sky, off behind the wake, brightened into the colors of sunset. Finally Benton rose. The unexpected sight of Blanco brought a start and an immediate masking of his face, but in the first momentary glimpse the Andalusian caught a haggard distress which frightened him.
"I didn't know you had come," said Benton quietly. "How long have you been here?"
"I should say a half-hour,Señor," replied Manuel, casually rolling a cigarette.
"Why didn't you rouse me? I'm not very amusing, but even I could have relieved the dullness of sitting there like a marooned man on a derelict."
"Dullness?" inquired thetoreadorwith a lazy lift of the brows. "It is ease,Señor, and ease is desirable—at sea."
The American sat cross-legged on the deck and held out his hand for a cigarette. When he asked a question he spoke in matter-of-fact tones. He even laughed, and the Andalusian chatted on in kind, but secretly and narrowly he was watching the other, and when he had finished his scrutiny he told himself that Benton had been indulging in the dangerous pastime of brooding.
"Tell me—everything," urged the yacht-owner. "What are the revolutionists doing and how is—how are things?" Carefully he avoided directing any question to the point on which his eagerness for news was poignant hunger.
When Blanco told how Louis had left Galavia just before the soldiers reached the lodge, Benton's face darkened. "That was fatal blundering," he complained. "So long as Delgado is at large the Palace is menaced. If they had taken him, and held him under surveillance, theCabinet Noirwould be disarmed. Now they will try again."
Blanco nodded.
"There is no charge they can make against him," he mused. "They cannot bring him back because the government cannot admit its peril. Outwardly his bill of health is clean. Assuredly when they let him slip,Señor, they committed a grave error."
Benton rose and paced the deck in deep reflection. At last he halted and spread his hands in a gesture half-despairing.
"My God!" he said in a low voice. "The anxiety will drive me mad! You saw their methods. An entire cortége was to be blown into the air—just to kill Karyl. Next time, what will they attempt?" He broke off with a shudder.
"I have seen the Queen," said Blanco slowly.
Benton wheeled. For an instant his face lighted, then he leaned forward. He said nothing, but his whole attitude was a question.
"You behold in me, Sir Manuel Blanco," began the Andalusian grandly. Then, slipping his arm through that of the other man, he began leading him around the deck. When he had finished his narrative, he said: "I begin my office as Ambassador by deliveringthis packet." From his pocket he produced the paper-wrapped rose. "I was instructed to give it to you at some future time. Possibly,Señor, I am over-prompt. Lawyers and diplomats should be deliberate."
The Mediterranean day had died slowly from east to west while the men had talked, and the last shred of glowing sky was darkening into the sea at the edge of the world astern, when Benton greedily thrust out his hand for the packet.
"Gracias," he said bluntly, and turning away went precipitously to his cabin.
After dinner, when the Captain had betaken himself to the bridge and the smoke from the Spaniard's cigarettes and Benton's pipe had begun to wreathe clouds against the ceiling-beams, Blanco broached his diplomacy.
In the dulled expressionlessness of the face opposite him and the stoop of the shoulders, Manuel read a need for an active antidote against the corrosive poison of despair.
"Where are we going now,Señor?"
Benton shrugged his shoulders.
"'Quien sabe!' as you say in Spain. We are simply cruising, drifting, keeping out of sight of land."
"And drifting is the precise thing,Señor, which we must not do. I have hitherto done without questionwhat you have said. Now I hold a new dignity." There was a momentary flash of teeth as he smiled. "As Ambassador, I make a request. May I be permitted to take entire control of affairs for a brief time? Also, will you for a few days obeymyinstructions, without question?"
Benton looked across the table at the dark face half-obscured behind a blue fog of cigarette smoke. After a moment he smiled.
"Admiral," he said, "issue your orders."
"You will instruct the Captain," said Manuel promptly, "to head at once for Villefranche. There you,Señor, will leave the yacht, and I will go with it to Monte Carlo. I wish to be as soon as possible in the casino where the drone of thecroupierand the clink of outflowinglouis d'orconstitute the national refrain."
Benton's eyes narrowed in perplexity. On his face was written curiosity, but he had agreed to ask no questions. He unhesitatingly put his finger on the electric bell.
"Ask the Captain to come here as soon as he is at leisure," he directed when the steward had responded to the call.
"Good," commended Blanco. Then with a sorrowful shake of his head he commiserated: "I am sorry that you are to be denied the excitement of therouge et noirand thetrente et quarenteof the gold table,Señor, but if the Countess Astaride and Louis should meet there, the lady would know you. I fancy that she will not again mistake you for someone else. As for myself, neither of them yet knows me."
"Are they at Monte Carlo?" Benton sat suddenly upright, and Blanco had the first reward of his diplomacy, as he noted the quickening interest in the questioning eyes.
"I am only guessing,Señor. If the guess is good, I may learn something. What is in my mind, may fail. If you are willing to trust me I would rather not reveal it now."
"And I?" questioned Benton. "Have I any part to play in this, or do you go it alone?"
Blanco leaned forward.
"It may be necessary to have someone near enough to the Palace in Puntal to insure immediate action—action to be taken on the instant.... You must return to the city,Señor.... It will be for only a few days. The Grand Palace Hotel is above the town in large gardens.... If you choose you can remain there with your presence absolutely unknown, so far as the city proper is concerned. Also, the Marconi office has a station in the hotel grounds. With a code which we have yet to arrange, I can keep in touch with you...."
The next day Benton was a passenger by steamer from Villefranche to Puntal.
The Grand Palace Hotel, dominating its own acres of subtropical gardens, looks down on the city as one seated on an eminence commands the common things at his feet. Between its grounds and the scalloped bay, run the huddled habitations of the town's water-front, with its delicately tinted walls and riotously colored gardens invading every crevice.
Following the semicircle of the bay, the eye commands that other eminence where the King's Palace shuts itself in austerely at the very center of the arc. Through the clustered, tea-sipping loungers on the galleries and terraces Benton made his way several days later, wearing the studiously affected unconcern of the tourist; an unconcern which he found it desperately difficult to assume in Puntal.
Driven by a growing and intense desire to put distance between himself and all alien humanity, he turned into a narrow, steeply climbing street which ran twisting between toy-houses and vine-cumbered garden-walls, until at last it lost its right to be called a street and became merely a narrow, trail-like path up the mountain-side. The wanderer climbed interminably. He took no thought of destination and satisfied himself with the physical exertion of the laborious going.
His heart pounded faster as he attained the altitudeof the pine woods where he seemed to have left humanity behind him. Once or twice he saw a shy, half-wild child who fled from its task of gathering fagots at his approach, to gaze at him out of startled eyes from a safe distance.
Occasionally he would stop to look down, from some coign of vantage, at cascading threads of water tumbling into the gorge below, or at a châlet-like house perched far beneath in its trim patch of agriculture. Finally he stretched himself indolently on a carpet of pine needles at the brink of a drop to the valley. Then, with a sense of recognition, he saw the tumbled-down gate of the King's driveway below him to the left, and his face became set and miserable as memory began its work of tearing open wounds not yet old.
Suddenly there drifted up a chorus of children's laughter. He sat up suddenly and looked about, but no one was in sight. Again he heard an unmistakable peal of shrill, childish merriment, seemingly close at hand. He lay flat and looked over the ledge, holding on to a root of a gnarled pine that grew far out at the marge.
Under him, not more than twenty yards below, on a similar natural platform, sat a circle of peasant children, their eyes large with wonderment and interest. In their center, also seated on the earth, was the Queen of Galavia. She was dressed in a short walkingskirt and a blue jersey, and as the man gripped the pine root to which he held, and gazed over, she lifted an outstretched finger of a gauntleted hand in illustration of some particularly wonderful point of what was palpably a particularly wonderful fairy story. A third burst of delight came from the listening and responsive auditors, who had no idea by whom they were being entertained.
The peasants of Galavia speak Portuguese. As Benton shifted his position so that he could eavesdrop without being discovered, he found that he could catch some of the words.
"Tell us another story—" piped a high treble voice, "—a story about the beautiful Princess who married the King." The demand was seconded by an immediate clamor of eager voices.
The girl rose unsteadily and shook her head. For a moment she stood looking off over the miles of sea with her hands at her breast and her eyes clouded, oblivious of the small companions of her truancy. She stretched out both strong young arms toward the Mediterranean.
Then she heeded the children's clamor again and, turning to them, she laughed.
"No, no!" she teasingly answered, and the man above realized for the first time that Portuguese is a tongue of liquid music. "These are fairy stories without Princesses. These are perfectly good fairy stories, you know." Then with a sudden burst of confidence, "In really-truly life, Princesses are not much good. Don't any of you ever be a Princess if you can help it!" After planting this seed of treasonable ideas she turned away, adding: "No, no, no! I've run away and I must go back. To-morrow we will have a wonderful story—but no more to-day."
Slowly she made her way down to the old gate, stopping twice to look out to the sea, and above her, choking off the shout that clamored at his lips, the man sat motionless and gave no intimation of his presence.
Finally he rose and made his way unsteadily back to the city. He walked slowly down between the wine-shops, noisy with laughter, to the road along the bay. Immersed in reflection and forgetful of his resolution to keep as much as possible out of sight, he went openly and conspicuously along the street that overhangs the water, where at sunset all Puntal promenades. It was only when a detachment of soldiers in the familiar opera-bouffe uniform went clanking by to change the guard at the Palace gates that he remembered he was to have remained inconspicuous. With a sense of chagrin for his indiscretion, he turned into a side street which sloped upward toward his hotel. This street was so little used that between its cobble stones tender sprigs of grass made the way as green as a turf course.
There were several things to harrow Benton's thoughts aside from the ingenious tortures of memory. Blanco should have arrived at Monte Carlo on the day of their separation. Benton himself had proceeded slowly to Puntal and had now been an isolated guest at the Grand Palace Hotel for two days, yet he had heard nothing from Manuel. Still the man from Cadiz had not been idly cruising. TheIsishad duly dropped her anchor in the ultramarine waters where the rock of Monaco juts out like a beckoning finger, and Monte Carlo spreads the marble display of its rococo façades at the feet of the Maritime Alps.
That night, in the most detailed perfection of evening dress, he wandered good-humoredly, yet aloof, through the crowds. He haunted the groups that swarmed about the busy wheels in the casino. He mingled with the diners upon the terraces of the principal hotels. He brushed elbows with the strollers along the promenade and about theCercle des Etrangers, and all the while his studiously alert eyes wanderedwith seeming vacancy of expression over the faces of the men and women whom he passed.
Safe in the surety of being himself unknown, he trained his countenance into the ennui of one who has no object beyond killing the hour and contributing his quota to the income of the syndicate.
The evening was wasted, together with a fewlouis, and the next morning found the Spaniard scrutinizing every face along thePromenade des Anglaisat Nice. Then he searched Cannes and Mentone, but by evening he was back again in the sacred City of Black and Red.
As he disembarked from the yacht's launch and came up the white stairs to the landing-stage, his eyes were still indolently wandering, but before he reached the level of theBoulevard de la Condamine, the expression changed with the suddenness of discovery into a glint almost triumphant. It was only with strong effort that he banished the satisfied light from his pupils and forced them to wander absently again, along the glitter and color of the palm-lined promenade.
For Manuel had seen a slender, well-groomed figure leaning on the coping of the sea-wall and gazing out with obvious amusement on the life of the harbor. Although the Spaniard did not allow himself a second glance, he knew that his search was ended. The attention of the man above was dreamily fixed on the baywhere a dozen darting motor-boats cut swift courses hither and thither. His attitude was graceful. His bearing might have been almost noble except for a deplorable lack of frankness which spoiled otherwise fine eyes, and a self-indulgent weakness which marred the angle of the chin.
The Bay at Monte Carlo is a haven for luxurious craft. Now the Prince of Monaco's yacht lay at anchor and several others, hardly less handsome, rode snugly offshore, but with the enthusiasm of a connoisseur the tall gentleman disregarded all the rest and let his admiring gaze dwell on theIsis.
The face was studiously altered. Where there had been a full mustache there was now only a thinly clipped line, waxed and uptilting in needle points. It had been dark brown. Now it was black. The hair formerly brushed straight back from the forehead now showed beneath the hat-band. The Van Dyke which had masked the receding tendency of the chin was shaven away. Evidently the gentleman wished to present a changed appearance to the world, but the visionary eyes were unmistakably those of Louis, the Dreamer, and in lapses of thought the fingers of the right hand nervously twisted and untwisted, after the manner of an old personal trick.
As Blanco came up the stairs he brushed clumsily against the stranger and paused to apologize.
"I am inexcusably awkward," he avowed with engaging contriteness.
The Duke protested that it was not worth mention, and added with a smile, "I noticed that you came from that yacht. I think she is one of the most beautiful little vessels I have ever seen."
"Thank you, Monsieur." Blanco was apparently much flattered. "She is American built, and has some appointments which I have not seen elsewhere." Then smilingly, but in hot haste, he rushed away.
During the course of the evening the Andalusian contrived to throw himself repeatedly across the Duke's path. On each occasion he appeared to be in great haste and under the necessity of immediate departure, though he never left without a cordial word of recognition. He played his game so adroitly that at the end of the evening the Duke felt as though he and the stranger from the American-built yacht were old and pleasant acquaintances.
It was as they stood watching the stiffer gambling of the elect in the upper room of the Casino, after the wheels below had ceased to spin, that the tall gentleman turned to Blanco.
"How do you say? Would a cup of coffee or a glass of wine go amiss?"
Without a trace of eagerness, the Andalusian assented and a few minutes later he found himself across acafé table at the Nouvel Hôtel de Paris; listening to Louis, the Dreamer's soft voice, and watching the slender fingers which nervously toyed with a Sévres cup.
"She is extremely beautiful in her lines," Louis was declaring. "I am fond of yachts that are properly built. I am planning one myself, and each new vessel holds for me a fresh interest."
"Ah, indeed!" The Spaniard was delighted. "Then we have fallen upon a common enthusiasm. I am never so happy as when talking to a keen yachtsman." Yet so long as the conversation threatened those nautical technicalities in which he was utterly deficient, he managed to let the other do the talking.
Manuel at last set down his cup and, looking up with a flash, as of sudden inspiration, suggested: "But doubtless you will be stopping in Monte Carlo a day or two? Possibly you will do me the honor of inspecting the boat?"
The other protested that his friend was too good. He regarded himself highly honored. He would be most charmed. But apparently the idea was developing and Blanco was conceiving even more extended notions of hospitality.
"Stay!" he suddenly exclaimed. "Why not breakfast with me, on board, to-morrow at twelve? The launch will be at the landing at eleven forty-five. I could take you cruising for a few knots, and letyou test her sailing qualities, returning in abundant time for dinner and the amusements of the evening."
Louis gave the matter a moment's reflection, then declared that the programme was delightful. He would not be engaged until the evening.
Blanco laughed uproariously. "It is most amusing," he declared. "I have had supper with you—you are to breakfast with me, and I have not yet told you my name!" He was searching for a card-case, which seemingly he had misplaced. "I cannot find a card. No matter, my name is Sir Manuel Blanco."
The Duke smiled as he rose from the table and took up hat and cane. "I was equally forgetful," he said. "My name is Monsieur Breuillard."
The following day had advanced well into the afternoon, and Monsieur Breuillard had punctuated with graceful compliment each point of excellence in the equipment of theIsis, when Blanco led the way into the small smoking saloon.
"Sailing qualities may not have been fairly tested," admitted Sir Manuel, "since the sea was serene, the sky brilliant, and the breeze insufficient to ruffle the water."
"The more charming, Monsieur!" exclaimed the guest, whose mood after a pleasing day was mellow and complacent.
Blanco waved Monsieur Breuillard to an easy chair and pointed out cigars. As chance would have it, he stood before the door, which he had just closed.
"By the way—Your Grace—" He broke off abruptly to mark the effect of the title on the other man. Evidently he found it highly pleasing for he smiled as the Dreamer winced and came violently to his feet, pale and rigid, but as yet too astounded for speech.
"I did not tell you, did I," went on the Spaniard, "that I have been Sir Manuel Blanco only a few days, and that the title was conferred on me by your royal kinsman, Karyl of Galavia, for a trifling service in confounding his enemies? Before that I was amatadorin Andalusia."
Delgado stood petrified, his features livid and his eyes blazing with rage. An instinct warned him that to surrender to passion would be only to trap himself more deeply. The man blocking the door filled its breadth with his strong shoulders. Louis turned his head and his eyes caught through the open porthole a glimpse of the receding shore-line of the Riviera. Blanco followed the glance and smiled.
"We shall be losing shore in a short time," he calmly announced. "May I have the honor of showing Your Grace to your stateroom?"
On the next evening Benton emerged from his rooms at the Grand Palace Hotel in Puntal, and threading his way through the loungers on the galleries, sought out a remote corner of the garden, where, under a blossom-freighted vine, he could hear the surge of the sea, and, in a tempered softness, the Viennese waltz of the hotel band. Under him the harbor mirrored lights along the shore and those of ships at anchor. At a distance the windows of the Palace could be seen.
"I beg your pardon—"
Benton recognized the coldly modulated voice before he glanced up at the cloaked figure.
"Colonel Von Ritz," he said, "I am honored."
Von Ritz bowed.
"His Majesty requests that you will do him the honor of coming to the Palace with me—now."
Despite the form of request in which the summons was couched, Von Ritz clothed it in a coldness that brought to Benton's mind the implacable politeness of an arrest. At the hint he stiffened.
"If His Majesty requests my presence," he replied with some shortness, "it will be a pleasure to present myself at once. If—" he paused and looked at the stiffly erect figure before him, "if the peremptory tone you assume is a part of your instruction, I must remind you that I am an American citizen, entirelyfree to accept or decline invitations—even when they come from the Palace."
Von Ritz replied with unruffled gravity.
"If it will add to your sense of security, Mr. Benton, I shall be pleased to drive you to your Legation and to have your government's representative accompany us."
Benton flushed. "I was not speaking from any sense of personal insecurity," he explained. "But I wished you to understand the manner in which I prefer to be approached."
The Colonel waited with perfect courtesy for the American to finish, then he went on in the same distantly polite tone and manner. "I had not quite finished delivering my message when you—when you began to speak. His Majesty instructs me to say that if you will accompany me to the Palace he will regard it as a courtesy and will be grateful. He commands me to add that he does not send this message officially or as coming from the Court. It is simply that the Count Pagratide wishes to see you and that it is obviously impossible for His Majesty—for the Count Pagratide—to call on you here."
Benton was irritated with himself for his display of temper, and more irritated with Von Ritz for his calm superiority of manner. His murmured apology was offered with no very good grace as he turned to followthe other's lead. Opposite the hotel entrance he stopped.
"Colonel," he said, "I have been awaiting news from Manuel Blanco. He may send a message or come himself, and if so it may be vital for him to establish instant communication with me."
"Certainly," agreed Von Ritz. "I would suggest that you introduce my aide, who may be trusted, at the hotel and that he be instructed to bring you any message. By that means,SeñorBlanco, or his news, can follow you directly to the Palace—and it does not become necessary to take others into your confidence."
The same young Captain who had summoned Blanco in the Casino was left to act as messenger and Benton, following the officer through a side gate and into a side street, stepped into a closed carriage.
"I had not supposed that the Palace knew of my presence in Puntal," commented the American as he took his seat opposite the Colonel of Cavalry.
"You were seen on the promenade. It was reported from several sources," Von Ritz made answer. "Also," he added as an afterthought, "we knew of your arrival two hours after you reached Puntal. You registered at the hotel under your own name."
"Does the Queen also know of my presence?" asked Benton.
"No," was the brief reply.
For the remainder of the drive conversation died. The two men sat mutely opposite each other as the carriage jolted over the cobble-stoned streets, until the driver turned into the castle gates.
Then Von Ritz again leaned forward.
"Mr. Benton," he explained, "it happens that this evening a ball is being given at the Palace for the members of the Diplomatic Corps. His Majesty, supposing that you would desire a quiet reception, instructed me to take you to the gardens of his private suite where he will shortly join you; unless," added Von Ritz courteously, "you prefer the Throne-room and dancingsalles?"
Benton's reply was prompt.
"I believe I am to see the Count Pagratide," he answered. "I am grateful to the Count for arranging that I might be secluded."
Blanco had gone into some detail in describing the chamber where he had met the King, and later the Queen. Benton now recognized the place to which he was conducted, from that description. As before, the room was empty and the portières of the wide windows were partly drawn. Through the opening he could see the small area perching on a space redeemed from the solid rock. Dark masses against the sky marked the palms of the garden, and through the windowdrifted the splashing of a fountain mingled with the distant strains of the same Viennese waltz that the hotel band had been playing. That year you might have heard it from the Golden Gate to Suez and back again from Suez to the Golden Gate.
Left alone, Benton spent ten minutes in the room, then passed through the window to the balcony and went down into the miniature garden. His face was hot and his pulses heightened. The garden was gratefully cool and quiet.
From the window, through which he had come, a broad shaft of tempered luminance fell across the fountain and laid a zone of soft light athwart the low stone benches surrounding it. Then it caught, and faintly edged with its glow, the granite balustrade at the shoulder of the cliff. Elsewhere the little garden was enveloped in the velvet blackness of the night, against which the points of town and harbor lights, far below, were splinters of emerald and ruby. The moon would not rise until late.
The American strolled over to the shaded margin which was unspoiled by the light. He brushed back the hair from his forehead and let the sea breeze play on his face.
Finally a light sound behind him called his attention inward. The King and Von Ritz stood together in the doorway. Both were in dress uniform. Karyl, even at the side of the soldierly Von Ritz, was striking in the white and silver of Galavia's commanding general. Across his breast glinted the decorations of all the orders to which Royalty entitled him.
The King, with a deep breath not unlike a sigh, came forward to the fountain. There he halted with one booted foot on the margin of the basin and his white-gauntleted hands clasped at his back. He had not yet seen Benton, who now stepped out of the shadow to present himself. As he came into view Karyl raised his eyes and nodded with a smile.
"Ah, Benton," he said, "so you came! Thank you."
The American bowed. He wished to observe every proper amenity of Court etiquette. He was still chagrined by the memory of his rudeness to Von Ritz, yet he was determined that if Karyl had sent for him as the Count Pagratide, he must receive him on equal terms and without ceremony.
"Certainly," he replied. Then with a short laugh he added: "I have never before been received by a crowned head. If my etiquette proves faulty, you must score it against my ignorance—not my intention."
"I sent for you," said Karyl slowly, as the eyes of the two men met in full directness, "and you were good enough to come. I am a crowned head—yes—that is my damned ill-fortune. Let us, for God's sake, in so far as we may, forget that! Benton, back there—" his voice suddenly rose and took on a passionate tremor as he lifted one gauntleted hand in a sweep toward the west—"back there in your country, where you were a grandee of finance and I an impecunious foreigner, there was no ceremony between us. If we can forget this livery"—Karyl savagely struck his breast—"if you will try to forget that you are looking at a toy King, fancifully trimmed from head to heel in braid and medals—then perhaps we can talk!"
"Your Majesty—" demurred Von Ritz in a tone of deep protest.
The King swept his arm back as one who brushes an unimportant intruder into the background.
"And we must talk," went on Karyl vehemently, "as two men, not as one man and a puppet."
The American stood looking on at the violence of the King's outburst with a sense of deep sympathy. Again the Colonel stepped forward with an interposed objection.
"If I may suggest—" he began in an emotionless inflection which fell in startling contrast with the surcharged vehemence of the other. Then he halted in the midst of his sentence as Karyl wheeled passionately to face him.
"My God, Colonel!" cried the King. "There is nota debt of gratitude in life that I do not owe to you—I and my house! I am crushed under my obligations to you. You have been our strength, our one loyal support, and yet there are times when you madden me!" The officer stood waiting, respectful, impersonal, until the flood of words should subside, but for a while Karyl swept agitatedly on.
"You wear a sword, Von Ritz, which any monarch in Europe would hire at your own price. Any government would let you name what titles and honors you wished in payment—"
"Your Majesty!"
"Forgive me, I know your sword is not for sale. I mean no such intimation. I mean only that it has a value. I mean you are a man, and the game to you is the large one of statecraft. It is really you who rule this Kingdom. Ah, yes, you remonstrate, but I tell you it is true, and the damnable shame is that it is not a Kingdom worthy of your genius! You, Von Ritz, are the engine, the motive force—but I—in God's holy name, what am I?"
He raised his hands questioningly, appealingly.
"You," replied the older soldier calmly, "are the King."
"Yes," Karyl caught up the words almost before they had fallen from the lips of the other. "Yes, I am the King. I am the miserable, gilded figurehead out on the prow, which serves no end and no purpose. I am the ornamental symbol of a system which the world is discarding! I am a medieval lay figure upon which to hang these tinsel decorations, these ribbons!"
"Your Majesty is excited."
"No, by God, I am only heartbroken—and I am through!" The King's hands dropped at his sides. The passion died out of his voice and eyes, leaving them those of a man who is very tired. For a moment there was silence. It was broken by the American.
"Pagratide," he asked, "why did you send for me?"
The King stood rigid with the illuminating shaft from the door touching into high-lights the polish of his boots and the burnish of his accouterments. Finally he turned and in a voice now deadly quiet countered with another question.
"Benton, why did you save me?"
The American answered with quiet candor.
"I went into it," he said, "because I feared the danger might threaten Cara. Once in, only a murderer could have turned back."
"So I thought." Karyl nodded his head, then he turned and paced restively up and down the path between the fountain and the balcony. At last he halted fronting the American.
"I wish to God, Benton, you had let that traitor Lapas and his constituents touch their damned button. I wish to God you had let them lift me, amid the stones ofdo Freres, into eternity! But that wish is uncharitable to Von Ritz and the others who must have gone with me." The King broke off with a short laugh. "After all," he added, "of course, as you say, you couldn't do it."
Benton shook his head. "No," he said, "I couldn't do it."
Again Karyl paced back and forth, and again he stopped, facing the American.
"Benton, it is hard for two men to talk in this fashion. Perhaps no two other men ever did. I find myself a jailer to the woman I love—Oh, yes, I am also imprisoned by Royalty but that does not alter matters." The voice shook. The gauntleted hands were tightly gripped, but the speaker went steadily on. "And you love her!"
For an instant Benton looked at the other, hesitant. Then realizing the unquestionable sincerity with which the King spoke, he answered with equal frankness.
"Pagratide—over there—I thought I could enter Paradise. I did look into Paradise. Then I had to set my face back again to the desert—and in the desert one has only memory and hunger and thirst."
"Yours is hunger and thirst—yes!" exclaimed theKing of Galavia. "But mine is the hunger and thirst of Tantalus."
There was a low pained exclamation from the balcony and both men wheeled in recognition of the voice and the shadow that divided the band of light in the doorway.
The Queen stood on the low sill and though her head and figure were only sketched in shade against the tempered luminance at her back her exclamation told them that she had heard. She stood in the unbroken sweep of her Court gown. Her slim hands gripped the ermine which fell from her shoulders to the floor and slowly crushed it between clenched fingers. About her head the light touched her hair into a soft nimbus.
Karyl stepped impetuously forward and held out his hand to lead her into the garden. Benton, who had involuntarily started toward the balcony at the first sight of her, caught his lip in his teeth and halted where he stood.
The girl remained for a moment, astonished at the sight of the two men, incredulous of what she had heard.
She had slipped away for a moment of respite from the fatiguing requirements of the ball-room. She had come here because she had felt sure that here she could be alone. She had come, driven by the prompting of her heart, to look out to the Mediterranean and wonder where, between its gates at Gibraltar and Suez, Bentonmight at that moment be. And from the balcony she had seen him in the garden and had heard a part of this talk before the spell of her astounded muteness broke into exclamation.
"You heard what we were saying." Karyl spoke gently, deferentially. "And it seemed to you incredible that we should be confidential on such a subject. It would be so, except that we are both seeking the same end—your service—" he paused, then added miserably—"and your happiness."
She listened in wonderment as she held out her hand to Benton and watched trance-like his lowered head as he bent his lips to her fingers.
"Cara!" Karyl had stepped back and was leaning over, his elbows resting on the stone back of one of the low benches. His fingers tightly grasped the carved ornaments at its top. His words were carefully chosen and measuredly spoken. He knew that if he permitted one expression to escape him unguardedly, with it would slip away the command by which he was curbing mutinous emotions.
"Cara, I happened to be born a Prince, who should one day develop into a King. It chanced that Nature had a sense of humor—so Nature paid me a droll compliment. She gave me a futile ambition to be a man—me, whom she had decided was to be only a King!"
The group stood silent and attentive in a strainedtableau, except for Von Ritz, who paced back and forth just beyond the fountain, as though respectfully repudiating the whole unseemly episode.
"Then I fell in love with you," went on the King of Galavia. "You married me—because State reasons demanded it. I could not win your love—he did!" He turned toward Benton, and his voice, though it held its slow control, was bitter.
"Benton, do you fancy this puny game amuses me? Do I not know that you could buy a principality like this for a souvenir of Europe if it happened to please you? The one time I have been allowed to feel a man was in your country, where we met as equal rivals.... No, not equal even then, because you were the winner, I the loser."
"Karyl," the Queen spoke in a low voice, "I can give you loyalty, admiration, respect and my life to use as you see fit to use it. I give as freely as I can. My love I do not refuse—it is just ... just that it is not mine to give." She spoke with unutterable weariness. "I seem to bring only sorrow to those who love me."
"You can give me all but love," Karyl repeated very softly, leaning forward toward her, "and love is all there is! Without it I take all else you give me as a thief takes, without right. If being a King means being your jailer, then I am done with being a King!"
"Your Majesty," cut in Von Ritz sharply, "it is time to terminate this talk. It has no end. It is aimless argument which comes only back to the starting point."
The King wheeled and met the eyes of his adviser. The studied self-control he had maintained since Cara's arrival slipped from him and his voice broke out explosively.
"It has an end!" he cried. "I will show you the end. If I cannot build empire I can do something else, I can throw this damnable little Kingdom down into the chaos it deserves!... I can abdicate to my cousin, Louis Delgado, who wants the throne I don't want!... I can stamp on this tinseled trumpery.... I can break jail!" He turned with an impassioned out-sweeping of his hands. Coming swiftly from behind the bench, he halted tensely before Benton and leaned defiantly forward. "Then I can free her—and by God I shall fight you for her on equal terms, inch by inch, not holding her in duress, but fighting for her free consent. She has been trapped by Fate into marrying me and at heart she rebels. I shall set her free and then by God I will win her back!"
Von Ritz had stood by as the King rushed on in climax after climax of heated words. Now he took one swift stride forward. From his quiet face had fallen every trace of impassiveness. When he spoke his voicetrembled with the irresistible eloquence of power and fire.
"My God, boy!" He seized Karyl by his shoulders and wheeled him so that they stood face to face. There was in his manner nothing of deference, nothing of the subordinate. Now he stood transformed, the man of action; the dominant, compelling force before whom littler men must wither. This was no longer Von Ritz the emotionless. It was Von Ritz the King-maker, burning with vitalizing passion.
"My God, boy, are you mad? Do you think other men have never loved and sacrificed themselves for duty—kept unuttered, locked in their hearts, things they were hungry to say?... Do you think that your hard task of Kingship is yours to play with—to desert?... Why, boy, I've taught you your manual of arms, I've drilled you, trained you, watched you grow from childhood. My heart has beaten with joy because you were free of every degenerate trace that has marked and scarred Europe's cancerous Royalty! I've seen you come clean-hearted, straight-minded into man-hood; prepared you to show the world what a Kingdom can be with a clean King—a strong King! I've fitted you to bear a burden which only a man could bear—to remind the world that 'King' means the Man Who Can—and I thought you could do it!" He paused only to draw a long breath, then hastened on again. "Yes,your task is thankless. Your Principality is small, but it is a keystone in Europe's arch. It is such Princelings as you who must send clean blood down to the thrones of to-morrow.... Is that not enough?... Have I built a King, day by day, year by year, idea by idea, only to see him wither and crumple under the first blast? Go on with your task, in God's name! Probably they will murder you ... assassination may at the end be your reward, but only the coward fears the outcome! For God's sake, Karyl, don't desert me under fire!"
He paused with a gesture eloquent of appeal. When next he spoke his voice was slow, deliberate.
"And the other picture! The café tables of Paris are crowded with Royalty that has been; with the miserable children of conquered and abdicated Kings!"
The King dropped exhaustedly to the bench, his fore-arms on his knees, his gloved fingers hanging limp. After a moment he rose again and went to Cara.
"I want to fight for you," he said simply. "I want to free you first—then fight for you."
"Karyl," she answered gently, "if you dothis, you will enslave my soul, and my imprisonment will be only harder. You will make me a wrecker of governments—a traitor to my duty."
The King turned and looked out to sea.
"I must think," he said in a tired voice. "Perhapsit is only a matter of time. Delgado is free. Perhaps I shall not have to present him with my throne. Conceivably he may come and take it."
Von Ritz approached again and took Karyl's hand. To him a King was, at last analysis, only the best product of the King-maker's craft. He was a King-maker—before him stood a tired boy whom he loved.
"You will fight," he said, "and you will fight with hell's fury. The first step will be to recapture this Pretender. With him in hand—"
"Which is in itself impossible," retorted Karyl.
At the window appeared the young Captain who had been left at the hotel. His hand was at his forehead in salute. Von Ritz went to meet him and in a moment returned for Benton. Together the two men went out. Five minutes later they had come again into the garden. With them came Manuel Blanco.
The bull fighter paused to bow low to the Queen, then to the King. At last he spoke with some diffidence.
"I have taken the very great liberty," he said, "of making the Duke Louis Delgado an enforced guest on the yacht—where he awaits Your Majesty's pleasure."