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Title: The chariot of the sun
        a fantasy

Author: Roger Pocock

Release date: March 7, 2023 [eBook #70224]

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Chapman and Hall, Ltd

Credits: Al Haines


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN ***







  THE CHARIOT OF
  THE SUN

  _A FANTASY_



  BY

  ROGER POCOCK



  LONDON
  CHAPMAN & HALL, LTD.
  1910




  _BY THE SAME AUTHOR_

  TALES OF WESTERN LIFE
  THE RULES OF THE GAME
  THE ARCTIC NIGHT, _Chapman & Hall_
  THE BLACKGUARD, _Chapman & Hall_
  ROTTENNESS
  A FRONTIERSMAN (AUTOBIOGRAPHY), _Gay & Hancock_
  CURLY, _Gay & Hancock_
  SWORD AND DRAGON, _Hodder & Stoughton_
  THE FRONTIERSMAN'S POCKET BOOK (EDITED), _John Murray._




  CONTENTS


  Prologue
  I. Chancellor of the Empire
  II. The Master of Lyonesse
  III. Our Lady the Queen
  IV. The Coronation
  V. The Gathering Storm
  VI. The Penance Chamber
  VII. The Taming of Lyonesse
  VIII. The Mother of Parliaments
  IX. The Royal Prerogative
  X. The Dawn of the Terror
  XI. The World-Storm
  XII. The Third Day
  XIII. The Queen's Messenger
  XIV. The Story of the Ships
  XV. Cast Out of Heaven
  XVI. The Queen's Days
  XVII. Her Majesty in Council
  XVIII. The Queen's Madness
  XIX. The Tale of the Dun Horse
  XX. Victory
  XXI. The Queen's Retreat
  XXII. The Last Battle
  XXIII. Prisoner of Love
  Epilogue




PROLOGUE


  LONDON,
    December 31st, 2000.

This is the story of the World-Storm.  Leaders in every field of
thought have described the events of the year 1980, but we who have
come aged and shaken out of that chaos, know well that the half was
not told.

The World-Storm was a human affair, and human events are ever based
on love.  For the love of woman a man gives all the labour of his
life, or in the loss or lack of love will cast his life away.  For
the love of women men have built cities, or burned them, won thrones
or lost them, have staked things present and the things to come.
This is the story, then, of a man's love for a woman.  And if the
life of a man is a love tale, so is the life of a nation, which ends
when the people cease to love their country.  And so is the life of
mankind, which will end when the love of God dies out from the human
heart.  Life is a plant which has its roots in love.

Reading over many histories of the World-Storm, by divines, by
students, and admirals of the air, the whole of which have failed to
reach down to the truth: I think that these eminent exact thinkers
were mostly dry at the roots.  Only a lover can write history.

We set sweet Margaret on the Imperial Throne, we prayed for her, and
all the millions of our prayers like subtle spirits wrought upon her
soul creating her a queen.  We looked again, and behold she was
august, inspired, beautiful, terrible--England!  Who but a lover
could write of such a queen?  To me, a plain man who has loved, it is
given that I should tell of that transfiguration, and how the lovely
child, translated by our prayers moved through the darkness.

Looking back upon those days when frightened and starving, we saw the
old order changed, and the Millennium born, I see the persons of the
drama, vague, gigantic, fighting in a region of mist and flame to one
great end of Peace.  Yet I knew all the time that they were human, a
woman, and certain men who loved and sinned, who fought and suffered.
The evil was burned out of us, the good survives; the scorched and
shaken earth is purified.

The Greeks, who were very wise, invented that old myth of Phaeton who
dared to drive the chariot of the Sun, but lost his head, and failed,
and burned the world.

There is to be no more war, so I doubt if there will be any more
progress.  Take this heresy if you will, as the maunderings of an old
fighter; but have not the ages of suffering been ever the ages of
growth?  Strength is the child of pain, and in her agony the world
gave birth to saints and heroes.  The millennial peace will never
know the like.  Never again will there be such a woman as our Lady
the Queen, such men as John Brand, or Lord Sydney.  Their age is
memorable, their race illustrious, and for my part, I do not greatly
care to live on after them.  My work is done, and sitting at my
window as I write these last words of my prologue, I see with dim
eyes the roofs of London reaching away into the night, the moonlight
faint upon her hanging gardens, her palaces and towers, her spires
and soaring domes.  The bells have been tolling the hours of the
dying twentieth century, but now they have broken into one great peal
of triumph, they are ringing in the Millennium.  "Lord, now lettest
thou thy servant depart in peace; For mine eyes have seen Thy
Salvation."




THE CHARIOT OF THE SUN



I

CHANCELLOR OF THE EMPIRE

"Margaret, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas,
Queen, Defender of the Faith, Empress of India."

In the Year of our Lord, 1980, and on the third day of June in that
year was Margaret crowned.

Three weeks before the Coronation the sun was setting over St.
Michael's woods, and changed the grey walls of Ulster House to
luminous orange.  A purple bloom of shadow lay on the terrace, but
full in the glow from the windows sat the master of the house asleep.
The cane chair creaked at times under his weight as he changed
dreams.  Dressed in the evening costume of the
period--claret-coloured broadcloth, and silk stockings, low shoes
with garnet buckles, and white ruffles--he was a picture of dignified
innocence and stately rest: His Grace, the Duke of Ulster, Chancellor
of the federated British Empire, Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, full of years, honours, and a good dinner.

Close to him, in the ivy of the wall, a pair of ring-doves cooed and
crooned between love and slumber.  They were newly wed, and all the
world was at rest.

Above the cedars to the eastward a ship rose like a planet, her
aeroplanes in red glory against the deeps of heaven.  She swept
across the south, hovered for an instant, drooped her ethereal wings,
and flashed in narrowing circles downward until she fell out of the
afterglow and loomed vast in the lower shadows.  With feathery
lightness she poised on the lawn, her gauze propellers singing
themselves to sleep with the whirr of humming-birds.  Then from under
the gloom of her shadow came a man--a gaunt old man in a grey
military cloak--who climbed the steps of the terrace and crossed the
gravel space until he came in front of the lighted windows.  There
the man stood looking down with austere disgust upon the sleeping
Chancellor.  His ship had risen into the afterglow before the visitor
moved a chair and sat down, still intently studying Lord Ulster's
face.

Under that prolonged stare, the Chancellor stirred in his sleep, and
muttering to himself, awakened, lifting his heavy eyes.  In the
deepening shadows he saw that silent motionless figure, tried to
dispel the impression with a wave of his hand, then found himself
broad awake, face to face with Nicholas IV. Emperor of Russia.

At once the Chancellor rose to his feet, and made his royal guest
welcome with many a courteous phrase.  He offered apology that his
servants were all at a church concert this Sunday evening, and that
neither himself nor his son had been at hand to receive the Imperial
yacht with proper honours.  He offered hospitality, invited his
Imperial Majesty to enter the house.

His words disappeared into the air, slow cold eyes followed his every
movement, and the Emperor waited in freezing silence.  Motionless,
chilled, shocked, dismayed, the Chancellor stayed his speech.

"Your Grace will understand," said the Emperor, "that I do not come
as a friend."

Germany and France had been gathering armaments, relations were
strained to the breaking point, war might be declared at any moment,
the allies were only held from attack by the ominous silence of
Russia.  Then Ulster had won the Emperor to his side, and an alliance
was now in treaty between the Russian and the British Empires which
would make the threatened war impossible.  It was in the moment of
the Chancellor's triumph that Nicholas IV. came to his house an enemy.

"For your own sake," said the Emperor, coldly, "you'd better see that
we are not overheard."

Ulster seized this chance of covering his confusion, entered the
house, surveyed the empty study and returned, saying again that his
household were all at the church.  The Emperor had taken one of the
garden chairs, his back to the windows, and thoughtfully looked out
upon the garden, his long lean fingers tapping a cigarette.  By a
gesture he told the Chancellor to sit down.

"There is," he began in his purring, sibilant English, "a young
Indian prince now resident in England."

The Chancellor had been racking his brain to find the meaning of the
Emperor's coldness.  His head was lowered in thought, but now he
glanced up sideways under his heavy brows.

"Lots of them," said he.

"I speak," said the Emperor, "of the Maharajah of Haidar."

"I remember, sir," answered Ulster, thoughtfully.  "He is serving in
Her Majesty's Bodyguard."

"Exactly," said the Emperor in a tone which forbade further comment.
"This young prince is descended, your Grace, from the ancient royal
line of the Moguls.  On his elevation to the throne of Haidar, he was
recognized by the Moslem as a sacred personage.  He demanded of the
Indian Government the restoration of the ancient Peacock Throne,
which had been taken from his ancestors by the Persians, and later
secured by the British from the Persian Treasury.  He demanded also
the right of a royal salute, claimed to be addressed as a Royal
Highness, and asked for certain privileges of maintaining armed
forces within his kingdom of Haidar.  All these demands were granted."

"Sir," the Chancellor spoke satirically, "these statements are of the
profoundest interest."

"They are," said the Emperor.  "The concessions granted to this
prince actually endangered the British supremacy in India.  The
restoration of the Peacock Throne met with violent protests both from
the loyal princes and from the English press.  When this throne was
brought to Haidar, its arrival was attended by portents, so-called
miracles, a ferment in the bazaars, riots in many cities, and at last
a revolt in the North West Provinces.  Of course revolt was crushed.

"The presence of Prince Ali, perfectly loyal as he was throughout,
became so dangerous that he was hurried out of India, and gradually
the country settled down.  But the memory remained of gallant English
officers who were slaughtered, mutilated, of innocent children dashed
against stone walls, of women who were--we will pass that by.
Whoever gave orders for the granting of Prince Ali's claims was
guilty of all that, the massacres, and the vengeance.  The man who
had to face the rage of England then, might have envied Judas
Iscariot.  The Viceroy of India claimed to have received orders from
the India Office in London.  Then the Secretary of State for India
proved that he had issued no such orders.  So the Viceroy shot
himself.  Your Grace was at that time Secretary for India."

A bluish pallor had overspread Lord Ulster's face, and he answered
nothing.

It was then that the Marquess of Sydney, the Chancellor's only son,
returned from the church.  Entering the house from the north, and
making no sound upon the carpets, he passed through a curtained
doorway into the study.  In the afternoon he had been writing a
letter at the desk set between the middle windows, and now, returning
to finish it, he was glad to find the room unoccupied.  He sat down,
took the letter from his blotting-pad, and considered what he had
written.

Then he heard the striking of a match outside on the terrace, and the
sound of his father's voice.  Lord Sydney was slightly annoyed,
uncertain for the moment whether to take his writing elsewhere.  Some
neighbour, old Pollock probably, had dropped in to talk politics and
would stay as usual lor supper.  His father was still speaking in
low, even tones, not likely to disturb him.  Lord Sydney became
absorbed in his letter.  It is curious to note that pens and matches
were still in those days used by old-fashioned people.

Outside, the Emperor, striking a match, and lighting his cigarette,
heard the Chancellor patiently.

"Yes," he said, "I understand, of course.  Your Grace was,
comparatively speaking, a poor man, and could not as such aspire to
the Chancellorship.  A legitimate ambition thwarted by want of means,
a career in jeopardy--yes, I understand.  As to Prince Ali's demands
they seemed quite innocent--a diamond throne, a royal salute, a few
such trifles.  He offered you two millions sterling if the Viceroy
could be moved to grant his claims.  The Viceroy was moved, had no
writings to show in defence--and shot himself.  The claims were
granted, and babies were dashed against stone walls.  His Grace of
Ulster, with two millions of money, rose to the Chancellorship.  It
might be awkward for my Lord Duke if these facts became generally
known."

The Chancellor gripped the arms of his chair, and leaning forward
laughed in his throat.

"Your Majesty," he answered hoarsely, "has acted with rare prudence.
I am grateful for the opportunity of dealing with this disgraceful
slander, which might otherwise have endangered our relations with
your Imperial Majesty's Government.  The fabrications of some secret
service agent----"

"Enough, my Lord; the agent in question was my agent, the money with
which Prince Ali bought you was my money, and here," the Emperor
produced from under his cloak the famous Russian papers, "I hold the
written transactions."

"Am I a child, sir," cried Ulster, testily, "to be frightened with
bogies?"

Nicholas opened the papers and bent forward that the Chancellor might
see them.

"Is that enough," he asked, "or do you want to see more?  Look," he
turned the papers slowly page by page, "at this, and this, and this!"

"Forgeries," answered the other boldly, "forgeries all.  How could
your Majesty be so deceived?"

Nicholas with a smile turned to the last page, "and this?"

The Chancellor's eyes seemed starting from his head, his jaw dropped,
a moan broke from his throat; then with a sharp effort he drew
himself together, and pointed at the papers.

"That--that--" he gasped, "that accuses me, much more it accuses you.
That you, an Emperor, set such a trap is a disgrace crying aloud to
Europe, that--that your Majesty is unfitted for a throne.  I dare
you, I challenge you.  Publish those papers, and not an ambassador
would remain at the Russian capital!"

"That I set the trap?"  Hot fury darkened the Russian's face, "This
scullion work is not in the hands of kings.  Would you make me your
partner?"

"Sir," Ulster instantly shot out his arm, extended upwards over the
papers.  "Look!  The yacht has signalled!"

The Emperor folded the papers, and jammed them back into the breast
of his cloak.

"Let her signal," he answered; "I am not your partner, neither am I
your dupe."

"Take the two millions," cried Ulster, "and give me these papers."

"I do not bargain with your Grace," answered Nicholas.

"What do you want me to do?  I'll resign the Chancellorship, retire,
anything!"

"And cheat me of what I bought?"

"If you expose me, you take my life."

"I have taken it, and paid for it such as it is."

"You can't force me to live!  I repeat, to live!"

"As you please.  If you die, these papers shall be published as a
memorial volume.  If you disobey me, they shall be published.  If you
attempt to cheat me, they shall be published.  You have sold yourself
to me, and I claim you."

Ulster shrank back into his chair, covering his face, and for some
time remained in silence.  At last in despair he muttered into his
breast--

"What are the terms?"

"I will give you back these papers when you have earned them.  You
shall live on, Chancellor of the British Empire, honoured,
reverenced.  When you die a state funeral will attend you to the
grave, and another truly British monument will disfigure that poor
old Abbey."

Ulster cast about for a weapon, and the Emperor, divining this,
chuckled.

"Under my cloak," he said, "I've got an automatic, over your house my
yacht.  You need have no fear.  Indeed, I know the limitations of
your power as Chancellor, and shall not press too hard.  Now as to
terms: I permit you, my Lord Duke, to save your country from the
Franco-German invasion.  But you will complete the Anglo-Russian
Treaty on the terms proposed by my ambassador."

"My colleagues would never consent," cried Ulster, "I should be
thrown out of office."

"Tell your colleagues that unless the treaty is signed, Russia will
join the Franco-German alliance.  My share is India.  They will
consent.

"Secondly, your Grace, I have to tell you that my brother the Grand
Duke Alexander Alexandrovitch was lately slighted by the young Queen.
She shall marry him."

"Sir, she would die first!"

"She shall marry him, and your Government shall make the offer of her
hand.

"Thirdly, my Lord Duke, I will be secured from any future treachery.
You will personally entrust me with the Formula of the Fleets."

When England's great enemy demanded the Formula of the Fleets,
Ulster's brain refused to receive his meaning.  The naval airship of
the period carried no stored force, but the power driving her engines
was flashed to her through space from the nearest fortified station
of the Admiralty.  Each station gave its ships a power-field
extending two thousand miles in all directions.  Thus the Home
station was a fortified position in the coal measures of
Staffordshire.  Groups of stations covered Canada, the West Indies,
and South America; South Africa was in the power-field of the
Victoria Falls, Central Africa was controlled from the White Nile,
West Africa from the Niger Valley.  Another chain of power-fields
centred in the Ocean Fortresses: Gibraltar, Malta, Alexandria, Aden,
Colombo, Rangoon, Singapore, Hong Kong.  From the Arctic regions to
the Antarctic ice, no corner of the world was secured from the
visitation of our fleets.  To debar foreign navies from using our
stores of power, each ship had her engines keyed to an exact
adjustment known as the Formula of the Fleets.  Given that formula, a
foreign ship could traverse the whole planet.  The British Empire and
the United States used one formula, entrusted only to the Chancellor,
the President, and the Adjusters-General, and one can readily
understand that this key of space conferred most awful powers.

And were the formula changed without due warning, every ship afloat
would be plunged through space to destruction.

"The Formula of the Fleets," Ulster repeated vaguely.  "You!"  Then
he seemed to awake.  "You devil!" he cried furiously.  "No!"

He choked, he could find no utterance, but wrung his hands, and,
starting to his feet, shook his arms upward at the heavens.  Then he
saw the Emperor's cold face between the lamplight and the moonlight
smiling, and at the sight drew back.  A strangled sob broke from him.
"I am trapped, shamed, broken; I have sinned, but still I am an
Englishman, and all my years are given to England's service!"

The Chancellor had back his dignity and a new courage.

"The claims of the Russian ambassador insult this nation; the
proposals of that drunken and disgusting beast, your brother, insult
my sovereign; the demand for the Formula of the Fleets is a deadly
insult to myself.  You have forfeited all claims to treatment as a
sovereign; but such claims as you have presumed to make to me, I
shall lay before my colleagues, before the Empire, and before the
world.  As to your charges against me, they come not from a friendly
prince, but from an enemy too base even for the courtesies of war.
Our people will not see the sin of the Chancellor in this crime of
Russia."

The Emperor's cruel eyes glittered, the moonlight caught a gleam from
his teeth.

"Most noble patriot," he answered softly, "most courteous statesman,
no doubt the English can be gulled into a belief that the Russian
Emperor came secretly and at night, and behaved in an unseemly and
ridiculous manner.  They would even believe that I danced on your
terrace by moonlight.  Proof would at once appear that I never left
my house at Pera, and the mad Chancellor would become the
laughing-stock of Europe.  Consider the cartoons!"

Ulster sank back into his chair, and his face writhed, for the most
heroic are unarmed against ridicule.

"Moreover," the Emperor smiled, "already a copy of the documents I
have shown you has been placed by an Englishman in the hands of the
editor of the _Times_--sealed, and awaiting my orders.  In these
papers there is no reference to Russia, only to certain transactions
between Prince Ali and his Grace the Duke of Ulster.  Russia does not
appear in such affairs of bribery, fraud, and betrayal.  After the
Chancellor's disgrace, and shameful end, the Germans and the French
will make declaration of war, will be joined by Russia, and this
country swept from the map of Europe which it has marred too long.
The British Empire will be divided among the allies.  I have offered
to give you back your life, and the immortal fame of saving your
country.  Refuse, and I give you to shame and death, the British
Empire to destruction.  Of course, if you want my mercy, you will
apologize first for insulting me."  The Emperor stood up and waved
his hand.  "I have called my yacht," he said not unkindly.  "I give
you this minute to surrender."

Far up in the heavens a white light flashed like a star, and from the
great spaces of the night, a shadow swooped down, winged, swift,
instantly growing gigantic against the moon, then gleaming in her
rays.  The Chancellor watched spellbound, and as he watched the
terror seized his brain, the doom of a great Empire, condemned to
this death, abandoned by God.

Then the agony of a broken man rang out in one great cry, "I have
surrendered!" and the echoes of walls and trees heard him, and
answered.




II

THE MASTER OF LYONESSE

When on the terrace of Ulster House, Nicholas of Russia dealt heavily
with the Chancellor to his ruin, one witness was so placed that he
heard all.  The witness was the Duke of Ulster's son, James, Marquess
of Sydney.  It is a very pleasant thing to hold this gentleman in
memory, to think of him as he was in life, and at that time in the
thirtieth year of his age.  He was a tall man, nervous rather than
strong, his face very fair and comely.  In habit he was lean, bronzed
with the sun; in bearing most knightly and courteous; in manner a
little cynical with a grave humour.  But that tells nothing of the
quality in his eyes, and in his smile, which made one love and trust
him.  None of the pictures or statues to his memory do justice to
that wonderful quality of the man, nor can a written word call back
the charm.

It was on the 11th day of May, 1980, that he heard the passages
between the Emperor and his father.  It was on Friday, the 30th, four
days before the Coronation, that he moved.  There were railways in
those old-fashioned times, lines of a single rail.  Catching the 9
a.m. express from Paddington, Lord Sydney reached the Land's End
district by noon, and alighted at Lyonesse.

This was his first visit to the etheric city, and as he left the
terminus to enter Brand Street, he was astonished at the grandeur of
the place.  Thanks to the mildness of the Cornish climate, palms and
acacias sheltered the pavement.  Down the long vistas of sub-tropic
trees there were fountains spraying white splendour into the
sunlight, and statues of golden bronze lurked in the shadows.  The
street was lined with shops and theatres, traffic throbbed upon the
causeway, the pavements were thronged with people.  The town, even in
1980, was large, its population numbering half a million, a grey
granite city walled about on three sides by the sea cliffs.  The
streets were filled with a tumult of affairs, but where they
converged upon St. Buryan Square, there was a resting-place of lawns
and trees shadowed by groups of buildings.  Upon the western frontage
of the square, stood a rough-hewn palace some acres in extent, the
office of John Brand III.

Homely and plain was the master's room in that palace.  The
threadbare carpet, the shabby furniture, the queer old plans and
pictures on the walls were relics passed down from another age.  In
that chair an American of the nineteenth century had dreamed, from
the books of that case had learned, at that table planned--and the
result was Lyonesse.  The relics spoke of poverty, of research, of
noble patience, and the founder's grandson kept these things as a
reminder.

The American sat at his desk, and one might have known him for
Lyonesse, so mighty his physical strength, so shabby and neglected
his dress, so steady his labour.  They say he was a hard man at that
time, rugged, avaricious, rather feared than liked.

A sealed envelope was brought to him, with explanation that a man had
called who would not be denied and had given trouble.  Brand opened
the cover and within found a visiting card.

  "Trooper the Marquess of Sydney,
                Her Majesty's Bodyguard."


His face brightened as he read; gladly he sent a welcome to his
visitor, gave orders that he was not to be disturbed, and in the
interim of waiting set all his work aside.

He rose at Lord Sydney's entrance.  "Well, old fellow," he spoke
heartily, as they shook hands, "is it ten years?"

"Fourteen since our last fight at school.  I'm awfully glad to see
you, Brand."

"You've forgotten the black eyes I gave you?"

"I'd be sorry to fight again; you're much too strong.  But your nose,
Brand, you must remember my sign manual, and I was so proud of that
nose."

Brand stroked his blunt nose thoughtfully, "Most tender memory!"

Lord Sydney smiled, and as the other led him to a seat--

"We promised to write to each other."

"We were very young," Brand chuckled.  "So you went soldiering, I to
my trade."

"Each to his tribe, and God for all," said Sydney.  "I used to envy
you."

"I wanted to be a soldier," answered Brand.

"But, Sydney, why all this secrecy; why put your card in a sealed
envelope?"

The soldier's face turned grave.  "I have good reason.  These walls,"
he looked anxiously about him, "have they ears?"

"Sydney, this isn't London."

"May I look round?"

Brand laughed, but his visitor walked to the door and opened it
suddenly, making a rapid survey of the ante-room.  Other doors he
examined which led to the safe, and to Brand's private chambers; then
considering the walls and hangings, returned to his place.

"I should have been followed from London," he explained, "but I hired
an actor to personate me, and he is leading a fine chase of spies to
Stamboul."

"Who has you watched?"

"My father, and when he knows I've been here you'll catch the
infection.  I warn you, Brand."

"My dear fellow, your father----"

The Guardsman's eyes flashed ominously, his jaws hardened.

"What do you know of my father?"

"Chancellor of the Empire, his Grace the Duke of Ulster, K.G., and a
lot more twaddle."

"By the Almanac, yes, and head of the Gold Party which sits up to
hate you all night.  Come, speak out!"

"My dear fellow, I never met your father.  In politics I like
fighting him, and I think he likes fighting me.  He would never speak
evil of me as a private man."

"Or you of Ulster?  Well, I can't blame your courtesy, Brand, I don't
understand your politics.  They say that you finance the Labour
Party.  You've been accused of Socialism."

Brand chuckled.  "Have you heard about my eating babies?"

"Even a cannibal might love his country.  Brand, I'm in horrible
trouble, and I've come to you for help."

"You've come to me for help.  Go on, old chap."

"In politics you can accuse a man without any feeling of hatred?"

"I would not have him butchered."

"Not even if your opponent granted the Peacock Throne to Ali of
Haidar?"

Brand's face flashed with anger.  "My friend, spare me all mention of
that," he said.  "Is it a kind thing, Lord Sydney, to tear the old
wound open?"

"Does it hurt me less?  I'd go on if it killed both of us, and you
shall listen."

"Perhaps you don't know," answered Brand, "that my young brother saw
his wife crucified, before the rebels gouged out his eyes and burned
him."

"Would you treat the man as a mere political opponent who granted the
Peacock Throne to Ali of Haidar?"

"The Viceroy died by his own hand.  He is beyond our vengeance."

"Vengeance?" cried Sydney, "my words bite deep.  Is vengeance in your
code of political courtesy?  I tell you the man who granted Prince
Ali's claims is still alive, within the reach of vengeance.  He drove
the Viceroy to suicide, and thought that under heaven there was no
witness left to rise against him."

"That is beyond belief; there are limits even to treachery."

"Are there such limits?  The man who granted Prince Ali's claims
received not thirty pieces of silver, but two million pounds.  He
lives."

Brand turned away his face.

"Prince Ali was an agent, Brand, an agent of Russia, and the bribe of
two million pounds was Russian money.  The man who received that
price of blood has not hanged himself, neither were his eyes gouged
out, nor was he burned like your brother.  He bought with it the
Chancellorship of the British Empire.  He is my father."

Brand's iron-hard face was sterner than ever now.  "Have you gone
mad?" he asked.

"Prove me insane or dreaming, or bewitched.  Prove my father an
honest man, and England safe.  It would be all right then, Brand.  Do
you think it is a little thing to tell; that it is easily said?  I,
Ulster's son, that was a gentleman, am now a spy.  His shame has
tainted me, and so the leprosy will spread from generation to
generation.  I suppose," he added, "you think I'm hysterical."

Leaning forward, Brand laid his hand upon Lord Sydney's shoulder.

"There's some mistake," he said.

"I tell you that my father, Ulster, is sold to Russia.  He has forced
upon the Government a degrading treaty."

Brand was silent.  "He has given our Lady, the Queen, to that drunken
beast Alexander."

Brand was silent.

"He has divulged the Formula of the Fleets!"

"Sydney!"  Brand rose overthrowing his chair, then withholding
himself by main force, sat heavily upon the desk.  "Go on," he said
hoarsely, "these statements need to be proved."

"Time enough for that," Lord Sydney flung himself beside Brand's
knees upon the desk, and buried his face in his arms.  "I've lived in
a dream world," he said in bitterness, "a world which I built for
myself, where one's father could be respected, one's mother honoured.
All things were as they should be; one could play the game----"  He
looked up, and his eyes were reddened.  "I was a boy in that fool's
paradise--but now, ah, well," he threw his head back, looking out at
Brand with half-closed eyes, "I suppose I've got to be a man."  Then
he told Brand of the Emperor's visit to Lord Ulster, and how he had
overheard what passed between them.

"Have you proof?" asked the American.

"I realized," said Sydney, "that I must have proof.  I watched my
father's face from day to day, and when he returned to town, I went
with him.  For once he was glad of my company, while with treason
upon treason he bought the papers which Russia held against him.  By
his face I knew when the Government consented to the Treaty, when
they agreed to the Russian marriage, when he betrayed the Formula.
He had earned the papers then.  I don't think he ever slept until
last night, until he had paid the price.  I was alone with him last
night when the Emperor's messenger came.  We had finished dinner, the
long, dull dinner, the servants cleared out, and Ulster had his wine.
The messenger was shown in, bearing a despatch box, and I did the
honours, while Ulster unlocked the thing.  I saw him take out a
sealed package and a letter which he tried to conceal from me.  The
messenger drank our health, and Ulster escorted him to the door.  I
had time to slip a drug into Ulster's wine.

"Yes, he slept almost before he had read the Emperor's letter.  It
was a queer letter.  Once a month hereafter His Grace would receive a
messenger and to him display this package with unbroken seals--on
pain of instant vengeance.  A little of that treatment would tame any
Chancellor.  The sense of being watched, the horror lest the package
miscarry, the fear ever with him, the curse that must be borne in
silence year by year, then death and exposure.  It would have driven
him stark staring mad!  I have relieved my father of that curse, his
spies are chasing me to Constantinople.  Here is the package--the
proof of what I have said, and you shall break the seals."

Brand opened the Russian papers, the transactions between Ulster and
Prince Ali, which page by page he examined.  He filled a briar pipe,
lighted, and smoked it through before he spoke.

"I think," he said at last, "that this is a strong chain of evidence,
but only in converging evidence is there proof.  There is ground here
for a charge against the Duke, not for his conviction; and all his
friends would rally to his defence, making him stronger than ever.
The value of these papers is his evident fear.  Now as to the secret
treaty."

Lord Sydney produced the Draft, which the master read.

"There is ground here for an attack upon the Government.  And as to
the Formula?"

"Only my word," answered Sydney.  "You doubt my word!"

"Not I.  But imagine this case tried by the House of Lords, the
judges being Ulster's friends with the fear of their own downfall if
they failed him."

Lord Sydney rose distracted and paced the floor, unnerved, broken.

"And you are going to fail me?" he cried.

"Easy, boy, easy," said Brand, relighting his pipe, "that kind of
play never scored at school.  The games must be played more soberly
to be won."

"Don't preach at me, Brand," said the other roughly.  "Ah, forgive
me!  If you only knew--you've never seen her, have you?  But if you
saw the Queen, you would understand, for she is brave as a lion,
stainless as the lilies, her voice makes us mad with love; yet she is
our Lady, and we scarcely dare to look her in the face.  And she is
to be sold to infamy!  Oh, God, what can I do, what can I do to save
her?"

"Lord Sydney, you forget yourself."

My lord looked at him, his eyes narrowing, his mouth hardened, his
whole face freezing with self-suppression.

"Yes, that is so, Mr. Brand.  Back to the facts then," he laughed
nervously, "we have to fight the Chancellor, we have to fight the
Government.  Then there is Russia to fight, and Europe."

Brand went to the window, and there stood looking out.  Beyond the
pavement and the trees rose all that city which his fathers and
himself had built upon the storm-swept moors of a wild headland, his
walls the cliffs, his moat the Atlantic; and this bastion of our
island stronghold was not unworthy to guard the British Realm.

Until that day we knew of Lyonesse as a strong man, and an humble, so
we thought; for in the twelve years since he came to power, the
hard-hitting, rough-fighting master of industry had never lost his
habit of grave self-command, or let any breath of passion sway his
justice.  A man must be true to win the confidence of friends, but
great to win the trust of enemies.

Now the deeps were moved, and elemental forces stirred within him.
Henceforward he was to suffer, to rejoice, to pity, to slay within no
boundaries of self-discipline, to love with irresistible passion, to
strike with overwhelming rage.  One does not praise or blame the
hurricane.

Brand came back to the desk, sat down in his chair, and laid his hand
upon the Russian papers.

"One would think," he said, "that the man who owned these papers,
owned this Chancellor.  He obeyed Russia--will he fight me?"

"There is the whole party of the capitalists," answered the other
ruefully, at which Brand was aroused.

"Will they fight me?" he said.

"But the allies will declare war!"

"Am I not Lyonesse!"

"You cannot fight three nations."

"My father warned me," said Brand, thoughtfully, "and somehow I
always knew that sooner or later I must take the field to save
Britain.  No man has seen etheric power in action."

Sydney breathed hard.  "You called it once the Chariot of the Sun."

"The Chariot of the Sun.  Yes.  Heaven send I may never have to use
etheric power for war."




III

OUR LADY THE QUEEN

In the wondrous romance of our Island history the reigns of three
English Queens stand out with singular splendour.  First came
Elizabeth the Great, then Victoria the Good, and now in the fulness
of time reigns Margaret the Fair.

At the end of his long reign the old King built on the site of
Buckingham House, a great white palace for Margaret.  Above the
marble walls terrace upon terrace the hanging gardens bloomed, and
tier on tier of gleaming colonnades; then pearl-white domes broke the
long lines above, and gemmed pavilions flanked the central towers.
Not that Margaret cared for palaces.  Her mind ran upon lighting, and
she showed the old King books about the Varangian Guard of Greek
Byzantium, the Grand Musketeers of Muscovy, the Mousquetaires of
France.  For her sake he took liberties with the Ancient and
Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, a nice piece of antique
frippery which he changed into a standing regiment generally to be
known as the Queen's Blackguards.  This force he quartered in the
palace and made it a very good nursery to train young officers for
the Imperial Army.

To enlist, a lad must undergo the severest tests of mind and body,
then pass the school of arms.  Then the Queen granted to him chain
mail and helmet of silver, a black cloak charged with the royal arms,
the sword and the spurs.  For officers the armour was of gold, the
cloak scarlet; for undress, a suit of woven gold or silver.  Quarters
were given in the palace, but the trooper must provide his own
sustenance, and for his servant a trained man who rode in the rear
rank of his squadron.  The discipline was rigid, and what with
training for the Imperial army, there was little time for mischief.
They were the last cavalry of the civilized world.

Such were the Queen's toys, palace and guard, beyond all jurisdiction
save her will.

The Plutocracy ruled, the Imperial court only remained in the realm
on sufferance as a venerable fiction, and nobody ever dreamed that
Margaret's playthings, accepted by the nation as a joke, were
destined to prove a most momentous fact.  For the present it was
pretty to see the fair maid, ruddy, sunburnt, wilful, playing with
her glittering pageantry of state in the white palace.  So the rose
of England bloomed in a garden of swords, and on the eve of the
Coronation no little cloud had risen as yet in warning.  Looking back
through a score of years it seems a wonder passing belief that June,
1980, dawned with a cloudless heaven, and the earth at peace.

One glance at the calendar brings it all to mind.  Only last Friday
Sharon won the Derby, Jim Carrington up, wearing Tom of Lancaster's
colours--rose red, and how the people cheered the young prince
afterwards!  On Saturday Her Majesty was at the Colosseum to close
the Pan-Anglican games, and with her own hands crowned the victors
with wreaths.  The Maharajah of Gwalior gave a Nautch at his palace
in Kensington.  On Sunday the great Dignitaries assembled in town for
the Coronation, attended a special service at St. Paul's.  On the 2nd
of June, Monday morning, the _Gigantic_ arrived--one of Mr. Brand's
etheric liners--with a contingent from the army of the United States
in honour of the Coronation.

Word came in the afternoon that Mr. Partridge with his yacht _Meteor_
had won the America Cup at St. Louis.  This evening was set for the
Masquerade at Devonshire House, and there was to be a torch-light
procession of the City Liveries.  As to the palace, that was mostly
concerned on Coronation eve with matters of apparel, the burnishing
of jewels, nervous rehearsals, and feverish attempts at repose.

In the portico, three saddled horses, overcome with heat, mouthed
their chained bits, and swished their lazy tails.  In the guardroom,
midway upon the alabaster stairs, three gentlemen of the guard,
Queen's orderlies in waiting, tried not to fall asleep.  They had
taken off their casques with the lions, but still that ridiculous
chain mail was suffocating.  They yawned for want of better
occupation, talked to keep themselves in a state of decent
wakefulness.

"Ho-la," said MacNeill, rolling over in his chair, "I'll grill my
other side now.  By the bars of Hades I'd be cooler at home."
MacNeill was half Spaniard, a banker's son from Venezuela.  "Ali," he
turned to the Indian prince who lounged by the wall, "you know all
about this business to-morrow.  What's it like?"

Lazily the Prince lifted his eyes--big, soft, gentle eyes they were.

"My dear MacNeill, what business?"

"Why the Coronation, of course; weren't you crowned when they made
you King of Haidar?"

The Prince laughed easily.  "It wasn't a crown, we have a green
umbrella."

"The ancestral gamp," said MacNeill, irreverently.  "Is Haidar so
wet?  What do they worship--ducks?"

"Allah, el Allah!"

The Prince scarcely breathed the awful name, and his eyes were hard
now.

MacNeill apologized with much politeness, and asked if the State
Umbrella was old.

"Very old."  Prince Ali smiled.

"Holy?"

"As my Faith."

"Won't keep out the wet?"

Still smiling, the Prince drew off his gauntlet, and swept it softly
across MacNeill's face.

So long Lord Sydney had watched Prince Ali in silence, now he came
forward, and, with a little bow, laid claim to the gauntlet.

"Your Highness," he said respectfully, "as a reigning sovereign
cannot fight this cad, or he would never have dared to insult you.
You," he said, turning upon MacNeill, "will apologize to the
Maharajah or I'll thrash you within an inch of your life."

"I didn't insult him," growled the offender, sulkily.  "I don't
understand what you're driving at."

"My dear Prince," Lord Sydney turned his back upon MacNeill.  "He
would not understand more if I thrashed him."

"You're quite right, Sydney," Prince Ali accepted the return of his
gauntlet.  "I have so few friends that one more," he clasped Lord
Sydney's hand, "has the larger place in a full heart.  I shall
remember."

Just then an Equerry came down the stairway, and gave to MacNeill a
letter from her Majesty to be despatched.  The trooper, muttering
wrathfully, set on his helmet, took up his gloves and sword, and
swaggered away down the stairs.  Without, they heard his horse
dancing with excitement, break off at a canter into the distance.
Sydney and the Prince laughed together.

"Maharajah," my Lord Sydney laid his hands very tenderly upon Ali's
shoulders.  "Do you believe that I am your friend?"

"Surely you have proved it more than once."

"Will you promise me not to be offended if I ask a still more
personal question than even MacNeill dared?"

The beautiful dark eyes glowed.  "Go on, my dear Sydney."

"What if I hurt, Maharajah?  Your heart has changed to us since you
came to England; you know now that we are not all brutes.  You know
that some of us, unbelievers, are not to be bought?"

"What do you mean?"  An ominous flush burned in Prince Ali's face.

"When you bought my father with two million pounds, did you know
where the money came from?"

Under the dark skin came pallor, and concentrated rage leaped to
Prince Ali's eyes, as he recoiled.

"Understand this, my lord," said the Maharajah of Haidar.  "One
cannot hate an enemy from the very heart unless he has been a friend.
Withdraw that question; I give you the chance to withdraw.  To no
other man living would I allow so much."

"I must repeat my question, Maharajah."

"I'll have your life for this!"

"And afterwards?  How could you possibly remain in the household?
Come, deny the charge, Prince, and let me beg your pardon."

"By Azrael----"

"Don't swear at me.  I give you a week to leave Her Majesty's
service."

A young man, a civilian, was coming up the stairway, a big boy with
blue eyes and freckles, who carried a letter in his hand.  Lord
Sydney turned to him as he reached the stairhead.

"Can I serve you?" asked the guardsman, courteously.

The boy drew nearer.  "If you please," he said nervously, "this
letter is for the Adjutant."

"A rookie?"

"My name is Browne, sir, and I----"

"Fresh from the incubator?"

"I've passed," said the boy in shy triumph, "but the Adjutant?"

"I think the Adjutant is out on the tiles.  Let me introduce you; Mr.
Browne, Trooper Ali."

Prince Ali bowed stiffly and walked away.

"Won't you sit down?"  Lord Sydney offered a chair.

The boy sat down, and Sydney joining him, he produced a cigarette
case.

The trooper appeared to be shocked.  "Put it away," he whispered.
"We don't smoke--bad for a man in training."

From a syphon on the table beside him he filled a glass with
sparkling water, a delicately flavoured draught, which the boy
accepted wondering.

"Don't you drink wine or----"

"Never breathe the word!  We must keep in condition, with the
Tournament due next month, or the Tommies will carry off half our
trophies.  What games do you play, Mr. Browne?  We want new blood
badly, especially in the cricket field.  I'm captain of the first
eleven."

"I don't play, though."

"Are you a decent aerial yachtsman?"

"I'm a savage," cried the boy humbly, but Sydney had set him quite at
ease.

"A savage?"

"I'm from the province of Yukon."

"Where on earth is that?"

"In arctic Canada.  My old man has cattle."

"In the Arctic?"

"Yes, a six months' day, and a six months' night.  I tell you it's an
awful thing for a cowpuncher to face you fellows."

"A what?"

"Cowboy."

"But I thought that cowboys and dodos and mammoths and all those
things were extinct--swept away in the nineteenth century.  A real
live cowboy?"

The lad blushed.  "I was raised in the saddle, and it's a
three-hundred-mile ride across the ranche."

"But cows!"

The boy laughed at Sydney now.  "No, reindeer, and musk oxen.  We
have three hundred thousand head of stock, besides raising pelts."

"What are pelts?"

"Silver fox skins, sea otter, beaver, musquash."

The boy was straining every fibre of his being to win acceptance from
this courtly man of the town.

"What a jolly outdoor life," said Sydney; "tell me more, do you----"

A faint sound of spurs arrested the trooper in mid speech.  He
instantly jammed on his casque and sprang sharp to "attention."  In
the curtained doorway opposite an officer appeared in golden armour;
Sydney stood forward at the salute.

"A recruit, sir."

The boy went trembling and presented his letter.

"Hum--Mr. Browne?"

The boy blushed.

"We have your credentials, Trooper Browne, which are approved."  He
glanced over the letter.  "I see that you passed with honours in
horsemanship at the school of arms.  Report at the Mess dinner to
take the oath, after which you will be presented when her Majesty
permits.  Trooper Sydney, take charge of this gentleman."

As the Adjutant passed on towards the State apartments, a sergeant of
the corps came running down the stairs, but stood aghast at the sight
of his officer, and tried to conceal a large green cardboard box.

"Sergeant Dymoke," the Adjutant gave signs of impatience; "carrying
parcels here?"

Dymoke grinned uneasily, dropping the box as he came to the salute.

"Forgive the Queen's champion, sir, for bearing the Queen's favours."

Now the Dymoke has from time immemorial in England a vested right of
appearing at the Coronation mounted and clad in plate armour, to cast
his gauntlet on the floor of Westminster Hall, and there challenge
all comers to joust _à l'entrance_ on behalf of his sovereign's right
to the throne of this kingdom.

"I don't see," said the Adjutant, suavely, "what the Queen's champion
has to do with that box of gloves."

"I intercepted these, sir," said Dymoke, "at the door of the private
rooms; they are a gross of white gloves for her Majesty.  I want to
wear my Lady's favour to-morrow, and this is the first thing I've
managed to steal for months."

"Pardon, sir," said Lord Sydney, saluting; "but though we can't all
wear boiler plate like Dymoke, every trooper in the Guard wants to
bear our Lady's favour."

"My Lord," the Adjutant smiled, "are we unfortunate officers to be
left out?  Sergeant, have one of her Majesty's gloves placed at every
cover in the Regimental Mess, and pass the word for each man to
fasten the Queen's favour on his helmet.  If she is angry, she shall
punish the lot of us--but see that no outsider gets a chance."

The boy was beyond surprise by this time, and, like a colt broken of
shying, was introduced to the men on duty.  He was shown the armoury,
mess-room, club-rooms, baths, stables--all that splendid barrack
which fronted the palace.

Then Sydney took him to the room allotted to his use, and the lad's
heart beat high as he put on the undress uniform of the corps.

"Do you feel like a savage now?" asked Sydney, laughing.

"I don't know how I feel."

The lad was changed beyond knowledge, his bronzed skin glowing
against the silver, and if his face was made in the rough, his limbs
were a matter for boasting.

"We're all savages," said Sydney, "all savages, we English, under our
skins.  Ever seen any fighting, Mr. Browne?"

The boy's eyes glistened.

"How I wish----" he sighed, "but there's been no big war for thirty
years."

"When you live on a volcano which hasn't been in eruption for thirty
years--look out."

"But do you think----"

"Do you think," said Sydney, "that we wear this confounded livery for
fun?  Do you think we've given up smoking, drinking, late hours--and
all the rest--from piety?  Do you think we drill hours a day for want
of other exercise?  Wait until you've been a few days in town, and
then you'll know."

The lad was thinking things which had no words; and when that evening
he sat at dinner in the banqueting hall of white marble, surrounded
by all the circumstance of Margaret's incomparable court, he could
not trust himself to speak.  He rose with the rest when the trumpets
sounded, he put his lips to his glass when the vice-president
cried--"Gentlemen--the Queen!"--but a little tear ran out of his left
eye.  He saw as through a mist the glittering splendour of the scene,
and wanted to shout when the band played the National Anthem.

The Captain, Prince Rupert of Gloucester, had come forward to the
front of the dais, with the other officers grouped about him.  Then
one of the trumpeters called a summons.

"Attend, Trooper Sydney."

"Come on," said Sydney roughly to the lad, and all eyes were upon
them as they marched up the hall to the dais.

"Sir," said Lord Sydney, "I present Trooper Browne."

"Trooper Browne, kneel."

The lad bent his knee to the ground, and the Captain spoke again.

"I bid you lay your hands in mine."

Tremulous, the lad held out his hands until the Captain clasped them
in his own, and began indifferently to deliver the great oath based
upon Alfred Tennyson's code of Honour:

                          "And swear
  To reverence the Queen as if she were
  Your conscience, and your conscience as the Queen.
  To break the heathen and uphold the Christ.
  To ride abroad redressing human wrong.
  To honour your own word as though your God's.
  To speak no slander, nay, or listen to it.
  To live a life of purest chastity.
  To love one maiden only, cleave to her
  And worship her with years of noble deeds."


Then the air rang with music, while the Captain, Lord Sydney
attending as a squire, put upon the lad a tunic of mail, and on his
head the lion-crested casque, bound spurs upon his feet, hung a sword
from his belt and bade him in his life and to his death be ever a
Christian, a gentleman, a soldier, in the service of Almighty God,
the British Empire, and our Sovereign Lady.

The stately ritual was scarcely over, the regiment had not begun to
disperse, the men just relieved from guard were still clattering in
for dinner, when the great doors swung open at the back of the dais,
and instantly every man in the room sprang at attention.

For the usher had announced--"Her Majesty," and Margaret, attended by
her ladies, entered the mess-room.

"Cousin," said our Lady to the Captain, "we have come to demand the
head of Sergeant Dymoke."

The Captain passed the word, and the Queen's Champion came forward to
make obeisance.

"Sergeant," said our Lady, whose voice rang through the silent place,
"you are charged with stealing my gloves.  Guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty, Madame," said the Queen's Champion, prompt to the word.

"You seem to be mightily pleased.  I demand the gloves."

"I have but one left, Madame, and that next my heart."

"And where are the rest, pray?"

"I don't know, Madame."

But every man in the room had produced a glove to wave in triumph,
and the officers themselves were first in the offence.

"So this shameful theft has been committed by all my lords and
gentlemen of the Guard.  Do you all plead guilty?"

The hall rang with the triumphant answer.

"Then," the Queen's voice sounded more than severe, "we pronounce
sentence.  Your punishment shall be a full-dress mounted parade, with
no excuses, at the stroke of the next hour."

There was a general gasp of consternation.

"We have been dull all day, a prisoner in the hands of our governess,
but to-night we are mutinous, we shall take the air and ride with our
Guard.  Dismiss!"

The Guard could not be restrained upon this eve of the Coronation
from giving three cheers for the Queen, but presently the Captain
begged leave of his cousin to grant audience to a new trooper.  The
quiet hall was almost empty now, and a young lad, shaking with
fright, sank on one knee to kiss a small gloved hand.

"Are you very much frightened?"

The sweet voice came down to him out of a mist.

"Very," sighed Browne, scarcely conscious that he spoke, for now he
was looking up and saw the glorious beauty of the Queen.

Something hummed in his ears, and yet he could hear his own voice
like the voice of somebody else.

"I love you.  I love you."

"You mustn't," said our Lady gravely, "it's very wrong indeed.  The
Queen may have everything--everything on earth, save that.  There's
nothing worth while in all the world save love, and the Queen must
have no love.  Don't you pity me?"

The lad saw a little quiver in our Lady's face, half grief, half
laughter; then like a dumb animal which dare not even speak, he
kissed her hand again.

That night, far away from the illuminations, the clash of music, and
the roaring crowds, long silent streets towards Windsor awoke from
their sleep with thunder of hoofs, the clank of steel, the music of
armour.  Queen Margaret was out for a scamper with her Guard.




IV

THE CORONATION

What was that old London like, the London of 1980, of twenty years
ago, before ever the shadow of the storm darkened her suburbs?  The
town which awakened on the day of our Lady's Coronation was certainly
a magnificent capital.  Although not nearly so big as New York, its
population numbered ten millions, its streets and gardens covering
the valley of the Thames from Windsor to Gravesend.  Railway travel
had so increased in speed and comfort, that men living fifty miles
from the city could reach their offices in half an hour.  Aerial
pleasure-ships enabled even the poorest to get out of town for fresh
air; and there were now fields within easy reach for the games and
exercises which our people have always loved.  Very old folk could
remember the curse of the coal smoke, but in 1980 the air of London
was as clear as that of the country.  The dirt from horse traffic had
ceased to mar the streets, and the terrible, monotonous slums of the
nineteenth century were replaced by districts of tenement buildings
surrounded with public gardens.  London had become what Paris used to
be, the capital of civilization, the centre of science, art and
letters, the metropolis of pleasure.  Many millionaires from America
and the Dominions had built their palaces in the West End, which had
become a region of especial wealth and splendour, having its nucleus
in the Imperial Court.

The day of the Coronation was heralded by pageants and festivals, the
reception of Princes, the gathering of countless visitors.  Troops
were assembled from every part of the Empire, the Fleet was mobilized
and soared like a glittering cloud above the Thames, the streets were
being decorated, and buildings torn down to make room for spectators.
All these things kept the public amused, and still no cloud had
arisen.

On the 2nd of June the last edition of one evening paper announced
that Mr. Brand had been waylaid by supposed tramps, robbed, and
seriously injured.  The morning papers of June the 3rd confirmed this
news, stating that Mr. Brand had been robbed and nearly murdered in
the night of the 30th of May, and the facts withheld until now.
Chicago reported immense purchases of wheat, buyers not identified.
Odessa and Melbourne both sent advice of a sudden and sharp rise in
bread-stuffs, and meat, caused by unknown buyers.  There was a sudden
chartering of deep sea cargo ships by hundreds at home and abroad.
Feverish activity was reported from the Chancellor's office, and
Ulster had scarcely left his desk for the last thirty hours.  An
_attaché_ at the Russian Embassy being interviewed, said everything
was all right.  These were the first faint zephyrs and little
wandering breaths that ruffled the stillness of a world-wide calm.

The morning of the Coronation was sultry, and even before the fiery
heat of the day there was no little suffering among the crowds
gathered to witness the procession.

At sunrise the corps of gentlemen-at-arms, the Queen's Blackguards,
were drawn up in front of the palace.  Regiment after regiment of
Imperial troops were passing into the Mall to take up their
positions, the air was full of music from their bands, as far as the
eye could see the parks and avenues were full of marching troops, the
glow of scarlet, the fluttering of colours.  Absorbed in the
spectacle, Lord Sydney lounged at ease upon his charger, when a voice
addressed him by name, and a letter was thrust into his hand.  He
thanked the bearer, then opened the note which had come from Lyonesse.

"Read and destroy.  I have been waylaid, and pretty nearly killed,
but hope to be out of bed to-morrow.  The enemy has the papers.  At
all hazards get them back.  If you fail I must strike."  This in
Brand's writing.

Scarcely had Sydney time to destroy the message before the parade was
called to attention, and presently he found himself swinging with his
regiment into position.  Deep in his heart he cursed Brand's
carelessness.  Was Ulster such a fool as to let the Russian papers be
stolen again?  "If you fail I must strike!"

Alone among the thousands in the royal pageant, alone among the
millions who kept that festival, the trooper foresaw and feared.

Well Sydney knew the antagonists at war, the Chancellor, his own
father, and Brand, his life-long friend, the one commanding the
forces of the British Empire, the other controlling powers awful
beyond conception.  Around him were his comrades in their shining
harness, and ever he heard the roar of voices greeting Margaret, the
Queen.  Yet to him the pageant was a dream passing through white
spaces of silence.  And it was borne in upon him then that he would
never see the light beyond the darkness, the peace after the storm.
For him the way led on into the Shadow of Death, where a man must
ride alone.

So swept the pageant onwards to the city, and thence through crowded
streets to Westminster.  In the van went detachments of the Imperial
Army.  There followed the dignitaries of the Commonwealths of Canada,
Australasia, Africa, of the Dependencies and the Indies, attended by
contingents from the several races of mankind, bodies of men-at-arms
from all the forces of the Empire.  Then came the estates of the
British Realm, the Commons, the Lords, the Imperial Council, the
Princes of India, the envoys, ambassadors, and foreign princes, the
Household, and last the Queen's Blackguards in their dazzling silver,
escorting the lumbering-golden carriage of Margaret the Fair.

And always above them floated the pageant of the Aerial Fleet soaring
against the blue, and sheltering the streets from the fierce heat of
the sun.

As in many a former time of national rejoicing, once more the
immemorial Abbey sent up the Te Deum and the solemn service of the
Eucharist.  Queen Margaret sat upon the stone of destiny, the crown
of white gems was placed upon her head, while the trumpets pealed,
and the nobles of the old isles put on their coronets and rendered
homage.

Once more, as in ancient times, the banquet was spread in the great
hall of St. Stephen's Palace at Westminster.

Old white statues of the Kings looked down upon this new Queen,
crowned by the Grace of God, Defender of the Faith, Defender of our
time-honoured, well-tried Faith.  That faith of disciplined freedom
had made a little nation very great, and had given an awful and
far-reaching power.

At the high table the great officers of the kingdom waited upon our
Lady with every solemnity that has come down through the centuries of
a nation's youth.  The heat was stifling, the fierce light of the
morning was quenched in a white haze, and the sun was hidden now, for
the air was darkening.  Many of those who sat at the banquet tables
have since spoken of the prevailing depression and weariness.  Once
somebody laughed, and the sound seemed out of place, for people were
seized with vague misgivings, a sense of restless uneasiness verging
on fear.  The hall became dim as though it were evening, darkness
swept down out of the spaces of the timbered roof.  The air was full
of electric tension, and the silence that fell upon the assemblage
was broken at times by the roll of distant thunder; while the
semi-darkness was now and then illumined by the flicker of far-off
lightning.  One of the Queen's ladies fainted, causing some stir for
a moment, while the darkness deepened until it seemed to be night.  A
moaning wind caught the doors and swept them wide apart.  Then came a
peal of trumpets while three horsemen clattered in from the palace
yard.  Here came the hereditary Champion of England, mounted and clad
in plate armour, attended by the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great
Chamberlain on horseback, and by a body of trumpeters and heralds.

Then a herald, lifting up his voice, made proclamation that the
Champion of England challenged in single combat to the death, any who
should dare dispute the right of Margaret to the British Throne.
When the proclamation had been made, the Champion rode forward, and
taking the steel gauntlet from his hand, he flung it ringing upon the
pavement.

Even as he gave the challenge, the lightning blazed behind him, the
roof was shaken with a crash of thunder, men sprang to their feet,
and women screamed aloud, while with roar of wind, hissing rain,
shaft upon shaft of lightning, and peal after peal of thunder, the
dreadful elements took up the challenge.  Amazed and appalled, the
Queen and her nobles sat for the most part silent, but some few fled
aimlessly from the tables, rushing here and there in panic.

Nobody noticed in that confusion that a trooper, in the armour of the
Guard, picked up the Champion's gauntlet from the floor.  By that act
he challenged Margaret's accession, and accepted the gage of battle
with the Queen's Champion.

Dymoke bent forward in the saddle, trying to see through the gloom.

"Who are you?" he cried.  "Damn you!  Let see me your face."

A blaze of lightning revealed to him the face of Prince Ali.

"You fool," he cried; "do you challenge our Lady's right?"

"Don't talk nonsense," said Ali, laughing.  "Here," he presented the
gauntlet with a gesture of mock humility, "you can't leave this lying
about."

The Champion seized the gauntlet, and with it struck Prince Ali
across the face.

The Indian drew back, his eyes gleaming out of the darkness.

"Afterwards," he said.  "Afterwards.  You have challenged Heaven, and
your God has answered you."




V

THE GATHERING STORM

It was evening, and the sweet cool dusk brought many tired Londoners
to the Mall.  From the Victoria Monument to Trafalgar Square extended
that old avenue where garlands of lamps festooned the trees,
fountains sprayed liquid air to cool the gardens, cafés set out their
tables and seats upon the gravel, and a military band provided music.
At one of the tables a journeyman carpenter was at ease with ale and
a pipe; and looking about for a seat came a grey old soldier, an
Anglo-Indian colonel, lately retired.  When the artisan made room and
found a chair, the old man gruffly thanked him and sat down.

"A warm night, sir?"

"Ugh!" grunted the Colonel.  "Where's that confounded waiter?  Warm!
Would you like a frost?"

"Big crowd to-night, sir," ventured the carpenter.

"Disgusting babel.  Ur-r-r!  In my time one came here for peace and
quiet.  I hate mixed crowds."

"The modern democracy," observed the carpenter, his eyes twinkling
amusement.  "In the old days my father could not have sat here
chattering sociably with your father, sir."

"I didn't come here to jabber, curse you, sir!" said the Colonel.
"Surely," he leaned forward, "I ought to know that old frump with the
cloak----

"Lord Fortescue?"

"The Chief of Staff!  Of course.  Dear me, how old he's grown.  Polly
Fortescue of course!  Where's that damned waiter?"

The carpenter touched the Colonel's sleeve.  "Look, sir, those two
men in silver."

"Bah!" the old soldier snorted with rage.  "Queen's Blackguards.
Bah!  In fancy dress, the bounders!  This so-called Chivalrie
Renaissance among the idle rich is a piece of damned disgusting
snobbery.  Ugh!"

"The young 'un is the Duke of Lancaster.  The tall lean chap is the
Chancellor's son, the Marquess of Sydney--rare good at the wicket,
sir."

The Colonel scowled sideways at the passing Guardsmen.

"I hate this foppery--ought to be whipped."

"We may need them," the carpenter turned grave, "may need them badly,
sir--may need every man we have in the Empire.  Have you heard, sir,
that Brand is provisioning the country for a siege?"

"Pooh!  Old invasion scare again--young man, I was brought up to
that."

"I'm afraid, sir, it's something worse than invasion.  There's a
rumour that unless the Government drops this Russian Alliance,
Brand's going to read them a lesson."

"Don't talk to me about Brand, a beastly common tradesman--ought to
be locked up.  Bah!"

"Well, I'm a working man," said the carpenter, "and we're not much in
love with this Capitalist Government.  Hello, here's the Marquess of
Sydney back again with--look," he pointed with his pipe stem.
"That's John Brand!"

"Brand, you say?"  The Colonel half choked with excitement, "point
him out quick.  Is that really Brand himself?  Why, damme!"

Brand and Lord Sydney were talking in low tones, earnestly, as they
passed through the lanes of trees.

"My dear Brand, it's too horrible," said the Guardsman, "you never
could hold the reins through such a crisis.  There must be some other
way."

"There is only one other way.  Get back the Russian papers.  I must
have those papers, I must publish them word for word, then leave the
people to judge."

"I have tried.  Can't you believe that I've tried to get them, Brand?"

"I couldn't blame you, Sydney, if you refused your help.  I know what
it means to you."

"To rob my father, to betray him to his enemies, to hand him over to
justice, then to be Duke of Ulster afterwards in his place, and bribe
thieves and prostitutes to shake hands with me--the leper.  I know
what it means, and I have not turned back."

"Give it up, Sydney, leave it to me, and let me get the papers."

"First spy, then coward, I must sneak, and then run away?"

Yet that old dread seized him which has shaken the nerve of many a
gallant Englishman, before and since, who has heard his country call
on him to serve.  What is this England?  She gives her children to
the wolves, to the sharks, the desert, the ice field, plague, famine,
war; waters the continents with our blood, paves the sea with our
bones, and goes on her way forgetting, asking for more.  And if she
is not content that we die the lesser death, but requires the son to
give his father's body, shall she find men cowards, afraid to
sacrifice?

"No, I have not turned back!" cried my Lord.  "How could I turn back!"

Brand wrung Lord Sydney's hand but made no answer.

Then my Lord told him what had been done already, and how the Duke of
Ulster defended the Chancellory from attack with a force of
detectives, a cordon of police, and in his private room reliefs of
Queen's messengers on guard by night and day.

"I think," Sydney continued, "I can force the outer cordon.  On the
eve of the Coronation, yes, Monday--that's five days ago, a recruit
took the oaths, a fellow called Browne, a cowboy from the Arctic.  He
has let me make friends with him, a good horseman, Brand, and we'll
be through the lines before the police can fire.  That's all
arranged, but the trouble begins when we reach Ulster's room.  The
Queen's messenger for the first night watch is a newly appointed man,
a retired Anglo-Indian officer, Colonel Anderson, V.C., otherwise
known as Red Pepper.  I saw him just now as we passed, at one of the
tables.  A friend of mine was talking with him, a carpenter."

"I noticed him," said Brand.  "The carpenter was pointing me out.
Your friend, you say?"

"When I was a youngster he built me a model ship; we've been chums
ever since."

"Isn't such a friendship awkward for him?"

"I asked him once," answered my Lord, "and he went over to the open
doors of the workshop.  He was bearing a plank, and stood there in
the sunlight pointing at the shadow which he cast upon the floor at
my feet.  It was the shadow of the Cross.  'Don't you envy me that?'
says he.  Then I looked up at his face and seemed to see the
Carpenter of Bethlehem, offering a crown in exchange for only a
coronet."

"You have sent your carpenter to Colonel Anderson?"

"Yes," said my Lord, cheerfully.  "My carpenter has a rare gift of
making friends.  I told him everything, and he said that surely
Colonel Anderson would serve the Queen if he knew."

"Colonel Anderson," answered Brand, "will obey the Queen's orders.
Go to her and get a written command."

* * * * *

The Duke of Ulster was writing a letter to his son.  "I am lonely,"
he wrote, and scratched out the words; "I am all alone," he wrote,
and drew his pen hastily through the line.  "I am left all alone.
For thirty years I have laboured to leave to my son a great heritage
of honour, to pass down to my heirs such----"  He tore the paper to
shreds and began again.  How could written words carry his pain to
another, or any confession, or any cry for help clear that
estrangement!

For many days this poor traitor had been silent in the flames of his
punishment, but now the fire burning within him kindled, and his
mortally wounded spirit screamed for mercy.  Only the night heard,
only the pitiless walls rang back in answer.  No human ear would ever
hear that cry, no human heart would ever understand.  In this night
his soul died.  Never again did he hope either for the help of men or
the pity of God.  Never again was he known to show mercy to either
men or women, but fought with ruthless power in blind pain.

One whose name may not be given found fragments of scattered paper
with the words upon them which the doomed man tried in vain to write
to his son.  The fragments have been by a strange chance preserved,
surely the most pitiful scripture in all our national archives.
Perhaps at the Day of Judgment this cry of a dying soul may yet be
weighed and lie as heavy in the scales as Ulster's sin.  So one prays
who has himself need of mercy.

For a long time the Duke lay back motionless in his chair, his face
bowed down upon his breast.  Then an electric instrument stirred on
the table beside him, clicking and throbbing out a printed message.


"MY LORD DUKE,

"I have the honour to warn you that the safe in your lordship's
office will be broached to-night from the rear.  We hope to take the
assailant red-handed, but any papers of vital importance should be
secured from a possible injury by explosives.  I have the honour to
be,

  "Your Grace's Obedient Servant,
        "PATRICK O'ROOKE, Sergeant."


The Duke hurriedly crossed to the safe, set the cypher, opened the
doors, and secured the package of the Russian papers.  After some
hesitation he opened a cupboard between the windows, and hid the
package in the pocket of an old office coat.  A spy concealed within
the panelling of the walls saw everything, the matured result of a
plot to get the papers taken out of the safe and placed within reach
of capture.

The Duke came out from the closet, turned to close the door, then
with a violent start swung round raising his arms as though to defend
himself.  The Secretary for War had entered unannounced, was crossing
towards the desk, and him the Duke confronted, his head thrown back,
white fluttering hands waving dismissal.

"Leave my room," he said haughtily, "request my secretary to announce
you, sir."

"Bosh--keep that for your flunkies, Ulster, I've got no time for your
trumpery etiquette.  Come to the House if you want to save your
Government."

The Duke sat down in his official chair, and under lowering brows,
glared at the Minister.

"Sir Myles," he said, "do you think you are entirely safe insulting
me?"

"Safe?  Confound you, Ulster--do your worst.  We'll both be ruined by
midnight anyway.  Brand's people have attacked us in the
Commons--they've produced this damned Treaty of yours with
Russia--clause by clause, and the House is furious.  We've had to
give them the lie that there's any such Treaty.  Come down and defend
yourself, man, if you want to stay in office."

"Sir Myles," answered the Chancellor, "go to the Opposition with all
your tribe, if you dare!  Go, take your panic back to your seat in
the House, and when I follow, see that I find you there.  Get out of
my room."

The Chancellor was alone in the silence, gnawing his fingers, biting
his nails to the quick.

He must go to the House of Lords, he must fight, he must get the
Commons pacified, the Russian Treaty accepted by Parliament--that or
war with the Leagued Nations, that or the destruction of the betrayed
fleets, that or invasion, conquest, the fall of the Empire, his own
destruction, and never-ending infamy.  What could he do in the
Parliament, what threats, sacrifices, appeals--to rally his scattered
forces, to stay their panic?  Yes!  In one flash he saw his way
cleared.  He rose from his place triumphant, his eyes alight with
victory!  The Queen's move gives checkmate to this King Brand III.

A secretary crept in timidly, offering up words, then with a gasp of
fear recoiled before Ulster's eyes.

"A letter?  Bring it here.  Go."

The Duke saw the superscription, and a trembling seized him, so that
he sank back into his chair, for the writing was in the hand of
Brand, his adversary, strong, hard, ominous.  He wrenched the cover
open, bent, and read, his livid face and burning eyes set on the
script.

And in effect the ultimatum ran: "Resign, or fight Lyonesse."

He looked up, his lips quivering, his face convulsed.

"I must, I must," he muttered.  To resign was to face the Russian
vengeance, to fight, destruction.  "I must, I must!" he whispered.
"I shall go to the Queen."

Then throwing himself upon the desk, he buried his face in his arms.




VI

THE PENANCE CHAMBER

There was one door in the palace which the frivolous passed on
tiptoe, where the boldest paused before they ventured to knock.  Miss
Temple lived there, the Queen's governess, who was supposed to
refresh herself daily from the Lamentations of Jeremiah, the Psalms
of Imprecation, and the cheering pages of Job.  If ever the Queen's
ladies romped in the corridor, she would come forth denouncing the
iniquities of the age, and once when a profane Guardsman blew
cigarette smoke through the keyhole, Miss Temple curdled his young
blood with lurid prophesy.

On Monday, the 9th of June, pretty Mrs. Osbourne called.  Her Jack
had told her that his cousin, Miss Temple, was "a gay old puss who
would tell naughty stories by the hour."

Miss Temple had lately published fulminations against the wearing of
boy dress by athletic women, so at Jack's mischievous suggestion,
Mrs. Osbourne called in her riding costume to hear the naughty
stories.  What transpired between the two ladies is not exactly
known, but there are rumours of a locked door and sobs.  Anyway when
Lord Sydney dropped in for tea he found Miss Temple complacent and
Mrs. Osbourne damp.  Sydney, having urgent business, was by no means
gratified at finding the old governess engaged.

"Now, pet," she said cheerfully, as she rose to welcome the
Guardsman, "this is the Marquess of Sydney."

"Rattles, but doesn't bite," he responded.  He was on duty, and the
armour was always a nuisance indoors.  Moreover, he could not find a
seat, for Miss Temple dated from the quaint times of the old King
when furniture was devised solely for ornament.

"Glad to see you, Mrs. Osbourne," he said, plumping abstractedly down
on a doubtful stool.  "Miss Temple often lets me come for tea."

"Oh!" quoth Mrs. Osbourne in a state of collapse.  "Oh, thank you!"
Sydney presented her teacup, and sat down again with his own.  Then
he turned to Miss Temple.

"How is our Lady?"

Miss Temple sighed.  "She must have done something more dreadful than
usual, for she wears plain black, poor child, sits in her
penance-room, and watches the vulgar sparrows on the terrace.  Do you
know, I waited a whole hour with her before she even spoke, yes, and
then she sighed.  'Dearie,' she said--you know her funny way,--'these
sparrows have fleas'--she will be vulgar sometimes: 'and the Queen
has worries, and the Chancellor has his party, and the Party has
constituents, and the constituents have taxes, poor things.  But the
worm'--now why should she think of a worm!--'the worm has his skin
scratched all the time so he never feels the least irritation.  I
wish I was a worm!'  There!  Did you ever hear such notions?  I never
taught her about worms, I always tried to lead her up to think of
higher things.  But then, just when I was going to correct her, do
you know a great big tear rolled down her cheek.  So I told her to
comfort herself with the thirty-ninth Psalm.  I wonder now what she
has done?"

"Pawned the crown jewels?" suggested the Guardsman.

Miss Temple rustled with disapproval.  "I think it's a message from
the Chancellor.  I'm afraid your father must have demanded another
audience."  Then the old lady glanced towards Mrs. Osbourne, who
might gossip.  "Of course," she added stiffly, "it must be about the
duel."

Mrs. Osbourne sitting bolt upright on the sofa, knees together, toes
in, squeaked like a mouse.

"What--a duel, oh!"

"Yes," said Miss Temple.  "Prince Ali is to fight the Queen's
Champion."  Then she bit her lips in great vexation, for to a mere
civilian she had betrayed a secret of the Guard.

"That's all right," Lord Sydney laughed heartily.  "We had the duel
this morning.  I was Dymoke's second, and young Browne for Trooper
Ali.  We seconds arranged the detail--swords at ten paces."

"But," said Miss Temple, primly, "swords won't reach!"

"No," Sydney shook his head, "they won't.  You should have heard our
warriors cursing!  I'm afraid my revered father has graver business
than that to worry our Lady."

"Oh," chirped Mrs. Osbourne, "and my Jack said there was a dreadful
rumour on the Stock Exchange.  They say that monster at Lyonesse is
behaving disgracefully.  Yes, he has made horrible threats about the
thingum-jig, the what d'ye call 'em."

"The price of gold?" Sydney was exchanging glances with Miss Temple.

"That's it," said the governess; "that must be it.  You know how
strongly I disapprove of profane books.  This morning my poor child
was fretting herself to death about Mayne's 'Gold and Lyonesse.'  I
took it away from her.  What a shameful thing that Margaret should be
crying over a book like that!  Why should a godless man like Mr.
Brand be clothed with such frightful power?  _Let him put his mouth
in the dust_.  Now why are such things permitted?"

"Miss Temple," said Sydney, "can you remember back to the Black
Decade?  But no, you must have been a mere child then."

"A child?  My dear James, I was a grown woman.  We were so poor that
we had to give up crinolines, and come down to two-yard skimps.  The
country was desolate, _the rampart and the wall languished together_,
and coals were so high that we had to use briquettes.  Trade was
going all to pieces, and to keep up the Fleet, they actually taxed
excursion tickets.  My father was ruined by the crash in Centralias,
and I went out as a governess."

"But Lyonesse," said Sydney, "has made everything all right.  We were
never so prosperous."

"My dear James, I am still a governess.  Lyonesse?  It was a moor in
those days, _and the foxes walked upon it_.  Yes, there was a very
frousty old man who smelt of tobacco, in a shed where Lyonesse stands
now, and a rumour got about that he could take common water and make
it into gold.  That was John Brand I.  Yes, the workshop was very
smelly, I remember; but think of it, pet, he was making solid blocks
of gold as if they were only bricks."

The old lady was very busy at her lace cushion.  "Yes, my father took
me to see him just when I got over the mumps--most unbecoming, dear,
with red flannel wraps.  His son, John Brand II., was a fat man with
a wart on his nose, and oh, such manners!  He was the one who brought
hundreds of tons of gold to the Mint, so that the price went down,
and all the mines had to close, and lots of people were ruined.
Russia went bankrupt; that was in 1940, and all the really nice
people there had their heads chopped off in the Red Terror.  That was
an unspeakable mercy, because, you see, they had to leave off
invading India.

"People used to say that the gold making was _all vanity and lying
divination_, but the Government asked Mr. Brand if he would mind
being taxed.  He said he mustn't be taxed too much or he would go
over to the United States, but he didn't mind paying for the fleets,
and armies, and things."

"Do you know what taxes Lyonesse pays now?" said my Lord.  "Brand
pays over a hundred million pounds a year in Imperial taxes alone.
Besides that he has to give all Governments a big profit on their
coinages--and that amounts to millions a year saved to the tax-payers
of the world.  Goodness only knows how rich the man is.  I
suppose----"

Miss Temple, who hated interruptions, turned briskly to Mrs. Osbourne.

"Now, my dear pet," she said, "I hope James doesn't bore you?"

"Oh no, dear Miss Temple, I'm quite used to it.  My Jack, you know,
is on the Stock Exchange."

"Now where was I?" asked Miss Temple.  "Oh yes, the city of Lyonesse.
Well, that was named after the place where King Arthur came from when
he was washed up.  Merlin the sorcerer, you know, was fishing, and
caught Arthur; and afterwards when Arthur didn't die, you know, but
went away to be healed of his grievous wound by the Three Queens in
one barge--well, I forget exactly how it was, but anyway King Arthur
went to Lyonesse, wherever that is.  And some day he's to come back
and save England.  Lyonesse, the real place I mean, has grown, until
now it has any amount of people (and they do say that the
co-operative stores are ridiculously cheap and most fashionable), and
it's been the saving of England.  Now John Brand II. is buried
there--cremated, I mean--and John Brand III. reigns in his stead.  Is
it true, Sydney, that he's a woman hater?"

"Jack says he's a beast," was Mrs. Osbourne's comment; "but then Jack
has lost a lot himself on Lyonesse Branch Industrials."

"_Lay not up for yourselves treasures on the earth_," said the
governess, fiercely.  "I wonder if it is finance which has worried my
poor Margaret."

"No, Miss Temple," Sydney launched his bombshell.  "My father is
going to force our Lady to marry the Grand Swine Alexander."

"That horrible story again!  Oh, James!"

"Yes, again, Miss Temple.  Can you wonder now why she wears black,
and sits in her penance-room envying the sparrows?"

"I must go to her," cried Miss Temple, rising, in great disorder.
"My child!  My poor child!  Let me pass, Lord Sydney."

But the Guardsman barred her passage.  "Her Majesty," he said, "is
engaged."

Sydney turned upon the little lady in boy dress.

"Mrs. Osbourne."

"Oh, you made me jump!"

"These matters, Mrs. Osbourne, are secret."

She rose, drawing on her gauntlets.  "Of course," she twittered, "I
would never dream--wild horses couldn't----"

"They wouldn't be so rude, dear lady.  But is it true that there are
rumours on 'Change?"

"Oh, dreadful rumours, my Jack----" she was arranging her hair--"says
that the gold fiend is going to sell his gold at a penny an ounce.
He says that if that's true a sovereign won't buy a loaf of bread
next week, but then, dear Miss Temple, that would never matter to my
Jack.  He always has rusks, you know.  Well, good-bye."

"Good-bye, pet," said Miss Temple, kissing her on the forehead.

"Good-bye, Mrs. Osbourne."

"Good-bye, Lord Sydney--Ta-ta!"

"Thank goodness she's gone," said Sydney, closing the door behind her.

"Oh, but Sydney," Miss Temple quivered, "she'll tell it all over the
town."

"Better than a newspaper," said the trooper.

"Sit down, James," Miss Temple resumed her place, "you tell me that
Margaret is being forced into marriage with that odious Russian
prince.  But what has this to do with Lyonesse?"

"Dear old Mummie," answered the Guardsman.  "Don't you see?  Lyonesse
doesn't care who marries the Queen.  But Lyonesse is a business
concern, and has no use for a Russian Alliance."

"And quite right, too."

"So Brand says to Ulster, 'Break with Russia, or I lower the price of
gold.'"

"His father, John Brand II., did that, and Russia went bankrupt!"

"Russia will go bankrupt again, France bankrupt, Germany bankrupt.
Who'll dare to disobey the man who can bankrupt civilization?"

Miss Temple thought that dear Sydney was getting very pompous and
uplifted.

"Dear me," she tossed her head.  "Your Mr. Brand will be getting
himself arrested.  A sort of commercial person--who is he to give
orders to the Chancellor of the Empire?"

"This commercial person," Sydney laughed, "happens to live in a
respectable democracy where a shopkeeper can sell anything he pleases
at his own price."

"But, James, if the old Russian Empire was swept away by his
father----"

"The world may be swept away by the son, Mummie.  At all costs the
Queen has got to be saved, England has got to be saved.  There's
still time to prevent this horror.  I can't explain--I daren't--but
you've got to help, you've got to go to our Lady.  Tell her that if
she will only give me a private audience I may be able to put an end
to the Russian marriage."

"But, James, she daren't give a private audience to you.  We should
be found out, and there'd be such a scandal."

"You must be present, Mummie, but even at the risk of scandal go to
the Queen."

* * * * *

In her penance-room our Lady was giving audience to the Chancellor,
and while he, in his clear, exact speech, set forth the perils of the
State, Margaret was thinking about something else.  She sat before
the window upon a low, square stool, her elbows on her knees, her
chin upon her hands, just crushed into a lovely dimple by the mouth.
Her lips were slightly parted, her dreamy, big, blue eyes set on the
gardens.

The Empire, said Ulster, had prospered in the trade of Lyonesse, in
great revenues furnished by the ungrudging Brands; and the people
were proud of the giant merchant firm, strong in its long-tried
honour and good faith.

But Margaret looked upon the wind-swept elms, the big white
cloud-fleets sailing in high heaven, and silver flaws of wind coursed
down the lawns.  The Chancellor's words throbbed on her ears unheard.

The standard of all value, gold, was secured, he said, in the keeping
of John Brand.  What else, save gold, could measure the workman's
wage, the cost of shelter, and the price of food?  Strike down that
standard, and the bread-winner could have no wages, could pay no
rent, could buy no bread.

But Margaret saw the lilac and the may, the trees weighed down with
bloom, swayed to the rushing wind, and little white daisies laughed
along the lawns.  And still the Chancellor's voice drummed without
meaning.

Stab a man to the heart, was the statesman's thesis, and his blood
will drain away leaving death behind.  But gold was the life-blood of
nations, gold money the driving force of civilization.  Brand's
monopoly was the life-blood of human society, in his good faith the
public welfare lay, and all mankind depended on his honour.

Now Margaret heard the dull pain quaver in Lord Ulster's voice, as he
urged the extremity of the general peril that Brand had broken faith.

"I wish I could understand," said the poor girl dreamily.  "I've
tried so hard to understand."

When the flowers unfold their petals to the sun; when wild birds
preen their first fine bridal plumes; when a maid first trembles to a
lad's shy kiss, spring stirs young blood, and the rose-flush of
heaven glows in a girl's pure face, as the dawn of childhood flames
to the day of life--then God ordains the sacred truce of Love.
Child-life is shadowed with fears of the Unknown, the days of a woman
are dark with the sorrows of the world, but between the time of fear
and the coming time of sorrow is set the holy Sabbath, and truce of
Love.  Bitter the lot of a woman who looking back from the sunset
time of life, and that long twilight waning down to night, remembers
no daybreak, no flush of sunrise, no Sabbath of Love which
strengthened her for pain.

Queen Guinevere went maying in the spring, Elizabeth rode a-hawking,
Marie Antoinette played milkmaid; and Queens, who bear the heavy
burden of state, have need of love and laughter to cheer the way,
before the crown of diamonds is changed to a crown of thorns.  Hungry
for freedom, for love, the delight of life, Queen Margaret turned
with a little bitter smile, turned her back to the gardens, and tried
to think of finance.

"Don't be cross with me, dear Lord Ulster, I can't understand yet.
Tell me again what Mr. Brand has threatened."

"To sell gold at a penny an ounce."

"But the coin, the sovereign, is something more than gold.  It's
stamped with a dreadfully hideous portrait of me, and my name, for a
proof that the head wasn't meant for a crocodile."

"Yes, madame, it pledges the national honour that melted down or
ground to powder its precious gold remains of untarnished worth.
Failing that, the coin, even with the Queen's image, is spurious."

"A promise to pay," said Margaret, "and the promise keeps if I'm
beggared."

"To pay, madame, yes, in food or fuel, or clothes, but the question
is how much?  For in the great sea of commerce, the prices rise and
fall; and like a post to measure the flood and the ebb, so is the
changeless standard of gold recording the tides of trade.  Without
that index, no man could sell his labour, or buy food.  If Brand
strikes down the standard, the world will starve."

"I understand," said Margaret.  "Have you told me all?"

"About this peril, madame?  No, not half.  The wreck of the world can
hardly be put in a phrase."

"I mean about Mr. Brand's letter.  He threatened these terrors
unless--unless what?"

"Unless the Queen suspends all relations with Russia.  That means war
with Europe."

The Queen laughed nervously.  "Is Mr. Brand so wicked as all that?
Shall we have him beheaded?  I've got a headache, and I'd like to
have somebody beheaded."

"I wish it were possible," the Chancellor sighed.  "Statecraft was so
simple, so direct, so easy once.  But now----"

"Would Mr. Brand be as fierce if he had to make his threat openly in
public?"

"Excellent!" said Ulster.  "I could call him to appear at the Bar of
the Commons.  But that is a last resort--a forlorn hope.  There's a
gentler way than that.  Do you remember, madame, the old Greek myth
of Una, who led a lion captive to her beauty.  I cannot fight this
lion----"

Margaret blushed.

"Turn this gentleman from his purpose.  I come to the Queen to
confess myself defeated, beaten, humbled, a toothless old man in a
terrible mess.  Ah, madame, you can hardly know as yet the mysterious
power of a woman's beauty."

"It sounds such utter nonsense," said Margaret, "and besides he's a
monster, he hates women!  Subdue this lion?" she added, thoughtfully.
"Perhaps Lyonesse will do the like with me."

* * * * *

The Chancellor was gone, and Margaret sat alone, watching the passing
shadows of white clouds, when Miss Temple came in upon her Lady's
solitude, trembling lest the Queen should scold her, and hovered over
her with a kiss and some whispers.

"Why, of course," said Margaret, gaily.  "Let him come."

The governess returned leading Lord Sydney by the hand, while at the
sound of the man's armour, Margaret felt a queer small thrill in her
veins.

"Sydney, come here."

He bent upon his knee, kissed her white hand, but dared not lift his
eyes to see her face.

"Dear me," said Margaret, "please be human, Jimmy.  I've been sitting
here all day trying to be good, whereas I'm just crazy for a game of
cricket.  Do you remember when you bowled, and raised a lump on my
shin as big as an egg?"

He looked up into her face, and though she heard a little quivering
sigh his eyes seemed to be laughing.

"You were Peggy, and I was Jimmy then, when you were ten and I
nineteen."

"And me up in a tree stealing the cherries, and that awful farmer
trying to shake me down!  Then you came to the rescue."

"Can you trust me, Peggy?"

"Why, of course!  What's the matter?"

He took a written paper and a pen which he laid on Margaret's knee.

"Will the Queen trust Jimmy even to signing that?"

"Colonel Anderson," she read, "Queen's Messenger, is to obey the
bearer, Trooper the Marquess of Sydney."

"Is it something very wicked?" she asked.

"Awfully."

So the Queen wrote in great haste: "Margaret.  R.I."


THE SECRET OF LYONESSE

AN INTERLUDE

This is the secret of Lyonesse, that the Divine methods of creation
had been applied to the needs of man.

Come just for a moment upon this path of thought, leaving the old
earth, to tread a course of stars, to traverse the Milky Way.  Come
to the very end, to the edge of the Formless Void.  And now look down
into Space, into the outer darkness, into the Ether.

The Almighty has put a stress upon it, and the Ether lives.  Stressed
in one way and we know it at once for Matter, a fine dust.  Its
desire for rest we know as Force, driving that dust in a whirlwind
roaring through the dark.  The dust is heated by its movement, and
flames into light whirling through space.  That whirling cloud of
light is a new-born sun.  So suns are born.  The sun cloud throws off
a lesser cloud, which gathers into a separate sphere.  The little
globe whirling about its parent will cool and become a planet, like
the Earth.  So worlds are born.

There are many Forces, but one group, the ripples of the Ether, form
an octave like that of music.  First of the seven notes are the long,
slow ripples which we feel as heat; second, are the Hertzian ripples
used in the wireless telegraph; third, is a region of the unknown;
fourth, is the octave of Light the rays of the spectrum; fifth, the
Rontgen rays; sixth, the Gamma rays proceeding from radium; seventh,
the ripples of the Etheric Force.  It is upon the notes of this vast
scale that the forces of creation play the music of the spheres.

The dust vibrations are of many kinds.  One we know as gold, another
as hydrogen, a third as carbon; and when two kinds vibrate in perfect
harmony, they mingle together just like notes of music.  Thus oxygen
and hydrogen vibrating in harmony are water.

The first man who ever walked upon this path of thought was John
Brand I.  He measured and reproduced the vibrations of matter, the
tremours of Force.  For him, in very deed, the stars sang together.
First of all mortals he heard the music of the spheres.

It was John Brand II. who made hydrogen cease to vibrate, so that it
lapsed into ether, then struck that mighty chord which brought the
ether to life again as gold.  He had mastered the Divine alchemy, he
followed upon the footsteps of the Creator, he played the music of
the spheres.

For ages the alchemist, not fathoming the ways of God, had failed,
but this humble and reverent man grasped the great secret.  He
learned how to make not only gold but all the elements of matter; he
struck the chords of Force.




VII

THE TAMING OF LYONESSE

To the foreman of the works, the physicist William Robertson, had
been entrusted the secret formula for making gold.  As a shareholder
in Lyonesse this man grew fabulously rich, and more, the brilliant
Sir William Robertson was ambitious of power and splendour.  Ill
could he bear with the new master of Lyonesse, plain Mister Brand of
the shabby clothes, the thread-bare furnishings, the cautious policy.
The two men were never friends, time made them enemies.

Robertson earned a barony by joining Lord Ulster's party, and
expected an earldom for publicly affronting his master.  Then came
the day of trouble, when Brand joined issue with the Chancellor, and
war was imminent between Lyonesse and the Government.  The ingenious
physicist was frightened, foresaw disaster whichever side he joined,
and promptly betrayed them both.  He was in America now, starting new
factories to undersell the gold from Lyonesse.

So ended the great monopoly, so was the standard wrenched from the
master's hand, so came the fall of gold.  Brand only knew of one way
upwards.  For him ascent of mountain heights meant sweating labour,
endurance, patience, faith.  He could not understand the winged
vanity of this servant who betrayed him in his own household, or of
Lord Ulster, who had betrayed the Empire.  These men had bartered
their souls for wealth, rank, office, as though the admiration of
their fellows could ever lift them up above the earth.  They bartered
their souls for wings, and that which rose upon the wings was only a
swollen corruption.

Brand had no pity for the tortuous errors of weak men, only a dull
anger without understanding, a smouldering rage which the slightest
breath would kindle into the flames of war.  Then the Queen sent for
him.  A woman was to turn aside the fury of Lyonesse, to subdue and
tame this man who reined the coursers of the sun, and drove the awful
powers of creation.

The Queen sent for him.  Brand mentioned to his secretary that he had
a business appointment, and so, leaving his London office for an
hour, he walked to the palace, glad of a little exercise and fresh
air.  He came to the gates, presented his card, and was told that
popes and archangels would be denied admittance if they came to a
state ball in a tweed suit.

Lord Sydney got him passed through the gates, but drew him aside
under the shadows of the porch.

"Have you no other clothes?"

"Not in London, Sydney.  Is it vital?"

"To a woman, yes."

"It seems there's some sort of a dance here, to-night."

"Only a state ball," said the trooper sarcastically, "for the
royalties of Europe, the Embassies, and all the dignitaries of the
Empire--most of them took the trouble to change their clothes."

They stood within the great Ionic portico, lighted with flaring
torches, occupied by the Yeoman of the Guard in their ancient scarlet
livery, bearing halbards.  By the door stood clusters of gorgeous
officers, and within one could see walls of translucent alabaster,
clusters of malachite columns, a vast perspective melting into haze
of golden light.

"Princes and dignitaries," said the master, thoughtfully.  "I wonder
how many of them will be alive next month."

"Is it so bad?" asked Sydney.

"Unless you can get me the Russian papers."

"This afternoon," answered Sydney, "Her Majesty gave me the order."

"Use it to-night."

"I can't leave the palace."

"These fripperies are more important!"  Brand turned away from him in
angry impatience.  "I can wait no longer.  Take me," he said, "to the
Queen."

They crossed the portico, they entered the vestibule, but at the foot
of the alabaster stairs Brand drew back, clutching Lord Sydney's arm.

The trooper saw the colour leave Brand's face.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"That carpet," said the master under his breath.  "Why is it red?"

Lord Sydney stared at him amazed.  "Why not?"

Without answer, the great man brushed roughly past him and hurried
on.  Did he foresee that within a few weeks these alabaster stairs
must run cascades of blood, the gorgeous corridors beyond be choked
with corpses, the gaunt and starving mob ravage these chambers of
state, while shattered dome and reeling tower crashed down through
the burning roof?  Did he foresee that the princes and dames and
gentlemen who thronged the rooms were to offer tiaras of diamonds for
horseflesh, to haggle with stars and orders for a cup of water, and
be dragged out of the cellars and murdered in the streets of the
blazing capital?

People shrank away from the look in Brand's eyes as he approached
them, many who began to comment on his dress, stopped in mid speech,
a lane of silent spectators opened to give him passage, a confusion
of rumour followed in his wake, and the news of his coming spread
excitement to every corner of the palace.  For no light purpose would
the master of Lyonesse come unprepared in haste at such an hour,
business of moment was afoot, a crisis in public affairs.  Was it
open war between John Brand and the Government?

Attended by Lord Sydney, the master entered the throne room, and even
he seemed to be moved by the dazzling splendour of the scene.  He saw
a vault of gold sustained on columns of onyx, an atmosphere of
radiant light, dense with perfume, tremulous with music, a confusion
of robes and gems, the slow grave movement of some stately dance,
then a lane of people opening to the very steps of the throne, where
Margaret stood attended by her court.

Her robes were like an iridescent cloud, and wondrous opals starred
her coronet.  And like the changing colour of the gems, her face was
different as he looked, a shade of annoyance melted to a smile, yet
in the very gentleness of her greeting, the man was doubtful of a
mischievous gleam in her eyes.

Brand heard Lord Sydney making the presentation, felt that the people
about him seemed embarrassed, wondered what fantastic etiquette he
ought to follow, looked our Lady straight in the face, took her
extended hand with reverence in both his own.

"Forgive me," he said.  "Please tell me what to do."

He could not hear his own words, his heart so thundered, and every
artery in his body thrilled.  Margaret was shaking hands with him
frankly, cordially.

"Yes, shake hands," she cried, tremulous with laughter.  "Let the
Queen shake hands with the King of Lyonesse!"

"I am ashamed," he said, humbly.  "I ought to have dressed--to
have----"

"Come in disguise?  Why that would be absurd for Lyonesse.  We will
ask you only to wear the Rose of England," she took from her shoulder
a blood-red rose, and fastened it with a jewelled brooch upon his
breast.  "My Lords," she cried to her attendants, "witness that we
create the Order of the Rose for Englishmen who have served their
country well.  Brand of Lyonesse, first Knight of the Order of the
Rose, this is our thanks for great and ungrudging service.  Come,
honour us with your escort, Mr. Brand."

She led him to a balcony overlooking the gardens--faint came the
sound of distant music there.  She thought of the things to be said,
the things to be done, wondered how she could deal with this rough
monster, hated the Chancellor for setting such a task, gave up the
whole business in despair, and set herself to find out why Brand
hated women.

"Here we can rest," she said; "you shall sit there and let me stand
where I can see all my beech trees.  Sometimes I stay here all
through a summer night with Orion and the Pleiads to keep me company."

He could see her face dark against the full moon, wonderfully still.
Her breast rose and fell as she breathed, her every movement swayed
the changing glory of her moonlight robes.  She seemed not earthly,
but kin of great Orion and the Pleiads.

"What is your garden like in Lyonesse?"

"My garden?" he answered, trying to control his voice.

"I know," said Margaret, "what it must be like, a garden of rocks and
the white surf for flowers.  Your gardener is the wind--I should like
your garden."

"From my cottage," he answered, "the wall goes down three hundred
feet sheer to the breakers."

"Oh, I can see it!  A wonderful cliff with big outstanding stacks and
bastions, where the sea-eagles breed.  How beautiful!  But can you
live there in winter?"

"Yes.  I had a fright though once when a sea wrecked my study."

"At three hundred feet?"

"Seas have been known to break higher than that.  My sister and I
spend many an hour watching the big sou'-westers.  Then the spray
lashes miles inland over the city."

"And what is your sister like?"

"I believe she is plain," he looked at the Queen; "yes, she must be
very plain, but somehow I never thought of that till now.  I'll ask
her."

"Please don't," said Margaret, hastily, "she might be angry."

"I'd rather not then," his grey eyes twinkled.  "Sarah has so many
things to vex her."

"And you always live in that eyrie?"

"Oh no, we go away sometimes in the _Mary Rose_, our yacht."

"For holidays?"

"We went to the Himalayas last, and perched for the sunset view on
Everest."

"I didn't think that even an aerial yacht could live up there."

"I could show the Queen some wonderful places if she would venture a
trip in an etheric yacht."

"How I should like to see the world like that!"  The Queen sighed.
"I'm tied up, you know, and everything I do is most improper."

This, then, was the monster, the dragon of the Chancellor's fears,
this simple-minded, plain-living merchant, whose pleasure was in the
greater, wilder moods of Nature, who spoke so gently of a virago
sister.

"Please tell me about the factories," she said.

"Must I talk of sympathetic vibratory physics?"

"Heaven forbid!  Why that's worse than even the Budget!"

"And in practice a simpler, easier trade than cooking."

"Even the changing of water into gold?"

"A matter of rule of thumb, like making bread.  But I must not bore
the Queen by talking shop."

Our Lady's eyes intently studied Brand.  "Do you know," she said
gravely, "that my advisers call you a public enemy."

The man looked up at her smiling.  "They lie," he said frankly.

He dared to call her Chancellor a liar!  "You will explain," she said.

"Oh, but I didn't want to offend you!"

Margaret smiled despite herself.  "You said you would make gold
cheap."

"I am so much a public enemy," he answered, laughing, and spoke with
easy confidence of a new merchandise in wares of gold, of plates and
cups, of lamps and ornaments, for the common use and comfort of the
poor, such as had been beyond the means of kings.  He spoke of dreary
brick houses, and dismal streets annealed with rough gold, of silver
columns and gemmed entablatures, of public monuments in golden
bronze, of cities which will not rust, or tarnish, or get dirty,
which frost cannot splinter or rain dissolve, their splendour
imperishable and their celestial beauty.  Margaret thought he had
taken leave of his senses.  For which of us in those days dreamed of
the golden age or ever supposed that this should all come true?

Our Lady's voice had a resentful note as she reverted to the issues
of the time, as in the Chancellor's terms, she voiced his horror at
the fall of gold.

"A standard of gold set in the tides of trade?  A beautiful image,"
said Brand, thoughtfully.  "But, dear me, how it condemns poor
Ulster!  The tide is an age-long ebb of falling prices.  So is the
standard changed to a cross, and the debtor hangs there."

"I don't understand," cried Margaret, affrighted.

"Neither did the Jews.  The cross was of timber once.  Do you
remember? and He who suffered, expressly said, 'they know not what
they do.'  The Jews were priests then, now they are bankers, brokers
of money, usurers, capitalists of Ulster's party.  And the cross is
changed to gold where mankind hangs crucified.  'They know not what
they do.'"

"Oh, this is blasphemy!"

"May I not even speak of the cross--I, the bearer of that cross?"

Our Lady looked at his clear eyes, and was ashamed.  Then trying to
defend her cause--

"My Chancellor came to me," she cried.

"It is not then the crucified who cried to the Queen for help?  Oh,
may I plead for them?"

So gravely, sorrowfully he spoke for the men who labour on the land,
who face the dangers of the air, who sweat in the deep pits, who
drive the machines in the factories--for all the great labouring
nation.

"Oh, Mr. Brand, I can't listen to this!  The nation sends the men who
advise me."

"The Jewish nation?  Yet even Ulster, their high priest, has
generously permitted my coming."

"Not to convert me to your strange views, Mr. Brand."

"But to be condemned unheard?  Oh, surely not!"

"Go on," said the Queen, indignantly.

"I spoke of the standard, or cross of gold," he said.  "I, the idol
maker, dared to speak blasphemously of the false god I have to
uphold."

Margaret saw the twinkle in his eye, and could hardly restrain
herself from smiling.

"I'm going to be still more wicked," he went on.  "I'm going to tear
the idol down and break it all to pieces.  Ulster would agree with me
that our wealth is the stored-up labour of the bread-winners, that
all our capital arises from their patient, endless work.  By that
measure we are so much better than our savage ancestors, whose way of
earning was to snatch and run."

The Queen nodded assent.

"These counters then, which we call money, are something more sacred
than stamped gold or silver.  They are hours of human life beaten out
on the anvils of destiny.  My tokens of labour were first used at
Lyonesse, and it has become the most prosperous town in the world.
The United States adopted the labour money, and it is the most
prosperous of all nations.  My currency stops half the cheating in
finance, and Ulster's capitalists are in a state of fear.  I speak
for the whole labour party throughout the Empire, and for my own dear
country, for after three generations we Brands are still Republicans
of the United States.  Yes, Ulster has argued wisely of the tides of
trade--he dreads the tidal wave.  I have set it in motion, and if
this Chancellor attempts the least resistance, it will sweep away his
Government."

Then Margaret turned on Brand in furious anger.  "You threaten this
tidal wave," she cried.  "You dare to avow this sudden, cowardly,
unprovoked attack upon my Government."

"So far is it sudden," said Brand, with grave respect, "that my
foreman, bribed by Ulster with a title, has bolted, to set up
American factories, and undersell my gold."

"Is this true?"

"It was in my letter which Ulster has shown to the Queen."

Margaret was silent.

"My attack," said Brand, "is cowardly."

"You admit that!"

"Yes, I admit the fear that the Government will commit suicide.  In
this emergency I strengthen the public credit with certain lands as a
gift forever to the British nation.  That also is in my letter which
the Queen has read.  There is no danger to the Empire."

Margaret sank into a chair, and remained silent.

"My attack," continued the master, "is unprovoked.  Far be it from me
to even seem provoked when the Chancellor offers the Queen in
marriage to a Russian dipsomaniac lately released from an asylum.
The Chancellor no doubt is the Queen's servant expressing her
Majesty's will."

Our Lady's fan broke in her hands, but she remained silent.

"The public enemy," said Brand, "has so far avowed his sudden,
cowardly, unprovoked attack upon Ulster's party.  I have but reminded
the Queen as to terms of my letter which had escaped her memory."

"Don't torture me," cried Margaret.  "I have not read the letter!"

"I dare not accuse the Chancellor," said Brand, "of leaving his
sovereign to face such issues unarmed and unprepared.  He is an
English gentleman incapable of conduct such as that."

"Stop, I command you!"

"No," said Brand, rising to his feet.  "If the Chancellor has not
warned the Queen, I shall!  Bear with me, Queen Margaret!  I have to
deal with rough and brutal facts, to say things that hurt.  Forgive
me; be patient with me."

Margaret sat in rigid silence, at bay, waiting.

"The Queen has called me here," said Brand, "and I must speak.  I
have come to plead for the people, no matter what the cost.  Russia,
France and Germany are mobilizing.  In feverish haste the League is
arming for the invasion of England.  Your people are never prepared
for war; the Imperial fleets and armies are utterly unready--I dare
not say how weak.  Ulster, absorbed in appeals to Russia, offering
terms for peace so shameful that they had to be denied in the House
of Commons.  There is no hope in war, no hope of peace.  Nothing can
save this country but the wreck of the Leagued Nations by the fall of
gold."

The Queen sat motionless, staring.

"There need be no fear," he said.  "Ulster's people dare not resist,
lest they be swept away with the Leagued Nations."

Then Margaret leaned forward in her seat, wide, staring eyes intent
upon his face, a slow hand reaching out along the balustrade, and
groping fingers found an electric bell.

"Are we deposed?"  Her voice was low and tremulous with passion.
"Will you usurp our crown when you have swept away our Government?"

But the man who was to be tamed heard nothing, because of his pity
for this helpless woman cursed with the heavy burden of the Imperial
crown--betrayed, abandoned, yet still of unbroken and unflinching
courage.

He took from its clasp the rose which the Queen had given, the
blood-red Order of the Rose for Englishmen who have served their
country well.

"It is bruised," he said, humbly, "by my clumsiness."

"It still has thorns!" cried Margaret.  "You have slandered our
Ministers, and to-morrow you shall meet them face to face, to repeat
this treason word for word at your own peril before the House of
Commons.  You have insulted your sovereign!"  Her hand struck the
bell thrice.  "Gentlemen of the Guard!"

Presently two orderlies of the Guard drew up in her presence,
saluting.

"Gentlemen," said her Majesty, "we have been insulted.  Expel this
man from the Palace!"

Margaret sat alone in her balcony trying to hate Mr. Brand.  She had
never been so angry in her life.

All men did her worship, hundreds of millions rendered to her their
homage, whole continents obeyed her, and in her name the masters of
the world commanded.  Her Imperial Majesty had never been disobeyed,
and here was a man who dared----

What had he dared?

He dared to pity her because she had lost her temper.

She tore her fan all to pieces and scattered the wreck on the floor.

This monster had come to be subdued, to be tamed, to be turned from
his purpose.  He had not been much subdued, or to any great extent
tamed, or in the least degree turned from his purpose.  He was not
even ruffled!  The surf of her fury had beat against his cliffs, and
then he said he was sorry to see her bruised.

There was the stab of defeat.  Thrust a sword into a pool, and where
it touches the water it seems to bend.  Such is the sweet obliquity
of a woman's mind that, in its clearness, her defeat may seem better
than triumph.  He was rather a nice monster, this Brand; friendly in
a quaint way, very frank in his admiration, and, whether she liked it
or not, determined to save her from the Russian marriage.  She was
very angry still--with the Chancellor!

When at last she gave the Chancellor audience, her face was hard, her
manner cheerful, her bearing defiant.

"Ulster," she said, "I've failed."

The statesman was not such a fool as to ask for reasons.  Well he
knew the danger signals, the anger growing in her eyes, as she spoke
with the directness of a man.

"Mr. Brand," she continued, "wrote you a letter, part of which you
told me, the other part kept back.  Give me the letter!"

"Oh, madam, not that, I implore you."

"I insist."

"Dear Lady, forgive an old, tried servant of the State, who would
give his life to guard you from such things!"

"Give me that letter!"

There were tears in old Ulster's eyes as, with a shrinking
reluctance, he protested--even while he obeyed--speaking of things
unfit for the Queen to see, and devilish evil planned against her
throne.

But Margaret, in burning eagerness, wrenched the paper from his hand,
and bending forward to the light which streamed from the windows,
spread out the sheet upon her knees and read.

There is no need to quote this forged letter, which made the Queen
believe that Brand of Lyonesse, under pretext of the gold crisis, was
plotting to seize the actual reins of power.

Subtly was the mind of our Lady poisoned until the Chancellor seemed
to defend the realm from foul and deadly treason, against the nation,
and against the Queen.

"Ah, madam," he said, "I am an old man, my eyes are dim with the
passage of many years in the royal service.  I cannot claim the
inspired foresight which commanded that this traitor expose his own
infamy at the very bar of the House of Commons.  Your Majesty has
been pleased to hale this man before the bar of the nation's
judgment.  When he speaks in public, when he threatens the nation,
when he declares war against civilization--then, and then only, will
public opinion support the Government, and we shall deal swift
vengeance.  But there will be a panic, this threat of the fall of
gold will disturb the peace of the nations, and, madam, the nations
will hold Ministers responsible."

"But you're not."

"What, madam, do France, Russia and Germany care for that?  Remember
the League has but one purport, one policy--the destruction of the
British Empire.  Here is the chance for which they have been waiting
for many years.  They are mobilized, they are ready, and their
strength is overwhelming."

"Yes," cried the Queen; "but our Treaty with Russia."

"If it were only signed.  We have offered Russia her own terms, yet
she hangs back."

"But why?"

"Because the old Emperor dreams of a dearer and more personal bond."

The Queen turned pale.

"The Russian constitutional monarchy allied by blood to the ancient
and royal line of England.  Ah, madam, the dream is worthy of that
great prince.  For, once unite these two Empires with ties of blood,
and henceforth that alliance ensures the power which alone brings
peace."

"And the newspapers will gush," said Margaret, bitterly.  "And the
people will shout.  Oh, this is worthy of you!"

The Queen rose from her seat trembling, her face white with fear, her
hands clenched, her teeth set.  But what was in her heart could not
be spoken.  From her childhood the lesson had been drilled into her
brain that princes may not have hearts, that they may not love, or
mate, save for public ends.  But used as she was to the curse of the
blood royal, she shrank back affrighted when national policy doomed
her to marry the Grand Duke Alexander.

"Ulster," she cried, "Margaret of England says that an English
gentleman might be found, who is neither a prince nor a cousin, nor a
coward, nor even a drunkard, and the nation be all the stronger."

"Madam, remember the blood royal of that great race which has for
twenty centuries reigned in this island.  Your ancestors never failed
the nation, though many died for England, and all have suffered for
her.  Is Margaret less royal, less brave, than they?  If the Queen
fails us now, this coming world-storm of financial panic will bring
the great invasion on our coasts.  We need in our sovereign, courage
sprung from a race of kings."

The Queen was in torment, and now in the background of her mind, a
sunburnt, manly gentleman was speaking of his cottage on the cliffs,
of his sister Sarah, who was plain, of the surf which beat upon the
rocks, and the spray which drove for miles, and the spindrift high in
air above the storm-lashed granite of Lyonesse.

"There will be war," said Ulster.  "Thousands must die upon the field
of battle.  Women must cry, and orphan children must starve."

"Let there be war," cried Margaret.  "War is better than shame."

"Your Majesty, if war can save us from shame--let there be war.  But
when we are overwhelmed, when all our people are given over to their
enemies, then there is shame.  When our bread-winners, ruined by the
invasion, must starve to pay indemnity to Europe--then there is
shame.  And shall the last of our great sovereigns leave us to shame
like that?"

Margaret, standing between the glow of the lamps and the soft pallor
of the night, robed in a texture of changing glory like the wings of
angels, looked up to the smiling face of the dead moon.  Must she,
like that poor servant of the world, the life fire quenched and hope
utterly perished, move on an orbit of unending patience, and by a
borrowed light from Heaven shine for cold duty's sake before mankind?
So many a woman with a broken heart has made of her living death a
light for men.




VIII

THE MOTHER OF PARLIAMENTS

The mother of Parliaments was in session, that venerable and most
majestic court which struck the fetters from our slavery and made us
free.  Here was the serfcreated citizen, here we gained liberty of
Faith, freedom of utterance, freedom of education, freedom of
commerce.  And here Brand cut the last shackle of all our chains, and
gave us the free finance.

There is no need to repeat his words.  He had mankind for audience,
and those words will never be forgotten.

Consider, then, what he did:

_He moved to save the Empire from Ulster's treason._

_For the confounding of the Leagued Nations, and to take our enemies
at unawares, he hastened the fall of gold._

_To be exact, at three days' notice, he offered ounce ingots of fine
gold at a penny each to be sold by the Bank of Lyonesse in every
large town throughout the world._

_He promised to accept British money at full value, giving in
exchange the Labour currency as used in America and at Lyonesse._

This Labour money may be defined as a currency based on the security
of public lands, all value of land being created to the labours of
the community.  With the increase of public revenues from State land,
the taxes are gradually remitted.

Mr. Brand further opened two thousand shops in the Kingdom where food
was offered for Lyonesse currency.

_And to strengthen the credit of his enemies in power, he gave us his
private estates, worth more than three hundred million pounds._

A sound swept through the chamber like a sob, as the great merchant
received from an attendant a roll of parchment, and in silence bent
down laying the gift at the feet of his hearers.

"It is the beginning," he said.

He was standing before a single rail of brass, the Bar of the
Commons.  In front of him extended the open gangway to the table
bearing the mace, and above sat the Speaker in his chair of office.
On either side rose the close-packed benches back to the walls, aloft
were the crowded galleries.

The wavering factions were won for Lyonesse, the Labour party waited
exultant, and a division then would have wrecked the administration,
saved the Empire.  Still the hard-stricken Ministers were silent, and
all men in strained attention, breathing deep, fastened keen eyes
upon the American's face.

"Let no man blame me for the Fall of Gold.  Through the treachery of
one of my servants the monopoly has fallen from my hands, the
barriers are shattered, and the world goes on.  We are in the
presence of forces irresistible, powers beyond control.  Against this
hour of danger I have provided money, credit, food to strengthen the
hands of the Government, to sustain the life of the Empire.

"But I must warn you, and beg you to hear my warning, that any
attempt to withhold these things from the people will result in
overwhelming disaster."

Then in an awful silence the leader of the Government rose from his
place upon the Treasury bench.

"Do we understand, Mr. Speaker," he said, angrily, "that Mr. Brand
threatens the Imperial Government?"

"No," answered Brand; "I warn."

Sir Jonas Mempes raised his hand, stilling the disquietude of the
House.

"Mr. Speaker," he turned to address the chair.  "We are warned, sir,
by this gentleman that he is about to debase and degrade the coinage
which bears the image and superscription of her Imperial Majesty, and
which also bears a statement of value to which is pledged the good
faith of this Government.  The Queen and her lieges are invited to
assuage their defaulted honour with a currency bearing the
countenance and superscription of Mr. John Brand.

"Whose is this image and superscription?  That of Mr. John Brand,
citizen and merchant.  Render, therefore, unto Mr. John Brand the
things which belong to Caesar!

"I do not deny, sir, the undoubted right of any citizen and merchant
to sell fine gold, or to issue promises to pay, whether stamped upon
metal or paper, or the skins of beasts.  But if we find such commerce
doing treason to the sovereignty of our Lady, the Queen, with
dishonour and ruin to her lieges, I claim that this Parliament has
the higher undoubted right of restraining that commerce by force.

"I will render to Margaret, Queen and Empress, the things which
belong to my sovereign, but this august commonwealth of nations, this
British Empire is not to be ruled by any broker of money, or any
merchant of gold.

"Sir, I understand that Mr. Brand warns us that he is about to seize
control of the public moneys.  Now, the whole function of Government
consists in the maintenance of public credit, the collection of
revenues, and the application of funds to the uses of the community.
Such function, vested once in the singular puissance of kings, has
become the heritage of the electorate, the Divine right of the
people.  The maintenance of that right unimpaired either by kings,
armies, traitors, or mobs is the special and peculiar function of the
House of Commons.  To interfere with, or to threaten that right is
felony.  Mr. Brand is either our King, or he is accused out of his
own mouth of high treason.

"Sir, it is within the constitutional rights of the House to
authorise the Speaker in the committal of Mr. Brand to the Clock
Tower, but I submit that this gentleman is here of his own free will,
and stands with his rights untarnished as in some sort our guest.

"Again, the House of Commons may take legal proceedings through the
Attorney-General, but I submit, sir, that this is a case in which the
whole Parliament must as one man confound a perilous conspiracy, or
be lacking in its duty to mankind."

The sullen mutterings of the Opposition had grown now to a roar which
drowned the Speaker's voice.

"I observe," said Sir Jonas at last, "that Mr. Brand is still present
as a guest of the House."

Loud shouts rang out from beneath the galleries, members started to
their feet.

"Order!" cried the Speaker.  "Order!  Sergeant-at-Arms, conduct Mr.
Brand to the doors!"

Then far above the tumult and confusion of the House, the voice of
Sir Jonas Mempes rang out his challenge.

"On behalf of the Government, I beg leave, Mr. Speaker, to give
notice of a bill attainting Mr. John Brand of High Treason!"

* * * * * *

Slowly the American walked, attended by the officers of the House,
across the deserted lobby, along the empty corridor, then into
Westminster Hall, and down the broad stairway, until the tumult died
away in the far distance, till only the stone flags answered to his
tread, and the walls echoed.  His way was lined with statues, pale
ghostly effigies of Kings and Statesmen, their triumphs all
forgotten, their griefs assuaged, their sins, their penances, their
burning passions stilled.  Many of these had been arraigned,
attainted, slain, or fretted themselves to death, or died in harness,
builders of England, architects of her Freedom, forerunners of her
Peace.

So he came to the doors and passed out into the sweet air of the
evening, refreshed and humbled.  Perhaps, in his zeal for the Queen,
he had dealt rather too abruptly with the Commons.

This man was but thirty years old.  With reverend age such as ours,
and our maturer wisdom, he would not have dared to mount that
perilous Chariot of the Sun, or threatened senates, or laid impatient
hands on grave affairs.  It was not his fault that we were falling
into Russian vassalage, or that his disloyal servant shattered the
standard of gold; he lacked the benefit of our sage advice, and if he
greatly dared, he suffered for his audacity in trying to rescue the
Empire by affronting the Commons.

Some day his statue will be joined to that white avenue of the mighty
dead who set the landmarks on the way of life.  That night, whatever
its cost to the master of Lyonesse, we entered the region of Etheric
Power, and the beginning of a more spacious age.  For so rolls the
ordered motion of our race from height to height up the great way
towards Heaven.  The fences are breaking down, the barriers are
conquered, and our horizon broadens as we climb.  We hope that the
walls of Time and Space shall melt, the skies be torn asunder like a
scroll, and when we win to the last heights of human destiny, we
shall stand upon white summits, we shall behold the Infinite.

Rose flush of evening on the Abbey spires, cool bloom of dusk on that
long range of palaces housing the departments of State, violet
splendour of countless lamps, and Whitehall seething with traffic, so
Brand saw Westminster on that last day of peace.  Quiet in mind, a
little tired, he strolled up Whitehall, taking the western pavement,
touching his hat when men saluted him.  He thought of Margaret, the
Queen, and the memory of her face was very pleasant.  He had just
passed the narrow entry of Downing Street when he heard a sudden
sharp fusillade of gunshots, and looking back noticed the instant
gathering of a crowd.  He went on very anxious at heart, thinking of
Sydney.  He was abreast of the old Admiralty porch when he heard
behind him the clatter of a horse charging up the street at full
gallop.  He paused, turned, went out upon the causeway, and stood
waiting full in the lamplight.  The horse, coal black, came tearing
down upon him, the rider, a gentleman of the Guard, his helmet and
armour shining like Sirius, greeting him with a shout of recognition,
waving something in the air, a package of documents, the Russian
papers!  The black horse reared to the bit, the rider sprang from the
saddle.

"Well met," he cried; "Mr. Brand, these are from Trooper Sydney.
Take my horse, escape!"

Brand took the package of papers, which reeked of blood.

"Is he dead?"

"Captured, sir, and Colonel Anderson shot.  I'm going to join Lord
Sydney!"

"Tell me your name."

"Browne."

The trooper glanced towards the advancing police.

"Mount, sir.  Ride for your life!"

Brand swung to the saddle.  "Where's the Queen?" he asked.

"At the Opera."  The trooper snatched a white glove from his helmet.
"Send this to our Lady."

"Thank you," said Brand, "I'll tell her how you served."  And so
broke away at a gallop.

The trooper, drawing his sword, turned upon the police, and delayed
them with the formalities of his surrender.




IX

THE ROYAL PREROGATIVE

If Brand knew that his formal attainder was pending in the Commons,
he did not know that the Chancellor had ordered his summary arrest.

The horse carried him to the Opera House, and from the portico he
found his way up the main stairway into the foyer.  There, at the
ante-room of the royal box, an equerry was in attendance who conveyed
his word to her Majesty.

"A Queen's messenger desires audience, and sends this white glove as
a token."

Police officers had entered the box office below; Brand heard them on
the stairs; and orders were shouted in the very foyer before the
equerry returned.

"For the Queen's sake," he begged, "be quick!"

"Her Majesty will grant you audience."

Brand dashed past him into the ante-room.  "Now," he said, "guard
that door."

He found himself alone in a small, dark chamber, the very walls
trembling with the crash of triumphal music, and loud voices from the
corridor behind were already demanding admission.  Then curtains were
drawn asunder, and Margaret herself stood in the opening, against the
glare of the auditorium, a glory of light shining as a halo about
her, kindling the diamonds of her tiara.  Her face was in shadow, her
eyes big and dark as they searched the gloom of the place, until they
fastened upon him.

"Mr. Brand?  How dare you!  You a Queen's messenger?"

With a gesture of rage, Brand flung the Russian papers upon the table
between them.

"By right of blood!" he answered.  "In the attempt to bring those
papers to you, Colonel Anderson gave his life, Lord Sydney and
Trooper Browne their liberty--and I am Queen's messenger in their
place."

Margaret, with trembling hands, turned on the lights, and, moved by
an impulse of horror, shrank back from the blood-stained papers;
then, startled by a noise in the corridors--

"What's that?" she cried.

"Don't be frightened," he answered quietly.  "It's only the police."

"What do they want?"

"Only me, don't trouble yourself.  Here,"--he took the Russian
papers, and wrenched off the blood-stained cover--"read," he said
sternly.

Wonderstruck at his daring, confused by the glitter of his eyes,
humbled by the prescience of some great calamity, Margaret sank down
into a chair, while Brand spread the papers before her.  She was
dazed at first, understanding nothing of what she read.  Presently
she became absorbed, scanning page after page in feverish eagerness.
Then, in deadly rage thrusting the papers aside, she rose confronting
Brand.

"You accused our Chancellor, you slandered him, you insulted your
sovereign with falsehoods about our administration, you were expelled
from our palace in disgrace."  She clutched her throat, hardly able
to speak.  "And you come back--with these--infamous slanders!"

"I have come back, woman, with the proofs for which Colonel Anderson
gave his life-blood and two gallant gentlemen their liberty."

"But you have accused our Chancellor!"

"Not I."  Brand pointed downwards at the papers.  "These in his own
hand accuse the man who has sold your honour."

"My honour?  You mention my honour?  Understand this, and tell all
who care to hear, that it has pleased us to take for our Consort His
Imperial Highness, the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, whose sword
will deal with questions concerning our honour.  Now go!"

Brand bent forward across the table and stared into the Queen's eyes.

"I go," he said, "to Sydney and Browne in prison, and on to Colonel
Anderson in Hades, bearing the Queen's message that by her orders,
Ulster betrayed the Formula of the Fleets."

"The Formula of the Fleets?  What do you mean?"

"I mean that if you are moved neither by absolute proof of Ulster's
treason, nor by the blood of your servants, then you are partner with
him, you share his guilt, for you betray your people."

Then Margaret quailed before his eyes, shrank back from him and
turned away her face.

"Oh, I can't, I can't!"  She looked up at him, convulsed with terror,
her arms thrust out in protest.  "I can't believe.  He couldn't
betray me like that!  Betrayed!  Betrayed!"

"Yes," answered Brand; "betrayed."

"But the Formula of the Fleets?  Prove your words.  On your peril
prove everything you say--who charges our Chancellor with divulging
the Formula of the Fleets?"

"His own son brings the charge.  I have Lord Sydney's word."

"Lord Sydney's word!  And that is more than proof.  But how shall I
know that you come from Sydney?"

"That glove!" said Brand.  "How else should I have that glove?"

"And yet!"  Margaret wrenched a letter from within her dress.  "Since
yesterday I have kept this with me to read, to study."  There was
hope in her voice, a flash in her eyes again.  "You wrote this to the
Chancellor.  How can you speak of treason; you, who wrote this?"  She
flung the letter across the table.  "Read!"

"My letter to the Chancellor?  Why, this.  My letter was
short--that's not my signature!"  He held the paper against the
light.  "The paper--how does it come to bear this water-mark, the
Imperial cypher, 'M.R.I.'?  The water-mark in mine is 'Lyonesse.'  Is
Lord Ulster insane?  Does he suppose that I--a business man, would
send such a letter as that, and keep no certified copy?"  He opened
his pocket-book, and produced a copy sworn before witnesses.  "Let
these be compared!"

Intently Margaret studied both the water-marks, and the texts of
these two documents.  Then, without a word, crossed to an armchair
over against the curtains, and there lay back with closed eyes,
thinking.

"Mr. Brand," she said at last, wearily, "you and my Chancellor charge
one another with treason.  You spoke of Sydney--what part has he in
it?"

"He came to me," Brand answered, "a month ago, gave me these papers,
begged me to save the Queen, and delivered his own father into my
hands for punishment."

"Go on."

"Without any proofs against him, I had to attack the Chancellor at
once.  There was no time to lose.  Without any proofs, I attempted
yesterday to warn the Queen of her peril, and was driven out from her
presence.  Without any proofs, I was compelled to-night to face the
House of Commons.  A Bill is being passed attainting me of High
Treason."

"How did you get back these papers?"

"Yesterday Lord Sydney begged the Queen to sign an order commanding
Colonel Anderson to obey him."

With a little startled movement, Margaret looked up.

"How did you know that?"

"I sent Lord Sydney."

"Proof upon proof," she muttered.  "Please go on."

"By the Queen's command, Colonel Anderson stole these papers from the
Chancellor's office.  He was shot down, Sydney was captured, Browne
surrendered.  By accident the message passed to me."

"And the police are waiting outside that door for you?"

"I am an outlaw," Brand laughed, "and here in sanctuary."

For a long time her Majesty remained silent, while the ante-room
shook with the tremor of music, and the glow from the stage shone
softly between the curtains.

The performance was an oratorio based by Mr. Stevenson upon the
Divine Comedy of Dante, but in accordance with a usage still new in
1980 both vocalists and chorus stood in the wings of the proscenium,
supported by the orchestra, and a concealed cathedral organ.  For the
oratorio was rendered in the music of colour upon a screen, and
Stevenson's "Inferno" is notable for the dim, awful beauty of its
opening numbers, and for passages of terrible splendour.  For an hour
there was no word spoken in the ante-room, while the light changed
and glowed between the curtains, and the great chorus swelled and
rolled from the proscenium.

At last, with a little sigh, Margaret looked up.  "Tell me, Mr.
Brand, what shall I do?"

"Who am I," said Brand, with reverence, "that I should dare give
counsel to the Queen?"

"At the risk of your life you came to warn me."

"That the Chancellor has committed treason; that I am a rebel in open
revolt, that war has been waged to-night, blood has been shed.  This
very house is guarded by my yacht."

Margaret was silent.

"How shall I dare advise the Queen?" said Brand.  "I have come to
offer my life and all the strength of Lyonesse to defend my sovereign
and my adopted country.  I dare not advise, but weigh the facts,
Queen Margaret, and let me hold the scales.  As head of the State you
must decide for England.  There is no compromise, no middle way.
Denounce the Chancellor of Treason, or commit me a rebel to prison."

Margaret leaned forward, her hands resting upon the arms of the
chair, her eyes full of wonder.

"And you will submit?"

"Am I not the Queen's servant?"

"But they'll kill you."

"Should I care to live?"

His manner was changed, the roughness was all gone, as after a storm
the ocean is at rest, deep, quiet, fathomless.  His eyes seemed to
smile, and his voice was low and reverent.

"Perhaps I am wrong, but I should not live to see this country a
vassal of Russia.  My people at Lyonesse and I have always worked for
England, and we all have a certain pride in working well.  Set that
aside, my life is not the weight in either scale of the Queen's
judgment.  Who will serve England best, Ulster or Brand, the traitor
or--the rebel?"

"What if I refuse," said the Queen, proudly, "to treat you as a
rebel?  What if I, the Queen, share the guilt of rebellion with you,
and place myself at the head of this revolt?"

"There will be civil war," Brand answered coldly, dispassionately,
"the most terrible war in all the annals of the world."

From Margaret's neck there hung a cross of diamonds, a thing of
pitiless white splendour.  The Queen pressed the sharp stones of it
against her forehead.

"You," she said, "are ready to die for England, and I--and I--and I
have sold my body to this Alexander of Russia.  Death would be such a
little thing compared with that.  If you give yourself up, and I give
myself up, there'll be no civil war."

"There'll be no war," he answered thoughtfully.  "No war if the
people accept the shame of peace."

"They will think as we do," said the Queen.  "The men like you, the
women like me.  The same blood runs in them--and they'd cry out for
war."  Margaret laughed nervously, and dropping the cross, bent
forward, her elbows resting on her knees, her face in her hands.  "To
think for the people--to live for the people, I was drilled to that,
to be married for the people with a thing that one could not touch
with the end of a glove.  Ugh!"  She shivered.  "For the people, and
I hate them!  Yes, hate them.  I wouldn't mind dying for them, but to
live for them like that is horrible!

"I shall never forget that night when mother told me.  Nobody will
ever know what she suffered bravely, quietly, hopelessly, wearing
what she called her crown of thorns.  And then one night she took me
on her knee--a poor, little, scraggy thing I was, all arms and legs.
How she cried--and I was crying too.  She told me that after her I
must be brave and wear the crown of thorns, and I nearly cried my
head off.  Yes"--Margaret's voice broke with a little whimper--"and I
didn't know then all that it meant."

She brushed away a tear with her gloved hand, then looked up.

"I wonder," she said abruptly, "why I told you--you of all men.
Forget what I said, do you hear?--forget that I whined like a sick
child--forget, I say!  No, don't speak to me."  Then in low, awed
tones, "I've got to think for the people."  The horror rushed in upon
her senses, and feeling as one does in the presence of the dead, in
overwhelming sorrow: "I am the Queen," she said, "and I must hold the
scales, must judge for the people.  I can't, I daren't.  Oh, what am
I that I should judge for the people?  A little while ago I was
playing with dolls, on Monday rode with my Guard, on Tuesday danced,
and to-day I have to judge between you and Ulster, between life and
death, between war and peace!"

But to Brand it seemed a dispensation of heaven that the fate of
mankind was not at the mercy either of a treacherous politician, or
of a master of industry, stained with the vices of the world, blunted
and brutalized by lifelong struggle.  This child, in her innocence
and her purity, could only see the great plain issue between right
and wrong.

Margaret looked up into his face.  "And I must make up my mind?" she
asked.

The whole fate of the world hung in the balance, and he answered
gently--

"Yes."

A burst of triumphant music filled the theatre, and then the clatter
of applause, and, in the silence afterwards, from some far distance
of the streets, a sound, a confused murmur growing to a dull, ominous
roar.

"Hark," whispered the Queen, "what is that?"

And Brand answered, "That is the beginning of the storm."

A hum of conversation in the house drowned out the sound, the
auditorium was flooded with electric light, men moved from their
places to rest in the interlude, and standing at the curtains Brand
looked down out upon the golden tiers garlanded with roses, and
throngs of women waving their slow fans.

Outside in the streets men were shouting, but he could not hear what
they cried, amid the gusts and eddies of the gathering uproar.  A
crowd had surrounded the building now, turbulent, yelling.  Gentlemen
from the audience who had strolled out to the stairways returned to
the tiers with blanched faces.  Some bade their women put on their
cloaks to leave, many brought newspapers, and were assailed with
questioning.  The tidings of the night spread on from tier to tier,
an orator began shouting from the gallery and had to be removed; even
in the grand tier a woman screamed.

In haste the management had the lights turned down while organ,
orchestra and chorus took up the measure of the oratorio, but not
even the seven Hells of Dante could still that audience, or drown the
sullen, vengeful roar of the crowds outside.  Many who tried to leave
the theatre came back unable to face the tumult of the streets.  The
management began cautiously to withdraw the audience by way of the
iron doors and the stage, while the performance dragged on amid
tumult and growing panic.

Only once in that hour Margaret spoke.  "Are you not afraid?"

Brand smiled and shook his head.  "Not even a little."

"I see the Queen's face," he said, "I hear the Queen's voice, and my
world has narrowed down to these four walls.  Presently the
Chancellor will come, and the Queen will give her judgment."  He
laughed a little, looking down at her from his place by the curtains.
"Outside these walls of life there is another broader world than
this.  The storm has broken here, there are no storms yonder, in that
other broader world where we shall serve.  Here you are the mightiest
of all earthly sovereigns, and I your servant ready when you need me.
But there we shall have hands to grasp the stars, feet to tread the
orbit of the sun, and greater strength to serve for greater ends.
You hold life in your right hand, death in your left hand, Margaret,
and presently you will judge whether I serve weakly here, or strongly
in the hereafter.  Why should I be afraid?"

"You've given me back my courage," said Margaret, humbly.  "I shall
not be afraid."

It was then that the equerry came announcing the Chancellor and two
Ministers of State who desired audience.

"Let them come," said Margaret, and when the doors had closed, she
told Mr. Brand to wait in the royal box.  "Leave me," she said, and
with a smile held out her hand to him.  "Whether it is life, Mr.
Brand, or death, you will know that I tried to do right?"

"I am your servant," he answered, "in life or death," and bending
down he kissed our Lady's hand.

Margaret was alone when Ulster came, standing before the table, while
all about the small, dark, silent room swept the roar of the great
panic.  The two Ministers bowed low as they entered her presence, but
her eyes were upon the Chancellor, so, instead of bending his head,
he looked at her wondering, and laid a roll of parchment upon the
table.  Then he drew back from before her stare, and bowed profoundly.

"Your Majesty," he muttered.

"You may speak."

Before her staring eyes the Chancellor stammered, "My colleagues and
I--and I have begged this audience, madam, on business of most
desperate urgency."

"What is this business?"

"It is the will of the Parliament that Mr. John Brand be attainted of
treason felony.  A Bill has been passed, and requires only the royal
fiat.  _La Reine le veult?_"

"My Lords," the Queen spoke slowly, monotonously, staring all the
time into the Chancellor's eyes; "I send this matter back to an
Imperial Parliament which has had no time to think."

"Is it possible," cried the Chancellor, indignant, "that your Majesty
sets the whole Empire at defiance?"

"Is that a threat?"

"No threat," he answered, furiously; "but a reminder that the Royal
Prerogative fell on the scaffold of King Charles the First.  Under
the guidance of her Ministers, the Queen will not expose herself to
deposition."

"My Lords,"--her Majesty turned upon the attendant Ministers--"you
have heard me say that this Bill concerning Mr. Brand must be again
considered before we make it an Act of Parliament.  You have heard my
Chancellor threaten deposition, even death, as though the Queen could
be bullied with the blustering of so pitiful a coward.  As a woman I
demand your protection from this man, as your Sovereign we command
you to obey."

The Chancellor tried to interfere.

"Silence," cried Margaret.  "Silence!  I, the Queen, am speaking, and
I, not the Parliament, am England.  My Lords, I charge this man, my
subject, with being a paid spy and agent of Russia.  He has attempted
to imprison Mr. Brand because he is loyal and has come to my defence.
He has betrayed the Formula of my Fleets.  I command you to seize the
Duke of Ulster, and to hold him as my prisoner.  You shall disobey me
at your peril.  Arrest that man!"

But these Ministers, supposing Margaret to be insane, backed slowly
out from her presence.




X

THE DAWN OF THE TERROR

We have been slow to anger with our kings, grateful if they were not
altogether bad, tolerant through much evil.  One very shifty exponent
of Heaven's grace we killed, but, indeed, we were sorry afterwards,
made him a statue, mourned for him, dubbed him the Martyr, and set up
the son in his place, who was seven times worse.

And even when we, the Democracy, took the burden of Government on
ourselves we did not grudge our allegiance, supplies, apparel, and
dignity of state to the princes of Britain.  English or foreign,
good, or bad, or infamous, we loved them as much as ever.  We were
not unmindful of the leaders who fought and bled for England long
ago, but rather we upheld in gratitude and loving memory the ancient
symbols of dead power.  Crown, sceptre, throne, were reverenced on
bended knees, by a people who, being kings, had become regal, both in
might and in their courtesy.

There cannot be two sovereignties in this realm.  When her Majesty
attempted to wield in very deed the royal power, she found that the
iron sceptre of her fathers had withered to a reed, and in her hands
broke.  She was no longer Queen.

At midnight Parliament knew nothing of Ulster's treason, knew nothing
of Brand's purport to strike the Leagued Powers down before they had
time to attack.  These lords and gentlemen of the Imperial Council,
the Peers, and the Commons, waiting for the Chancellor's return with
the royal assent, were loyal men representing the whole federation of
the Empire, in honour bound to maintain the sovereignty of the
people.  But they saw that with the Imperial currency discredited by
Brand, and Lyonesse money discredited by Government, the sun would
rise upon conditions of general panic.

It was no time for polite remonstrances, threats, or the slow
processes of law.  Brand had taken sanctuary with the Queen; and in
her presence, or in her house, he could not be arrested while she
reigned.  At all hazards he must be captured, and, if only for that
necessity, the Queen who gave him shelter must be deposed.

All the powers of the Imperial Council and the Parliament were
instantly called to aid.  The new day broke upon an Interregnum with
His Grace of Ulster as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth.  Margaret
was called upon to abdicate, her Palace was invested, and demand made
at the gates for delivery of her person.

Brand was attainted, his possessions were sequestrated, a reward
offered for his capture.  It was made a penal offence to circulate
Lyonesse money or to trade in specie.  A moratorium accorded grace to
debtors.  The day was made a Bank Holiday.

But in the main issue the Government failed to effect entry of the
Palace, or to procure the body of John Brand.

At midnight Brand's yacht escorted Margaret to her Palace, and
neither the Queen nor her servant flinched from the instant
necessities of civil war.  Indeed, the Duke of Ulster had scarcely
reached his office in Downing Street when, like a meteor, the _Mary
Rose_ swept down out of space and discharged a body of sailors and
guardsmen upon the roof of the Chancellory.  The building was
ransacked from garrets to basement, the safe was broached, its
contents secured, and nobody knows to this day how the Chancellor
managed to escape.

Brand's people were in the house, and the yacht, with open gangways,
lay helpless upon the roof when three electrical aerial destroyers of
the Fleet pounced down to effect her capture.  She sounded the
recall, and gained some precious moments in parley, but still escape
was impossible, for the destroyers had every weapon trained at
point-blank range.  The last men gained their quarters on board, the
port clanged home, a bell sounded, and then in haste the destroyers
opened fire.  To their amazement and horror they saw the yacht for an
instant poise in the moonlight, then change as they supposed into a
blur of quivering vapour and totally disappear, leaving the
shell-struck roof a mass of flames.

Brand said afterwards that guardsmen and sailors alike were seasick
as she rose, circled round Buckingham Palace, then flashed down on
Holloway Prison.  "It was a near thing," he confessed, "and I almost
killed one of my engineers.  His heart stopped beating and the
surgeon had some trouble in pulling him round."  There was panic in
the courtyard at Holloway, sharp explosions rang out here and there,
while some cased ammunition blew the store room to pieces, raining
showers of bricks into the courtyard.  Despite all resistance, two
prisoners were taken from the cells, and like a steel projectile, the
yacht flashed homeward, delivering Sydney and Browne upon one of the
Palace towers.  Brand left the yacht, which drove away some
destroyers and poised in the high air on guard.  Until dawn, the
master was at work in an office set apart for him on the frontage
overlooking the Mall.

Since midnight the Palace had been ringing with the noise of
preparation for war.  A single breath from great artillery would
sweep the fairy-fragile walls into white dust, but two hundred
gentlemen of the Guard thought otherwise.  In the dead of night,
transport wagons were taken from the royal garage, and under escort
entered the silent metropolis.  Warehouses were forced, weapons,
provisions and forage were taken in the Queen's name, and the
supplies brought back to the Palace.  There the tanks were filled,
the non-combatants discharged.  The outward-facing windows were
barricaded to resist musketry, the re-entrants loopholed for machine
carbines, the salients turned into bastions commanding the curtains,
and each door guarded with a small earthwork.

On the level roof of one of the Palace towers the Queen watched the
red dawn break, the red dawn of the Terror.  Her ladies had been
crying in the bedchamber, and she had cried too.  They were all gone
now save Miss Temple, the governess, who had been openly mutinous and
rude to the Duke of Gloucester, Captain of the Guard.  Now the Court
Chaplain waited in his vestry not daring to proceed with the early
service, because Miss Temple was in possession of the chapel, where
she knelt protesting aloud before the Altar.

The Queen was alone upon her tower, kneeling with her arms thrown out
upon the balustrade, watching the red sun light the domes and the
spires of the Capital.  The sun swung upwards, the little white
clouds swept merrily overhead, the Palace resounded with sharp
commands, the rolling of gun wheels, and the tramp of men, while
sometimes through a momentary silence came the song of the birds and
whispering of the trees.  Margaret's head fell softly on her arm, and
kneeling on the cold, white stones, she slept, and sleeping dreamed
that once again she walked amid long aisles of chestnut trees in the
garden at Hampton Court.  She walked with the gaunt old governess
hand in hand, talking of days to come, and the courtly splendour of a
stainless reign.  Miss Temple was to be Archbishop of Canterbury, the
nation was to rest under the ancient shadow of the Holy Church, women
were to be forbidden to smoke or ride cycles, bachelors were to be
shut out from public office, music halls were to be entirely devoted
to the meetings of missionaries.  Then Mr. Brand came wandering up
the avenue, his yacht at heel like a dog, and he was remarking, with
a pleasant smile, that it was all quite simple with etheric power,
but would she be pleased to wake up.  In vain her protests, for he
told her she must wake up, she must, she must wake up.

She did awake with a start to find beside her a tall lad in a canvas
suit, grimy from head to foot.

"Oh, Tom," she cried, "go and wash.  You, a Prince!"  She yawned
daintily as she rose to her feet.  "You example to the British
public!  Oh, you disgrace!"

"A nice sort of Queen you make sleeping on the tiles like a cat.  But
I say, Meg, won't it be fun if they do attack!  Gloucester's giving
me a machine-gun, north-east salient.  Oh, it's glorious!"

"Do be cautious, Tom, you know you're next to the throne."

"Keep the throne to yourself, I don't want it!  Tommy of Lancaster
with a crown!  Bah, it doesn't look good enough.  I say, won't you
have some food?  I'll send my servant up with a tray.  You needn't
come down; you'd get in our way downstairs."

"I'm very hungry," said the Queen; "but is there any food?"

"Plenty," said the Duke of Lancaster; "I'll send some up.  By the
way, that man from Lyonesse wants to have audience."

The Queen's face darkened and the young prince laughed.

"Ah, you see through him at last; I'm so glad.  Margaret, the
regiment hates him.  I'll send him up and just you give him fits.  If
you want him shot give me first chance; now do, Meg.  I'd love to
riddle a man."

"Go away, go away, Tom, or I'll have you arrested for cheek."

The young prince snatched a kiss, and fled rejoicing.

Troops of the Government had already cinctured the Palace with a
cordon of steel; and as the Queen waited scraps of talk came drifting
up from the guarded walls, chaff of the besiegers, rallies of the
besieged.

Through the dark hours fear had come to Margaret, her thought was
haunted by the Master of Lyonesse, her very dreams invaded.  The fear
was too intangible for control, too great to fight.  His presence had
driven her to refuge from him on the highest tower, but even here she
felt that, far above, his yacht hung on guard in the thin spaces of
the air.  Again and again she had fought back the tears which would
come despite all her courage; but now, conscious that her face was
drawn and white, and sorrow stained, and deeply lined, she found
herself, woman-like, trying to be neat before the master should see
her.  In anger and in dread she waited for him at whose word the
great world-storm had broken loose to drive her like a withered leaf
whither she could not guess and dared not think.  He would come with
his quaint friendliness, strong and at ease, would sit upon that
balustrade and swing his legs like a boy, talking of huge Powers as
the counters of his game, though nations reeled under the blows he
dealt and millions of men died for the words he spoke.  She could
hear his tread upon the stairs, could feel his rough presence as he
crossed the pavement.  She braced herself with an effort to face him,
then turned and saw Brand as no one ever did before, haggard and
ghastly, utterly broken down.  He had come to her in weakness for
sympathy, for comfort, and all the fierce, vindictive words which she
had prepared for his confusion passed from her mind forgotten.

"It is done," he said faintly; "all done," and at the sound of his
voice she shrank away in loathing.  "All done,"--he sank down upon a
stone seat against the balustrade--"and now the Queen may rest."

She looked across the great town southwards, and from far off came
sounds of distant tumult.  And then in passionate reproach she
echoed--

"Rest?  Stand up and see."  The words came harsh from her throat.
"See what you have done!"

He stood up and his slow glance went outward from sylvan parks and
tree-girt palaces to long-drawn lines of bright-hued garden roofs,
sky-piercing domes, and sun-gilt monuments, a valley of terraced
buildings, stone-clad hills, heights overflowed, and towered heights
beyond, suburbs which rivalled Babylon and Rome, and still no visible
limits bounded London.  Ships beat the clear air with unnumbered
wings, yachts from the suburbs, aerial liners home from distant
towns, and far above the grim destroyers soared.  So fared the
illustrious Capital of the world just at the last end of the electric
age.  The momentary tumult had died away.

"How quiet it is," he said, looking down to the streets; "and all the
poor folk must think that the last trumpet has sounded, that this is
the Day of Judgment."

"Because of your crime and mine," said the Queen, in bitterness.
"Oh, why did I listen to you?  Why did I attempt to save myself from
the Grand Duke at such a price as this!"

"Do not be angry," he answered, resting his elbows on the balustrade.
"The big clouds roll up the sky, there's lightning and thunder, a
huge, tremendous roar that makes everybody frightened, the rain
splashes down and smokes up, the drenched earth quivers and
steams--and then we all feel much better, and the Chariot of the Sun
shines high in Heaven."

She turned in coldness from him.  "I have seen," she said.

"And I have seen," he answered, wearily.  "So Ulster sent his troops
to guard the Palace?  That was thoughtful of him."  He leaned heavily
upon the balustrade and turned a wan face, smiling.  "I have seen
Ulster make me a poor man this morning.  He has three hundred million
sterling now to help the people through this trouble: he will save me
a deal of work.  I have seen him capture my transports laden with
food, my stores and warehouses of provisions, my two thousand bread
shops which were to open this morning.  He kindly undertakes the work
of feeding eighty million people for me.  If a few millions go hungry
now is it my fault that I gave, or Ulster's blame that he stole?"

"Only a few millions!" the Queen moaned.  "Oh, horrible!  horrible!
Only a few millions dying of hunger because of your crime and mine."

"Nay," he answered, gently; "because Ulster has taken the food I gave
to the people.  But for that seizure, no man need have starved.  They
will understand.  All night I have been busy that the world might
understand.  To the newspapers I have dispatched the story of what I
have done.  First the people will read Lord Sydney's deposition as to
his father's treason, and the papers secured in proof.  Then they
will read in facsimile those Russian papers, showing in Ulster's
writing how he betrayed his country.  Next comes the story of my
vengeance against a disloyal Government, my gift to a betrayed
nation, and finally there is the Queen's own passionate appeal to her
people."

Brand laughed a little.  "Ulster set a trap, and the jaws have closed
not on the Queen, not on the Queen's servant.  I think I see Ulster's
legs in the trap.  What will the people say of this Chancellor who is
an agent of Russia, who has divulged the Formula of the Fleets, torn
up the British Constitution, and dared to levy war against the
Queen's Majesty?  By attacking me he has beggared all his
capitalists.  By seizing my gift he has to feed eighty million of his
enemies.  I think that Ulster may be safely left to the people."

"But," said the Queen, doubtfully, "the Navy and yonder troops obey
the Government."

"From force of habit," Brand laughed easily, "and in the end some
will side with the Lord Protector, some with their sovereign.  Even
if they attack I have but to give one signal to my yacht."

"And the Chancellor is caught in the trap he set for you!"
Margaret's voice rang with triumph now, though her eyes were
glittering with tears, as turning to Brand she seized him by the
hands.  "At last I understand, at last I know.  Can you forgive me
all my doubts?  Tell me,"--she seemed to plead for his full
confidence--"what shall I do?

"Wait," he said, earnestly.  "For time is on the Queen's side, and
every day will weaken Ulster's following.  The Queen has appealed to
her people and they will reply.  Wait, the Queen is at war with
Ulster, not with the nation, and any movement now means bloodshed.
Englishmen are not so easy to rear that we should waste them."

"And we have strength to wait?"

For answer he pointed upwards to the heavens, while the Queen watched
him, wondering and afraid.

"There's something supernatural here," she whispered.  "Hope has come
back to the earth, and only an hour ago I could see nothing but blind
destruction.  You have faith?"

"Faith?"  He bowed his head.  "Yes, faith in God most pitiful--faith
in my Lady Margaret of England--faith in this country, always very
great in moments of danger.  We are a masterful race.  Even Ulster
strikes bravely in his peril, strikes out like a man and fights hard.
It has given me a new faith in Englishmen to find him such a strong
enemy."

The Queen looked down at the long lines of the investing troops, and
the midsummer sun shone on her wavy hair.  The face of Margaret at
rest was surely the saddest face in all the world.  Her loathing and
terror of the man was gone for ever.

"We must not think," said Brand, "that Ulster is beaten yet.  I feel
that he has other weapons, other resources; I cannot guess where the
next blow will fall, but he strikes hard, with rare confidence in his
strength."

"Yesterday," she said, and there was a little quiver about her lips,
"I was Queen of England."

"And to-morrow," he answered, "you will be Empress of the World."

"And yet," she went on, "I have misgivings--everything changes so
quickly that I am bewildered."

"Yesterday I was my own master, at least I thought so; but now----"
He looked at the Queen's face and his eyes became very bright.  "Ah,
yes, it is all written up on the mess-room walls--

                      'I swear
  To reverence the Queen as if she were
  My conscience, and my conscience as the Queen.'

Oh, how the words took hold of me this morning, as I saw them written
on the walls."

His face became almost beautiful as he looked at the Queen, he spoke
as one inspired, and all his heart went out with the solemn words of
the code of honour.  He knelt at the Queen's feet, he took the
Queen's hands in his, and looking up into her wondering eyes he
repeated--

  'To love one maiden only, cleave to her
  And worship her with years of noble deeds
  Until I win her.'


"Oh, Margaret, Margaret of England, the God I worship gave me etheric
power.  I thought I was omnipotent, but I made mistakes, terrible
blunders, thinking I could do all the work in a week.  I was in such
a hurry, full of a boy's pride of service, and look at the horrors I
have brought upon the world with my rash haste.  What is etheric
power compared with the power in a woman's eyes?  I don't know how it
is, but I see everything so clearly now, and all my power is
nothing--nothing whatever in the eyes of the Queen.  I suppose I must
be in love.  Am I in love?"

"You mustn't," gasped the Queen, "it's not allowed.  The Queen is not
allowed to be a woman."

He laughed, kissing her hands as he spoke.  "Not if I conquer the
world and lay it at the feet of the Queen?"

"I don't know," Margaret smiled sadly.  "I must ask my governess, and
she will say, there are no precedents in the book of etiquette.  We
must be good and serve England."

"England!" he cried, gazing into the Queen's eyes.  "I love you,
England.  Isn't that allowed?"

"Not if you put it that way, Mr. Brand.  England is not a woman, but
a country."

"Bounded on the east by a man's love, and on the west by a man's
hope, and on the north by a man's fears, and on the south by a man's
faith."

"But that's not geography, Mr. Brand.  Please get up."

"I won't unless you promise to let me love England my own way."

"I can't prevent that," said Margaret, smiling.




XI

THE WORLD-STORM

When Brand made his declaration before the Parliament night had
already fallen over Europe, and although it was still broad day in
the New World, the banks and exchanges were for the most part closed.

But out beyond the Pacific another dawn had flamed along the
Kamschatkan volcanoes, the rose flush glowed upon the snows of Fuji,
a land breeze awakened the dreaming Eastern Isles, a level sun
flashed diamonds in the surf of the Barrier Reef, and the bells of
Australian cities rang their summons to work and prayer.  So it was
that the world-storm which gathered in Europe, broke first upon that
far-off Commonwealth which stands at the gates of the Daybreak.

In Brisbane and Sydney, in Melbourne and Auckland, the people were at
their breakfast-tables when the news' telephones rang the first notes
of alarm, and spoke of the fall of gold.  "Nothing to fear," said the
average bread-winner.  "Brand guarantees good money."

Next came the news that the master was chargeable with treason.

"Nothing to fear," said the average Australian.  "Brand will be in
gaol and the old money sound as before."

Prudent men called at the bank to withdraw their deposits.  Careful
housewives laid in a stock of food.  There was a heavy run on all the
banks, a sharp rise in the price of provisions, a reluctance to give
the usual measure for gold, but still no general panic until noon.


"The Queen joins Lyonesse in open war against the Parliament."


They are of the master race, these Australasians, men who have
conquered the deserts, law-loving, self-controlled, cautious, not
very easily frightened, ready to lay wagers cheerfully on the issues
of life and death.  But the bread-winner will fight like a wild beast
in defence of his wife and his children.  The coinage was
discredited, Brand's labour money might become waste paper.


"Get food while money still has power to buy!"


The rich besieged the banks, and prosperous people bought loads of
provisions for cash, not caring what they paid.  The shops of the
butchers, grocers, and bakers were thronged with customers begging to
be served.  Still there was decency and order, a cheery confidence
that the storm would pass, and the taking of heavy odds against
Lyonesse.


"Brand's private yacht has defeated three destroyers."


Etheric power!  These people had been familiar with Brand's ships for
years, bolts of wrought steel, propelled by etheric engines, which
could flash through high space at two hundred miles an hour.  They
were not armed, but suppose that he used them as rams against the
fragile, electric battle fleets?  Lord Ulster had levied war against
etheric power!


Then men went mad.  In the rush for food women were crushed to death,
and many persons who had secured provisions, were set upon and robbed
by criminals.  Shops were plundered, armouries were sacked, the
police were overwhelmed.  Then aerial destroyers fired on the mob.

Sweeping away all values attached to money, with every hour the
stress of panic spread.  A coinage is only the small change of trade,
but with its failure all belief in bonds and promises, all savings,
all investments were dishonoured.  The rich were bankrupted, the poor
thrown out of work, the shops were closed, traffic was suspended,
private and public credit alike were shattered.  By the third day the
Government of the Commonwealth had fallen, and men went armed to
guard their families.

At the first motion of the storm, the Australasian bankers sent out
their plea for help.  The Phillipines and Japan were already
appealing, and the cry of the islands awakened Asia.  But there was
no help.  Bravely the Chinese merchants faced the crisis when their
time was come, and honourably met their obligations.  Malaya
awakened, Burmah, India, Persia, Siberia were swept from end to end;
and so in the wake of the sun the storm swept on, travelling at a
thousand miles an hour, gathering momentum every moment until it fell
like the crash of doom along the length of Africa, across the breadth
of Europe.

The break of day found Europe under arms, the aerial fleets on
patrol, troops holding the towns.  The exchanges, banks, and
provision stores were attacked, the doors of them sealed and under
guard of sentries.  No work could be done, no wage could be earned,
traffic ceased, the channels of news were closed.  The world-storm
struck the East with a fever, a raving delirium, the West with
paralysis.  In Russia, Germany, and France there began from that time
a condition of living death, and afterwards in many a muddy street
guardsmen who visited Berlin, saw crops of grass.

On that first day the storm went roaring by leaving Europe shaken,
and striking the coasts of America in the full height of its fury.
However sound its finance, no nation can stand alone, and in the
general bankruptcy of all the world, the great Republic fell.  They
say that the new metropolis on Manhattan Island is even more
stupendous than that which was burned, but still in the negro states
of the Mississippi, the ploughs are driven through fields of human
bones, and some of the Mexican silver mines are walled up for fear of
pestilence.

It is curious to remember how quiet was London on that first day of
the Terror.  Here was the calm tract in the centre and vortex of the
cyclone.

Wisely the Parliament had declared a Bank Holiday.  Places of
business were closed, the traffic had an easy holiday gait, the parks
were thronged, and even the public meetings were not stormy.

In the fortified Palace our Lady's servants had time to sleep after a
hard night's work.  Her Majesty was not seen, Mr. Brand was supposed
to be transacting business in his office in the east front.  Prince
Ali was a prisoner in the guard-room, charged with treason.  My Lord
Sydney walked in the stable court with Mr. Browne.  Some rumours went
about that the captain of the Bodyguard, His Royal Highness the Duke
of Gloucester, had a letter from the Dictator.  Another rumour was
spread that nearly all Mr. Brand's ships had been captured.  Lying in
various cities throughout the world, to receive and discharge their
cargo, more than a hundred of these vessels had been arrested on
behalf of the Government.  Still the yacht, _Mary Rose_, hung
glittering in the heavens like a star, and by aerial telegraph kept
the master in contact with affairs.

Late in the afternoon a drenching shower of rain burst over London,
with one great ringing peal of thunder.

Miss Temple would have us believe that this was the last trumpet
sounding the call to judgment.

The Russian papers were now in all men's hands that they might
consider her Majesty's quarrel, also Brand's proposals were known,
and how his gift was withheld from reaching the people.  And it was
well understood that the Parliament, in fighting Brand, had caused
all the money in the world to be dishonoured, so that neither the
currency of the nations nor that of Lyonesse could be accepted as any
measure of value.  The leaders of public opinion, journals, clubs,
societies, cities, fortresses, and colonies throughout the Empire
were hourly declaring for the Queen.

The rich were on the Duke of Ulster's side, scouting the idea that he
had betrayed us to Russia.  The poor were with the Queen and
Lyonesse.  On the whole the fleets and armies obeyed the departments
as usual; but rather than attack our Lady, or slaughter their
countrymen, soldiers and sailors alike were ripe for mutiny.

Ulster was innocent until his guilt was proved; the nation wanted,
even for him, fair play, a trial at law.  We islanders are slow to
kindle, and neither party desired civil war.  So the day closed.

But with the second day, all England knew that trial at law was
denied us, or even trial by battle.  The deadlock remained and was
forgotten.  For how could any man remember that the Empire was
betrayed, or so much as think of internecine war amid that beggary of
the human Race?  That was not to be salved by public holidays, or
cured by politics, or stayed by war.  The first necessity of life is
food, and a merchant will not part with his good provisions for any
quantity of bogus money.

At first we were all quite confused, storming the banking houses,
which solemnly dealt out waste coin and waste paper to hungry
customers.  Or we thought to rescue our invested savings, and our
stock-brokers screamed themselves hoarse trying to sell out shares in
mines gone bankrupt, or the bonds of governments already fallen.  We
had nothing to sell but pieces of paper; we got their exact value
back in scraps of paper.  We began to understand that we were ruined.

There was no money.  People came to the railway stations offering
jewels or watches to pay their fares out of London.  Then the trains
stopped running, and they were rich who had yachts or carriages to
make their escape to the country.  From noon on the second day to the
evening of the third, some thirty hours, the main roads were crowded
with fugitives, and when some broken carriages blocked the way, the
lanes on either side were overrun.  Long afterwards the roads to the
country were littered with the wreckage of that flight, in wagons
overturned, in piles of broken furniture, in baggage thrown away, and
household treasures, or here and there some shattered, trampled body
of a man.

And the poor remained in London.

Now we had come face to face with the first law, "Adapt yourselves or
die."  Some of us adapted ourselves to the new conditions, but for
those who failed----  A few days later one began to notice a faint,
sickly smell in the streets, and when the air was still, a thin,
white mist hanging above the roofs.  This bred the pestilence.  For
there was famine such as had never been known in human annals, famine
in the midst of a great abundance.

It must not be thought that there was any lack of food either in
London or the provinces.  Brand had seen to it.

At the beginning many families laid in stores of victuals, filled
their water tanks, fortified their homes, and gallantly defended
themselves by force of arms.  The big employers kept their servants
alive by daily issue of rations, and that long after they suspended
work.  The Government issued free rations for all those who were
strong enough to fight their way to the depôts, and get off home
again without being killed.  The farmers and fishermen brought in
supplies which they traded for works of art and precious merchandise,
for land and houses.  These men became very rich.

There was plenty of food, but after the Government fell three-fifths
of the whole supply was lost by pillage and burning.  The fire
brigade was helpless for lack of water; the police and the troops
were withdrawn, dispersed, or massacred.

We were reduced to the strangest shifts and expedients for money.
Coins passed according to size and weight, as pence, halfpence and
farthings.  Thus, four sovereigns made an ounce, or penny, which
would buy a small roll of bread.  Ounces of tobacco, brass checks
representing goods in storage, medals, gems, blankets, were common
tokens of barter.  A revolver cartridge would buy four ounces of meat.

We lacked one old resource of former troubles--horseflesh.  There
were a few horses owned by rich men; but motor carriages did all the
traction, and one cannot eat dynamos.  It was curious, too, that
panic of the naturalists concerning the Zoological Gardens.  Many of
the animals condemned for soup--the lions and tigers, for instance,
were the last surviving examples of species and orders now wholly
extinct.  Thousands of starved Londoners protested concerning the
lions--the British Lions.

Twenty years have gone by since then, and God has touched our hair
with silver in token of the eternal peace to come.  And still in the
deeps of the night the memory breaks into our dreams, and lifts us
broad awake with a scream of horror.  Yet, would we part with that
dread remembrance?  No, not for worlds!

How sweet it is in memory once again, to walk those old streets of
the lost Capital, to see once more the faces of that time, of men
brought near to Heaven in their pain, of women glorified by
suffering, and little children waiting patiently for the end.  We
never hoped to live, we rarely cared, for hope was dead in many a
smiling face.  Fear was dead, too; there was nothing to be afraid of,
except life.  Men spoke very gently when they met, women would purse
their lips and hurry on.  One got so used and inured to horrors that
the environment of death was no more to be thought of than the air we
breathed.

One saw so many deeds of sacrifice, so many saintly and heroic
actions, that these made the framework to one's thoughts of life.

So is the memory sweet of those embittered days when, grim confused
wars racked all the peoples of the earth; those days of famine,
pillage, massacre, of wasting pestilence, and flaming desolation.
Heaven and hell were opened, but men looked upward.




XII

THE THIRD DAY

On the third day the Primate called the whole nation to fasting,
humiliation, and prayer.  At St. Paul's Cathedral the Litany was to
be read; and when the great bell began to toll his minutes over the
Capital our Lady said she would attend that service.

For by this time the press had spoken in no uncertain voice.  A
newspaper is, indeed, like a lens, a burning glass condensing the
thought of the people into one clear flame of utterance.

The clear flame had fallen upon the Lord Protector and his
Parliament, the nation waited for the Queen to strike, and she did
well to trust the poor who loved her.

So, dressed in deep mourning, and attended only by Miss Temple, our
Lady drove out through the gates in an open carriage.  She would have
no bodyguard, save in the protection of the mob.  The troops cheered
as they opened their lines for her passage, men came uncovered, and
begged leave to draw her carriage, and all through the streets she
was guarded by crowds of men with a great deal of noise, but much
besides of loving reverence.

An attempt to arrest our Lady would have led to grievous trouble for
the Government, for the Dictator's writ had little meaning now, and
for the moment it seemed that his rule was come to an end.  Without
attracting notice, Brand's yacht followed Margaret to St. Paul's.


He sat alone in his office behind the darkened, barricaded windows.
A pocket aerograph clicked on the desk before him, message after
message flashed down from the yacht by his secretaries, and at times,
with the little key throbbing under his finger, he sent instructions
back.

Nearly all his ships were captured now, Lyonesse had fallen, and yet
he must wait, guarding the sacred person of the Queen until the time
was ripe, until the nation called him to strike the Dictator down.
He must be ready when the moment came, he must have the full support
of the Imperial Fleets, the Armies, the departments, the people's
trusted leaders, the functions of the whole administration.  The new
Government must date from Ulster's fall, leaving no instant of doubt,
of anarchy, and, above all, this must be Margaret's Government, no
froth upon the waves of revolution.  There must be no cry in the
streets of Brand's Dictatorship, or any mention of himself at all.
His portion was with the ships and factories.  But it was hard to
wait while his ships were captured, his factories despoiled, his good
name marred by this reluctant, torturing, agonizing silence.

He closed the instrument, and lying back in his chair, remained in
thought.  These three days had sprinkled his hair with silver, aged
his strong face, added to the rough power of the man something of
majesty, and there came into his eyes a light that had never shown
until he knew the Queen.  The vision of her arose before him now, her
voice seemed to ring through the quiet room, and his heart went out
to her in desire.

Who was he that he should dare to love this child of mail-clad Kings,
this mighty Empress in whose august name the very skies were
governed, and the sea, and realms and continents of men within the
limits of the British Peace?  He was a commoner, a tradesman, and yet
no difference of rank or station, of wealth or power, eminence,
faith, enlightenment, has ever set boundaries to human love.  'Tis
the man and the woman who mate, not their condition.  Had he not seen
the evidence of love in Margaret's face?  And to win her he must
conquer the whole world.

But he was presently aroused from his enchantment.  Already some one
had knocked at the door unnoticed, and now, while with clasped hands
he sat before the table, and with uplifted eyes gazed on his mental
vision of the Queen, there was a visitor standing within the room.
Dimly aware of some impending peril, Brand turned round to find a
stranger bowing apologies, a gentleman in civilian dress, yet wearing
a turban of banded green and gold, an Oriental, haughty, yet in some
queer way, servile.

"You are Prince Ali?" he asked.

"At your service, yes."

"Escaped from the guard-room?"

Prince Ali put a bolder face on his intrusion, went to a chair by the
wall, sat down and crossed his legs.

"Before you ring for my guards," he explained, "I have business with
you."

Brand smiled at the man's audacity.

"Of course,"--his Highness lighted a cigarette--"you share our common
sorrow at this grave crisis?"

"No, sir, we have nothing in common."

"I observe," the Prince laughed, "that the sea-eagle wastes few
regrets over a panic of gulls."

"Am I to be one of your eagles, or one of your gulls, Prince Ali?"

"Of the gulls?  No."  He shrugged his shoulder.  "You are King of the
air, as I am of India!"

"I supposed," said Brand, gravely, "that her Majesty was Empress of
India."

"Was Empress, yes.  I see we understand one another."

"I think, my dear Prince, that I follow your meaning.  So India finds
her opportunity in this crisis?  May I venture to ask if you speak on
behalf of Russia?"

"I speak," said the other, haughtily, "for India.  I speak for the
India which has waited ever since 1857."

"For a repetition of the artillery salutes fired by the British in
1858?"

Ali's face darkened with sudden passion.  "Your tact, Mr. Brand, is
most English.  Yes, I have the honour to speak for the India which
has waited since the artillery salutes of 1858."

"And how am I to serve you?"

"I come, Mr. Brand, to the future Dictator of the world, not to ask
favours, but to confer them."

"Indeed, you are too kind.  Go on, sir."

"I must warn you first that Lyonesse has been captured."

"You don't say so."

"Also that all your ships are taken, save two which are homeward
bound, and will be secured on their arrival.  Your yacht has gone to
the city to guard the ex-Queen.  You are helpless in the hands of
your enemies.  I have come to save you."

"Indeed."  Brand reached forward across the desk, and touched an
electric bell.  "How you escaped from the guard, I don't quite know,"
he said; "I have rung to inquire."

"Very good," Prince Ali laughed.  "I was released and sent here by
the Lord Protector's agent, the Duke of Gloucester."

"Really," said Brand, sarcastically; "any further revelations?"

"Yes.  The price which Ulster pays for your body, the price he pays
to Gloucester, is the throne--the throne of the Empire!"

"Anything more?"

"At all hazards I came to warn you of this trap, and you walk blindly
into it.  That bell condemns you to death!  Quick,"--Prince Ali
started to his feet--"there may be time.  At the end of this corridor
there's a door to the upper terrace--when your yacht comes back you
can signal.  I can save you yet!"

"Your price?"

"India."

"Sit down, Prince Ali, sit down, I say!  Listen to me," said the
master, "you first betrayed poor Ulster to the Russians.  Then you
betrayed the Queen by this intrigue.  Now you would betray the
Dictator to me--in order that you may betray your sovereign again, by
seizing India.  I may have lost my city, my lands and factories, my
ships--all that I had, and be here, helpless, at Ulster's mercy."

He looked up at the windows with their loopholed barricades, swung
round to face the door from which there was no escape, then turned on
Ali of Haidar.

"By the living God, I swear," he cried, "that within a month I'll
have you blown from your own guns at the gates of Delhi!"

Rising from his chair, he seized the aerograph and signalled to his
yacht for instant succour.

"Die, then!" said the Prince; "here's the death of a dog for you!"

He clapped his hands as though in the Eastern manner calling a
servant.  Then the door swung open and Gloucester, Captain of the
Guard, strode into the room.

He seemed astonished, this old, grizzled soldier--over-astonished.

"Trooper Ali!"

The trooper rose and saluted.

"Who let you out of the guard-room?"

The trooper turned his slow gaze on Brand, and Gloucester, following
the direction of his eyes--

"Mr. Brand," he cried, "have you harboured this prisoner?"

Now, Brand was sitting with the aerograph upon his knee signalling
rapidly for help.  Gloucester's very presence was ignored by this
commoner.

"Mr. Brand!"  He spoke imperatively.  "Mr. Brand!"

The master glanced up with one eye.  "Well," he asked.  "What's the
matter with you?"

"You forget yourself!"

"Not at all.  I observe that Prince Ali claps his hands to call a
servant.  The servant appears, and does well to stand awaiting my
orders.  You may go."  Brand dearly loved a fight.

The Duke flushed scarlet.  "Sir, you insult me!"

"If it is possible," said Brand.  "Were you listening outside, or did
you wear felt slippers?  I should have heard you in that paved
corridor."

The Duke struck Brand across the face.  The American remained
perfectly still in his seat, laughing slightly, but otherwise unmoved.

"Thank you," he said; "exactly what I wanted.  Shall it be swords or
revolvers?"

"This is ridiculous; I cannot stoop to fight a commoner."

"Your Royal Highness prefers to be publicly thrashed?"

"I am commandant of this fortress!"

"Of course," said the master, quietly; "so you struck the Queen's
guest."

"You are my prisoner!"

"Well," Brand laughed, "that gets you off all right--don't have to
fight when you're frightened."

The Duke was beside himself with rage.  "Now you're trying to back
out!  You shall fight me, sir!  You shall fight!"

Mr. Brand rose.  "Then," he said, "name your weapons."

So Gloucester, instead of delivering Brand a prisoner to the Lord
Protector, must give the delay and the courtesies of a duel.

But Prince Ali understood.  "Allow me," he said graciously; "sir, as
a witness to this quarrel, may I venture----"

"Well, what have you got to say?"  Gloucester was on dangerous
ground, and seeing the position, the American intervened.  "Look
here, gentlemen, this situation is too damned delicate for a plain
man.  What passes between her Majesty's Commandant and a prisoner
charged with high treason--well, I'm not a party to the
conversation--so I'm going to clear out."

Gloucester shrank back aghast, for he saw that he had been entrapped
again by his antagonist.

"As Mr. Brand remarks," said Prince Ali, with a low bow, "we are both
prisoners, and her Majesty's command is that we must be delivered to
Lord Ulster."

Gloucester drew a deep breath of relief.  "Sir,"--he faced Mr.
Brand--"I shall be ready to meet you when you are free to fight.  For
the moment----"

He strode to the door, and gave a rapid command to his orderly, who
was waiting in the corridor.

He turned back again into the room, leaving the door wide open.

"I have summoned the main guard," he said.  "I shall deliver you
prisoner to the Lord Protector."

At this moment a shadow darkened the room, the light no longer
streamed through the loopholes of the barricades.  One would have
thought that a cloud had passed over the sun, but for a shrill
whistle sounding without, and a heavy clang of steel.

"Call the main guard," said the American, derisively.

With a deafening crash the barricades which filled the window fell
down in splintered masses to the floor.  Outside lay the great steel
hull of the _Mary Rose_, the doors in her side flung open, her
gangway lowered upon the balcony.  Upon the gangway were a company of
sailors grounding a heavy beam, with which they had forced the
window.  An officer brought them to the salute with drawn cutlasses.

"Now, Duke," said Brand, "hand over your sword."

But even while he spoke there came a rush of men at the double,
troopers of the guard, who presently formed up within the room.

"Surrender your yacht," cried Gloucester.  "She is commanded with
machine guns from every salient of the main front."

"At the first shot," said Brand, "I shall blow up every cartridge in
the Palace, and explode every loaded gun.  Call your Guardsmen to lay
down their carbines, lest they be blown to pieces."

Gloucester laughed at the threat, but Trooper Lord Sydney stood
forward at the salute.

"Sir, Mr. Brand speaks the truth.  He released me from gaol by this
mysterious power of the ship."

Through the silence which followed there came a burst of cheering,
the noise of a multitude of people who were attending her Majesty
from St. Paul's Cathedral.

"Your Royal Highness," said Brand; "you found me closeted with Prince
Ali.  You charge me with treason against our Lady?"

"Yes."

"To our Lady, and to her only, will I yield myself prisoner."

The Duke flushed at the generosity which saved him from exposure as
Ulster's agent.  He bowed in assent and remained silent.

"If a man moves without my consent," said the American, "I shall
destroy the Palace.  But you may send one messenger to the Queen."

A messenger was sent, who presently came to her Majesty, finding her
hurt and angry that the main guard should not be in attendance to
give her welcome.

But before she appeared, Mr. Brand walked to the gangway of the yacht
and in a low voice bade her commander await further orders at Tower
Hill.  Turning, he came back to his place in the middle of the room.

Her Majesty stood in the doorway, and to her the Duke of Gloucester
made his accusation against the Master of Lyonesse, telling how he
had been found in privacy with Prince Ali of Haidar, and how he had
resisted arrest until she came.

Mr. Brand walked with bowed head to the Queen, and kneeling upon one
knee, looked up in her face.

"My Queen," he murmured, his voice inaudible to all but her.  "I am
plotting to outwit a deeper treachery.  Let me be prisoner here with
a trusted man to guard me until you can come to-night.  Send
overtures to Ulster, and promise to hand me over."

"How can I believe you?" said the Queen, but her speech lacked force.
How could she even pretend to distrust Brand now!

"Oh, play the part," he whispered, "so much depends."

"You have deceived me, I cannot trust you."  But her voice was only a
murmur without force.

"Oh, be stronger, be stronger," he pleaded, seizing her hand.

"I will not hear another word," she cried.

"You shall, you shall."  His voice rose high in supplication.  "You
must hear me before it is too late."

She drew back astonished, but could not find another word to say.

"Oh, be brave, little Queen," he whispered, passionately kissing her
hand.

"Gloucester!" Margaret called across the room; "hold Mr. Brand a
prisoner here in this room.  Let nobody come near or speak to him.
Put a trustworthy man here to guard him."

The Duke selected a man, his own orderly, but the Queen looked from
face to face until she saw one that she fully trusted.

"Lancaster!"

Tom of Lancaster stood forward at the salute.

"I place you on guard," said the Queen.

Then Mr. Brand went over to Lord Sydney.  "Gloucester is disloyal,"
he whispered, "guard the Queen."

Suddenly her Majesty gave a startled cry.  "You said Prince Ali was
here with Mr. Brand.  Where is Prince Ali?"

Under cover of the general confusion Prince Ali had escaped from the
Palace.




XIII

THE QUEEN'S MESSENGER

Mr. Brand was seated at the office desk, his hands clasped before him
as though in prayer.  A sentry paced slowly up and down in the
corridor, another trooper stood with carbine at support upon the
balcony.

Presently Mr. Brand rose, and walked slowly across the room towards
the window, whereupon his warder turned with a startled gesture.  The
prisoner saw that he was but a lad, shy and comely.

"Don't be uneasy," said Mr. Brand; "I give you my parole not to
attempt escape."

"You'd better not," remarked the sentry; "I'd like the chance of a
shot."

"Large game, eh?"

"Rather!"

"Don't you wish you were out there, fighting the rioters?"

"I don't fancy battues," drawled the trooper; "but you're game, and
in season."

"The Palace seems quite unguarded now.  All the troops are gone."

"Two squadrons of the Guard are quite enough," said the sentry, "even
to hold John Brand."

"So you think I'm guilty."

"Yes, sir."

"Even before the trial?"

"I beg your pardon, Mr. Brand.  But if you are guilty I hope I'll be
in the firing party."

"It is good," said the prisoner, gravely; "that the Queen has loyal
men.  If the Queen finds me guilty, I shall beg you may be one of the
firing party."

"Thanks, awfully," said the sentry.  "But if you don't mind, I shall
get into trouble if I'm caught talking."

"One word more.  May I know your name.  In case----"

"Lancaster," said the sentry.

"Lancaster," muttered the prisoner, with a slight lift of one eyebrow
as he turned back towards his chair.

"Would you like the window shut?"

"Thank you, sir," said Brand, and he fell to thinking.

Midnight was striking when he was suddenly aroused by the Queen's
presence.  The flutter of her draperies, the scent of roses, the
sight of her swift grace caught at his senses.  The piercing
sweetness of her seized at his heart, arrested his breath--and then
the touch of her hand upon his shoulder kept him from rising.

"Is it true?" she cried to him under her breath.  "Is it true?  Lord
Sydney tells me that if you had stayed in your yacht, gathered your
ships, fought the Fleet, hanged the Lord Protector----"

"And been a traitor, eh?" he continued, smiling.

"You could have conquered the world?"

"Yes, I suppose so."  He rattled the handcuffs which bound his
wrists, and laughed.  "Of course I could--oh, any time these ten
years past until I became the Queen's prisoner.  Conquered the world?
What was the good of that?"

"And you a prisoner!"

Hurriedly she unlocked the handcuffs and released him, then as he
rose and stretched his cramped arms--

"You are my world," he laughed.  "A woman's love is all the world to
a man.  Do you want the earth?  I'll conquer that and lay it at your
feet, if you'll only let me feel the touch of your hand again.  And
now you're angry!  You were just as angry the first time we met, and
the second time, and the third--you looked most glorious of all that
third time!  Warn Margaret of danger and she gets furious, the
greater the peril the more royal her rage--the fighting blood all
roused before I can speak of peril.  What man ever had the courage of
the Queen?"

"Oh!" she laughed, trying to rub away the sudden flush with her white
fingers.  "Everything's so different now.  Tell me."

"The same rose, the same thorns--I daren't!"

"Oh, please tell me."

"There's treason inside the Palace."

"Oh, surely not!"

"The Lord Protector has bribed the Captain of the Guard."

"Gloucester?  Impossible!"

"He has been offered the throne."

"Oh, think of what you are saying!  My own dear cousin, my friend."

"He released Prince Ali, sent him to trap me into some avowal of
treason.  He was actually listening outside the door.  He tried to
hand me over to Ulster."

"And that's why I found the main guard here in this room.  And Prince
Ali's escape!"  Margaret sank into a chair, her white lips drawn with
pain.  "Guilty," she murmured.  "Guilty!  Oh, thank God that you are
not condemned to this throne.  The lessons are so hard to learn--so
hard!  The Queen must never believe in anybody, she must never even
have a friend, she must be all alone in the world.  Yet,"--she looked
with troubled eyes at his face--"I must believe in some one, or go
mad.  I cannot bear this solitude, this lonely state, this majesty of
pain.  I'm only a poor girl robbed of all I love."

His hand stole out and rested tenderly on hers.  "Poor child," he
whispered.

"Yes, I was wrong,"--her eyes were misty with tears.  "Yes, I believe
in you, dear friend.  When you pray will you remember Margaret?"

Oh, Hands of God, deal with her tenderly!  So we prayed for Margaret
in those days, when Hands of white flame were burning the evil out of
us all, guiding us towards the end.  One must be brave to follow
where God leads, patient to recognize Him in our agony, faithful to
know that pain is the Gate of Heaven.

"I will remember Margaret," said Brand; "and if you need a friend,
there is Sydney.  You will trust Sydney?"

"Ulster's son!"

"Yes," he said, thinking aloud.  "I doubt if there is another man now
living who would come stainless through a trial like his.  To save
his country he sacrificed his own father, he threw away the
reputation of his house, his personal self-respect, his wealth, his
career, everything he valued, everything he hoped for.  He struck the
first blow to save the Empire--and I know how he counted the cost.
The events of this time will never be forgotten while the earth
lasts, and when our descendants want a new proverb of manhood,
they'll swear by Sydney's honour."

"I'm glad to hear you speak like that," said Margaret.

"And when I am gone you'll depend on him for advice."

"When you have gone!  You're not going to leave me!"

"Yes.  Your only danger is that you shelter me.  The people are on
your side, and Ulster dare not attack you."

"He sent envoys to-day."  The Queen looked down at her foot, which
made little lines to and fro.  "If I would only listen," she said,
"to my loyal advisers, the slanders against him could be easily
disproved.  Public confidence would be restored.  Parliament would
cancel the Act of Deposition, and everything would be lovely, and
please would I send Mr. Brand away."

"You promised to hand me over as I said?"

"Yes, as you said."

"You will be safe."

"But the Grand Duke Alexander has arrived.  He's in the Palace now.
Oh, I'm so frightened.  Don't leave me to him!"

"Keep him in the Palace, Ulster will wait, hoping for the Russian
Alliance.  Russia will wait, hoping for the treaty.  Keep them
waiting, keep them expectant, but sign nothing, promise nothing, and
fear nothing.  I'm a prisoner for conspiracy with Prince Ali.  I
escape, but that's not the fault of the Queen.  I make war with the
Dictator, but he cannot blame the Queen."

"Oh, don't leave me!  Don't desert me!"

"If I stay here much longer there's no hope left.  Because I could
not go out to fight him, he captured Lyonesse and all my ships.
He'll have the yacht next."

"Take me away in the yacht."

"Then what becomes of the public confidence?  The people would cry
that you had deserted them; they would overwhelm the Government--then
chaos!  The Queen's place is here, setting an example of unflinching
courage to all her people."

"But can't you capture the Dictator, and seize the Government now?"

"With one yacht?"

Margaret's eyes were dark with horror.  "Too late!"

"Outside this room I am an outlaw and a fugitive, hunted like a wolf.
I dare not even call my yacht lest the Queen should be compromised
and attacked.  I must go to Tower Hill and signal the _Mary Rose_."

"And you have lost everything in guarding me."

"What was there to fight for if the Queen were lost?  I stayed until
I could leave you secure.  Now I must fight."  He took the aerograph
from the desk.  "So far as I can see the Queen is safe, and yet--I
will leave you this instrument.  If ever you are in danger, release
this key and touch it so--three sharp strokes repeated again and
again.  The signal shall be forwarded by my London agents, and the
answer will be four double strokes."

"And you will come?"

"Instantly."

"Mr. Brand, I want to send Gloucester away.  He's dangerous."

"Then have him closely watched.  Enemies are invaluable, for their
every movement is an index of danger to be overcome.  Send Gloucester
away, and at once the enemy is warned of your policy.  That would be
fatal."

"Forgive me, dear friend,"--Margaret hid her white face in her hands
trying to stop the tears--"I have been such a coward while you are so
brave!  Yes, I will stay as a woman always must, while the men go out
to fight."

"And after this," he said, wistfully; "knowing how weak I am for the
Queen's defence, you will still depend on me, still trust me?"

She threw her head back, gazing upon him steadfastly for a minute,
her eyes half closed.

"I must be a fool," she said, between tears and a terrible
broken-hearted laughter.  "You came to me and talked about things I
don't understand, can't understand, don't want to understand.  I only
believe!  I was an Empress, you were Mr. Brand--now you're the wind,
and I'm a leaf in autumn.  Trust you?  Depend on you?  Yes, I do!"
Her face became radiant, her eyes full of light.  "You serve me
through disgrace and outlawry, you're ruined like I am, fallen, a
broken man, and yet stronger, greater than ever, because nothing can
frighten you.  Don't look at me--your eyes fascinate me--I hardly
know what I'm saying----" she reached out her arms to him.  "I am
become blind, led only by your eyes.  Go and save England!"

The room was nearly dark, for only a small lamp burned dimly on the
desk, but now a great red glare came in through the window space, and
shone in flickering radiance on the wall.  Out of the distance rose
an awful murmur, the swelling volume of harsh-throated riot, the
crackle of musketry, the shouts of men.

"Mr. Brand," said the Queen, "I dare not let you go.  The streets are
dangerous, you never could reach the Tower."

"I must go disguised."

"What disguise could save you?  Ah, yes--I see--the officers of my
Guard.  They can go any where!"

"Give me a strong horse, Queen, and the uniform of an officer of the
Guard."

"An officer can't ride, Mr. Brand, without an orderly."

"Give me that lad outside the window there.  I like him."

"My cousin, the Duke of Lancaster," said the Queen.  "You have chosen
well.  Bring him here, Mr. Brand."

The American crossed the room, opened the window, and summoned the
sentry, who made his salute to the Queen.

"Tom," said our Lady, "do you love me?"

He knelt and kissed her hand.  "Quick, Tom," said the Queen.  "Order
two horses, the best we have, and bring an officer's harness for Mr.
Brand, use this,"--she gave him her signet ring.  "Take brevet rank
as subaltern, and if you live, I'll confirm it.  Now run!"

His Royal Highness looked sideways at the American, then sideways at
the Queen, then, with a malicious understanding chuckle, was gone
like a flash.

The Queen sat thinking.  "There is danger still," she said presently.
"The destroyers are patrolling everywhere, and your yacht on her way
to the Tower was chased by the Channel Fleet just come from
Portsmouth.  Instead of running, she rose up high, soaring miles into
the air.  The Fleet could not follow because no man could breathe up
yonder.  But they say the yacht must come down, so they have
scattered out to watch.  Must she come down?"

"Not till I want her."

"What are your plans?" she asked presently.

"To get the yacht," he answered, "bring the Fleet to terms, recapture
Lyonesse, collect my squadron, find my Ministers of State, and weld
them into a strong Cabinet.  Then I hope to hang Ulster, seize the
departments, set up the Queen's provisional Government, call a
General Election, and declare war with the Allies.  Meanwhile the
Queen must keep our enemies amused."

"But if you die in the Queen's service?"

He laughed.  "They'll throw my body into a ditch and cry, 'So perish
all the Queen's enemies!'"

Turning to the table she wrote upon a slip of paper--

      "The bearer is my Messenger.
                              "Margaret R.I."


"Kneel," she said, gravely, and he bent his knee to the ground.
"This is a token of our love and trust."

He glanced at the paper.  "I can't take that, dear Queen.  It might
compromise you; it's too dangerous."  He would have risen.

"No, don't get up yet."

The Duke of Lancaster had come in bearing a suit of armour and a
cloak.

"Give me your sword, Tom."

The soldier bent his knee and presented the hilt.

"Now," she stood up waving the sword lightly above the master's head,
"will you be my true knight?"

The master sank down on both knees, and lifted up his clasped hands.

"Rise," cried the Queen, striking the accolade on his shoulder.  "You
are too great for any poor titles or dignities of my chivalry, but be
my friend, Mr. Brand, and put on the harness of my knights.  Staunch
champion," her voice broke, "true, loyal friend, there's nothing left
for the Queen to do but pray.  God save you this wild night, God save
and keep you in this fearful war."

He kissed her outstretched hand.  "Good-bye, my Queen."

"Good-bye, my champion.  Good-bye until we meet in happier times."

And so she swept from the room, and the Guardsman in the corridor who
followed at her signal saw that the Queen was crying.

Lancaster served Mr. Brand as squire, assisting him while he changed
his civilian clothes for the gold harness and scarlet cloak of an
officer of the Guard, the only dress which would give him even a
moderate degree of safety in the streets of the town.  Brand made not
the least pretence to a military bearing, but he was an athlete in
habit, and the harness fitted him well.  He was thinking too intently
to be awkward or self-conscious in disguise, and when at last the
trooper brought a big, black stallion into the courtyard, he swung
into the saddle with the ease of a horseman.  The Prince was less
suspicious at the sight of horsemanship.

"Now can you get me a strong lantern?"

Lord Lancaster ran into the Palace, and for a minute the master sat
curbing the black stallion, who danced polka movements, uneasy at the
delay.

Just before Lord Lancaster came back, a window opened far up in the
courtyard wall.  Then a white handkerchief fluttered softly down like
a snowflake.  The master rode forward and caught and fastened it to
the front of his helmet.

"Are you ready, sir?" cried Lancaster.

"God save the Queen," said Brand, and they rode out under the archway.

The Queen's ring passed them through the gates, and breaking into a
canter side by side, the horsemen swung round the east wing out into
the Mall.

The clocks were striking two as they traversed the spacious avenue,
now dark and silent.

"Do you still want to shoot me, sir?" asked Brand.

"Drop that '_sir_'," answered the young Prince.  "It sounds absurd
from you.  Call me Lancaster.  Forget that nonsense I talked.  She
trusts you.  That's good enough for me."

Abreast of Marlborough House the horses shied violently passing the
body of a murdered woman.  She lay in her white evening dress, her
fair face streaked with blood, and the jewels had been wrenched from
her hair and neck.

"That's Mrs. Osbourne," said the trooper, bending down; "I knew her,
poor soul."

Just beyond stood her carriage, the chauffeur murdered in his seat,
and close beside in the gutter lay some poor rioter who had ceased to
starve.

They rode on in silence to the end of that moonlit solitude, and were
passing the north edge of the Horse Guards Parade, still under the
spell of horror, when a cloud passed across the moon.

"What's that?" cried Lancaster.

Brand looked up, relieved at any interruption to his thoughts.  "Only
a destroyer cruising--on patrol, I suppose, to keep order."

"Unless," said the trooper, "we're followed."

"An officer and a trooper of the Guard--nonsense!"

"Unless Prince Ali----"

"I see.  He would warn the Government to expect my escape.  So.  This
destroyer may think we're chasing Mr. Brand to Tower Hill."

"She's following, anyway."

"We'll have to call her presently to help us."  The master laughed,
drawing his cloak about him.

They were in Trafalgar Square now, skirting the edge of a crowd of
starving trades unionists, who were easing their feelings with a
Republican demonstration.  London never dared to sleep in those first
nights of the peril.

"I wonder," said the master, as they rode past, "will history blame
me for that--thing--back there in the Mall?"  His lips were
quivering.  "Will history make me the murderer?"

"That depends," answered Lancaster, "on what history has to tell of
the war that's coming.  I wouldn't like to be your ghost if the
thing's a failure."

"And if it succeeds, Lancaster, will they make a picture of me among
the conquerors, with Alexander, Semiramis, Tamerlane, the Mogul,
Napoleon--riding through a lane of stark corpses, and millions and
millions of the accusing dead?"

"Wouldn't you rather be there than in a procession to the gallows?"

"I'd rather have the gallows, Lancaster."

The Strand was in darkness, and every theatre was closed.  Here and
there stood cars, derelict because the drivers had struck.  The
public houses had been closed by order.  Only the churches were open,
for although they could not be lighted, great congregations gathered
in these nights, for rest and consolation.  Indeed, for that relief,
even delicate women and children were willing to leave their
lightless, desolate homes, and face the risk of being robbed or
murdered in the by-ways.

The police patrolled in companies, while now and again came the tramp
of marching men, volunteers or special constables, called out to
confront some distant riot; but no man went abroad unarmed, and few
women except under escort.  There were not less than forty thousand
criminals at large in London, furtive as yet, rather than violent,
stealing enough food to prosper, while daily the desperation of the
poor added to their numbers, and their leaders grew more powerful and
more reckless.

In silence Brand and Lancaster rode on, turning now and again to
watch the aerial destroyer, which, beating to and fro in short
slants, was evidently keeping watch on their movements.  The moon
caught her gleaming aeroplanes at every ratch.  At any moment she
might call out with a request for instructions.  Perhaps some doubt
restrained her lest these men were not Guardsmen, but fugitives
despite their horses and their harness.  But, however carefully she
might have watched for the master of Lyonesse, however certain it
might be that he would head for a rendezvous with the yacht, a
mistake would endanger the new compact between Queen and Government.
Her Majesty's gentlemen of the Guard could not be insulted with
impunity.

"Shall we gallop?" asked Lancaster.

"No, slower if anything or they'll think we're running away."

So reining to a trot, they went along the Fleet Viaduct, with a
passing glance at some sudden riot running wild down in Farringdon
Street.  They skirted the south side of St. Paul's, and traversed
Cannon Street.  But then, instead of turning off towards London
Bridge, they plunged down the hill by the Monument into the cobbled
alley of Lower Thames Street.  The destroyer must have seen that they
were actually bound for the Tower, for now she whistled thrice.

"They think we're chasing Brand!" cried Lancaster, and waving his arm
signalled the destroyer to follow.

Ahead by the Billingsgate Market lay a fish van overturned, entirely
blocking the thoroughfares.  So they plunged up hill among lanes and
alleys, passing over the body of a murdered policeman, until they
emerged by an old church where the congregation was singing the
Litany, and came out upon the open space of Tower Hill.

"Give me the lantern," said Brand, as they swept down towards the
Tower Gate at a gallop.  "I'm going to signal my yacht."

"Then the destroyer will fire--she's close behind!"

"We must take the risk."

He drew rein, and flashed the strong light thrice across the sky.

The destroyer fired a warning shot, but again Mr. Brand flashed the
signal, and presently yet again.

"By George!" muttered Lancaster.  "We're done for now!"

"Lancaster," said the master, "is there any officer of the Guard at
all like me in appearance?"

"There's Captain Talbot, his gear exactly fits you."

"Good.  The destroyer will steer close down now.  Ride up to her, say
Captain Talbot sends you, that Brand's at the Palace, and we've used
his secret signal to lure the yacht.  The destroyer's to wait out of
sight until Captain Talbot gives orders to attack."

The trooper dashed away up the slope.

"When I raise my hand," the master shouted after him, "ride straight
for my yacht."

The warship was slanting down, she sheered barely clear of the
housetops, and then hung poised above the trees by the Tower moat.

And now drawing rein after a furious gallop, the trooper faced the
suspended warship, so close that his horse reared up in terror.

"Captain Talbot's compliments," he yelled.  "Help us to capture
Brand's yacht.  Lie low and wait!"

"Where's Mr. Brand?" cried the destroyer circling round the terrified
horse like an eagle round a mosquito, the faintest airs from the
river just whispering under her aeroplanes, and barely strong enough
to give her steerage way.

"Brand is in chains at the Palace!" the trooper yelled so that his
voice broke in a wail.  "Lie low and help us, we're luring the yacht
down with Brand's private signal.  Captain Talbot will give the order
to fire!"

But now the destroyer was so low between the buildings that she lost
the air and grounded.  It would take her three minutes to rise clear
again from the earth, and meanwhile she lay helpless on her keel
springs.

"Can't you put out those lights?" yelled the trooper.  He was
jubilant, for he had put the destroyer out of action.

Nobody knows what the destroyer thought, back there behind the trees
of the moat enclosure, but the Captain of the _Mary Rose_ spoke
afterwards as to the descent of the yacht.  She had been at a height
of five miles in the air when the electric lantern flashed the
summons upwards.  At the signal she simply dropped like a stone.  The
air roared round her like the deepening blast of a furnace; the
friction of the wind was actually making her sides red hot when she
slowed to a speed of ninety miles an hour.

She saw the lurking destroyer, she saw the whole starboard division
of the British Fleet swoop down out of the north, and knew that not a
ship would care to fire for fear of a resulting explosion which would
wreck the Tower of London.

She saw the solitary horseman flashing the lantern signal again and
again.  She knew that she might be trapped to destruction, yet
grudged the brakes which in the last two miles of air must be clapped
on full to prevent her being dashed to pieces on Tower Hill.  Down
she fell like a meteor out of heaven, slowed, jarred her brake,
jumped on the sharp recoil a hundred feet, then gently lowered her
torpedo-shaped steel hull until with a feathery lightness she touched
the pavement, and sent her drawbridge gangway clanging down.

Already the destroyer, alert for action, rose from behind the trees,
flashed out her vivid searchlight upon the yacht, and in that glare
confirmed her worst suspicions.  His golden harness glowing, his
black horse rearing and fighting the air, Brand lifted his arm as
though to stay the destroyer's fire from blasting him.

Lancaster, obedient to the signal, spurred down the hill at full
gallop.  He reached the gangway, charged straight up the slope, and
crouching down rode in through the open port.

Even before the master could follow, the destroyer lashed out with
her machine guns.

For a moment the yacht was lost to sight in a cloud of fire and
steel, but in the very midst of it, Lancaster ran down the slope of
the gangway, wrenched Brand from under his dying horse, and dragged
him back into shelter.  As the yacht's gangway crashed home the
destroyer passed overhead launching torpedoes.

The _Mary Rose_ swung as she lifted, crashing right through the
destroyer's fragile hull.  The magazine exploded into the great
hydrogen cylinder above; but Brand's yacht went on unscathed through
a sphere of flame, on into space, with wreckage and mangled bodies
streaming behind her.




XIV

THE STORY OF THE SHIPS

It is time now to tell the story of the ships, the genealogy of the
_Mary Rose_, the secret of Brand's aerial wars, and how the great
outlaw gained command of the air.

Down through the ages sweeps that Pageant of the Ships, with oar,
sail, steam, electric, etheric power, cleaving the centuries since
the world was young.

First come the oared Long Ships, the slave-manned galleys, the
argosies of the Phoenicians, the Greeks, of Carthage, Rome,
Byzantium, of Barbary, Norway, Venice, Genoa, Spain.  They are
human-wielded, sea-compelling engines.

Then come the Great Ships, the device of Henry VIII.  They shattered
the galleons of Spain, they wrecked the Dutch Republic, destroyed the
Empire of France, gave Britain the command of the sea.  They explored
the planet, they created the greater commerce.  They come under sail,
they need no slave-engines, these white-winged servants of the winds,
winged conquerors of all seas.

Then come the iron ships which laid the cables, peopled the lands,
and narrowed down the world into a house for man; the steel ships,
smoke-maned conquerors of both wind and sea, not man-driven galleys,
but steam-driven carriers, racing cities, and cruising fortresses.

They drove the white sails from the face of the sea, drove them to
refuge in the skies.  And so sweeps the majestic pageant of the ships
into the golden age of seamanship.  "There shall be no more sea," for
man has taken wings to cleave the air.  Poised on broad aeroplanes,
alive with power flashed to them through space, the aerial
battleships have claimed the very pathways of the eagles.  Rolling
down the cloud-seas come the snow-white, glittering giants of the
electric age, England's dread Channel Fleet, surely the last supreme
achievement of mankind.

And far aloft, attended by white cirrii, hangs one small star-like
speck in the blue zenith, an unarmed private yacht offering to meet
the entire navy of Britain and all the fleets of Europe in single
combat.

There is a legend of John Brand I., that wandering on the moors by
the Lands End, he came upon a dark and silent pool.  Being in an idle
mood he sat beside the bank throwing pebbles, and watched the little
ripples spread away over still water.  So the thought came to him of
those small innumerable waves which constantly spread away from the
earth's centre, the waves of gravitation.

Thinking profoundly he took a pebble in his hand.  What mighty chord
of the celestial music thrilled in that stone pulling it down to the
earth?  What was its chord of mass--how many millions of waves to the
second?  Perhaps a million vibrations.

Suppose then he made an engine which would sound that note exactly.
The stone would fall off the planet, be whirled into space!

Could he build a ship to carry such an engine, strike the great
chord, and hurl the vessel off among the stars?  Could he arrest its
flight, create the ship into a planet, free from the earth, and
driven at his will within the limits of the atmosphere?

A pebble thrown into still waters, a thought thrown from Heaven into
a clear mind, and ripples spreading down through history!  We all
know how Brand I. built the etheric ship, fighting his way through
the long silent years of galling poverty and majestic thought.  He
was a lad when he threw the pebble, an old man when he set the
engines in motion, sounded the chord of mass at last, lifted the ship
from the earth--then failed to arrest its motion.  In that strange
sepulchre his body rests, wandering down the starways, lost in the
depths of space, lighted by blazing suns, threading the
constellations for ever and ever.

John Brand II., the builder of Lyonesse, was more daring than his
father, and always more practical.  His etheric ship, _Mars_, was
brought under perfect control, and with Lock's propellor developed
undreamed-of speed.

The _Mars_ had a quality of attracting dust, drawing raindrops after
her, and even small birds.  Pebbles thrown from her port-holes would
not fall, but followed in the wake as satellites.  Her compass needle
pointed fore and aft indifferent to the magnetism of the earth.
About her hull strange wandering fires flickered and gleamed at
night, and in the cloud-fields as she passed above them, dull
thunders muttered, with tremulous lightnings.

It was an attempt upon his life by anarchists which drove Mr. Brand
II. to the idea of defence.  Like the stone spreading ripples on
still waters, his engines of the _Mars_ could send out waves into the
ether.  He surrounded the ship with a small sphere of electric
ripples, and high explosives are so sensitive to these vibrations
that no shell or torpedo could enter this field of tension without
being instantly disturbed.  So the _Mars_ was clothed with an
electric armour, and the steel planet became invulnerable.  And she
could attack, projecting her electric waves ten miles through space
to explode the cartridges carried by hostile troops, the ammunition
of attacking field guns, the magazines of fortresses and ships.

John Brand II. sent out his fleet as he sent out his gold to serve
mankind in the quiet channels of commerce.  The engineers and
captains of Lyonesse grew old in his service, and never knew the
secret of the ships, their fearful powers as applied to war.  John
Brand III. reigned in his father's stead, and still the planets
served as merchantmen, and the lightnings slept in their engines.  No
man had ever seen etheric power in action, no man, save Brand, could
wield the destroying flame.  And now the Channel Fleet had ordered
him to surrender.

His planet of forged steel lay resting.  Ice glistened on her flanks
from frosty sprays of cirrii streaming past her.  Beneath were the
labouring battleships, the white seas of cloud, and the newly risen
sun blazed red in the east.  Above her the stars in millions thronged
the black deeps of Heaven.

A message flashed down to the flagship instruments.  "Come up and
fight me," said the _Mary Rose_.

The flagship answered angrily--"Come down!"

No man on an open deck could breathe the atmosphere up yonder where
that steel fleck hung in the blue of Heaven, no aeroplanes could find
supporting air, no gun could be discharged, no missile fired--and who
could dare the awful cold of Space!

"I will come down," said the _Mary Rose_.

Like a meteor she fell until she touched the surf of the white cloud
sea, and there lay gently rolling, half submerged, a spindle-shaped
bolt of lustrous pearly grey, almost invisible.  Every available
weapon in the Fleet was trained upon her broadside.  She sent another
message by aerial telegraph to the flagship.

"I have led you out over the Channel so that no harm can be done by a
rain of shells.  To make myself a better target I shall come within
point-blank range."  The yacht took up a new position.  "Fire!"

"I give you a minute to surrender," replied the flagship.  "Is there
any need for bloodshed?  Yield, or I must sink you."

"Thanks.  I am in perfect safety.  Fire!"

A ten-inch projectile launched from the flagship exploded midway upon
its course.

"Try a torpedo," said the yacht.

The weapon which would have destroyed a town flew out from the
flagship's bows, and was scarcely clear of the fleet before it was
blown to pieces.

Then the whole fleet attacked, and for some minutes the yacht was
lost to sight in the red hurricane of bursting shells.  When the air
cleared, the echoes still thundered among the clouds, and the yacht
rolled violently on huge waves of air.

No fortress on earth could have outlived that close bombardment, yet
she existed still, and ruthfully the Admiral sent word asking if
there were any survivors.

"I am coming," said the yacht, "to take position alongside the
flagship.  I intend no hostile action, but if a single shot is fired,
in self-defence I shall destroy the Fleet."

In bitter humiliation the Admiral waited, standing in the icy wind on
the deck of his flagship.  Never before had a British Fleet been
captured, never one of our admirals humbled to the point of
surrender, and death would have been easier to meet.

This steel thunderbolt could outstrip the swiftest cruisers then
afloat, could ram the fragile aerial battleships, and was herself
impregnable.  The Fleet was at her mercy, and the navies of the world
were obsolete.

She advanced quite slowly, swung on her own length, lay alongside of
the _Devastation_, and flung her gangway on the quarter-deck.

Then came Brand's messenger, a prince of the blood royal, the Duke of
Lancaster, clothed in the Queen's armour, bearing her Majesty's
signet, claiming no victory, enforcing no indignities, but with a
salute to the white ensign, and a salute to the Admiral of the Fleet,
paying the honours of war to a fallen power.

At the gangway Brand made the Admiral welcome.

* * * * *

A tremor went through the _Mary Rose_ as on the Admiral's departure
the starboard gangway clanged home against her side.

Brand entered the conning tower.  "Stand by," he said.  "Dead
slow--five to starboard--ahead."

"All clear, sir," answered Captain Simpson, his hands on the levers.

"Steady!  Rise."

The yacht rose gently, while the Channel Fleet fell away beneath her.
Brand sat down in the chair beside the Captain, watching the
indicator until the needle gauged thirty thousand feet.

"Way enough," he said.  "Quarter speed ahead, west by north, half
north."

"West by north, half north."

"Full speed ahead."

"Full speed it is."  Captain Simpson leaned back with a sigh of
relief, then glanced up sideways at the master's face.

"Light your pipe," said Brand.

"Thank you, sir--Great Death! you thrashed the Fleet!"

"I've done more," the master sighed.  "I've broken a man's heart.
Poor Rothschild!"

"Was that the Jew admiral?"

"A great gentleman," said Brand.  "Are you sure, Simpson, that you
can remember that formula for explosives?"

"Yes, sir."

"Tell your ship's company that I don't ask them to face war risks on
peace wages.  The pay and pension rates are doubled from the first of
this month."  The captain started to his feet.  "There, go away and
take an hour's rest."

The captain grabbed Brand's shoulder from behind.  "A warning, sir.
The Dictator tried to bribe me, and he's bought nearly all your
skippers.  Don't let them know that new formula."

Brand turned round and shook hands with him.

"Get below," he said, "and, by the way, tell somebody to ask His
Royal Highness to join me here."

The captain rolled away down the ladder.  "Thrashed the Fleet," he
muttered, "thrashed the whole Fleet!  Great Death!"

Brand was alone now, and for some minutes paced restlessly the small
domed room with its glass vault and walls.  The sun was high in the
black, star-strewn heavens, the cloud-sea vanished into the heat of
the day.  Beneath rolled the blue Channel, and on either side the
land went up to meet an immense horizon.  Broad on the port beam lay
the coast of France, beyond on the port bow the wide Atlantic loomed.
There on the starboard side was the English land from Beachy Head,
faint glimmering in the east, even to the Start in far-off
Devonshire.  At his very feet lay the green Isle of Wight masking a
skein of intricate blue waters.  There was Portsmouth, yonder
Southampton, and northward Salisbury and Winchester, a score of
cities, a thousand villages and farmsteads, where as the green melted
away to blue, range beyond range of gently rolling downs, mist upon
mist of exquisite rounded hills, up to the very stars of eternal
night.  And all the land must perish if he failed!

Someone was coming up the ladder, and presently Brand, turning away
from the glass, encountered Lancaster.

The Prince saluted him, but Brand came forward, laying both hands
upon his shoulders.

"My boy," he said, "where would you like to land?"

"Where you land, sir."

"I'd like to be sure of your safety, Lancaster, and I want to put you
ashore."

"I'll see you damned first!"

Brand looked into his keen, fresh, comely face.

"You're most wonderfully like her," he said, absently; "and there's
no bending her.  I suppose you'll stay whether I like it or not.
I've got to recapture Lyonesse."

"I want to see the game."

"Lancaster, you know my three big passenger boats?"

"The _Coronation_, _Grace à Dieu_, and _Gigantic_?  Yes, of course.
I came from New York in the _Gigantic_ once--did it in sixteen hours.
Why, there's room for this yacht in her after-cabin."

"The _Gigantic_ was in dock when Lyonesse was captured; but Admiral
Rothschild tells me that she is afloat since yesterday, guarding the
town against me.  She is in charge of a naval officer, with orders to
ram at sight."

"But you thrashed the Imperial Navy!"

"The _Gigantic_ carries no explosives.  So far as I see, I can't ram
her, I can't blow her up, and she's so swift that I can't even run
away.  I've decided to set every man ashore who is not absolutely
needed.  Lancaster, you must go."

"Sir," answered Lancaster, hotly, "I'm here for the Queen, and I
refuse to land."

"As you will."

A few minutes later the _Mary Rose_ set all her idlers ashore in
Devonshire.  When she took flight again Brand and his captain
returned to their seats in the conning-tower, and Lancaster stood
behind them, with a life line to steady him during the coming fight.
Together they watched the narrowing land beneath, as Cornwall tapered
westward between the seas.

No clouds sailed in the clear sky to mask an attack.

"Wait for the night, sir," ventured Captain Simpson.

"Until the _Gigantic_ is warned."

"You're right, sir.  Could you move down with the sun behind you?
The yacht would be difficult to see."

"This cupola would shine against the sun.  I wish we could make
ourselves invisible."

"I think," he added, "the _Gigantic_ will be lying with her head
towards London, and if we keep on this course her look-out can't fail
to sight us.  That would be awkward, so put her hard a-port, and set
her course nor'-west."

The yacht swung rapidly and steadied.

"Nor'-west it is, sir."

"We'll come down from the north," said Brand; "we should sight her
broadside at thirty or forty miles."

"Good," cried the captain, "she'll hardly see us at five miles."

Not a word more was spoken until the coast of Ireland loomed ahead.

"Hard a-starboard."

"Aye, aye, sir."

The yacht heeled over as she swung.

"South!"

The yacht came to an even keel, swung a point or two back, and
steadied.

"South it is."

Far up against the sun a distant film of land blurred the horizon.

"Starboard a little; a little more; keep her at that."

Brand shipped a powerful telescope on slings and focussed the Lands
End.  There in a trembling mirage the granite city lay, the long
glass roofs of her factories gleaming like silver scales.

"Half speed," he murmured; then, as the vessel steadied: "There's the
_Gigantic_--broadside on--starboard a very little--too much--so.
Keep her at that.  She must be very low down--scarcely a mile above
the roofs.  She'll see us against the sky, so drop to ten thousand
feet, Mr. Simpson."

The _Mary Rose_ fell for a minute or so.

"Ten thousand, sir."

"Drop another mile--there--she's below the horizon now.  Full speed
ahead."

The sough of the dense air against the yacht's hull rose to a
deafening roar.  The heat in the cupola became intense, and had to be
modified with a spray of liquid air.  Brand returned to the telescope.

"There she is," he shouted.  "I'll try to ram her propeller--watch my
hand and steer as I beckon--she hasn't sighted us--couple on the
auxiliary engines--all the speed you've got.  Her hull makes such a
blinding glare in the sun--I can scarcely see.  Rise one hundred
feet--ten more feet--stand by to ram--five down--she's moving!
Starboard!  Starboard!  She's turning to ram--starboard
more--more--more!  Missed, by God!

Brand dashed across to the after windows.  "Rise!" he yelled.  "Rise,
full speed--she's after us--she's charging!  Back of all!  Guns,
Simpson!  Guns!  The lunatic has guns!  Some Navy duffer has mounted
heavy artillery.  Back full speed, she's on us----"

Brand threw himself across the instrument table, set the formula for
explosives, banged down the key, flashed out the electric waves for
high explosives.  Her red-hot bows cleaving the hurricane, the
_Gigantic_ came roaring down full on the broadside, flame streaming
from her guns, shells bursting.  Her ram was within a hundred yards,
within fifty, the yacht, struck by the bow waves, fell reeling over
on her beam ends, lost in a cloud of blazing scarlet light, crushed
down by enormous jagged wreckage of steel.

Then she righted, rolling violently, alone in heaven, while far down
through space fell incandescent fragments of the lost _Gigantic_,
destroyed by her own magazines.




XV

CAST OUT OF HEAVEN

Lyonesse had been in a state of trance, her factories silent, her
house-fronts barricaded, her streets deserted, save for marching
troops, and the grim shadows of patrolling warships.

Then at noon on the fourth day of the Terror, the white-hot wreck of
the _Gigantic_ whirled down upon the fields beyond Penzance; and
Brand's orders flashed from the heavens commanding Lord Ulster's
squadron to surrender, his troops to evacuate the city.  The _Mary
Rose_ had defeated the Channel Fleet, had destroyed the _Gigantic_,
was descending now in vengeance, while no man saw as yet that the
little yacht ran blood upon her decks, and barely held the tenure of
the air.  The squadron fled in disorder, the regiments broke and
scattered, the officials hid themselves, and the master came to his
own.  The _Mary Rose_ piteously broken, her engines hardly alive, and
half her crew slain or disabled, rolled slowly homeward, and fell at
the doors of Brand's office, never to rise again.  One may see the
shattered hulk to-day resting with all her stains of blood and her
wounds of battle in the splendid chamber of gold and marble which
bears the legend of her victories.

Thousands of people gathered to welcome the master, but when he came
down the gangway they forebore to cheer.  He still wore the golden
harness, but now it was stained and torn, his face was streaming with
blood, his eyes were terrible.  Simpson had a broken arm roughly
bound, Lancaster an ugly wound across the shoulder.  The master asked
if there were any surgeons present, and two who came forward were
sent on board the yacht.  Then, through a lane of men standing
uncovered in silence, Brand went on to the doors of his office, while
Lancaster and Simpson returned to help with the wounded.

With the master's presence at once every nerve of the city thrilled
to life, for as message after message went out to the chiefs of
departments, electric yachts swarmed into the air, the streets were
thronged, the tramcars started, and, Sunday as it was, banks,
offices, and shops took down their shutters.  The factories went to
work with three eight-hour shifts at double wages, and never was
there known such a fever of haste in the dockyards.

From St. Ives to Penzance earthworks were thrown up in defence, and
all explosives were removed to mine the approaches of the city.
Indeed, there was cause.  The yards were a mass of ruins where no
less than twenty etheric liners had been blown to pieces by the
Government troops.  Eighty-five ships of Brand's fleet were lying in
various cities throughout the world, their crews in prison, and many
of their engines disabled.  There remained half a dozen old vessels
worth patching up for service, and these rang night and day with
preparation.

On the first day, late in the evening, the cargo ship _Lion_ came in
from Ballarat, and Captain Simpson took command of her in attendance
upon the master.  So came the evening of the 18th of June, 1980, the
sixth day of the Terror.

In our National Portrait Gallery all the pictures have golden frames
except one.  Please come and see that painting framed in iron--"To
the memory of Sarah Brand."

A woman, forty years of age, massively built, and of unusual stature,
she stands in a deep shadow draped with heavy folds of violet cloth,
her robe lashed at the breast with a chain of barbaric gold.  She is
crowned with an unruly mane of harsh red hair.  Her eyes are pale
blue, of startling brilliancy, her features of rugged, almost savage,
strength.  So was she in her life, and only her brother knew the
deeds of mercy which she never avowed, the fierce love which found
its expression in wrath, the burning passions only revealed in
harshness, the mighty angel hid in the rough prison of her body.

She had built that granite cottage on the Tol Pedn cliffs, where the
Atlantic storms thundered against her walls; and there she ruled with
an iron discipline, keeping her chambers relentlessly bare and clean.
There on the sixth night of the Terror she entertained her brother's
guests at a dinner of Spartan severity, given in honour of Brand's
new Government.

"Sir," she said to Lancaster, "you take the head of the table.  You
represent her Majesty to-night, so my Lord Bishop of London sits on
your right as Chancellor of the Empire, and his Grace of Clydesdale
on your left as Foreign Minister."

So she placed the guests in order of their dignity.  General Lord
Fortescue, V.C., as Minister for War, the Earl of Rothschild as First
Lord of the Admiralty, the Lords Commissioners for Canada,
Australasia, Africa, the Secretaries for India and the Treasury, and
the President of the Board of Trade.

"Jack O'Brien," she said to the last, "you and I will share the foot
of the table."

Mr. O'Brien, President of the United Trades Unions, whose presence
was resented by the rest, sat down at the humblest place in obvious
triumph.

"But surely, Mistress Brand," he said, "where's the master?"

"My lords and gentlemen," said Sarah Brand, "my brother asks for no
place at the table of the Imperial Council.  He will wait upon you
afterwards.  Bishop, will you say grace?"

A murmur of astonishment went round the table, and the Ministers,
doubtful until then, lest they be lifting a Dictator to the throne,
saw clearly that the master did them honour.  So was the absence of
the host--late for dinner--construed not as an insult to his guests,
but as the greatest compliment he could pay them.

The Ministers had been in council all day long, now they talked
anything but politics, nor, after our Lady's health was drunk, would
they consent to the absence of Mistress Brand.

"We have, indeed, no business left to discuss," said the Bishop,
cheerfully.  "Everything is settled."

"There's only one thing you've all forgotten," answered the hostess,
smoothing her turbulent red hair, as she glanced from face to face.
"You left out Ulster."

"My dear Miss Brand," said Clydesdale, "we've laid that ghost."

"He's not dead yet,"--the woman's eyes were kindling.  "John never
supposed he would dare to defy Lyonesse, or make himself Dictator, or
depose the poor little Queen.  You don't know what a man you're
dealing with.  Do you suppose he'll sit down meekly now?"

"Sure," cried O'Brien, "he could stuff all his meekness into one back
tooth."

"You mark my words," said Mistress Sarah, gravely.  "His Meekness has
fangs in him yet, and if I know him, he will strike to-night."

"Not if I'm dentist," said Brand of Lyonesse.  He stood in the
curtained doorway deadly pale, and, by reason of throbbing, insistent
wounds a bandage about his head.  To-night in token of service he
wore again the splendid golden harness of the Guard.

"I ask your forgiveness, gentlemen," he murmured.

"Give him some wine!" cried Fortescue, "he's fainting!"

"Wine," said the master, as reeling to the table he splashed
champagne into a glass.  "Yes, drink with me to our Lady Margaret,
the Queen!"

He swallowed the draught of wine, and gaining strength stood
presently erect.

"Yes!"  He flung the glass shattering to the floor.  "So ends Ulster
to-morrow, and so perish all her enemies!"

He fell into a seat beside the table.

"I'm not very well," he explained; "my doctor's at his wits' end.
Poor Boyes believes he can't keep me going another hour.  Let me
see,"--he was looking down at the table, his eyes half closed, trying
to piece the words together--"I have a report to make; yes, it's
about the ships.

"The _Lion_ first, she's on guard.  Two more are ready in the
yards--old crocks, but they'll do to defend our base.  I have good
news.  The--what's her name--I can't remember her name--brand-new
ship of 25,700 tons under arrest at Glasgow, crew in gaol, ah, yes,
the _Golden Hind_.  It seems her people have broken out of gaol,
captured the ship--left Glasgow heading south--coming to help.  She
hasn't reported to me yet--but she ought to have before now.  That
makes two ships to defend the base, with the _Lion_ and the _Golden
Hind_ to fight.  With these we can recapture ships enough to
overthrow our Lady's enemies.  Am I talking sense?  I must be a
little delirious.  Here's a list of the ships to be recaptured.  I
forgot to bring the list."

He held his forehead now with both hands, and his eyes strayed until
they fastened on Lancaster.

"How's your shoulder, lad?  It hurts, eh?  Will you be able to
command the _Lion_ to-morrow?  And you, my dear Lord Rothschild?  And
you, Lord Fortescue?  Will you command the ships?  The captains I
trusted have been betraying me, all except Ross of the _Golden Hind_
and Simpson, commanding the _Lion_, but he's wounded.

"Thank God there'll be no more _Gigantic_ to fight.  The glass of the
cupola shattered about our heads, and the cold broke in, and the
yacht was rolling over and over, eh, Lancaster?  But tomorrow, the
conquest of England!

"I know!  I know!"  The master spoke fretfully.  "I'm hardly fit to
serve her.  My Lords,"--he looked round hazily towards his
sister--"my Lords, you must take command--you must save Margaret, my
Queen.  Tell her, my Lords, that the Chariot--the Chariot of the
Sun--has--has fallen.  Tell her I tried--tried----"

He rolled out of his chair insensible.

The men were crowding about him to advise, to ask for assistance, to
help.

"Back!  Back!" cried the woman.  "He's mine!  He's mine, I tell you!"
Her hands wrenched at the gorget of his mailed tunic, she released
the pressure on his throat, she bathed his head, all the time crying
angrily at the men--"Get away--off with you, out of my house, get to
your yachts, bring the list of the ships from his office.  Bring the
Imperial Fleet to guard him until he can light.  Stay, you!  My Lord
Lancaster, quick, cut away this chain-mail.  Are they all gone?"
Staggering to her feet, she called after Jack O'Brien.  "Your yacht,
sir, bring Dr. Boyes--965, George Street.  You, Lord Clydesdale,
telephone Boyes to be ready."

They laid the master on the bench in the window and when nothing more
could be done, waited with what patience they might, Lancaster on his
knees, fanning the still white face, Mistress Brand seated at the
head of the table against a galaxy of electric lamps.  Beyond the
broad frame of the open window glowed sea and sky in one great sphere
of moonlight glory, and at times the perfume of seaweed came in on
the salt cool air.

From time to time she plied the bandages about her brother's head
with ice-cold water; and always, clutched in the death-like rigour of
Brand's left hand, the aerograph clicked message after message.
Presently above the low murmur of the pulsing sea, the tireless
instrument sounded insistent signals, so that the woman's quick brain
began to take in the words flashed down by Captain Simpson from the
_Lion_.


"Sorry to trouble you, sir.  I'm getting anxious about the _Golden
Hind_.  She ought to be here ninety minutes ago.  I asked the towns
on her route, and she's not been seen either from Douglas, from
Holyhead, or from Pembroke.  Manchester reported a first-class
etheric liner passing at 10 p.m.  on the way to London.  I asked the
London office, and find she was lying directly over Whitehall at 11
o'clock, then headed for the west.  I fear that Ulster's up to some
new treachery.  More news, sir--first-class etheric liner sighted
from Salisbury heading for Lyonesse."


Wrenching the aerograph from her brother's hand, Mistress Sarah gave
the signal "continue."

"Glad you read me, sir, my broken arm makes it hard to signal."

Mistress Sarah, little used to the instrument, spelled out an order
slowly.

"Call up the _Golden Hind_."

There was a long pause before the aerograph stirred again.

"No reply, sir.  Exeter reports the _Golden Hind_.  She will be here
in half an hour."

A servant announced Dr. Boyes.

"Doctor, come here,"--the woman spoke in low, even tones.  "My
brother is in danger--wake him for me."

The physician, a strong, swart man of fifty, without one word of
answer, drew a chair to the master's side, and fell to instant study
of the case.

Ten minutes passed while the sea crooned, beat upon slow beat of her
everlasting music under the cliffs; and the clock against the wall
throbbed out the seconds.

Lancaster answered the doctor's whispered questions, and the woman
sat rigid by the table where glowing heaps of fruit, strewn lilies,
and cut glass cast their reflections on black polished oak.

The ticking of the clock became so unbearable that at last Mistress
Sarah, in feverish irritation, swept across the room, wrenched it
down from the wall, and threw it out of the window.  The thing fell
and fell, but there was no answering from the sea, which still by
beat and beat crooned the slow song of times past and present and to
come, eternity unto eternity.

"Mistress Brand," said the doctor; "if this man sleeps he will
live--if he wakes he dies."

"Would he wake if I moved him?"

"No--nothing would wake him short of an electric battery."

The aerograph began to speak again.

"What shall I do, sir?"

"Destroy the _Golden Hind_," clicked the slow signals.

"You must be ill, sir," flashed the swift reply.  "Remember her
power, her size, her speed.  The _Lion_ can neither fight nor run."

"Mr. Brand is unconscious.  I am Miss Brand.  Come down--rescue the
master.  He'll be captured--quick."

"Madam, it's too late.  I should be caught aground.  I must fight the
_Golden Hind_.  It will give you time to get the master away."

"How can you fight?"

"With the formula for explosives, and if she has none on board, I'll
try the ram.  Get the master away."

"Where are you?"

"Seven miles directly overhead.  For Heaven's sake, be quick."

"He's right," said Mistress Sarah aloud.  "Dr. Boyes, within ten
minutes this house will be attacked and my brother captured unless I
can get him away.  There's only one place safe from treachery.  Under
this window the cliff falls straight to the sea, but fifty feet down
there is a narrow ledge.  From that ledge there are steps cut down to
my brother's bathing place.  He uses a knotted rope to reach the
ledge.  I'm going to lower him down."

"That I forbid," said Dr. Boyes.  "It's almost certain death."

"To stay here is certain capture.  He'd rather die."

Then looking up from his place by the master's head, "Our Lady is in
love with him," said Lancaster.  "He's got to be saved!"

"It's impossible."

"In the Queen's name," cried Lancaster, "I command!"

"Quick!" said Mistress Brand.  "Run, lad, to the dressing-room--it's
next to this; the coil of rope is in the window casing.  There's no
time to lose."

Once more the aerograph spoke.  "My engineers have mutinied.  If I'm
rammed, your house is directly below--I can't move the ship--the
engineers----"

Then silence.

"I've read the signals, madam," said Dr. Boyes.  "I'll help."

Lancaster was at hand dragging the coil of rope, and Mistress Sarah
seized the turk's head--a large knot finishing the end.  Five feet
from that she bent a half-hitch.  "Dr. Boyes, lift him by the arms!
There--"  She passed the rope under her brother's back, slipped the
turk's head through the ring of her knot, hauled taut, and had a
sling under Brand's armpits ready.  Breathing hard, she took up a
coil of rope and passed it round the heavy iron guard-bar outside the
window.  She made the loose end of the rope well fast to the bar.
"Lad," she said quickly to Lancaster, "lift his feet as I haul; lift
him half out through the window."

Dr. Boyes laid on to the rope behind her, while Lancaster gently
guided the master's body outwards until it swung clear, suspended by
the armpits.  Then the rope was lowered away until the weight was
taken by the rock ledge fifty feet below.

"Dr. Boyes," cried the woman, "leave the house at once--get to safety
outside.  His life depends on yours--you'll send down food, and you
will rescue him.  Lad--down the rope with you!"

Dr. Boyes ran to get the servants out of the house.

"Lad, get down that rope."

"Madam, I help you first."

"My place is here--get down, and I'll lower some bedding.  Get down,
I say!  He may die before you can reach him."

Lancaster swung himself out against the moonlight and the sea, and
once again the waves below beat in their slow monotony, the little
waves of time, beating against the eternities from everlasting to
everlasting.

The woman breathed a great sigh of content, reaching out her arms to
grasp the bar, and swing out upon the rope.  Even then a new star
shone in the heavens, a growing glory lighting her red hair, her
violet robes, and finding majesty in her hard face.


The earth was calling the _Lion_--rammed in mid-air--the wind raged
against her flanks, she was red hot, she blazed white, and as a
falling star, cast her fierce splendour over land and sea, attended
by rushing hurricanes of wind, winged with the souls of dying men,
and freighted with the bodies of the dead.

Then in a crash of thunder the light went out, and again the moon was
shining on a silver sea, grey cliffs, lonely, desolate and gaunt,
crowned by a column of dust where a house had been.

And the little waves crept up one by one out of silence, to beat out
their lives against the eternal walls.




XVI

THE QUEEN'S DAYS

The 18th--19th--20th and 21st of June are known as the Queen's days,
a time of quiet in the Palace, while Margaret was sheltered by the
love of her servants from all the horrors of the blood-stained world.
Outside the guarded walls reason had fled from the earth and our
humane civilization seemed to be dying.

On the Wednesday we knew that Brand's council had assembled.  On
Thursday while we waited for news it rained, on Friday a merry breeze
was laughing among the trees.  On Saturday great clouds came sailing
up from the west, and scattered their sparkling showers through the
sunlight; but still we heard no tidings, saw no ships.  On Sunday it
rained again, and Margaret, with her knights and gentlemen, attended
the service of the Eucharist.  After luncheon Margaret left the
Russian Prince as usual to his wine, and walked with her hounds
beside the garden lake.  Nobody knew what our Lady thought, nobody
guessed how much our Lady hoped, but Sydney found her sitting in the
rose arbour.  At her feet the rippling lake pawed with tiny
insistence on the pebbles, but the Queen was watching the clouds, a
squadron of big white clouds which came from Avalon, from Lyonesse.

Trooper Browne, as usual, was with Sydney, but the recruit hung back
a little so that my lord was alone when he bent on his knee before
the Queen.

"What is it, Sydney?"

"We are sent, madam, to be in attendance on the Queen's Majesty."

"But I want to be alone."

Sydney looked up, and in his grave, grey eyes there was trouble.

"We all know," he said, "that our Lady wants to be alone."

"And yet you come?"

"I can't help it."

She saw the trouble deepen in his face.  "God guard you, Sydney.
What's the matter now?"

"Nothing serious, madam, but please sit quite still for a moment."

Even while he spoke a gunshot rang out close beside the Queen, a deep
groan sounded from the bush behind her, and Trooper Browne rushed
past with a smoking pistol.

"Let our Lady keep still," said Sydney, never moving; and presently
Browne came back, with over elaborate calmness, to report.

"It's all right," he saluted; "only a duck."

"Ducks are out of season," remarked the Queen, gravely.  "Trooper
Browne, don't you know it's unlawful to poach ducks?  This is not
Canada."

"A wooden decoy duck," Browne explained, calmer than ever.

"Is it dead?"

"Quite dead, madam."

"Was it armed?"

"Yes--that is--no, madam."

"English?"

"Imported."

"Poor duck!  I've heard the bushes rustling this last ten minutes.  I
even heard your wooden decoy duck breathe.  Come, gentlemen, sit in
the arbour with me, and look out for ducks."

They both protested.

"Nay, I command you, gentlemen."  So they removed their helmets, and
Browne, sheathing his pistol, sat down very gingerly all on edge,
nursing his sword, red hot with embarrassment.  Sydney crouched down
on a stool at our Lady's feet.

"At ease, dear lads," said Margaret, pleading against their silence.
"Only a minute ago you saved my life--now you must make glum faces.
You're most depressing."

Still both men were silent.

"Come," urged the Queen.  "We're two men and a maid under the roses,
and it's your bounden duty to amuse the maid.  Tell me the news.  How
is our guest, the Russian?"

Sydney turned away his face.

"Come," cried Margaret, insisting; "what does he see now--snakes?"

"They've grown, madam," Browne grinned.  "He's having a fight with
sea-serpents."

"I'd rather amuse the Queen," said my Lord.  "My story is better than
that."

"A story!"  Now Margaret clapped her hands with a gay little laugh.
"Once upon a time--go on, I like my fairies as naughty as can be, and
mind, plenty of fairies."

"There's only one fairy left."  Sydney looked away across the sunlit
lake.  "Romance is dead, and there's nothing to tell the fairy Queen
but grim, sordid, horrible tragedy."

"He's awfully tired, madam," said Browne.  "Why, we've had more fun
these last three days than----"

"Let Browne begin."  My Lord looked up with a smile.  "I do believe
he'll make it a fairy tale."

"Why, Trooper Browne!" our Lady laughed.  "This after all your
headlong adventures in Canada!  Then London is not so tame and dull
as you thought?"

"Dull!  Mother will be standing on her head when she knows that I've
made friends with the Marquess of Sydney, and actually spoken to the
very Queen herself.  Me!"

"You dear boy,"--Margaret unfastened her bracelet;--"when you see
your mother, give her this with my love.  There now, tell me the
story."

Mr. Browne was a little hysterical, but presently, under threats from
Sydney, began.

"I can't understand--do you know, madam, that there's another London
underneath the ground, with thousands of miles of tunnels and
passages, railroads and rivers--and--well, there is!

"Three nights ago, Sydney and I were off duty, and he was in my room
telling me----"

"This man," my Lord interrupted sharply, "can smell things just like
an animal, and as to his sight and hearing, they're very witchcraft."

"People here," said Browne, indignantly, "are blind, deaf, dumb, and
their noses fit for nothing but catching a cold.  Why, if Sydney
turns round a corner he's lost.  Anyway, that night I heard something
underground, crowbars, I thought--anyway, men at work.  We knew there
must be something wrong, so we armed ourselves and bolted down to the
cellars.  There's acres and acres of palace down underground, and
what with the darkness, the hundreds of different sounds, and all the
mixed smells----"

"What smells?"

"Why sawdust, madam, and wine casks and stores, machinery--all sorts
of smells.  I couldn't tell where to look.  We were off near the
south-west court, when all of a sudden I smelt sumach leaves rotting
after a frost--Sydney made out it was drains, and that was no dream
either when we got a little nearer.  It came through a door, and
behind we could hear men at work trying to keep quiet--shouting in
whispers, and splashing as if they were all having a bath.  When we
broke through the door we found it opened into a ventilator shaft
which goes up three hundred feet through the south-west tower.  Close
under us it opened down into a big tunnel half full of water, sort of
railway tunnel it looked, but Sydney says it's a sewer."

"It's the Tyburn," my Lord explained.

A thousand years ago the Tyburn was a brook, and one can trace its
valley still through Tyburnia--the Mayfair district, the dip in
Piccadilly, and the hollows of Green Park and St. James's Park, to
where it ran into the Thames at Westminster.

"The Tyburn," said my Lord, "has become a sewer, and it flows right
under the Palace."

"A river under my Palace!"

"Yes, madam," said Browne, "we found it full of punts and little
barges, with flaring torches to light them, and a score of sewer men
working away like beavers."

"But what were they doing?"

"They were busy unloading the boxes, small chests, several tons,
madam."

"Chests of what?"

"Dynamite, madam."

"Good gracious!"

"Please don't be frightened, there's nothing to fear," my Lord
laughed easily.  "I inspected the work, and the electrician showed me
some really excellent casing and insulation.  The foreman, a Mr.
Briggs, had no doubt whatever that the effect would be most volcanic,
and they all took quite a pride when I praised their efforts."

"To blow up the Palace!"

"Yes, Lord Ulster is ever thoughtful for our Lady's comfort.  I
proposed to send down refreshments."

"Refreshments," Browne chuckled.  "He threatened to empty the Palace
tanks and drown them."

"I'm sorry to say," continued my Lord, "that Trooper Browne was rude
to Mr. Briggs.  If his carbine had actually gone off--the dynamite
you know--the situation needed delicate handling."

"They sneaked behind Sydney and made him prisoner!" cried Browne,
indignantly.

"A guest," said my Lord, correcting him.  "I had ventured to suggest
that the explosives should be moved further down the tunnel and
stacked underneath the Departments of State in Whitehall, Ulster's
seat of Government.  They thought he might be annoyed, and Ulster,
you see, provided food for their wives and families.  They offered to
take me to his Grace of Ulster."

"They lashed him down on the barge," said Trooper Browne.

"Yes," my Lord assented; "Browne jumped down into the barge on top of
me, ran his sword through Mr. Briggs, settled with the electrician,
and cut me loose.  The rest of the men attacked us vigorously, but it
was hardly fair play, as we could not provide them with swords.
Several were hurt.  After Browne's jump, I had little wind for
talking, but in the end we resumed the conversation just where it
left off."

"He'd talk a bird off a tree!" said Browne.

"Somehow," my dear Lord flushed, "I have a knack of making friends
with the very roughest men, though I always fail with the smooth.
This dear Browne, for instance, seems to get on with me.  I told the
sewer men that I had the honour to be Ulster's
next-of-kin--that--that if--if the Lord Protector were to leave this
world which he has so graced, certain estates would fall to me--which
I could not accept.  In fact, by a written deed I made them in some
measure heirs of his Grace--and more suitable heirs than I for such a
nobleman.  I expressly by deed forbade them to assist at his death.
If Whitehall is changed by earthquake, no man will fire the mine save
my Lord Protector.  He has laid mines, let him fire his mines with
his own hand, and go to his God for judgment."

The Queen's hand stole out softly and rested upon my Lord's shoulder.

"And may I go on?" he asked.

"Surely."

"My friends of the sewers have been very good to me, and they had to
save their families from hunger.

"They're a queer people, wearing great heavy boots up to their
thighs, and rough suits of canvas.  They lent us such clothes the
night before last, and Browne and I went with them to see the mines
of dynamite under Whitehall.  In course of a long, rather unpleasant
ramble we came directly underneath the Chancellery and got our
friends to break a passage upward into the building.  Last
night--taking our swords as a precaution, we visited the Chancellor's
room, and found there a gentleman engaged at the telegraph.  We had
to wait some time before this gentleman noticed our presence.  When
he was at leisure Browne offered him the use of a sword.  I found him
an accomplished swordsman."

"Who was this gentleman?" asked Margaret, and Lord Sydney rose upon
his knees.

"Madam," he said, gravely, "I engaged my commanding officer."

"You fought the Duke of Gloucester!'

"I killed him."

Sydney drew his sword, and pointing the blade at his own breast
presented the hilt to his sovereign.

"You have killed Rupert!"  Margaret laid her hands upon the hilt.
"Heaven be my witness that now, and afterwards, I am ready to share
the blame, and if there's punishment now or afterwards let it fall on
me.  What am I, Sydney, that I should have a friend like you, so
loyal, so fearless, and so great?  There, my dear friend, put away
your sword.  I knew that my cousin Gloucester was disloyal, and you
have cleansed the dishonour of the Guard."

"I am forgiven?"

"So far as a very unhappy woman can forgive the dearest friend she
has in the world."  She thought for a moment, then, speaking eagerly,
"What time did this happen?"

"At eight this morning, madam."

"Do you know that was the time of the early service?"

"I was thinking of that."

"Sydney, when I knelt before the Table, I saw you at my side!"

"To-day I have been at peace," said my Lord.

"I, too, Sydney.  You have news for me.  Why keep it back?"

"Madam, I have news.  I want to turn my back--for once, upon my Lady.
May I?"

He crouched at her feet again, looking away across the lake, the
garden trees, and the white cloud flecks, even to where the sun was,
westward.

"I must speak," he said in a low voice, "of Ulster, who is reputed to
be my father.  I don't think I have any bitter thoughts left, but I
would not claim this man for my father.  My mother was a gentlewoman,
and is with the angels.  That she was his wife so tarnishes her
sacred memory that I would rather believe her mistaken in supposing
the Duke of Ulster to be my father."

Margaret was stroking the man's bowed head.  "Sydney," she whispered,
"I loved her.  And Trooper Browne is here."

"Browne is deaf," said my Lord.

"Browne is deaf," echoed the man who loved him.

"But Margaret hears," said our Lady; "and Margaret understands."

"In Ulster's office,"--my Lord looked down at the rippled lake--"I
overheard an exchange of messages between his Royal Highness and the
Lord Protector.  Of all spies and eavesdroppers I seem the most
fortunate."

"Oh, Sydney, you have news of Lyonesse?"

"Madam, for three days past, Ulster has been in possession of the
city."

Our Lady uttered a low cry of fear.

"He captured one of the great etheric liners--the _Golden Hind_.
Brand had but one ship, the _Lion_, on guard above his cottage at the
time his Ministers assembled.  The _Lion_ was rammed by the _Golden
Hind_, and fell right on the crown of the Tol Pedn cliffs, and the
very rocks on which the cottage stood were thrown down the wall into
the sea."

"I cannot bear it, Sydney!  I cannot bear it!"

My Lord looked up, his eyes glittering with tears.  "You are a woman,
and women are braver than men.  You are the Queen, and dying England
dies with majesty.  The lightnings of God shall find no cowardice,
and at the Last Judgment England shall not flinch."

"I forgot myself," said Margaret very humbly, "Go on--I will be
quiet."

"I must go on,"--my Lord wiped the sweat from his forehead.  "When
Brand recaptured Lyonesse last Sunday, Ulster's troops took refuge
near Marazion, and there starved.  On Friday morning, under orders
from the _Golden Hind_ they entered the city again, and for these two
days they have murdered, plundered, and burned while they searched
for Brand.  Lyonesse is a ruin, but the master has not been found.
It is known that he is alive, signals from his aerograph have been
intercepted; but the search for his hiding-place has failed, and
Ulster is coming back to-day."

The Queen was praying.

"In the great purposes of God he lives."  My Lord lifted his eyes
towards the declining sun.  "There is hope, and I know that God will
not let England go from serving Him.  The fire of our national life
dies down to ashes until the one spark left is hidden courage, ready
to flame again when the time comes."

Browne turned his face away, for our Lady sobbed.

"Ulster is coming," said my Lord presently.  "He has stolen the
powers of Lyonesse, and for the time he is master--for the time."

Browne was peering at the western sky, shading his eyes with both
hands.

"I see something," he muttered, "right under the sun, a bright speck,
like a planet.  Is that the _Golden Hind_?"

"Ulster is coming," my Lord shivered.  "He will come here demanding
audience."  Then, looking up from where he crouched at her feet, "My
Lady," he said in a very soft low voice, his lips tremulous, his eyes
full of yearning love; "perhaps this is the last favour I may ever
ask--to see the Queen alone."

"Trooper Browne," said our Lady, huskily, "as I'm a woman I ought to
be ready to receive the Duke when he comes.  Please, will you go and
gather some of the very dark roses that are nearly black--and bring
them to me here."

"Margaret,"--my Lord's eyes watched his friend going away in search
of dark roses.  "I shall go with Ulster presently.  For me this is
the end."

"We shall not live, dear Sydney," answered the Queen.  "We shall not
have to bear the pain for ever, and Death is merciful."

"Then let the words come, Margaret, since nothing matters any more.
Before I go out to meet this death, I love you.  Oh, most royal woman
that ever lived, I came to serve in the Palace knowing that because I
dared to love the Queen, I must never know peace of mind
again--except such peace--you say that I was with you this morning?"

"At the Communion Table, yes."

"Was I beside you, Margaret?"

"Yes."

"Did you see me lift my hands to take the Elements?"

"They were covered with blood."

"At that moment I knelt by Gloucester, and my hands were wet with
blood trying to tie an artery.  I lifted my hands and you were beside
me, Margaret!  Margaret, I have been at peace knowing well that
to-day I must take my father's life."

"Oh, my dear brother! my brother Sydney!  The only brother I have
known."

Bending down she took his face within her hands and kissed him upon
the forehead.

Then looking steadfastly into her eyes.  "I see," he whispered,
awestruck, "the Queen seated on the throne--the old throne in the
Abbey, and Brand is standing on the steps of the throne.  So be it."
And laying his head upon her knees he cried, our Lady giving him ease
with a touch of her fingers.

* * * * *

The Queen had granted audience to Ulster.  In her face there was
peace as of one dead, about her shoulders and in her hair she wore
long, thorny, sprays of the dark roses whose petals were like a
sacramental wine.  She neither moved nor spoke, and silent on her
right hand, and her left, stood the two Guardsmen, their hands
resting on the hilts of their drawn swords in readiness.

The Dictator was greatly changed, grown very old, his flesh wasted,
his eyes burning as though with fever.  Behind him the sun was
setting, the lake was red, and over his face the shadows of night
were deepening.

"Princess Margaret," he said, laying bitter stress on the words of
courtesy, "I have come to declare to the ex-Queen these written
intentions of the Government."  He presented a roll of parchment,
which our Lady made no movement to accept.  He laid the parchment at
her feet.  "Your Royal Highness is granted until sunrise," he
announced, "to repudiate the treason of John Brand."

"Sydney," the Queen whispered, "speak to this man."

My Lord Sydney turned his eyes slowly to the Dictator.  "George, Duke
of Ulster," he said, very quietly, "Her Imperial Majesty commands
your attendance at sunrise here.  Meanwhile she is pleased to grant
you my escort to the gates."  Still with the drawn sword in his hand,
my Lord saluted her Majesty, and backed from the presence.  "Sir," he
said to the Dictator, "we have her Majesty's permission to withdraw.
Come."  He led Ulster away, and as they passed out of sight among the
trees, "Father," he said, "father!"

"What, you?"

"There's no one in hearing, sir."

The Dictator turned upon his son.  "What do you mean?"

"All courtesy, sir."

"You abandon that woman's service?"

"Otherwise, my dear father, you would have been shot in her very
presence."

"You take service with me?"

"His Grace of Ulster loses the old acumen.  Was there ever a time,
sir, when a son of our honourable house failed to go over to the
winning side?  Come.  I must get you out of this garden.  Your life
is not safe.  And keep your eyes about you when we enter the Palace."

"Jim, are you playing fair with your father?"

"Time will show that."

They gained the lower terrace, and Ulster, supporting himself upon
the arm of his son, wondered why Sydney must turn to look back to the
lake, the rose garden, and the bower where Margaret sat.

"Good-bye," Sydney was muttering.  "For ever and for ever, Margaret.
Come, sir, come on," he laughed.  "I've news for you."  They entered
the silent corridors of the Palace.  "Queen Margaret has a keen scent
for explosives, and all your thoughtful arrangements have been
changed.  From the Broad Sanctuary to Trafalgar Square your
Departments of State are mined with high explosives.  In your own
office Gloucester's lying dead.  There's conspiracy afield to take
your life to-day, or Margaret would never have named to-morrow for
surrender.  Even with my help you may be dead by then.  Hush!  It's
not safe to talk till we gain your ship."

They crossed the throne room, traversed the State apartments, and
gained the head of the alabaster stairs.

"Guard, turn out!" cried my Lord, and the main guard paraded before
they reached the porch.

"By her Majesty's command,"--Sydney saluted the officer of the day.
"The main guard is desired to attend my Lord Duke to his ship.  Pass,
sir," he said to Ulster, "I attend you."

And as the main guard formed as an escort of State, Sydney hung back
until Sergeant Dymoke passed him.

"Dymoke," he whispered, "fall out."

The Queen's Champion fell out of the ranks, and my lord held him
within the shadow of the columns.

"Dymoke, old man,"--his voice was scarcely audible--"I'm going with
Ulster in the _Golden Hind_, and I leave you a message for the Guard.
I know a little of these etheric ships.  Long years ago Brand showed
me the detail of their gear.  When they rise they're free from the
pull of the earth, and but for the brake would be whirled into outer
space.  One blow of my sword will shatter the brake past mending.
I'm going for a long voyage, Dymoke."

"Sydney, we can't spare you!  Oh, let me go myself, if it must be
done."

"Am I not to guard my own honour?"  My Lord dropped his sword on the
wrist sling.

"I am the Queen's Champion."

"Live for her then," he said.  He took off his helmet, and unfastened
the Queen's favour, her glove, which was bound to the brow.  "This to
our Lady," he whispered.  Then looking out to where the gigantic ship
lay waiting him, and the Dictator impatiently cried for his son to
come, "Tell her I go to plead for her and for England.  Good-bye."
My lord drew off his gauntlet, and, with his finger, touched his
friend upon the forehead.  "We shall not be long parted, you and I."

Then looking up to heaven, his face flushed by the dying sunlight, he
set the glowing helmet on his head, took up his sword and passed
slowly between the waiting ranks of the guard to where Lord Ulster
received him upon the gangway.  Even as the Dictator led him, he
turned in the shadow of the port, and, lifting his sword hilt to his
brow, gave the salute.

The gangway crashed home.  Nine hundred feet in length, dwarfing the
lofty Palace with her bulk, all gleaming steel aglow in the sunset
light, the _Golden Hind_ with one faint tremor spurned the ground
away.  She rose from her couch upon the shattered trees, slow
lifting, while the glass of all her ports, tier upon tier, glittered
and flashed like rubies.

Dismissed from their ranks, the Guardsmen clustered about the columns
of the porch, watched the great ship go up.

Then Dymoke spoke to the officer and the rest.  "Lords and gentlemen
of the Guard, I have a message to you which Sydney left me.  The
Dictator threatened our Lady's life, and goes to meet his death at
the hands of his son.  My friend was too knightly a man even to take
her token on such a quest."  He showed them our Lady's glove.  "He
dies for the Queen and for his honour."

The rising ship was already far aloft.

"He has destroyed the _Golden Hind_!"

The ship at terrific speed whirled upward into the heavens.

Then Dymoke, removing his helmet, spoke to the others for "our dear
brother departed.  He asks us to pray for him."

With bared heads they waited, these, my Lord's comrades, watching the
ship, which like a blood-red star, glowed in the heights, and
vanished even as the sparks fly upward.

May we all have strength at the last to serve as you served, to die
as you died, Lord Sydney!




XVII

HER MAJESTY IN COUNCIL

The sun was rising, the keen still air had a tang of smoke from one
or two parishes sacked and burned over-night.  Under the barricaded
windows of St. Stephen's Palace a starving street arab was at work
with a few grains of banana meal and a string noose, trying to snare
a pigeon.  A man watched him furtively from beside one of the
buttresses of the Abbey.  That man had been a barrister before the
World-Storm, now he was a tramp, and his coat was buttoned up because
his underclothes had been sold for a meal.  All night he had been
with a crowd in the Strand wrecking the hotels in search of food.  A
dog or two had been dragged out of the flames, and torn to pieces;
but the barrister won not so much as a taste of the blood, because
some stronger desperadoes charged in a body and carried the food
away.  Now the Savoy district was a smouldering furnace, and the
barrister watched the street arab, intending robbery if the lad got
meat.

Something caught his wandering attention; the body of a man, which
lay at the base of the statue of Richard Cœur de Lion, out in the
bare paved square.  The barrister stole across from the Abbey, but
when he bent over the man, hoping for plunder, he found he had made a
mistake.  The supposed corpse proved to be alive, and remarked that
he had nothing worth stealing.

The barrister shrank back, smiling vaguely.  "Watching that boy in
the hope of a pigeon, eh?"

"No," said the other; "it's better to rest and not use up one's
tissue.  That's economy."

The barrister sat down beside him, produced a pipe, and demanded
tobacco.

The other shook his head, but the lawyer thought that a little
friendly conversation might win him a fill for his pipe.  So he
looked at the starving wretch beside him.

"Oxford?" he ventured.

"Yes, Brasenose.  Are you a college man, too?"

"Dublin," said the barrister.  "I was a novelist."

"I was a curate; I used to preach about the Day of Judgment--but
d'you know, it's quite different.  The canonists never suggested that
it would last so long, but it's extremely interesting, and I'm
planning a work on contemporary Eschatology."

"Judgment be blowed," the barrister snorted, "it's the usual cause
and effect, machinery broken down--passengers hungry.  I'm beastly
pinched."

"Are you really?"  The curate still had a trace of his pulpit manner.
"Now that is most curious.  My hunger has gone away quite, but if my
mind seems to wander pray correct me.  Am I talking nonsense now?"

"No; what was your last meal?"

"A portion of rat," said the parson, smiling at the pleasant
suggestion of memory.  "But my landlady has taken to improper
courses, led away, poor thing, by her daughter.  She has joined one
of the cannibal clubs.  I felt that she was becoming untrustworthy,
and withdrew to the streets."

The barrister laughed wearily.  "My wife and children--" he said; "I
shot them last night--well--who cares?"

"How shocking," said the curate.  "Hope," he continued, "is dead, and
our prayers break upon the brazen echoing heavens.  Who would have
supposed that the world would die so hard?"

"Don't preach," said the barrister, "it makes me sick."

The curate looked up with a vacant stare at the towering heights of
the Abbey.  From far away came the rumble of the organ, for this was
the time for the early Celebration.  By the calendar it was Monday,
the Twelfth Day of the Terror.

"I think I could have hoped," the parson wiped a tear away with his
torn sleeve, "only there's always such a crowd at the Government food
shops.  The men trample the women and children to death, and that
takes away one's appetite."

"Yes, we're savages now," said the barrister, "we've shed our
infernal skin of gentility."

He looked away towards the street arab.  The lad was rejoicing on the
verge of success, but rejoiced too early, for the pigeon flew clear
of the snare.  Then the lad cursed.

"I watched all night," said the curate, "by the Palace.  Our poor
little Queen works hard."

The other was cynical.  "Does she?"

"D'you know," said the other, "that Ulster is dead?"

"No such luck."

"But it's true.  A woman stabbed him.  Really."

"How do you know?"

"I crept into the porch, and there were two gentlemen of the
Bodyguard, talking.  They turned me away into the rain.  D'you know
there was something going on.  All night I saw ships and private
yachts, hundreds of them, reporting at the Palace towers.  The air
was black with them coming and going."

"It may be," muttered the lawyer.  "Ulster dead!"

"Once," the curate went on bubbling with news, "a Guardsman rode out
with his servant, and the orderly stopped behind to tighten a girth.
I helped him.  D'you know I smelt bread and real cold beef in his
wallet.  He told me that the trades unions have proclaimed a
Republic--yes, at Manchester.  Then I asked him for some of the meat,
and he was so rude."

"The Republic proclaimed already?  Then Ulster must be dead.  My
friend, do you realize what this means?  The Republic?  It means that
the Territorials have revolted, five hundred thousand men in arms
against the Government."

"We have the Fleet."  The curate lifted his head and answered proudly.

"The Fleet, Mr. Parson?  And when the Republicans seize the power
station, when they cut off the whole supply of electric force--what
becomes of your Fleet?  Answer me that!"

"Oh, but my dear man, really, don't y'know, we have Malta, Gibraltar,
and the Newfoundland station.  They can all flash electric power to
our ships."

"If they had warning, yes; but all the telegraphs are cut.  I tell
you the power stations will be captured this very day, and nothing
can save the Fleet.  I wonder--when the London guardships founder,
why, we may get some food from the wrecks!  Yes, food!  And the
London Unionists, too--they'll be revolting to-day--they'll attack
the departments of State.  Parson, I know a house not far from here,
with five barrels of flour.  There'll be no police to-day--come on,
let's rob that house!'

"Rob a house?" said the curate, wistfully.  "Oh, but I'm in Holy
Orders, don't y'know."  Then rolling over exhausted, "My dear
friend," he whispered, "couldn't you bring me just a little flour?"

"I might," the barrister sneered, "and I might not.  All right, go
off to sleep, don't mind me."  He looked round.  "Hello, the boy's
got that pigeon!"  The barrister scrambled to his feet.  "The little
brute!"

He looked at the curate, who seemed to be asleep, then at the street
arab who was sucking the pigeon's blood.  He felt the parson's
clothes for tobacco, but his eyes were on the lad who had captured
food.

Staggering with weakness he went for the street arab, drawing a knife
from his pocket.  The lad crouched unheeding, tearing the bird apart.
The barrister, staring dreadfully about him, stole upon the lad, his
knife ready, his lips twitching, his teeth set.  Then a rifle shot
rang out from one of the barricaded windows of St. Stephen's Palace,
the barrister leaped into the air, and fell doubled up upon the
pavement, his limbs relaxed, his mouth wide open, One of his legs
gave a last twitch and he lay quite still.  The street arab had run
away.

Then from a distance came the steady tramp of marching men, and the
curate seemed to wake at the sound from a spell of sleep.  He rose
upon his hands and knees, he tried to stand up, but he had not the
strength.  He looked at the Palace, and just opposite to him was a
door which led into the purlieus of the House of Lords.  He crawled
across the pavement, lifted himself wearily up the low steps, and
banged with a stone against the door.

Nearer and nearer came the tramp of men.

"Help!" screamed the curate.  "The Republicans!  Save me!  Save me!"

* * * * *

In the Council Chamber at the Queen's Palace, my Lord Protector's
Ministers were assembled.  The Duke of Ulster had warned them, the
Princess Margaret summoned them.  Our Lady was to render her
submission, to repudiate the treason of John Brand.

Then upon a flourish of trumpets, entered, not his Grace of Ulster,
but her Imperial Majesty attended by a hundred gentlemen-at-arms.

Amid the consternation of Ulster's Ministers it was the First Lord of
the Admiralty who dared to come forward barring our Lady's passage to
the throne.

Waving his hands towards the foot of the table, "Madam," he cried,
"the place for the Princess Margaret is here."

For a moment the Queen fell back, surprised at old Lord Mendip's
audacity, then her eyes glittered ominously as she turned to the
adjutant of the Guard.

"Tell this gentleman," she said, "to stand aside."

So she swept on to the throne, and there turning, faced her enemies.
Our Lady was in mourning, robed in a cloud of dusky violet silk, some
folds of it veiling her head and making the sad face white in livid
contrast.  Verily she was Queen, if only by right of sorrow, by
majesty of pain, and by dominion of men's love and worship.

"My lords," she said, nervously, "and gentlemen," this with a
gracious bow, and a smile of welcome.  "I am shy at having to meet
you here again--forgive that to a woman--here, where you honoured me
with--with your homage.  Do you remember, it was in this very room,
and the gray light stole in through the frost on those windows.  How
bitterly cold it was, and I had just come from where my dear father
lay in death.  Don't you remember?  You, my Lord Mendip, cried 'Long
live Queen Margaret!'  You, Mr. Jesmond, told me how I must wear the
terrible white crown, sit on the stone of Destiny--and I cried.  You,
Sir Roderic Scott, were first to kiss my hand--this hand which has
gone cold at the very thought of it.  And afterwards, in the Abbey,
before the altar, you swore to serve me--all of you.  How have you
kept that oath?"

The Ministers were standing in groups about the table, whispering one
to another behind their hands.  Lord Roderic Scott was inquiring of
the impassive Guards as to his Grace of Ulster, when once again the
Queen began to speak.

"You have come," this very gently, "to receive--what are the words?
Yes, my repudiation of the treason of Mr. Brand.  There are some
other things mentioned, I think.  Will you not sit down?"

Reluctantly, one by one, the Ministers took their seats in order of
precedence.

"Thank you," said Margaret, "it is right that you should sit, and
that I stand until I have dealt with this matter of treason.  I am to
repudiate treason.  Oh, my lords and gentlemen of the Imperial
Council, do you forget that by the Coronation oaths I must do more
than repudiate every treason?  I am bound to punish treason, to
punish treason with death.  And I am resolved this day, either to
punish all treason in my realm, or die in the attempt--yes, die!  I
know the cost.  I have been honoured with the service of many loyal
men, and I have not failed any of them in love or gratitude.  I have
only found one strong friend in the whole world, and he is John
Brand.  I have not failed him in love or in gratitude.  He has dared
to be true, dared to be loyal, dared to be my friend--and he has paid
the price.  He was the richest man in the world--who is so poor now?
He was the most powerful subject that ever a sovereign had--who is so
fallen?  He was desperately wounded fighting for me, he is a hunted
outcast for my sake, and he is ready at any time to die for me.

"The man who is guilty of treason must die, or I refuse to live.

"You are wondering if I speak as the Princess Margaret, or as Queen
and Empress?  Well, for the present I am content to be one concerned
for your honour, for your dignity.  I have a letter here--see, this
letter--bearing all your signatures.  You wrote to me, twelve days
ago--saying that a Bill was passed by Parliament deposing Margaret,
appointing a Lord Protector, and tearing up the British Constitution.
It took hundreds of years to create that Constitution, and it was
destroyed in a few minutes.  Without consulting the people, or their
sovereign, the Parliament under your guidance did this thing, then
blind with panic, wriggled away into dissolution, leaving its
precious Bill to be dishonoured by all honest men.  My lords and
gentlemen, how about your oath?"

The Ministers were ill at ease, some passing furtive notes one to
another, the rest consulting in whispers.

"You had the Lord Protector of your choice," said Margaret, bitterly.
"He once betrayed the Indian Empire for a bribe, and laid the blame
upon an innocent man--who died for it.  Lately he divulged the
Formula of the Fleets, gave shameful concessions to his Russian
master, and would sell his Queen, even to such a buyer as Prince
Alexander.  Nay, silence!  I command your silence, gentlemen, while I
speak.  Proof piled on proof in Ulster's own handwriting, condemns
this felon.  You are waiting for him now to sit in judgment on me.
So you keep your oath!

"You swore to be faithful to Ulster?  Why, half of you wrote
privately to me betraying him!  And others of you in privy
conspiracy, offered the kingdom to my cousin Rupert--such is your
honour!  And having betrayed me, and betrayed Ulster, and betrayed
Prince Rupert, you came back here to humble me, to punish me, to
receive my abject submission, to demand my repudiation of John Brand!
What a court of honour!  Do you know where Rupert is--the Duke of
Gloucester?"

Our Lady was breathing deep, but not another sound broke the silence
until she spoke again.

"He is in Ulster's office, gentlemen.  Your letters to him are lying
upon his breast, and lest any of them be blown away by the wind, they
are pinned down with a sword.  My cypher is inscribed upon that
blade.  I am favoured, my lords and gentlemen, that you are polite
enough to hear me now without whisperings or scribbling of notes,
while you await the Lord Protector's coming.  Are you wondering where
next my sword will fall?  Is Ulster late?"

Her Majesty ordered the barring of the doors.  "Where is your
leader?" she asked.  "Are you deserted by the chief of your
rebellion?  Let the Guard salute!"

The gentlemen of the Bodyguard presented arms, and Margaret took the
throne.

"Stand!" she commanded, and in amazement the Ministers obeyed.  "I
have to speak to you concerning the action of my dear friend now at
rest, Trooper of the Bodyguard, James, Marquess of Sydney.

"By the hand of his own son, I have taken the Duke of Ulster's life
for capital felony.  Your Lord Protector is dead, and I am Queen."

The Guard ordered and grounded arms with a crash.

"Come, gentlemen," said Margaret, "I have made an end to your
delirium of treason.  You were once my people's chosen servants--who
else shall I trust if I may not believe in you?  I recall you to your
oaths, your patriotism, your honour, your manhood.  I ask you again
to be my Ministers, to accept my love and confidence.  One of you I
except."  And Margaret's eyes fell on Lord Roderic Scott.  "Oh, be
kind to me, gentlemen," her voice broke with a great sob.  "I'd
rather be a servant and scrub floors, yet I am Queen--you laid that
burden on me, and I must reign until it pleases Heaven to let me die.
But must I go on fighting all alone?  Is there no one left who cares
for England's honour?"

For a moment there was silence, then the First Lord, the aged Earl of
Mendip, rose to answer.

"Dear madam, dear sovereign, please let me speak for my poor
colleagues here, and comrades in wrong-doing.  I am too old to
blush--my blood is all needed at the heart which still beats only for
the service of the Empire--but I'm sure I never dreamed I was such a
villain.  Your Majesty has youthful blood, and dauntless courage, but
pardon me, not quite omniscient wisdom.  Some vestiges of right
remain to us, some quivering nerves of honour, even some shreds of
manhood.

"In the evening of our lives we have had the grace to worship the
Evening Star, we called her Margaret.  The sun of our Finance was Mr.
Brand.  It is no censure if I say that the sun was sometimes rather
hot for us.  In a state of ecstasy, perhaps, he fell from the
heavens, came too near, and burned us.  Were we a little restive at
being burned?  Was it unnatural that, in the agony of a world
destroyed, we forgot our worship of the Evening Star?

"Well, well, I shall pursue the metaphor no further.  Mr. Brand has
gone with Ulster, and the unfortunate Prince Rupert, to face a
greater tribunal than ours."

"He is not dead!" cried Margaret.

"Stripped of his power, wounded, a fugitive----"

"The man who saved the honour of the Empire."

"The man who wrecked the world!"

"Gentlemen!" our Lady's white face was set in stern defiance.  "As he
was loyal to me, so am I Brand's loyal friend.  I have sent the royal
yacht to succour him, and he will come back with his ships to meet my
enemies."

Lord Mendip bowed.  "We are ready," he said, "to serve your Majesty,
but----" a rifle shot rang out beyond the palace walls, then another
and another.

"But what?" asked Margaret, scornfully.

"Madam, this Brand is an attainted traitor."

"Attainted by whom, pray?"

Again there were rifle shots in the distance, a dropping fire.

"Attainted, madam, by the Commonwealth."

"Am I not sovereign?"

"Madam, I spoke with unbecoming fervour of the gentleman who--his
party, madam, the Labour Party----"

"His party?  Listen, my lord, to that firing!  Is this a time for
parties?  Lord Mendip, in the peril of the State there is but one
party--mine!  You serve me as Brand serves me, or you are rebels."

Sir Myles Strangford, Secretary for War, rose to give answer.

"Your Majesty," cried the War Secretary, "we are loyal.  We will take
the oath and serve!"

"Sir!" our Lady flushed with rage.  "Do I hear you speak of oaths?"

For a moment her voice was drowned in a roar of musketry.  "My
patience is at an end.  Rupert is dead, Ulster is dead; shall I spare
you?  I let you live while you are loyal to me, and at the slightest
sign of treason I shall kill.  As you tore up the Constitution, so I
reign--I reign in the way of my fathers--so long as there is danger,
absolute Monarch.  Gentlemen of the Guard, you may withdraw--we need
no protection while our Council sits!"

She rose from her throne, she turned her back upon the Council, and
so stood waiting until she should be alone with her sullen, mutinous,
vengeful officers.  They saw that she looked out through the bayed
windows; not the tears which blinded her or the forlorn gesture of
her prayer for help.

The gentlemen-at-arms had swung to half sections and marched out from
the chamber before our Lady moved.  These windows, from a high
salient of the Palace, commanded Whitehall.  Half veiled in mist, the
departmental buildings flashed with a thousand tiny points of fire,
the rifle flame, the blaze from heavy artillery, then the glare of
exploding shells.  For now the crackling of musketry was drowned by
spitting, shrieking machine guns, and the great roar of battle.

Sir Myles Strangford came and stood beside our Lady's throne as
though on guard.  A shell screamed close above the roof, a stray
bullet crashed through the window and almost grazing Margaret's hair,
lodged in the wall behind.

"Sir Myles," said our Lady, turning to the Secretary for War, "can
the Departments hold out?"

"Your Majesty, for Heaven's sake, take shelter."

"Are the Departments safe?" she insisted, smiling.

"I had eight hours' warning, madam.  The buildings can hold out until
Lord Mendip's patrol ships come to the rescue."

"I have called them, madam," old Mendip touched his aerograph.  "The
Departments will be relieved in an hour."

"These Republicans, Sir Myles--are there many of them?"

"Twenty-eight thousand," answered the Secretary for War.  "They're
bringing up their batteries, and certainly, madam, we depend on the
ships."

The firing slackened now, and Margaret, returning to her seat,
questioned Lord Mendip as to affairs in the Midlands.  It was true,
he admitted, that the Republicans had attacked the power station,
and, in the event of its capture, nothing could save the Fleet.  But
the position was an impregnable fortress, the Channel Squadron had
been ordered north, and, indeed, there was nothing to fear.

"Nothing to fear," our Lady muttered to herself.  "Nothing to fear.
Then, my lord, are these Republicans mad?  The Departments
impregnable, the power station impregnable, the ships expected; on
these conditions the Republicans would never dare to attack.  They
would not dare to attack unless they knew the Fleet could be
destroyed.  They expect to capture the power station; they're sure of
it--they stake their lives on that.  Are you sure, Lord Mendip, of
this power station?"

"There's no stronger fortress in Europe."

"My lord, is any fortress proof against treachery?  These rebels have
staked their lives that the place will be betrayed to them.  Call up
the officer commanding."

The old lord, with tremulous fingers, signalled by aerograph, but
there was no answer.  Again and again he called, but there was no
answer.

"Madam," he said, "I fear----"

The aerograph began to be disturbed; a rush of signals hummed from
its armature.

"Position mined--rebels in possession.  Ground the Fleet!--Ground the
Fleet!--Ground the Fleet!"

"Oh, quick!" cried Margaret, in agony.  "Order the ships to ground!"

The First Lord, poor Mendip, had fallen back in his chair, his white
face convulsed, his fingers twitching and pulling in frenzy at the
key of his instrument.  Our Lady rushed to his side, seized the
aerograph from him, begged him to dictate the orders to the ships.
And all the while, the old man striving for utterance, the rest of
the Ministers frantic to hear him speak, the gun-fire quickened in
the distance, and some one was thundering for admittance outside the
door of the room.

"He's dying!"  Margaret's voice broke to a wail of misery.  "Oh, who
knows the cypher of the Fleet?  We'll be too late--too late!"

The door burst open, an officer of the Bodyguard broke headlong into
the room.

"Madam," he yelled, "the ships--the destroyers of the patrol are
foundering!"

Lord Mendip's head had fallen back, his fingers were tearing at his
breast, his eyes were glazing.  Then his arms fell limp, and the
change passed over his face, and the jaw dropped.

Our Lady bent and kissed the still dead face, then reaching out her
hand beckoned the living.

"Kneel, gentlemen," she said in a low, awed voice.  "Pray for the
passing Fleet, for ninety thousand men called by their God."

So they all knelt, our Lady, the adjutant of the Guard, the Ministers
of State, while outside, the crash of musketry, the roar of guns
thundered the requiem of the English Fleet.  Presently the body of
the old lord slipped down and fell before Margaret's knees.
Shrinking away, she went back to her place upon the throne.

Some of the Ministers were moving to take away the body, but our Lady
checked them.

"No," she said, "do not take it away, but lay it there before us upon
the table."

They laid the frail body upon the table, paying some reverent
offices, closing the eyelids, folding the hands.  Shrinking from that
presence, dreading, fearing it, our Lady lifted her reluctant eyes.

"We need this reminder," she said faintly, "that we are all being
judged."

Then that swaggering, gallant, old Lord Roderic Scott rose, bowing to
her Majesty and to the dead.

"Madam," he said, "the Fleet is gone, the Departments may last an
hour, and then the Republicans will turn their guns upon this
building.  If your Majesty is determined to wait, I trust we shall
all have the decency to die like gentlemen.  But I beg your Majesty
to accept the use of my private yacht, and return to Windsor until we
can raise an army."

"My dear Lord Roderic," our Lady smiled.  "What armies would care to
fight for a runaway Government?  I think I have a better plan than
that.  Sir Myles, I see you have troops here guarding the Palace."

"Three thousand, madam, and a battery."

"You have not enough men to save both the Departments and the Palace?"

"Not nearly enough."

"But if we had all the troops here, we might save the Palace?"

"A desperate venture, madam."

"So in any case the Departments must be lost?"

"Better, madam, to give up the Palace itself, than to surrender the
very seat of Government."

"The Palace," cried Sir Roderic, "is no safe place for your Majesty."

"I beg you, madam," urged Jesmond, "to retire."

"Why so nervous, gentlemen?" asked Margaret, bitterly.  "I see
anxiety in all your faces--so loyal, so moved for my safety.  Is it
because you mined my Palace with a hundred and fifty tons of
dynamite?  How thoughtful of you!  How considerate!  You supplied me
with explosives enough to mine all your Departments of State; for two
days, gentlemen, I have been considering your case.  There, over by
the wall, on that little table, stands an electric key--one touch on
that key at any moment these two days past would have released you
all from these dull cares of State.  One of you--a gentleman seated
at this table--is the very leader of these Republicans.  His
aerograph lies upon the table before him, and he appears anxious to
warn his friends by signalling."  Her Majesty's piercing stare was
fastened upon none other than Lord Roderic Scott.  "Lord Roderic, you
will lower your hand, both hands, down against your sides.  Mr.
Jesmond, you will take away his aerograph.  If he lifts his hands he
dies.  Sir Myles Strangford, you will signal the officer commanding
at Whitehall to withdraw and fall back upon the Palace, and you will
order the troops here on guard to cover the retreat."

* * * * *

Whitehall, a congeries of palaces, a city in itself of unusual
grandeur, had never seemed so vast as when it loomed through the
cloud of battle.  Pale wreaths of smoke girded the walls, columns of
dust went up from bursting shells, and little, innumerable spurts of
fire lightened the windows, outlined the terraced roofs.  A column of
red flame waved high above the Admiralty, and, shattered by artillery
from beyond the river, the Palace of St. Stephen's crashed down in
acres of ruin.  One by one the palaces were taken, barrier after
barrier was broken through as the brigades of starving Republicans,
mad with bloodshed, swept back the Imperial troops.

And all through the rooms and corridors, thousands of people went
about their business, in the strange English way; the clerks who
still worked at their desks or helped to bury the archives and
treasures of their departments; the nurses, the surgeons, the
chaplains who helped the wounded, gave comfort to the dying, closed
the eyelids of the dead; the soldiers who fell back from the windows
to fight the advancing flames.

It was long past noon when the Queen's orders came--the signal to
retire upon her Palace.

Building after building was left to the next triumphant rush of the
enemy, until the Imperial forces were jammed together at the Foreign
Office, guarding the non-combatants, and, under cover of troops from
the Palace, began the final movement of retreat.  It was but half a
mile to the Palace gates along Death's Avenue.

Up against the windows of the Council Chamber, nearer and nearer
lashed the hurricane of sound--the yells of dying men, the rattle of
musketry, scream of machine guns, roar of artillery, crash of falling
walls, and, beyond all, the deep dull roar of the conflagration.

Within the Council Chamber the great lords of the administration sat
still at their table.  Before them all lay the body of the old Lord
Mendip, the green cloth of the table casting a dreadful glow upon his
face.  By the left hand there was placed an electric key with covered
wires trailing to the floor, and opposite to that two Ministers sat
guarding Sir Roderic Scott, a prisoner.  Bolt upright in the chair of
state, our Lady never moved save once, when she covered her face with
one fold of silken gauze from the hood of her violet robe.

Sir Myles Strangford at the windows reported from time to time how
the battle went.

"Shot down like dogs," he cried.  "Nurses, civilians, clergy, and
broken troops, officers beating the poor fellows with their
swords--and the retreat--by George they're falling by hundreds.  The
whole avenue jammed."  For a moment his voice was drowned by the
uproar.

"The rear guard's clear of the Department!"

Her Majesty leaned forward.  "Lord Roderic Scott," she cried, "reach
forward your right hand and touch that key!  Mr. Jesmond, take the
knife and drive it into that man's flesh until he obeys me.  Now,
Roderic Scott, reach out your right hand, and lay it on the key! and
may God have mercy on your soul!"

* * * * *

And the river rushed in upon the site of Whitehall.




XVIII

THE QUEEN'S MADNESS

This poor history book!  It set out to chronicle the affairs of all
mankind, and has only room for one woman.

So a boy goes forth into the world strong, careless, jubilant,
thinking the Earth, the lights of Heaven, the dark of Space, all made
on purpose to be a playground for him.  But an old man looks back
with his wan smile of memory, and sees that the sun, moon, and stars
made but an aureole for one mighty love.

Let the old man maunder a little at the heads of the chapters--you
may be an old fool, too, before you have turned the last sad page in
the dear Book of Life.

Except for some who foully revile Brand, the learned historians lay
all the blame on Margaret.

Learning has chilled the blood in their sluggish veins, conceit of
their knowledge given them scaly hides, and their blind logic made
them sinuous, these bookworms, who with exuding venom have fastened
their poisonous teeth on Margaret's fame.  She sheltered Brand,
staked crown, reputation, life upon the hazard of her faith in him.
She had Prince Rupert slain, the Dictator slain, and the metropolitan
chiefs of the Republic slain.  The seat of treasonous revolt against
her she cleansed with the waters of the Thames.  Aye, and more, she
reigned as no sovereign in modern times had ever dared to reign.  We
were lost in the night of despair, we fought in the maelstrom of
Death, but the memory of that time is the memory of one white spirit,
pure and strong, whom no waves of misfortune could overwhelm, or mist
of anguish hide.  We were men-at-arms who worshipped Margaret then,
and those that are left of us are old fools now, fearful lest any
venom so much as touch her robe.

In these days there were two or three attempts made by insane persons
upon her Majesty's life.  At the petition then of the whole corps of
the Bodyguard she appointed orderlies for close attendance upon her
person, choosing the two nearest friends of my Lord Sydney, Sergeant
Dymoke to be on duty in the day time, Trooper Browne at night.  Her
Majesty was pleased also to confer upon Trooper Browne the honour of
Knighthood in the order of St. Michael and St. George.

It was after midnight--how we missed the bells of fallen
Westminster--and Trooper Sir Patrick Browne, faint with excess of
pride, stood in a vain pose by the door of the private rooms.  He was
startled out of all his dignity when, the door opening, he found
himself of a sudden face to face with her Majesty.

"Hush!" our Lady pressed a finger of warning to her lips.  "There,"
she cautiously shut the door.  "I'm afraid of waking Miss Temple.
Follow softly."

So gathering her white cloak, she sped like a ghost, he following, to
the south-west tower.  Not stairs but inclined planes circled
upwards, an easy hill, to where a flight of steps gave on the roof,
and one looked out over London.

This night began the great gale, and already, far down beneath, the
trees were lashing and swaying.  Low above trailed the flame-lighted
clouds, the wind was roaring round the tower walls, and red embers
flashed past in the smoke.  The gale swept by in gusts, fiery hot,
then of a sudden, icy cold, then slanting hot again.  Right up
against the wind, Belgravia was in flames, and down to leeward, the
whole district of the Strand glowed like a furnace.  Spiral columns
of flame went reeling eastwards, then lifting clear from their base,
rolled up and burst.  And over all the roar of wind and fire one
heard the screaming machine guns crushing out the Republican revolt.

"Madam," cried the trooper, "come away, this is too horrible for any
woman."

"For any woman?  Sir Patrick, are there not thousands of women
yonder?"  Our Lady turned, the flame-light on her face.  "Do you
think I care?  Do you think I suffer?  Dear lad," she turned away
again with a wan little laugh, "I don't care now, I'm an old, old
woman--past caring any more.  Let me rest here."

The trooper laid his cloak in a sheltered place, and there for a long
time she sat, crouched down, all shrunk into the corner, staring at
the flames.

Was this the Margaret who seven weeks ago held court of Love in her
gardens, Queen of the May, loading grave officers of the Palace with
wreaths and garlands, then with the mischievous gravity of a fairy,
tootling a jig on the pan pipes while the Lord Great Chamberlain
danced!

Margaret crouched down in a corner, haggard with sleepless misery,
staring with great wild eyes on the burning of London!

The sentries were calling from salient to salient, bastion to bastion.

"Number one, all's well!"

"Number two, all's well!"

"Number three, all's well!"

Then faintly in the distance of the gardens, "Number four, all's
well!"  Forty-five gentlemen of the corps had fallen in the confused
fighting of these last two days; many more had been sent away by
yacht, or by road with messages on the business of the State.  How we
grudged every man who was taken away from guarding Margaret.  We all
had our private troubles--those who were dear to us did not escape
ruin and hunger, and one trooper who visited his home, came back to
the Palace insane.  These matters we kept to ourselves, but there was
an understanding in the mess that each man must keep his life at our
Lady's service so long as she had need of the Guard.

This had been midsummer day, the longest in all the year; but
Margaret was at work from dawn to dusk, and her Ministers had barely
time for food.


The Departments of State found themselves quarters in the Palace, and
the Postmaster-General contrived the telegraphs, some sort of money
was arranged for the public--what kind of currency mattered nothing
now.  A power station was got to work in the Midlands so that
electric shipping was able to take the air.  The Fleet reserve was
mobilized, and the royal yacht squadron assembled.  The railways were
seized, and a service of trains commenced.  The Imperial army began
to concentrate upon London, regiment after regiment, brigade after
brigade being quartered and fortified to protect the main supplies of
food.

And so her Majesty began to reign.  The fallen lifted their eyes,
those who despaired ventured to think and to hope, those who were
weak had strength to work for her, the wounded forgot their pain, the
stricken their bereavement, the mourners their dead, and dying
England lived for Margaret.

"Number one, all's well!"

"All's well."

"All's well."

"All's well."

Was our Lady asleep there in her corner?  The trooper from his
furthest side of the pavement, glanced through the corner of one eye,
just daring to see her white robe shine against the black of his
cloak upon the flags.  He had not courage to really look at her, even
if she slept, but paced his beat slowly from end to end, nine paces,
and nine paces, inventing conversation all the time in which he made
her seem to speak to him.

Somebody was coming up within the tower, and Browne at the stairhead
waited ready to fire.  A man?--the trooper boiled over at his
insolence.  Sir Myles Strangford, indeed!

"Get down," he whispered hoarsely.  "Our Lady is here.  Get down with
you!"

"Who is it?" asked her Majesty.  "What--Sir Myles?  Don't go."

"Madam, forgive me," Sir Myles bowed to her.  "I didn't know.  Let me
retire."

"No, stay, Sir Myles."

"Madam," he bowed again, "I couldn't sleep."

"Nor I.  Come, sit in the shelter here and talk to me."

The Secretary for War sat down at our Lady's feet.  "Tried to drug
myself," he said frankly; "daren't take another drop--and sleep!  How
could I sleep?"

"It's not for you or for me," said Margaret.  "'And so He giveth His
beloved sleep'--only His beloved, you see--not for us."

"Madam, I can't stand it; I won't stand it," he spoke in breathless
haste.  "I don't care if you kill me for saying it.  This declaration
of war is impossible."

"I expelled Prince Alexander from the Palace; I gave the Ambassadors
from Russia, France and Germany all their passports; I recalled my
Ambassadors; I declared war," she turned upon the statesman.  "You,
Sir Myles, have the frankness and courage to protest, and you had the
loyalty to obey."

"I behaved like a madman," he cried.  "The Fleet is lost, the army is
perishing."

"And the nation," said Margaret, "tearing itself to pieces.  See
there--all that--look; those are my people murdering each other like
mad beasts!  What would my fathers, the Kings, have done with them?
Do I love my people less than those old kings who called with the
bale fires and the trumpets--To arms!  To arms!  Bring your swords
and save England!  To-night, Sir Myles, all over the length and
breadth of the Kingdom, my trumpets and bugles are sounding the call
to arms.  The old, old patriotism--the dear love never fails.  There
will be no factions to-morrow, but England, Britain, the Empire,
ready to fight for the flag!"

"And you a woman!  Madam!"

"And I, a woman, Sir Myles.  I am something come down through many
centuries--flesh and bone, blood and nerves, soul, spirit, made that
I may suffer for my people.  I am not a statesman, not a man, but a
weak, miserable woman--and I am England.  I know you may think it
madness to declare war with the League, having neither Fleet nor
troops--I know!  Come, put it to the proof.  No fleet, you say?  The
ports are jammed with deep-sea shipping, the arsenals crowded with
good aerial ships of the Fleet reserve, the country teems with yachts
of the royal yacht squadrons."

"But, madam, the very Formula of the Fleets was betrayed."

"We can change the Formula now."

"But the power station is gone."

"We'll use the mercantile stations."

"But the Fleets of the League!  Madam, this is sheer madness."

"Sir Myles; call it madness.  You will remember that Brand's ships in
every part of the Kingdom were seized by Ulster's orders."

"I remember, madam."

"I never forgot.  Brand is my servant, and do you think I have let
his sailors starve to death in my prisons?  No.  The General
Superintendent of Prisons, by my direct commands, had loads of
provisions supplied to feed those men.  I have saved them alive.  You
remember that Ulster seized one ship--the _Golden Hind_?"

"And became invincible!"

"God is invincible," said Margaret.

"Madam, how many ships?"

"I have eleven--the crews are released to-night; the ships will
assemble here at sunrise.  How are the Fleets of the League to fight
etheric rams?"




XIX

THE TALE OF THE DUN HORSE

Now for the tale of the Dun Horse, and Lancaster's great ride from
Lyonesse.

There was no electric power for travel either by airship, road, or
rail.  It was hard without money to buy petrol for a car, or drive
one over the broken roads, of districts where there was fighting.  A
big bay mare brought Lancaster through Cornwall, and fell dead at his
farm near Tiverton in Devon, the place where the dun horse lived.

Oregon's colour was like the tawny, sunscorched grass of the great
American Desert from whence he came.  Such lion-coloured hide had
hidden his ancestors from the ranging tigers, three hundred thousand
years ago when the world was young.  Down the back and across withers
and shoulders ran dark brown stripes--the famous endurance lines,
making the figure of the cross.  This, again was a cast-back to a
Zebra-striped ancestry of a hundred thousand generations gone.  He
stood fifteen hands, a pony like Alexander's Bucephalus or Napoleon's
grey Marengo.  His eyes were mad, his ears vicious, his hoofs hard as
iron, his gait a rolling lope, tail and mane all streaming gold, his
neck august, his pride untameable.  It stirs one's blood to remember
Oregon.

The dawn was breaking when Lancaster saddled the dun stallion; and
that was the third day of the gale, and burning of London, the
Fifteenth of the Terror.

In all their rainwashed length, the roads showed scarcely any sign of
traffic, but Oregon shied at many a car lying abandoned by the
wayside, at the skeletons of cattle slaughtered and stripped to the
last ounce of meat by bands of starving outlaws from the towns,
sometimes at some poor shapeless heap in the ditch which had to be
passed at full speed.  Trees had been blown down across the causeway,
branches and leafage littered by the gale.  That which was fallen
lay.  In the hollow lands the road was washed out or flooded, the
newly mown hay lay swamped in the sodden fields, and the young crops
beaten flat.  The farmers were roughly fortified--every place where
there was food had become a stronghold, and the live-stock driven out
to pasture went always under an armed guard for fear of marauders.
In these days, the folk knew why their old and long-neglected
churches had been so built upon high ground, with such defensible
towers to carry balefires, and loopholed belfries for alarm bells.
The village churches returned to their ancient use as forts of refuge
both for body and spirit.  That is why Lancaster found the village
streets abandoned, and the streets of the market towns a solitude.

The ages had rolled back, from the twentieth century even to the
tenth; once again upon the lawless highways the robber bands were out
to pillage and burn.  Once again all honest men went armed, the farms
were strongholds, the churches forts of refuge.  Once again an
English knight rode a war-horse of the ancient kind, wore the old
chain mail, fought with a lone sword, and dared all for a lost cause.

Have the red roses of Lancaster ever failed from the thorns of our
gardens?  Has the royal blood ceased to throb in English hearts?  The
ancient roots are still alive to-day, through decades of centuries
the time-honoured chivalry of this dear realm flowers perennial from
the ancient soil.  The English archers, the English mariners, the
English engineers--time changes the instruments, not the English
hand.  And that the heir apparent of the Imperial Throne rode three
hundred miles in forty hours, is testimony that England is England
still beyond the accident of the centuries.

Lancaster had been badly hurt in the fight with the _Gigantic_, and
now, after eleven days of neglect, the wrench and bad contusions on
his near shoulder made him delirious with pain.

Ranges of hills to cross, and floods to ford, by dip and curve, by
tortuous-winding vales, field, woodland, park, and moor, the road
went swinging on.  There were cathedral cities by the way, great
country seats, commons of golden gorse, old road-side inns,
orchard-screened villages.  The young Prince saw nothing but the
course, felt nothing but his pain, knew nought but his errand, his
mission to the Queen.  Wet to the skin he felt no cold or any
discomfort from the lashing rain, but in his fever and delirium,
dreamed, talked to himself, crooned songs, or followed imaginary
hounds.  He could not remember afterwards how he found the way, where
he had baited Oregon, where fed or rested.

It was sunset when he cantered down through Reading, the dun horse
reeling--and forty miles to go.  Red shone the glare through a gap in
the wind-torn clouds, red was the glow on mire-stained horse and man,
red on the sky to eastward where London lay.  Two hours later he had
traversed the outer suburbs and entered Windsor.  Still was the red
glow lingering in the east.  He was passed through the castle gate
and in the outer ward he rested Oregon.  The Governor held his
stirrup when he left, the Governor's wife gave him a stirrup cup, the
poor knights of Windsor--seventeen old men, sending their message of
love to Margaret.

So Lancaster crossed the Thames and entered London.  The dun horse
kept his splendid rolling lope, but drooped his head and jarred his
rider now--with yet another twenty miles to go.  The elms of Eton
were swaying overhead, there were the playing fields, yonder the
school--and Lancaster's heart was singing.  As Oregon splashed by, he
waved his helmet--a red gleam caught the silver.  He turned into a
long, dark avenue, villas on either hand, screened by young plane
trees--lightless, desolate.  Then followed mile after mile of town
more lonely than the fields; street after street, dead, silent,
horrible, and always the red glow quickened in the east.  Was it the
dawn already, the dawn breaking on an abandoned world?

Out of the vague night ahead, massed roofs went up stark to the
flushed red jagged driving clouds, when a man started out of the
shadows close ahead--an old grey man in a priest's cassock,
brandishing a red-edged crucifix.  Oregon shied; then, under lash of
spurs, reared up pawing the air.

"Beware!" shrieked the priest.  "Beware!  Babylon is fallen--Babylon
the Great is fallen--is fallen!  The scarlet whore reigns yonder, and
vengeance descends from Heaven on her crimes.  You're riding headlong
to destruction!  Back!"

The trooper lashed his horse with the flat of his sword, and far away
behind him heard the cry, "Babylon is fallen--is fallen!"

The pools were red, the mire was red, the wide street red as blood
under an immensity of glowing, rolling smoke, and ever in front the
near horizons lifted against great heaps of flame.  Down a bye-street
to the left a house burned furiously, but the pavement in front of it
was empty.  Hollow echoes rang to the horse's tramp, but the vacant
silence ahead showed never a sign of man.  Was the lost capital
wholly abandoned?

Here a row of shops had been sacked, their wares thrown wide across
the roadway.  Beyond, the street was blocked with acres of ruins, and
circling round back ways to find a passage, Lancaster heard gun
shots, saw the flicker of torches; then, turning a corner, came
suddenly upon a blood-stained drunken mob plundering houses.  Spoil
was scattered everywhere; dead men and drunk sprawled on the litter;
tables were spread upon the pavement; orators were wrangling over
their wine--a Republican court in session for the trial of three
gentlewomen, who stood in drenched night-robes lashed together with
ropes.

Lancaster charged that court, rode the judges under, cut them down,
forgot his message to the Queen, forgot the saving of the
gentlewomen, vaguely supposed that the fight was a dream to be
enjoyed, and went on slaughtering.  He was surrounded, he was
attacked on all sides; men were firing upon him from the houses on
all sides--then something struck off his helmet, blinding his eyes,
and Oregon, maddened with the burning pain of a torch against his
flank, broke away screaming at a headlong gallop.

* * * * *

The empty street reached away between gaunt, enormous ruins under a
sky of flame and roaring thunder, when Lancaster reined Oregon to a
walk, borne slowly forward by a hurricane of wind; wiped the blood
from his eyes, and, looking about him, knew that this was
Knightsbridge.  A body of cavalry swung down through the gates of the
park, wheeled half-right, and broke to a trot directly athwart his
course, their silver armour glowing with ruby light--a squadron of
the Guard.

* * * * *

"_Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick into hell.
For wickedness is in their dwellings._"

Miss Temple was reading at our Lady's bedside, and her voice went on
slowly, monotonously through the terrible minatory Psalms.

"_Break their teeth, O God, in their mouths.  Break out the great
teeth of the young lions._"

"Dear me," said Margaret, in her pillows; "how dreadfully
uncomfortable."

"Not asleep yet?" asked the old woman, reproachfully.

"Not asleep yet"; Margaret uttered a quivering sigh.  "Please,
dearest, draw all the curtains back.  If I could see the windows, I
wouldn't think I was in the grave--that would be better."

Miss Temple laid her Bible reverently aside; then moving slowly
across the room, drew back the curtains.  The wreck of Whitehall had
shattered all the glass, and now the windows were filled with oiled
paper.  The scarlet glare of the night shone fiercely in, the wind of
the fire roared like a storm at sea.  Miss Temple came back to her
place, and our Lady reached out one shaking hand to feel a little
comfort from her touch.

"Dearest," she whispered, "do you believe in ghosts?"

"We are forbidden," answered the governess, "to have any dealings
with the departed."

"Hush, dearest; there's no need to be rude to these poor spirits,
wrenched so suddenly from their bodies, taken all by surprise, shy at
appearing undressed as it were, and they come here to see if their
Queen cares.  They come and go all night long, my dead; and they
would think me so heartless if they found me asleep.  I must not
speak to them--that would be wrong--but they may hear me telling you
that I care--I care--I care, and they will tell all the dead that I
care."

"Child," said Miss Temple, fearfully, "don't think of such things.
It's horrible."

"That they should die, and I not even mourn?  You wouldn't have me a
coward, dearest, would you?  If I didn't care, if I didn't mourn, why
all these millions of the dead would come to haunt me, to accuse me.
Am I not guilty of their blood!"

"You saved the honour of England."

"And at what a price!  What is the honour of England!  It's like some
awful heathen god, whose altar runs with blood, the blood of innocent
men, and women like you and me, and little children.  How can you
talk of our honour!  I wish--how I wish--if I had only known.  If it
were all to do again I'd let Ulster sell us body and soul to Russia,
drag our honour in the mud, set up our shame where every one could
see, and call the shame salvation.  Yes, I would rather marry
Alexander, or be torn to pieces, or burned at the stake, than pay the
price of honour."

When Miss Temple needed guidance, it was her custom to open her
Bible, take a passage at random, and then with fiendish ingenuity
twist the text into agreement with her own views.  From the most
unpromising materials she got the most surprising results.  Now the
pages fell apart in II. Samuel, and when her eye lit upon "_Elhanan
the son of Dodo_," with a small local directory to follow, she felt
rather ill-used.  Turning resentfully, she came upon the pedigree in
I. Chronicles.  She had to fall back on general principles, and
flashed her indignant eyes on Margaret.

Margaret was asleep.  All curled up, her dear head resting on one
outstretched arm, fairily delicate she lay at peace.  The lines of
sorrow were smoothed away, her eyes--a moment ago so big, so dark
with horror--were veiled now with the eyelids of a child.  Down
through the lurid shadow of the room, flamelight played and
flickered, glowed on the ivory pallor of her skin, and made a dainty
mimicry of health.  She seemed the Margaret of other days, Queen of
the May, our Lady of the Spring, before love kindled and grief aged
her heart.

Hush!  The child sleeps, and the woman must wake to pain.

If you would know the measure of a woman, judge not by her virtues,
neither by her sins--God will judge these.  How much did she love?
How much did men worship her?  The love that men bore to Helen,
Cleopatra, Guinevere, illumine the history of nations, as it changed
the rhythm of their times.  How have men worshipped Elizabeth, and
Victoria, and Margaret, each in her time, the Queen of all men's
love?  The conquerors laid Empires at their feet.  The holy ideal of
chivalric worship inspired the noblest literature, the highest art
and the profoundest learning.  Whole eras are illuminated by the
glamour and the glory of such unselfish homage, that could bind men
together, sweeten the common life, sanctify duty, and make death a
rite.

Hush!  England sleeps!  The spirits of the slain, hovering in the
flamelight and the lurid green-grey shadows, are pleading to God that
He will have compassion on the Queen.

With savage satisfaction, Miss Temple watched.  Margaret asleep at
last!  For a minute, for two minutes, then our Lady's voice rang loud
through the room.

"Lyonesse!" she cried.  "Lyonesse!"  And starting broad awake, lifted
herself in the bed, her gaunt face beaded with sweat, her dark eyes
staring broad awake.  Then she fell back with a moan, and clutched at
Miss Temple's hands, and held them fast.

"Oh, why did you let me sleep?" she whispered.  "I fought so hard to
keep awake."

"You must have sleep or you'll lose your senses, child."

"I dared not sleep," said Margaret, trembling, "lest I should see him
dead!"

"Margaret, these fancies are dangerous."

"This is the fourth time, dearest.  He was in a little ship, so small
you could have put it in this room, and far down underneath, river,
and lake, and forest streaming past.  He was all alone, the
blood-stained bandage loose about his head, and he lay in his harness
dead, except for his eyes.  Only his eyes were alive watching me,
speaking to me."

Miss Temple read the rest in Margaret's eyes, and turned her face
away lest the Queen should see.

Even as the desert hungers for the rain, so Margaret craved for
Brand.  She could not tell Miss Temple that she loved him; the wise
old governess pretended not to know, and thus the secret was shared
by two sweet women with delicate reticence and understanding, marred
by no words while every word would hurt.

"Dearest," our Lady whispered, "did you ever love?"

"Love!"  Miss Temple's eyes went red.  "What's love to me?  Is this a
time to think of love--to talk of love?  Get to your prayers, child,
this is no time for love."

But our Lady urged her again.  "Dearest, were you ever in love?"

"In Heaven," Miss Temple was angry, "there's neither marrying nor
giving in marriage.  _The sun will be darkened, the moon shall not
give her light, the powers of Heaven shall be shaken, the earth shall
quake, the mountains shall fall, the heavens shall roll away like a
scroll before the great and terrible day of the Lord_.  This is a
time for fasting, vigils, humiliation, prayer, not for profane
thoughts of love."

Margaret lay back among the pillows, releasing Miss Temple's hand.

"I'm tired," she said, "so tired."

Then of a sudden she started up alert, listening intently, her eyes
upon the door, at which the old lady grumbled, asking what was the
matter.

"Don't you hear?"

"The roar of fire, child, there's nothing else."

"But I hear somebody coming--hush--listen."

"The fall of some building perhaps."

"There's somebody coming for me.  I tell you somebody is coming--from
Lyonesse--from him.  Hark!  There are footsteps."

"Trooper Browne in the corridor.  Be still, child; lie down and rest."

But indeed there were footsteps, sounds of scuffling, of men
disputing, and then the throwing open of a door.  Through the length
of the suite of rooms, Browne's voice rang out in warning.

"Madam," he shouted, "I could not hold him back!"

Men were trampling heavily through the rooms; even as her Majesty
came down from the bed, the door of her chamber burst open--a man
came reeling in, a trooper of the Guard, although his silver armour,
rusted black, was drenched and stained with rain and mire, his face a
mask of blood.  He shouted hoarsely at the sight of her, then two
Guardsmen following caught him in their arms, but he, struggling
violently, broke away from them and fell at her very feet insensible.

Her Majesty knelt down beside the man, and full of pity lifted his
bleeding head.

Sergeant Branscombe, standing at the salute, begged for the Queen's
forgiveness.

"Madam," he pleaded, "we could not hold him back."

But she, in her white robe kneeling beside the man, pressed her small
hands upon the spurting wound.

"Who is he?" she asked, "Oh, surely not--my cousin, Lancaster!  He
will die!  He will die!"

"He is alive," Miss Temple's hands pressed hard upon his breast.
"Quick, Sergeant Branscombe, water.  You, trooper, bring the surgeon.
What's this?"  She found a strip of paper under the gorget.  "A
letter!  Margaret, this is from Lyonesse!"

And Margaret read the message.


  "In five days more I'll come with my ships.
                                    "JOHN BRAND."




XX

VICTORY

"In five days more I'll come with my ships."

Five days had passed since Brand's promise reached the Queen, it was
the twenty-first of the Terror, and the master was not come.

Trooper Browne had been on duty all night, slept through the morning,
and now at two in the afternoon came hungry to the mess-room for
luncheon.  The tables were gone since daybreak, surgeons and nurses
had taken possession, the pavement, the aisles, even the triforium
gallery, were crowded with the beds of the sick and the dying taken
from the streets.  In the ante-chamber he found some biscuits, and
with these and a glass of water fled to the guard-room.

That beautiful gallery was at least unchanged, its precious columns
of azurite and malachite reflected in the polished slabs of the
floor.  The alabaster stairs came up from the portico, and went on to
the chambers of state, now turned into hospital wards and Government
offices.  One man was on guard, Sergeant Jack Branscombe, fat, lazy
old Jack sole garrison of the Palace, and him Browne relieved that he
might get his breakfast.  So the trooper sat on a bench eating
biscuits, and watched the endless procession of sufferers being
carried past upon the stairway.

One man on guard!  Of the two hundred gentlemen-at-arms, and their
two hundred orderlies, only seventy were left--all as brothers
now--to ride with her Majesty.  She would come back with her riders
at four o'clock, tired out, and here on the table stood a gold cup,
and a flagon of wine left by Miss Temple, for our Lady's refreshment.

Stealthily Browne lifted the cup, and pressed his lips against the
rim.  Even as he did that a little chuckle sounded close at his
elbow--so startlingly like our Lady's laugh that he set down the cup
in haste.

"Caught red-handed," said Tom of Lancaster, and sitting down on the
bench, laid a white hand on Browne's knee.  "My dear Browne, you must
not poison her cup, even with kisses."

Browne grinned nervously.  "Good morning, sir," he said, his eyes on
Lancaster's deathly white face, "the doctor said you'd be in bed for
months."

"Doctor's a fool," said Lancaster, then very faintly added--"Give me
some of that wine."

Browne drank the water in his glass, and filled it with wine from the
flagon.

"Here, sir."

"Drop that 'sir,'" said the young Prince, then with a sigh as he set
down the empty glass, "How is she to-day?"

"Slept heartily these four nights, so Miss Temple says.  She looks
herself again since you came, Prince, with your message."

"Prince!  I wish you fellows would drop that rot, and let me be a
trooper.  My name's Tom, and I'm as good as any man in the crowd.  So
the message cheered her up?"

"Saved her reason, I think."

"Browne," the Prince turned round with a short, sharp laugh, "you're
in love with her.  Bah, you flush like a girl--of course, you're in
love with her.  So am I, man, and the rest of the fellows are just as
bad or worse.  What's the use of trying to hide what hurts.  Does it
make the thing hurt less?  She's not for us.

"She and Brand are in love, and by my honour, Browne, I'm glad, yes
glad.  That man is royal, the real thing, which I'm not.  By our
Lady, if you'd seen him fight the _Gigantic_!

"And all that time in the cave, six mortal days while he lay raving
mad with his wound, he called to her: 'Margaret!  Margaret!'  Look
what he was before, and what he's fallen to because he was loyal."

"In love with him," said Browne, under his breath.

"Of course she is, I saw them part.  Didn't she burst into tears, so
that she had to run away."

"The message," Browne's voice was broken now; "it saved her reason.
I thought----"

"The message," said Lancaster, "I forged that message."

"Forged it?"

"Of course.  How could I come to her without a message?  That's what
Brand would have written if he could.  Do you think it was easy for
me bringing that message?"

"I'd never have dared," said Browne, humbly.  "Fancy lying to her!"

"Well, I'm her cousin, you know, and you'd have dared all right if
you had been there.  He was conscious, the fever gone--awful weak, of
course, and he couldn't have written a letter to save his life.  I
did it out of my own head, too, and I hate writing letters.  That
night I climbed the cliff, and at the top found a young fisherman
asleep.  The man was in hiding, a criminal, I suppose; but he helped
me, and we got Brand up with ropes.  Neither of us knew that Ulster
was dead, or that the royal yacht was out searching for Brand, or
that Lyonesse was retaken for the Queen.  I found out all that
afterwards.

"All we knew was that Brand must escape from England; and he told me
to search for a shed, close by where his cottage used to stand.
Inside the shed we found a little old ship, the first one that
Brand's father ever built, the mother of the Fleet."

"What, the _Experiment_?  I've read about that."

"Yes, the _Experiment_; she was in perfect order, and we got her
alive within the hour.  I begged Brand to take the fisherman or me,
but he would have neither of us.  The fisherman must search for Miss
Brand, he said, and take her a message.  I must go to the Queen.
Then he began to get delirious."

"You let him go like that!"

"He cheated me--said I could come with him, but first I must coil up
the rope--he wanted the rope.  While I was coiling up the rope the
port clanged home, the ship rose with a whirr, drawing up a hurricane
of dust and stones.  I was dragged off my feet into the air, then
fell nearly over the edge of the cliff.  He was gone!"

"To his death," said Browne.

"Who knows?"

"And she believes that message!"

"I had to confess to some one," said Lancaster, dolefully.  "Hello,
here's old Branscombe.  What's the trouble, Jack?"

"Thought you'd gone back to bed, sir."

"Bed be damned," said Lancaster, cheerfully.  "Why that bereaved
smile?  More bad news?"

Fat Jack sat down panting, leaning his hands on his sword.

"Bad news?  Well, sir, that's hardly the word, we're a little nearer
the end, perhaps."  He watched the long procession of the sick--borne
one by one on stretchers up the stairway.  "I'd rather the end came
quick."

"Oh, go and be an angel," said Lancaster, scornfully.  "Go and croak
at the moon, Jack, weep to the clouds all alone on a damp battlement.
We've had more fun and adventure this last month."

Browne laughed heartily.

"Well," old Branscombe smiled at the two lads; "I suppose I'm a
fool," he wheezed.  "Just now I was talking with one of our wounded
men--Bill Sothern.  He saw the whole Republican army in camp, two
hundred and fifty thousand men at least, the pick of the Midland
counties, well fed, in fine condition, and our poor half-starved
troops, what can they do?  How could our Lady so much as offer
battle.  The thing was hopeless--she was right to decline.  Well,
to-day, the Republican colours are flying on Hampstead Hill.
To-morrow, their flag will be hoisted here."

"Come," said Lancaster, "cheer us up--go on, Jack."

"I wonder"--Jack grunted, looking steadily at the Prince.  "You, sir,
may be pleased.  I'm of a different make.  The French and German
armies landed yesterday, covering the coast from Dungeness to
Portsmouth--half a million men, with two hundred ships of the line to
sweep our army away as they advance."

"Anything more?" asked Tom of Lancaster.

"The Russian Fleet has appeared off the coast of Essex."

Lancaster was whistling softly.  "'Three blind mice--three blind
mice; see how they run.'  Well, Jack, I'll lay you three to one in
anything you like on Margaret."

"In my country," said Browne, yawning, "the sun goes down in the fall
of the year and never comes up again.  The Arctic Sea is all shifting
ice pack, the land all white drifts, and you think the night is never
going to end.  Yet it does; the sun comes up in the spring, and the
mosquito season begins.  Perhaps things will come out all right even
in this England."

"Perhaps," answered Branscombe.  "How long is it, Browne, since you
joined the Guard--you're only a recruit, eh?"

"Thirty-one days and thirty-one nights," said Browne, "and it feels
like thirty-one years.  Another month of your London will make me a
doddering old patriarch."

"Another month?"  Branscombe rose and walked away with a sigh.

"Another month!" echoed young Lancaster.

"Why, gentlemen," came a voice from the upper stairway.  "Are the
Queen's Blackguards so far gone as that?  All out of curl, no
swagger--like a covey of widows?"

Lancaster turned with an acid smile to the civilian.

"Who the deuce are you?"

"I have the honour," said the civilian grinning, "to be her Majesty's
Chief Poisoner."

Lancaster whispered to Browne.  "Another bounder come to cheer me up.
Well," he turned to the civilian.  "Tell us all the bad news, there's
still room for a fourth invading army from the west."

The Chief Poisoner lighted a cigarette, sat down, crossed his legs
and chuckled.

"Don't mind me," said the Prince.

"What!" the civilian started to his feet.  "I beg your Royal
Highness--I mean, sir--I didn't----"

"Sit down," said the Prince.  "Tell lies, we need amusing.  Proceed,
my Lord Chief Poisoner."

"Oh--ah--well, sir," the Poisoner smiled and writhed.  "I have good
news, sir, and at last I'm at liberty to speak.  I had the honour to
hear you mention, sir, the armies of the invasion."

"Yes, sir."

"They can't march on London without roads and railways, and they
depend, sir, more or less on the country for supplies--of water, for
instance."

"Water?"

"The first of all necessities.  The Franco-German forces, as you
know, sir, have landed on the coast of Kent, Sussex, and Hampshire.
Now in these three counties, her Majesty has called out the
Territorials, and ordered them to retreat on London sweeping the
whole population before them, driving the live-stock in to feed the
capital, burning all provisions and ricks that couldn't be moved.
The railways have been mined, and the roads blocked with felled
timber and mines.  Yesterday I had the honour to direct the poisoning
of every well, pond, and running stream.  Her Majesty sends word
advising the enemy that she will supply pure water when the troops
lay down their arms."

"But they can march across?"

"Yes, sir, they can march across without transport or artillery, or
food, or water, to attack the fortified positions on the north downs.
Meanwhile the live-stock and provisions are restoring life and hope
to the armies and citizens in London."

"You mean to say," cried Lancaster, "that the Queen has done all that
in five days?"

"It's seven days since her Majesty seized the Government."

"How about the Russian landing in Essex?"

"I'm not at liberty to speak as yet."

"I see," Lancaster had both hands to his bandaged head.  "But there
are still the enemy's Fleets."

Browne chuckled.

"Hello," Lancaster flashed round on him.  "Who told you to laugh?"

"Something," said Browne, "about eagles and bones out of the
Bible--wish I could remember what Miss Temple did say.  She reviewed
them yesterday."

"Miss Temple held a review?  Well, I'll be boiled!"

"No," Browne was irritable, "our Lady, of course, reviewed the
What-d'ye-call-um's ships--Brand's ships--eleven of them."

"You're dreaming, Browne."

"It's no dream," said Browne.  "Our Lady has kept the crews alive in
gaol; she's got the squadron together, reviewed them yesterday, and
she's going to send them against the enemy's fleets.  They've got
some sort of vibrations for touching off explosives, but none of
their captains ever heard of these vibrations, and Brand is the only
man who knows the secret.  That seems to trouble our Lady."

"Vibrations be damned," said Lancaster, hotly.  "I know all about
etheric ships.  Wasn't I in the _Mary Rose_ when we rammed the
_Gigantic_?  Brand's ships are rams, and they'll go through an
electric battleship like a shell through a paper balloon.  Eleven
rams like that could wipe out all the electric fleets of Europe.  Why
with the fleets destroyed and the country impassable----"

Browne yelped with delight.

"Here," cried Lancaster, "Jack Branscombe, you old fool.  I'll bet
you every horse in my stables, bar Sharon and the Dun--against your
spotted dog, our Lady wins the game!"

Branscombe had been listening at the stairhead, now he rolled over to
Lancaster.

"I can't," he panted.  "I can't bet against our Lady."

"That the League don't capture London--my horses against your beastly
spotted cur."

"Your horses are a scandalous lot of crocks, and I wouldn't have them
at a gift; but done, sir! and I hope you'll win my dog."

"And so do I!"

The voice, our Lady's voice, came thrilling clear from the head of
the lower stairway, at which the three Guardsmen sprang to attention,
and the civilian bolted.  So her Majesty came forward attended by her
retinue of the Guard, and wearing her uniform as its captain.

Branscombe provided her a seat, Browne, kneeling, presented the cup
of wine, the escort, breaking ranks, piled arms and awaited her
pleasure.

"There," she said, laughing.  "I'm tired enough to love my home.
Stand forward, Sergeant Branscombe," said our Lady, and her eyes
twinkled, for she dearly loved a jest.  "You are charged with betting
one spotted dog against your sovereign."

Branscombe prayed for the pavement to swallow him.

"I had no more," he stammered.

"One spotted dog or fifty, the same crime, Sergeant.  I condemn you
to quarter on your shield of arms a spotted dog proper bearing the
legend: 'I am Lancaster's.'  And you, Tom of Lancaster, get to bed,
and behave yourself on pain of a severe course of mustard
plasters--off with you!  Gentlemen," she raised her cup, "I pledge
the Guard."

We heard a trumpet blown outside the gates, and at the sound our Lady
let the cup fall, watching it roll slowly across the floor.

"Go down," she said, "Gentlemen of 'B' squadron--receive this
visitor--pay him all possible honour, and bring him here."

A dozen men, those of "B" squadron, parted from the rest, saluted,
formed, and marched clattering down the long stairs.  The procession
of the sick and their bearers ceased.  Then one could only hear the
impatient horses stamping in the porch.  We looked at our Lady, and
saw that she was afraid.

"I want to warn you, gentlemen," she said faintly.  "That trumpet was
blown for the President of the British Republic--yes, the Republic.
He has come to receive my surrender."

"Kill him!  Kill him!" cried some, and every man in the chamber was
moved to break away from the Queen's discipline.

"Gentlemen," said our Lady.  "President O'Brien comes under flag of
truce.  If you are offended now, you will be furious when you hear
his demands, and if you love me, you will stand quite still, except
to salute him at his entrance.  I warn you the slightest hostile
movement may ruin me.  My envoys have failed to treat with this man,
my letters met with an insulting reply, and he holds North London in
overwhelming force.  Ah, here he comes.  Don't be uneasy, I assure
you I'm not going to surrender."

The President, attended by his staff, conducted by our troopers, came
to the stairhead and there stood surveying our Lady and her
war-stained Guard.

"Where is this woman?" he demanded hoarsely.

And in answer, Margaret rose to make him welcome, met him half-way
across the chamber, and frankly offered her hand.

"What," she asked gently, "will you not shake hands?"

General O'Brien lifted his eyes until they were level with her brave
sad face.

"Won't you shake hands?" she said, "you come to me in my utmost
need."  Then addressing his retinue, "I am so glad to welcome
friends."

"This is all nonsense, madam.  I am not a friend."

"That," answered our Lady, "is incredible.  You are doing yourself
injustice.  My enemies are Russians, Germans, French, not British.
You could not possibly be leagued with my enemies.  I have sent my
messengers to welcome your reinforcements, cleared the northern
suburbs to quarter your troops, begged for your counsel as to meeting
the Russian advance, and now you come pretending enmity."

"I pretend nothing, madam.  I come as President of the British
Republic to occupy this Palace."

Margaret laughed at him.  "My dear good man, I can't spare room for
another cot, even for you.  This hospital is jammed to the very doors
with my poor guests, the sick.  See through that archway"--she
pointed to the entrance of the mess-room--"in that one ward there are
seven hundred cases of typhus.  Come, General O'Brien, I'm badly in
need of ambulance, and you must help me."

"I will take charge of that," said the President, brusquely.
"Meanwhile, madam, a special train is waiting to take you with your
following to Balmoral."

Our Lady turned away from him, crossed to her chair and sat down.
She rested her elbows on her knees, her face in her hands, and looked
up at this President thoughtfully.

"And so, General O'Brien," she said at last, "you want to sit in my
throne, my most comfortless throne."

"I want no throne," answered General O'Brien, "I have come to put an
end to this disastrous monarchy.  I have no time for delay."

"And who are you?" Margaret lifted her proud head.  "Who are you?"

"I command the armies of the Republic--three hundred thousand men."

"And I," said her Majesty, "command the nation, the feudatories, the
colonies, the seas, the air--the British Empire.  I am chosen by my
people their anointed sovereign, guardian of their liberty, Defender
of their Faith.  The throne is not yours, General, or mine.  It
belongs to the people who make the laws, and we are their
servants--their servants, General.  When we have conquered the
League, I will ask my people what kind of Government they want, who
they will have as their President or their Sovereign.  I will obey
their orders, but, by God, not yours!"

"You propose to fight my armies?"

"No, I would not have one of my people hurt in such a quarrel.  I
have half a million men, to fight Russia, France, and Germany--not
one to spare for you."

"What do you propose?"

A man had come to the head of the upper stairway, Sir Myles
Strangford, Secretary for War.

"Where is the Queen?" he cried.  "Gentlemen of the Guard, where is
the Queen?  I have great news--victory!  victory!  Our squadron of
etheric rams has met the Franco-German fleets.  Victory!  Victory!"

How the Guard cheered!

Then her Majesty sent for Sir Myles, and he was brought to her.

"Tell me," she said, laughing as he kissed her hand, "who is this
General O'Brien?  He claims to be the President of some Republic."

Sir Myles looked up towards General O'Brien and laughed also.

"Does he offer, madam, to meet the etheric rams in battle?"

"Woman," cried General O'Brien, "I am not here to be
insulted--surrender, or I shall take this Palace by assault."

"You would assault a hospital!"

Margaret rose from her seat, went over to the President, and, slowly
drawing her sword--

"You would assault a hospital!"  The sword whirled above her head,
and with the flat of the blade, she struck heavily upon his shoulder.
"Sir George O'Brien," she cried, "are you my knight, or are you my
enemy?  Take your choice."

"What do you mean?" he retorted in fury.

"I mean that you are knighted in my service, and commissioned
Lieutenant-General to meet the Russian invasion, or that you draw
your sword, Mr. O'Brien, and fight."

"This is an outrage!"

"Take it as an outrage, Mr. George O'Brien, rebel.  It's easy enough
to assault hospitals, easy enough to send brave men to their death.
You have three hundred thousand soldiers, I half a million; but I
cannot spare one life in either army--I can spare you.  What's that
sword at your side?  Is it only an ornament?  Have you no courage
beyond assaulting hospitals?  Draw, you coward, and fight!"

Here, Dymoke, as Champion of England, demanded leave to engage, but
our Lady waved him aside, being in no mood for interference.  As to
General O'Brien, he was not so eager.

"I cannot possibly fight you.  This is madness!"

"Sir, choose your own weapons, broadsword or rapier; I value my life
less than I value yours.  There's no room for both of us in the
world.  Draw, or I'll kill you.  Draw, I say, draw!"

"I do not fight with women."

"A man then!  Gentlemen of the Bodyguard, he demands a man!  Choose
your antagonist, sir, for fight you shall!"

"I refuse to fight!"

"Then," said one of the Generals of the staff, "I serve under no
coward.  I am a gentleman, your Majesty," he crossed to her rear.  "I
am at your Majesty's service."

In another minute President O'Brien stood alone, his staff gone over
to the Queen.

"I accept the inevitable," he said, angrily.  "I accept the position
of Lieutenant-General in your Majesty's service."

"This coward," Margaret turned upon the Generals, pointing with her
sword to the late President, "this coward proposes to serve in my
armies.  I send no cowards against my gallant enemies of the League.
Which of you gentlemen holds highest rank in the Republican forces?"

General McNeill saluted.

"'Tis to you, then, sir, I shall entrust my campaign against Russia.
You will consult with Sir Myles Strangford and receive my commands
through him.  As to this coward here, I entrust him to your custody
as a prisoner.  I order you to have him thrashed for cowardice in
presence of the army he was unfit to lead."

The Republic was at an end.


Mr. Dymoke was furious.  "What's the use," he said afterwards.
"What's the use of being Hereditary Champion of England if I can't
have somebody to kill?  I was cheated out of my fight with Prince
Ali, and here's the Queen herself getting in front of my rights."

He was to have his killing.




XXI

THE QUEEN'S RETREAT

From the time our Lady's actual reign began, we saw the ruined land
stir into being.  For money she gave us "Queen's promises," that is
to say, the old coins of the realm, which her Majesty vowed to redeem
at their former value.  With these coins, after she made proclamation
on the thirteenth of the Terror, wages were earned and paid, the
traffic moved again, shops opened for trade, and factories went to
work.  It was all done in a timid way at first, then with more
confidence, and at last in full flood of recovery.

For those still out of work, her Majesty founded the Administration
of Hope.  To the municipal councils she granted powers for seizure of
provisions, employment of workers, and service of rations to them and
to their families.  So the dead were buried, the streets and roads
were cleared, ships were discharged, the markets stocked with produce
from the shires, and London was fortified.

She founded the Administration of Succour, opening pawnshops for the
loan of money, hospitals for the sick, camps for the destitute, and a
service of military transport.

So daily, hourly, the Queen's dominion spread until the three
kingdoms rang from end to end with feverish industry and courageous
life.

It was all so gallantly done, and so hopeless.  Nothing but the
instant peril of invasion could have bound the people together while
they were starving.  The dying realm lived by her surgery, was
healed, was saved, but then the price must be paid--and three armies
were marching against the Capital.  Our Lady's flotilla of rams
shattered their covering fleets--but even etheric vessels could not
charge battleships of the line without being injured; caught in the
bursting magazines, they were racked to pieces.  The fleets of the
League were destroyed, but of the three rams which survived not one
could float again.

Four shires, Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Essex, were laid waste,
changed into desert where all the water was poisonous, but the armies
of the invasion were only delayed until they could add tanks to their
transport.  Then the armies came against the outer defences of
London--a web of hedges, ditches and canals, a labyrinth of suburbs
which swallowed brigade after brigade, and sent back only wreckage of
lost regiments.  Our Imperial army was--ever since the beginning of
the Twentieth Century--an army of marksmen--sharp-shooters who mowed
down the poor conscripts of Europe, even as the swaths of wheat fell
at the harvesting.

Behind her chain of fortresses our Lady was arming her people for
defensive war; mines, mills, and factories, villages and towns sent
their contingents of men to be drilled in her camps; the Midlands
seethed with preparation of arms, and explosives; and every weapon
capable of use added a man's strength to the great defence.

As Margaret called in her outposts, garrison troops came in daily
from Halifax, Bermuda, Gibraltar, and were sent with their guns to
the front.

France and Germany called up their fleet reserves, but the
Mediterranean Squadron dealt with the French above Rouen, and turning
eastward, caught the Germans in Hanover.

So the battle raged for weeks, over land and sea, but the vortex of
this dread Armageddon was Margaret's Capital.  The French army was in
the outer southern suburbs, the Russians held the northern suburbs,
the Germans were in the east, and the marshals of the invasion slowly
mile by mile forced their way to the westward, closing down upon
London.  Another week would see the Metropolis surrounded, and the
siege commenced.  We knew that the end was near.

It was the bombardment of the East End which brought the council of
war to plead with her Majesty for the desperate policy of retreat.
They begged her to withdraw westward, to evacuate London, and, laying
the land waste, fall back upon the Midlands.

"Fall back!" said Margaret bitterly.  "Gentlemen, I cannot understand
your military terms, but if that means run--I won't!"

"Madam," Lord Fortescue had a valued gift of persuasion.  "We want to
run away, leading the enemy inland until we catch him in a trap."

"That sounds well," said our Lady, pursing her lips doubtfully.  "Are
the traps always far inland?"

"Madam, if we are caught here in London, it means surrender."

"London, then, is a trap?"

"A perfect death-trap."

"A perfect death-trap."  Margaret repeated the words doubtfully;
then, like a flash--"If any army is caught in London, it means
surrender!"

"Good gracious, madam!" exclaimed the Commander-in-Chief.

"Let me feel my way--perhaps it is nonsense.  A million people are
being shelled--murdered in the East End.  Suppose we clear the East
End--here, see on this map--from Stratford say, to Aldgate.  I could
send the women and children to Windsor Forest--they need a holiday,
poor things.  Any way we could spare that district to the Germans.
Then there's the City and this West-Central district up to Charing
Cross--a heap of ruins.  We could spare all that to the
Germans--enough room for them to lose their whole army.  They would
rush in to capture our main positions on the Hampstead and Sydenham
Hills.  They would find themselves in a low valley blocked with
ruins, under the fire of a thousand guns, every line of escape
blocked by our barricades, the river on their left too broad to swim.
Then they would try to get back to their camps--and find their camps
fortified with their own guns against them!"

"Madam!"

"My lord, have these Germans any mercy on my poor women and children?
I want to capture their army."

"We couldn't possibly feed two hundred thousand prisoners."

"I want no prisoners, I want rifles for my reserves, Lord Fortescue,
rifles and powder, and all the provisions in the German camps.  As to
the----"

"Madam," said Strangford, "a couple of hundred thousand German
prisoners sent as a present into the hungry Russian lines
might,--well, Russia loves Germany none too well as it is."

But Lord Fortescue objected, protesting that "London was full of
foreign spies, and that we could never conceal our preparations."

"Permit me, madam," cried Strangford, eagerly.  "My dear Lord
Fortescue, here we have the complete plans for the evacuation of
London.  I could get the papers sold privately to the French, and we
could so shape our preparations as to make the Allies believe we were
in full retreat to the Midlands.  Afterwards we shall have both
Russians and Germans accusing the French of treachery.  We shall
split the League!"

There is no need to tell again the story of our Lady's stratagem.
During the five days of its preparation, the armies of the League
closing down through the western suburbs, cut off all hope of
retreat, all chance of succour.  No help could reach us from the
outer world, and lost in the valley of death, we could send no word
to salve the fear of England, or to restrain despair.  So much we
lost.

Then came the thirty-ninth of the Terror, when the German forces, a
hundred and fifty thousand strong, marched into the capital.

From the Palace towers we watched the red sun rise, heard the first
gun, and waited minute after minute until the silence became agony.
Then came a sudden blaze from a thousand guns, the Palace reeled
under the crash, and over the ruins of central London went up a cloud
of dust.  Of the German forces, thirty-one thousand men are supposed
to have perished in that cloud, fifteen thousand escaped in panic
flight, a hundred and four thousand prisoners were released starving
into the hungry Russian lines.

Our Lady was pleased to dine that night with the Bodyguard.  The
tables, for lack of room elsewhere, had been set in the guardroom
upon the alabaster stairs, and in her Majesty's honour we twined
garlands of rose and laurel about the lamps, brought out the gold
plate, and used some of that old, gracious pageantry which graced the
bygone times.  Outside, the guns were firing a salute, the bells of
London pealed for victory, and our trumpets pealed as we rose to
drink to the Queen.  Then Sir Myles Strangford came, attended by his
staff, and from the upper stairway read the report of our triumph.

"A hundred and fourteen thousand stand of arms, the German siege
train, Woolwich Arsenal, three thousand wagons of military stores,
twenty-two million rations----"

The harsh call of a bugle cut short his words, a quick, imperative
summons at the very gates of the Palace.  No English bugle was
sounded in such a place.

When an attendant had been sent to make inquiries, Sir Myles went on
reading the proclamation of victory, news that would bring comfort to
the besieged, hope to all Britain.  His voice was fervent in
thanksgiving; a storm of cheering drowned his closing words.
Standing with drawn swords we sang the National Anthem, thinking most
of us of the women folk at home, our mothers and sisters in danger,
and our dread sovereign Lady whom we served.  Then the song died on
our lips, our swords drooped, and there was silence while a vague
fear gripped us at the throat.

A Russian general officer had come up the stairway attended by a
trooper bearing the white flag on a lance.

"Gentlemen," he said, in broken English, "I have the honour--I bear a
letter to her Britannic Majesty."

His eyes followed ours as we directed him, and perhaps, after all,
the Russians pleaded for an armistice.  The Allies were ready to fly
at each other's throats, there was hatred within the League more than
against ourselves.  And yet the Russian's bearing boded no good to
us, and as our Lady read we saw her face turn grey.

She beckoned the envoy to retire--told him to await her pleasure at
the gates, kept silence until he was gone.

"Strangford!" she cried, "Strangford!  Come here!"

She thrust the paper into Strangford's hand, and we saw him too grow
cold before our eyes.

"Madam," he groaned, "I fear this is the end."

"Gentlemen," our Lady lay back in her chair very faint and ill.
"Gentlemen of the Guard, you who have never failed me--never failed
me," she started up, a new thought lighting her face.  "You're the
only men in the Empire who have not failed me.  I appeal to you--I
want ships--I want a squadron of ships.  Help me! help me!"

Not a man moved, for how could we find her ships?  We had given our
yachts, those who had them, and had not failed her when our lives
were needed--but ships!  At the beginning the Channel Fleet was lost,
but the fleets of the League were destroyed by etheric rams.  The
reserve fleets of France and Germany had been defeated by the
Mediterranean Squadron.  Victorious in a hundred aerial fights, the
ships which remained to England were on guard, lest the French and
Germans attempt a last attack.  We dared not withdraw one cruiser
lest our enemies take the air again--and that meant ruin.  There was
no squadron left even for the Queen's most vital need--or else the
siege of London had been impossible.  There were no ships.

A slow tear trickled down our Lady's face.

"We dared to hope," she said, "to hold out until Mr. Brand comes
back--as he will come back!  Oh, must he come too late?"

That was the most piteous thing of all, that our Lady still believed
Brand would come back.

Sergeant Dymoke went to the Queen, and, bending his knee--

"Madam," he cried, "we are ready to go on fighting."

"How can we fight?" said Margaret angrily.  "What can we do against
the Siberian Fleet?  Can we ride horses upon the clouds, charge
nineteen battleships of the line with rifles, float up our fortress
guns to fight the stars?"

And all the bells of London were pealing for victory!




XXII

THE LAST BATTLE

Mars burned on the horizon; the six stars of Orion, the seven misty
Pleiads, the eight suns of the Bear, and all the lamps of Heaven were
shining steadfast.  Suns spin their course, the constellations
change, and all things pass, but yet eternal gleams the Milky Way
spanning the night from everlasting unto everlasting--the perfect
arch of God's restraining hand.  We may lie down to rest in utter
faith, for, with the failing glory of our day, the night reveals His
visible providence.  But those who cannot sleep most need His
comfort, and our Lady Margaret kept vigil that last night.

From the high solitude of her tower, she watched the passing stars
until the black ruins of the city loomed ragged against white dawn
light.  Ashen grey were the ruins of Mayfair to the north; gaunt and
gigantic wrecks of Belgravia's palaces went up in white against the
velvet west.  The day was breaking--the last day of all.  Mist lay
beneath where all the Palace slept, and in the gardens the waking
doves crooned softly.  Far off in the south, trains rumbled at some
junction of the rails; a car whirred in the Palace Road; an aerial
yacht slid past in the western gloom, and London was alive.

The sun would come up presently; how few of all the thousands asleep
in the Palace were destined to see him set!  The trooper who stood by
the parapet watching the pale light climb the eastern sky prayed with
a boy's fervour that the sun might never rise.  "Jehovah of the
Thunders, Lord God of Battles, don't let that sun rise!  Have pity;
destroy the earth, hurl us away into the night, but don't let the sun
rise upon Margaret's death--the end of human liberty, and all the
glory of manhood that was England!  Oh, stay the sun!  Have mercy and
stay the sun!"

The trooper knelt down, and, reaching out his arms towards the east,
begged the Almighty Father to stay the sun.

Our Lady's voice broke in upon his silence.  "Browne," she called,
"Browne, come here to me, I need you."

He came, standing at the salute.

"Look to the west," said Margaret.  "The light is growing--look to
the west and tell me--are there any ships?"

He looked into the violet gloom, hung like a funeral curtain over the
west, then his arm fell to his side, but he dared not answer.

"The armistice," said Margaret, "ends when the sun comes up--the
three days' armistice--they would not give me more.  Not just in the
west, Browne," said our Lady, gently, "a little to the southward,
look again.  Lyonesse is a little south of west, above the copper
beech tree down in the garden."

But still Browne answered nothing.

"Are you short-sighted, Browne?" asked Margaret, patiently, knowing
that he was noted for long sight.  "Or is the sky still dark over to
westward?"

But he answered nothing.

"Or are you crying, Browne?"

The man threw himself suddenly at her feet and there lay until the
dawn light found our Lady's face.

"If it were all to do again," she said; "and I knew what must come,
seeing the future clearer than the past, and judging as God judges
even to the end of Destiny--I wonder--should I have let my country be
betrayed?  Vassalage to Russia!  No, I think not.  Ulster betrayed
me, and in that treason was the seed of all.  Now we must reap where
Ulster sowed the seed.  I could not keep back the harvest, nor can we
stop the sun from rising.  It is not the rising of the sun which
gives the signal to the Russian Fleet.  The sun stands still in
heaven--it is the earth that sets--man's world going down into this
vassalage, into this Russian night.

"They wanted me to surrender, to lay down my arms, my crown, my
kingdom, my religion; my Ministers and my Generals, all with one
voice begged me to save my people, by surrender.  They asked me to
make my people subjects of Russia--they called that serving my
people!  I would rather they died free, and took their freedom into
the life to come, going to their Master rich with honour--and not
afterwards beggarly, and ashamed, whining like slaves.

"There is the Siberian Fleet," Margaret was gazing upwards at the
vast line of battle in the eastern sky.  "When the sun reddens their
wings, they will destroy my fortresses, murder my people, make the
Thames run blood.  My place is with my people--I am their Queen, and
still I shall labour for them, pray for them in that other world,
leading my spirit people, my free people.  Then I shall leave no
children on this earth borne of my shame, descended from British
Kings to be vassals of Russia.

"But, oh, if only my people might be saved!  Stand up again!  Stand
up--the sun is reddening the Russian Fleet.  Stand up--look to the
west--there must be ships in the west--his ships from Lyonesse!  No
ships!  Still no ships!  Let us go down and take our horses out; I
shall die with my Guard to-day!  I shall ride with my Guard, Beyond!"

* * * * *

"Fours right!  Left wheel--by y'r left, march!  Carry ar-r-r-ms!"

The old avenue lay ahead of us, the Mall, and as we rode out slowly
past the Victoria Monument, our Lady looked back, once, lifting her
hand in farewell--perhaps to Miss Temple on some balcony.  Our
wounded were with us, all who could keep the saddle, and Lancaster,
still very weak, carried the Guidon of the Regiment.  The early
sunlight, dappled through green leaves, caught gold and scarlet,
silver and blazonry; our horses played like great babies because of
the dewy freshness in the air; and so we broke to a trot, every man
with his eyes set straight to the front, his hand gently on the curb,
his thoughts--so far away!

All round the white horizon, guns of position thundered, shells
burst, and spluttering rifles kept up the long monotony of battle,
white dust went up, and rolling smoke, flame, and the souls of men.

A shell burst close beside us as we swung through St. James' Palace
into Pall Mall, another, as we entered Waterloo Place, struck the
Crimean Monument just ahead; but we breasted the hill in lower Regent
Street between dead shuttered buildings all asleep, as though it were
Sunday morning in times of peace.

We crossed the circus set round with familiar theatres, and hotels,
their porches still bearing torn playbills on the columns, their
cornices and domes just caught by the morning light.

A falling shell scattered the rear ranks and burst.  Ambrose was
killed, O'Hagan wounded, Joubert, the Transvaaller, was unhorsed.
Drawing his sword, he saluted her Majesty, then set the point to his
neck, drove the blade home, and fell.  We rode on through the
Quadrant, entering Regent Street.

We were a troop of cowards, ashen white and shaken, ready to run if a
dog barked.  The hot blood tingling in our veins, young strength, the
desires of manhood, all the powers of nature cried out within us
demanding life.  Why should we die!

The elder empires died, and England's time was come.  She should fall
gloriously as became her life, still great, still mighty, before age
sapped her strength, before decay rotted her honour.  Nations born of
her loins should pass her freedom on to distant ages, and teach their
royal posterity of peoples the discipline and speech of the English
race.

Our part was not in her death but in the living future--why should we
die?

But Margaret led us on.

The sparrows fluttered about our horses' feet, a mist rose on the
pavement, and above, the warm light glowed on the high pavilions,
colonnades, and roofs crowning the cliff-like walls on either hand.

How empty the street was!  Grave bronze statues looked down as we
rode by, there were the sparrows fluttering, a cyclist was coming up
behind, and an old woman venturing across our front, very much
frightened at our trampling.

In an instant all was changed.  A cluster of cars came whirling down
from the north, killing the woman under their ruthless wheels, and as
they passed, the occupants yelled and beckoned.  The cyclist had come
up abreast shouting to her Majesty some message from the Palace, but
we could not listen.

A man came running out of Oxford Street, then three others and a
score behind him, as a shell struck the ground in front of that first
man.  We saw him shrink away looking back, then fearing the shell
less, try to jump clear of it.  The shell burst flinging his body
against a lamp-post, but the other men came on at the head of a
roaring crowd blocking the thoroughfare from wall to wall.  There
were soldiers among them, their rifles thrown away, civilians mad
with fright trampling down the weak, cars rocking from side to side
as their wheels rolled over the fallen, police carried helpless in
the flood.  Fresh crowds poured out from byways on the right, and the
main tide of panic came roaring down.  We galloped into line to beat
the crowd back, yelled to the police to help us with barricades, but
all these men were changed to beasts in their terror, shells burst in
their midst, and the great rush swept us away.

We rallied about our Lady gradually, cut through the tide and
reformed in Conduit Street.  On our west lay the ruins of Mayfair, on
our east the ruins of Soho, and between no human power could stem
that cataract of headlong maniac flight.  A shell burst on a roof
above our heads scattering ruins of brick-work in our midst; so,
sorely reduced and driven from our shelter, we kept together as best
we might through street after street on fire, and alleys blocked with
men.

The smoke hung like a canopy above, and ashes fell like snow through
the red gloom.  Poisonous vapours spread from bursting shells, low on
the ground but rising inch by inch until with taut rein we held up
our horses' heads, and swaths of people, strangled by that mist,
perished around us.  Our way was barred by falling masonry, by sheets
of flame; then we were lost in the darkness all alone, and turning a
corner found ourselves in the Mall.

So Russia dealt with our defenceless crowds, murdering in cold blood
from the decks of her battleships.  The Grand Duke Alexander was in
command, and thus he came to pay his court to the Queen.

Slowly we rode along the avenue, thirty-eight left of us out of all
the Guard.  And having seen so many kinds of death, we were
fastidious, not caring to fight our own poor countrymen, or to be any
longer jostled through the streets, or butchered by the Russians
without a blow returned.  Our Lady suggested that we should ride out
to the southern lines, but we demurred, having an easy tolerance
rather than respect for the French.  Neither would she enter the
Palace lest the sick and the wounded be disturbed in their beds.  It
was better to wait in the open.  As to our horses we unsaddled the
dear beasts for the last time, and because there was no need for them
to die--since they had done no wrong--we turned them into the Green
Park.

Our Lady sat upon the base of the Victoria Monument, and we, drawing
away to a little distance, tried to be quiet lest we intrude upon her
thoughts.  But we could not help looking to see that she was safe, to
behold her face, perhaps for the last time, or wonder if we might
make her seat more comfortable.  Then Lancaster whispered that she
must be lonely, thinking herself deserted.  So one by one with
awkward pretences, we came about the balustrade where she sat,
attempted to make conversation, to tell her stories, trying to win
her laughter for the last time.  They were such tame stories, fell so
flat, and none of us could remember which she would like best.  At
last we made fat Branscombe sing--he had led the Palace choir.

  "Abide with me, fast falls the eventide,
  The darkness deepens, Lord with me abide,
  When other helpers fail, and comforts flee,
  Help of the helpless, Lord abide with me.

  "Swift to its close, ebbs out life's little day,
  Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away----"


"Stop," cried our Lady, "I can't bear it, Branscombe!"

Then looking out through the red gloom of that unearthly day, we saw
an immense crowd surging down the Mall.  At first we thought the
people were fugitives, but as they drew nearer, by their torches and
weapons, the hags who led them and the song they screamed, "The
Marseillaise," we knew them for outlaws and gaol-delivered felons.

Once more it had broken loose, that bloody and horrible beast mob of
anarchy and chaos, but now with hands lifted against our Lady's life.
Falling back upon the portico of the Palace, she sent a dozen men to
barricade the alabaster stairs, and at all costs we must gain them
time to do their work lest the Palace be sacked and thousands of our
sick murdered in their beds.  Her Majesty stood with her back against
the fluted shaft of a column, bullets splashing all round her against
the marble, while with an imperious gesture she demanded silence.

"Do you want to die?" she cried to the thieves.  "The Russians are
slaughtering--they are coming here--they may come at any moment.
Will you die with me?"

The leaders of the mob drew back amazed, then thrust their spokesman
forward, who touched his cap, asking quite respectfully for the
treasure in the Palace lest it fall into the hands of the enemy.

"If there's anything left," cried Margaret, "you're welcome.  My
Guardsmen will bring whatever there is to you here, for I'd rather
you shared it than my enemies--on one condition, that you stay here
outside.  I will not have my hospital disturbed."

"Who brought us to this pass!" screamed a shrill hag.  "Kill her!
Kill her!"

"We're the people," shouted a man behind the hag.  "We'll 'ave our
rights!"

"You shall have your rights," said Branscombe, running him through
the body.

Then beastly words were used, the man who first had spoken implored
her Majesty to escape, lead spattered against the columns, and the
mob charged.  Driven back step by step, we fought with clubbed
carbines, covering her Majesty's retreat.  The leaders were felled,
the thieves behind them stumbling and pushed forward, went down under
the heavy wave of that attack, which hurled us, whether we liked or
no, into the Palace.  We made a stand behind the main doors, a second
stand behind the beginnings of a barricade; and there we opened fire
for the first time.  Nothing could live before that fusilade, yet the
rush drove in through the open doors a writhing mass of frantic,
shrieking men, hurled by the pressure of their fellows, screaming for
mercy under the very muzzles of our guns.  There could be no mercy.

We hardly knew what happened; supposedly some other gate was breached
into the Palace, for suddenly a concentrated fire of rifles poured
into us from behind.  Looking up the stairs, we saw that the
guardroom above us was full of rioters, firing down from the side
galleries and the stairhead.  To stay was to be butchered at the
doors, and so we charged the stairs, cleaved our passage through the
guardroom, and on the upper stairway, those who were left of us
turned again to fight.

A clergyman led the next onrush of the mob, a poor, gaunt curate,
unarmed, screaming like a woman.

"Rats--red rats," was his cry.  "Away rats--know you not that I am
Julius Caesar!  Rats! red rats!"

He fell, poor madman, with so many of his fellows that the stairs ran
blood, and our assailants, reeling before our fire, made barricades
of the dead to fight from cover.  Only when we had spent our last
cartridge dared they charge again, led now by an old grey fanatic,
waving a banner looted from some church, and screaming of Babylon and
the Scarlet Woman.  A bullet from his following gave him peace.

And then we had only our swords, our good straight swords, making a
fence of steel about our Lady's life.  Her life?  It sounds a little
inconsistent, but it was our turn first.  We hoped for our Lady a
nobler death, in a greater quarrel than this fight with thieves--that
is, we ought to have so reasoned had there been time.  It is only
after the fight that one has leisure to invent all the good reasons.
For the time we guarded her Majesty just because we loved her; fought
for her, not with reasoning but with sheer hard steel.

The surgeons came with their long knives, and stood with us shoulder
to shoulder for the defence of their wards; all sick and wounded men
able to stand joined us with crutch or stick to fight for the Queen;
the ladies, driven from their nursing, came to die with us, and many
a Palace servant and stray civilian.  So went the fight reeling along
the corridor and into the rooms of state--a long, hard, desperate
defence against overwhelming numbers.  The horror of that battle was
for the sick, thrown over in their cots, the dying trampled under,
the helpless nursing sisters, and those of us who fell.

Pretty things have been said about the Guard, but the word "Heroic"
is strangely misapplied to us who thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  We
were having a good fight, free from all doubts and misgivings; for
being to all intents and purposes already dead, we had nothing left
to be alarmed about.  But her Majesty, covering Trooper Browne when
he was hurt, and engaging three assailants to her lone sword--that
was heroic.

How that great stormy spirit rose in danger!  She had never seemed to
us so royal as when, wounded and bleeding, she rallied us in the
throne room, looked about her laughing, and said she would not
retreat another inch.  She mounted the dais, sat in the chair of
state, and laying the red sword across her knees, looked down at her
enemies.

Tenuous wreaths of smoke hung midway up the columns, and blurred the
golden vault.  The mob was dispersed after pillage, save for a few
maniacs still running on our swords.  On every side the floor was
covered with long rows of beds, the air was filled with wailing,
screams and groans, and through the deep gloom one could see the
stunted felons of the slums, cursing and shrieking as they fought
over their plunder.  Plate, robes, gems, porcelain, bronzes, the
gifts of kings, and trophies of great campaigns, were fought for by
the rabble, snatched from hand to hand, or shattered on the pavement.
Drunk with wine from the cellars, mad with bloodshed, fighting among
themselves, murdering at random, these obscene robbers forgot to
attack the Guard.  We were dressing each other's wounds, rescuing
women from outrage, contriving a barricade to shelter our refugees;
and in her throne our Lady awaited the end.

We scarcely could see the further columns now, so dense the gloom, so
heavy the rolling smoke.  Far on our right down the east corridor,
bright flames swept nearer and nearer, lighting the hall at last with
a crimson glare, and like sunset clouds rolled the red smoke above.

So the end came.  We heard a bugle call, clear notes soaring above
all the tumult, sweet music for us who waited--the "Advance."  We
left our work on the barricading about the dais, clasped hands one
with another, said "Good-bye."  The Russian bugles called; one, then
another, and a third far off.  Her Majesty cried to her surgeons and
able-bodied men to withdraw with the refugees, to hoist a white flag
and stand aside from death under the shelter of the colonnades.  We
forced a swift obedience, we of the Guard.

And coming back we heard our Lady scream!  She had half risen, one
knee on the seat of the throne, her eyes dilated with horror, set on
the east corridor.  There under the flames, it seemed from the very
midst of the flames, Miss Temple came, walking slowly, as though in a
dream.  She reached out her arms to us--her hands had been cut off at
the wrists--her grey hair streamed with blood, her gown of black
brocade was torn away at the breast.  As she entered the throne-room
the robbers fell shrinking back on either side, opening a lane
through the beds to give her passage.  Death was in her face, as
tenderly we led her to the Queen, and then at Margaret's feet she
found rest.  Her Majesty was crying.

Saluting the throne as we passed, we formed before the dais, measured
each man his distance, and made ready.  Lancaster, badly wounded and
barely able to stand, planted the Guidon on our Lady's right, our
lance-borne pennant charged with the royal arms, half seen through
low-rolling flame-hued smoke, glowing with golden and scarlet
blazonry.

Already the rioters in their thousands were being swept headlong as
though by a whirlwind through the chambers of state, their flight
converging in the throne-room, and, for one wild moment threatening
to roll insensate over our last defence.  Like a rock in mid torrent
we split the rush in two, then free to breathe again wiped the blood
from our swords and waited.  Through the red gloom, we could see
battalions of Russian seamen clearing a space with their bayonets on
the further side of the hall.  Opposite, an Admiral attended by his
staff advanced midway to the throne and halted.  On either side of
this group of officers, the battalions, far back against the columns,
halted, grounded arms with a crash, and unfixed bayonets.  Their
rifles clattered to the "ready," the "present," then with a deafening
roar and a blaze of flame, delivered one volley.  The floor was
littered with the broken cots of the hospitals, with heaps of
plunder, and with piles of the dead.  We were alone with our enemy,
and in a momentary silence heard the sharp crackle of advancing
flames, felt the furnace heat, and saw the red glare deepen on
drifting wreaths of smoke.

The bugles were sounding the English general salute, and as the
Admiral advanced at the head of his staff, we could do no less than
respond to that courtesy with our swords.  We looked at the Admiral's
face, and he was the man we had expelled in disgrace from the Palace,
his Imperial Highness the Grand Duke Alexander.

Our Lady never moved, nor would we draw aside one inch to give him
passage.  Dymoke was facing him on the right, Branscombe on the left,
when at last he spoke to the Queen.

"Your Majesty," he said, "I have come to renew my suit, attended by
half a million of your devoted admirers."

Our Lady never stirred.

"I might," he continued, "have expected a more courteous reception
for the Emperor of All the Russias.  Yes, my brother, Nicholas, is
with the saints, and I am Father of the Russians.  My heroic
adversary, I have come to offer you the Russian throne in exchange
for the British."

"Sir," said Margaret, "my kingdom is all red flame, my people are the
dead, and I will not leave this throne.  Of you I can ask nothing for
myself, but for my Guardsmen here, and for some poor fugitives
yonder--if you have not already murdered them, I ask life."

"Madam," cried Branscombe, "you ask too much!  I speak for the whole
Corps of the Guard!"

"Death!" cried Lancaster, and Browne called "Death!" and all the rest
echoed "Death!"  "Death!"

"Your Majesty," said Alexander, "I will provide for the refugees.  To
these gallant gentlemen I offer commissions in my Imperial Guards; to
you, madam, the throne of my Empire and my devoted love."

Margaret looked down straight into his eyes.  "You have a strange
way, sir, in revealing your love.  How many thousands, and hundreds
of thousands of my people have you slaughtered this day in cold
blood--my helpless citizens, women, little children, the sick in
their beds, the wounded, the dying!  You drunken libertine, you
pitiless coward, you butcher of women, I commend you to the Eternal,
the Everlasting Justice.  No liberal and justly governed realm was
ever abandoned by Almighty God, and to Him I appeal now, to His
ordeal of battle."

"At last," cried Dymoke, hoarsely, as drawing off his gauntlet, he
struck the Russian Emperor in the face.

"Your Majesty!"  Alexander drew back, almost choked with rage.  "I
shall avenge this outrage!"

"Avenge!  Avenge!" cried Dymoke.  "I am Hereditary Champion of
England.  Draw, I say, draw!"

"I do not fight with servants.  Stand back, sir!"

"With servants, you cur?  My ancestors were Champions of England
while yours gnawed horse bones round a camp fire.  Draw!"

"Harold Dymoke," said our Lady.  "No man shall slight you as my
Champion.  I dub you knight, I give you the Duchy of Gloucester, I
create you a Prince of the United Kingdom.  Prince Harold of
Gloucester, strike that man again!"

Several Russian officers sprang forward attempting to save their
master, who had scarcely time to draw, so swift, so furious the
assault.  Dymoke disarmed the first, ran the second through, and
before he could disengage, was like to be killed when Branscombe
intervened.  Now fat Branscombe was instructor to the Guard, had once
been the first swordsman in Europe, but even he was scarcely safe
against six blades at once, and must have fallen, but that Hylton
struck in vigorously.  Dymoke was with the Emperor now.

The engagement was general and greatly to our liking--twenty-four
Queen's Blackguards against fifty Russians.  Our middle-aged
opponents knew nothing of swordcraft, their tailor's swords buckled,
they were laced up in full-dress uniforms.  We cut their line of
retreat, flicked the swords from their plump fingers, or, point to
throat, forced them to surrender.  What could they hope against our
youth, our perfect training, our deadly skill at fence, our shirts of
mail?  We knew that their massed battalions dared not fire, the
Emperor was dead, the General Staff was captured.

How can one trace a sequence through that wild confusion which
followed?  Even while we compelled our prisoners on pain of death to
retire their battalions from the Palace, we saw the Russian seamen
breaking ranks.  The captured officers yelled at them in vain, we
could gain nothing by killing our hostages, as the seamen rushed on
us brandishing their rifles, hundreds to one against our scattered
groups.  No reach of sword could give us a fighting chance against
such bludgeons as the seamen used, nor had we time to rally round the
Queen.  Taken flank, front, and rear, each for himself, we measured
our short blades against the sledgehammer blows, and some of us won
back to the steps of the dais--and some to the ranks of the Guard
beyond the Gates of Death.

Comparing one with another the memories of that last tremendous
struggle for existence, some of us have recalled a series of
explosions which made the pavement reel beneath our feet, and more
than one of the great onyx columns crash down in ruin on the
attacking force.  The timbering of the golden dome was all aflame
above us littering red-hot wreckage through the smoke.  It was a beam
of this burning timber which slew Dymoke, and we heard him calling on
Sydney before he died.

Some of us also have remembrance that with noble courtesy the
disarmed officers of the General Staff were attempting to save us
from their men.  But, for the writer of this history, one
recollection only is engraved forever upon a sorely bewildered brain.
It is the picture of our Lady standing before her throne.  All round
her upon the steps of the dais, the swords of her Guardsmen whispered
and sang, red gleaming blades, thrusting or slashing, resonant
against dark steel of whistling rifles.  Above her the emblazoned
Guidon drooped in the coiling vapours, at her feet lay Lancaster, his
dead face wonderful in its perfect rest.  Her hands were on the hilt
of her sword, the cloak was drawn about her, ruddy gold and red
streamed her hair in the fierce light.  Her face was lifted in
prayer, radiant with an unearthly beauty, and fearless, and at peace.

And the fight raged on as though there never could be an end.

How strange the end was!  One saw a Russian seaman, his bronzed face
glowing with fury, his rifle whirling for the blow--then somehow that
rifle was blown to pieces in mid-air; and the bandolier across the
man's shoulder changed to a bolt of lightning; and his body
dismembered, disrupted, gone.  Then one looked out across the hall to
find it empty, save for the group of Russian officers--while the
floor seemed a sea of blood.  A voice cried, "Margaret!  Margaret!"
We saw a single man, a great, grim, bloodstained man, looming
gigantic in the flame-light, come running towards the dais, his arms
stretched out; and in a reeling, heaving vault of blood and flame,
John Brand lifting the Queen in his arms.

Margaret was saved!




XXIII

PRISONER OF LOVE

Margaret stirred in her sleep, and with a tremulous sigh wakened.
Her fingers touched cool, white linen, creased still where the folds
had been, faintly scented from sprays of lavender.  She saw one ray
of sunlight level through soft gloom, and golden motes danced therein
like fairies.  Above swung rose-silk curtains swaying ever so gently
to a ship's motion, and wonder dawned in her eyes.

Her armour was gone, her dripping sword, the air of flame, the sea of
blood, the roar of battle--all gone like a bad dream.  She reached
out her right hand, and thrust it softly, quivering at the touch,
against a man's rough hair.

The man was kneeling by the bed, his face buried in the white
coverlet, his dark hair streaked with silver, and his great, strong
arms stretched out as though to guard her even in her dreams.  Of
dull stained gold, was his rough shirt of mail, torn, ragged, bloody;
then he lifted his head and she saw the grave majesty of his face.
Again her hand went out groping until her uncertain fingers touched
him--and he was real!

"The everlasting life," she whispered.

And he answered: "It is everlasting Love."  And then the passion
leapt into his eyes.  "Love me," he cried.  "Love me!  Love me,
Margaret!"

She thrust the palm of her hand against his mouth.

"Afterwards--but this is the Earth, and so I've got to die.  Oh save
me, Brand," she cried.  "I can't die, now!  I can't die!  How can I
die now!  And yet--must I not lead my people on the Other Side, ride
with my Guard yonder?"  Her head fell wearily, and her eyes closed.
"It is all well--you were true to me."

He clutched her hand and kissed it passionately.  "Margaret!
Margaret!  You shall not die!"

"The Palace rocks," she muttered, "like a ship.  It was only a little
wound, but my neck throbs, and with the daybreak--will it hurt much,
Brand, will it be worse than a wound, this death?"

"Margaret, you live, England is saved!  Don't you hear, Margaret,
can't you understand, I have destroyed the Russian Fleet, I have
swept away the armies, delivered London, crushed the League!  Oh,
love me a little, Margaret, just a little.  I have waited so long,
and fought so hard for love."

"Give me some wine--I can't understand all at once.  Give me a little
wine."

He brought a glass of wine, and she, sitting up in bed, made him
share with her.  The level sun rays shining on her face welcomed a
delicate flush of her returning strength, and made her hair an
aureole of glory.  Then, looking full into the light--

"I never thought," said Margaret, reverently, "that I should see the
sunset."

"It is the sunrise," he answered.

"The sunrise?"

"Yes."

"Where are we?  Not in my Palace?"

"The Palace was burned yesterday.  This is your Majesty's flagship,
the _Coronation_," Brand crossed to the open port, and, looking out,
"There, is the Strait of Dover," he said, "and the sun has just
risen, turning the North Sea into a field of silver.  Above there are
little clouds like petals of roses, and all round us the seagulls.
Cannot you hear them, Margaret?"

"Where is the Siberian Fleet?"

"I have destroyed the Siberian Fleet.  The Russian Emperor lay dead
at your Majesty's feet, and the officers of his General Staff are
prisoners in this ship.  The Russian Army has surrendered."

"And the French Army, and the German?"

"Surrendered as prisoners of war.  I have blown up all their
magazines, their ammunition trains to the last cartridge.  Their
commanders-in-chief are prisoners on board the _Virgin_."

"And my people are saved!"

Brand came to the bedside, and there kneeling down, kissed our Lady's
hand.

"Oh, love me," he whispered, "just a little!"

"And you are alive!"  The blood raced in her veins, her heart was
crying out for him.  "I saw you in a little ship all alone, dying, I
thought; and underneath there were rivers and lakes, and forests
streaming by."

"You saw me, then?"

"In a dream, yes."

"Only love dreams like that.  You love me, Margaret."

"I love my country, you were the one hope left, and I saw you dying.
Tell me how you come to be alive."

"Rivers, and lakes, and forest," answered Brand.  "You did not see
the mountains, then?  Great, big mountains came up against the west,
higher and higher, alp piled on alp, precipice on precipice, mile on
mile of ice barring the ship's way.  They were the Alps of St. Elias.
Oh, Margaret--say you love me before I go on."

"What did you do when the ship came to the mountains?"

"She was running right at them, a hundred miles an hour, I couldn't
stir hand or foot, and I was being whirled helpless against an
enormous cliff."

Margaret gripped his hand.  "Yes!  Go on!"

"Then you do love me?  Only love grips like that."

"Don't I love all my brothers of the Guard?  You wear the dress of my
brothers.  Please, go on."

"At the last instant something gave me strength--the thought that the
Queen must be saved.  I clutched at the levers, I got control of the
ship, swung upwards grazing a hanging cornice of green ice, then
turning in long circles slowly down, drove my ship into a pineclad
slope, and, I think, fainted.  When I came to again I was lying
beside a camp fire under the shadow of the woods, and far aloft,
right up in the full glory of the day, one great white mountain shone
against the sky.  Some dozen or so of men were sitting round the
fire, and I heard them in fierce argument.  Several maintained that
by my dress I must be an officer of her Majesty's Bodyguard, others
by portraits they had seen in the newspapers, by my ship the
_Experiment_, and by documents found with me, swore that I was Brand.
Then one--a man dressed in deerskin, who seemed to have
authority--said that he knew well I was one of the Queen's
Blackguards.  He knew all about it--had not the last mail brought a
letter from his brother newly appointed to that very regiment?

"There was something familiar in the man's face, and presently when
he came over to render me some small service, I said I knew his
brother, Trooper Browne."

"How strange!"

"Such small coincidences have changed the history of the world.  Mr.
Browne told me that I had been lying in the camp for more than a
week, delirious and raving of the Queen.  He and his partners were
mining rubies--they shall not lack rubies while I live.  They were
like women in their gentleness, and in their care I gained strength
day by day until at last I was able to sit with them by the camp
fire, to tell them of the Queen's desperate peril.  I need not tell
you they were loyal men--they were Canadians and burning to serve
with me.  Then the day came when I had strength to climb the hill
path to where I had left my ship.  The miners brought up provisions
from the camp, and, crowded on board the _Experiment_, we sailed,
fourteen men--not many for the conquest of the world."

"But with your terrible etheric power!"

Brand laughed.  "The _Experiment_ was not so very terrible.  For
armament we had three shotguns, eight axes, a sword, and our
pistols--that is until we raided a town and got some rifles.  Our
next necessity was a modern etheric ship able to ram, to defend
herself, and to destroy explosives.  We found the _Revenge_ at
Denver, in charge of state officials who had the audacity to deny my
ownership.  After a fight, we got possession, only to find ourselves
in a steel prison with neither food nor water.  The crew of the
_Revenge_ had been dispersed, her engines were disabled, we were
attacked by federal troops, and on the fourth day when we were half
dead with thirst and hunger, a battery of artillery opened fire.
There were only eight of us left when we got the _Revenge_ afloat.
She was riddled with shell fire, her splintered sides gaping open,
her cabins all in flames, and the shells were screaming past.  She
rolled till we thought she would turn over, the engines were rocking
loose in their bed, she fluttered once as though she were foundering,
and my men came about me waiting for the end.  I told them of the old
_Revenge_, and how Sir Richard Greville fought a great Spanish Fleet,
his courage against their galleons--and how he died breathing the
name of his Queen.  Could we not fight the new _Revenge_ for
Margaret?  They sang the National Anthem while I was testing for
strains, and they stopped the singing to cheer when I said the
_Revenge_ would live.

"Denver will never forget the _Revenge_.  I held the city to ransom.
The officials must find me my own seamen and engineers, provisions,
water, yes, and salute your Union Jack, or I swore I'd not leave one
man alive in their streets.  They did not know I was helpless."

Margaret's eyes were growing moist as she listened, and when she
turned away her head lest he should see her--

"Don't turn away," he cried, "I can hardly hear myself speak for this
roaring sound in my ears.  I've gone stark, staring mad with love,
and I can't bear it if you turn away."

"You must not talk like that," said Margaret, and her white hand
stole out within his reach.  "Go on, sir," she added stiffly, and he
went on.

"We found this ship, the _Coronation_, at Chicago, and the wreck of
the _Revenge_ fought a squadron of electric battleships before we
captured our prize.  With the _Coronation_ I reduced Chicago to
terms, then, manned and equipped, set out to find me a fleet.  Ship
after ship I found in the American cities, captured, manned,
provisioned, and drilled them for war.  I wonder I ever lived through
that delay, knowing that the League had invaded England, that London
was besieged, that any moment news might come--that I was too late."
He pressed the back of her hand against his lips.  "I had command of
the air, and nineteen etheric ships of the line when at last I left
America.  At Lyonesse I embarked ten thousand men, advanced on
London, and saw the Royal Standard still floating above the towers of
the Palace.  I destroyed the Siberian Fleet; didn't you hear the
explosion of their battleships, my royal salute to the Flag?  And
then with a landing party I entered the Palace at last, groping
through the smoke and the darkness, trying to find the throne-room,
wild with fright lest I should be too late.  Oh, say that you love
me, Margaret!"

"I am your prisoner," she answered, softly.

"Prisoner of war."

"Prisoner of love," he cried.

"Prisoner of love," she looked into his eyes.  "I was such a prisoner
long, long ago.  What else, do you think, kept me alive, save that I
hoped you would come back again.  Indeed, I do love you.  Go, dear,
or I shall cry."

So Brand was sent away knowing that he had conquered all the world,
and that the world is the shadow of God, being made of love.

* * * * *

A chair of state was set in the saloon of the _Coronation_, a guard
of honour drew up to receive her Majesty, then entered the masters
and engineers of Brand's etheric fleet, the seven Canadian
frontiersmen, and the seventeen men who remained of the Queen's
Blackguards.  Two of these, Trooper Hylton and Trooper Browne, being
badly wounded, were borne in on stretchers.  Then her Majesty
entered, wearing the uniform of the Guard for the last time, and the
American led her to her seat.

Brand presented his officers and the Canadians, and then our Lady
spoke to us.

"Officers of the Fleet, and you, gentlemen, from the Province of
Yukon, and you, my dear brothers of the Guard--we have been down into
the valley of the Shadow of Death, and we have come back to the
living World, humbled by the pitiful compassion which has spared us.
Our Empire was threatened with dishonour, with enslavement and
vassalage to Russia--and millions of our people have given their
lives to save us from that shame.  Millions have died to save our
English freedom, and I speak for all our dead when I say that never
while the earth endures shall our Liberty be threatened again.  We
are given the mastery of the air, and we will use that mastery to
make sure that no earthly power shall ever rise up again against our
freedom, or against our British peace.  For you, whose valour has
saved our fallen Empire, I bear such love and gratitude--oh, how can
I find words of thankfulness!  I am beggared of love, bankrupt in
gratitude, because I never can pay my debts to you.  My life shall be
the proof that Margaret does not forget, but for the present I beg
you hear me by deputy."

So the Queen ceased, and when much noise and waving of swords had
ended, the Master, standing at her right hand began to read these
words:--


    "Master Mariners of the Etheric Fleet, her Imperial Majesty has
    been pleased to grant to your ships, the white Ensign, and every
    honour becoming vessels of war.  Your Commodore takes flag rank
    as Admiral of the Fleet.  Commanding officers take rank as
    Captains, First Engineers as Fleet Engineers; and to your
    officers and seamen, is given their equivalent naval rank with
    pay and pension dating from the time of first entry on board an
    etheric ship, and arrears in full of all the pay which would have
    been earned in the Imperial Navy.

    "Admiral Watson is created a peer of the United Kingdom, and the
    Captains and Fleet Engineers will receive the honour of
    knighthood.

    "To the gentlemen of the Yukon contingent: Her Majesty bestows
    upon Frederick Browne, a peerage, and creates the rest of you
    knights.  Funds will be granted for the proper maintenance of
    these dignities.

    "To the lords and gentlemen of the Guard: Those of you who
    engaged as servant orderlies, will receive the honour of
    knighthood and funds for the maintenance of your dignities.
    Those who engaged as troopers of the Guard, her Majesty desires
    to speak to you, stand forward!"


Out of two hundred gentlemen of the Guard, many were on detached
service, but there stood forward: Sergeant Branscombe, Corporal du
Plessis, Corporal de la Rey, Troopers Lord Ludford, Sir Marshall
Poynte, George St. Leven, Patrick Burke, and Alexander Barrie;
Trooper Browne and Trooper Hylton were wounded.

"My brothers," said our Lady, "beyond all accidents of rank and
sorrow we have been so drawn one to another in perfect trust and
faith, that I am sister to you rather than Queen.  I thought once,
that being made Queen I must give up everything that was dear to me,
no longer be able to trust a friend, but always live separate, lonely
and miserable.  But when in my bitter need you were still loyal, and
when my weakness leaned upon your strength, I learned that where love
is there can be no solitude.  So even in our last extremity, when we
fought side by side, while we prayed for death, it was your love
which kept my faith alive and gave me some poor courage.  I was
almost worthy at last to be your comrade--and we are comrades still."

Our Lady never knew how the words burnt.  Ours was no brotherhood or
comradeship, we were not creatures of wood or stone, passionless, but
made of flesh and blood which did her worship, for we were men, and
she a woman beyond any accident of rank or sorrow.  So our great
Sovereign Lady spoke to us, and we, with cast down eyes and shame in
our hearts, made ready to do her obedience.

"I have no rewards to offer you, my brothers, you never worked for
reward, and you would ask of me nothing but the glory of serving the
Empire.  You shall serve as my hands serve me, you shall be my hands
bearing my whole authority each in your province, you shall be
treated as I am treated, with every observance due to kings, you are
created Viceroys, you are given power to use my signature, to execute
my justice.  You are each granted one or more of these etheric ships
under your sole command.  Each in your province, you will take such
Lyonesse ships as you can find, man and equip them for purposes of
state.

"Sergeant Branscombe, I make you Viceroy of Russia, to conquer the
Russian Empire, capture the head of the Government and bring him
prisoner to me, disarm all troops, destroy all vessels of war, blow
up all arsenals and report to me.

"Corporal du Plessis, you have heard what I said to the Viceroy of
Russia, I create you Viceroy of Germany.  Capture the Emperor, disarm
his Empire, and report to me.

"Corporal de la Rey, I create you Viceroy of France.  Capture the
President, disarm the Republic, and report to me.

"Trooper, Lord Ludford, I create you my Viceroy in the New World.  Go
to the President of the United States and, with all delicacy and
courtesy, offer him our sympathy and help.  With his consent, destroy
the enemies of the Republic, and deliver their leaders to him as
prisoners of war.  Send help to the Viceroy of Canada.

"Trooper, Sir Marshall Poynte, I create you Viceroy of the
Mediterranean States.  Destroy all hostile armaments and restore the
British peace.

"Trooper St. Leven, I create you Viceroy of Delhi.  You will find
India in flames from end to end, and our Government in desperate
need.  Crush down all insurrection, punish the rebels and mutineers,
and where mercy would seem like weakness, make our justice terrible
enough to ensure against any fear for our people.  You will find
Prince Ali of Haidar reigning at Delhi.  Hang him and make
proclamation that he is punished as a Russian spy.  The Russian
invasion you will turn back.  You will in all else obey the orders of
the Viceroy of India.

"Trooper Burke, I create you Viceroy of the China Seas.  Destroy all
hostile armaments, and restore peace throughout your jurisdiction.

"Trooper Barrie, I create you Viceroy of Africa.  Subdue all forces
hostile to our Empire, annexing their territories, and restoring our
peace.

"Trooper Browne and Trooper Hylton, you are both created to the rank
of Viceroy, and will be commissioned as soon as your wounds are
healed.

"Viceroys of the Guard, I believe in my heart that this was long ago
foretold, this war of all the nations--is it not the Armageddon?  And
afterwards it is written, that the devil shall be chained up for a
thousand years.  'There shall be no more war.'  What if it be true?
Peace for a thousand years, the Millennium--the reign of Christ!  Did
you ever notice that our flag--see, hanging here above our heads--the
Union Jack--does it not bear three crosses?  On Calvary there stood
three crosses.  You will carry this flag, my brothers, and it shall
fly over all lands and seas throughout the world--the holy symbol of
the last Crusade, and the founding of the New Jerusalem.  It was to
be no city built by human hands, but fallen from Heaven--the Planet.
The length and the breadth, and the height of it are equal, for it is
the round world.  There shall be no night there, for the sun shines
from everlasting to everlasting.  This Earth is a city eternal in the
heavens where the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth.  My knights, I send
you out upon this quest to bring peace to the whole earth.  Avenge
justice, but be merciful, and in wielding your power be very humble.
For every act of yours, my people will hold me responsible, for every
mistake I shall be judged.  Do not let me be brought to judgment for
any ruthless abuse of power, or any act of unchristian vengeance.  I
have placed my honour in your keeping.

"And when you have restored peace, your power ends, you come back to
be citizens of the Empire, obedient as I am to the laws and customs
of my people.  I am only Queen by their election, not by any
authority of my own.  In this time of weakness and peril it was my
duty to rule, to see that policy was marred by no divided counsels,
to stand at the brunt of danger.  So soon as there is peace and
safety, I shall deliver back my sovereignty into the hands of those
who gave it to me, to the great, free Electorate, my masters, my
judges, my kings whom I serve.  If they are pleased with me I am
still Queen, but not of my own right, only in their love.  The only
throne of Britain is in the hearts of the British, the only sceptre
is the defence of Liberty.

"These are the terms of your service--and so, my dear brothers, I
commend you to God's keeping."

When she had said that, our Lady rose from the throne and her face
became radiant with a new loveliness and glory such as we had never
dreamed of.  She had forgotten us, her servants, and men-at-arms, and
with a great royal gesture, reached out her right hand to Brand,
Master of Lyonesse.  She never said a word, but stood looking down
upon him, as kneeling, he took her hand in his, and pressed his lips
to her fingers with a reverent kiss.




EPILOGUE

London, 18th June, 2045

Her Imperial Majesty has been graciously pleased to sanction the
publication of this work, and to me is entrusted the preparing of a
brief epilogue.

I am the Trooper Hylton mentioned in the closing chapter, and first
knew the author in those far-away times sixty-five years ago--when we
were cadets together at the school of arms.  I remember Browne as a
shy, awkward, dreamy lad, remarkable for his stature--he stood six
foot four--with rapidly maturing, already gigantic strength, and a
physical perfection marred by the almost grotesque uncouthness of his
face.

A swordsman, second perhaps only to Branscombe, a horseman not
rivalled in his time, Browne's career was marred by hopeless failure
in scholarship.

The "big boy," as he describes himself, was, on the surface, cold and
distant, yet desperately eager to win friendship; but there again his
life was marred by that shyness which seemed like icy reserve
repelling the kindly approaches of men who cared to know him.  Behind
that barrier he suffered.

So he came to the Palace bringing with him the very atmosphere of
arctic Canada, great, lonely, remote, uncomely, savage.  Because of
his training as a cowboy, the silence, the solitude of his early
life, he lacked the faculty of easy speech, but he had the deepest,
grandest qualities of manhood.  And at the moment he joined her
Majesty's Bodyguard he made his first friendship with no less a man
than Sydney, the Magnificent.  The two were friends inseparable, and
thus in this book we have our first real insight into the events
which led to the Terror.

It is supposed that before the great Marquess went to meet his death,
he commended Browne to her Majesty's special care.  The whole corps
of the Guard was indignant at the promotion of this young recruit to
the securing of our Lady's safety during the night watches, but the
Canadian giant justified even that unusual honour.  No less than four
times he saved the Queen's life, either from the attacks of
assassins, or in actual battle.  In the fight on the alabaster
stairs, there is no doubt that his incomparable strength, address and
valour rescued, not only her Majesty, but her whole escort from
massacre, and his lone charge which cleared the upper stairway for
our retreat, will go down to history as one of the mightiest deeds in
human annals.

His book ends with the creation of the Viceroys of the Guard, and her
Majesty's betrothal to Lyonesse; and there is no mention of that
winter day when all the presidents and sovereign rulers of the world
assembled in St. George's Chapel at Windsor.  Browne was then
sufficiently recovered from his wounds to attend the solemn service
of the Eucharist.  He was then a Viceroy of the Guard, and Marquess
of Yukon, had been invested with the Garter and in response to a
petition of Parliament, granted the Victoria Cross for valour.

But her Imperial Majesty never set any limits to her gratitude
towards those who have served her well, and for this Canadian hero
she reserved even greater honours.  In the celebration of the
Eucharist, Brand knelt at her right hand, the Marquess of Yukon on
her left, and he was made to stand beside her to receive the
surrendered swords of her triumphant Viceroys, all of which, with his
own, he laid down before the altar.  The emperors, kings, presidents,
and reigning sovereigns then one by one broke their swords, and laid
the fragments upon the altar, just at the foot of the cross.

At the last came Margaret, attended by Brand, and by Yukon.  Kneeling
before the table, she made humble presentation of an unbroken sword,
then rising, confronted the assembled sovereigns.

"In token," she said, "that I desire unbroken peace, I have dedicated
this unbroken sword to the solemn service of the King of kings.  In
token that the nations need have no fear, I sheathe the sword for
ever; and give the sacred trust to this, my servant, Viceroy of the
Air."

The giant, kneeling at her feet, received the sheathed sword of the
Millennial Peace.

"And I do now deliver into his keeping the Etheric Fleet, charging
him never to shed human blood, except at the command of the Great
Council of Nations to vindicate the Divine Justice upon any people
who shall lift rebellious hands against mankind."

For twenty years this first of the Viceroys of the Air remained in
custody of the sheathed sword, a lonely man, and a silent, greatly
loved, and greatly suffering.

His wounds, which in one of lesser strength must have proved mortal,
bred in his shattered body malignant growths, of which, aged and
weary, he died in his forty-fifth year.  To Branscombe he passed on
the Trust of the Sword; and it was in the bed from which he never
afterwards rose that he wrote his book, "The Chariot of the Sun,"
telling the story of his hopeless and unspoken love for the woman he
had so valiantly served.

After his death, in the year 2005, the manuscript was found under
seal, addressed to her Majesty, and has not been published until the
passions of that time were stilled, and the Terror remains only as a
memory seen through the mists of sixty-five fruitful years.

Last winter, our august and venerable sovereign caused the work to be
read aloud to her children and grandchildren, and it is on the plea
of the young princes that the story is now given to publication.  To
the people of the golden age it will seem a very quaint, funny old
document, which is concerned with such obsolete virtues as unselfish
love, faith, honour, and manliness.

  HYLTON,
      _Viceroy of the Air._



THE END




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