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Title: The King of Alsander


Author: James Elroy Flecker



Release Date: November 23, 2012  [eBook #41460]

Language: English

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THE KING OF ALSANDER

by

JAMES ELROY FLECKER







London: George Allen & Unwin Ltd.
Ruskin House 40 Museum Street, W.C.
1915




DEDICATION

_To_

J.N. MAVROGORDATO

           This Romance,
of which he never despaired in the Rough
      Is dedicated in the Ripe




CONTENTS



Preface

Chapter I. Blaindon

Chapter II. Alsander

Chapter III. En Pension in Alsander

Chapter IV. Introducing a good beggar and a bad King

Chapter V. Of the knighting of Norman Price

Chapter VI. Concerning Isis and Aphrodite:
with a digression on the shocking
treatment the latter's followers receive
from the hands of English novelists

Chapter VII. The Society for the Advancement of Alsander

Chapter VIII. How Norman failed to pass
a qualifying examination for the post
of King of Alsander, and was whipped:
together with a digression on the excellence
of whipping

Chapter IX. The Consul

Chapter X. Contains the President's tale
and a debate on the advantages of murder

Chapter XI. A Visit to Vorza

Chapter XII. In which the Beetles crawl

Chapter XIII. Re-Coronation

Chapter XIV. Princess Ianthe

Chapter XV. Peronella and the Priest

Chapter XVI. The Counter Conspiracy: an
episode in the style of the worst writers

Chapter XVII. Battle

Chapter XVIII. The Poet visits Blaindon
once more, and takes John Gaffekin to
the seashore, where a miracle occurs



PREFACE

_Here is a tale all romance--a tale such as only a Poet can write for
you, O appreciative and generous Public--a tale of madmen, kings,
scholars, grocers, consuls, and Jews: a tale with two heroines, both of
an extreme and indescribable beauty: a tale of the South and of
sunshine, wherein will be found disguises, mysteries, conspiracies,
fights, at least_ one _good whipping, and plenty of blood and love and
absurdity: a very old sort of tale: a tale as joyously improbable as
life itself._

_But if I know you aright, appreciative and generous Public, you look
for more than this in these tragic days of social unrest, and you will
be most dissatisfied with my efforts to please you. For you a king is a
shadow, a madman a person to be shut up, a scholar a fool, a grocer a
tradesman, a consul an inferior grade of diplomatic officer, and a Jew a
Jew. You will demand to know what panacea is preached in this novel as a
sovran remedy for the dismal state of affairs in England. With what hope
do I delude the groaning poor: with what sarcasm insult the insulting
rich? What is the meaning of my apparent joyousness? What has grim
iron-banging England to do with sunshine, dancing, adventure and, above
all, with Poets?_

_In support of my reputation let me hasten to observe that in my efforts
to please a generous and appreciative Public I have not failed to insert
several passages of a high moral tone. Grave matters of ethics are
frequently discussed in the course of my story, and the earnest inquirer
may learn much from this book concerning the aim, purpose and origin of
his existence. To Government and its problems I have given particular
attention, and the observant reader may draw from these subtle pages a
complete theory of the Fallacy of the Picturesque. Only I implore the
public to forgive the Poet his proverbial licence, to remember that
truth is still truth, though clad in harlequin raiment, and thought
still thought, though hinted and not explained._

_Farewell, then, my King of Alsander. Ride out into the world and
conquer. Behind you--a merry and a mocking phantom--my youth rides out
for ever!_

_Beyrouth,_ _Syria_, 1913.






THE KING OF ALSANDER




CHAPTER I

BLAINDON

     Would that I had a little cot
         Beside a little hill,
     In some romantic English spot
     Where summer's not so very hot
         And winter not too chill.

                         _J. Williams_


The writer of these simple lines, now unhappily dead, was a man of the
soil, whose sweet native note had never been troubled by the sinister
depravities, the heartless affectations of urban existence; and I
believe myself that his pathetic and modest ideal could have been
actually realized had he inhabited, as perhaps he did, the peaceful
village of Blaindon. This secluded hamlet lies some ten miles from the
sea, in an undulating, but not terrible, country--a land of woodland and
meadow, of buttercup and daisy, of tiny streams and verdant dells. At
evening the scene is more tranquil than ever, and the old church spire,
standing sentinel above the cold ploughlands, presents a curiously sad
appearance, tinged as it is with the melancholy of years. However at
the time when this story opens it was not evening, but afternoon, and a
very hot one. The horse in his freedom, like the pig in his confinement,
lolled upon the ground, and the thatches rustled with the melodies of
sleep.

Yes, let us look beneath those thatches and consider the village yokel
for a moment, as with mouth agape and heavy eyelids he takes his meed of
repose:

    Nec partem solido demere de die
    Spernit; nunc viridi membra sub arbuto
    Stratus; nunc ad aquae lene caput sacrae.

But if, here in England, he has no arbute tree, or sacred fountain,
whereby to stretch his large, unwieldy limbs, there awaits him,
nevertheless, the fireside in winter, the straw of the stable loft for
hotter days. Ensconced beneath such lowly roofs as those of little
Blaindon, many a hundred sons of toil have been born, been married and
been finally dead, after a life spent in working nobly for an ignoble
pittance, far away from the wearisome strife of new ideas and
endeavours, and all the rumbling of the world's chariot wheels.

I have carefully examined the records in the parish church, thinking
that they might interest all those who still have faith in the sterling
qualities and bulldog tenacity of our British yeoman class. I discovered
the interesting fact that only a fifth of the population die before the
age of sixty-five; and that the same families seem to have lived here in
a state of ceaseless intermarriage for century after century. The
_Weolkeethings_ of Saxon days, the _Weilcans_ of the Normans, who are they
but the honest Wilkinses round the corner? No great calamities have
occurred at Blaindon except an occasional plague; no stirring battles
have there been fought. The place seems to have been forgotten or
overlooked during the Civil Wars. (However, an inhabitant of the town
fought at Balaclava, but not in the Heavy Brigade.) Of the prevailing
insanity, I need say nothing; this is the inheritance of all rustic
communities. That the people of Blaindon are happy and appreciate their
charming home they have proved in the clearest possible way. They have
never left it.

Would that he who looks over the church-yard wall down at the tidy rows
of one-room cottages, whose gardens blaze with nasturtia and red
daisies, could say that no jarring note, no trace of a restless
individuality, marred the enchanting scene. But, alas! every traveller
is bound to remark a peculiarly ugly two-storied erection, whose
rectangular bricks render it at once an eyesore and a solecism. This
building used to be called by the inhabitants Price's bongmash: but the
name on its sign was Bon Marche (French for Good Market). Mr Price's
business was at the time this story opens the most flourishing concern
in Blaindon. It was carried on chiefly by the indomitable energy of the
younger Price; his father now slept most of the day, not so much on
account of his advancing years as because he was very tired and a heavy
eater. He could trust his son completely. Young Norman Price was one of
the most envied personages in Blaindon. He was only nineteen; a handsome
and strong young man, and the face he showed a customer wore no servile
frock-coated smirk, but a laugh of real pleasure at being able to supply
the needs of the community. Nearly everything was on sale in his
shop--all groceries, also cloth, garden seeds, papers, books (the least
flourishing part of the trade), and tobacco. Yet his store did not look
at all like other village stores where everything is bought in dirty
pennyworths. It was well arranged, and the goods were displayed to good
account, more after the tradition, I fear, of American vulgarity than of
British honesty. Worse still, Price had actually taken upon himself to
corrupt the adorable simplicity of the villagers and to turn their
thoughts to the enervating fashions of great cities. If a young villager
came in who liked to be thought rather a nut and who fancied him self in
a new waistcoat, the young grocer would give him a little elegant and
expensive tobacco to try, explain that he smoked it himself, and that
one smoked less of it than of the commoner sorts, so it came no dearer
after all. He utterly refused to sell cigarettes at ten for a penny, or
assorted sweets at three half-pence the quarter. It soon became a mark
of distinction to be a customer at the Bon Marche, and the firm got a
reputation for selling "sound articles and no trash."

I have not mentioned, however, the object that would probably most
astonish a gentleman of culture on entering the shop. On the wall hung a
large and fine reproduction of Holbein's portrait of Georg Gisze. The
young merchant, robed in delicate silk and velvet, and surrounded by
keys, quadrants, scissors, maps, and ledgers, was obviously meant to be
the tutelary deity of the house; indeed, as a set-off to the flowers
that stand upon the painted table, Norman had placed a large bowl of
carnations on his counter.

The picture had been a present from his friend, John Gaffekin. If young
Price appears in this story so strangely different from his father and
from the other villagers of Blaindon, and indeed from all grocers
whatsoever, we need not accept the explanation of some, that his father
was "a deeper man than you'd think" or the assertion of others that he
"got it from his mother," a lady of whom he had never seen so much as a
photograph. The lad's singularity was much more likely due to this
curious and close intimacy with a gentleman: and I hope that those who
read this history will not close the book without a sigh of remonstrance
against all those who insist on giving the lower classes thoughts above
their station. John Gaffekin lived with his widowed mother in the
Elizabethan Blaindon Hall, a typical old country house standing just
outside the village on a plot of park. The old lady was infirm, and in
order that he might attend to his mother, and also avoid drawing on a by
no means unlimited income, John had never gone to school. He had taken
some lessons from the Vicar, who had been "a fine classic in his day,"
and as he naturally loved books and was of a quiet disposition he became
so proficient that the Reverend George Apple warmly urged him to try for
a scholarship at Oxford. For a long time he had refused even to attempt
this feat. He declared that he could not leave his mother. He feared he
could not win the scholarship. But the old lady joined her importunities
to those of the Vicar. "They had not enough money to go on for ever,"
she maintained, "and if John had a degree he would always be able to
turn his hand to something at a pinch, and earn his daily bread." Very
much at a pinch, had the dear old lady but known it!

"I can easily get some one to look after me," said the old lady, "and
it is very wrong of me not to have sent you away before. You are getting
buried in this stupid place, and too dreamy altogether, with no one here
but that grocer friend of yours to talk to."

"I wish Norman could come with me to Oxford," said John. "It's wrong of
me to leave him."

"My dear son, I can't have you consorting with that sort of person all
your life."

"I do hate that subject," protested John.

"My dear boy, you'll find the wisdom of my words when you've seen a
little more of the world," said Mrs Gaffekin.

"Besides," interposed the Vicar, tactfully, "College terms only account
for half the year. We shall see plenty of you down here."

So John got his scholarship and went to Oxford, and Norman found himself
rather lonely. One day, three years ago, John had begun to talk to him
when he came into Blaindon to buy tobacco, and since then they had been
continuously together, walking, fishing and shooting all over the place,
and conversing on high and learned topics. That is why Norman was an
educated man after a certain curious fashion. He was, however, no mere
counterpart of his friend. Left to himself, Norman had fire and
intelligence enough to make his mark. But the sudden wide prospect
opened up by all that golden world all those enchanted gardens that lie
hid between pasteboard covers--had dazzled his eyes and made him a most
exceptional person. He had plunged into everything, learnt Latin and
French, attempted Greek. There were very few books that he read
carefully; hardly one would he read twice. "There are so many more to
read," he used to say. No one could be less of a scholar, and the fine
points of characterization, the delicate shades of metre and language,
lay beyond his sphere. But he loved all the books that are not generally
read; he could feel that such books were peculiarly his own property or
his own discovery, and a habit of always reading books that no one else
has read is not a bad guide to literature. All the works that glow with
dark frenzy, or with diabolical Rembrandt fires, whose authors died
nameless deaths or were burnt for magic, all the fantastic tales about
new countries on the other side of mountains, or happy islands in
limitless seas, all stories of the moon or stars were his especial
delight and continual joy. For he loved the _Monk_ of Monk Lewis, and
this is a rare book to find, and _Vathek_, and _William Jordan, Junior,_
greatest of unread modern books; and he sang to himself the _Gods of
Pegana_ and dreamed over its ethereal pictures, and he loved the new
Irish tales. And he adored that mysterious wonder-story of the _Golden
Ass_, and its glittering precious style; and he read Richepin's tales
of the Roman decadence. And he never wearied of James Thompson (not of
the "Seasons"), or of Baudelaire, or of the great travel poems of the
world from the _Odyssey_ to _Waring_.

And here, again, I must point the moral. The egregious bad taste of this
young man was almost certainly the outcome of his low antecedents. Stale
romanticism is embedded in the poorer classes. He liked his literature
garish and vivid, and with his insistent passion for all the decadent
stuff that used to be in favour ten or twelve years ago, he could never
appreciate that really noble modern literature, much of it dramatic,
which tackles so fearlessly and with such psychological insight the
problems of our industrial age. In fact, he used to say that it might be
damned good, but it was damned boring. Such is the obtuseness of the
Philistine. He was, moreover, no critic, as you may well opine; he had
not the fine taste of his friend, but he fell the more readily under the
spell and domination of strange books; he was a dreamer, and entertained
ideas of his own, which he would not have dared impart. Yet this dreamer
was a man of business, and employed all the resources of a crude but
powerful imagination in the disposal of his wares. How, then, could he
help feeling a little weary of Blaindon, especially when John was away
at Oxford? And on this afternoon, on which I have promised that my story
should begin, he was sitting rather disconsolate in his shop, drowning
care in the delights of Conrad's _Youth_.

He had hardly been interrupted the whole day, except for lunch. The
sexton had been in for some twine, and the Vicar's daughter for some
pink wool "to match the merino mother bought yesterday." She was a
pretty girl, and Price almost aspired to marry her. Had he only known
it, the poverty-stricken Mr Apple would have been only too glad, and I
do not think the young lady was at all averse to Norman, whose beauty of
person and brilliance of mind made one forget his unfortunate connexion
with trade.

At about half-past three he shut the book with a bang, heaved a
disconsolate sigh to think that the glorious tales were over, and
stretched himself. Then he slid off the counter and looked down the high
road to see if anything stirred thereon. Straight, broad, white,
glaring, over the sleeping downs lay the deserted road that led to
Blaindon from the unseen Ocean, fit for the trampling of armies and the
shouting of men, a road for caravans and caravans of merchandise to
traverse with bells a-jangle while wagoners told the tales of wagoners
high perched on their creaking wains; yet a road for modern life, ready
for tramways to glide along its hedges, and motor-cars to spin down its
smooth and cambered way; yet perhaps chiefly an ancient road, down which
some herald would speed, his gold coat laced with dust, his knees tight
gripping his steaming horse, with a message of war, disaster, or relief.
And down this mighty road came no wagon, nor army, nor motor, nor
herald: no one save in the far distance a solitary walker, small and
lonely in the vast sunshine. Price lazily watched the approaching
figure. It seemed to be that of an old man, but if so this old man was
walking faster than any other old man in the world. At all events, Price
was already sure that he was no inhabitant of Blaindon, and he therefore
came out and stood at his door to look at him.

It was indeed a tall, straight and singular old man who came up some
twenty minutes later and halted opposite the Bon Marche, resting on his
stick. His long hair and beard were of an almost dramatic whiteness,
like those of a Father Christmas in sugar. What was seen of his face
seemed smooth, and he had surprisingly young, blue eyes. Afterwards, one
noticed his long archaic lips and the beauty of his hands. His clothes,
subordinate as all clothes should be to the face, were yet curious and
distinctive. He wore a mauve silk scarf, a sort of Norfolk jacket, a
cricketing shirt, grey flannel trousers, and brown boots with pointed
toes. No collar, and no hat. His stick was a stout partridge cane with a
silver nameplate. The old man stood opposite Price and looked at him
with fixed attention for at least half a minute.

"Have you got any Navy Cut, sir?" said the old man.

"Mild or medium?" said Norman, beating a retreat into the shop to let
the stranger enter and to look for the tobacco.

"Strong, of course," bellowed the old man. "Thank you."

"What a voice he has!" thought the grocer. The new customer sat down on
a chair and threaded out the tobacco into an enormous briar, looking
curiously about him. Suddenly he started.

"You don't mean to say that you keep Menodoron Mixture here!" said he.
"I haven't been able to get any in this damned county at all."

He tapped the Navy Cut out of his pipe, swept it into his pouch, and
seized hold of the Menodoron tin. As he did so his eye lit upon the
Holbein. He gave a second start, more violent than the first, a quick,
violent spasm of his entire body, which made his snowy beard flap like
the handle of a water pump.

"Hullo! Where did you get that from?"

"Georg Gisze? He's a present from a friend of mine."

"And all those books and dictionaries, are they for sale? Have you a
Grammar School in this notable town?"

"No, sir. I read them when business is slack."

"Then what are you doing here?" said the old man, earnestly. "I can see
you are not a gentleman: you look too much like a god. Tell me, what are
you doing, with a library like that, here in a grocer's shop, in this
horrible little village?"

"Now, come, sir," said Norman, "it's a picturesque old place, situated
in charming country."

"Sir," replied the stranger, "I am a travelled man; I am perhaps a
trifle over-proud of my great journeys. I have seen all the Great
Effects. I have clambered among fearful crags to see the Euphrates, that
old river, burst through the Gate of Taurus. I have seen the Alps from
the Finsteraarhorn below me, Niagara from the footpath above me, night
in the city, day in the desert, dawn on the sea. I have seen the Little
Effects: Normandy, Tasmania, the English Lakes. But never on train,
steamer, bicycle, tram, motor, balloon, camel, horse, mule, or foot,
have I found such an unutterably dull place as Blaindon. Forgive this
rhetoric, purveyor of sweetmeats, but be assured of its truth."

"In all places, sir, there is a sky, a sun, and stars."

"Where," pursued the stranger, "did you learn to talk with that pure
accent, vendor of spices; or to frame such pleasant words? What are you
doing in this fantastic shop?"

"Earning my living, sir. Nor is there any mystery about my case. I have
a friend, now at Oxford, who gave me books to read and taught me Latin."

"Are you contented? Perfectly happy in your sunlight and starlight?
Supremely satisfied with Catullus on the counter?"

"As a rule, yes. But my friend is away at present; there is no one to
talk to, and these wonderful stories" (he pointed to the book lying face
downward on the counter) "stir the soul to travel."

"Well, why not travel, O Lord of Things in Tins? Blaindon's no good for
a man like you, great enough to make castles out of his biscuit tins,
and fortifications out of washing soap." And he pointed to Norman's
window, which was dressed that day with certain architectural effects.

"I have been content with my dreams for a long time," said Norman, with
a little vulgar pride in his poetic and pathetic phraseology "I am fond
of dreams--they are my best friends."

"If you imagine I am going to be impressed by that sort of Watts-Dunton
talk you are wrong; I'm going," said the old man, as he pose up from his
chair.

"Sir!" cried Norman; "you haven't paid for the tobacco."

The old man sat down with a thump.

"I am a poet," he said, with deprecatory grandeur. "And you aren't a
cultured snob after all, but something of a man. Have you travelled at
all, now? Tell me."

"Oh, yes, I go round the county a bit. On market days I usually go over
to Iffcombe in the Marsh; it's quite lively there."

"By the Queen of the Moon and the Sea whom I worship and by the memory
of your mother whom I swear you have never known, how dare you stand
opposite me, a young man with the face of a god, and blither about
Iffcombe in the Marsh! Travel, man, over the water, down south among the
palms! You've got money?"

"Not I!"

"A little, surely!"

"Only about a hundred pounds of my own, so far."

"Only a hundred pounds! Then go away with it before your friend borrows
it off you to pay his Oxford bills. No, don't get wrathful; I'm an
Oxford man myself and understand that curious world. A hundred pounds!
Why, I've never had a hundred pounds all at one time for many a year.
How you can keep a hundred pounds in your pocket or in the bank, I do
not know, when five pounds will take you to the Alps, seven to Italy,
twelve to the Gulf of Corinth, thirty to Damascus,[1] and fifty to
Yokohama. You should clear out of this rat-hole, young man, and that
immediately. Why not to-night? as thundering Salvationists cry, desiring
to save the soul. That engagement, this duty, the other promise, _este,
ese, aquel_, as the Spaniards have it, leave it all and save your life,
this is the Poet's appeal, the Muse's command. You'll find a kingdom
somewhere, or a war, or an adventure. I am a prophet, and the worshipper
of a Holy Lady. Now, good-bye."

He laid his hands on the boy's shoulders, and looked at him
dramatically. Then he turned round, seized the tin of Menodoron and
strode away.

"Two and sixpence," said Norman, calling him back.

"Two and elevenpence, counting the Navy Cut," said the poet, handing
over the exact sum. "You will certainly succeed, Mr Norman Price. So I
will give you a good tip," he added in a stage whisper. "Go straight to
Alsander."

"Where's that?" said Norman, but the eccentric customer, without another
word, strode out of the shop, leaving him bewildered. There was nothing
to do in the shop; he tried to re-arrange some shelves, but felt it was
not worth the trouble. He opened the _Golden Ass_ and found he could not
progress without looking up many exotic words, and the dictionary was
too heavy. Finally he sat down on his counter, gazing at the sunswept
fields and lengthening shadows of the hedges. The vast mournful light of
the late afternoon penetrated his spirit, and he felt, not for the first
time, that unutterable sadness, that vague and restless longing for the
Unknown land Impossible that it is the privilege of young men to feel.
For many a youth this curious sense of unity with the earth is but a
first awakening of amorous desire, and to such a one Venus comes
quickly, with all her gentle pain. But there are a few who understand
their souls, or who have souls to understand, whose daydreams are
fashioned of other delights and different imaginings.

So Norman began dreaming, at first as schoolboys dream of adventure,
plot, swordsmanship, hidden treasures, dense jungles, heroic bravery,
desperate efficiency and lost princesses. Then a poet's dream of hot
suns, and open plains, and vast masses of swaying colour. Then he
bethought himself of a multitude of pleasant practical schemes. John and
he had often talked of a bicycling tour in Normandy. That would be
inexpensive, but now it seemed so tame an affair. What of this
delicately--named Alsander the Poet talked of? It sounded remote enough.
To go somewhere where no one else had ever been would be better than
reading books no one else had ever read. And one should go at an hour's
notice, without making any plans. What a curiously-inspired man this old
poet or artist was! Quite mad, no doubt, with his Holy Lady. And what
did he mean by mentioning Norman's mother? Norman had no gods; he feared
Death and loved Life. Well, since Life is short, and since one is sure
of nothing, shall one not be bold? To-night!

The old man's words thrilled him. If, as the poet had suggested, a
trumpet-voiced vulgarian in black can save a drinker from dirt and
disease in a quarter of an hour, cannot a radiant poet save a dreamer
from stagnation in ten minutes? Norman began to think hard, and his
pulses were stirring for action, when the bell rang behind the shop. It
was time for meat-tea.

Norman, with no feeling of any bathos, entered the parlour with the full
intention of eating a hearty meal. He sat down opposite old William
Price and began to cut himself enormous slices of bread. Meanwhile he
looked at his father, and studied the old man's appearance carefully and
cynically for the first time in his life. We often take some of our near
relations for granted (like the nursery cuckoo clock or the
cabbage-roses on the porch), and we never become acutely conscious of
their existence or individuality unless they die, disappear, or make
themselves offensive. Norman dispassionately scrutinized his father's
stumpy red beard, curious veiled eyes, and fireless, thin face,
remembered his equanimity and his shrewdness, and wondered with boyish
shallowness and conceit--for he knew less about his father than about
the man in the moon--what on earth he had in common with such a man
outside human nature and the grocery business. The only recent change
that Norman could observe in his parent was that he had certainly become
fatter and more foolish since he had left his son to do all the grocery
work. The lad was sure that the one salvation for his father would be to
take the business on again, and his idea of effecting a dramatic
departure--for a time, at least--grew almost a resolve.

Usually Norman never told his father anything that could possibly puzzle
or worry the excellent old gentleman, and had maintained the rule that
the elder generation is the last place where the new should expect
sympathy. However, for want of something to talk about, Norman observed
that a most peculiar person, describing himself as a poet, had been in
the shop and had tried to persuade him to travel.

"To travel, eh?" said William Price. "What in?"

"Oh, he meant abroad."

"I've n'er bin abroa'," said the honest oil fellow, stifling his words
in large mouthfuls of ham. "But I bin 'sfuras Wales."

"I'm longing to go," said Norman, "and I will go, too."

"Ah, yes," said the old man, paying no serious attention, as he leaned
back in his wooden armchair. "I've often wanted to see it myself. Used
to live down by the sea in Kent, and I was always wunnering what was the
other side, and thinking I saw France, but it was only the clouds. I'm
glad I never went there though; they say it's a very irreligious
country."

Norman finished his meal in silence and folded up his napkin.

"Good night, father," he said, as he got up from his chair, leaving the
old man still hard at work. "I expect you'll want to get to sleep now,
it's been a tiring day."

"Indeed it has," said William Price. "Indeed it has."

"I'm going out for a stroll," said Norman, at the door.

"Oh, _we_ understand," gurgled Mr William Price after him, with a wink.
"Young rip!" he added complacently as he continued his meal.

But when, his meal finished, he began to doze in the armchair by the
fire, even his confident son might have been startled to see him open
his wide dark eyes, unfilmed, and smile as though he saw Paradise dawn
upon the ceiling.

Norman walked up and down the village street, as though he hoped that
the moon, Whose silver bow hung listlessly above, would send some barbed
messenger of watery fire to confirm him in a resolution. Whether indeed
the celestial lady did touch him somehow, or whether his vanity and
naughty desire to startle the villagers was not more powerful, cannot
say; but in a few minutes a strange decided mood swept over him, and
when a quarter of an hour later he swung into the Blaindon Arms it was
as a man resolved to say good-bye.

For neither business nor inclination had ever permitted Norman to lose
touch with these heroes of the soil, the Blaindon working class. They
were honest, strenuous, interesting fellows, a little too full perhaps
of local colour, Though they were a little jealous of him, they were a
kindly folk and bowed naturally to his superior wealth. Superior
intellect they did not allow him to possess. For them he was a bright
boy who'd got "notions."

He greeted little Nancy at the bar as a habitue should, and asked for
the time-table.

"Surely ye aren't goin' anywhere this tame o' nate," murmured John Oggs.

"Yes, I am," said Norman. "I'm just off abroad. And I've come to say
good-bye."

"What!" said old Canthrop, a person who combined the functions of
village patriarch and village imbecile, and was, in accordance with the
universal custom of savage communities, almost worshipped in
consequence. "What!" he repeated, making the mono-syllable rhyme with
hat. "Aiy didn't know: no one tould me!"

"Well, you're the first to know as usual, Mr Canthrop. The old man
doesn't know yet."

"What!" said old Canthrop, almost shrieking, "not tould yer feyther? Not
tould yer feyther that yer goin' away?"

He rocked convulsively in his chair.

"Isn't that rather sudden of you, Mr Price?" said pleasant Nancy,
simpering. She was a great friend of Norman's, and her voice was a
little tremulous as she asked her question.

Thomas Bodkin, the sexton, who passed for a man of the world, and was
drinking airily at the bar, leaned over and whispered very audibly,
"It's a scrape, Nancy ... these young dogs ... must let 'em sow their
oats ... eh, what?... We know."

Mr Bodkin's jerky mouthfuls passed in the inn for nimble elocution, his
metaphors for the delicious slang of an old and experienced rake.

"Gawd!" ejaculated John Oggs, who was sitting behind him, "ye have it
there, man, ye have it there!"

"What nonsense!" said Norman. "You don't imagine I should run away from
trouble, do you? Or that I should be likely to get into trouble? Or that
if I did I should be such a fool as to tell you anything about it?"

"Why did you, then?" said Thomas Bodkin. A roar of laughter greeted this
vivacious sally.

Price looked round with rather priggish disgust. It was more than he
could stand, this asinine mockery. "I came to say good-bye," he said.

"Till to-morrow, eh?" said the sexton. "You will not see me to-morrow,"
said Norman.

"See now, Mr Price," pursued the sexton, "there are _no_ more trains.
None between five this evening and 10.30 to-morrow, except on markets
when the 8.15 goes to Iffcombe. You're mad."

Another peal of laughter, during which Norman disappeared, a baffled
Byron, punished by the native humour of honourable working men for
trying to produce a cheap effect.

But his resolution had received its final confirmation. He could not
face the ridicule of the morrow. He hurried back at once to the shop,
and there on the counter wrote a concise note to his father. He thought
it unnecessary to condole or excuse. He knew how delightful it would be
for the old man to have anything happen to him at all, how he would
enjoy being the centre of sympathetic interest in the village, and how
thoroughly good it would be for his moral character to get back to
business. He then took the Post Office Savings Bank book from the safe.
There were ninety pounds odd in it, entered in his name, the profits
that had accrued during his two years' management of the shop. Perhaps
it was not strictly his; his father had established the business, and
provided the initial stock. But then his father had laid by enough to
keep him even in food for the next ten years, and Norman had done the
work. It is the young who want money; Norman had never been able to see
the object of saving money with immense toil over against the day when
one should become infirm, insane, or dead. He uttered a vigorous oath
against the Post Office system, which means a day's delay in
withdrawal, sent the book up to headquarters at once, asking that it
should be sent him by return to the Central Post Office, Southampton,
posted it in the box opposite, and then considered what he ought to
pack. He took a change of raiment, and then looked lovingly at the
ponderous tomes on his shelves. Only the smallest could go with him.

"After all," said Norman, "I have read all these once. New lands, new
books, and I am not going away for what John would call a reading
party."

Finally he took no book with him save a little Elzevir _Apuleius_, and
packed it with all his other effects on his bicycle carrier and in the
saddle-bag. Just as he was mounting one more thought troubled him. Would
he not be terribly lonely? If only John could come too! "No," he said,
arguing to himself, "my life must not consist of John. If I'm lonely I
shall have to discover for myself new companions in new countries."

It was a splendid night. He set off down the High Street, on the main
road to Southampton in a state of perilous exultation. Smoothly and
quickly the tyred wheels bore him on out to infinity. The door of the
Blaindon Arms stood open, and as he rolled noiselessly by he could hear
Canthrop summing up his view of the situation for the fiftieth time,

"Bloody silly, I call it," said the old man, "bloody silly!"


[1] I should subjoin a word to prevent any enthusiastic reader from
taking the words of the old poet too seriously and wasting thirty pounds
in going to Damascus. It is a very filthy town with electric trams and
no drains.

The fares mentioned by the poet are of course third-class.




CHAPTER II

ALSANDER

     Know'st thou the land where bloom the lemon trees,
     And darkly gleam the golden oranges?
     A gentle wind blows down from that blue sky....


With a spear of golden light and gradual splendour Dawn rose on her
triumphal car. In winter men rise up to welcome her advent: wives cast
off sleep and light fires in her honour; the good citizens draw the
curtains to gaze out upon her beauty, stretching their lazy limbs. In
winter Dawn arises to the sound of chattering and bustle, the herald of
man's work in town and field. But in summer only the grey mists and the
light-winged birds listen to her as she rings the bells of day.

Norman had seen new lands and cities, and had been wandering on foot for
many weeks to south and east admiring all things, but never so satisfied
with what he saw as to rest for a single day. At the first glimmer of
light he leapt to his window, and whether Dawn rose broken upon the
peaks or solemn on the plain, whether she wandered mysteriously down old
winding streets, or set the city square clattering and clanging, it was
early, ever early, that our heroic traveller left his mean abode to
seek the unexpressed, unknown, ever-receding city of his heart's desire.

One night as he was trudging along he met a tramp, whose face he could
hardly make out beneath the stars, who, learning that he was bound to
Alsander, talked to him in English passionately of the beauties of that
country, recommended him to learn its language, and then disappeared
into the gloom. This confirmed the boy in his definite aim, and day
after day he approached this certain goal, fired by the eloquence of the
mysterious stranger. This night, being among the high mountains, he had
found no inn; however, undaunted, he lay down on the roadside for an
hour or two, then rose and strode on, pack on shoulder, through the
shadows. Who could be tired of walking with the mountain wind ahead, the
dim white road beneath, and the joy of watching for the dawn! "Ah!" he
thought, "how I pity the six-legged at their desks! What for them is the
sunrise curtain to the drama of a day? How indeed should they greet it,
save with a cry of pain and a curse upon the light? But I will wander
on."

Now had come that shining moment of Eternity when Aurora unravels the
folds of her saffron robe across the sky and bares her wounded breast to
the blue of morning. The boy swung round a corner of the highway, and
suddenly beheld the valley far below. He saw quiet forests of tall
golden trees and meadows so rich with gentian and wild pansy that even
at that far height he could see them shine. To his left, at the edge of
the plain, lay spear-sharp mountains, a little darker than the skies,
whose distant hollows and tortuous cones ever hinted at the mystery of
the next valley and the joy of things unseen. He saw the thin torrent
which tumbled down in cascades behind the wall become a quiet and solemn
river below leading to a curved strip of sea, of an intense unearthly
colour, southern, fantastic, beyond all belief, and the sound of rushing
waters seemed the only sound in the world. But most surprising of all,
on a rocky mound between the mountains and the bay rose the white city
of Alsander, with her legendary towers and red roofs all dreaming in the
sunlight. In such deep slumber lay that perfect city, the boy held the
very sight of it to be a dream. For there surely dwelt the good King and
the bad King, the younger son and the three princesses, the dwarf, the
giant and the gnome. Surely in those blue mountains lurked and lolled
the devastating dragon who came down for his yearly toll of maiden
flesh; surely in that blue sea swam all the shoal of nereids and
dolphinous fishy beings whose song is dangerous to men. Thus appeared
the city of Alsander to Norman as he gazed at it over the wall in
silence. "Blessings on the head of that wonderful old tramp," said
Norman, "who told me Alsander was the loveliest place in Europe and
directed my steps on this glorious path; wherever he may be may joy
attend him, so boldly did he bear the weight of years." Then down he
went on his way again, humming to himself,

"_Knowst thou the land where bloom the
lemon trees?_"

and the birds were frightened of his deep voice and the little green
lizards fled up the walls as he strode on down the hill.

Many men can only enjoy beauty when they face it alone. These dark and
solitary aesthetes love to ramble on the most horrible downs and heaths
at intempestival morning hours, drinking in the miserable and fearsome
aspect of the world. One such has said to me that he would walk half a
day to avoid meeting a friend. I fear, too, that these characters
consider their misanthropic tastes a self-evident mark of their
superiority over the mass of men, who, herding together with vivacious
chatter, much love-making, and explosion of corks, crowd to the
prettiest places they know to enjoy Bank Holiday. Your lonely man claims
a special communion with God or with the Spirit of Nature, or with the
Rosicrucian mysteries of his own soul, so that his ramble becomes a
sacrament, purifying by pity, terror and love. Norman was a little above
this sort of rubbish: he felt dimly the cruelty of beauty and the menace
of solitude. This sent him moving and set him longing--longing very
definitely for human companionship. Thus he fell short of the
self-sufficient man recommended by Aristotle, for which the reader may
devoutly praise the Lord.

But the stilted style of this century can ill express the fluctuations
of our hero's feelings. "Who is there" (I should have written in 1820),
"or what man of feeling and imagination can be found, who, upon
contemplating the ineffable grandeur and unspeakable majesty of Nature,
does not ardently aspire to hold at the same moment communion with some
divinely tender female heart, to read in those liquid eyes his own
reflections purged of their dross and transmuted into gold, to press
those sensitive fingers and thereby lose himself in rapture among the
gorgeous scenes that astonish and confound his gaze, to seal those
fluttering lips with the memory of an unforgettable moment?"

To resume the use of the English language, Norman felt lonely, and for
that very reason paid particular attention to the only figures
discernible in the landscape. He came down and the figures came up,
three companions they seemed to be. But presently Norman made out that
the central figure was a girl, and her two shining companions were only
the two pails she carried, slung from a yoke that passed behind her
neck. "Life for me," said Norman to himself, as he and the girl drew
near to each other at the combined rate of six miles an hour, "is crude
marble, and I have come here to carve it into flowers, and the flowers
of youth are the fairest of them all." Pleased with this ingenuous
comparison, he looked up with a smile, and discovered that the neck
which bore the yoke was a shapely one, and that there in front of him,
not fifty yards away, stood a young girl, with her pails clanking at her
side. She was dressed in a white frock and her head was covered with a
white kerchief edged with gold.

The reader now dreads the inevitable love scene, and I, too, feel that
an apology is needed. For so many novelists, ballad-makers, jongleurs,
troubadours, minstrels, poets, and bards have sung the praises of
perfect, adorable and captivating ladies that I am inclined to lament
with one of them that

     I have sung all love's great songs
     And have no new songs to sing,
     But I'll sing the old songs again.

And so I will. We will have those old songs again, for I will not give
my heroine "plain but interesting features" or "a noble rather than
beautiful countenance with intellect shining in her eyes," or even in a
candid moment declare her to possess "a haunting plainness all her own."
But apart from all this there is the truth to consider, and this young
girl was assuredly one of the most perfect women God ever made by
accident or Satan by design.

For she stood there in front of him in the radiant, dancing, dewy
morning, happy and unperturbed, in her gracious half-human beauty, not
majestic, not passionate, not mysterious, but unreal from her very
loveliness, a nymph, not of the woods or rivers, but of the sea--yet not
of the tempestuous main--no tall sad siren of a treacherous rock, but a
sweet, young pleasant nymph from a bay where the sun is always shining,
a sea-sand nymph not unacquainted with flowers.

For when I would deal with her face and body, all those feeble, pretty
comparisons whereby the pen of the writer strives to emulate the brush
of the painter, must be of the sea or of flowers. Her dark hair, fringed
against the gold lace of her scarf--but those same painters (whom all we
word-workers envy bitterly but dare not say so) have shown how many
confluent colours--hyacinth and blue and red and deep red gold, gleam
in the shadowy hollows of the hair we fools call dark. ... Dark! As the
sea-water in a sunlit bay lies dark between two little island rocks yet
ripples in the wind, and the sea flowers turn it red along the marge and
the depths glow violet in the midst, and the sunshine is all near but
hidden--am I not now describing the dark hair of a lovely woman?

"But her eyes, poor poet, her eyes--are they not also pools of the salt
sea?"

Not the eyes of this lass, my gentle friend. Her eyes were of finer and
subtler essence than the heavy water of the sea. They were blue--which
is ever most wonderful with dark lashes, dark brows and sea-dark
hair--but not the dark blue of a rock pool nor yet quite the light
broken blue of the blinking waves in the calm and brilliant bay. Her
eyes were of a light dry fire--the blue not of sea nor of sky, but
rather of the glowing air that swims about the idle fisher's boat hour
after hour on summer days. So that you could not tell if they were deep
eyes or light wayward eyes,--those little gay discs of laughing sunlit
air.

And her countenance, that was a sweet rose and jasmine garden--but
always, I would have you remember, a garden that blossoms by the sea,
with vistas of the bay down every alley of the roses, and gleams of blue
water glinting behind the trellis of the jasmine, and the sea air
slightly touching the colour of all the flowers. Have you not seen the
flowers in that Italian picture that are flung round Venus as she rises
from the sea! Even so a little paler than the brave inland flowers were
the jasmine and roses in the garden of the countenance of this lovely
girl.

And her body? Can I tell you its secret? Ah, never: but as you leave the
garden--pluck one tendril from the vine.

       *       *       *       *       *

Her light, gracious, flowing beauty trans-ported the boy to the days he
had read of, the days when the world was young. The chains of commerce
and the shackles of class,--as it were, the last tatters of his black
British clothes--fell from him. Looking at her, he smiled.

She evidently took that smile as a greeting intended for her, for she
seemed to wait for him to come down and to be in no hurry with her
pails.

"Good morning," she cried to him as he approached, in the honeyed and
somewhat languorous speech of Alsander.

"Good morning," said Norman. "May I help you with the water?" Alsandrian
is an easy, simple, and sonorous language, and Norman had been learning
it and talking it to himself ever since the tramp he met in the night
had directed his thoughts and footsteps toward the country of Alsander,
yet he was very shy at practising for the first time this newly-acquired
tongue.

"Ah, I thought you were a foreigner," said the girl, speaking with the
strained simplicity and slight mispronunciation that we all of us employ
for the benefit of strangers and infants. "What is your country and your
home?"

"England."

"England? Why you are the first Englishman I have ever seen! How
beautiful you are!"

Norman smiled, unable, and indeed unwilling, to deprecate his personal
appearance.

"It is you who are beautiful," he said, slowly, labouring with the
strange tongue, "Are they all like you in Alsander?"

"Do you think it possible?"

She drew herself up with such grace that Norman's arms twitched and
ached. But he was rather in awe of her.

"How bright your eyes are!" he said.

"Are they? What colour do you think they are?" she asked, turning them
full on him.

"They are blue. I have never seen such blue eyes in my life before."

"You are quite sure that they are not green?"

Norman was not at all sure that they were not: they seemed to him to
change colour like little bright clouds, and shone at that moment like
a lustrous emerald. But he simply said that they were not green, as he
could only make very simple phrases in the language of Alsander.

"Are you going to stay long in this country?" inquired the girl.

"I think I shall have to."

He carved a dust pattern with his stick quite nervously, daring no more
to look at her eyes. He asked her name.

"Peronella," she said. "And yours?"

"My name is Norman."

"Nor-mano, how nice!" said the girl, who seemed to think that this
bashful northerner needed encouragement. "Normano. I shall always call
you Normano."

"Always?" said Norman, looking up quickly.

The shameless maiden hung her head with a rosy blush as though she had
been caught in an indiscretion,--as though the word had slipped from her
unawares. But even at six in the morning, a sane though splendid hour,
Norman, that reserved young Englishman, considered such encouragement
sufficient. He went deliberately and took the pails off the girl's
shoulders, as though he were going to help her, and the moment they had
clattered on the road, he embraced this adorable girl from behind and
kissed her ravenously. The kiss fell some two inches below her left
ear.

She stood very stiff, flushed and angry; but Norman simply maintained
his pressure till her whole body unstiffened. Norman had adopted to good
purpose the principle that returns the penny-in-the-grip machine and
secures for Britain her extensive Empire.

By this time they had become thoroughly nervous of each other. They sat
down side by side on the wall near the spring. Norman ruffled his hair
in embarrassment. Peronella murmured something about Fate. Norman
inwardly disagreed; he did not think he ought to blame (or thank) Fate
for the present contingency.

"Where are you going to stay?" asked the girl at last.

"As near you as possible."

"But don't you really know?"

"I know nothing. I am just a stranger, and I have come here for a ...
for a ... damn," said Norman in English to himself, "what's the word for
a holiday?--for a rest."

"You don't look as if you wanted a rest, and you won't get it if you
stay near me."

"Not rest," said Norman, "not rest exactly, but ... amusement. O
Peronella, you know how hard it is to talk a foreign tongue. I have
learnt Alsandrian in a book, but I have never talked a word of it
before."

"You talk it very nicely indeed; it is charming to hear you. It is not
at all pleasant for us to hear men from Ulmreich talking Alsandrian.
They make a horrible harsh noise, although they talk very carefully. But
I think the lazy way you pronounce your o's and e's is charming...."

"_I_ think," said Norman, looking at his watch with a smile, "that it is
just twenty minutes since I first saw you and already...."

"Well?"

"I love you very much." He meant only to say "I like you very much," but
in southern lands the linguistic distinction does not exist.

The girl seized him by the wrists.

"Don't say things like that, you devil," she cried, "especially if you
do not mean it. Yes, say it even if you do not mean it; I love to hear
you saying it. But be very careful. We are not like heathen women."

"I mean it!" said Norman, perforce.

"Normano, did you treat all other girls like this in England, and do you
think I allow other men...."

"It will be quite different," faltered Norman.

"Say it again!"

"Peronella, I really love you."

Norman could not conceal a little yawn in his voice even at the moment
of making this startling declaration; his eyes were heavy with light
and he had walked for many hours. The girl perceived at once.

"Why, you are quite tired!" she said, "and talking fearful nonsense. You
must come and find a room at once. Have you been walking long?"

"Four or five hours," said Norman.

"You curious person, to go walking in the night. Where have you come
from?"

"From Braxea. I had my supper in the inn last night, and I've been
walking ever since."

"What a pace you must have put on! Why, it's ever such a way away.
Braxea? Why, it's right over the mountains on the frontier. Those long
legs!" she added, pointing to them with a laugh. "No wonder they go far.
I have never seen such long legs, except on a grass-hopper. And now you
will walk into Alsander. But you have not yet answered my question.
Where are you going to stay in our city?"

"I don't know a bit, beautiful girl, as I told you. Perhaps you can find
me a place, not far away from you."

"Ah, perhaps I might," said she, "and perhaps I might not. I do not
think you would be an agreeable neighbour."

"Ah, why not? Should I trouble and annoy you?"

"You have no idea how to behave, none at all," murmured Peronella.

"Oh, I will learn," cried the boy, "if you will teach me."

"And you will promise never, never again to squeeze my breath out in
that awful manner?"

"Faithfully I will promise everything you ask."

"Why, then," said Peronella, rising up, with her eyes sparkling, "you
had better come and live with my mother and me. We have a little
_pension_ and we want a lodger."

"What?" said Norman, not trusting himself to have understood.

"Come--and--live--with--my--mother-and--me, that is, if you like."

"O Peronella, I am afraid." And indeed the boy was really getting
seriously frightened of this persistent maiden.

"But will you come? Or will you not have enough rest or amusement?
Perhaps you would rather stay at the Palace Hotel. Most foreigners do.
Ours is a very poor house. But the Palace Hotel is not really a palace.
Will you come? It would be much less expensive for you, and we have no
mosquitoes, and mother cooks divinely."

"How dare you ask me, you mad girl? You must think we live in snow
houses and get our hearts frozen up in the north. Let us go at once!"

He made as if to accompany her, highly pleased at his proficiency in
Alsandrian.

"No, no," said the girl. "That will never do. People are beginning to
get up now and would say all sorts of things. You do not know what
tongues they have, the old women of the town. I should be shamed and
ruined. But I have a beautiful plan. You must walk about thirty yards
behind me and follow me home."

Norman shook his head at her, not understanding. It is so much easier to
be metaphorical than to be practical in a foreign tongue.

If you do not understand what I mean, consider a moment. You possess,
let us say, a little knowledge of Italian, without tears. You are in a
restaurant at Rome, and two Counts are discussing at the next table. To
your delight you comprehend them perfectly. The Count with the white
imperial has just observed, "_La vera educazione, il segreto del
progresso umano, e ideale._" You admire the limpidity of his thought,
the purity of his enunciation, and your own knowledge of a tongue so
recently acquired. Then comes the infernal waiter with his coarse,
plebeian accent. Where are you now? _Minestra, cipolle, rombo,
sermone_--is the old Count going to preach one? Holding back the
scalding tears of shame, you feed the brute with English.

Norman's obtuseness dismayed the girl.

"Oh, dear!" said she. "You don't understand a word. You are dreadfully
stupid. What shall I do? Ah, I know!"

Laughing merrily, she picked up two pebbles, one longer than the other.

"You," she said, "and me."

Then she thrust Norman's stick into the grass to represent home, she
explained. Then, kneeling down and pulling Norman beside her, she made
the pebbles walk after her at even distances towards the stick. She made
the short pebble trip along lightly with a mincing gait, while the tall
one paced behind in gigantic strides, reverent and slow. At the stick
she put another great pebble, squat and dumpy, to do duty for Mamma. The
lady pebble tapped at the door and was admitted; the tall pebble thumped
a few minutes afterwards; it talked inquiringly to the dumpy pebble,
bowed to the graceful pebble, and finally (so Norman contrived to the
girl's vast delight) kissed that graceful pebble rapturously behind the
squat one's back.

"Now," said she, "do you understand, you stupid?"

Norman understood the little pantomime. She started off. He had to call
her back for her forgotten pails. Norman filled them and placed them
lovingly on her back. She went a full hundred yards ahead, and then
waved her hand, nearly spilling her pails as she did so. He followed,
rather frightened, very thrilled, and overwhelmingly tired.

Not otherwise did the Ithacan follow Nausicaa into the city of the
Phoeacians whose ships went wisely in the waves.




CHAPTER III

EN PENSION IN ALSANDER

     You, sweet, have the power
     To make me passionate as an April day;
     Now smile, then weep; now pale, then crimson red;
     You are the powerful moon of my blood's sea.

                             _The Witch of Edmonton_


Norman followed, through the crumbling gateway, past an old fountain
half buried in roses, up narrow tortuous ways at the back of a huge
cathedral. Then he came to a street of steps. The town was beginning to
awake. Little boys and girls had begun to play on the thresholds with
portentous solemnity; half-naked men were washing their brown bodies at
the pumps; and from the newly opened shutters many a glittering eye
marvelled at the fair-haired stranger, as though he were some
adventurous prince from the fantastic North, where it snows one half the
year and rains the other, and red devils dance and moan in the perpetual
fog.

Norman saw Peronella disappear inside a house in the distance; he came
up to it and entered. The staircase was a long one, and there were
innumerable doors. However, he proceeded up the very dirty steps as
long as the splashings from the pail guided him onwards. "She cannot
have much water left in that pail," thought Norman. At last the
splashing ceased by a door whereon hung the notice:

      "VIDVINO PRASKO
       CAMBRI PRO LUI,"

signifying, as even Norman apprehended, that the lady of the house, a
widow, would let rooms. Behind the door he heard Peronella chattering
with exaggerated vigour. He rang, and the girl opened, scanned him up
and down with mild astonishment (a piece of delicate acting, for which
there was no reason whatever, as her mother, the widow Prasko, was busy
clanking pans in the kitchen), and asked him what he wanted.

"I want to live here in a room," was the muddled reply.

"Wait a minute then, sir; I will speak to mother about it."

She shut the door in his face with a crashing slam, and ran into the
kitchen.

"Mother," she said, in an impartial voice, as soon as there was a lull
in the clanking of the kettles, "here is a foreign gentleman wanting a
room."

"An Ulmreicher?"

"I don't know where he comes from; but I am sure he is not from
Ulmreich."

"Because, you know," said the old lady, "however poor we may be, I could
not stand having one of those people in the house: I simply hate them.
They want all the floors cleaned with petroleum every day, and if
there's a flea in the bed they curse one as if one were a beggar. It's
no good, Peronella. I don't want any foreigners here, male or female. I
never met a foreigner who was not much more interested in the way his
room was dusted than in the style his food was cooked. Tell him to go
away."

"You had really better look at him first, mother. He looks such a very
nice foreigner, and not a bit like an Ulmreicher. And though he is very
dusty, I noticed he had a gold watch chain."

"Well, well, girl, wait a bit and I'll come and see him. But I won't
have one of those dirty Ulmreich pigs coming here and fussing about the
fleas."

Norman, waiting outside the door, heard, even understood, the widow's
remarks, for she nearly always spoke at the top of her voice, and
invariably acted on the assumption, usually justifiable, that no
foreigner could speak more than three words of Alsandrian. Yet he
observed that the old lady's screech was not altogether unpleasant; it
was, at all events, a peculiarly powerful noise. When the widow at
length appeared at the door, a gigantesque apparition, he felt her to
be striking enough to have a superior voice, or even to be the mother of
Peronella. True, her face was wrinkled like an old lemon, or like a
raised map of some uncharted country on the invisible side of the moon;
and the vast cylinder of blue apron that she wore was not calculated to
palliate either the rugosity of her face or the extreme fatness of her
body. Yet for all her monstrous appearance she walked well, and had
regular features, which suggested that neither her intelligence nor her
will had disappeared, and had once been wedded to beauty.

"Do you come from Ulmreich?" she said to Norman in the language of that
country, scanning him up and down.

Norman, though he knew enough Ulmreichan to master the import of her
question, pretended not to understand, and stood dumb.

"Where do you come from?" the widow pursued in Alsandrian.

"From England."

"Ah, from England. I never knew anyone from England, but when I was in
Ulmreich I met an American whose name I have forgotten, but he was a
nice man, in a good line of business, till he died. And how long have
you been in Alsander?"

"I have only just arrived."

"You have only just arrived. And you talk the language?"

"I learnt it on my way."

"And how did you find out my house, if you have only just arrived? We do
not advertise: we are not a regular pension. Only it happens we
sometimes let a room."

"I was wandering round looking for a room, and some one directed me
here."

"Now who could that be?"

"Oh, I don't know. A little man round the corner."

"I wonder who it was. Was it a little cobbler with red hair? That would
be Simone. Did you notice if he had red hair?"

"I don't know," said Norman, inwardly consigning the old girl to
perdition. "He wore a felt hat."

"Ah, Simone has no hat," said the Widow Prasko. "And have you any
luggage?"

"It is coming on by train."

"Did you not come by train yourself?"

"No," said Norman, crossly. "I have walked all night, from Braxea, and I
am very tired. Please give me a room or refuse a room and send me away,
at once."

"Ah, forgive me," said the widow, quite courteously, "but I have a
daughter in the house, and I must ask questions. And, of course, you
must be either very mad or very poor or you would not have walked from
Braxea, and if you had walked you would have gone to the hotel."

"Do I look like the sort of man who would misbehave with your daughter?"
said Norman, stiffly.

"Oh, I don't mind how you behave with per. But you might want to marry
her, and I should not like her to marry a poor man."

"I am fairly rich," said Norman, "but I have not seen your daughter long
enough to decide about marriage."

"You are rich and you want to find a room here?"

"Yes, please."

"And food?"

"Yes, food, too."

"You will find it rather simple living. You would live much better at
the hotel."

"I would rather be here," said Norman. "I like to have people to talk
to; I do not like hotels."

"Well, you might as well come in and see the room."

She showed him a small bedroom, almost entirely filled by an enormous
curtained bed. It was a pretty room, papered in pale blue, ornamented
with cuttings from French illustrated papers, a statuette of a nakedish
lady apparently eight feet high, called Mignon, an oleograph
representing a romantic northern castle surrounded by impossible
waterfalls, and a clock which had been for many years too tired to
work. Peronella it was who drew up the sunblinds and let in the pure
air, for which the room thirsted. There was a view over the red roofs
right out to sea.

Norman expressed himself delighted. He settled the terms, and paid in
advance for a month. He arranged to have meals with the family; he did
not want to be lonely, and wanted to learn Alsandrian. All this
obviously pleased the old lady, and Norman, too tired even to walk about
in the city, shut himself up and slept, to the disgust of Peronella,
till the late afternoon.

His bag awaited him at the station a mile away, down on the plain on the
land side of the rock. He walked there to get it, still too sleepy to
look round him and enjoy the newness of things, and carried it painfully
back. He tried that evening to clothe himself as fashionably as he
could. He succeeded, at all events, in a country where the proper use of
the starched linen collar and its concomitant tie is practically
unknown, in impressing the Vidvino Prasko, who in her turn took great
care to let him know that she was of old family and good education, and
had been Maid of Honour to the last Queen of the country. And so she
rambled on, giving Norman, who was eager to hear about the country, an
account even of its history and commerce, and left him greatly
surprised at the extent of her knowledge. She had been brought up in the
Palace itself, in the good old times, as she said, sighing, and knew
more than most. For herself, she had a little pension from the
Government. "It is worth no one's while to steal it," she observed,
"and, besides, I have my daughter, whom I bring up most
care-fully--don't I, Peronella?"

Peronella, who had discarded her white frock and now appeared in what
had better only be described as her "Sunday Best," blushed modestly and
hung her head beautifully. Norman, however, was not pleased, but rather
disappointed to find she was not the peasant girl he had thought her,
but a half-educated young lady with ideas. Troubled, he looked at her
again. She was still there, still beautiful, still charming; but, alas!
how the spell of the morning was broken! The nymph who stood before him,
the very spirit of Nature, some few hours ago had had lessons in
geography and fancy needlework, could even play the piano. She had
almost the same accomplishments as those he and all Blaindon had admired
in the pretty daughter of Mr Apple.

And yet she was there opposite him, still beautiful, still charming....

Soon after dinner the old lady declared herself sleepy and departed,
admonishing Peronella not to stay up too late.

"That's just like mother," said the girl.

"What?"

"She's taken a fancy to you all at once and goes off, leaving me alone
with you as if you were a pet lamb instead of a...."

"Lascivious lion," suggested Norman. "By the way, Peronella...."

"Yes."

"Peronella, have you any more lovers?"

"How fond you are of repeating my name! Of course I have. Do I look as
if I hadn't? He is called Cesano. He will be coming soon. He will
certainly try to kill you. Do you mind?"

"What?"

"Being killed."

"Of course, I should hate it."

"You silly fellow. I mean, you aren't afraid?"

"I am deadly afraid of being killed, so soon after meeting you."

"Would you kill somebody for me if I asked you to?"

"Yes, unless I was likely to be hanged for it."

"I don't believe you're at all brave, or very fond of me, after all."

"I am rather frightened of you, Peronella, at all events."

Some time after, a ring at the bell interrupted some similar inane,
mock-passionate conversation.

"You were talking about my lovers, dear Normano," said the girl. "If you
want to see one, you have only to wait here while I open the door. Now,
if that's Cesano, as I suppose it is, there will be fireworks. Be
careful, Normano; he's a rival. Alsandrian lovers are not like English.
They have hot blood in their veins. Listen, how he rings. He is angry
already. Oh, Normano, go into your bedroom. It would be dangerous for
you to stay here--"

"Nonsense; I have come to stay. Do you think I am frightened? I am
longing to see this very passionate man and to learn how I ought to make
love."

She undid the door and Cesano entered. He was a dark individual, a few
years older than Norman, with a bulging forehead, and a black moustache.
He looked very much like an English maidservant's idea of a typical
Spaniard, being, furthermore, dressed in one of those horrible
colour-combinations in velvet and silk that we English, perhaps the
best-dressed people in the world, find so charmingly picturesque and so
essentially artistic.

"Good evening, Cesano; let me introduce you to our new lodger, an
Englishman."

The two men bowed to each other without saying a word. Cesano wasted no
time.

"Are you coming out?" he said.

"I should like to, Cesano, but I can't possibly leave a stranger quite
alone for his first night in Alsander, can I?"

"Oh, he looks as if he could look after himself, that great pink-faced
lout of an Englishman. Besides, what does he matter? And he must be
tired if he has only just arrived."

"I am not at all tired," said Norman. "I have been asleep all day."

Cesano gasped. It had never crossed his mind that a foreigner could
understand a word of the language of Alsander.

"Then you understand me, sir? Then you don't mind?"

"I do rather. Especially since you have said I didn't matter.
Particularly so since you called me a pink-faced lout of an Englishman."

"Forgive me, sir," said Cesano, with intensive courtesy. "I could not
have imagined that you understood my words. It is so rarely that we
Alsandrians have the pleasure of hearing foreigners speak our tongue.
And as you have understood me, you have understood that I was only in
jest. And if there was a little offence, you must pardon me. I am a
lover. We lovers are so hasty. It is natural to be jealous of all men
when one is a lover. Of course, for me to have been jealous of you, even
for an instant, was purely ridiculous."

"I pardon you certainly, Signor Cesano," said Norman. "I pardon you with
all my heart, but...."

Norman felt uncomfortable. He heartily wished that Peronella would go
for her passion-walk with Cesano, and leave him to his too long
neglected pipe. But, despite all his Englishman's vague terror of the
foreigner, he had all a brave man's objections to hauling down his
colours, especially in the face of so ridiculous an opponent as the
Italian opera personage who stood there gesticulating at him, and whose
politeness was thrice as offensive as his rudeness. So he dwelt a second
on the word "but" and glanced at Peronella, who came to his aid only too
gladly, and with consummate impudence took up the tale.

"Normano desires to say"--murmured the young lady in a very sweet
voice--"that you have plenty of cause for jealousy."

"Cause for jealousy! What do you mean by cause for jealousy? Of him?"

"Ah! he still finds the language a little difficult to speak, you know.
Even you who are native do not seem to have mastered it completely,
Cesano. Yes, of course, of him!"

"But what do you mean--what do you mean? What do you dare to mean?"
cried Cesano, crescendo.

"This!" Here Peronella looked up at Norman with a glance of admiration
and put her arm round his waist. Proud of her new lover, she thought
also that it would be more prudent to display her colours at once.
Cesano staggered to the wall, doubtless moved by real emotion, but with
such theatrical gestures that he appeared a mere buffoon.

"What has happened? Can I believe my eyes? Am I moon-mad? Have all the
devils possessed me? Are you Peronella? Am I Cesano? Is he your lover?"

He buried his face in his hands. Peronella would not answer the poor
fellow.

"What has happened? Has that pink foreigner bewitched your heart? Are
you tormenting me or are you tired of me?" he cried.

"Not tired of you," said the girl, growing a little white but not
relaxing her grip of Norman, "but very fond of him."

"Fond of that person? Who or what is he? I have not the honour...."

"He is an English lord who came here this afternoon to live here."

"An English lord in this mud-house?"

"It is good enough for him where I am."

Meanwhile Norman was feeling awkward enough. The girl, it seemed, had
taken possession of him almost without asking him, though doubtless it
was his own fault, for kissing lonely nymphs all in the morning of the
world. There she was publicly avowing him, and making him feel very mean
and foolish before her honest, if extravagant, lover, who now went on
with a sort of portentous dignity:

"I am sorry. Forgive me, Peronella. I am confused. I cannot understand
what has happened. You cannot give me up after all these months for some
one you do not know at all. It is absurd. It could not be. It is
fantastic. It is unreal."

"I did not know I had ever taken you," replied Peronella. "What have we
ever done but go out for walks like friends?"

"But I was going to give up everything for you. Do not blast my youth."

"It has been blasted before, Cesano."

"Not like this time. I cannot sleep. Come, take away your arm, last of
creatures. I cannot bear it. I will go mad. I will beat you. As for you,
sir" (to Norman, in a deep bass), "I will deal with you after with cold
steel!"

"Come, now," said Peronella, smoothly. "I am very sorry indeed. One
cannot help the hand of Fate."

"Hand of Fate," said Cesano, in justifiable wrath. "It has driven many
women to hell, that hand of Fate. Do you kiss a new man every week? Have
you a price? Was I not honourable? Did we not talk of marriage? Did I
not pick you coral from the sea--violets from the meadows?"

"Don't be poetic, Cesano, or I shall cry."

"Cry! Can you shed tears? I have shed many for you at night beneath your
window. But you have no heart!"

"Why trouble then about so stony a young girl?"

The affected languor of her tone irritated Norman almost as much as it
was intended to irritate Cesano, but he could not well desert her now,
and stood his ground. Cesano sobbed, put one hand on his breast and the
other on a tableknife with which he made the most threatening gestures
at Norman. The latter, who understood the hand-play more than the
rhetoric, could not help laughing at the grotesque but unfortunate
Alsandrian.

"Ah! you laugh now!" said Cesano, ferociously. "Some day I will make you
smile at the back of your head."

And turning on his heel, to Norman's surprise, he went softly and
quietly out of the room.

"I am so sorry for Cesano," said Norman. "I did not mean to be rude to
him; he is a good man. I am sorry you were so cruel to him. He has not
deserved it of you."

"Love is cruel! And, O, Normano, Love is divine!"

"Love is a very good subject of conversation," said Norman, ungallantly.
He was tired, and therefore had sagacious misgivings as to what he had
let himself in for. "Good night," he added, and turned on his heel.

"Is that all?" said Peronella, opening out her arms.

But the wary Englishman had fled.




CHAPTER IV

INTRODUCING A GOOD BEGGAR AND A BAD KING

     Beautiful and broken fountains, keep you still your
     Sultan's dream?

                 _The Golden Journey to' Samarkand._


Despite any irritation he might feel in finding his pretty flirtation
degenerate into a sentimental romance which might end ill, for a week
Norman led the golden life, and, after all, the golden life can only be
led in sunny lands, by him who has a mistress on his arm and music in
his soul, and it never lasts more than one week in the same place. The
golden life in Alsander means swimming, sunstruck memories of old walls
and young faces; it means prospects down tortuous streets of blue
mountains towering to the sky or of blue skies falling into bluer seas.
It means the discovery of an elegant fountain down this way, of a Roman
inscription hidden in moss down that. It means the first view of the
Cathedral square. For the facade of the Cathedral of Alsander, first
seen of a sudden some early morning, when the square is still, seems an
impossible thing--a mirage: it is so vast, so lovely, and so old.

But for Norman in Alsander, as for many another, the chill Sunday of
disappointment followed the week-days of delight. Naturally the first
disappointment was Peronella. We have already hinted at Norman's
disappointment. It did not vanish, that disappointment: it grew. Can
beauty be boring? Ah! ye gods, it can, if one has to talk to it, and it
is stupid. But was Peronella not romantic? Oh, yes, she was indeed, but
romantic with a "k." She was romantick like the fair misses of a hundred
years ago. But is not the romantick the same as the romantic in
principle? Oh, yes, indeed, the sentiment is the same; but to be
romantic requires intellect, and to be romantick requires none. But was
not Peronella educated? Indeed she was, most abominably educated, quite
enough to ruin all the fresh roses of her nature. She had not, could
not, alas! read Ella Wheeler Wilcox, her poems, but, oh! how she would
have loved them had she known them! Marie Corelli she did read; you may
buy her works in Alsandrian. But was she incapable of appreciating true
literature? Oh, no, she adored Shakespeare and Byron, which she read in
translations. You see, her mother had ideas and considered herself a
lady. Nevertheless Peronella began to bore Norman: the spell was broken!

And once that spell broken, other enchantments lost their hold. The
mirage lifted from the city of Alsander. The illusion began to
disappear one day when it rained, and the next day, when Norman walked
out alone after a sulky quarrel, it had utterly vanished. The rain had
ceased, but the sun had revived the smells of Alsander (which were
ubiquitous, insinuating, sometimes crushing) without drying the streets.
Norman slipped at every step he took in the glutinous mud. The utter
disrepair of the cobbled streets made walking bad enough at any time,
heartrending after rain. As for driving, it was a wonder there was a
carriage in the place. Across one of the narrowest but most frequented
roads gaped a fabulously large hole which had perhaps been opened for
some vague drainage or burial operations. The displaced cobbles formed a
little circular hill all round this preposterous cavity, which looked in
consequence more like the crater of Etna than an honest hole in the
road, and carriages had positively to be lifted over the hill into the
valley and then over the hill again. A couple of men could have put it
straight in half an hour--but this was Alsander.

The question will arise, "But what of the pavements?" In Alsander, as a
rule, there are no pavements, the roads being flanked on each side by
little running sewers. Where pavements do exist they are used for idle
shopmen to obstruct with their chairs or pushing shopmen to bar with
their merchandise. They also have a way of coming to an end in the
gutter after a few yards, just as you are getting your stride in, and
then tempting the foolish to wade across the road by casually sprouting
up on the opposite side.

Norman had all an Englishman's hatred of discomfort and waste; he felt
that Blaindon could put Alsander to shame in the matter of public works;
he feared the smells would give him typhoid, and he began to hate
Alsander, and he heard the call of Roon, the God of Going, as it is
written in the _Gods of Pegana._

Besides all this he was frightened and puzzled. He had fallen into a
trap. He was looked upon as a prospective son-in-law by the Widow
Prasko--and that was ever so largely his own fault. Englishmen were
accounted fabulously rich, and this one was evidently handsome as well.
Peronella was already airing her proprietorship to the envy and
admiration of the other maids of Alsander. Then Cesano was a nuisance
with his little tricks, for he was as sincere as he was ridiculous--the
complement of Peronella with no redeeming beauty. He was only at the
scowling stage at present, but would certainly advance, in accordance
with the sound early Renaissance tradition of the country, to powder in
the coffee, snake in the boot, or knife in the back. But for all this,
Norman was chivalrous and conscientious enough, and no coward, either;
and though he felt it would be best for all concerned for him to leave
his baggage and run away by the next train, his sense of honour was in
conflict with anything that smacked of dishonesty or funk. Besides, he
had not so much money left; he had to decide whether he would try and
make a living here or elsewhere, and decide soon. It was part of his
travel scheme (which was not so fantastic, after all) to work his
passage, so to speak, in some way or other from place to place. But as
yet he had not earned a farthing or so much as looked for work. This
also depressed him.

Thus it was that the great glass dome of his happiness was shattered,
and the last hour of the golden life fell like a golden leaf from the
tree of existence. And as for that moment when he heard all the bells of
morning ringing in his ears and smiled at a girl with her pails of
water, that was not a week but five thousand years ago, when all the
skies were blue.

Darkly brooding and much disillusioned, therefore, our hero came to the
Royal Castle of Alsander. He had not seen it close at hand before. It
stands far from the centre of the town, on the steepest part of the
rock, an unconquerable edifice of faceted stone, its Palladian gateway
flanked by two stupendous fat uncompromising towers, with hundreds of
yards of unbroken, unwindowed wall slanting outwards to the base,
continuing beyond the towers to right and left. Two sleepy sentries, in
a fine old uniform, holding in their hands some weapon, vaguely
mediaeval, guarded the entrance.

The strength, one might almost say the ugliness, of the castle pleased
Norman's mood. He was just beginning to enjoy the scene, leaning by a
fine old statue which stood in the midst of the square on a low pedestal
and represented, standing twice life-size, helmeted and hand to sword,
the hero King of Alsander, Kradenda the First, the builder of the
castle. He was gazing round intently, when an old crouching beggar
interrupted him and asked him in a sort of hoarse whisper if he wanted
to see the castle. Norman, with a disgusted and pitying glance at the
filthy rags of the mendicant, offered him silver to be left in peace.

"I do not want silver," said the old man. "Look you here"--and he tossed
into the air a heavy purse that hung by his girdle--"I want to show you
the castle."

"Is it open to all visitors?" inquired Norman.

"No, but if I take you we shall pass," replied the vagrant, with
assurance. Norman was surprised into accepting; more surprised still
when the heavy-eyed sentries gave a sort of furtive salute to his
disreputable guide; and most surprised on viewing the interior of the
castle. "At all events there was one more thing to see in Alsander
before I left," said he to himself.

For inside the frowning battlemented walls, instead of harsh keeps and
dungeons, were the beautiful ruins of a beautiful garden. There was a
riot of greenery, to which roses, orange blossom, jasmine and hybiscus
gave the prominent colours and scents. The grass was sprinkled with
cyclamen, asphodel, red anemones and with wild remnants of old
cultivation. There were toy stone Greek temples, little cottages like
English cottages, painted lath and plaster summer-houses like Turkish
summer-houses, showing the bare bones of their construction at every
windy corner.

"Who made all this?" inquired Norman.

The old beggar turned away from the garden and pointed to the vast
encircling quadrilateral of the wall, as grand from within as from
without.

"This wall," he said, standing up straight and waving his hand around
with curious enthusiasm, and speaking in a vibrating but refined voice
which ill befitted his rags and mouldering beard, "is the work of
Kradenda the Great, founder of the power and glory of Alsander, against
whose statue you were leaning in the square. Now I know many stories of
the great Kradenda, and will tell you one, my lord. In those days the
Saracen galleys had driven the people of this land up into the hills,
and the plain was all a waste. Now Kradenda was a shepherd lad, and one
day he went out at the head of his fellows and burnt the fleet of the
infidels...."

"Oh, I have heard the story," said Norman. "Milord is impatient," said
the beggar. "But I am glad that after so short a stay in Alsander he
should know at least one story of Kradenda the Great. There are, of
course, many other stories. My lord, have you heard how King Kradenda
recultivated the plain?"

"No, I have not heard that story. Tell me.

"Well, I will tell you. It was like this. Malaria had gripped those good
rich lands, and not a soul would reclaim them for fear of disease. The
Great King ordered his people to recultivate the plain. But so many died
of fever that they murmured against the order. Thereupon he called to
them and told them that they were soldiers and would they run from an
enemy? 'Never,' they said, 'if he led them,' 'Do you not see, then,'
said the King, 'that fever is our enemy now that I have driven off the
infidel: you must fight it and die for your country if needs be.' 'We
will! obey,' said the old chief who had led the deputation, 'but only if
you lead us.' Whereupon? the King laughed and bade them follow him, and
there and then he pitched his tent in the filthiest part of the marsh
and began to dig a channel for the waters with his own hands. In that
way the marsh was soon drained and dry, and such a man was the first
Kradenda."

"That is a good story," said Norman, "and well and concisely told. But
tell me now about the garden and the summer-houses and the fountain."

"What of them?" said the guide. "The summer-houses are crumbling, the
garden is a wilderness and the fountains play no more."

"Weird talk from a beggar," thought Norman. "But who built them?" he
inquired aloud. "They are quite beautiful."

"They were built by King Basilandron: he was quite beautiful, too."

"I have never heard of him, though my landlady, who is a wise woman, has
told me much of the history of your charming country."

"Ah, we do not talk much of him in Alsander. Here is his name, cut in
the wood."

He showed Norman an inscription on the side of a little summer-house
with wooden tracery and a faded blue paint, which ran: [Greek text].

"But why is it in Greek letters?" inquired Norman.

"He would have everything in Greek. He it was who called the river
Ianthe. It was known as Vorka before."

"You know the history of Alsander well," said Norman, more and more
astonished at the language and erudition of his guide.

"I love Alsander," said the old man. "I know all the stones of this
castle and all the stories of Alsander's past."

"Then tell me the story of King Basilandron," said Norman, "for I have
never heard it. And after that I shall ask you to tell me the story of
your life: for rags do not make you a beggar."

"Neither does my erudition prove me to be a prince in disguise," said
the old fellow with a smile. "But I would rather even tell you the story
of my life, tragic as it is, than tell you the story of King
Basilandron, which is the tragedy of a nation, and one that those who
love Alsander do not care to tell.

"Tell me first the story of Basilandron and then the story of your
life."

"It is little we poor citizens of Alsander can refuse to the inquiring
tourist," said the old man with acerbity. "And may the devil torment you
for a member of a great nation that can look after itself. We, you know,
are supposed to be incapable of self-government, especially since we
went bankrupt a year or two ago, and actually dared to ruin some French
bondholders. Since that day the Great Powers have been terrifying us
with an international commission. If ever there is a free fight in a
cafe here, or a dog-fight in the square, some foreigner writes to a
European newspaper about the anarchy in Alsander. American missionaries,
who believe in Noah's Ark and the historical existence of Methusalem,
revile the degraded superstitions of our peasants who still hold to
their immemorial festivals in honour of the water that bursts from the
rock or the grape that grows dark on the vine. And now we are threatened
with inspectors, all of varying nationalities, to avoid all appearance
of intrigue or possibility of jealousy. You see our strategic importance
is the only importance left to us--otherwise we should long ago have
disappeared. So we are to have a Spanish Financial Inspector and a Swiss
Sanitary Board. Our gendarmerie will be organized by a virtuous Dane.
Our agriculture will be modernized by an energetic Dutchman. Our public
conveniences will doubtless be improved by one of your own compatriots."

"My compatriot," said Norman, "will not be unoccupied. But I insist upon
your telling me the tale of King Basilandron."

"I will tell you, milord, since you are so importunate, but forgive me
if I have been impolite. These things touch me so near.

"Well, then, King Basilandron ruled in days when certain ideas from
Italy, having reached Alsander, had turned the heads even of sober
people and made great havoc of the Court. It was in those days that all
this wood and plaster work which you so much admire was erected; it was
in this garden that night after night King Basilandron held revel, to
the great pleasure of those engaged therein. The Court was all crammed
with fiddlers, painters, poets, dancers, barbers and buffoons. But they
were quack fiddlers, feeble painters, vile poets and clumsy dancers, who
would not have dared to move a leg in Italy. But the barbers and
buffoons were such as the world has never seen, so dexterous and
stylish. Need I tell you how the country was taxed to maintain this
alien population, or how the people groaned and murmured, or how the
aesthetic monarch kept them quiet and amused by diverting pageants? All
sorts of pageants there were--of beggars, thieves, madmen, lovers,
heretics (real heretics, subsequently burnt), queens of antiquity,
widows, tigers and Turks. But a pageant was the end of the whole
business, as I will tell you now.

"One day the King resolved to re-establish the worship called of
Orpheus, to the great joy of his friends. He clothed himself as Bacchus,
though per Bacco he looked more like Silenus (if the painters of his day
did not make him more ugly than he was, which in those days was not the
custom of Court painters). His escort was a troop of noble ladies
clothed in forest branches and none too leafy: and one summer evening
under the full moon off they went singing to the mountains. After they
had danced their fill and sinned God knows what sins, the moon set and
back they swooped on the city in a sort of make-believe battle line; and
there at the gates was the army of Alsander mumming in Greek tunics
waiting to receive their amorous attack. But at that very hour a
different host was approaching Alsander--forgotten barbarians from
Ulmreich--and the two hosts met. And that is all--and that has been all
for the glory and power of Alsander," concluded the old man, bitterly.

"But Alsander is independent still."

"An independence handed her as a gift by Ulmreich and Gantha, her two
great neighbours, is not much worth having. The day one of them is
strong enough to seize us from the other, we shall go. Or if that
international commission really sits, it is as good as death to our
little nation. We shall never more be able to raise our heads--and
chiefly through the fault of King Basilandron."

"But much might be done now," objected Norman, with a certain
breeziness. "Why should Alsander have to wait for an international
commission before getting her streets paved? Look at my boots."

"I would rather look at your eyes than at your feet, young Englishman.
As for Alsander, she cannot be clean while she is corrupt. That would be
hypocrisy, and we have never sunk so low as that. But in Bermondsey the
streets are excellently paved. And, by God! Alsander, in all its poverty
and decay, is not so vile a place as Bermondsey, nor are its people so
brutal or so blind as yours."

"We have no sun," said Norman. "But come, you have been in England, you
are a wonderful old man. Tell me your story now that you have told the
story of Basilandron."

"I cannot tell my story," said the old man, shaking as if with sorrow.
"My tragedy is so little when I think of the tragedy of my people that I
can only say--Alas for Alsander!"

"You, sir, are a great patriot," said Norman, touched into respect of
all this passion in all those rags.

"I, sir, am a very old man," replied the beggar, and Norman could not
tell why the reply was so appropriate.

"I understand now," said Norman, "why you hate these pretty pavilions
and love those old walls. And I suppose the present state of Alsander
must distress you. But surely some young and vigorous ruler could still
do wonders for Alsander? I have been told, to my great surprise, that
the King, though young, is insane. I have heard also that he usually
lives in this castle, but that the Jewish doctor who attends him, and
who is said to be the cleverest man in Alsander (and some say the
wickedest), has sent him to England or Ulmreich or somewhere as a last
hope. If only a new and vigorous King could rule this land awhile, there
is still a chance of greatness; but it is astonishing that the people
seem neither to know nor care exactly who or where their King is, or
what his true state of health may be. Perhaps you are better informed? I
heard myself that the King had been sent to some European asylum to be
cured, but no one seems to know to which one."

"As to that point, I can only assure you, my lord, that there is no hope
for the King's sanity. It is pure degeneration of race."

"Then I inquired why the heir to the throne was not installed in his
place. No one seemed to like to talk of that subject. But it appears she
is a girl living somewhere in Ulmreich, very young, and as mad as the
King."

"I do not think the young lady in question, whom I once had the honour
of meeting, is exactly mad," said the beggar. "A little wild, one might
say, and her guardians are wise enough to let her do as she pleases. I
expect our illustrious Regent has been spreading that fable."

"You mean Duke Vorza? I understand he is virtually despot of Alsander
now. I have heard a great deal of grumbling against him, but nothing
very definite, though I have heard some people say that the King is not
really so mad as his physician and the Regent pretend."

"Duke Vorza," said the beggar, "is a man of great talent and ambition.
He does not like the people of Alsander to talk very much about
anything. To have seen him kiss the peasant children in the streets on
the day he raised the tax on matches was what you might call a lesson in
political economy. It is marvellous, too, how he manages the city
council--a rather enlightened body of merchants and professional men
and opposed to his reactionary policy. He distributes invitations to
dinner at exactly the right moment, and if a dinner fails he decorates.
Sforelli (who is only considered a scoundrel because of his dark
features and undoubted ability) is almost the only one of them man
enough to withstand a title or a decoration. The consequence is he dare
not venture out of his house after dark for fear of meeting one of
Vorza's ruffians in the street. Oh, there are many dark stories to tell
of Vorza, but such is the stupidity of popular rumour it has seized on
the most improbable, Vorza and Sforelli, though outwardly amiable to
each other, are in secret bitter enemies, and as for the madness of the
King, I assure you he is as mad as anyone could pretend him to be."

"But no one seems to have seen him for years," objected Norman.

"I have, but few others," said the mendi cant.

"There's something terrible about a King whom his people seem never to
have seen," said Norman.

"Listen to me," said the old man in a low and dramatic whisper. "I may
not be quite what I seem, as you surmise, and I may have powers even you
do not suspect. Would you like to see the King of Alsander and discover
for yourself how terrible he is?"

"Do you mean to say he is here?" exclaimed Norman. "Is it not true that
he is in Europe--and do the people really not know where he is?"

"Did you not hear that he was expected back?"

"There was a queer rumour, now I come to think of it," said Norman,
thinking of his talks with Pedro the cobbler and others, "that he was
coming back cured."

"Well, he has returned, not cured, and that is all," said the old man.

Norman started a little.

"I seem to recognize your voice," he said. "Surely I have met you
before?"

"Don't you remember, my lord, the old tramp you met in Gantha, who told
you all about the beauties of Alsander?"

"Why, that eloquent old fellow, was it you? It was you, then, persuaded
me to come to this country. I have much to thank you for: it is a
wonderful country indeed. But it was dark on the road that night and I
could hardly see you. So you are he. But you were not talking Alsandrian
but English."

"I have wandered, and you have learnt Alsandrian."

"Yes. I found the little book you left in my pocket. But tell me, who
are you? Of course, I cannot believe you to be a beggar. Enough of these
mysterious tricks. You are a man of eloquence and learning. You must be
a person of diplomatic importance, if you can really show me the mad
King of Alsander."

"You shall really see him as I promised," said the old man, and making a
trumpet of his hands he called out "Yohann! Yohann!" in a remarkably
sonorous voice. Immediately there appeared from the lodge beneath the
gate a sentry at whose girdle dangled two large keys. He came up to them
and saluted, but made no remark, and in silence they all three went
across the gardens to the vast loopholed wall opposite the gate. The
sentry opened an insignificant little door half hidden in the
wallflowers that dangled from the crevices between the mighty stones.

"The walls are thicker than you supposed, are they not, my lord?" said
the tattered guide.

Norman gasped with astonishment. A huge corridor pierced the wall from
side to side and top to bottom,--a corridor at least a hundred feet long
and eighty feet high, yet only of a breadth for three men to walk side
by side and lit only by a tiny window at the extreme end. Norman having
walked over to it saw that the window commanded a sweeping view of the
plain of Alsander, the river Ianthe, the sea, the mountains, and also
noted that no one could look in through that window whoever might look
out, for the wall on that side is built on the top of a sheer precipice
of rock. Meanwhile the second key was being applied to another small
door half-way down the corridor on the left. It opened groaning; the
centre of the corridor was flooded with a shaft of light.

"Enter, my lord," said the mysterious guide. "This is the throne-room."

It was a most presentable type of disjointed majesty, this throne-room,
the apotheosis of the ruined summer-house outside, a wreck of what had
once been a gorgeous but not entirely tasteless mass of plaster gilding
and paint in the style of the late Renaissance. Sham large windows had
been let in to hide the little grills in the wall; in the intervening
space the two hooks were still visible where once lamps had swung to
flood the hall from without with artificial daylight. The ceiling, a
false one, for the room went up of old to the height of the wall, like
the corridor outside it, was painted with a device in cunning
perspective, representing the apotheosis (among very pink angels) of
King Basilandron, the same who christened the river Ianthe and was
responsible for the disaster of the Bacchic revels. The picture, and
indeed the entire room, dated from his lifetime. The wall decorations,
however (according to information which Norman subsequently gathered),
were added by his son--very tasteful designs of apes and
Chinamen--_singeries_ and _chinoiseries_. Basilandron II evidently
disagreed with his father's idealistic tendencies, and held a firm
belief that art should not aim at expressing any meaning, not even a
lascivious one, but should rather consist of graceful and intricate
designs. In this way he anticipated many of the most brilliant modern
theorists. Although these panels had suffered considerably owing to the
inferior quality of the paint employed, their condition was good
compared with the dado, the composition columns, the settees and other
accessories of the room. Dust, black, deep and ancient, had settled
among those gilded lilies and plaster cupids; part of the work had
fallen away, exposing the supporting wires, and part was grievously
cracked. It may be because plaster cracks more irregularly than marble,
but whatever the reason a noseless plaster Muse, however elegant
originally, cannot reassert her loveliness like an antique torso or the
armless Aphrodite.

Moreover, the spider, ubiquitous and remorseless, had woven his
octagonal mesh in every crevice of the wall, and, more shamelessly
still, among the pendants of the great glass chandelier, wherein were
still sticking grisly and darkened stumps of candle, the same that had
been lit at the requiem of the last King of Alsander twenty years ago.
Since then a plain lamp (so portable and so much easier to light) had
been deemed sufficient for the service of the Court.

Perhaps the most pitiable objects in the room were the two or three
sofas that still remained, their gilt tarnished, their tapestries y
mouldy and eaten by the moth. But the hall contained another seat of a
far different aspect, impervious to such decay. Beneath the great rose
window it stood, at the upper end of the room, strangely out of place, a
cold and massive work, the ancient throne of the Kradendas. It was
fronted by wide steps, flanked by grotesque yet grand lions, and wrought
of granite rock. And if this rude and barbaric throne was anomalous in
so artistic a room, still more vivid was the contrast between the
majesty of its structure and the majesty of him who sat thereon.

For there sat the imbecile Andrea, with watery grey eyes, with hair and
hands unkempt, arrayed in the stifling drapery of his state robes. He
was a young man, but he seemed to have been alive five hundred years.
His features parodied the portraits of his ancestors. With the heavy
iron crown of Alsander on his head, and a great silver sceptre in his
hands, he sat immobile; only his mumbling lips seemed to address a
phantom and imaginary Court.




CHAPTER V

OF THE KNIGHTING OF NORMAN PRICE

     Do diddle di do,
       Poor Jim Jay
     Got stuck fast
       In yesterday.

            _Peacock Pie._


The madman on the throne seemed to know Norman's guide, for he showed no
surprise, but asked immediately:

"Whom hast thou with thee, O last courtier of the Court of the
Kradendas?"

"A young squire, O my liege the King, who will devote his life to rescue
the house of the Kradenda from infamy and harm," said the beggar.

"He is young, but our need is great. Above all, we need brave men. We
need such men as have made Alsander what it is. Tell me," he continued,
turning to Norman, "are you brave or fearful?"

"You should humour him," whispered the old man to Norman, who,
astonished at the whole scene, and especially at this antiquated and
abrupt form of address, did not know what to reply. "He is in the
middle ages. For him this hall is still hung with cloth of gold, but he
knows that his courtiers have left him, and fears treachery--and, above
all, magic. He is a brave man, my liege the King," added the old man
aloud.

"Let him speak for himself, then, and do not whisper so much to him in
my presence. Sir stranger, are you afraid of dragons?"

"Of none," said Norman, vaguely wondering if he were telling the truth.

"O well, O very well," said the King. "I have need of the strong and
resolute. Too long has my kingdom lain in ashes and ruin; too long have
I been pent up in this dismal room, a powerless captive, I, the son of
the Kradendas! I tell you there has been foul treachery and foul black
magic. But it shall end. I will no longer be the sport of a thing who
flaps his wings in my face. But his hour has come. No more scales and
fins for me. Listen closely. I will whisper to you the vital secret. I
had it in a dream. You have only to hit him in the fifth rib. But,
whatever you do, do not let him change his shape. You can catch him this
evening. Wait behind the curtain. He comes here always at seven o'clock
to play chess with me, squares and squares and squares."

"I will be there in waiting."

"Will you take an oath to be bold in my cause, to fight for me, and to
serve me faithfully, and my Queen?"

"I will have every care of your Majesty and of your Majesty's kingdom,"
said Norman, keeping up the spirit of the thing at a further hint from
his companion, despite his disgust.

"I think you are not of this country," observed the King. "Come you from
North or South, or from the rising or from the setting?"

"From the North, your Majesty," replied the boy.

"Fair scion of the North, I will swear you have no lies upon your lips.
What is your name?"

"Norman, if it please your Majesty."

"And are you Knight?"

"I am but squire, your Majesty."

"Then, my deliverer, since for years no one has cared for my ruined
Majesty, save this, my last, my oldest, my only courtier, for my leech I
count not; since you alone have proffered your service to a deserted and
broken King, I am filled with good intentions towards you and propose to
bestow upon you now at this moment the ancient and honourable
distinction of knighthood, that you may bear me homage. Once more, will
you swear to serve me faithfully?"

"Oh, certainly," said Norman, the more uncomfortable in that there was
something rather noble about the King's madness.

"Then kneel," said the King, rising, as he said the words, in all his
battered splendour, with the deep seriousness of a young child at play.
Solemnly and almost gracefully, with the wooden sword that a wise
supervision allowed him, he dubbed Norman Knight, according to the
famous custom of chivalry, which even in England is not quite dead.

"Rise, Sir Norman," he cried exultantly. "I have long waited for you, my
deliverer and friend, for you and for this hour. I have no doubt of your
valour: I have every confidence in your success. And as soon as the
Dragon is killed the spell will be broken: as soon as the spell is
broken my courtiers will return: as soon as my courtiers return their
wives will come with them, and troops of beautiful women will kiss my
hand. Every morning I will hunt to the sound of the horn--up the valley,
down the valley, after the wild boar. Every evening we will eat his
succulent flesh in this my ancestral hall. We will fill this room with
pageantry yet, and hold such a feast as this cracked ceiling has not
supervised for many a long year. And we will put cushions on this
uncomfortable throne, and gild it over so as to have it more in keeping
with our state and dignity. On the day you kill the Dragon, Knight of
the North, all; the cathedral bells shall ring and the fountains shall
run with wine, and the populace will shout and brandish flowers all day
and wave lanterns all the night. But, ah...."

The voice dropped from ecstasy to fear and went on in a muddled murmur:

"But kill that Dragon soon, Knight of the North. Go out to him soon, go
out this evening, before dusk. I would not pass another night like
yesternight, with his eyes staring in through my head. He is a basilisk:
his glance is death: go quickly. O go quickly--leave my presence--slay
that dreadful beast!"

"We will go and slay him at once," replied the old man. "Come, young
Englishman," he added in an aside, "I am willing enough to take the
hint. I have no taste for this spectacle."

"Above all," the King cried after them, "bring me his head." As they
turned and looked back from the door they saw that the King had again
collapsed into his throne, and was again working his lips in silence.

Not till they were out in the garden again did Norman speak.

"What does it all mean? Who are you, and what have you shown me?" asked
the lad. "This morning the world was as ordinary as a sixpenny magazine:
and now my head is turning, and I am walking not like a man in a dream,
but, what is worse, like a man in a painted picture. Those flowers are
fatal and those walls fantastic. Quick, tell me, what does it all mean?
The sunshine is grimacing."

"You have seen," said the stranger, "the Secret of the Picturesque. For
now we must talk up on a higher plane."

"Damn the higher plane: tell me who you are. But there, do you think I
didn't know it all the time? You can be none other but that...."

"Not a word," said his companion, cutting him dead short. "You did not
know it till now, when I intended to let you know. By '_it_' I mean
either the Secret of the Picturesque or what you meant by '_it_.'
Besides, it's not true that I am this or am that; that depends on what I
am."

"Puzzle me no longer: talk plain sense," implored Norman.

"Surely my words are plain enough. What is it you want to know?"

"Your name and history."

"I have no name, but my friends are allowed to call me the Old Man. My
history is a dead secret. But if you are in earnest and willing to talk
on the higher plane, I will explain to you the meaning of my remark
about the Secret of the Picturesque."

"I am willing," said Norman in desperate bewilderment, and eager to hear
any explanation about anything.

His guide seemed as mad as the King and needed humouring no less.

"Come to this bench then," said the Old Poet, "and I will illustrate my
meaning with a fable of my own composition."

And taking a manuscript from his pocket, without waiting for a word of
acquiescence from Norman, who was getting very hungry, he read as
follows:

               "There was a man (so majestically
               made that I knew him at once to be
               the type of Man) walking along a
               narrow pathway that led from the
               valley up towards the hills,
               following a stream. As he strode
               along two enchanting girls came
               flying from the South, poised on
               dragonfly wings; one of them had a
               lyre in her hand, which she played
               merrily, and the other an antique
               scroll painted over with a
               multitude of amusing and delicate
               figures. The man was obviously
               pleased at the arrival of these
               spirits; he rejoiced in their
               companionship (as who would not?),
               and they all three sang and laughed
               together on the way. So intent was
               he on their diverting frolics that
               while crossing a narrow bridge of
               planks he nearly fell over into the
               river, and as time went on, and the
               pathway began to ascend the
               hillside more abruptly, I wondered
               if he was not beginning to find
               their company a little tedious. For
               while one of them buffeted him over
               the eyes with her playful wings,
               the other flung her robe, for
               amusement, round his naked body,
               and embarrassed his movements.
               However, he got rid of their
               teasing very soon, and at a point
               where the path entered a dense
               forest and they had no room to
               spread their wings I saw him laugh
               at their discomfiture. The track
               grew no better upon leaving the
               forest, for it was cut in the side
               of a precipice. The two maidens
               flew with weary and trembling wings
               over the horrible gulf, or else
               tore their dresses and bruised
               their feet trying to follow over
               the rocks. The man was hindered by
               them still, for he had to help
               them, and to judge by his slow
               progress and perpetual stumbling he
               was no skilled mountaineer. I
               wondered what miracle had preserved
               him as I watched his perilous
               ascent; and finally I saw that his
               right hand was grasping another
               hand, which had no visible body.

                "Very naturally, when they arrived
                at a little dell very high up in
                the mountain, where there was a
                withered tree and a little moss,
                the girls implored the man to take
                a little refreshment. But the
                man's attention was fixed on the
                last portion of the ascent, a
                steep snow slope, at the top of
                which a black rock rose sheer out
                of the snow; let into the rock was
                a glittering brass door. So he
                refused to dawdle, and, gripping
                the hand, he began climbing at
                once. The women summoned all their
                courage and followed on foot: they
                were too tired to fly any more;
                and now one, and now the other,
                was glad of their companion's free
                left arm. At last they came to the
                door; the mysterious hand touched
                a spring; the door flew open to
                divine music and some one bade the
                traveller enter.

                "But he turned away his eyes
                resolutely from the superb
                enchantments of the cave, and
                swore he would go back unless he
                could take with him the girls of
                the dragonfly wings, for the sake
                and memory of their old and sweet
                companionship. The poor fairies
                were bedraggled and muddy, their
                pretty wings hung limply down
                their backs; they could hardly
                smile when the man kissed them.

                "'They cannot be admitted without
                initiation,' said the person to
                whom the hand belonged, 'and they
                will not endure.'

                "'We will endure any pain, if we
                may only come in with the Man,'
                they cried both together, and bent
                forward trying to pass in and to
                penetrate the depths of the cavern
                with longing looks.

                "The hand persuaded the traveller
                to go inside the cave, and
                promised that his friends should
                follow. He obeyed, but taking no
                notice of its beauties stood
                listening behind the door. He
                heard the whistling of a scourge
                and gasps of pain. Then quiet; the
                door opened, and there appeared
                his two companions, yet changed,
                and with a deep fire in their
                eyes: and they had eagle pinions
                in the place of dragonfly wings."

"That is very charming indeed," said Norman. "But does it quite explain
your remark?"

"If you were to read Plato with attention," said the old man, "you would
acquire the habit of seizing the point of a parable."

"I have read the New Testament."

"But this is philosophy."

"And I am sure," said Norman, "that had Plato written that story you
have told me, it would have acquired a great reputation. But as for the
connexion of the parable and your remark, I conceive that in both you
show a dislike of the picturesque, or pretty considering it the foe of
beauty."

"The picturesque, my son, _is_ the beautiful but only a section thereof.
In this fable I have represented it as miniature beauty. The other fable
of the picturesque I have no need to write; it is written over the world
from the columns of Baalbek to the arches of Tintern and blazed on every
stone of Alsander."

"You mean the picturesque which is decaying beauty?"

"I do," said the old man.

"I understand you, venerable Sir, but why are you so passionate about it
all?"

"Don't you see, boy, I love Alsander with a love a little different from
the love of the tourist who comes to photograph the ruins. Oh! I have
worked for her; but she is dying, dying, dying like a rose on a sapless
tree."

"I am afraid you are right," said Norman, sadly. "After what you have
shown me I have no hope for unfortunate Alsander."

"Impudent tourist! Do not dare blaspheme against the Queen of cities!"
growled the old man. There is more hope radiating from a wayside shrine
of Alsander than from all the ten-million heretic barns of your greedy
North.

But Norman was used by now to these intermittent bursts of fury. "At all
events," he rejoined, "Alsander is no place for an Englishman. I have
had enough of it. I have to-day seen its last and most tragic secret.
To-morrow I will go."

"You are not going so soon?" There was real dismay in the old man's
voice.

"By the first train to-morrow."

"Oh no, no, no! You must stay. I did not mean to speak so soon as this,
but I must tell you now. I have great plans for you--a fine work--a
whole future. Come: sit on this bench a moment, let me talk to you in
earnest. O you cannot possibly be allowed to go at once. Do you not
realize the deep seriousness that lies beneath all my mannerisms? Do you
think that it was to satisfy a traveller's curiosity that I showed you
that poor, miserable madman seated on his throne?"

"I do not know why you showed me the King or why you ever disturbed my
life or why you ever do anything you do. But as for work, I prefer to
find it for myself. And without wishing to offend you, I want to leave
this place. I do not want to be involved in your mysterious schemes."
Norman spoke stiffly. The old man alarmed him.

"I will thicken the mysteries round your head like clouds before I
permit you to leave Alsander, Norman Price."

"Then it _is_ you," said Norman, startled at the sound of his name. "You
are the old fellow who bought the tin of Menodoron off me months ago at
Blaindon. You are the tramp who sent me to Alsander. And now you have
got me to Alsander you want to drive me to perdition. But I am not going
to have my life upset by you any more."

And Norman rose from the bench and confronted the old man with folded
arms.

"Indeed, are you not?" was the reply. "Come, I promise you a rare
adventure."

"What adventure?"

"I'm not going to spoil the first chapter of the story by looking up the
last page. Trust and obey me as you trusted and obeyed me before--the
greybeard with the blue eyes. Did my advice turn out so badly? Do you
presume to tell me that you are sorry I drove you to Alsander?"

"Oh, as for that, I've had a glorious journey. But the time has come for
me to go. I have no money left. And I have personal reasons."

"I know, I know." The old man tapped with his stick. "Some pretty wench,
is that the matter? Has it come to this so soon?"

"You have guessed rightly."

"Foolish boy. Is such a game worth your pursuing--you with a mind! Not
to mention that it's poor sport hunting doves. There's but one way for
such as you with a maid. Try the intellect first--then ask the heart.
Love's ways are folded in the mind. Second-rate poets may walk in their
gardens prelassing up and down, singing you songs of the scholar that
loved a farmer's girl. But you and I are wise enough to know love from
lust, Norman Price. Lust has her whims, even her selections--that I
grant you: but shall she delude us into taking her for Love?"

"Lust is a great Goddess as well as Love."

"It may be; but she is a great foe of reasonable men. And Love comprises
all her power and many other powers besides. But, believe me, your
difficulty is not a disaster, and tact can meet it, and I swear you will
learn what love means before you leave Alsander."

"Your promises are pretty bold, especially that last one, my Poet.
However, if you promise me good sport, of course I will stay a little
longer in Alsander."

"I have one bag full of promises and one full of fulfilments," smiled
the old man, "and they both weigh pretty well the same. But first you
have a promise to make to me."

"Which is?"

"That you will maintain the most absolute, the most impenetrable secrecy
concerning what you have seen this afternoon, including the very
existence of such persons as myself and the King of Alsander."

"A reasonable and not unexpected request. Of course I give you my word
of honour to keep silent. But reveal your next mystery, Signore!"

"What is a revealed mystery, except for the Church? All I care to let
you know is that if you prove your mettle you shall be allowed to help
in the regeneration of Alsander."

"A political scheme--is that it? But how am I to prove my mettle?"

"Wait and you will see."

"Tell me at least," rejoined Norman, "what is to be my immediate
conduct. How am I to make the first step of this sublime journey?"

"Return to your lodging, rise, eat, walk, sleep, and flirt a little less
than usual, and await events."

"Is that all?"

"Not quite all. I have another very fanciful request to make. Are you
what the ancients call a good hypocrite, that is to say, an accomplished
actor? For there is a delicate piece of acting which I would like you to
perform. I want you by gradual degrees to raise a little mystery about
yourself. I want you to insinuate with a hint here and a whisper there
that you are a personage, a man with a past, a nobleman in disguise, at
all events not quite what you seem. Let the honest folk you dwell with
begin to imagine that there is some secret about your arrival in
Alsander."

"My dear sir, what a very odd idea!"

"You will be full of odd ideas in a few weeks' time. I only hope that
you will succeed in this the first of your tasks, and that you have not
already been too explicit concerning your origin and identity. Play the
lost millionaire or the ruined marquis. Become quickly a marked man--a
man at whose approach the townsfolk whisper.

"This is a harlequin's game," said Norman, indignantly.

"Well, the world's a ball, and out of shape at that: there's no need to
be ashamed of mummery. If you don't like it leave it: but I should be
extremely sorry, and you would miss the occasion of your life. Come,
now!"

They passed through the castle gate. The sentries appeared to be still
asleep, leaning against the archway, their lances propped on their
drowsy bodies. The castle square was deserted as ever. Halfway across
the old man stopped--seized Norman by the lapel of his coat and
observed, "By the way, you ought to give that girl a handsome present!"

"What queer jumps you do make in the conversation, to be sure!"
exclaimed Norman. "When your great and secret scheme has enriched me, no
doubt I shall make her a very magnificent present. But I can't see the
immediate necessity, and at present I am pretty short of cash."

"Never mind the cash. Go to a little shop in a back lane opposite the
cathedral and ask to see fine presents for fine ladies. He buys stolen
goods, sells cheap, gives unlimited credit to anyone who says 'The Poet
sent me.'"

"Why, I have already noticed that little shop," cried Norman. "It
contains all sorts of trash, and the other day I found a few old books
exposed in the window, and an old Amsterdam Petronius among them."

"Yes. Those pretty old vellum bound classics, I should tell you, must be
bought with caution and bought cheap. They have no intrinsic value if
you want to sell them again. But he has all sorts of treasures; I can
recommend him to you strongly. By the way, it may seem odd of me to ask,
but will you excuse me a moment?"

"Certainly," said Norman, and the old man walked swiftly away from him
and hurried up a back street. Norman kept wondering why his guide was so
insistent on the question of the present. He then wondered why he had
gone, and then, as minutes went on, he wondered why he had not returned.
He looked up the back street. There was no trace of his strange
companion, who evidently did not intend to reappear, and had taken this
odd way of vanishing.

"Well," said Norman to himself as he paced home pondering on the
fantastic events of the afternoon, "in this fair city of Alsander at
least I can pass as sane!"




CHAPTER VI

CONCERNING ISIS AND APHRODITE: WITH A DIGRESSION ON THE SHOCKING
TREATMENT THE LATTER'S FOLLOWERS RECEIVE FROM THE HANDS OF ENGLISH
NOVELISTS

     I had read books you had not read,
     Yet I was put to shame
     To hear the simple words you said,
     And see your eyes aflame.

                 _Forty-two Poems_


And there was Peronella!

Seated at the window charmingly dressed in white and rose, with the sun
on her face and neck and naked arms, with light playing with those said
marvellous arms of hers and making all the little downy hairs on them
sparkle. "Beauty is Truth," says the poet, and Norman, looking on her
with all the passion of a passionate man, longed to believe the poet's
he and banish the disappointments of the mind. There was nothing vulgar
or half-educated about her beauty--lips or hands or eyes. Was she not
perhaps simply a child, a soul asleep, repeating like one in an
hypnotic trance the rubbish she had been forced to learn? Was she not
merely waiting for some violent shock of love or life to dispel the
false personality of the genteel young Miss and unveil the true Woman,
with all the unconquerable nobility of the peasant and the curious
greatness of the South?

Norman sighed as he gazed on the lovely girl and immediately proceeded
to eat an ample meal, washed down with ample wine. We have mentioned
that he was very hungry. He was thirsty, too, and the white wine of that
country is a good wine, if a little sweet. Then he took a book and read
and looked at his mistress, exchanging some sufficiently foolish remarks
from time to time. But he was worried with the strange events of the
fore-noon, impatient to meet his strange mentor again and not knowing
where to find him. Too soon also he became troubled by the philosophical
question, May Beauty be stupid? and altogether he was not in a mood to
be absorbed by any book at all.

Peronella, a few moments later, looking up, saw that his eyes had
wandered, that the little book was on the floor, and that his face
expressed deep thought. One does not often see people thinking in
Alsander, and Peronella wondered if it hurt. Coming to the conclusion
that it must be uncomfortable to wear such a face, she got up and went
to stand by Norman's chair. Such a domestic scene has many an artist of
Holland painted to please the quiet burghers of The Hague. Norman kissed
her somewhat mechanically, and without that intense devotion and fiery
rapture to which she was accustomed.

"What have you been reading that interests you so much and makes you
kiss me in that stupid way?" she cried.

"It is a little Latin book I brought with me from England."

"In Latin? What's it all about? Is it very dull?"

"Sit on my knee and I will tell you all about it. No, don't ruffle my
hair, but attend to lessons. I was reading about a great goddess who
rose up from the sea, whose robe was so black that it shone...."

"But I thought she was quite naked."

"Who?"

"The goddess who came out of the foam."

"Why, who has been telling about the goddess who rose from the foam?"

"Father Algio in one of his Lent sermons told us a great deal about
her."

Father Algio was an old monk with whom Norman had talked once or twice:
a gentle soul, but with an odd fire lurking about his eyes. One realized
that if roused by the trumpet of the Church he would have marched like
a Crusader to uttermost Taprobane, fighting for the Lord.

"What had he to say about the Lady Aphrodite?"

"Aphrodite, yes, that was her name. How clever you are! Oh, the priest
said that he thought the reason why we were so given to the sins of the
flesh was that we were of the old Greek blood, and had never forgotten
the worship of this lady who came from the sea."

"What an intelligent priest it is! O Peronella, you are a true daughter
of Aphrodite."

"Tell me about her, Normano. She was the goddess of Love!"

"Yes, and she has a son called Cupid and is drawn in a chariot by
violet-throated doves. Also, Peronella, she has a little silver broom,
with which she drives away the cobwebs from a man's soul when he has
read too many books."

"And when did she wear the shining black?"

"O! this book is not about Aphrodite, it is about Isis, an Egyptian
goddess."

"Egyptian? That must be interesting. Was she as beautiful as Aphrodite?
Tell me all about her."

"There are different sorts of beauty. Aphrodite was a graceful, careless
and happy woman, rather like you to look at, and very much like you in
character."

"How charming of you to say so!"

"While Isis had all Nature to manage, and the moon and the sea. She was
a terrible goddess, with snakes in her hair, and a great disc between
her breasts. Men loved her none the less; she was the spirit of all
Nature, and required purity and endurance from her worshippers."

"Purity and endurance! And snakes in her hair! Aphrodite must have been
far more pleasant, especially if she was like me. She was the patroness
of our city, the Father said; and Dr Sforelli wrote to the papers once
to say that the image of the Virgin in the Cathedral Church was a
heathen statue that some King put up there and that clothes had been
made for it later. I know that because Father Algio was so furious at
the time that he preached three sermons against the Jews. But why do you
read such rubbish?"

Norman was irritated by the naiveness of the remark, and still more
irritated with himself for being irritated.

"What an ass I am," he said to himself, "to talk to a pretty girl about
the Classics, and what a much larger ass to trouble what she thinks!"

Norman had to learn that education makes prigs of all of us, whether we
will or no. Of wise and learned men only the truly great can keep their
characters free of priggishness, and even then, what of Marcus Aurelius
and William Wordsworth and John Ruskin? What even of Olympian Goethe?

And there she was, shining, shining.

"You mean," said Norman, "why do I read such rubbish when I have you to
look at?"

And still Peronella shone.

"The book of your eyes is the best book," said Norman.

Romance even in her moment could not so fool him that he did not wish he
could have said "the book of your soul."

Peronella shone, and, by an instinct, shone in silence.

"You are the prettiest girl I have ever seen," said Norman.

And the sun shone on Peronella.

Then though indeed for a moment more Norman heard the voice of caution,
it was but a voice fading far away. Some arguments against caution ran
through his mind--pompous self-depreciation and some inverted snobbery
about "good enough for a grocer boy." Then the petty arguments were
needed no longer: his mind faded and went out, and he leapt upon her
like a god from Olympus on some not reluctant spirit of wood or water.
He pressed her to him till he felt as if every inch of the fiery contact
were complete, and he forgot whole oceans of civilization in a moment.
That is what education is made for, some might say, it gives us more to
forget and more to abandon in crucial moments of love or heroism.

He kissed her all round her burning face. He kissed the soft skin behind
her ear where first he kissed her in the dawn--in the best and earliest
hour of all the golden days. He kissed her smooth and naked arms that
bound his neck like a silver chain. He set all the snow of her shoulder
afire with kisses, and on her mouth he forgot the wise advice of
Browning and gave her the bee's kiss first.

The maddening sun still shone on Peronella, on her soft dishevelled robe
whence gleamed what a man might take for a red rosebud; on her dark hair
with the hyacinthine shadows where a man might see all the stars that
shine in a Syrian night--on her cheek and throat and her silver
arms--but not on her eyes, for, heavy with passion, they were all but
closed.

On Norman, too, shone that great and primitive Ball of Fire--on Norman,
as bright an Adonis as ever ran riot in a gallant tale.

But when they paused for breath, as even the bravest lovers must, and
sat together on the little blue divan that graced the barren room; when
Peronella's lips were free to speak, and Norman's mind was free to
meditateif only for a brief, sharp, cruel moment--how swiftly went the
sun behind a cloud!

"When will you marry me?" said Peronella, "and will you take me to
England? O, say you will take me to England, Normano, and when you drive
me round in your carriage all the world will say, 'That woman cannot be
of our town; she is the most beautiful woman that we have ever seen.'"

"Darling," said Norman, "let me think of this moment, of nothing but
this moment, and always of this moment," and he kissed her again.

But the sun shone no more on Peronella! And her lover was not thinking
only of the moment. He was thinking of his life. Her pretty words
pierced him like little darts of ice, and all the comminations of the
sages could not have frightened him more than the maiden's innocent
speech.

He saw in his clear-sighted panic that here was an end of all bright
dreams save this one: and he knew how soon this dream would fade. He saw
Peronella unhappy--a Peronella who could not be afforded a
carriage--sulking behind the counter of the Bon Marche, in the rain. He
saw how her beauty would fade away in England, swiftly, in a few
years--and all in a moment she seemed as she sat there to grow old and
tired before him, wasting away beneath the low, dark northern skies. He
judged her character with Minoan rightness. He knew she would always be
a child, always be silly, querulous, unfaithful, passionate: he knew,
above all, how soon she would kill that spark in him that made him
different from other men--that spark the poet bade him cherish. And he
feared she would bore him at breakfast every morning of his life.

Ah! Peronella was good enough--nay, a prize beyond all dreams!--for a
Blaindon grocer: he knew that. But all the brilliant fantasies and
conquering ambitions which his heart kept so secret that he would not
have spoken of them to his old friend (are there not wild miracles which
we all, even the sanest of us, hope will happen for our benefit and
glory?), all these hidden desires and insane fancies came beating upon
the doors of his soul.

Had he been a southerner himself, of course he would have taken the girl
and left her at his pleasure, the moment the love-glow faded and the
romance grew stale. Her body was his for a kiss, for a smile, at the
worst for a traitor promise ora roseleaf he. But he was an
Englishman--and perhaps only Englishmen can fully understand why Norman,
for all that the thought quivered in his mind, withstood, as we say in
our canting phrase, temptation.

For my part, I think the phrases we use, specially in books, are canting
enough, and the foreigners rightly scorn us. In no tale since _Tom
Jones_ have we had an honest Englishman who makes love because it is
jolly and because he doesn't care. With what a pompous gravity and false
seriousness do we talk, we English men of letters, of a little
lovemaking which in France they pass with a jest and a smile. Think how
our just and righteous novelists fulminate against the miscreants of
their own creation. Think of Becky Sharp and her devilish intrigues, of
Seaforth and his vile deceitfulness. For Thackeray, the Irregular
Unionist (if so we may style those easy livers) is a scourge of high
society: for Dickens, he is an ungodly scoundrel, a scourge of low
society; for Thomas Hardy, he is a noble fellow disregarding the
shackles of convention; while the late George Meredith invariably
punishes the amorous by describing them as intellectual failures. To-day
Mr Shaw would consider Lovelace disreputable owing to his lack of
interest in social problems, while the pale Nietzscheans would worship
him with ecstatic gasps as a monstrous fine blonde beast. Our popular
novelists are entirely unaware that such horrible scoundrels exist, and
our legislators will shortly pass a law which will enable all offenders
against monogamy to be flogged. Their agitation will be called a
"revival of the old Puritan spirit," and their law will be applied with
rigour to the lower classes. The French, I say, call us filthy
hypocrites.

And yet the accusation, if levelled against our race and not only
against our writers, is not a true one, however plausible. We _are_ more
restrained than other races, and that neither because we are less
passionate nor because we are more timorous. Our athletic youths are
purer--do not merely say they are purer, than the diminutive young men
abroad. It is really true there is a special kind of nobility-and
generosity in the way our gentlemen treat women. There is something in
our race that makes us different from other nations. Call our severe
principles a fear of convention, an outworn chivalry, if you like; you
have not accounted for all cases; perhaps it is true that an Englishman
is more likely than any other European to love a woman deeply enough to
be content with her for ever. At all events, it should be remarked how
those Englishmen who through education or travel have most tolerance for
the sins of others and most opportunity for sinning themselves seldom
lose their own traditional scruples. And that is why (to come back to
our hero) Norman, who would never have dreamed of blaming Tom Jones for
his jolly conduct, and who had read with zeal and appreciation
novelists of France who held the most scandalous theories concerning the
unimportance of it all, was nevertheless unable to make love to a girl
whom he intended to desert. Besides, it struck him, the girl had never
yet yielded to a lover. For him the dilemma was clear: he must marry
this girl or leave her, and the thought came over him like that

                     One clear nice
     Cool squirt of water o'er the bust,
     The right thing to extinguish lust.

Now had he accepted this dilemma bravely, and fled that very hour from
the siren presence, he would have had only a flirtation and a few kisses
to store up against the hour of remorse. But he fought shy of drastic
measures and sought to gain time like a Turkish diplomat. Perhaps, too,
he wanted to stay in Alsander yet a little longer to inquire into the
mystifications of his tramp guide, and await instructions as to the
promised "career of good works." At all events, there is no doubt that
as far as the procrastination business went, he found suddenly a great
inspiration in the curious parting command which the old poet had given
him. He would weave a mystery about himself. He would thus not only obey
the fantastic injunction of the poet, but find a most practical means of
escape from a perilous position.

He shook himself free of the twining arms, roughly and suddenly, as
though he had just remembered something, and paced up and down the room
as one lost in thought.

"Why, what is it?" said Peronella. She was always alarmed at seeing a
man meditate. Such is the profound instinct of women!

But Norman, intent now on playing his part with thoroughness and
efficiency, made no answer, and going over to the window frowned
gloomily and began to mutter to himself.

"Tell me what is the matter," cried the girl, running over to him. "Are
you ill?"

"Ah!" said Norman. "I wish I could tell you what is the matter. There is
more the matter than you know of, dear, and my heart is as heavy as
lead."

"Why, what ever has happened?" said the girl, and her face grew longer
still.

"Forgive me, Peronella. I should not have spoken."

"You say your heart is heavy as lead. Tell me what is troubling you!"

"Oh! a little secret trouble, that is all."

"What trouble can be secret between you and me?"

"Do not speak of it again, dear. Forget it. I am sorry I hinted that
anything was wrong."

"You are not deceiving me, Normano? You do not love an English girl?"

"No, it is not that."

"Then what is it? You must tell me."

Norman sat on the table and put his hands on the girl's shoulders.

"Well, then, who do you suppose I am?" he asked, with a half-smile.

"Why, an Englishman, of course."

"An Englishman. But what Englishman? And why should I come to Alsander
and live in Alsander?"

"But why not? Other Englishmen have come to Alsander."

"Yes, but to buy and sell."

This crude artifice was quite enough to trouble the wits of Peronella.

"It _is_ very strange," she said, musing, "and Cesano said it was
strange, but who _are_ you, then, by all the Saints?"

"That I cannot tell you, Peronella."

"Well, what have you come for if not to buy and sell? Besides," added
Peronella, passionately, "I love you, and that is enough. What do I care
who you are?"

"If your love were deep, perhaps you would care who I was."

The saying of this sentence was the worst thing Norman ever did in his
life. His conscience haunted him for years and never let him forget
those dozen careless words and their cynical hypocrisy.

Peronella did not understand him, nor attempt to, but blazed out in a
fury, "How dare you come and tell lies and pretend to be what you
aren't and deceive us all? It's all lies, you don't care for me one bit,
and I am a little fool!" cried Peronella, on the brink of tears and
truth.

"How have I deceived you?" said Norman, lamely.

"You never told me who you were. You come and pretend to be what you are
not. You make love to me, and now I see you want to run away."

"You never-asked me. I am not running away," said Norman, breathlessly,
seeing this card-house toppling.

"I ask you now."

"Look here," said the hypocrite. "Listen to me and trust me. No, you
know I am not lying to you. Look into my eyes and see. I ask just one
thing of you. Wait three months and you shall have an answer and know
who I am."

"Don't tell more lies and talk more nonsense, species of brute," said
the girl, savagely.

"Ah, Peronella, I wish I were talking nonsense."

And the infernal fellow put on an air of sorrow and nobility.

"Wait three months," he repeated, "and then see if you want to marry me,
or dare to want to marry me," he added with magniloquence, thoroughly
ashamed of himself but too deep in the mire to get free.

"O, Normano, what do you mean? Shall I kill you or believe you?"

"Wait a little while, dear," he said, bending over her with a not
feigned tenderness. "Wait a little while and you shall see."

Steps were heard on the stair.

"Here is Cesano," said Peronella, and forthwith Cesano came in with an
ineffable air of being on his best behaviour. Norman took his
opportunity and went, and with a bow which his fuming rival took for
supercilious generosity bade them both good-night.

In the loneliness of his bedroom he fell on his bed like a penitent
child and cursed himself for a mean scoundrel. As for Peronella, the
first words she said to Cesano were:

"There is a mystery about my Englishman, I wonder who he is," and
thereupon she repeated to him the whole conversation. True, he had not
told her to keep the secret, but in any case she could not have kept
one. It was to be the first thing Cesano was to tell Petro the cobbler
when he saw him later that evening, and the first thing Petro the
cobbler told Father Algio when he came in for a cup of coffee towards
midnight, and the first thing Father Algio told to all his numerous
acquaintance. Norman woke up next morning famous and a mystery, and was
stared at in the street even more than before. Peronella was perhaps
pleased to pass for the mistress of a mystery, Cesano's hopes revived
and all seemed for the best in the best of all possible worlds--for
three spacious months to come, at least. So thought Norman.




CHAPTER VII

THE SOCIETY FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF ALSANDER

     This impossible story of a mad king and a throne going begging.

                                          _An anticipated critic._

     The unfortunate indisposition of the old King of Bavaria....

     The Prince of Wied is spoken of as a likely candidate
     for the throne of Albania.

                                            _The Daily Papers._


There is a King in a Tragedy of Maeterlinck who woefully exclaims,
"Wherever I am, nothing happens." But the old fellow was accustomed to
uneventfulness; Norman had reason to expect something better of life,
and the mysterious words of the old poet had led him to hope for thrills
and sensations. The four days succeeding the day of the interview with
Peronella, described in the last chapter, drew blanks in the game of his
destiny. On the fifth day he was walking moodily about, trying to
extract amusement from the inquisitive glances with which a subtly
deceived populace already eyed him, when he heard a voice at his
shoulder saying in good English, "Keep it up," but though he turned
quickly he could see no one in the street who appeared at all guilty of
the observation, which might have been ventriloquial.

Another week passed, and the old resolve to leave Alsander again took
possession of Norman's mind. Remorse at his hypocrisy, and longings for
Peronella, gnawed his heart: while he felt that if he did not speedily
retire from the scene startling harm would come of what was really a
loveless passion. He decided, however, not to leave her without getting
her a present, which he shrewdly (but I think unjustly) suspected would
compensate the girl for the loss of a lover. And of course he remembered
that the old Poet, whom by now he had almost given up as a fraud, had
given special advice in this matter too. Well, he could but follow it,
and see if there was anything to be found for Peronella in the little
dark shop the Poet had recommended, and which he himself had discovered
almost his first day in Alsander. He therefore invited her to come with
him and choose herself a present.

When they arrived in front of the little shop it looked more fascinating
than ever. It had evidently been rearranged, and seemed to Norman to
exhibit more amusing things in its narrow frontage than all the other
shops in Alsander set on end. For it contained snuff-boxes, shawls,
dirty old silver, tattered bits of embroidery, carved walking sticks,
some worm-eaten books, last century oak settees, Turkish zarfs, Hittite
cylinders, Chinese saucers full of Greek and Roman coins, real stones
and bits of glass, animals in beaten bronze ware from Damascus, very old
leather bottles from England, some forged Egyptian antiquities, some
very horrible cameos, some rather pretty intaglios, about three quarters
of what had been a fine Persian rug, and boxes of things and cases of
things and bales of things and trays of things, and all of them finely
powdered with a most pestilential dust.

They entered. Peronella, spitting and sneezing without restraint,
exclaimed loudly and bitterly (with utter disregard to the feelings of
the shopkeeper, a pretty, slender, dark-eyed, young fellow, who seemed
quite out of place among his musty surroundings) that there was nothing
to be found there and _what_ he had dragged her there for _she_ couldn't
imagine when there was that nice new shop where they sold wonders from
Ulmreich ever so much nearer home. Norman, undaunted, was preparing to
turn the shop upside down to show Peronella what marvels were to be
found there if one only knew, when he was surprised to hear the
shopkeeper exclaim quietly and rapidly in English, "Send her away, I
want to talk to you." Now this was indeed startling, for it was only an
accident that had led him to the shop on that particular day. However,
at all events, Norman, eager to fathom the mystery, rose to the
occasion. Perhaps this was the poet's hand and he had recommended the
shop on purpose.

"Look here, Peronella," he said, immediately. "If you don't like the
dust (and it _is_ dusty here) why don't you go home without me? I'll
stay here and find something. Besides, I would much rather bring you
home a surprise."

"But suppose I don't like it," she objected. "You told me I might
choose, and I'm sure there is nothing in this dusty, musty rat cupboard
of a place."

"I'll arrange that it can be changed. Or I'll get something you do like
as well," he added, with ridiculous vainglory, for his hundred pounds
were ebbing faster than the sands of time.

"Very well," said Peronella, half convinced and pouting. "If you don't
want me, I'll go." And more in pique than compliance she left him alone
with the fine young shopman, who was really a remarkably graceful young
man, and one who obviously had no doubts as to his own good looks.
Indeed he had ostentatiously set them off by wearing the national
costume of Alsander--puffed breeches, pleated silk shirt, and a short
loose coat with wing-like sleeves, of dark blue gracefully lined with
gold. This costume appeared all the more striking to Norman, as he had
never seen one before; for it is rarely worn by the Alsandrians except
on ceremonial occasions.

"What service can I be to you, sir?" said Norman. Himself a shopkeeper,
he knew the value of a gentlemanly treatment, and did not allow his
curiosity to get the better either of his self-control or of his
manners.

"The question," replied the dealer in antiques, in a very soft and
gentle voice, "is not so much what you can do for me as what you can do
for yourself."

"And what can I do for myself?" inquired Norman, wondering at the fine
but feminine beauty of the young man.

"The question is not really so much what you can do for yourself as what
you can do for Alsander."

"The question is," retorted Norman, with some heat, "exactly how long
the pantomime season is going to last?"

"The reply in general is for as long as woman gives birth to child: in
particular, for as long as the A.A.A. is uncertain of your devotion."

"And what is the A.A.A.?"

"It is," replied the shopman, "the Association for the Advancement of
Alsander."

"I am sure that it is an admirable society."

"Like all earthly institutions," observed the dandified young shopman,
with a sententiousness ill befitting his years, "it has its defects, but
want of precaution is not one of them."

"And where does it meet?"

"Here," said the shopman, briefly.

"And when does it meet?"

"Now," was the reply, followed almost immediately by a clatter and a
crash as if all the machinery of a steam-mill had started with a jerk.
Norman had just time to see the shutters going down; then he found
himself in total darkness.

"What in Hell do you mean by this?" he cried out, thunderstruck: but the
shopman gave no answer or other sign of existence, and Norman suddenly
realized with dismay that he was alone and a prisoner. For a moment or
two he groped and fumbled in the dark. Then he remembered his matches.
He found three and lit them one by one. They cast all sorts of curious
and flickering shadows from odd-shaped objects like crocodile gods and
water-skins; one by one they went out. Norman was only the wiser in as
far as the little light had lasted long enough for him to find out that
the end of the shop had no exit and that his interloctuor had certainly
disappeared, and he therefore spared himself the trouble of stumbling
about in the dark for a means of escape. "This is fun," he thought
boyishly, and sat down on what he had seen to be a horribly dusty and
cracked Chippendale chair to await proceedings. When ten minutes had
passed he began to scratch his head; after twenty minutes the room had
grown insufferably stifling and the philosophic mood had passed: after
half-an-hour he had formulated a scheme in accordance with which he
would use the hindquarters of a large brass elephant, probably Indian,
which he had noticed faintly glimmering on a shelf, as a battering ram.
His idea was that with so heavy an implement he could break a hole in
the shutters, which seemed to have closed automatically, or at least by
hammering attract the attention of some passers by in the street
outside. He was about to act on this ingenious plan and had already
grasped the elephant firmly by one leg when his ear was attracted by a
noise of heavy breathing from behind the shop, and a fumbling sound
which suggested the turning of keys. The next instant a sort of
panel-door opened at the back of the shop, flooding the place with a
light that made Norman blink, and a butler, who, with his side whiskers,
livery and portly presence looked so like a butler that he positively
made Norman gasp, said in the most servile and insinuating English,
"_Would_ you step this way, sir?"

Norman stepped, hoping that a chance had come at last of discovering the
meaning, if any, of what he now felt sure was a superb and intricate
joke. He followed the butler-like butler down a bare corridor and was
ushered into a large room, which he judged from a symbol AA, which was
hung on a bit of cardboard on the wall opposite and was the first thing
that struck his eye, could be nothing else than the head-quarters of the
Alsander Advancement Association. But the room, which was neither
sumptuous nor sordid, but eminently respectable, was a disappointment to
Norman, and so were the presumed Associates, to whom the same adjectives
were applicable. They were sitting at the end of the room behind a long
table for all the world as if they were a board of examiners, and were
all dressed in badly-cut frock coats. In front of each was a sheet of
clean foolscap, pen, ink, and blotting paper. The young shopman sat in
the centre in a slightly more comfortable chair, radiant in his
extravagant costume as a parrot among crows; but Norman scanned their
faces in vain to find the old Poet whom he naturally expected would be
present on this mysterious occasion.

"Take a chair, my man, take a chair," said a wizened little old fellow,
with a fussy, irritable voice.

"Certainly," said Norman, not pleased with the style of address, and he
seated himself opposite the shopman, where the single unoccupied chair
in the room was placed.

"I hear," observed the little old man gain, but in grave and serious
tones, "that you are a candidate for the Crown of Alsander."




CHAPTER VIII

HOW NORMAN FAILED TO PASS A QUALIFYING EXAMINATION FOR THE POST OF KING
OF ALSANDER, AND WAS WHIPPED: TOGETHER WITH A DIGRESSION ON THE
EXCELLENCE OF WHIPPING

      Les cris ne sont pas des chants.

                        _Paul Fort_


Norman was about to laugh at this unusual question when he seemed to
catch the eyes of the Board of Examiners at once (for he could think of
them under no other designation). All the eyes seemed to be looking at
him with such peering intentness that he began to believe that they were
all unintentional and not intentional lunatics, and therefore dangerous.
So he simply bowed. If it is a joke, thought Norman, that will be in
keeping; if it is not, it will be expected of me. And he thought himself
clever.

"Very good," said the little man, abruptly. "I think, Doctor," he
continued, turning to a prominent Hebrew on his left, "that the
preliminary examination should be conducted by you in person."

"I will begin at once. Take off your clothes," said the Doctor,
addressing the last remark to Norman in a tone of command.

"But really...." began Norman, in expostulation.

"Absolutely necessary, I assure you," continued the Doctor. "For the
proper exercise of monarchical functions nothing, not even courtesy, not
even common sense, is more important than a sound physical condition. To
judge of that condition it is imperative that you should take off your
clothes. I may add," he continued, not unkindly, "that considering your
general appearance I do not think that you will have much difficulty in
satisfying the examiners on that score."

Norman was so puzzled by the evident gravity of the heavy-bearded
doctor's speech and demeanour that he began to believe that a certain
mad seriousness underlay the whole proceedings. It seemed to him
unlikely that a dozen lunatics possessed of a common mania should find
such a facility of meeting together in solemn assembly, even in
Alsander. The poet, whom he still believed to be the prime instigator of
this curious comedy, though eccentric, was no madman. So, having rapidly
summed up in his mind the pros and cons of the case, Norman cautiously
took off his coat.

However nothing less than complete nudity would satisfy the Doctor, and
Norman, with growing reluctance, shed garment upon garment till, in the
words of the Eastern poet, "the shining almond came out of his dusky
shell," and "the petals of the rose lay strewn? upon the ground."
However, at a word from the shopman, who seemed in authority, Norman was
permitted to retain as much clothing as would satisfy the by-laws of a
very free bathing resort. The Doctor then rose, came round the table,
and, seizing hold of the unfortunate, tapped him, pinched him, prodded
him, poked him, felt his muscles, sounded his chest, examined his
tongue, blew in his ears, slapped his stomach and tried his pulse. All
this to the intense aggravation of his victim.

But when the Doctor finally commanded him to rim round the room as he
was and climb along the rope that dangled from the ceiling, the boy
succumbed to over-mastering indignation.

"I am not going to stand any more damned nonsense from you or anybody
else," cried Norman. "This joke has gone quite far enough, and though it
may amuse you vastly to make a fool of me I'll knock down the next one
of you who tries it on."

The effect of his words was as instantaneous as he could have wished;
there could be no mistaking the anger that flashed in the eyes of these
curious examiners. Even Norman, in the heat of his excitement, noticed
that, though he failed to notice that the youthful President's face (for
the young shopkeeper seemed to be President, to judge from his central
chair) remained unmoved save for a slight ocular twinkle. It was the
President, however, who addressed him: "I am afraid," he said, "that we
shall have to ask you to dress and leave us at once."

"I won't leave the room until you apologize to me, and if you don't
apologize I'll punch your head." And Norman, all but naked as he was,
began to bend up and down a very decent right arm and seemed well
capable of executing his threat.

"You should be more patient, sir," observed the President, waving
towards Norman his gold-embroidered sleeve with a conciliating smile. "I
assure you that it is to your advantage to obey us, and very much to
your disadvantage to be rude. I admit that our demands, coming from
total strangers, seem both impertinent and extravagant, but I assure you
that they are necessary, and I should like to impress you with the
earnestness of this apparently inane procedure. The Doctor only desires
to see your muscles in motion. I assure you, your body is not a thing of
which you need be ashamed. Should you disobey, you will be in serious
danger."

"I don't believe you. You dare not touch me. I am an Englishman,"
retorted Norman, refusing to be conciliated.

"I am afraid," replied the President, ringing a little electric bell
which was under his hand, "that we shall have to give you immediate
proof of the earnestness of our intentions and our power to cause you a
disadvantage."

At once four guards entered the room, whom Norman from their uniform and
faces recognized to be the very palace guards who had let him and the
supposed beggar pass into the palace the day of their memorable visit.
Unfortunately for Norman, they wore no longer the air of benevolent
sleepiness which had characterized them on that former occasion; they
were obviously wide awake and attentive to command.

"Do you still refuse to perform the exercises demanded of you?" inquired
the President.

"Yes," said Norman, stubbornly.

"Haul him up," said the President quietly, but with anger in his eyes.

Norman found his wrists seized before he could make the slightest
resistance, and he was swung up on to the back of the tallest of the
guards.

"Do you refuse also to apologize?" said the Doctor.

"Yes."

"Let him go away quietly," said the President.

"Why should we hurt him? We cannot expect him to understand us."

"I insist on an apology. I will not leave the room without it," said
Norman. "As for you, you soppy little fool...."

His bewilderment rapidly gave place to alarm. He wished he had not been
quite so rude to the President, who, after all, had been polite. Still,
he hoped he might be simply undergoing some form of Test by
Verification, like the legendary Masonic hot poker. At least, I suppose
it is legendary. But when from the tail of his eye he beheld from his
undignified perch a horsewhip in the hands of one of the guards, he
tried to remember the sufferings of his days in the village school at
Blaindon, which, after all, were not of such remote antiquity.

He wondered, like the schoolboy, how many? If, that is, he really was to
suffer after all.

His apprehensions were confirmed and relieved by the President, who
exclaimed in a wickedly gentle voice, "I'm very sorry, but I suppose you
must give him a dozen." The maniac examiners were quite capable, he had
felt convinced, of beating him to death, and a dozen? Why, a dozen was
about the extent of the good old pedagogic punishments, which he had
endured stolidly in his time, and many of them.

A new question surged through his mind. What was the brawny guard about
to aim at? Was the supreme indignity to be conferred upon him before all
these pompous personages to emphasize his unfitness for dignity? Norman
hoped so, for to tell the truth, he didn't care a damn about the
dignity, but he thought it would hurt less and was more used to it.
Meantime he had never felt so cold, and the rough cloth of the guard who
was holding his wrists so tightly grated unpleasantly against his naked
chest.

His dignity was not damaged. His shoulders were. He discovered his old
pedagogue to have been the mildest and most inefficient flagellator in
the world. Let us leave him to his punishment and philosophize a little.

Philosophy and the whip? Is there not always some subtle connexion? Has
not a whipping always meant for us something more than a whipping? Is it
not a symbol? Think of this, youthful reader, if you are still in the
happy days of subjection and possibility, and may it comfort you in the
hour of trial. The Spartans formed their character, the Romans ruled the
world, with whippings. With little whips the Kings of Egypt made the
Jews work with their hands--honest manual toil, to which that race no
longer much inclines; he built his pyramid and flogged a great nation
into life. But the East, the golden East in the golden days--that was
the world for whippings. In other climes and other times, whipping has
been a symbol of degradation; in murderous Russia it has been, they say
it is, something too foul for the philosopher to look at. But when there
were Caliphs in Bagdad, then whipping was the joyous symbol of
democracy. Are you rich and powerful, the Caliph's friend? Tread
delicately on those rich carpets: the day comes when to put foot to the
finest Bokhara may be a torment to make you howl. Are you a poor pedlar
selling glasses from a tray? Repine not at your barefoot treading of the
cobbled lanes: it is all practice for the soles; you shall fare better
than your proud neighbour on the day of affliction. Quick! Bow your
head: put your hands in the sleeves of your tattered abba. The great
Vizier is coming, the Window of Heaven, the Tulip of the Garden of
Government, the Sun's Moon, the Vizier. And behind him, O Allah! the
blazing luminary of the universe itself! Where shall you hide from those
dazzling rays? The Caliph comes. Some insolent retainer has kicked over
all your glasses. Your little fortune has gone. No longer will you cry:

    "O sunset, O sunrise, O ocean drops my glasses,
     O emeralds, O rubies, O sapphires, O my glasses!"

Your wife will curse you, your children will starve; your dreams of a
little ease are shattered with the shining crystals; your fortune lies
with them prostrate in the dirt. You crouch in the doorway. But ho! what
is that? The Vizier's horse has shied, he is kicking, he has kicked the
Sun of the Universe off his saddle. All that splendour is smirching the
bashful mud! Forgetting yourself, you rush to help him; your dirty,
horny fingers pick up Perfection, careless of sacrilege. You wait and
tremble, for Perfection is himself again. The Vizier is pale. The
Monarch gives a sign to the blackest of his black negroes. Down comes
the Tulip of the Garden of Government. The Vizierial beard is in the
dirt; the Sun's Moon's feet are all in air and looped into a pole: the
blows fall, the Tulip howls--and you? The Caliph has embraced you and
made you Vizier on the spot. Such is a whipping in the East.

So much, then, for whipping from the point of view of historical
geography. It has other aspects--too vast for mention here. The
individual aspect, or the whippings inflicted on the famous, on Psyche
by Venus, on Aristotle by Phyllis, on St Paul by the Romans, on-Henry
Plantagenet by the monks, on Milton by his College, on Voltaire by a
lackey, on Shelley by a schoolmaster. We read of the latter that he
writhed on the floor not because he was hurt but out of shame. Ethereal
Shelley!

Or take the literary aspect. Take the heroes of famous books--what
whacks and thwacks they encounter, especially in all books that are an
epitome of world life. From _Apuleius_ to _Don Quixote_, from _Gil Blas_
to _Tom Jones,_ from _Candide_ to _Richard Feverel_, there is no great
book without its whipping.

And there are those who say children should not be whipped! They are
right, dear youthful reader, they are entirely right. It is we who
should be whipped, we adults, we pompous people, we who are so ready to
torture the young and who have quite forgotten the bitterness of the
torture we inflict. It is we who should be whipped, we who dread the
dentist, we whose waistcoats bulge and blossom into gold watch chains.
And criminals? O we flog them still, but only the poor, violent, rough
fellow who does a bit of straightforward business. It is that fat
financier whose juicy back I want to see streaked with red like a rasher
of bacon; it is that ape-like vestryman whose yells would be music to my
ears; it is, above all, the proprietor of pills that I would strap down
to his alliterative and appropriate post, the pillory.

None of the above reflections occurred to Norman. His literary knowledge
did not help him. He seemed to have spent whole years being whipped. He
felt as if his lungs would burst. But the executioner laid on steadily
and evenly, till the victim's back looked like a sheet of music paper.
Then he was abruptly let down and writhed for half a minute with rapidly
decreasing pain. And about this let the philosopher say one word more.
Whipping is not strictly torture. It does not deform. It leaves no ill
effects. And therefore many a parent who would shudder to use rack or
thumb-screw to our children, think nothing of whipping them. But it need
not hurt much less.

Norman, in absolute silence, put on his clothes. The examiners meanwhile
filed out of the hall; the young shopman-president alone remained. For a
mad moment Norman thought he saw tears in the President's eyes and pity
in his face; but his own vision was dim, and certainly it seemed
improbable that the brute who had ordered the whipping should be
affected thereby to tears. When Norman was dressed the President said,
"Follow me, I will let you out." Norman obeyed silently. They went alone
together into the little shop. The boy had already begun to plot
revenge, and now thought he saw his opportunity. Calculating the moment
and the distance, he suddenly sprang like a tiger on the President. His
effort was attended by no success. He found himself lying on the floor
as swiftly as a skater who has tripped on a stone.

"Do you think I was not prepared?" said the President, smiling, as
Norman picked himself up. And somehow, for all that his back was still
aching, the charm and beauty of the young man, his soft voice and his
insinuating smile, changed Norman's wrath into a sort of shame.

"So that's all I'm to get for coming with you," said Norman, like a
rueful schoolboy. "You've forgotten even the present suitable for a
lady."

"You're a wonderful person," muttered the President. "It's a pity we had
to reject you." And opening a drawer he drew out a very beautiful
jewelled clasp.

Norman muttered, "How much?" and felt in his pocket. He knew the
receipts of Price's Bon Marche would not have paid for it in fifty
years--if the stones were real.

"You have earned it this time," said the President, "and please not to
take me for a shopkeeper again," and, opening the door into the street,
he waited for Norman to go out. The boy hesitated.

"Tell me, to whom does all this belong?" he asked, voicing questions
that troubled his mind. "And where is the Old Poet? And why did he
choose me as a subject for his unpleasant jokes?"

"Good evening," said the President, pointedly. "I have nothing further
to say to you but this, that if you say one word, one little word, to a
soul of what has happened to-night--there are worse things awaiting for
you than whipping." And with these ominous words he closed the door and
shut Norman out into the street.

"This comes," said Norman, bitterly, "of following the advice of
poets!"




CHAPTER IX

THE CONSUL

   Again in the mist and shadow of sleep
       He saw his native land.


The hero of this and all our adventures, feeling unheroic and
disinclined for further traffic with his fellows, did not proceed to the
board of the Widow Prasko, or to the no less hospitable embrace of her
lovely daughter, but nursed revenge and a sore back by a walk on the
walls. The path along the summit of these old fortifications is broad
and smooth: it commands sea, mountains, town and all four corners of the
heavens; many lovers, dreamers and successful suicides have passed that
way. Yet surely it would need more than the vivid recollection of a
sound thrashing to make a man leave such a prospect as that wall
affords, especially westward, to the mountains and the setting sun. So
Norman walked along the walls and not off them.

How to attain satisfaction? Whom to seek in this dilemma? How to be
revenged and not ridiculed? How, above all, to get level with those
lunatics without again being stripped and whipped like a schoolboy or
enduring a worse thing, according to the strange young President's
threat? What was the meaning of it, the sense of it, the clue to this
mysterious and painful practical joke? Where, above all, was that
ancient scoundrel of a poet and in what disguise, and why was he not
present at the scene? Had the old curiosity shop been invented from the
very beginning simply to attract him? How could they have known he would
take the Poet's hint and look there for the present? How was it they
were all prepared for him when he came? And, finally, what was the real
value of the handsome buckle which he was to give Peronella? He pulled
it out of his pocket: if the stones were real, and they looked it, he
judged it to be worth a fabulous sum. For a moment he thought it might
all have been a plot of Cesano's to befool him. But common sense soon
rejected that theory: so artistic and elaborate a practical joke was far
beyond the conception of that thin-brained cavalier. Norman walked twice
round the walls in hopeless bewilderment, and longed to find a trusty
soul to whom he could impart the whole affair. Then, as for the third
time he faced the East, the sun of inspiration blazed full on the fields
of his intellect.

Visions of Britain's might awake to protect her humblest subject rolled
across his mind; of Dreadnoughts blackening the horizon, of a ten
minutes' bombardment, of being hauled from prison by merry bluejackets
pouring brandy down his throat, of shaking hands with a clean-shaven
Admiral, of a protectorate over Alsander, and the immediate repaving of
the roads and reconstruction of the sewers.

Was there no British Consulate in Alsander?

Comforted by a resolve to appeal to the might of Britain, he returned at
once to the board of the Widow Prasko and the no less hospitable arms of
her charming daughter. They had been quite anxious about him.

"And where is it?" was the girl's first question.

He pulled out the exquisite toy, and Peronella cooed with delight.

"My dear Peronella, it is far, far too good for you," said her mother,
beaming with ostensible gratification, and burning to know whether any
of the stones could possibly not be paste.

"Did you really find that in that poky little shop?" said Peronella.

"Oh, yes," said Norman. "It is a wonderful place, if you really only
knew it."

"And look at that pattern round the border," said the observant widow.
"How nicely it's worked, and so small."

"It is indeed," said the boy, examining it for the first time and
turning a little pale.

This was the pattern:--_\-AA-/_: and it reminded him unpleasantly of the
symbol he had seen that afternoon.

However, Norman, strong in his new imperial faith, went to his room,
nearly cricked his neck examining the stripes in the mirror to see if
they were still there and in good order for exhibition, turned in and
slept.

Rising betimes the next morning he set out upon his quest. It was a long
one, and the said new-born faith in the omnipotence of the British flag
underwent a severe trial during this voyage of exploration, for some
people seemed never to have heard of "British" and some never to have
heard of "Consulate." Those who understood the meaning of these magic
words in general failed to illuminate him in particular. Peronella and
her mother belonged to this latter category, and so did most of the
people he met in the street. At last he was informed in a draper's shop
that it was down in a street off the Palace square. He arrived at the
house indicated after a diligent and toilsome search and found it to let
and uninhabited. He spent another half-hour scouring the cafes for the
caretaker. The caretaker, having been plied with many drinks, directed
him to a street off the Cathedral square at the other end of the town.
Having arrived there, he discovered the street and the number. He found
himself in front of a preposterously tall house in a state of violent
ruin, which appeared about to fall on his head. It bore no outward
consular sign at first glance, but by standing well back on the opposite
side of the narrow street and craning his neck Norman could just discern
what might be a coat-of-arms above a window on the top floor. He began
the ascent of a staircase which deserved all the epithets usually
applied to such staircases. He discovered during the long and intricate
ascent that the house, or rather tower, contained a singular variety of
inmates. On the ground floor was a shop where an extremely aged man with
large spectacles was carefully affixing small bits of gold braid to form
one of the gorgeous patterns which adorn the festal dress of Alsandrian
beauty. The first floor was devoted to the offices of an insurance
company, which Norman hoped had insured its own premises. On the second
floor a photographer exhibited the terrifying results of his art. The
contents of the third floor were to be judged from a show-case fixed on
the wall in which whole mouthfuls of false teeth were symmetrically
arranged. But the entrance to the fourth floor was guarded by a portal
on which, by the aid of a match, Norman discovered bell-push and the
gratifying legend, "British Consulate."

The door opened mechanically. "A very advanced door," thought Norman as
he stepped in, "for this locality." He found himself in a small and neat
office, at the first glance not remarkable. Afterwards he noticed, to
his surprise, that it was full of contrivances, such as wires and
switches and taps--something between a railway signal-box and the
manager's bureau in a telephone exchange. Its only occupant was a thin
man, with ruffled, mud-coloured hair, who was rattling on a typewriter
with as much vigour as an amateur pianist thumping the presto of the
"Moonlight."

"What do you want?" said the typist-clerk, very rapidly and sharply, in
the tone of a vixenish and virtuous housewife accosted by blundering
vice in a dark street.

"I should like to see the Consul," replied Norman.

"Why?" said the clerk, clicking on a new line and rattling off again.

"Even the British Consulate has gone mad in Alsander," thought Norman,
in despair. "Or does he mean to be rude?"

"I have some urgent private affairs to discuss," he said.

"Passport?" urged the clerk.

"I'm afraid I haven't got one," said Norman.

"Name?" insisted the clerk.

"Price," snapped Norman, thankful it was monosyllabic.

The clerk seized a table telephone with one hand, while he still fumbled
the keys with the other.

"Price--private--no passport," he shouted into the vulcanite ear.

"I must have come to the American Consulate by mistake," thought Norman,
amazed at this un-British efficiency.

"In!" roared a voice into the telephone.

Norman could clearly hear it; it came from the next room.

The clerk pushed a button, the inner door opened, and Norman found
himself in the presence of H.B.M. Consul,[1] Alsander.

The appearance of the Consul and his apartment, although peculiar, was
the reverse of terrifying, as Norman was glad to find, after the
mechanical horrors of the clerk's abode. In fact, it had hardly the
appearance of a office at all. It was true the Consul was sitting at a
large desk and wearing a very smart frockcoat, and that on the desk in
conspicuous positions were volumes labelled Foreign Office Year Book,
Circulars, Trade Reports, Miscellaneous, Shipping, Marriage Register,
etc. But the walls of the room; presented a curiously unofficial
appearance. They were papered with a thick-looking dull black paper, and
ornamented with designs in black and white by Aubrey Beardsley. The
carpet was a dull purple, indeed the room was in such harmony (except
for the vivid letter-box red of the Foreign Office Year Book) that
Norman felt his light-coloured waistcoat and pink cheeks to be
unpardonable. The Consul himself was dressed with such a subtle lack of
ostentation and was himself of such unostentatious appearance that
Norman could not for a whole second discover him at all. At length he
made out that the official had long drooping whiskers and was smoking a
calabash and writing with his left hand, his right being apparently
paralysed.

"Good morning," he said to Norman, in a very cheerful voice, rising to
receive him.

"Forgive my left," he continued, cordially, as he extended that member.
"A little accident, you know, Bulgarian bomb at Monastir, in the old
days before the war. Compensation, you know. Well, then. However, there
we are. Sit down. Take a chair. Or fill a pipe."

"I am so sorry to take up your time," said Norman, settling down in an
all-black armchair and reaching out for a match.

"My dear sir," said the Consul. "I am delighted to see you. I may tell
you I have been Consul in Alsander for two years and this is the first
time I have received a visit in my official capacity. Have you"--his
voice sunk into an expectative whisper--"have you a passport, signed and
in order?"

"I am very much afraid," said Norman, "I neglected to get one."

"That is unfortunate, most unfortunate. But"--here his voice sunk to a
guilty whisper "I might give you one. At all events, I assure you I am
delighted to see you. Alsander is very slow, very slow, indeed."

"But you must be very busy," hazarded Norman. "I have never seen anyone
so busy as your clerk."

"Ah, my dear sir, we must keep up appearances, you know. I let him think
that I never have a moment to spare. I may tell you that I have been
here two years and have not written an official letter since the day I
announced my arrival. Such a change from Pernambuco, my previous post.
There I never had a minute!"

"But he's typing like mad," said Norman, surprised, and quite unable to
rid himself of the impression of the furious energy which had seemed to
him to pervade the outer office.

A faint smile suffused the countenance of the Consul as he explained.

"Oh, I keep him employed, copying scraps of old blue books, you know,
and that sort of thing. Might be useful some day."

"You must find life monotonous."

"Ah, yes. Such a change from Pernambuco. No casino, no theatre. The
theatre at Pernambuco was delightful. This, you know, is one of our
quietest posts. Even Archangel, where I was Vice-Consul twenty-three
years ago, was a lot more lively. But I do not complain. The climate is
good, the salary tolerable--_poli kala_, as I learnt to say in Patras."

"You have travelled, sir," said Norman, politely.

"Oh, one knocks about a bit and sees things in the Service. Hallo!"

The last ejaculation was not addressed to Norman, but to the telephone,
whose bell was ringing violently.

"Let him wait," said the Consul.

"Perhaps," hazarded Norman, "if you are busy this morning I had better
tell my story at once."

"Certainly. But you need not hurry at all. It's only Dr Sforelli come
for his game of chess. You know him perhaps? You have heard of him
only?... Yes, the report was correct; he is one of the ablest men in
Alsander. His father's name was Cohen, by the way."

"Cohen Sforelli?" inquired Norman.

"Just Cohen," said the Consul. "Are you an Anti-Semite?"

"I never thought about it," said Norman, determined that he would begin
his tale at all costs. "But I am Anti-Alsandrian at present."

"Been trying to sell something? Hallo, there! Let him wait. Only
Olivarbo. You know Count Olivarbo? For an Alsandrian, a man of some
ability."

"I hope he has not rung you up on urgent business."

"Oh, dear no. I am teaching him golf. Of course, I am a little
handicapped"--he glanced pathetically at his limp member--"but the
rules and the style, you know, and so on."

"Well, sir, if you don't mind, my business is rather serious, and I
should like to come straight to the point. And to begin with, I should
like to ask you whether you have heard of the Alsander Advancement
Association."

"Never. Is it a co-operative store?"

"No, it purports to be a secret society, for the object--well, I don't
know for what object."

"Of advancing Alsander?"

"I suppose so. But it seems to be really a conspirators' club to play
bad practical jokes on innocent strangers. I was entrapped by one of its
members."

"This is very interesting, very interesting, indeed. I may have to take
a note of this. Hallo. Who's that? My dear Cocasso, I really can't this
afternoon. I am being consulted on important business. Look up Cassolis,
he plays. My dear sir"--this to Norman--"you were entrapped?"

"I was entrapped. The society sat in state and pretended to examine me
for the position of King of Alsander."

"Well, well, why not? I was examined to become Vice-Consul. We must all
be examined, you know."

"Yes, but that was not all. I was stripped and mauled about by a fool
who pretended to be a doctor."

"Stripped? Dear me! Stripped naked?"

"Yes, but worse was in store for me. Because I demanded an apology for
their nonsense, I was beaten."

"Beaten? Dear me! Beaten with a stick? Gracious heavens! Very
extraordinary! I must make a note of that. And what would you like me to
do?"

"Why, what do you usually do when a British subject is stripped and
beaten by a lot of dirty Dagoes?"

"I do not remember such an occurrence; so I have no precedent for
dealing with this case. British subjects do not usually expose
themselves, you see, to such odd adventures."

"Do understand that it is serious, sir," pursued Norman, whose fury had
been gradually mounting in face of this official apathy. "What's the
good of being an Englishman if one can't travel unmolested? What's the
good of all those Dreadnoughts? What are they wasting coal in the North
Sea for? Why don't they come here?"

"I must remind you," said the Consul, severely, "that you have no
passport. I cannot possibly send for the Fleet if you have no passport.
For all I know you might be Siamese."

"Do I look it?" cried Norman, in dismay.

"Perhaps there are light-haired Siamese mountaineers who have learnt
English from Indian friends. '_Quien Sabe_?' as we said at Barcelona."

"It is a shame, sir--you are fooling me!" Norman's temper had quite
gone.

"Have you only just found that out?" said the Consul, his eyes
twinkling.

"I shall write to the _Times_," cried Norman, rising from his chair to
leave.

"My brother," said the Consul, with a smile, "edits the correspondence
columns of that august journal. Of course, he will print your letter.
But he will also print"--here the Consul rose and his tone grew severer
still--"a note to say that I treated you with all civility although you
had no passport and no letter of introduction, and that you deceived me
to my certain knowledge by telling half-truths."

"Half-truths!" exclaimed Norman.

"What about the jewelled buckle that was presented to you by the
society?"

"Why, I had forgotten about it."

"And--a much more serious matter--what about the injunction to silence
which was laid on you by the President?"

"You did not let me finish my story. What do you know about the jewelled
buckle? How do you know there was an injunction to silence?"

"That injunction to silence you had better have obeyed, sir. However,
you may rely on my discretion. If you insist on demanding reparation, I
am bound to state your case before higher authorities, but I warn you
you will get none, and you will endanger your life and perhaps mine. The
present made to you was an ample reparation for your temporary
inconvenience. I will give you a few minutes to consider the matter."

Norman sat down, bewildered. Before he could think of anything the
telephone bell rang again.

"Come in," called the Consul. Norman rose politely as the newcomer
entered.

"Mr Norman Price. Signor Arnolfo," said the Consul, introducing them.

Norman was about to shake hands, but his hand fell. Signor Arnolfo, a
young man in the national costume, was the handsome President himself!


[1] I should perhaps mention that the Consul of Alsander bears not the
slightest resemblance to any Consul in the Levant, Alsander being of
course a much coveted retiring post in the General Consular Service.




CHAPTER X

CONTAINS THE PRESIDENT'S TALE AND A DEBATE ON THE ADVANTAGES OF MURDER


There was a fine contrast between the two boys as they stood confronting
each other. They were both young, handsome, beardless. But Norman was
square, strong jawed, with a hint of the workman about him; his hair
almost silver, his blue eyes and fair complexion as British as could be.
There was little to suggest anything more interesting than the handsome
athlete about him save a fine, curious expression of the mouth, a bold
forehead, and perhaps an exceptional regularity and symmetry of the
features.

Arnolfo was in complete contrast: his whole body, though not well set
off by the gorgeous but loose costume, seemed curiously slim and supple:
his smooth, dark face had the spiritual beauty of the artist. No lack of
determination in it, however, but the power was in the eyes rather than
the chin, which was as softly rounded as a woman's. Of these eyes we can
say but little; they were large dark eyes, but no poet can sing or
painters paint the charms of the soul's windows. Even more beautiful
was the mouth, on which hovered a smile. But though in the eyes of
Arnolfo there shone a humorous sympathy, though his smile faded with
obvious disappointment when Norman drew back his hand, Norman in his
fury saw nothing but an insolent boy who had outraged him bitterly.
Scorning with a flash of chivalry to use his fist on so frail a person,
he nevertheless could not help administering to Arnolfo there and then a
ringing smack on the cheek.

"How dare you, sir, commit an outrage on one of my friends in my
presence?" The Consul's voice rang out severe and incisive.

"One of your friends!" cried Norman, almost hysterical with wrath. "What
business has a British Consul with friends who outrage British subjects?
I'd give you one, too," he added, savagely, "if it wasn't for your...."

"It is most impolite of you, sir," said the Consul, interrupting him and
leaning across his desk, "to make any reference to the unfortunate state
of my arm, due as it is, and as I have already hinted, to excessive zeal
in the public service. Also, I may inform you, that you are quite
welcome to go for me if you like. Your behaviour is uniformly gross. As
for my infirmity, take that!"

And he dealt Norman across his desk a blow with the supposed withered
arm which sent him reeling against the wall. Norman was about to reply
to this onslaught in kind when Arnolfo interposed himself between them,
his cheek still red from the blow.

"Remember," he said to the Consul, "he cannot understand and he has had
a great deal to endure. I would think less of him if he had not hit me.
Sir, I accept your blow. Will you cry quits with me and be friends?"

"You accept my blow indeed, you coward! I have given you a very good
clout on the head. Why don't you challenge me to a duel like a man?
Surely that is the custom everywhere outside England?"

"I will make you any reparation you like, but I will not fight you.
Strange as it may seem, I hope that some day you may become my friend."

"Friend, indeed! You seem to credit me with outrageous generosity. If
you are too frightened to fight, you must at least let me in my turn
order you a sound thrashing. Then I can meet you on equal terms."

"Believe me, Signor Norman, I would do that for your friendship," said
Arnolfo, and, turning to the Consul, he added, "Will you not leave me
with this Englishman a minute?"

"I entreat you, Signor Arnolfo, you should not trust yourself to such a
man. He is rude, unmannerly, and dangerous, and not at all likely to
appreciate the refinement of your sentiments."

"I entreat you, do what I ask," said the young man, and as the Consul
still seemed reluctant, he added in a whisper, "I command you." Upon
this the Consul, bowing to Arnolfo, left them alone.

"Now, Signor Norman," began Arnolfo, "try and put aside for a moment
your righteous and natural indignation. I have come on purpose to see
you. I hastened here as soon as I was informed of your arrival. I want
you to forgive me. I want you to be my friend. But, most of all, I want
you to believe me to be sincere."

"How are you going to prove your sincerity to me this time?" inquired
Norman. "By more subtle torture than beating or by downright murder? You
and your friends have inflicted on me the most shameful degradation, and
now you implore forgiveness and talk of sincerity. Are you, is this
city, is the whole world, mad? Why should you want to talk to me about
sincerity? Would it not be more to the point to discuss the figure of my
damages?"

"Never be ashamed of your vulgarity, Mr Price," said the young man,
without a trace of sarcasm in his gentle voice. "It gives you just that
vitality which I have not got. It is exactly the absence of vulgarity
from my character that makes me unfit to rule this kingdom alone."

"You seem to have no mean opinion of ourself. I know you only as a
shopkeeper and as a conspirator. I agree with you that you are unfit to
rule even this kingdom. Take at least the trouble to inform me who you
are."

"Will you let me tell my story?"

"I have no interest in your story. But on condition that you have no
further designs against me, I will listen to your narrative, provided it
is short."

"Sir!" exclaimed Arnolfo, with a flash of passionate anger in his
beautiful dark eyes, the genuineness of which not even Norman could
doubt, but always speaking in the same gentle tone, "I have had enough
of your British and barbarous sulkiness. I am the proudest man in
Alsander, and I have let you strike me in the face. But I will not let
you insult me further. Sit in that chair and listen to what I have to
tell you. Remember now as then, here, as in the secret room of the
conspirators, you are utterly in my power."

Norman, curiously stilled by these words, sank into the great armchair
in silence. The black walls, the tortured pictures, the incense
fragrance of the strange room--had the Consul journeyed to China
also?--hypnotized his will. He felt tired and careless. He took almost a
pleasure in obeying the elegant and frail young man, whose voice was as
low as the music of distant waves.

"I," began Arnolfo, "am a nobleman of Alsander, to which I returned
about a year ago, after an absence of many years in many civilized
lands, especially in Ulmreich. My father is virtual ruler of the Court
of the orphan Princess Ianthe, who (presuming that the present occupant
of the throne dies incurably insane and childless) should one day be
Queen of Alsander. My father, the Duke Arnolfo, as any peasant boy will
tell you, is the guardian of the Princess. It was his plan that the
Princess should be educated in Ulmreich, among a sober and wise people,
where every facility would be obtainable to cultivate her mind and
refine her intelligence. I will confess to you that it was his dream to
seat a noble and wise woman on the throne of Alsander, even, if
necessary, before the death, or at all events before the natural death,
of King Andrea. Well he knows the miserable state of this little kingdom
under the idle, foolish and cunning rule of old Count Vorza, and many a
time he has only been restrained from riding into Alsander at the head
of a handful of retainers and wresting the regency from Vorza by the
thought of his young charge whose majority he, an unfortunate exile, has
devoutly awaited.

"But, alas! nothing is likely to come of all his dreams. You may have
heard flimsy rumours here to the effect that Princess Ianthe is as mad
as her cousin. It is not quite true that she is mad. She is stubborn and
unreasonable, and she is almost stupid. She grasps nothing, despite the
most careful education that a woman could possibly receive. She has fits
of piety and fits of melancholy. If that were all, married to a good
husband, she might do passably well; but she has one supreme defect
which makes her impossible as a queen. She is so ugly that it would be
hard to find a man who would not be ashamed to be even so much as styled
her husband, though the bribe were a crown.

"Carefully guarded as our little Court is, some rumours of the truth
have come to Alsander, and at present Vorza seems to the popular
estimation to be likely to go on ruling for ever. After all, the people
are not unhappy: it is so many years since they have enjoyed the
advantages of uncorrupt and energetic government they do not know that
they are missing anything. But my father and I love Alsander with a
burning passion; we dreamt of Florence, of Athens, of Venice, of the
great deeds that have been performed by little States; and night after
night we used to discuss what could be done with Alsander. We considered
a republic, but a republic, even a small one, needs a dictator to tide
over its growing pains and also a standard of education, which
Alsandrians by no means possess. As for me, I knew myself to be
incapable of governing Alsander alone, even had it been possible for me
to acquire the supreme power by my father's influence."

(Norman, who had begun to listen with interest to the young man, and who
had; thought that he was getting at the truth at last, noted in his mind
the weakness of the last remark--coming from so self-confident young
man. However, he did not interrupt, and Arnolfo went on.)

"It was decided finally that I should journey alone to Alsander, spy out
the land, and attempt to form a conspiracy. It was a projects not
without danger for myself. Vorza knows that the Court of Princess Ianthe
is against him; my father warned me almost with tears against his
treachery, and I could hardly persuade him to let me go. But once
arrived in Alsander I put on so brave an outward show, played with such
gaiety the part of an elegant young man bent on nothing but pleasure,
that the suspicions of that crafty old fox were lulled with comparative
ease. Cunning men seldom penetrate the cunning of others, especially the
cunning of such others as have naturally no cunning in their nature, but
are only playing a cunning part.

"In the meanwhile I made firm and loyal friends of all the really able
or notable men in Alsander, to whom I carried letters of recommendation
from my father. I found them surprisingly ready and willing to plot with
me some change of government--but what change? I had deliberated long
and in vain with several excellent people, when one day I was taken
aside by Dr Sforelli, the King's physician, the very doctor to whose
searching examination you so strongly objected the other day. He told me
that there was a plot in the plot which now he would reveal. 'Your
father,' he said, 'has partly deceived you. We are not groping in the
dark; we have a plan already formed, a plan fantastic and wild, but
still a plan; and we have cherished that plan for years. It was
necessary that we should be assured of your discretion and ability
before inaugurating our conspiracy; yet we postponed our action in order
to await your intelligent co-operation, and, above all, in order to
fulfil your father's dearest wish, which was that you should in person
preside over the work of the regeneration of Alsander. Our plot is based
on a very startling and curious fact, which is this--that practically
from and including the day of his coronation not a soul in Alsander, not
even Vorza, who is afraid of lunatics--has set eyes on King Andrea.'

"I expressed my astonishment.

"'This extraordinary state of affairs, though based originally on pure
chance, is by no means accidental,' explained Sforelli, continuing. 'It
was all arranged between your father and myself years ago. It had been
actually necessary to seclude the King for a time, and your father,
seized by a sudden and wonderful inspiration, gave me the word to
convert the temporary seclusion into a permanent one.'

"'That is an extraordinary state of affairs,' I remarked, 'but I do not
see how it will help in the regeneration of Alsander.'

"'Think!' said the Doctor, with his queer Jewish smile, and then the
whole scheme dawned on me."

"Ah," said Norman, who had forgotten all his animosity in his interest
in this amazing tale. "That was a superb idea. Of course, if no one has
ever seen the King, you can substitute anyone you like and pretend the
madness has been cured, without any revolution, bloodshed or fuss."

"Precisely, sir; but not quite anyone we like. Anyone outside Alsander.
Anyone the people do not know. Anyone who is worth substituting. We had
to find a ruler, and we set seriously about the task of discovering one.
The Doctor had sent friends of his as emissaries to every land, like the
Oriental Kings who desired husbands for their daughters and heirs for
their crowns, to find a man fit to rule the kingdom. But our emissaries
had a more difficult task than those of the Oriental potentates. They
had first of all to find a man suitable--and though all that is needed,
after all, is a certain amount of honesty, energy and intelligence, for
it's not so hard to manage a little State like ours, yet we soon
discovered that most honest, intelligent and energetic men were,
unfortunately for our purpose, already installed in worldly positions so
enviable that they were not likely to leave them for a chance of ruling
a miserable country and an off-chance of being killed. Besides, the
prospective candidates for royalty could not be trusted with the secret.
The honest men might come to think it consistent with their honesty to
betray the scheme. The proposed Bang would have to be tempted to
Alsander, and, once there, most cautiously treated. And the emissaries
the Doctor could send were very few, and poor.

"There was only one of them who was sanguine of success. He was an old
man, an English poet...."

"Ah!" interjaculated Norman.

"... He had lived for many years, apparently without means of
subsistence, in a broken attic, where he said he was composing a great
Ode to the Sun. Sforelli, it seems, knew the old man well, and often
declared to incredulous company that the supposed old imbecile was the
most intelligent man in Alsander and perhaps in England. The Old Poet,
as I said, swore he would succeed."

"Ah!" said Norman, "he has failed!"

"He has not failed," said Arnolfo, rising and laying his hands on
Norman's shoulder. "He found you selling biscuits in an English village,
and he swears that his feet were pulled to the village against his will
at least seven miles on a hot summer afternoon, and all by the power of
the Jinn! And now, though we feigned to reject you yesterday, you are
the man we are going to make King of Alsander. And if we have to torture
you into acceptance, King of Alsander you shall be."

Gently pronouncing the strange threat, the boy stood over Norman and
looked down into his face and smiled. The world went unreal for Norman
at that moment: he wondered if he were alive.

"I cannot believe a word of it," Norman said slowly, after a time. "But,
no, I cannot! If you really wanted a man to rule this country--let us
not say a King--it sounds too foolish--you would not choose an English
grocer, examine his flesh as though he were a prize pig, thrash him
before the eyes of his future subjects, and drive him out like a dog?"

"It was really necessary to see the physique of the man who is to found
a dynasty. I fear, though, the Doctor took his duties himself too
seriously. I fear, too, the whimsicality of the situation got hold of
us: we were inclined to make the most of it. It is not every day one
examines a man for the post of King. And as for the rest--we had to
frighten you--into secrecy, and if possible into a belief if not of our
sincerity at least of our power. We had to be able to command your
silence, and it was obvious you were not ready to believe our good
faith."

"Then show me your good faith!" rejoined Norman. "Surely I have a right
to demand that? I only claim the just equivalent--that I should deal
with you as you dealt with me."

"Ah, you do not know," said Arnolfo, paling, "what you ask of me. On the
day I make you Bang you may do with me what you will--I promise you. You
will rule me then; but I could not accept the dishonour from you now. If
you think me a coward--I am a coward, but I can overcome my cowardice.
That is not my reason," the boy went on, holding out his hands to Norman
with a wan smile. "There--take my hands--torment me as you will; but not
till the day you are crowned in the Cathedral of Alsander shall you have
your full revenge."

Norman rose and took the delicate hand, and shook hands with a smile. "I
cannot help it," he said. "I do not care if you want to make me your
jest again, or if you want to kill me, but I am yours to command. I can
even forgive you. But as for your plan it is plainly impossible."

"I think I do not care if it is, so long as I have your friendship,"
said Arnolfo, with strange warmth. "However, I admit there are many
difficulties and many dangers in our plot, but what are those that
strike you specially?"

"Do I look like an Alsandrian, first of all! Or must I be made up to
look like one?"

"Heavens, we will not stoop to disguise. Besides, I have a touch of the
artist, sir, in my composition, and never would I have your features
altered, your colour changed, or a hair of your head displaced. In any
case, the Royal Family were always fair. Kradenda was a Viking.
Remember, also, you have only to deceive the ignorant mob. All the
intelligent men of Alsander are in the plot."

"But I have been here for weeks!" objected Norman. "Every one knows me
as the mad Englishman."

"You have been playing Haroun Al Rashid, and spending the first days of
your return to Alsander spying out the land. It is a very pretty story,
and will greatly enhance your popularity. Besides, the Old Poet
instructed you to weave a mystery round your movements, and I learn from
a sure source that you obeyed him."

"Then all this they tell me," gasped Norman, "that the King was sent
abroad to be cured was got up on purpose for the plot?"

"Of course, and the announcement that his return and his cure are
expected. Not a detail has been forgotten by Sforelli. There were guards
at the palace, a closed carriage, a special train."

"And the Consul?" gasped Norman.

"The Consul is an agent of the British Government, and the British
Government, tired of wanting a strong Turkey, happens at this moment to
want a strong Alsander."

"And Vorza?"

"Vorza is a fool," said the young man, but with less conviction than
usual.

"And the King himself. What shall we do with him?" pursued Norman.

"What of him? One of the guards knows of a little tap invented by the
Japanese, as simple as the Jiu-jitsu trick with which I felled you in
the shop the other day. The King really is the last person to be
considered."

"But, really, if you want me to have anything to do with it," cried
Norman, in horror, "I cannot touch murder."

"Not murder, but removal. What use is the poor devil's life to him or to
the world?" So saying, Arnolfo sat down in the armchair facing his
interlocutor and eyed him with interest.

"I am not an Alsandrian. In England we view these things differently,"
said Norman, pompously, shocked that his gentle companion should be
capable of designing such an atrocious outrage. But Arnolfo answered
unperturbed:

"In England I believe on one occasion you gave a King a mock trial and
then beheaded him under circumstances of inconceivable barbarity. Ah!
you're an Englishman, and mad like all of them, as mad as Andrea. Come,
I love argument; let's have it out. One life, one rotten, miserable life
to buy the happiness of a country, and you won't spend it. You call it
principle. When you go to war, what do you care for life? You are not
religious in the matter. It's just that fetish you call law. I did not
ask you to kill the imbecile yourself; it will be done quietly."

"I will have nothing to do with any filthy, cold-blooded murder. It
isn't fetish: it's simply because I won't."

"And if we deal with you instead of with him?"

"Try. I do not like your cynicism."

"I am sorry. But it is unreason on your part, or else sheer cowardice.
By what code of ethics in the world do you justify yourself? You are
just frightened to do something that would make your conscience
uncomfortable. On what do you base your morality?"

"On feeling."

"Would your feelings let you kill a man who was just going to kill some
one else?"

"Certainly."

"Then why not a man whose existence does harm to others?"

"Others might think my existence did harm to them."

"But a life that is worthless to itself?"

"May not the poor fool's life be happier than yours or mine?" said
Norman, who was always fond of abstract argument and apt to grow
eloquent in the realm of ideas. "He lives with his ideal. His cobwebbed,
cracked-plaster room is for him a most elegant palace; he sees the
phantom courtiers all day long; they bring him presents of fruits and
flowers and spices and gold. He is for himself the great Emperor of the
World, for all we know."

"Then you will not justify a political assassination?"

"No. It's not so easy as you think, nor are my reasons so trumpery,
Arnolfo--for you're as shallow as you are clever. Murder cuts at the
source of all society--which war, which is organized killing, does not.
Unorganized killing means death not to one man here or there but to
society. That is why we English, who think society a good thing, hate
murder. Let it loose, unpunished, and if but twenty people are killed
the law unheeding, it's worse for society than if twenty thousand
perish in war or plague. I will not touch it."

"Your reasoning is powerful, Norman, but it's not your reason that
influences your action. Your act is, as you said before, in accordance
with your feelings. I might combat your reason, but I cannot change your
convictions. What can we do?"

"Well, it's not so terribly urgent to get rid of him."

"What can possibly be done with him?"

"Why, send him to a lunatic asylum, of course."

"What a ghastly piece of perverted common sense. O, you Englishmen; you
have never realized that the French Revolution has occurred. You are
still a hundred years behind the Continent. But I am Alsandrian, my
friend, I am Southern; I have all the Southern weakness."

"And some of the Southern charm," added Norman. Though he had recovered
under the stress of the ethical argument from the hypnotic fascination
to which he had succumbed, he began to be not so sure that he did not
like this strange and gracious person.

"But none of the Southern faithlessness," Arnolfo rejoined. "Trust me,
Norman. Trust me and I will be faithful to you to death. I--we all of
us need you so desperately. This about the murder was only nonsense--to
hear what you had to say, though I'm afraid the good Sforelli suggested
it in earnest. There is good work, man's work, an Englishman's work to
be done here. Once the fantastic stuff--the mummery--is over, you may
achieve true greatness."

"I shall become a thief," said Norman. "Do you want to argue that?"

"You are right to remember it. That repugnance you must sacrifice: you
are going to seize an all but worthless property and make it fine land
for corn and olive."

"Yet what I said of murder applies to theft: I am helping to cut at the
basis of society."

"But to found a new one. Come, in this objection you will not persist.
You have not the same emotion, you do not really mind."

"Or, rather, you wake in me such emotions--such schoolboy
emotions--that I cannot control them. It's a game--but it's worth
playing. I don't care what awaits me--discovery-disaster--death! I don't
care if you're fooling me. I follow you, Arnolfo. What are your orders?"

"Continue to play the part the Poet assigned to you, that is all. Hint
of the mystery. I will prepare the rest as quickly as I can. About the
King, I will arrange something to please you. And now, good-bye."

Norman held out his hand, but Arnolfo, under the stress of subdued
emotion, laid his hands on Norman's shoulders and kissed him.

"A Southern way," he said, half laughing, half ashamed. "One more thing,
remember, I had almost forgotten," he added, as he opened the door for
Norman. "That is, beware of women."




CHAPTER XI

A VISIT TO VORZA


"Norman, you must be awfully rich."

So the guileless Peronella to him on his return, breathlessly emerging
from the room to greet him.

"Have you only just found that out?" said Norman, assuming the slight
modest smile of a man who has been hiding his infinite superiority.

"Yes. Why, of course, the buckle you gave me was very beautiful, but I
had no idea.... I put it on this morning and went for a walk in it, and
all the jewellers came running out of their shops to praise it and ask
about it and offered thousands of francs for it. And, O Norman, I
wouldn't sell your buckle for anything, but if you would get me one of
those lovely big hats the Frenchwoman sells in the High Street, just to
go with it."

"You are much finer as you are, my lass, with a kerchief round your
head."

"Oh, but do, Norman, dear! It seems that buckle of yours is worth enough
to buy a new hat for every girl in Alsander."

Norman was about to surrender when he suddenly remembered he had rather
less than a napoleon left in the world. "Well, I am in a foolish fix,"
thought he. "If I don't follow up the buckle, I shall be accused of
having stolen it." (He surmised correctly; Alsandrian cunning was
already suspicious of him.) "And my clothes are dreadful: a millionaire
or Prince, even in disguise, would not wear shiny blue trousers: a
Prince in rags is all right, but not a Prince in bags. I wish I had
given a hint to that marvellous Arnolfo, but somehow I expected him to
know everything without being told. And perhaps it was all a dream and
he a phantom."

So he shut himself up in his room for the rest of the day.

"I have important letters to write," he said, impassively. "You must be
content with the buckle, Peronella. Wait a little while, and I'll dress
you in gold from head to foot."

He retired, not to write, but to think and meditate. He had supper in
his room, and for the first time in his life disliked cabbages. Then he
went to bed. As he was falling asleep he wondered whether he had not
been raving in his mind for the last few days: whether he was not being
fooled: whether he would succeed, what he would do when a King. There
was plenty to do: the town was very dirty. An ecstatic vision of having
all the drains up flitted across his mind. Succeeded a vision of fine
mountain roads with cunning wriggles, and the royal motor car sliding
up them. Then the vision of a Court ball with more-than-Oriental
splendour. Then the perplexing vision of a little fool of a girl, damned
pleasant to see and touch, crying her stupid heart out.

However, he slept. He was awakened by a scrubby postman, who handed him
a registered letter. Norman opened it hastily, and was delighted to find
that it contained English banknotes for a hundred pounds--delighted but
not surprised, for Arnolfo had by now deadened his sense of wonder. He
gave the postman twopence, and had breakfast in bed on the strength of
his opulence. Indeed he rose so late that at the bank to which he
directed his footsteps a five-pound note was changed only with the
greatest reluctance, five minutes before noon, the Alsandrian closing
time. However, after a lot of little sums had been worked out by a lot
of little desks and after the five-pound note had been bitten, crackled
and held up to the light, and after Norman had executed a lot of
complicated moves and marked time strenuously in front of grilled
windows and "caisses" (all Continental banks seem to work on the
supposition that you have come there to pass a forgery or rob the till),
he was released with a large number of silver coins bulging in his
trouser pockets.

He stood for a moment on the threshold blinking at the sun, his
contentment tempered by annoyance at the reflection that all the shops
were closed and would not be opened again for another three hours, so
that he could not buy so much as a pocket handkerchief for his personal
adornment, when he heard a whirring clangorousness, and there appeared a
motor car crawling and puffing along the ruinous cobbles, followed by a
little crowd of admirers, for a motor was as strange in Alsander as an
aeroplane (shall I add "a year ago"?) above Upper Tooting. Norman would
have known that the car was a London taxi had he ever been to London.
The driver, smartly uniformed, stopped opposite him, and Arnolfo dressed
in his invariable silk and gold stepped out, and bowed to Norman with a
very ostensible deference. "I hope, Sir," he said suavely, "you will do
me the honour of stepping into my car and coming to lunch with me at a
little place I know of?"

"Why, how did you find me here?" cried Norman. "You are as bewildering
as the Cheshire cat."

"It's not hard to find a suspicious fellow like you in a gossipy town
like Alsander!" laughed Arnolfo. "Some other day, moreover, you shall
tell me who the Cheshire cat was; but jump in now; we have no time to
lose."

"I ought to hesitate," said Norman, but he stepped in at once.

"We are going to continue playacting on the lines laid down by the
Poet," said Arnolfo, as soon as they were ensconced in the car and being
jolted softly and slowly over the atrocious roads. "But you must forsake
the proletariat for the aristocracy, and therefore I am going to take
you round the town after lunch and dress you up like a Jew on a
racecourse. For your story is to be that you are a rich English nobleman
(any eccentricity will be swallowed in Alsander if you say you are a
rich English nobleman), but that you find that you have Alsandrian blood
on your mother's side from the fifteenth century. You see, the story you
must tell at present should be a suspicious and extraordinary one, as
you are soon going to disavow it when you proclaim yourself King:
nevertheless it ought not to be so foolish as to be instantly found
out."

Arnolfo continued to explain in great detail, as the car bumped gently
on, the exact coat of arms, the exact relationship, the name of the
Alsandrian family (a cadet of which had actually disappeared in England
in the wars) and various other minute details.

When the car stopped they descended, and entered a curious and neat
restaurant of which they seemed to be the only habitues, for it had only
one table: there they had an excellent meal. Norman would have sworn it
was a private house had not Arnolfo paid the bill and tipped the waiter.
He would have sworn correctly, for it was. They then drove to a tailor,
a haberdasher, a shoemaker, a hatter, at all of which places Arnolfo
took the shopman aside and whispered that the order was for a very
distinguished English nobleman, and should be executed without delay.
Sometimes he would also let drop as a confidential favour that the
nobleman "havas sango Alsandra en la venai," or that "Milord had come to
dwell in the country of his ancestors." The Grand Tour Englishman of
fabulous wealth and high distinction remained traditional in Alsander,
since the Polytechnic Englishman, neither wealthy, nor distinguished,
nor fabulous, had not yet arrived; and an Englishman with Alsandrian
blood was a prize for the avaricious.

Norman was ostentatiously deposited at his garden door by the car, and
for the rest of the day refused to answer any questions, and remained
suggestive, impressive, mysterious and aloof, to the great discomposure
of the Widow Prasko and her daughter. Cesano came in (I think by the
widow's invitation, who hoped to inflame the obviously cooling
Englishman with jealousy), but Norman offered no remonstrance to his
taking Peronella for a walk. (Not that Cesano had much joy of the
moonlight: the girl was moody and returned I to cry herself to sleep
within the hour.) Our hero then had to fly before the onset of the
widow, who told him--so closely does Alsandrian correspond to English
idiom--that he owed it to her, positively owed it to her, to reveal his
identity and regularize his position.

"Give me a week," said Norman, shuffling away from her and feeling more
like a grocer and less like a King every instant.

As he undressed before the tarnished mirror the marks of the whip, which
still stood clear across his back, seemed to rebuke his conceit; his
dreams, too, were more humble; he dreamt he was married to the Widow
Prasko and kept a boarding-house at Margate.

The next morning a messenger, who looked preposterously discreet,
brought a letter from Arnolfo, making an appointment at the British
Consulate, and certain ready-made clothes which, as a temporary measure,
had been skilfully and swiftly adapted to his form.

Norman at the hour of his appointment found himself once more ensconced
in the great armchair in the Consul's black-papered study, listening to
Arnolfo. The Consul was not present.

"We have a difficult and dreary task on hand to-day," Arnolfo began. "I
am going to take you to visit all the important people of Alsander. We
will take Sforelli with us in order to make our movements look
suspicious on recapitulation. It will be much more natural for you to
become King if you have already obviously moved in aristocratic circles.
Your few weeks among the people will be readily credited provided that
it is known that you came afterwards to visit the upper classes as well.
Some of those whom we shall visit are in the secret: but we have not
entrusted the secret to their wives. Some of them may be clever enough
to guess that you really are the King; indeed, we are going to spread a
few hints to that effect: it will pave the way for future demands on the
credulity of Alsander. Of course (as I have already hinted) the presence
of the Doctor as your companion will be looked upon as remarkable and
invite the sort of comment we desire.

"Remember, Norman, to be most distinguished--and at times a little
strange. You are, so to speak, paying official visits incognito. And the
last visit we shall pay will be to Count Vorza. O beware of that man: he
is a fool as I said before--but he is a clever fool. Come, let us be
going!"

"But surely," exclaimed Norman with a glance at Arnolfo's magnificent
attire, flashing at the side of his dark frockcoat, "you cannot call on
the best people in that costume!"

"Can I not!" replied Arnolfo as they descended the interminable stairs.
"There is a tradition in Alsander which it is at once unusual,
distinguished and meritorious to preserve, that the Alsandrian national
costume lis sufficient and full dress for any Alsandrian or any
occasion."

Sforelli was waiting for them in the car, and they went motoring round
together to the Papal Legate, the bank manager, nobles, consuls--there
was not even a minister in Alsander--and so forth. Norman, chiefly by
preserving as far as possible a discreet silence, did well, and was
complimented by Arnolfo.

"The ladies thought you most distinguished, my friend," he said. "But
you have now the harder task I told you of. There is the gate of Vorza's
city mansion. Once more, beware! What men say of the old man is true.
The aged reactionary is as polite as an Italian and as cunning, as
treacherous and as wicked as Abdul Hamid the Turk. So be careful."

It was a needful warning. The old man, very picturesque in his velvet
skull cap, received them with great cordiality, and having expressed his
great friendship for all Englishmen and referred half-a-dozen to a dozen
times to the fact that he had been to London for three days in his
youth, contrived that his wife, a colourless person, should take away
Arnolfo and Sforelli to a recess and show them photographs. He thereby
had a chance of seeing Norman alone, and extracting as much information
from him as possible without the intervention of his companions.

"I am always so delighted to meet an Englishman," began the old
minister, as soon as they were both ensconced in comfortable chairs,
"especially as I have been to London myself. It is true I was there only
for a short time, and that many years ago--you see I am old--but I have
a vivid memory of it all. I remember the policemen--marvellous! But we
see very few Englishmen here. May I ask how you came here, or was it
just that curiosity of Englishmen that always drives them round the
world? But you speak Alsandrian and between us I have even heard that
you have a touch of the Alsandrian in you?"

"It is the attraction of my blood that brought me here, undoubtedly. I
have a great interest in my ancestry."

"But you are obviously all English. You cannot have much Alsandrian
blood. Tell me of what family you are. Between us--I know all the
families in Alsander."

Norman endured the most searching scrutiny with regard to his ancestry.
He made hardly a mistake. There was little that Vorza did not know about
the old families of Alsander.

"Really," he said, genially, "your visit is as interesting as it is
delightful. The visit of an English nobleman to Alsander is not an
everyday occurrence. Your visit to the common people and interest in
their daily life--that was most characteristically English of you. Yes,
your visit, sir, is a great surprise and it coincides with another
surprise for us Alsandrians. You know events are rare here, but this
will be a great one."

"You mean the cure of the King?"

"Yes. I don't believe it. Sforelli, you know one of those Jews, between
us--just a little bit too clever! Wonderful how he picked you up: I
should drop him if I were you, by the way. And I had always heard that
his poor Majesty was quite, quite mad. I never went to see. I dislike
madmen as much as Jews. Arnolfo should not have introduced you to
Sforelli, but the boy is so kind to every one! And I'm sure the King
cannot be quite recovered--there will be something a little wrong. And a
relapse--what a tragedy! Of course, I shall be delighted. I am an old
man, and (between us) tired of ruling a thankless country. It would have
been too long to wait for the Princess to grow up: now she'll be out of
it, poor girl!"

"Which Princess?" interjaculated Norman, innocently.

"Don't you know? His Majesty's cousin, the heir to the throne. She lives
with her mother's family far away in Ulmreich. They say she is mad
also, and there is no holding her. Old blood, old blood! She was to have
come here this year to be introduced to Alsander, but the idea fell
through till the possibility of the King's cure had been established one
way or another. I have not seen her since she was a girl. She is under
the guardianship of the father of that charming young man, your friend
Arnolfo. I am sorry I shall not be able to see her again."

"Bring her here and marry her to her cousin," said Norman.

He was quite detached at the time from all thought of his plot.

"A very good idea. But I don't know," replied the old man. "Between us,
two mad people! Would it be good for the future of Alsander?"

"You are fond of the country?" inquired Norman.

"Passionately. I love its beauty. Between us, I want it just to remain
as it is--a lovely and peaceable place, untouched by the world."

"You don't believe in progress?"

"Not for Alsander. They want me to repair the roads. Never, said I.
Saving your friend's presence, I hate automobiles. They would soon be
roaring all over the country and spoiling it absolutely. Our roads were
made for carts and mules: and the people are quite happy with them. Your
friend has one: just as a curiosity, it doesn't matter. Your friend,"
he added in a low voice, "was an infant when I last saw him before his
return to Alsander. I knew his father years ago. A delightful man, but
of advanced views. Now, Monsieur Arnolfo has no views at all, but almost
anything can be forgiven him for keeping up the old traditions of the
national costume, and he's a great acquisition to our little society.
Between us, have you known him long?"

"I? No. I should very much like to know more of him. I brought a letter
of introduction to him from a relative in England, who had met him and
his father in Ulmreich. As you said, he is charming: there is no other
word."

"Is he not? Charming: of course restless, but not like his father, who
couldn't live in Alsander because it was what he called reactionary. Oh,
if his father, old Arnolfo, got a chance, he'd run a funicular up the
mountains and build a casino on the beach."

"Well, there's something to be said for being awake and something to be
said for modernity," observed Norman.

"True, sir, but (between us)," said Vorza, with a more confidential tone
than ever, "I have been, I admit, only a very short time in England,
three days, in fact; and I am a bit of a judge, perhaps, in matters of
taste--and I didn't see anything in London, among your latest
buildings, at all events, that quite comes up to our Cathedral or our
Castle."

"But your Cathedral and Castle weren't built by a people fast asleep,
but by a people who had just awakened. If Kradenda had lived to-day he
would have established an aeroplane service across the mountains.

"Well, well, and would we be happier for that? Ah, you're young and
you're English, and I wouldn't think much of you if you weren't for all
things new. At your age I was the devil! I may be more foolish now, but
we old men want to think we have grown wise."

"You want to sift the question, Excellency; but that's a long, long
matter. Perhaps happiness is not the best thing in the world. But here
is Arnolfo."

And they took their leave.

"Curses!" said Vorza to himself, as he watched their departure from the
window. "Ten million curses. Is this a surprise return? Is it the King?
It's about the age. But he looks too British, too British altogether.
But, then, so did his grandfather. There's not much madness in his eyes
or talk. It cannot be. He might be cured, but he could not be
intelligent. And that physique--it's impossible. But there's something
up. Why did I trust Sforelli? In the old days I would have burnt him,
gaberdine and all! Curses on him, at all events, and on me! How am I to
know whether he is the King or no? If it's a plot--it may succeed--it
is so simple. Perbacco! how simple it is! Well, we shall see!"




CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH THE BEETLES CRAWL

     But solid beetles crawled about
     The chilly hearth and naked floor.

                   _James Thompson, author of the "City of Dreadful
                    Night," popularly ascribed to Mr Kipling._


All preparations for this most surprising conspiracy were to be ready,
so Arnolfo gave Norman to understand, on the following afternoon, and
Norman, doubting his senses and still doubting the seriousness of
Arnolfo, rose early and came to the appointed place, which was again the
British Consulate, before the appointed time. After a few minutes there
came to greet him, not Arnolfo, but Sforelli, a gentleman who would have
looked heroic in a burnoose beside the ruins of Palmyra, but seemed
merely intellectual and rather repulsive in a morning coat. He handed
Norman a letter sealed with what Norman knew to be Arnolfo's seal. It
ran as follows:

"DEAR NORMAN,--

"Everything is going well. Please put yourself entirely in the hands of
Dr Sforelli, the bearer of this, who has full instructions from the
Society. I am so busy, I may not see you again till you are crowned.

"ARNOLFO."

Norman, looking at the Palestinian profile before him, felt that the
spring had left the year. The gay youth, with his wit and plots and
disguises, would make anyone believe or even do anything. While this
worthy? The transition from Greece eastwards was overpowering.

Yet one could see this swarthy, powerful person was to be trusted, more
to be trusted than Arnolfo. Norman burst into a flood of practical
questions.

"We shall just walk there," came the answer to Norman's first batch of
inquiries. "I often go to the palace, as I live quite near, in the
square: I have a dissecting room there: my wife objects to having
corpses in the house."

"Dissecting? In Alsander?"

"Yes," replied the doctor, in hollow tones. "It was expensive getting
corpses in pickle from Paris. So I advertised in the _Centjaro,_ the
little local paper you may have seen, the one that hints so broadly that
the King of Alsander is already in the town incognito."

"But with success? Surely, in such a religious country...."

"There was money offered," continued Sforelli, dryly. "My door was
besieged. I am not sure I was not responsible for murder, even for
parricide. Some of those whose near relations were rejected went away in
tears."

"Well, Doctor Sforelli, to the point. This mad central idea you are sure
of--that no one has seen the King; but what about the guards?"

"The guards are with us."

"But why should they be with us?"

"They are sensible men, for one thing. They are very old servants of
Arnolfo's, for another."

"Then Vorza?"

"He has never seen the King, you know that already."

"And the other notables?"

"All the members of the Town Council, which is the progressive element
in Alsander, are with us. For all that, none of them have seen Andrea."

"But has there been no ceremony? For instance, was Andrea never
crowned?"

"Yes, but with little pomp. There was only the Bishop there and myself.
He was crowned in the empty room."

"And the Bishop?"

"Is fortunately dead. No one lives but myself who saw that mock
coronation and a small acolyte who is now one of the most able young men
of our party. The people were kept outside, but I remember they
applauded, none the less. But the only person who was really impressed
was the King himself. It meant a great deal to him, that shabby
ceremonial!"

"What has given the King that antique form of speech?" pursued Norman.

"Before his mind left him, he had as a boy read one book--that of
Makso."

"A! a great book!" cried Norman. "There is real fire in his tales of
chivalry."

"And poetry, too," added Sforelli, "of no inconsiderable merit. Well,
you know how the greatness of Kradenda is ever being sung therein. And
ever since the boy, as he has heard but little human speech about him,
has had faint echoes of the immortal language of Makso trickling through
his brain."

"One hardly realized he was so young," said Norman, with a sudden pity.

"He is your age," replied Sforelli.

"Is there no hope of cure?"

"None," said the doctor, decisively. "None--on my professional honour.
His delusions come from mental weakness, not from aberration. I might
cure a man who had wandered from the road of reason, but not one who has
never taken it."

So saying they started for the palace, on foot as Sforelli advised, to
attract less attention.

"You are still determined not to have Andrea killed?" inquired Sforelli.

"That I prohibit absolutely," said Norman, speaking with authority for
the first time.

Sforelli bowed with some irony.

"Fortunately," he said, "there is a small asylum outside the town under
my supervision."

"How are we to get him there?" pursued Norman.

"I think of drugging him, and then driving him there myself to-night. It
will not be difficult."

"I have your word, you intend to do this, and to do no more than drug
him?"

"Although I consider that this humanitarian project of yours is fraught
with great danger to our plans, you may trust me," said Sforelli,
quietly, and Norman believed the man could be trusted for all his
antipathetic ugliness. He inquired:

"And what am I to do while you do this?"

"I am afraid the safest plan will be for you to stay alone in the castle
overnight pending my return. It may be rather disagreeable and lonely
for you, especially as you may naturally feel nervous on the eve of our
great coup, but I see nothing else for it. I must take the King to the
asylum myself. It is not safe that any of our friends should either take
charge of the madman or bear you company in the castle, for obvious
reasons. I cannot be back much before dawn. When I return I shall send
an official note to Vorza and explain, by your royal request, that the
young 'English nobleman' who visited him the other day is none other
than the cured Bang of Alsander. I shall add that you have returned to
the Palace and desire to have the news kept secret for the present
except from him and a few other notables. I shall further explain that
you desired to remain a few days incognito in Alsander from a natural
desire of seeing things as they are.

"You will send, written in your own hand, at the same time a command to
your well beloved and trusted servant Count Vorza to appear at such an
hour, and similar intimations (though not in your Royal hand), together
with injunctions to secrecy, will be sent to other notables of Alsander.
This letter will be sealed by you with the Royal seal of Alsander, which
is in my possession.

"When the time comes you will have to play your part with the utmost
care and even if you recognize some of the visitors as being members of
the society and fellow conspirators, do not cease acting for a moment. I
will tell you the story to which you must hold and to which you must, so
to speak, mentally refer when in difficulty. I will tell it you
to-morrow morning, when I return, in the palace, in great detail, so
that your memory will be fresh for the day. But for the present, so as
to get your mind accustomed to it, note that its outline is roughly
this: You have been cured in England, mind you, and your mind is almost
a blank for everything before that, save that you have vague
reminiscences of Makso's poems, and a father and a mother. You had an
operation--trepanning. And so forth."

"But it's too unconvincing scientifically. Scientists are sure to arrive
and ask questions."

"Scientifically it will be as correct as a story by your own Mr Wells,
when I have given you all the details. And I will answer the scientists
myself. Above all, avoid being too explanatory. Nothing causes suspicion
to arise so much as the volunteering of convincing information."

Thus conversing they arrived at the palace gate. It was already dark and
not a soul stirred in the palace square. Two guards saluted them at the
doorway. Norman recognized one with a shudder and one with surprise. One
was the flagellator, the other the overworked clerk from the British
Consulate. Two further guards, rising from their seats on the inner side
of the gate, followed them in silence across the moonlit garden. The
jasmine was fragrant. The doctor opened a little door. Norman passed
once again into the curious corridor, and thence into the throne-room.
It was lit by many candles, and was very hot. Everything was there as on
his last visit--plaster cupids, broken divans, singeries, the old chair
of Kradenda, and the madman looking as unreal as his surroundings--a
part of the fantastic picture--glimmering in the dim light. The King,
however, though still robed in ermine and cloth of gold, was without his
crown, and there was one further change. Everything, except the King,
had been washed. Even by the faint illumination this was perceptible.
The candelabra shone, the fat thighs of the plaster cherubs were as
white as life; even the remote and secret windows let through an
undimmed sun.

The King startled the silence. "Ho, thou leech," he cried, "where is my
crown?"

"It is being repaired," said Sforelli, with a bow. "I have brought you
back Sir Norman as I promised."

"You have been long absent, sir, though your King was in need of you.
What have you achieved all these long days?"

"Sire," said Norman, "I have slain three dragons, a red, a yellow and a
green: and all with horns upon their tails."

"But my dragon," said the King, impressively, "you have not slain. And
to-night I must meet my Queen."

"Thy Queen, Sire?" said Sforelli, in evident surprise.

"Even so."

"That will be impossible unless the enchanter is slain."

"Then he must be slain at once," said the King, with resolution.

"Exactly, and that is why I have brought this good Knight. But your
Majesty must drink a draught to protect you against enchantment."

"This last time I will obey you to obtain deliverance. I am sick of your
potions. But beware; if he is not slain in time for the arrival of that
paragon of the world, my Queen, I will--I will--" (the King frowned and
hesitated to find words terrible enough) "--I will cut off all your toes
and thread them in a necklace and hang them round your neck," he said in
triumph.

"Bring the cup," said Sforelli to one of the guards, who immediately
produced a rose-coloured liquid in a tumbler, which he handed to the
King off a salver with some; ceremony. The King immediately drank it:
the four men waited in silence as a happy smile began to play over the
Royal features and he sank quietly asleep. The two guards then stripped
him of his state robes and muffled him up in a great coat, and,
followed by the doctor and Norman, took him out to the castle gate,
where a closed carriage was waiting, and placed him inside. The doctor
turned to Norman.

"I wonder what that was about his Queen? It's quite a new delusion and
startled me."

"Some stir of Spring in him, perhaps," said Norman.

"Well, it's of little matter. We'll find out at the asylum. He will be
better off there than here in many ways. It's cleaner, and he will have
more fresh air. He is an interesting subject. Now, my unfortunate
friend, as we arranged, you must wait in this place, I am afraid, till I
return, which will not not be till near on dawn, for there is still much
to do. As I said, I am afraid you will be lonely. I think you had better
not show yourself out of this wing of the castle, and the guards cannot
keep you company as they must stay at the gate. However, you will find a
library, rather technical, perhaps, in my dissecting room. A couch has
been prepared there, too, and I have not forgotten tobacco. No,"
continued the doctor, in response to a nervous look in Norman's face,
"there is nothing there but books and implements," and the doctor with
this assurance drove off with his capture.

On the way the lunatic began to recover from the effects of the drug.
He sat in the carriage, now opening and now shutting an eye, and once
mumbling some words about his Queen. Finally he went to sleep again. The
doctor had but little parley at the diminutive asylum, a doll's house of
a construction which he had built, and now managed. He ran it, indeed,
at considerable profit, for the paying patients, offshoots of the noble
families, considerably outnumbered such pauper inmates as he admitted
free. He explained to the trusty guardian the deplorable delusions of
the patient, and ordered certain comforts to be given him.

"You might also get him shaved," he added.

The guardian, who was a conspirator also, thoroughly understood the
whole business. And there we can leave the doctor and return to Norman,
who by no means enjoyed the situation. He did not find the books in the
dissecting room of much interest. He was wandering in the throne-room,
which looked more ghastly than ever, now the guards had extinguished the
candles, in the flickering shadow of the lamp he carried, when he found
several scraps of paper on the throne itself. They were covered with
intricate designs and meaningless arabesques. There was a wing, there a
face, there a foot, there an emblem--all incoherent and messed round
with wild scratches. The bits of paper had so fearsome a fascination
that it was almost a relief to Norman to go back to the dissecting room
and sit down and try to read a treatise on skin diseases. But long
before he had mastered the difficult subject Norman was on foot again,
restless and troubled. The window was barred--Andrea had slept here
sometimes. The night was close.

He sighed for the young strong arms that might have been round his neck.
The conspiracy seemed already to be enclosing him in an impenetrable
net. As immeasurable time wore on the fishy eyes of Andrea haunted him.

He would not sleep inside the bed, a sorry and comfortless pallet which
might have been the madman's.

He lay down on it, dressed as he was, flinging off only his collar.
Sleep would not come, save for fitful visions. Rising again, he saw his
face pallid in the looking-glass by the fight of the dingy candle, which
flickered in a gorgeous stand of beaten copper. He blew the candle out
hurriedly, then groped for matches, and lit it again, and flung himself
once more on to the couch.

A fitful slumber was descending over him, prelude to sweet sleep, when
he heard footsteps, with a tapping noise and the sound of voices. One
voice was a man's: there were two other voices, of women. Norman leapt
from the bed, alert, and listened hard.

"He won't hurt you, Drakina," said one voice. "He's kissed me many a
time, and I don't know what he might not have done if Makzelo had not
been there."

A confused giggle was all the reply Norman could hear.

"Where is he, Malsprita?" said another girl's voice.

"Hullo," said the voice of the man, apparently called Makzelo. "He seems
to have gone away. The room's empty, that's strange."

"Perhaps he's gone to bed," said a girl.

"He can't have; he never goes to bed as early as this. We have played
with him night after night. He loves it, doesn't he, Malsprita?"

"When I do it."

More giggles. Then the voice of Drakina was heard, saying she was
frightened.

"Andrea!" cried Makzelo.

They all shouted; there was no reply.

"Let's go and look for him in the corridors. How strange! he was
dreadfully excited about his Queen. He mustn't be disappointed."

"I'm frightened," said Drakina. "I don't want to be his Queen."

"You who wanted so to be in a real King's arms. What a little coward you
are!"

"But the corridors are so dark. Is he very dreadful to look at,
Malsprita?"

"He is not so ugly as you, club-foot! Nothing like."

There was a shuffling and tapping into the corridors.

Norman listened with wonder and disgust. Not quite realizing the meaning
of the conversation, he had nevertheless understood enough to feel like
a prisoner whose cell is full of rats. What nameless revels had these
beings held? The nocturnal visits of these creatures were evidently
unknown to Dr Sforelli. Here were three people who knew the Bang by
sight: if this unexpected difficulty were not disposed of, the whole
plot was ruined. At all events time must be gained: they must not be led
to imagine the King already gone. What should he do? He had a second to
deliberate while they went into the throne-room: but had made no plan
when he heard them outside his door.

"Then he must be in his bedroom," said the man, and went over to open
the door.

"Why, it's locked."

"Perhaps the doctor did it," said the club-foot girl.

"Let's burst it in!"

"I daren't disobey the doctor," said the man.

"That doctor's a devil. Why must he pretend the King's away?"

"For God's sake don't tell a soul."

"Andrea! Your Queen!"

"He must be sound asleep, or drugged," said a woman.

"Let's go and look in through the window," said the voice which Norman
had by now identified as that of Malsprita.

"We might get a look at him, at all events. Always my luck; just the
night I came."

"Well, we'll do that for you," said the man, pompously. He led them
round outside. The club-foot girl continued moaning, "I was born crooked
and ugly and crooked and ugly I shall die, and I might have been happy
just once." And still complaining she passed out of earshot with the
rest. Norman covered his head with a sheet, and crouched beneath the
window, waiting. He heard the shuffle and tap coming along the gravel
outside.

"Why, the bar's out," said the club-foot girl, and she poked her hideous
head right through the window. It was a face neither of man nor woman,
nor yet of utter evil, but rather of incarnate brutishness. It had no
features but a mouth; it was a flat and fleshy face. In frenzy, Norman
rose, emitting a falsetto shriek extremely piercing and horrible by
which he frightened even himself, and dealt a terrific blow at the head
with the great candlestick. By a surprisingly swift move the woman, if
woman it was, avoided the bar, receiving the blow on her arm: she
uttered a piercing shriek more ghastly still, and the three intruders
rushed away into darkness. Losing for the first time in his life all his
self-control, Norman kept on shouting and at the same time banged the
candlestick against a tin basin, producing a desolating boom. Then he
became quiet, relit the candle, and with a book in his hand, which he
hardly read, now dozing, now awakening with a start if a leaf rustled or
a mouse ran over the floor, stayed in his chair till he could endure it
no longer and fled out into the open air.

The doctor on his return as he came with one of the guards through the
entrance gate discovered Norman in the grey of dawn pacing the ruined
garden and shivering with cold. He was much troubled when he heard the
story. "I have been vilely negligent, and I ought to be ashamed of
myself for forgetting the fellow," he said. "He was a sort of nurse to
Andrea. I thought him too stupid and too frightened of me to do harm,
and as he is not supposed to come here at night I had postponed dealing
with him till to-day." And turning to the guard at his side, he bade him
arrest the three persons concerned and keep them in close custody in the
old keep. "Forget all that unpleasantness now, Sir," he continued, "and
I beg of you to attend to more serious topics. The letters addressing an
invitation to the notable people in the town to come and felicitate you
on your cure are now ready and waiting for you to sign them. The said
notables should be here this afternoon. You will receive them here in
military uniform."

"And what shall I say to them? You have only told me the story of
myself. How shall I greet them?"

"That, Sir, is for you to decide. We rely on you: you must rely on
yourself."




CHAPTER XIII

RE-CORONATION

       The world was made for Kings:
     To him who works and working sings
     Come joy and majesty and power
     And steadfast love with royal wings!


The preliminary interview with the notables succeeded beyond
expectation. No sign of doubt was displayed anywhere, and the happy
suggestion was made that a re-coronation should take place a few days
later, to coincide with the great Midsummer feast of San Adovani.

Vorza, who had rolled up to the meeting in his superb state coach, was
extremely deferential. Norman detained him after for a private
interview, ostentatiously dismissing even Sforelli.

"Alas!" said the King to him, "that so many years of helplessness have
prevented me from a due appreciation of your untiring energies in the
service of this realm. Be not afraid that I shall ever forget the old
noble houses of Alsander. In you I know I can put my trust, and I will
begin this auspicious day by honouring a tried and faithful servant of
my family and the nation."

This said, Norman clapped his hands, and an attendant entered carrying
on a cushion a collar set with pearls.

"Here are the insignia of the office of Lord Chamberlain," continued the
King, "which I found in an old safe, tarnished with age and disuse. This
I put round your neck and make you master of my household. I pray you
now to arrange the procession. I have made Doctor Sforelli my secretary:
consult with him if you will: he knows all the details. For the
present," continued the King, confidentially, "I have need of Sforelli's
services. For the present," he added in a low voice, with much
insinuation.

Vorza left the presence somewhat mollified but still suspicious.

After this preliminary interview, following Sforelli's advice, Norman
did not show himself abroad till the day of his re-coronation: and heard
like a man imprisoned vague rumours of the stir outside. On the night of
anticipation the young King--for so he shall be styled in future--slept
little, and rising in the first grey of dawn he muffled himself in a
coat and stepped out unseen upon a lofty balcony to look out upon the
waiting crowd. Down there, in the cold misty break of a day that
promised a relentless noontide sun, upturned faces were appealing
stupidly for information to the granite castle walls. Weary men began
to yawn and shuffle, and shifted the drowsy girls that slept upon their
knees. Some were dozing on stools; others, seated on parapets, leant
back uncomfortably against the rusty lamp-posts; others lay carelessly
upon the pavement or on the pedestal of the statue of Kradenda.

"Truly," thought Norman, "they will be stiff men to rule, these people
of Alsander: their heads are all the same shape."

The King was to step into his gilded coach in the company of Vorza and
Sforelli: the guards had already cleared the road with unprecedented
valour, while the amazing coachman perched himself expectantly upon the
box as if he had been born for the task--and indeed the doctor had even
found the family in which the tradition ran of driving this curious
vehicle. Norman, dressed in military uniform, at the appointed hour left
the throne-room, and with great solemnity was handed to his seat by the
Lord Chamberlain, who then took his place in the Royal coach. They left
the castle yard amid a roar of enthusiasm, and moved slowly down the
main street of the town towards the Cathedral square. Such had ever been
the processional route of the Kings of Alsander.

At last the carriage stopped at the grand porch of the Cathedral. There,
after Norman had been robed in those same overpowering and sumptuous
cloths of state that had been stripped from the unconscious Andrea, the
ceremony of re-coronation took place. It proved to be an elaborate
function, invented by an old-time Bishop with a passion for symbolism
and an eye for scenic effect. It consisted of appropriate ritual
minutiae, as, for instance, the re-anointing and replacing of the
crown--which it would be tedious to describe in detail. But the closing
scene of the service was superb. Norman raised himself from his knees,
and turned towards the people, feeling his young body awkwardly stiff
amid the heroic amplours of his purple robes, and in a few sentences
promised to increase the glory of Alsander, making no reference to the
mad years gone by. Idle to reproduce those simple sentences, without the
animate vision of that clear voice, and the humorous, handsome face with
its brilliant blue eyes; without knowing that most wonderful of
Cathedrals, whose Byzantine mosaics seemed no less barbarous and
splendid than the aristocracy, expectant beneath, whose jewels, the
hoard of feudal treasure chests, glimmered and swayed dimly in the
incense-laden choir.

And strange it was how when he made that speech the words of the boy
rang true and sincere. In the glory of the ceremony he forgot the shabby
and grotesque conspiracy: he became for the moment the King of
Alsander: he meant the words he said.

The afternoon was ushered in by a long procession of girls and youths:
the girls carrying little pots wherein grew wheat, cornflowers and
poppies. They passed in Indian file before the Cathedral, and each fair
girl that passed broke her pot against the door, in front of whose
dinted panels soon grew up a little mountain of sherds, and earth, and
fading flowers and corn. Then they passed down to the riverside, and the
King followed them in state. There they found themselves face to face
with the young men of Alsander, many of them in that gorgeous national
costume of which Arnolfo was so fond, who had left them at the Cathedral
door and had run round the bridge and were already facing them on the
opposite bank. The youths threw off boots and socks, if they were
wearing them, and coats, if they possessed them: neither did the girls
fear to display their shapely feet: men and maidens entered the stream,
the men valiantly, the maids demurely, and then, dipping their hands in
the water, they began splashing each other vigorously across the river.
When all were soaked with water many of the men swam over, seized a girl
and ducked her in the stream: this was held to be a most solemn
betrothal. For in the meantime the priests and the Cathedral choir had
assembled on the bridge and young voices began to raise the old Latin
hymn of the Consecration of the Waters, a hymn older than the Cathedral
of Alsander itself, one of the oldest hymns in the world. Swiftly the
tumult was stilled, and all knelt by the shore.

Raised on a platform behind the priests stood the tall King: he did not
seem to share the joy of all the others, and while they knelt he shaded
his eyes, but not for prayer, The first excitement of his adventure had
passed: seeing now all around him in the clear and truthful sunlight
this mock revel given in his honour and in honour of a lie, he felt a
thief and a liar. There was no thrill of triumph in his heart for his
achievement. His fellow conspirators had taken him into their farce as
one might take a spectator from the stalls and dress him up for the role
of King. In the farce nothing mattered--honour or right or manhood. Now
here was reality to face him: he was a King, and an impostor. The
amazing Arnolfo, whose fantasy and youth had given some poetry to the
crude conspiracy, had deserted him. Women, and the fair woman he had
seen in the light of morning--was it a thousand years ago?--were lost to
him for ever. As amid the joyous sunshine of that first morning when he
saw Alsander rise up above her meadows, when, afraid of the world's too
deadly beauty, he had felt more lonely than ever in his life before, so
now when he had achieved this marvellous thing, now that he ruled the
ancient, fair and fabled city, he sank into utter desolation of the
soul. And this time no golden girl would chase the black phantom of
sorrow from his soul.

But as the great final major chords of the sumptuous old song rolled out
above the river new courage came to him. He could not go back. He could
not justify himself ever at any time at all. He realized that the plot
had irrevocably succeeded: and that he was a prisoner for ever.
Nevermore would he tramp the joyful mountains. To no new country could
he direct his steps. To his own country and his own sweet village
nevermore would he return. Love for women--the true, free love of a
boy--henceforward he might never feel. Honest men he might never shake
by the hand again. Severed from friends and the sweet companions of
youth, he must thenceforth talk with wise or portentous or aged men.

Serious and sad, he looked at the beautiful city, shining above the
shining river. He saw new visions, thought out new ideas, of a bitter
and Spartan taste for a boy's sugared fancy. His soul and his
conscience, his peace of mind, his friends, his love, his youth he flung
down as an offering to the city. And like a man, he swore to work.




CHAPTER XIV

PRINCESS IANTHE

    La il vino, la luce, la nota che freme
    Nei nervi, nel sangue, risveglian l'ardor.

                                 _Carducci._


Hardly in the history of Alsander, not when the first Kradenda laid the
foundation-stone! of the Cathedral and all his warriors clashed their
spears, nor yet in the silver age of Basilandron, when the youthful
bands, clothed curiously, the women in gauze veils and the men in
leopard skins, woke unhallowed revel beneath those sacred walls, when
their trumpets blew for the bloodless battle, and the fifes played a
prelude to amorous war, hardly in her days of victory or days of
loveliness had the old castle square been so clamorous or splendid as on
this night of the Royal feast. The sun had just set, and the afterglow
was fading from the marble facade of the palace; the Queen of Night was
on her throne; the bunting-covered trestle tables were prepared for a
great feast which all Alsander was to attend. The wine stood ready in
barrels: the huge Parisian carver, a master of his art, bared his
bullock arms for the strife; servants staggered out from the castle
kitchen with dishes; and already the people were beginning to assemble,
for they heard the great horn of summoning blow clear and strong. The
old men hobbled in on sticks, the middle-aged sniffed the viands, the
young men came joyously along with laughter and the lasses. Seven
thousand voices cried "Amen" to the Archbishop's meandering Latin grace:
and amid an uproar of delight the Bang himself lit the vast bonfire
prepared in the midst, the immemorial bonfire of the feast day, which
was to be now a welcome compensation for the vanished light and warmth
of the sun.

For the day was to end, as it had begun, with the full glory of
mediaeval pageant, and by unbroken tradition each new-crowned King had
to give a feast to his townfolk to celebrate his coronation. But this
was a specially noble and glorious ceremony--it was more than a
coronation: it was a re-coronation--and Alsander expected that amends
would be made for the inglorious day when, amid a winter rain, a thin
and draggled concourse of spectators watched the closed carriage which
they were told contained a King that was no King and a man that was no
man. And now, behold, they had a King indeed, who looked strangely
unlike a convalescent madman--a King as young and beautiful and strong
as a woman's heart could wish to break for--a King of perfect utterance
and fine presence whom any loyal gentleman would be proud to serve. A
King, moreover, who had already come and lived among the humblest of his
people like a simple stranger. What more could Alsander desire?

Happy and blest was the table which enjoyed the company of one of those
who had known the King during his stay at the Widow Prasko's. Willing
enough were they all to talk, little Pedro, Father Algio, the old Widow
Prasko herself, and the rest of them, as fast as they could for eating
and drinking the choicer morsels and wines with which they were
specially plied by their admiring boon companions. It was wonderful how
many people had known the King intimately during those few weeks--with
how many he had held long and confidential conversation about the
politics of Alsander. It was curious how not one of them had been
deceived an instant by his story of being an Englishman. Whoever heard
of a foreigner who spoke Alsandrian! Of course, he pretended to speak it
badly: how wise and clever and beautiful he was! They had heard to-day
how he could speak the language--and so forth, and so forth.

Those who had really known the King were full, too, of the brightest
fancies. What honours and rewards would be showered on them for the
little services they had rendered? One poor, penniless fellow, who had
once shown Norman the way, put on the most ridiculous airs after a few
glasses of strong red wine. He was already enjoying the fruits of a fine
pension, and wandering through the palace courts in cloth of gold.

Only Peronella sat in absolute silence by her mother's side. Not a word
would she answer to any question, despite the harsh rebukes of her
expansive parent. She sat and drank rather much and ate almost nothing.
All those around her affected to understand her mood and ceased to
trouble her with questions. It was plain the King had broken her heart.
Well, was it not the high tradition of Royalty to break the hearts of
humble women? thought the men of Alsander. Could the King have chosen a
lovelier girl? Doubtless the King would see her again and not desert her
quite absolutely for ever. The flower-like Peronella was made to be a
Royal Mistress. The men of Alsander praised her beauty, her reticence
and her air of sorrow, which they conceived to be if not genuine at
least most nobly affected, while the women of Alsander were consumed
with the most passionate jealousy and envy of the poor girl. But what of
Peronella?

Peronella was a girl with a simple soul, but the simplest of souls is,
after all, according to the idealists, a more wondrous and complex thing
than the mechanism of the latest Dreadnought. A soul, being alive,
grows and changes. Peronella had to-day discovered that she loved Norman
with all the love her soul could give--and only simple folk like her can
give all their souls to love. She had no preoccupation with the world
save to find therein; a man to love, and she had found Norman. And now
he was gone from her--taken far away. She knew her lover had abandoned
her for ever!

She had become a woman. It was not this sudden Royalty that made her
love the boy who so few weeks ago had come to her singing over the
mountain height. It was the shock of it all--and the separation. For
others might believe this tale. Others--and they became many as the wine
flowed round--might whisper dark whispers, and swear that it was
incredible that this bright northern-faced boy should be a Kradenda, and
hint of a cunning and tremendous plot. But she alone of all the
uninitiated folk of Alsander _knew_ with the sure and instinctive
knowledge of a woman for an absolute certainty that the re-coronation
was a farce and that Norman was no more King of Alsander than she was
Queen. And the sorrow on her face was but the genuine reflection of the
agony of her soul, but her agony was not for her country's misfortune
but for a lover lost.

But meanwhile the feast was progressing, and a clamour arose that made
one think more of Flanders and the north and the gross banquets of
Jordaens than of southern frugality and moderation.

The King, in the dark green uniform of an Alsandrian Colonel, with
Vorza, Sforelli, the nobles, their ladies, our old friend the British
Consul (in a cocked hat) and his colleagues, each of whom hoped shortly
to acquire the title of Minister to so energetic a Court, were seated,
together with a few very distinguished correspondents of great
newspapers, who had been invited to the Royal board by special request,
at a long table under the open gates, beneath the door of the castle.
Arnolfo had not reappeared. The general conversation was lively and
elegant: but Norman--whose ostensible knowledge of the world had to be
confined to the castle walls, a few books, a few weeks in Alsander, and
a year in a "home" in England, hardly dared open his mouth. This need of
caution, this forced lying masquerade, and a longing not only for
Peronella, but also for the companionship of the strange young man who
alone seemed to have the power of turning life into a furious and
careless dream made him so gloomy that Vorza was very frightened lest in
some uncanny outbreak of revived mania the King should hurl his plate at
the head of his newly-appointed Lord Chamberlain. Nevertheless, this
sullen reserve which the King displayed suited the part he had to play
(as an interesting example of scientific progress) to perfection. When,
however, at times he woke up from his pensive and melancholy
meditations, he was possessed with a sort of odd! feeling that he must
give the newspaper gentlemen some copy, and would talk gravely of the
careful reforms he would make in; the drainage of the city, the paving
of the streets and the training of the militia, or sigh for his wasted
youth with intense pathos, saying, too, how glad he would be when these
formalities were over and he could tour round his dominions, "which are,
despite a few weeks' residence in the city itself, as strange to me,
sir," he said, addressing the special correspondent of the _Daily Mail_,
"as they are to you." Towards the end of the meal, he was seized by an
idea which comforted him, and became suddenly so gay that the doctor
trembled for his dignity and, pretending to be concerned for his still
precarious health, advised him in an audible whisper not to tire himself
by too much lively conversation.

After the enormous repast was at length ended, the guests scattered for
a digestive interval preliminary to the splendid dance which was to end
the day. The doctor regaled some ecstatic Ulmreich medicine men with
tales, all in the strictest confidence, of the surprising operations
that had been performed on the King, while the King walked round with
Vorza, asking the delighted Duke many questions about the government and
still more about the evening's ceremonial.

"Of course I rely on you, my Lord Chamberlain," he explained, "for all
ceremonial details. Though, alas! you have no experience in your duties,
you have, I feel sure, that exquisite tact which as the great Court
historian Brasaldo says, is the exclusive birthright of ancient and
honourable families."

Vorza bowed.

"Now, I believe there is to be a dance to-night as soon as the tables
have been removed."

"The musicians should be here in an hour's time, your Majesty."

"They will be good musicians, I hope."

"I believe so, Sire. They are world renowned."

"Now, my Lord, when the last King was crowned, as I read once in
Brasaldo's history--one of the very few books I have read all
through...."

Vorza bowed again, in deference, perhaps, to such heroic perseverance.

"The last King--my father, I mean, whom I remember but faintly, for I
was such a little boy when the trouble came--danced, I believe, in
accordance with traditional custom with several of the fairest maidens
of the town."

Vorza was quite reassured by this token of the Royal sanity, and bowed
again.

"Now, of course, for me--all thoughts of woman's loveliness have no
charm: I am tool inexperienced, alas! What a youth I have had!--I have
had none, rather. But since the ceremony is old and picturesque I should
like to; revive it."

"But, Sire, between me and your Majesty, you have not had time to learn
to dance."

This was unexpected, but Norman rose to the occasion.

"You know little of England and modern curative establishments," he
said. "The regime of the whip and straight waistcoat is over, thank God,
or you would not have the pleasure of my company to-night. Three days'
sojourn is not quite enough for that wonderful country, my lord."

Vorza smiled, but sinister thoughts passed through his heart.

"It must have been a marvellous place indeed, Sire, this home to which
the gooch luck of Alsander sent you. But will you never tell the secret
of its locality? For it would be only right, between me and your
Majesty, to honour the wise director with a national tribute."

"It is not his desire," said Norman, briefly. "But with regard to this
dance to-night, I want to know my people. I propose that the dance
should be promiscuous, and I will join it myself."

"That is quite in accordance with the best traditions of Alsander, your
Majesty," said Vorza, and he promised to make the announcement in due
form.

Vorza left him, and for a moment he stood alone and looked round on the
scene of revel, and at that moment the uproar of gross feeders and
drinkers seemed to pause a second, drowned in the vast fullness of the
jasmine night. Then the musicians began from their bower among the
shadowy plane trees--glorious musicians, and so glorious a music that
not a man would dare to dance to it, for all that the orders were that
none should wait for the Kong. All listened immobile: only the Japanese
lights and those further lights the stars dared to start off dancing to
such a tune. All the new power and subtlety of modern music seemed to
have blended with the grand traditions of olden days to make this lovely
melody: yet the melody was a waltz--a waltz-tune that the simplest could
understand and that set the body dancing. Another instant and the spell
broke: the music became human and the whole square which the carpenters
had turned into a vast dancing floor, was alive with couples, and seemed
itself to turn.

And the great sense of the unreality of the world again took possession
of Norman. It seemed to him that he was a King indeed but a true King,
the King in a fairy story, and might do what he will. If he was to play
this splendid part, he would not play as a modern King--a tired,
frock-coated slave of wearisome Ministers. He would be a King of Yvetot,
of Atlantis, of the Indian Isles. He would; dance with Peronella--was it
not the old! custom that he should dance with the fairest of his
subjects? Would he not be the more beloved for his boldness? If he were
not, what matter? The girl should be his mistress that night; to his
great golden room he would lead her, and for one night he would
celebrate Aphrodite. Was it not for this that she had been sent by
destiny to meet him--swinging her pails beside the spring on that
immortal morning? Was it not for this one night that he had played the
supremest farce that ever a man played?

He started to find her, motioning away those that would accompany him.
He soon caught sight of her, a little way off seated alone on a bench,
as though she awaited him, and looking towards him with her eyes shining
in the light of the lamp. His heart beat, and he trembled as he had
never done through all his play-acting. He knew still that to steal a
maiden's honour was a greater enterprise than to ravish a throne. He
knew he had but one step further to take toward the girl, who sat there
trembling with love to receive him. His foot was light on the ground to
take that step--for what to a King is all the world?

Yet at that moment a hand was laid on his arm to arrest him. He looked
round, and saw Arnolfo. The boy was clothed as ever in Alsandrian dress
but of a darker hue: he was cloaked, and the silver buckles of his belt
gleamed beneath the rich and sombre mantle. In this raiment, at such an
hour, he looked paler than the moon, and strangely moved, yet resolute
as death.

Norman knew why Arnolfo had laid the hand on his arm: he saw the will
and determination on the boy's face: he knew that his scheme was known,
and that it was to be frustrated. He swung round on his heel. "Leave
me!" he said with passion, but his voice was not that of a King who
rules the world, but of an angry boy.

"Did I not tell you to keep from women, my King," pursued Arnolfo.
"Surely I am only just in time."

"It is too late! Your dramatic interventions are useless. I go where I
please. You should not have left me in the lurch all these days if you
wished to remain my mentor. I am master now. Leave me: we are not
unobserved: you are making me ridiculous before my subjects."

"My Bang, I implore you as a friend, come away with me," said Arnolfo in
a voice strangely passionate.

"A friend are you? You have made a fool of me for ever. I have got to
play-act all my life. You have stolen from me my love, my liberty and my
youth. You have left me alone to carry through the most perilous portion
of this mad enterprise, and now, when I want to rescue a few moments of
joy from the ruin of my life, you say, 'Friend! Friend!' Let me go, I
tell you! Let me enjoy the glory of existence for one hour before you
shut me in your dismal prison of lies for ever!"

And Norman pointed to the grim, dark, towering walls of the palace of
Kradenda.

But Arnolfo, with that magic power that never failed to influence
Norman--to influence him so deeply that it seemed able at times to sap
his very manhood and honour--for, after all, he had suffered the utmost
degradation at this boy's command--Arnolfo had already drawn Norman away
and Norman was following him, why, he knew not, towards the palace.

"Come, Norman," said Arnolfo, in that low and honeyed voice of his, "a
friend is better than a lover, as love is better than lust."

"For Kings!" exclaimed Norman, but whether as a question or in bitter
acquiescence was not certain from the sound of his voice.

"O come with me a minute," said Arnolfo, pretending still to plead and
drawing Norman further and further at each step from Briseis. "All your
happiness may depend on that. Will you ruin yourself and Alsander for a
pretty face? Are you going to play tyrant and drag her from the arms of
her lover?"

"Damnation on duty and on you and all this farce!" replied the King,
muttering low as he turned for a last look at the girl who, still
visible, was now standing with bowed head, her arm around a young
sapling--and still alone. "Were it not for your fool's mummery I might
have had that girl in my arms. Look at her: is she not beautiful enough
for you, my artist? Are not these lips red enough for the Sultan of the
Indies? Where is the lover from whose arms I should drag her? Leave me,
Arnolfo. Must I forget my youth."

"Give me one half-hour--alone--in the palace. After that, you shall be
free of my interference for ever and return to your love If you so
desire. I swear it. But come now. There is ... danger. Ah, Norman, can
you not read sincerity in the eyes?"

Involuntarily Norman looked at the boy and saw in his eyes a light so
strange that he was troubled. The charm of Arnolfo had already compelled
him: but now his very passion surrendered to it. Without more complaint,
he broke with him through the crowd, which opened to let him pass.

None ventured to attend them. The guards seemed to Norman to show as
much deference in their salutes to Arnolfo as to himself. They went
alone together to a little room in the tower, where a lamp was
hanging--simply to aid in the general illumination, for the room was
empty and unfurnished.

"Well," said Norman turning on his friend with some fierceness, "tell me
your story."

The boy flushed a little. "There is no story," he said.

"But you said there was danger in what I intended to do. Not that I
mind, but tell me what you meant."

"You neither were nor are in any danger."

"Then why, in God's name," cried Norman "did you bring me Here?"

Arnolfo put a finger to his lips and leant over the stone window-sill to
gaze at the crowded square. "You ask why I brought you here, King of
Alsander," he whispered toi Norman, who stood over him. "Oh, can you not
yourself discover why? Can you draw no inspirations from the world
around you? Will nothing but brutal speech make you understand? Cannot
music suggest to you the truth, or the rustle of leaves, or the murmur
of men down there that makes audible the silence of the stars? Is there
no subtler essence in nature or your own soul ready to vibrate? Has not
the Universe a dumb but smiling mouth to say why I brought you here?"

"Heavens, what weird nonsense you are talking," said Norman, catching
the boy's arm, "Can you not speak straight? Or what new web of
perplexity are you weaving for my destruction?"

"Leave me," said the boy with a gasp, as though Norman's clutch on his
arm had hurt him. "Leave me: I will go: you shall never see me again.
Keep your peasant girl, Norman Price: who shall blame you? Real kings
have fared far worse."

"I want to know what you meant about the silence," said Norman looking
curiously into his friend's pale face and expressive eyes. "And what my
peasant girl has got to do with you."

"How can you stand almost touching me!" cried Arnolfo, leaping up from
the window and facing Norman with a sort of indignation. "How can you
put your hand on my arm and still not know and still be such a fool! And
they talk of instinct! I am ashamed at my failure. Ah, how did I dare
bring you here?"

And turning again to the window Arnolfo buried his face in his hands and
wept.

"Why, you strange creature, what have you got to weep for?" cried Norman
in dismay. "You trouble me with your strange ways to-night. I swear if
you are unhappy I will do my best to comfort you; but do speak straight
out, and do above all be a man."

The boy looked up, and through his tears he smiled, and then through his
tears he laughed. And then he simply laughed very prettily and held out
his right hand.

"Look at my hand a minute," he said.

Norman took the proffered hand and examined it with great embarrassment
and wonder. "It is a very small hand," he said; "but I don't see what is
the matter with it."

Then at last suspicion flashed across his mind. "Ah, you don't mean
that!" he cried, suddenly dropping the hand and starting back.

"Good God," laughed Arnolfo rather wildly. "I can't think of any more
hints to give you, barbarian! Must I strip to the waist?"

Norman gasped. "If you really are a woman, Arnolfo," he exclaimed, "I
would much prefer that you did."

Then he stood motionless before her and for a time the two faced each
other without a word, the King with his hand on the hilt of his sword,
and the woman clasping across her body the great mantle, as though to
preserve even at this hour, the virginity of her disguise.

"I am the Princess Ianthe," she said at last, with a dignity which the
travesty could not obscure.

"You are a very beautiful woman," rejoined Norman, bending to kiss her
hand. Then, looking at her with a rather inscrutable smile which
strangely aged his youthful face, he added: "but I bitterly regret the
loss of Arnolfo."

The Princess hung her head a little and seemed almost the boy again. "Is
that all you have to say?" she murmured, "and yet there is nothing I
would rather you had said than that."

"It was for Arnolfo I adventured on this enterprise," pursued the King
gravely, "for his friendship I ruined my life to become a mummer and a
thief. And now the pantomime continues--and there is no Arnolfo."

"But you have Ianthe's friendship," cried the Princess, "as you had
Arnolfo's."

He shook his head. "Friendship with a woman is not a sport for kings."

"But such a friendship as ours," she rejoined, "cannot be broken by an
epigram."

"It is broken," affirmed the King. "The days of friendship are
irrevocably over. And I have no reason to think, Princess, although you
singled me out to rule your country, and although I, when I found you a
woman, was stirred with something that was not only wonder, that the
halcyon days are near. And yet--I am speaking to you straight, Princess,
in the English way--if you do not think we shall become more than
friends I shall leave you and Alsander to-night for ever, and see what
fresh adventures await me in the teeming world. Maybe some other country
will greet me as its King and a princess only a little less beautiful
than you, in a realm a little more fabulous than Alsander, will offer me
her heart and hand. But I will simply laugh and go back home to England.
One day of kingship has been enough for me."

"And is that all you have to say to a woman who has given you a Crown
and to a people who are awaiting their King? Have you no fire, no
pride?"

"I have a sense of honour," replied the King gravely. "For listen to me.
You have given me a crown of gold, and it is a crown of thorns. You have
made me a mock King. I am already weary, unutterably weary. What care I
for Alsander? Is not a hedgerow in my native land lovelier than all its
cypress trees? What care I for ruling--save to be the master of a
straight young woman, and lord of a country farm? On one condition only
will I consent to endure this foolery one more day, and that is on
condition that you--the heiress of Alsander--become rightfully my
Queen, for all that I am an English grocer boy. I am no fool, Princess,
and I may dare to hope that you will accept this condition, for I think
some such project has been in your mind all the time, through all this
queer history. But I have a second condition, which is harder, and that
condition is this: that if you love me, I will be your King. If you love
me with all your heart and soul, as I love you, and only in that case,
then we will rule our land together. And if not, Ianthe, bid farewell to
me to-night--for you will never see me again. The masquerade is over:
speak truth to me at last."

"You are right!" said the Princess. "Must we talk like fanciful children
and waste words, we on whom depends the fate of thousands, we the rulers
of Alsander! You have made your conditions: I accept the first. I will
be your Queen, in name and in deed, if you will. The Princess Ianthe, O
King of Alsander, has also a sense of honour. I have made you a false
King--I alone can make you a true King, the consort of the legitimate
Princess of Alsander. I offer to be your Queen."

"But my second condition--your love, Princess Ianthe?"

"What do you mean by love? Is it my body you mean by my love? I owe it
to you if you desire it. It shall be yours--I have promised to be your
Queen. Or is it that, together with my true and loyal friendship you
desire? That also shall be yours, though you have rejected it, for all
my life long."

"I want your love, your true love, your deep love, the love of all your
soul," said the King in a low voice, gazing into her brown eyes.

"Ah! that is not mine to command."

"Will it never be mine to command, Ianthe? Speak truth. If it will never
be mine, I will not be King of Alsander."

"You are almost wooing me," exclaimed the Princess, laughing a little
nervously, "and I rather wish I were dressed for the part. But is it not
rather fantastic to claim my love without offering your own? And is it
not rather insolent," she added abruptly, as though a flash of memory
had caused a flash of rage, "for a man who has given his heart to a
peasant girl to demand the love of a Princess?"

"You are insincere in your reproaches," replied the King. "You know from
the very sound of my words that I have forgotten all the women of the
world but you. You know I stand on the threshold of Love's house: but
how do I know if you will ever join me, to enter side by side?"

Ianthe laid her hands lightly on the King's shoulder. "You will not win
me before you woo, ungallant heart!" said she. "But if the day comes
when you decide that I am worthy of your attentions, remember that my
love, like that of fairy Princesses of China or of Ind, must be won by
high achievement. It may be that I could, like a woman without shame,
cry out this very hour, 'I love you,' were it not that my heart is lost
already, pledged to a passion which surpasses all love I can feel for
man. My body's love I will gladly give to whoever, like you, is
beautiful and young, my friendship to whoever, like you, is gentle and
wise, but my soul's love is my love for the Holy City of Alsander. There
is not a court or a garden, not a stone of the cobbles of Alsander over
which I would not slaughter the lover of my body or the friend who kept
my thoughts if that would keep these holy streets from pollution and
slavery. I love this country as no one has ever loved it before, save he
who made it, my forefather, the great Kradenda. Its air is to me a more
pellucid air, its rocks more ancient, its sea more blue, its flowers
more fragrant than other airs and rocks and seas and flowers. And if a
man would desire to have part of this deep love--and even with a part of
it to be loved as no hero was ever loved in days of old by the
great-bosomed women of the Greeks, then that man must become part of
Alsander. He must fight, work, strive, for the glory of the kingdom. He
would have his reward: for I am not a capricious woman but one whose
heart is true, girl as I am.

"But do not answer me now: the minutes are flying on: your subjects will
miss you: we must go out again into the square. Quick! I hear no more
the dancers laughing and the splendid music has ceased sighing among the
stars; they are waiting for their King to join them. Listen! The
Cathedral bells of Alsander are tolling the midnight hour."




CHAPTER XV

PERONELLA AND THE PRIEST

     Creep, and let no more be said.
                             _Matthew Arnold._


The prolonged absence of the King having given rise to no small anxiety,
there was universal relief at his reappearance, and he was welcomed with
uproarious cheers as he stepped out of the palace gates, preceded by the
Royal torchbearers. The King regretted to those of his notable guests
whom he chanced to meet that affairs of State should have demanded his
attention even on so holiday an evening. Sforelli also, by the Royal
command, told Vorza to let it be known quietly that the King's health
would not permit of his dancing that evening. To counteract the
disappointment of this announcement, the King went round, with "Arnolfo"
in attendance, among his subjects, conversing kindly with them and
especially with those who were already his acquaintance. And seeing
Peronella clinging to her mother, the widow, he did not hesitate, but
went up to the couple, and after thanking the old lady for the excellent
care she had taken of her Englishman, he praised her cooking,
especially of beans and potatoes, and the softness of her linen, and the
charm of her daughter. He then asked them both to come and pay him a
visit in the course of the week. But not by a look, a sign, or a glance
did he show to Peronella that he still loved or even that he still
wanted her, In her new wisdom, born of bitterness of heart, the girl
understood that her day was over, and inwardly she cursed Norman, and
the mysterious young man at his side, who had so often taken him away
from her, and the day that she was born.

"Ah, Norman," said Ianthe, as they left the group, in her low and gentle
tones, "I see you are playing the game bravely. But you must play it as
if you loved it, for it is a game for the glory of Alsander--if you do
not love Alsander you cannot love its Queen; and if you do love
Alsander, then, perhaps--but, hush! There is Vorza, dodging us round the
statue."

The King beckoned to Vorza, who had just appeared from behind the
pedestal of the statue of Kradenda, and was walking apparently in
meditation. The Duke bowed. "Your Majesty," he said.

The King felt that an explanation of his apparently intimate converse
with young Arnolfo was needed.

"Count Vorza," he said, pleasantly, "this young man, for all that he is
the most charming of young men and a friend of yours and mine, is
importunate. It is only my coronation day--my first evening of
reign--and he is already trying to interest me in affairs of State."

"He is misguided but young," said Vorza, trying to catch the King's
amiable tone of banter.

"He is misguided and young," echoed the King. "I have also noted in him
a certain flightiness, eccentricity and weakness of purpose. But it
seems he also has ambition."

"Ambition!" said Vorza, genuinely startled. "I have known him as the
gayest and most delightful young man in Alsander, but he is surely not
interested in affairs of State!"

"We have been deceived, Count Vorza. He is an enthusiast. He hopes to
reform us all. He desires a post in the government."

"Surely he would be out of his element in serious affairs--if your
Majesty and the gracious subject of our conversation will pardon my
saying so!"

"I do not know, Vorza; I do not know. We need enthusiasts, we need
youth. His father, however mistaken in his views, is an able man, and
the ability may be inherited. I should like to give him a place in the
government--but what place? I ask your advice, my Lord Chamberlain."

"I have no hesitation in giving it, your Majesty. My poor experience is
always at your service and the service of the country. If any government
post be given to this young man, it must be the Ministry of Fine Arts--a
post which I am sure he would fill with distinction."

"I am entirely of your opinion, Count Vorza. The appointment shall be
gazetted to-morrow."

Upon which the Count withdrew, meditative but not gloomy. If such young
fools were to be the King's favourites, there would be ample opportunity
for him to continue wielding the supreme power in Alsander. For a moment
he forgot his suspicions as he dreamt the dreams of a man whose ambition
age has sharpened instead of dulled.

But late that night when guests and populace (as it had been arranged
for the sake of the King's supposed weak health) had dispersed, Vorza,
as he jogged home in his carriage, and looked back on the events of the
day, was again seized with the conviction that both he and Alsander had
been the victims of a childish, simple and audacious hoax. He raged
inwardly. Suppose it were found out by some outsider, and he--he, the
wise Vorza--were shown to have been miserably fooled by an English
jester and a Jew doctor? Was young Arnolfo a plotter, too--had he secret
instructions from his old scoundrel of a father? Either, Vorza
determined, the hoax must remain unexposed or he must expose it. Pacing
the quiet flags of his great hall he passed the hours till morning.

Meanwhile the King had formally dismissed his guests, none of whom were
staying in the Castle, which, despite the efforts of plumbers,
scullions, chambermaids and upholsterers, could only just accommodate
with decency the King himself. As he entered the great gate the guard
fell back, and he suddenly discovered with a queer thrill that the
boy-princess had appeared from nowhere in particular and that they were
walking together in the palace garden, the little ruined garden of King
Basilandron, which at night, now that the little summer-houses and
temples had all their graceful lines traced out with rows of Fairy
lamps, had an air not of decay but rather of mystery and sweetness, so
tangled were its bowers, so heavy hung the scent of roses in the air.
Norman trembled, feeling the enchantment of the moonlight and all the
fear that comes with the birth of passion; but he listened in silence to
the silvery accents of the Princess as she told her tale.

It seems the admirable old Count Arnolfo was, as the Princess had
described him to Norman when she pretended to be his son, sent to
Alsander on a patriotic mission. The real son existed, but had been in
America for many years; the real father was, as the Princess had
depicted him, an ardent patriot, a man, however, of liberal views. He
let the Princess run fairly wild--shocking a good deal the other little
Royal households with whom they came into contact and giving rise
thereby to the legends of her wildness that had reached even Alsander.
But, naturally enough, even his liberal and easy mind would not have
contemplated the possibility of his charge roaming Alsander in boy's
attire. What old Count Arnolfo had done, however, was to sanction the
Princess to make a journey incognito (not, indeed, that such a very
unimportant and impoverished Princess would have been much disturbed by
adventurers) with her trusty governess, Miss Johnson. Old Arnolfo was
getting too old to wander far from home, but he felt all the same that
the Princess ought to have a course of good, healthy eye-opening travel
in the English fashion.

They were to go anywhere they liked except--and the old man warned them
like Bluebeard admonishing his wives--_except_ into the kingdom of
Alsander. And of course, like Blue-beard's wife, Ianthe was fired with a
resolve to go. But she did not know how to carry out the resolve, though
she often thought of simply going and leaving Miss Johnson to her fate.
It was the thought of getting poor Miss Johnson into trouble that
prevented her from carrying out this plan rather than any fear of the
difficulties of the enterprise. So the Princess kept quiet and toured
the helpless Miss Johnson round, and wrote at regular intervals letters
to her guardian full of admirable descriptions of the places and
monuments visited, culled from Baedeker's well-known hand-books. In the
monotony of luxurious travel she all but forgot Alsander.

But one night (and as she began to say one night, Norman, who had cared
little to hear the long story, was caught to attention by the music of
her words)--one night in London she leant out of her window and watched
the Thames shining in the light of the moon. All the dark chimneys
across the water were dancing in the moonlight like heavenly towers: and
she almost loved the city that till then had seemed so hateful and so
dark that she could not understand why men suffered to dwell therein.
Then down the embankment came a man singing--but what was he singing?
Not the latest infamy of the halls, nor yet a hearty British ballad--but
the Song of the Black Swans of the Kradenda which every Alsandrian knows
and loves. The singer passed beneath her window: she cried out, "Who
goes there singing Alsandrian in the City of London?" Miss Johnson was
shocked. The singer replied in English, "Who speaks to me in Alsandrian
in a voice that is like a song?" Looking more closely, the Princess saw
the singer to be a venerable and beautiful old man.

"I am an Alsandrian: speak English no more," she replied to his
question.

"Ah! but I must speak English," said the stranger.

"But why?"

"Because I am an Englishman, fair lady of Alsander," replied the poet,
for it was he, as Norman had already guessed.

A little disappointed, as she confessed, the Princess told how,
nevertheless, she called the poet to come in and see her, and to a
scandalized protest from Miss Johnson merely rejoined that if he might
not come in through the door he should enter through the window.

It was the poet, then, who arranged the secret visit of Ianthe to
Alsander. It was he who suggested her disguise, he who made friends for
her in Alsander who could be trusted with the great secret, he who
managed Miss Johnson. This latter superhuman task he managed heaven
knows how. But I think the little old lady was a romantic and would have
come, too, had it not been necessary for her to continue the tour and
post from various illustrious towns the charming letters which the
Princess with the poet's aid (to lighten the touch of Baedeker) composed
beforehand ready for the post. "And so ends my tale," concluded the
Princess. "Three days ago Sforelli, at my request, informed my guardian
of all the amazing truth: and he (stern old man!) without one comment,
has ordered me back. I must obey. I leave to-night. Here ends the
masquerade!"

"Poor masquerade!" cried Norman. "Is it here the curtain falls? Whatever
be the strong and radiant drama of our lives on which it shall rise
again, I regret the masquerade!"

Their footsteps ceased upon the garden path. The moonlight flung their
stilly shadows to the tattered roses. On the pediment of Love's plaster
Temple one fairy light still palely glimmered in the vast white
splendour of chaste Artemis. A nightingale trilled once, then fell
a-dreaming. And through the boy's learned soul passed murmurs of ages
far estranged, which yet blended together and took on a nature of their
own--a clear dim note of the Athenian lyre, hinting beneath all
artificial chords the melody of the earth and of truth, a gavotte by
Lully or Rameau, a laugh of Heine, or songs they sang at the Cremorne
Gardens, twenty years ago. He felt the moonlit sky, the ruined bowers,
the Temple and the roses dwindle and shapen into the scenery of a
stage--as though the girl in travesty before him had made a mockery of
all the linked worlds. Then suddenly he knew.

"Columbine," he said, "you will not leave me thus?"

She stepped away from him lightly, arms akimbo.

"And what are you to me, Pierrot?" she cried; "or Columbine to you?"

"To me," he answered, "you are the colour of the soul of the marble
statues, and the shape of the movement of the gliding moon."

"Like her," she laughed, "I shine falsely and I shine pale. Like her, to
you I am only a shape that is no shape and a colour that is no colour."

"I will chase you from shape to shape," replied the young King. "I will
pursue you from hue to hue; though you change to a slim gazelle or
silver fish or a little seed of corn. And when I have conquered you at
last, and held you, and driven you to your true and pristine form, then
victorious, as now vanquished, will I swear eternal passion at your
feet."

And he knelt on one knee before her.

"Why, Pierrot!" she whispered, "you said you would not love me yet!"

"But that," he replied, "was three hours ago."

"Pursue me no more, Pierrot," she warned him. "The moon has tricked your
eye: the scents of the garden have deceived your heart. Am I not still
Arnolfo? am I not still a boy?"

"Columbine," he replied, "I am pleading for love. Answer me now, tell
me my doom, torment me no longer, for I hear approaching the fiery
wheels of your departure."

"Oh, what a thirst for words you have," sighed she. "Stay there on your
knees in silence, impatient, importunate Pierrot, and wait till I choose
to answer."

"They have come to take you away!" he cried. "Your dragon is roaring at
the gate. Your answer, Columbine!"

"Oh, stay there kneeling as I bid you," she cried, "and forget your
thirst for words. Was it your mother, boy, who gave you eyes that colour
in the night? Stay there and do not speak or raise your glance till you
hear my dragon rolling me away--and let me give you, in my own fashion,
the silent answer of my farewell."

She spake, and the very dragon ceased to roar, as though even his steely
heart recognized the bell-like voice of his mistress, commanding silence
throughout the world. Haunted with expectation Norman bowed his eyes:
soon he felt her presence bending over him its wings. Softly her arm
stole across his shoulder, and suddenly, to his great wonder, fell over
his cheek a wave of the soft and fragrant hair he had never seen; and on
his lips she answered him.

Too soon she was gone: but he obeyed her to the end; ecstasy which had
snatched his spirit out into the realms of fire, had left his body
frozen like ice and statues and the moon. He listened immobile to her
step fading down the garden: he heard the rumour of her departure. Then
he rose and like a man whom life has forgotten, he walked slowly back to
his royal home.

       *       *       *       *       *

But as for Peronella, she, poor girl, had made her way home early
enough, clinging to her mother, not heeding the pity, envy, laughter or
ridicule of the revellers, dozens of whom pointed to her to make their
comment--so famous was she now. On her arrival she paid no attention to
her mother's attempts to reassure her (which consisted in the reflection
that no harm had been done, and the assertion that the King would
provide her with a magnificent dowry), but rushing to her room, as ten
thousand million disappointed maids have done before, she flung herself
on the bed and burst into tears. Then she opened her box and took out a
letter. A little slip may ruin a great cause, and the conspirators, who
had thought to make all their plans so neatly and completely, had
forgotten about letters. And this was a letter, with a British postmark
and addressed to Norman Price.

"All Alsander may be deceived," cried Peronella to herself. "But I'll be
even with the liar." Peronella, after a moment's hesitation, opened the
letter with a little knife, cunningly, so that it could be sealed again.
It was, of course, in English, so she could not understand it. She put
it under her pillow with a peasant's caution, and cried herself to
sleep.

The next morning she found Father Algio--whom she sought--at the
confessional.

"You do well to come to me," said the priest, kindly. "You have been
away too long."

"Ah! father," said Peronella, with a not quite honest sigh.

"The ways of Princes are not our ways, Peronella, and hard is the lot of
the women whose path they cross."

"Princes?" said Peronella. "Do you believe that tale? A Prince--that
Englishman who said he loved me?"

"What do you mean, my daughter? Which tale?"

"Do you believe that that Englishman who came to stay with us was our
King Andrea?"

"But who ever doubted it, girl?" rejoined the old priest, pretending
greater astonishment than he felt, for, after all, similar questions had
been in the hearts of many. "In that he came to Alsander in secret for a
few days before his accession we all count it for great wisdom on his
part. You must be mad, girl, to talk such treason. Could all our rulers
be lying to us?"

"Well, read this letter," said Peronella. "I cannot, for it is in
English. It is addressed to him under the name he had when he was with
me. It arrived after he left."

The worthy priest, who had been expecting a sad confession of deviation
from the straight path of virtue, was more shocked than he would have
been at any weakness of the flesh, at this manifestation of coldness,
pettiness and deceit. (He need not be therefore accused of having hoped
for a romantic tale. His long experience told him that small sins were
sometimes worse than great ones.)

"Give me the letter," he said. Taking it, he addressed the girl
severely. "You have committed many sins," he said. "You have sinned in
stupidly doubting your lawful King; in thinking yourself cleverer than
all the rest of Alsander; in taking a letter, which was not yours; in
opening that letter and in attempting to disclose its contents to
another. I shall reseal the letter and send it instantly to the palace:
nor will I betray my King by giving a single glance at the contents. I
am most displeased with you, my daughter."

"You will think differently of me when you have read the letter,"
sneered Peronella, rising and departing abruptly down the aisle with a
confident and cynical laugh--a laugh sad years older than her laughter
of a week ago.

The old priest looked after her with melancholy eyes, then let his
glance fall on the letter. He then read it.

Father Algio was a strictly virtuous and honourable old man. He must,
therefore, have had good reason for acting in this strictly
dishonourable fashion, doing practically thereby what he had reprimanded
Peronella for doing, exactly what he had given his word not to do, and
exactly what Peronella had prophesied he would do. Was it that something
the girl said had struck him, and he believed in her more than he
pretended to do? Was it that he had a spiritual intuition? I fear no.
The envelope being open, and he equipped with a slight knowledge of the
English tongue, he could not resist the temptation. Was he a fraud? No
more than St Peter or King David. He was just that very common
phenomenon which novelists refuse to admit--a good man doing a bad
action, with no extenuating circumstances.

The letter ran in the original thus (which was not quite as Father Algio
closeted in his library with a very old English dictionary rendered it
into Alsandrian, but no matter):

MY DEAR SON

"Mr Gaffekin did give me your address which you never thought to send
to me or write a line and I think you might have more affection for your
old father with one foot in his grave than to leave him and go to
foreign parts without a word not to mention robbing me of all my money
which I will forgive if you will give back the money at once as I am
very poor and the shop going badly, though it was a great sin and shame
to rob your father and if you come back I will see you, your loving

"FATHER."

Having made out the rough sense of this the old priest tumbled his head
on his beard. A quick psychologist, he knew he had before him a genuine
human document, an able logician, he soon deduced the facts of the case
from the given data. Then he arose, struck the table violently, swore
that divine guidance had prompted him to read the letter (whereby he
added the sin of hypocrisy to that of curiosity and misnamed the latter)
Not only was the King an impostor, it seemed, but a vulgar thief as
well. He sat in his armchair for some time, pondering on what plan he
should pursue. At last he left the monastery and, taking the letter and
his translation with him, he communicated them in a secret interview to
Count Vorza that very night.

And this explains how it was that Count Vorza spent yet a second night
pacing up and down his gorgeous courtyard.




CHAPTER XVI

THE COUNTER CONSPIRACY: AN EPISODE IN THE STYLE OF THE WORST WRITERS

     Down in a deep dark hole the society plotted a horror.


It was some three weeks after the date of the last chapter that Count
Vorza left the palace without giving the customary notification to his
august master (who was taking his august siesta), at two o'clock in the
afternoon. He passed quickly along, avoiding observation and courting
the most devious by-ways, till he came at last to an obscure and squalid
doorway at the end of a filthy alley.

"Who is there?" inquired a girl's treble.

"_Regnestro_."

"_Invenu_."

He followed into a bare and horrible cellar, damper than a subaqueous
vault. This was the Temple of Conspiracy, or shall we say
Counter-Conspiracy? correctly chosen, according to all traditions, an
utterly unnecessary, even dangerous, choice, for the house of Peronella
would have been a far safer resort than this most suspect vault. But no
Alsandrian conspirator could have enjoyed himself or felt at ease in
less mysterious, less uncomfortable surroundings. Truly the scene was
picturesque enough to satisfy the most theatrical appetite: and the
motives of the conspirators themselves in plotting against the impostor
were various enough to give psychological interest to the melodrama.
Dark girder beams projected low, so that the tallest had to stoop: and
illumination was produced day and night from a sickly and evil-smelling
lamp. Nor were the individuals here assembled less in keeping with the
true spirit of second-rate tragedy that pervades the novels of the good
old school of Harrison Ainsworth. Here was Cesano, his arms folded, his
back to the wall, confident in his power of fascination, aglow with a
foretaste of revenge. Peronella had avowed herself sick enough of her
English Grocer-King, when Cesano, bursting with Father Algio's tremulous
confidences, flung himself at her feet. But there was a fine, large step
between hating Norman and loving Cesano: and the girl had by now
regained enough spirits to tease quite heartlessly her sombre suitor.
She also laughed a little at the conspiracy, but enjoyed being
important. She tried at first to give herself the black air of a
desolate Ariadne: but soon discarded it in the delights of plotting. She
had grown up very swiftly--her beauty was a flourish of trumpets--but
how the charm had fled! She was entrusted with the task of admitting the
conspirators into the cellar upon the pronouncement of the password. She
had taken to practising with a very expensive revolver which she had
made Cesano give her, and also to smoking cigarettes, to the distress of
Father Algio, who was seated beside her on a packing case. Cesano, whose
presence we have remarked, had chosen the darkest corner of the cellar
to glower in. Other conspirators prowled round. The lamp was giving out
more smoke than ever and the room was stifling. No one could have kept
quite sane in such an atmosphere for half-an-hour.

The venerable form of Vorza was greeted with respect and enthusiasm.

"Has anything happened, Duke Vorza?" inquired Peronella, whose modesty
was decreasing, before anyone else could get in a word.

"Nothing," said Vorza. "The notice will be round the town in an hour's
time: Cuvas has worked well: the whole town will be in the castle square
and the usurper will meet his doom."

"What doom?" inquired Peronella, meekly.

"Oh, I doubt if we shall have to take formal proceedings against him.
The mob will tear him to pieces, I imagine. Lynch law--those damned
republics have taught us something, after all. Ah! is that Cuvas?"

Peronella opened the door and Cuvas, the weary-looking editor of the
_Alsandrian Gazette,_ stepped into the room, a stick of a man.

"You have managed splendidly," said Vorza to him.

"I am very tired. You do speak loudly, by the way. I could hear you
right outside."

"What, talking about the probable end of our mock King?"

"Yes, and I did not like your talk entirely. Couldn't you ensure his
safety? It would be rather a stroke. You see, very luckily the usurper
made no attempt against King Andrea but simply put him into an asylum,
as we have discovered. Wouldn't it look well in the eyes of Europe if we
treated the usurper with the same leniency? Lynching doesn't look well,
you know: it doesn't look well."

Cuvas was a man of peace, and not quite such a fool as the others, as
will be seen.

"Why, what an absurd idea!" exclaimed the Duke. "You are a queer man,
Cuvas, or I would have to call you a coward."

"It would give Alsander such a bad name in the world, brutally to
destroy a man who, after all, has done little harm and some good, and we
must remember we belong to a civilized State and are now engaged in
making history. That is the way things are worked nowadays, you know.
Look at Portugal, and Turkey and China. I repeat, the grocer has set a
good example."

"You dare praise him for not having killed your lawful King!" cried
Father Algio.

"You dare compare the foul deposition of a legitimate monarch to the
upsetting of a a low-born, vile, foreign impostor!" cried Vorza.

"Of course not," said Cuvas. "But I deprecate excitement. I deprecate
bloodshed. It's the style in which you write your article, not what you
say in it, that draws the populace. It's the way you conduct your
revolution, not the justice of your cause, that appeals to the
diplomats. You must remember that to some people there would be a good
deal to be said for the impostor."

"Good things to be said of a grocer!" exclaimed Cesano.

"A Persian cobbler founded Persia's best dynasty," said Cuvas. "And a
grocer is not worse than a cobbler. And in England, all things are
different: I have heard that in that country grocers may be the friends
of Kings and have been ennobled."

"Those English!" groaned Vorza, with contempt. "We are Alsandrians, not
Persians, or English, and God be praised! But why to-day of all days do
you trouble us with literary dissertations, Cuvas? What has this grocer
done that you should defend him before he dies?"

"Well, he has worked already, and worked hard, in the interests of the
country. He has begun to dredge the river and pave the streets, and
light the town. He is already planning a new railway."

"He?" said Vorza. "Do you think he does anything? He spends half his
time shut up with that scoundrelly Jew doctor, whom he would have made
Prime Minister if I had let him."

Cuvas thought to himself that Vorza had had many years of power, and yet
that more had been done for the country in the last three weeks than
during all the years of his regency. However, he had no idea of angering
the Count, and held his peace.

"Come, Cuvas," said Father Algio. "Remember what work we have in hand.
We have the honour of our country to avenge. We have the Right to fight
for. Nothing but death awaits impiety like this. I knew the young man. I
could even have loved him once. He may be lowly born, but he looks and
acts like a King. I admit it. Truly he has played a fine game with this
country with the fiend's aid. But were he my own brother he could not be
spared now. He has mocked at religion, fooled the Church, driven out the
anointed King, blasphemed the holy oil. His sacrilege is heavy on him,
and on this land, and only blood can wipe out our infamy. I am an old
man, a feeble man, yet if he were now to come into this room I would
tear him with my own hands, and the Queen of the Skies would give me
strength to do it. Do not waver, do not flinch, for you are about a high
and holy business."

"I wish they would come!" interrupted Peronella, with some impatience,
quite irresponsive to this outburst of sacerdotal fervour.

"While we are waiting for the true ruler of this land let us betake
ourselves to prayer," continued the priest, not heeding her.

"I hear them!" exclaimed the girl, starting up and leaping to the
entrance. There was a sound of a carriage stopping outside and much
commotion at the door.

"We have him!" came a reassuring voice, and three guardsmen entered,
weary, perspiring, bedraggled and unkempt, bearing with them on a litter
none other than the real King Andrea.

"We had to fight our way through the asylum," said the excited guards,
in answer to a wind of questions. "There was no other way to get at him.
The patients have all escaped and are gibbering in the open fields. Some
must have perished: we have had a dreadful time."

They continued vivifying their experiences. Father Algio paid them no
attention, but went to the bier and kissed the hand of Andrea, who
heard not, felt not, cared not, for he was very sound asleep.

"Where is Makzelo?" asked Cuvas of the guardsmen, cutting short the tale
of their heroism.

The guards who had been ordered by Sforelli to catch and imprison
Makzelo had never been able to carry out their orders, and that
subterranean person had sold Vorza some very decent information at a
very decent price.

"Ill, couldn't come," briefly replied the man to whom the question was
put: and the others smiled.

"He is not a desperately brave man," said Vorza "But we owe much to his
connivance. Ah! his Majesty is opening his eyes!"

And Vorza, who was in general a fairly courageous person, but had not
lost that uncanny fear of lunatics to which was due the possibility of
the amazing substitution, edged away rapidly.

Royalty opened its eyes, blinked, shut them again, then opened them,
stared at Peronella, sat up on his litter, and in a stridently audible
voice declared to the assembled company:

"I want her: she must be my Queen!"

His eyes glowed with anticipation. All kept silent, half wondering, half
horrified, half amused.

"Come here," continued Andrea, "do come here!"

"The devil take you!" muttered the girl, retreating to the end of the
room.

"Do not speak like that to the King," said the priest.

"Come here. I command you. This time I must be obeyed," pursued the old
maniac, and a dread sight he was with his stubbly beard and unholy light
in his eyes. "They are always taking me away from you! I have waited
such a long time--I want to kiss you! Will no one bring her here? This
world is all full of traitors and liars."

"Go to him," said Vorza to Peronella. "Cesano, persuade her!"

Peronella's face flushed hot with disgust. The King rose right up and
tottered towards her. She instantly put her hand to her girdle and
levelled her pistol at him.

"Put him back!" she said, with a quietness almost hysterical.

They had to obey her, well knowing her determined spirit; and fearing
the King would become violent the guards strapped him down upon his
litter, but fortunately the jolting of the carriage had tired him
thoroughly and he slept once more.

"It seems almost a pity," said Cuvas, softly, "to dethrone so active and
enterprising an usurper merely to put that driv-- that unfortunate King
in his place."

He spoke half to himself, but the others heard him. They all began to
talk at once with the angry remonstrance of men who feel that they may
be in the wrong.

"What is progress?" said Vorza. "We have been happy for a thousand years
and will be for another thousand if we are left alone."

"Nothing can come of lies but failure," said Father Algio.

"We are in it to the death now," said Cesano.

"Oh! that is true: so am I. And we have not the slightest prospect of
failure. I only said it had a regrettable aspect," said the editor. "And
I wondered if any of the people might think so, too, and not be
over-anxious to join us when the moment comes!"

"Oh, Cuvas!" said Vorza, in what he took for a light, bantering tone.
"You always were a damned old Liberal at heart. But the people of
Alsander are staunch and true, and love the old principles, the beauty
of their religion, the glories of their city. They do not want their
churches desecrated by an unbeliever, their city made boisterous by ugly
trains, their pure torrents debased to turn buzzing ma-chines, their
river bed all churned up into mud by dredgers, their virgin mountains
defiled by smoke and steam."

"But they have shown no discontent," objected the editor, not daring to
taunt Vorza for declaring his hatred of the reforms of which he had a
few minutes ago delicately suggested himself as the real author.

"You spend all your day on a stool, Cuvas. What do you know about the
hearts of our people? You have no time to do anything but transcribe
telegrams. The people do not mind, because they are so pleased to have
their King returned to sanity. What did I hear an old man say but a few
hours ago? He said that no one could become sane straight at once, after
all those years; that one might forgive all this reforming nonsense at
first, and that he wished anyone might have cured the Sovereign but that
hellish Jew of a doctor!"

"Curses on him!" said Father Algio.

"Are you content now, Count Cuvas?" said Vorza.

The title was only in part in jest: ennoblement was the understood
reward of complicity.

"You are right: I am well contented," said Cuvas. "I have, of course,
some ideas which I do not share with you, but in this business command
me. I have joined your conspiracy because I cannot stand immorality and
imposture," he added, with dignity. "Still, I can but think it only
right to remark once in public--now that it cannot affect our
action--what I have so often remarked to you in private--that it would
have been no imposture but sound policy to ask old Count Arnolfo
whether the rightful heir to the throne, the Princess Ianthe, were not
fit to conduct a regency."

Considerable stir was caused by these words of Cuvas, which reflected
thoughts which many a conspirator had been waiting for some one else to
utter.

"And I have answered you as many times," cried Vorza, turning on him in
a veritable fury, "that I have clear evidence that Count Arnolfo's own
son was implicated in this dastardly plot. A fine person to ask for
information or advice, your Arnolfo! Let us first of all get Andrea
safely restored, and then we can talk about a Regency!"

"Well, well," said Cuvas, "you are our leader!" He said it in a tone of
resignation which was entirely false, for Cuvas was by no means the
simple-souled Conservative-Liberal he seemed. His little speeches, as
well as his actions, were a cunning preparation for all eventualities.
Two days ago he had sent a trusty messenger to Count Arnolfo to inform
him truly not only that the King of Alsander had proved a grocer, but
also that the said grocer was in imminent peril of his life and throne.

"Is it nearly time?" called one of the guards. "I hear a noise outside."

Vorza, the only man of the party who possessed a watch (for in Alsander
you go by the cathedral bells), looked at it, and cried, "So it is!"
The little company hesitated and each of them turned cold for a moment
with the terror of excitement. Outside there was a clattering and
shouting in the streets, the curious persistent sound of people running
all in the same direction.

"Come!" said Vorza. "Where is the wine?"

The wine, or rather spirit, was produced from a bottle in the corner,
and poured out into a great bowl, from which each drank in turn,
pledging the sleeper in their midst. Then with a shout of "The King! The
King!" and with revolvers pointing carelessly aloft and an Alsandrian
banner borne by Peronella in the van, the little party streamed out into
the alley, and hardly were they in the street when their shout seemed to
re-echo all round them and a tremendous cry rose up, thunderous, to
heaven, "The King! The King!"




CHAPTER XVII

BATTLE

     When you paint a battle-scene let every inch of the
     foreground be dabbled with blood.
                                      _Leonardo da Vinci._


On this very day the King was inspecting the throne-room in the company
of Dr Sforelli, who was a person endowed, like most of his race, with a
sound artistic instinct. They were gazing on the broken plaster cupids,
the faded chinoiseries and singeries, and the immortal lion throne of
the Kradenda.

"You must have this renewed," observed Sforelli, stroking his swarthy
beard. "It will make a splendid and royal hall."

"Some day," said the King. "Not while there remains a road unpaved or a
street lamp unlit in the city of Alsander. Not till my harbour is deep
enough for all the navies of the world. And then it shall not be
renewed, it shall be cleaned of all the plaster and paint, and left to
stand with the ornament of its proportion and no other, save the lion
chair of the first Kradenda."

"It rings false, sir. You think you will attain the high ideal of
artistic restraint by taking away all the art like your Galsworthy.
These little monkeys running up the vine leaves are so well done that I
doubt if you would find out of France a painter fit to repair them.
Those engaging Chinamen have an idiotic expression which fills the heart
with delight. If you do not want them here, where I admit they are out
of keeping, you must not destroy them but have them transferred to form
a lady's bower, for which some day there will be room in the palace. And
when your Majesty has stripped the walls of these pretty things it would
be, not merely inaesthetic, but mean-spirited, unroyal, to leave the
vast walls white. The great Kradenda would not have left them white, he
who himself, the story tells, planned the rose pattern mosaic beneath
the cathedral dome. If you say these Chinamen, these monkeys, are vilely
out of place, you must find a design that will be in place and keeping."

"Allegorical figures," said the King, sardonically. "Justice with her
eyes bandaged, Plenty with a cornucopia, War scowling, Peace smiling,
Charity giving away a loaf of bread, Labour with a very red body and big
calf muscles smiting at a forge, Commerce watching her ships, Wool
Industry watching her sheep, and similar genial devices, such as I
believe you see in the offices of banks."

"Do you really think a conventional subject hinders a painter's
inspiration?" replied the doctor. "The Italians painted twenty thousand
Madonnas and more than half are worth a glance. And if the figure of
Peace was tiring in the bank, have you seen the figure of Peace in the
Town Hall of Siena? I know of a poor painter starving in Paris who would
wreathe your allegory in blazing sunshine by frescoing the walls in
little squares; and I know of another, who is starving at Munich, who,
by a cunning exaggeration of hollows and curves, would make your figures
supernatural and sublime as Michael Angelo's apostles."

"You have made me think, Sforelli," said the King, "that there is just a
chance that we may discover a better method even than that. It may be
you spoke more truly than you knew when you said that King Kradenda
would not have left these walls bare. Who knows if we may not discover
under the preserving whitewash of inappreciative fools marvels like
those men say await the conquering Crusader who scratches off the Moslem
paint from St Sophia? But damn St Sophia! Tell me," continued the King,
abruptly changing the subject, "what is the earliest possible date for
the projected visit of the Princess Ianthe to my court?"

"As I have informed your Majesty," the doctor courteously replied, "the
negotiations are not yet concluded. We hope, however, in about two
months' time...."

"It is intolerable!" interrupted the King. "Three weeks have already
passed, and now...."

He stopped short on the entry of a lackey who handed him a letter
bearing an English postmark.

"That," exclaimed the doctor, "I can recognize from afar as the hand of
our friend the old Poet."

Norman tore open the letter, and the lackey having retired, read aloud
as follows:--

"DEAR SIR,--

"I hope I am not taking too strange a liberty in writing to you a
somewhat personal letter, presuming on a single meeting and a short
acquaintance. My only claim upon your attention is that I recommended to
you a plan of action which you, subsequently to my advice but of course
independently of it, did in the end follow. I would not for a minute
presume, sir, to imagine that you were in any way influenced by the
random words of one whom you must have taken for a most ridiculous old
dotard. It is, indeed, in order to dispel the bad impression I must have
made on you by my eccentric dress and appearance that I am writing to
you now. May I assure you that these follies were entirely due to some
cerebral affection, overpowering indeed, but quite temporary, and
probably induced by the extreme heat of the sun? You will remember it
was a very hot summer's day when I entered your establishment to
purchase some tobacco. May I even go further, and assure you that, apart
from these sudden outbreaks and disturbances, I have led a most regular
life, was for several years in a city office, and was once mayor of my
borough; that I am not addicted to any criminal practices; and that I
am, at home, a thoroughly respected and respectful member of civihzed
society? But, as I say, I was in a state of mind totally foreign to my
saner and better self that afternoon of last summer; and owing, I
believe, to the cause above suggested, the unusual, almost volcanic,
heat of the day--I had been seeing visions and dreaming dreams after
reading Adlington's _Apuleius,_ a book of which I am extremely fond. The
sight of an _Apuleius_ between the hands--pardon my bluntness!--of a
provision dealer in a small and remote village upset my nerves, and I
talked to you, I fear, with an absurd arrogance and an offensive
flattery, for which I sincerely apologize.

"I write now, partly, because I am so old that I dare not wait--and,
indeed, I think that when you read this letter you may read it as the
veritable 'Song of a man that was dead': partly because I feel that a
second mental storm is arising within my worn and useless mind, and
that I shall not be responsible for what I may shortly do. Finally,
permit me to express a hope that you are prospering in the very high
social position which you have won--a position in which I am sure your
sturdy common sense will stand you in good stead, and that you are
keeping in the best possible health.

     "With sincere apologies for troubling you,
                 I remain,
      "Your devoted and obedient servant,
                       "LAURENCE HOPKINSON."

They had no time to comment on this weird letter. As Norman uttered the
words "Laurence Hopkinson" it seemed to him that he had started a spell
by the very mention of the ungainly name. A hum and murmur came through
the open windows: there was a clatter as if the town was waking from its
age-long sleep. The inexplicable noise rose louder and louder till it
could be distinguished as a roar of men, and the trampling and shouting
of a wrathful multitude.

They listened first in wonder, then in alarm, silent. At last Norman
cried, "Can you hear what they are shouting?"

"They are crying 'The King! The King!'" observed Sforelli.

"It is not a demonstration in my honour," said Norman, grimly. "Will you
come with me and see?"

They crossed the palace courtyard together. Norman remarked with
pleasure that the guard were already at the gates.

"There is no danger," said Sforelli, calmly. "All the guards are true as
steel. The castle is defended by cannon. The guards know their work
well, and we can depend on them to the last breath."

"_Viva la rego. Viva nia rego. Viva la rego vera_!" thundered the
populace. "_Viva...._" but the iron gates clanged to, and the sound was
cut off sharp and the murmur sounded once more dim and far.

A second after, the old Captain of the Palace Guard appeared, a fine
white-whiskered old gentleman soldier. He deferentially insisted on
leading them into a room above the gateway, whence the crowd could be
viewed in all safety. The Captain of the Guard provided them with seats
and bowed. "I have to apologize," he said, "for not having come to your
side at once, but I thought my first duty was to secure the defences. I
can assure your Majesty that there is no danger: and at a word from you
we can clear the square."

"Let us give them a chance first," said the King. "I wonder if I could
talk to them and find out exactly what they want!"

"They will believe no voice but that of the cannon," said the Captain,
gravely, "and the sooner that voice talks the better. There is
unfortunately no doubt as to what they want. Look out of this loophole
and look at that litter in the centre of the square. They have got
Andrea with them, and they mean to reinstate him."

"Well, if we are found out, we are found out," said Norman, with a merry
laugh.

"Men that are fools enough to support a cause like theirs," exclaimed
Sforelli, "men who prefer to be ruled by a legitimate madman rather than
by a true natural King deserve a triple death. Sir, will you not order
the Captain to fire?"

"I am in no hurry to shoot down those poor idealists," objected Norman.
"For them truth is more important than prosperity: and there is a great
deal to be said for their point of view. And you, Captain," he added,
turning to the old guardsman at his side, "do you not sympathize in your
heart with those tumultuous voices on the square? Are you willing to
fire on your fellow-citizens for the sake of a foreign usurper?"

The old Captain drew himself up and saluted. "My King," he said,
stiffly. "I hold your life in trust from Princess Ianthe. In fighting
for you we fight for her and for her we would blow the whole rabble of
Alsander to the moon and ourselves after them. It is she who has
commanded us to obey you, and obey you we shall, like the boys obeyed
the Old Man of the Mountains, even if you order us to fling ourselves
down man by man from the Western Tower. But let me add, Sir, that I and
my company do not think that the Princess, whom God preserve, could have
chosen a finer ruler for Alsander than the man you have shown yourself
to be even in these very few days, my lord the King."

"Captain," replied Norman, "I thank you. I entrust the defence of the
Castle entirely to your wisdom. I have only this request to make. I beg
of you, let the first shots you fire from our cannon be blank, and the
first loaded shells you send pass high above the heads of the crowd; and
do not bring out the murderous quickfirers except at the last necessity.
Alsandrian blood would weigh heavily upon me, Captain, and not less
heavily, I think, on our Royal Mistress."

All the while the King was speaking the savage roar never ceased echoing
up through the window--"Fling us down the grocer!--a rope for all
traitors!--the river for the foreigner!--the stake for the foreigner!"

The Captain took ceremonious leave in order to attend to his artillery.
"I will strictly carry our your Majesty's recommendations," he promised.
"We will see if the Castle cannot at least make as much noise as the
town."

Left to themselves, Norman and Sforelli observed through an old loophole
the turbulent scene on the square below. The hideous mob were swarming
before the closed gates and inexpugnable walls: some were trying to
collect wood in order to set fire to the Castle, while others were
attempting to drag into place some prehistoric guns which the
conspirators had unearthed Heaven knows where. Others, again, had
diverted their attentions to Sforelli's house, which stood in a corner
of the square, and having smashed the windows and burst in the door to a
full chorus of Jew-baiting insults, were now proceeding, in order to
assuage their disappointment at finding the owner out, to loot each
apartment very thoroughly, as could be seen by the phials of acids,
books, bottled anatomical specimens and occasional articulated skeletons
which came flying out of the upper windows.

"They will be accusing me of ritual murder next!" exclaimed the doctor
sorrowfully, as his third and best skeleton came crashing down on the
cobbles. "Only I do wish the Captain would hurry up and fire."

At that moment, with tremendous noise and smoke, all the cannons pealed
in unison.

"Your blank is being as effective as Napoleon's 'whiff of grape!'"
exclaimed Sforelli as soon as the smoke began to roll away. "Look
there!"

The crowd were radiating away from the square like a shower of meteors
from their centre, seized by a horrible panic. A second harmless
broadside of the cannon seemed to have cleared the square completely.

"The square is empty!" cried the King.

"Not quite empty," remarked Sforelli. "What is that over there to the
right?"

The King followed the direction of his glance and saw a grisly, battered
old sedan chair standing like a dismal island in one corner of the
square, beyond the great statue of Kradenda, its tinsel trappings
glittering indecently in the sunlight. As he continued to watch it
curiously he saw that from the window of this shabby litter a white and
twitching face kept bobbing out, a face that wore what could be seen
even at that distance to be an irritating expression of mild surprise
and general inquiry.

"It is their King," said Sforelli, in deep scorn, looking at the tall
and handsome figure beside him, as though he were making a mental
comparison.

"This is our time for action," said Norman, glad enough to find a plan
for doing something at last. "Our best course will be to go out and
bring that poor imbecile into the castle, now that the square is empty,
and hold him as a hostage till the leader of this rabble, who I suppose
is Vorza, comes in to parley."

And the King, with Sforelli at his heels, rushed down the stairs to the
lodge of the gateway where the arms were kept. Having armed himself and
his companion with a brace of revolvers, he sent to inform the Captain,
and taking with him Sforelli, who refused to leave him, and half-a-dozen
men of the Palace Guard, they crossed the square in the direction of the
grotesque old sedan chair.

The little company arrived there in a second: not a soul came to oppose
them; not a rifle cracked: not a leaf stirred. But when the King was
already only a pace or two from the sedan chair, there sprang out
suddenly from behind it, like a splendid Amazon, a woman armed. Her hair
was loose, her beautiful head poised proudly, her breast half uncovered,
her bare right arm swung at her side, and from her right hand gleamed
the barrel of a revolver.

Norman sprang back, startled, and hardly recognized the wild apparition.

From within the sedan chair came a dismal moan, "My Queen! my Queen!
they have come to take away my Queen!" and the pale head once more came
wandering out of the curtains.

"So," said Norman, "that is your new lover, Peronella?"

The girl shivered with disgust at the accusation, but she answered
proudly enough: "That is the King of Alsander, you lying English
tradesman, and I am here to guard him. You had better have stayed safe
in your palace walls. And you had better never have come to Alsander
first to betray its women and then to betray its King. And now we shall
see who is stronger, you or I!"

"You are growing eloquent, Peronella," said Norman, coolly, "but I have
no time to answer your reproaches. I should only like to remark that it
is usual to leave a man to guard legitimate monarchs who are in
positions of such exceptional difficulty and danger."

"They ran away!" said Peronella, contemptuously.

"Well, we have come to take your charge into the palace. We will not
harm him or you. Lift the chair," said the Bang, commanding his guards
and turning to the girl he said, "Will you not come, too? You will be
safe till this folly is over."

"Thank you for the invitation," retorted the girl. "I am not a
Circassian slave!"

And raising her revolver quickly she fired it full in his face. Had not
one of the guards, who had been watching her narrowly, knocked up her
arm and wrested the weapon from her this story had ended some pages
sooner.

"Why did you shoot at him?" said the King, looking again out of his
window, dimly comprehending what had happened. "Leave him, my Queen: he
is surely my faithful knight who delivered me from the dragon."

But the sound of the shot had its effect. The square was full of eyes
and ears. Hundreds saw from their hiding-places how the false King with
only four men about him, had come out intending, as they thought, to
kill the true King, and they surmised that the great heroine, the divine
Peronella, for whom they were ready to die a thousand deaths, was in
danger. And they also observed, in quick whispers, one to another, that
if the Englishman were in the square the cannon could not be fired at
them for fear of killing him too. Also they were beginning to realize
that no one had been hurt by the last firing of the said cannon, and one
voluble fellow swore that to his personal knowledge the cannons were
only what he called salute cannons, and there was no ammunition in the
Castle. These several considerations ran in whispers from mouth to mouth
and fanned the flickering courage of the Legitimists, and, a thousand to
eight, they rushed back into the square they had so speedily deserted
ten minutes ago with a shout of triumph. Seeing the deadly peril of
their master and the impossibility of using their cannon effectively,
the Palace Guards instantly made a sortie under the command of the old
Captain, and in a few seconds a savage fight was raging all round the
statue of Kradenda.

Peronella, snatched away from the guardsman who had disarmed her by the
rude hands of passionate rescuers, was born aloft, waving in her hand,
in place of the ravished revolver, a frantic, bloody sword wherewith the
gallant Cesano, with a mighty sweep, had just slashed off the arm of one
of the guards. The odds for the moment were tremendous against the
Palace. There were only ten men left to guard the door, which could not
be shut for fear of barring the escape of the others; and fifty other
guards were pushing their way towards Norman and his supporters--an all
but hopeless task--for even their discipline and superior weapons were
useless against a mad mob of a thousand men.

But a diversion came from an unexpected quarter. The tumult had
strangely affected Andrea and strange phantoms were dancing down the
crooked corridors of his mind. For him the noise of the sorry tumult
became the noise of his battle, and the pushing, shuffling throng behind
him were his trampling warriors serried in their thousands. He
remembered his ancestry and heard the voice of him who was called Iron.
Brave words from old and musty books fanned the sleeping fires of his
manhood; lovely forms of long dead women, memories of tattered
tapestries and dim old paintings sailed before his dazzled, visionary
eyes. But clearest and fairest he saw, as it were, amongst all those
phantoms one figure--passionately real--the figure of Peronella waving
her bloodstained sword. Why had they taken her away? The enemy had taken
her, and she was calling to him for aid. He could not but obey the
summons of her distressed beauty, perfect knight of chivalry that he
was.

"At them, my men!" he cried. "Save the Queen! Follow me!"

And he leapt out of his couch, tugging at the sword wherewith the
conspirators had adorned him, lest he should be too pitiable a sight,
even for loyalists. It had been fastened into its scabbard for security,
but wrenching scabbard and all from his belt he dealt such a shattering
blow on the head of the nearest bystander that the scabbard flew off
along a jet of blood, and in an instant the King was dealing round him
madly with his naked sword. Three of his loyal subjects became martyrs
to their cause by mistake before anyone could realize danger: others
fled before him; In another second he would have clasped Peronella in
his arms, but her attendant swains bore her to safety behind the great
statue of Kradenda, which stood proudly in the centre of the square,
above all the turmoil.

The King saw an old helmeted warrior thrice the size of life, standing
between him and his beloved. He knew not it was his ancestor, suspected
not that it was stone. He dealt the statue a furious blow with his
sword, and his sword fell shattered at his feet. He leapt on to the
statue and clutched it round the neck. It fell over him. In one mass on
the ground, all crushed and broken, lay together the statue of Kradenda
and the body of Andrea.

Thus, in the temporary realization of the chivalrous ideal, his
shattered sword stained with foolish blood, was Andrea the Mad, for nine
years King of Alsander, killed by the statue of his celebrated ancestor.
And as to what madness is, and whether we are mad and they are sane,
that is a long discussion, but it is certain that it is an ill thing for
the sane to rule the mad, or the mad the sane. And it is known that
there was a light of glory and happiness shining in Andrea's eyes at the
moment of his death such as none of us will ever show when we look into
the mouth of the pit: and it may be his life was well worth while, to
attain that moment.

       *       *       *       *       *

However, this strange incident and the very detonation of the statue's
fall, seemed only to incite the fury of the mob. With a blind rush they
surrounded Norman's little company, thereby cutting them off hopelessly
from the thirty or forty Palace Guards who were passionately struggling
to the rescue. Had the crowd been properly armed, Norman and his
friends would have been annihilated at once: but fortunately only a few
of the populace had revolvers and the rest, equipped only with mattocks
and stones, took good care to keep out of range of the swords of the
guardsmen, and dreaded still more than those circling swords the
unpleasantly quick and accurate automatic pistols with which the Palace
fought. Moreover, Norman's band had gained great heart from the gallant
behaviour of the little wizened Cassolis and four other members of the
Advancement Association who, not being known participants of the
conspiracy, pushed their way through the seething masses to the King's
side, and on their arrival suddenly whipped out their revolvers and
fired point plank at the assailants.[1]

But the respite was a short one; the multitude seemed to swell above
them like a monstrous wave. Stones wrenched from the cobbled ground
hailed round the devoted band, stray bullets pinged and splashed on the
pedestal of the fallen statue against which, above the very body of
Andrea, they had set their backs for a last stand. At all events they
were, in the old phrase, selling their lives dearly. Of the bodies that
lay around them they constructed a bleeding and quivering rampart, on
the summit of which one of the guards, wounded to death, heroically laid
himself to die.

It was now that Vorza, with that popular heroine Peronella at his side,
rallied his forces for a vigorous onset, and the reactionary statesman,
espying the swarthy head of Sforelli towering over the fight, screamed
out in a passion, "Cut down that cowardly Jew!"

"I'll give you cowardly Jew!" roared Sforelli in answer, and rushing out
from behind that crimson fleshy fortification of theirs he flung through
the crowd straight at their startled leader. All fell back in terror
from his mad attack. Sforelli reached his goal in a flash and seized
Vorza lightly as it seemed by the shoulders. The next instant all that
statesmanship went hurtling over the heads of the crowd; and the next,
that brain, which had furnished so much valuable counsel to the citizens
of Alsander, was spilt over the stony floor. Norman, for all his
astonishment, realized in a flash at the same moment what master of the
art had taught the frail Princess the trick that had once laid him low
on the floor of the curiosity shop, a woman's victim.

But the wrestler's skill could no further avail Sforelli; he paid for
his vengeance with his life. He fell, literally bashed to death, and his
excellent soul, released from the unprepossessing body, descended to
whatever dark abode is destined for the disciples of Voltaire, at the
very moment that Vorza's (for Vorza never stirred again) was carried off
by angels.

Death, shame to tell, did not rescue the doctor's battered body from the
insults of the populace, and among that evil populace conspicuous was
Peronella, delirious at the sight of pain and blood, like other fighting
women of history of whom record tells. Cesano saw with horror her
dripping arms and the vile glitter in her eyes. Good honest fellow that
he was, beneath all his extravagances, he feared for her reason and was
ashamed for her womanhood. Little did that lover care at that moment for
foolish Conspiracy, or the leaderless crowd that gaped around him: he
seized Peronella, swung her roughly from the ground and bore her out of
the fray.

Short enough was the relief which the spectacular death of the opposing
leader afforded to the Palace, but a relief it was. For a full minute's
space the shepherdless rabble recoiled, and the now decimated party of
the Palace Guards, fighting their way towards the centre of the square,
took heart of grace. Heavily they laid on around them, with much
hacking and hewing at hands and heads and frequent hamstringing of their
terrified adversaries. Blood rained down from their swords like heavy
snow melting from the trees in early spring. But before they had made
twenty yards of headway the courage and fanatic zeal of Father Algio had
rendered even this great effort vain. Raising a silver cross on high he
called "Vengeance for the King" with such fury that the whole crowd took
up the shout and a deafening "Vengeance" boomed over the square like a
blast of the North wind. Those who surrounded the fiery-eyed old priest
made a dash at the ghastly barricade and began tearing it down. Then
indeed Norman, thrice wounded, gasping, slipping on blood and tattered
flesh, expected the sudden darkness; and in his extremity, as though to
reply to, the crowd's yell for vengeance, he could not but cry aloud the
name that for him evoked all the joy of living. Fiercely enough his
followers took up the cry, shouting, with uplifted swords, "Ianthe and
for Ianthe!" making the name of their Lady ring and ring out again with
all the passion of men about to die.

Suddenly, at that very minute, with such weird effect that some of the
little band dreamt they had died already, there pealed through the
Castle square what seemed the enchanted answer of their shouting, not
that savage cry of vengeance, but a yet stranger, a yet wilder
tumult,--the blowing of a hundred horns with rattling hoof-beats to mark
the measure. And forthwith from the great North Road poured into the
square at full gallop, their horses foaming and steaming, a troop of
cavalry in the radiant panoply of the Royal Alsandrian Frontier Guard.
In the hush caused by their astounding entry their burly colonel put up
a megaphone and bawled, "Cease fire in the name of the Princess! All
fighting to cease!" However, without waiting for this command to take
effect the troopers laid on with their long whips and drove back the
rabble to one corner of the square, at the same time forming guard round
Norman and their fellow soldiers of the Palace.

The Englishman and his followers leant back half dead against the
blood-stained marble, stunned by this deliverance, too weak to ask one
question of their rescuers. And then down into the midst of the square
towards them, escorted by one whom many knew to be the old Count
Arnolfo, on a great glistening black horse, rode the Princess Ianthe.

"And where," she cried, "is the King of Alsander?" and at the very
moment of her asking her eyes lighted full on Norman.

She was bronze helmeted, a very Athena, and dressed in the gold and
green uniform of the Alsandrian Riders, but it was Ianthe the woman who
commanded the square, calling for her King. Her face indeed still looked
boyish enough, with her hair half hidden by the flashing helmet; and her
young body looked so slim in the handsome uniform that it might well
have been a lad's. The large dark eyes, aglow with intelligence, had
dominated the face of the boy; but as she caught sight of Norman she
smiled gently: and it was the strange smiling of her perfect mouth that
revealed Ianthe an enchantress among women. That smile, which da Vinci
caught years ago and fixed in a picture whose destiny has proved as
restless as its charm--the smile of the boy-like Renaissance women--of
the women who knew art and history and secrets beautiful and tragic
which have perished with their smiles--such a smile played over the face
of Ianthe as she bent her eyes down to her wounded lover, leaning
wearily on his dripping sword. And he, looking up, saw in amaze the new
apparition of her splendour--that special and rare beauty of a woman
whose life is ruled by passionate intelligence: and he cried out, "O
Queen of Alsander!" and as she dismounted flung his sword on the ground
before her.

Seeing this parley of the Princess and the Impostor some of the
bewildered crowd murmured, and one man shouted, "The King of Alsander is
lying dead at your feet!"

"Ah!" muttered Ianthe, shuddering as she looked at the staring head
beneath her, "is that Andrea? That my kinsman?"

"He fought with the statue till it fell on him and slew him," explained
Cassolis briefly. "Sforelli killed Vorza and himself perished, and your
Majesty is now by undisputed title Queen of Alsander."

"If Vorza is dead who leads this mob?" inquired the grey old Count
Arnolfo.

"A fanatic priest," some one replied.

"Bring him before us," the Count commanded.

He came before them, cross in hand, a black cowled, black frocked, frost
bearded old monk with mad blue eyes, and before anyone had spoken, he
flung himself on his knees before Ianthe.

"Queen of Alsander," he cried, pointing to Norman, "if this man was
known to you, was crowned with your connivance, has been fighting in
your name, why did you not tell your faithful people of Alsander?"

"And why," rejoined the Princess in clear tones that could be heard all
over the square, "when you and your friends discovered that the King was
not Andrea, did you send no word to me, but, without the authority of
the Royal Family of Alsander, plotted by yourselves like anarchists?"

"And why," said Norman, "did you, again like anarchists, send no summons
to the Palace, but, without formally demanding my abdication, set your
rabble on me and my followers like a pack of starving curs? It had been
arranged that on an emergency you should have been told the truth. But
you gave us no chance, and the blood of my brave men and of those poor
fools and of your King himself is on the heads of your conspirators."

"There is but one answer to your question and you know it," said old
Count Arnolfo, "and that is that Vorza your dead leader was a traitor,
an ambitious traitor, and a vile traitor!"

But the Princess cut them short. "Set me on the pedestal where stood the
statue of my ancestor," she cried, "and the King beside me. Thence I
will address Alsander!" And on to the pedestal she sprang with easy
grace, but the King, for all that an old soldier had roughly staunched
his wounds, had to be lifted, weak and fainting, to her side. "Courage,
my lover," she whispered, as she bent to raise him. "Do I forget that
you are wounded, that you are weary? But stand up now for the sake of
Alsander, and for a moment face these simple folk with me."

Straight and stiff he stood and deadly pale, leaning on her arm while
she in ringing tones spake to her people.

"I," she said, "since the King Andrea is dead, am by divine right and
undisputed title Queen of Alsander. From you who, without deigning to
consult me, have fought for the divine right of my house, utter
obedience and submission I expect. I do as I choose, I say as I choose,
I dispose of Alsander as I choose, and I make King thereof the man I
choose, and that King is at my side. If he is a foreigner so was the
great Kradenda: if he is of lowly birth, so, too, was that founder of
all Alsander's fortune, in the place of whose monument, destroyed by and
destroyer of my unhappy kinsmen, we now stand together. May the omen
which was disastrous for him be propitious for us! Now you may know that
this very night will be celebrated in the Castle privately, out of
respect for my dead kinsman, my union with the already consecrated King
whom you have tried so savagely to kill. And expect no further excuse or
explanation from me; for you have behaved like fools, O people of
Alsander, and had I not been warned just in time of what was brewing by
the only loyal man in your conspiracy, irreparable disaster would have
befallen the State. And now my soldiers will guard and prepare for
interment with all honour the remains of King Andrea, of that good
patriot Sforelli, and of those brave soldiers who have perished in this
miserable tumult. Those of you who have your own dead on this square may
remain to attend them unmolested; but the rest of you must disperse at
once and quietly to your several homes."

The half understanding populace listened in sullen silence to these
bitter and uncompromising words. But an old shoemaker who stood in the
front rank of the crowd, his dim eyes enchanted and his aged heart fired
by the beauty and fearlessness of the young Queen, cried out: "Treat us
as you will, Queen Ianthe of Alsander, but do not be angry with your
people: for we have been mightily deceived."

The Princess was moved. "You were led by an evil shepherd," she replied,
"who forced me to deceive you. But love for the people of Alsander is
branded on my heart--and on the King's."

"Then let us cheer," shouted the old shoemaker, shaking his grizzled
locks toward the crowd, "for the Queen--and for the King of Alsander!"

       *       *       *       *       *

We leave them there, the Mistress and the Captain of a little ship of
State, and only ask, before we turn to the Epilogue in Blaindon--But
what of Peronella? Did Cesano thrash the nonsense out of her in good
Alsandrian fashion, wed her, and live happily ever after, peopling with
troops of swarthy children some mountain cottage in a foreign land? Or
did he quail before her flashing eyes, dismissed for ever, and is that
darker fancy true that it is she whom men call the Blood-red Rose from
the cabins of Moscow to the cabarets of Montmartre, she for whom many
have died, she who they say has ordered the death of legions in her
fierce hatred of Kings and the minions of Kings? Only this is certain,
that neither she nor her lover were ever seen again in that fantastic
town, Alsander.


[1] I much regret my inability to bring in at this juncture our old
friend the British Consul at Alsander. Unfortunately he was not in town,
but had taken advantage of a well-earned holiday to go shooting in the
mountains. Had he been in Alsander there is little doubt but that he
would have pushed through the crowd in his uniform to claim and protect
Norman as a British subject.




CHAPTER XVIII

THE POET VISITS BLAINDON ONCE MORE, AND TAKES JOHN GAFFEKIN TO THE
SEASHORE WHERE A MIRACLE OCCURS

      ... les hommes aux yeux verts ... ceux-la
     qui aiment la mer, la mer immense, tumultueuse
     et verte, l'eau informe et multiforme.
                                     _Baudelaire._

     Vives autem beautus, vives in mea tutela
     gloriosus, et cum spatium saeculi tui permensus
     ad inferos demearis ibi quoque in ipso subterraneo
     semirutundo me ... videbis
     Acherontis tenebris interlucentum, Stygiisque
     penetralibus regnantem.
                   _Isis to Lucius in the "Golden Ass."_


John Gaffekin, weary of this world, left his invalid mother asleep, in
charge of the nurse, and walked down into Blaindon after a miserable
meal. His mother's health was worse, his prospects gloomy; his life had
become very friendless since Norman went abroad. From the latter,
moreover, he had had no news for months.

The night was clear and pleasant, but to a lonely man the far-shining
brilliance of the Blaindon Arms appeared more pleasant still: and so he
turned on his heel and swung in through the unaccustomed door.

"Why, bless me, Mr Gaffekin," said Nancy, "it's a long time since you've
been in."

"It is, indeed, Nancy. How's life?"

"Oh, just as usual, Mr Gaffekin, thank you. Have you heard from Mr Price
again?"

"Not a word," said John. "Not a single word since last summer."

"Now, that's odd, sir," said Peter Smith, "very odd."

"I tell you what," said Thomas Bodkin, the sexton, with prodigious
wisdom, "he's fallen in love."

"He wasn't much that sort, Mr Bodkin," said Nancy, with a little sigh.
It pleased her to imagine that her heart was broken.

"Damned silly," said old Canthrop. "Damned silly. Never tould his
feyther."

"And the old man so cut up about it," said Peter Smith.

"Yes," said John. "Didn't get back to business for nearly a week."

"Ah, it's curious to think of him so far away," said Nancy. "Out there
in Aljanda. That is, if he wasn't killed in the row."

"Ah, if...." said the sexton ominously.

The _Daily Mail_ had contained one day a few months ago a small
paragraph which had caused quite an excitement in the village of
Blaindon, reporting "considerable fermentation in the little State of
Alsander." But the succeeding numbers had no further information on the
subject, being well stocked with letters answering the grave question
"Is the stage immoral?" which the great paper had proposed to itself
with typical earnestness and audacity. The inhabitants of Blaindon,
however, were not deterred by the meagreness of the data from an almost
daily discussion as to whether their fellow townsman had perished.

"You cheer up, Nancy," said John Oggs, who was the sexton's opponent in
the controversy. "Price is all right, and he'll turn up again one of
these days, all boiled yellow by the sun."

"What a strange thing Life is," said Nancy.

"A strange thing indeed," said old Canthrop. "A strange thing."

"The sun makes one red, not yellow," said the sexton. "But it's small
colour he's showing now, poor boy, I can tell you. In them furrin parts
knives aint reserved for cheese. And he'd have written for sure."

"Ah, sexton," said John to escape the perpetual topic, "I can see you're
a man of ideas."

"Well, Mr Gaffekin, I may not have been to Oxford, as I say, but I does
think. As I said to Parson once before a burial. 'You and I, sir,' I
said, 'are thinking men.' It goes with the business."

"It must be dreadful work," said John Oggs. "Digging holes for dead men.
Well, we must all go under."

"Ay, indeed," said old Canthrop.

"Don't speak from the bottom of your throat like that," said Peter
Smith. "It gives me the horrors, with all this talk about death and
all."

"Death should not give anyone the horrors," said the sexton, who
attended church regularly. "It is but the Portal, Of a better life
beyond."

"But it's rather nice to have the horrors sometimes," came Nancy's voice
from behind the bar. "I wonder why!"

"Not but what," continued the sexton, "it is not excusable now for me.
For my work is very sad and awesome indeed."

The sexton had never before been so impressed with the conversational
advantage of his lugubrious occupation, and he determined to make up for
lost opportunities.

"I believe you, sexton," said Peter Smith,

"Some of them as I've buried was all young and blooming, and others were
ever so old, nearly as old as Canthrop yonder."

"Don't talk like that," said the patriarch, hoarsely. "Ye make me
afeard."

"I wonder what it is to-night," said a labourer in the corner who had
hitherto drunk in silence, "that makes you all talk as if you couldn't
say what you meant."

"Perhaps a man is being hanged," said the sexton.

"Poor fellow!" said Nancy.

"I feel queer to-night," drawled old Canthrop. "But I don't know why
that is. What is it makes it so?"

"The moon, old man, the moon."

The company started with fear at the sound of this strange voice, turned
round, and with blanched faces beheld the figure of an old man framed in
the doorway, with the silver light creeping along his hoary beard, and
over his unprecedented clothes. For the stranger was clothed in what
appeared to be a white woollen dressing-gown, with a purple border, and
he had sandals on his feet. He wore no hat, and his snowy hair waved
gently in the radiance of the gaslight. He walked forward amid a dead
silence, and laid his hand on old Canthrop's shoulder.

"Yes, old comrade in a life of folly," he cried. "The moon is full
to-night, and you know it is her fault. Hers are the fiery drops that
make your eyes water and my eyes shine. I, to whom she has revealed her
secret springs of knowledge and beauty, you, who have not fifty words to
your tongue--I, who feel her gentle influence pervading forest and
meadow, tower and town, you, who feel only the terror of her nocturnal
power that brings you to your fellows, you, the village dotard, I, the
king of the world; we have one mother, old man, and that's the Moon! You
see and fear the great white spaces that flit before your eyes; I know
and love her cloudy caverns of mystery and wonder."

"Who are you?" whispered old Canthrop. "Go away!"

"A minute, a minute. I am what you will, Death, Destiny, a Poet. Is John
Gaffekin here?"

"Are you...." began John.

"I am the same. Ask nothing more. My dear--a drink round to all, for
our farewell."

The Poet looked round, smiling at the solemn and pale faces, at the
trembling hands of those that proposed his health. Then, linking his arm
through John's, he took him out into the street.

"Come with me," said the Poet, "we will go to old William Price's shop."

After five minutes' walk in a silence which John Gaffekin somehow did
not wish to break they arrived outside the little square brick house
which was dark, silent and shuttered fast. In front of it the last
gas-lamp in Blaindon glimmered in the wind-driven moon-rays.

"Call the old man," ordered the Poet.

John Gaffekin banged violently at the door and shouted: "Mr Price! Mr
Price!"

"Eh, what's up the deuce and all?" came a loud but sleepy voice from the
first floor. A match was struck, a light glimmered through the bars,
the shutters creaked open and old Mr Price popped his nightcap out of
the window.

"News from your son," cried the Poet cheerfully.

"Eh, is that anything to jump a man up for in the dead o' night?"
retorted the old man, cursing under his breath. "I was feared of a smoky
black beggaring fire at the least, I was. What the devil do I care about
the young rip? He owes me a hundred pound, he do, and I wrote him, but
he never sent back a penny nor a post-card."

"You're a nice, pretty father," exclaimed the Poet. "I've got your
hundred in my pocket."

"I'll come down to you and Mr Gaffekin," said William Price very
civilly.

"No you won't," retorted the Poet, "you should have come down before.
You'll stay right where you are and answer me some questions I have in
my head to ask you. And if you budge from that window you sha'n't have a
groat nor a tizzy of all your hundred pounds."

"It's cold-here," grumbled Mr Price, churlishly, flapping his arms
across his chest. "What d'yer want to know?"

"Why, first of all, tell me why you never go out of nights?" cried the
Poet.

"What's that to you?" bawled back the old man.

"And tell me, tell me, William Price, who was the mother of your son?"
the Poet shouted.

"What in Hell or under it is that to you?" came in very full-throated
accents from the open window.

"Why is your bedstead all made of wood?" thundered the relentless Poet
in stentorian tones.

"Hey, stop that!" cried the voice from the window.

But the Poet continued his questions unperturbed.

"Why have you half forgotten your own son, William Price? Why do you
sleep all day, Father William, and pretend to be more stupid than the
grave? Do you think a Poet cannot see through the film you cast over
your happy eyes?"

"Eh, what are you driving at?" exclaimed Sir Price in a voice no longer
angry but rather tremulous.

"Who are your guests to-night, old man, who are your guests to-night?"
yelled the Poet, positively dancing with malicious satisfaction.

"Why, be you one of them that know?" cried the old man in a new tone of
something like awe and something like fellowship.

"I am one of the chief of those that know," replied the Poet; "for me
shutters unbar, for me the music pipes, and even my companion for all he
can wrap his soul up in the wisdom of Oxford town shall see the fairies
haunting.

"_What_!" said John.

But the Poet urbanely continued: "I'm forgetting those hundred pounds,"
and taking out a sheaf of banknotes from a vast white pocket like a
snow-cavern he crumpled them into a ball and hurled them at one of the
barred shutters.

The shutter opened to let the packet pass.

"Money, my friend," observed the Poet tranquilly, "opens all doors."

A soft peal of very quiet laughter filled the little house and all the
other shutters opened to a thin music: room after room flashed into
light as though so many plays were starting on so many miniature stages
with all the shadows flying to the roof: and one by one the half naked
little women of the wild crept out of hiding and began their dance. And
through it all as though it meant nothing for him, though his room was
flashing from hue to hue like a transformation scene and an enchanting
person had her arms around his neck, old Price bawled down: "Well, what
of Norman?"

"He has become King of that country and wedded to its Queen," roared the
Poet.

"I always said he was a sound practical fellow without an idea in his
head," remarked William Price with serene philosophy.

"Like most of the Half-Race," assented the Poet.

"But we filled his bottle with luck," trilled the silvery lady upstairs.

"And his countenance with beauty," replied the Poet. "Well, we really
must be off now. Good-bye to you all, and a pleasant evening!"

Laughing good-byes rippled back at him from all over the house like the
jingling of toy harness bells.

"Let us walk down to the sea," said the Poet, turning to go. "How far is
it to the sea, John?"

"Ten miles."

"And by which road?"

"Straight on."

"Ah, yes," said the Poet, setting off at a swinging pace, "it is the
road by which first I came to Blaindon."

But before they had gone many yards John heard his name called and stood
still. Down through the moonlight glided as it might be a wingless angel
and by his side there stood the fairy of the upper window.

"John," she said, "when you see my son again give him this kiss."

And kissing him she floated away.

The Poet who had gone ahead, waited for John to come up.

"But I must go back to my mother," the young man protested, as though a
glimpse of the unmagical past had driven a sword through his mind. "She
is very ill."

"I fear she will die within the week," replied the Poet, "but I inquired
at your house on the way to the Blaindon Arms and learnt that to-night
she is happily asleep and will not need you. When you are alone in the
world, John, you must go to Norman to give him his mother's kiss and
help him through days of trouble. It's no easy game even in a little
country, even with a born Queen, even with the Immortals helping--the
game of King."

He said no more. The two went on together on the road leading to the
sea, without another word, for miles. John dared not speak; he was half
delirious with the silence; the dread prediction of his mother's death,
the wild story about his friend, rang in his ears; the house of the
Fairies danced before his eyes; and he feared his fateful companion. The
wizard forms of the hedges threatened John Gaffekin, the harvest moon,
golden and vast, seemed to shine hot upon his hatless brow. He kept
comparing the trickling of the roadside brook to the trickling of the
little thoughts in his head; he could not get rid of this grotesque
comparison, and grew more afraid. At last the poet broke the silence.

"Are you lonely, John?" he said. "Or have you found women after your
desire?"

"Women?" said John. "I never cared for any woman but for my mother. I
have one friend far away of whom you tell me news I cannot understand. I
have known many men at Oxford--good athletes or great wits. But I shall
never make another friend like him. I shall certainly seek him out if
what you predict falls true. I am indeed lonely."

They were silent again. They had now come to brackish marshes, and to a
land of dizzy vapours. The wind blew harder from the sea, singing like a
hero, bringing with it a salt and pungent odour. The poet linked his arm
with the young man's as though to protect him from the evil spells of
night.

"Take heart, my friend," said he. "You have years of glorious life
before you, and it is a splendid night for visions."

John suddenly stopped, swung round to face the old man, and began
speaking hurriedly, gasping for breath before each phrase.

"What has happened?" he cried. "Why am I here? Who are you? An hour or
two ago I was just an unhappy man, rather lonely, with a mother lying
ill. Now, you tell me my mother will die, and you tell me news about my
friend too wild for a sober man to repeat; you have already shown me
that which I feared to see, and now, as though it were not sufficient,
you say the night is propitious for visions. I am so distressed in mind
that I cannot talk properly; the words get inverted, the world reels
like a decadent's dream, my head is turning with it, and I keep on
feeling a sort of brook trickling. What are you doing in that white
coat? Who are you? Tell me who you are."

John raised his voice to the pitch of anger at the end, wroth that this
mysterious being should cross his path "_fantasia, non homo_."

"Be calm, my friend: all is well; you are not used to the extensions of
Reality, that is all. I do not want to take advantage of the night.
Behold we have arrived at the seashore. Leave me now, friend of Norman!
Go on to that distant rock, and watch. You may see what is to be seen.
But do not profane the silence of the moonlight."

And he waved his hands in front of John's bewildered eyes as he chanted
low the injunction.

John obeyed him as by constraint, and watched from a rock some hundred
yards away.

The old man made ablutions in the sea and began to intone his prayer.

"Thou who appearest in the waves of water, of wind and of fire, Queen
who with special majesty dost sway the minds of men, the beasts and
cattle and all the moving substance of the thundering world, appear to
me, be mine, be myself: show the lucid sign upon thy brows: grant me the
reward for faithful service: let me hear once again from those immortal
lips thy ancient promise, that in the pit of Acheron, yea, even there,
thou wilt be shining among the thoughtless dead. Thou art and art not
the great Cytherean, mother of the world, thou art and art not Artemis,
the virgin of the forests, the huntress, thou art and art not Pallas, to
whom the snake has told his story, thou art and art not her to whom
sailors pray in the still waters of the middle sea: it may be the
Egyptians knew thee by thy name: it may be thou art the mother of
Christians in the South. Thou art in me but thou art not what I am! I
salute thee!"

John saw the old man fling off his white mantle: an instant after it was
in flames: Then he thought he saw him rise naked among the flames and
run toward the sea with a silver disc shining on his breast: and he
began to swim out along the track of the moon. Then he saw the great
full moon burst into a shower of stars and fall into the sea, and a
white woman rose, huge and glorious, from the waves, with a horned
helmet on her brow and spread over the sky like light till she filled
the world. Then the treble octave was sounded all through the universe,
and he fell senseless.

He awoke hours later, but saw nothing save a wet sea rolling in the
dawn.



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