"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.3
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.