KOPHETUA THE THIRTEENTH

KOPHETUA
THE THIRTEENTH

BY

JULIAN CORBETT

AUTHOR OF "THE FALL OF ASGARD," "FOR GOD AND GOLD," ETC.

London
MACMILLAN & CO.
AND NEW YORK
1889

The right of translation is reserved

CONTENTS.

CHAPTER I. ONEIRIA.

"I read that once in Affrica

A princely wight did raine,

Who had to name Kophetua,

As poets they did faine."

The outburst of political speculation which followed the Renaissance is well known to us by its remarkable literature. True it is that the greater part of it is long since dead and sleeps in peace, save where every now and then its ghosts are scared by a literary historian. But this obscurity only adds to its interest, and increases at once the charm, the safety, and the credit we may enjoy in discussing it. For the ordinary Englishman perhaps the only work of the class which is still really alive is the delightful political romance of Sir Thomas More. Yet to those who love the dustier shelves of libraries long ranks of its comrades will be not unfamiliar, standing guard as it were over the memory of an intellectual movement as vigorous and creative as any the world has seen.

It is to the more daring and fantastic of these works that this chapter in the history of philosophy owes its charm and freshness. So entrancing indeed are they that those double traitors to humanity, who not only write books, but write books about books, have led us to look upon these ponderous folios as the only mark the movement has left on history, and we are apt to forget that it also had its practical side. Yet that side not only had an existence, but it was even more romantic and fanciful than the other.

For many of the pregnant seeds from the tree of political knowledge, which the strong breath of the Renaissance was wafting over Europe, fell on good ground, where pedantry did not spring up and choke them. There were many cultivated earnest gentlemen of that time in whose chivalrous hearts they alighted, and whose imagination was so stirred with the new ideas, that they actually attempted to carry them into practice.

Coming as the movement did contemporaneously with the dayspring of colonial enterprise, it naturally suggested itself to these high-souled scholars to leave the corruption and oppression of the old countries which it was hopeless to reform, and sailing away with a little community of kindred souls in whom the new spirit breathed, to found in some distant land a colony, where a polity established in pure reason should grow to be a model to the world.

Many of these attempts were complete failures at once, nearly all were more or less short-lived, and by the end of the last century there was not one so prosperous as the African colony of Oneiria.

Lying as it did in that remote and little-known corner of the world which is watered by the Drâa and its tributaries, and is intersected by the spurs of the Anti-Atlas, it had been able to enjoy after its first struggle for existence the repose of a well-earned obscurity. There was no one who envied it anything, and consequently it had no enemy, nor even an importunate friend to seek its alliance and lead it into scrapes. The half savage Shelluhs, who sparsely occupied the country, were soon content to remain as tributaries under their own chiefs, in the more inaccessible parts of the mountains, and to leave the teeming valleys and table-lands to the newcomers.

Through the Canary Islands the colony kept up a small but regular trade with Western Europe. The exports were of a very mixed nature, but chiefly consisted of dates. As the country was practically self-supporting, the imports were comparatively simple. They were confined to books, works of art, and clothes of the latest mode.

For it was the pride of Oneiria, as with most other colonies of the time, that, notwithstanding its remote position, it floated on the surface of European opinion; and so freely did it indulge in this delicious conviction, that it is to be feared it grew but too often to an actual intemperance, and at the time of which I speak there is no doubt that Oneiria sometimes caricatured the fantasies of a fantastic age.

Internally Oneiria was almost as unruffled as in its foreign relations. The elaborate constitution of the original founder worked so smoothly and effectively that crime and even discontent seemed almost unknown. The most ingenious and conscientious politicians had long ago abandoned the hopeless struggle to extract a difference of opinion out of questions of the interior. This dearth of disagreement led to a serious famine in the political world, that had it not been for one recurrent topic, of which I shall have to speak more fully hereafter, politics must have completely perished of starvation.

It is not clear who the founder of the fortunate colony was. From an exaggerated niceness of honour, so characteristic of the age we call Elizabethan, he seems to have taken most ingenious precautions that his very name should be forgotten, lest it might appear that his experiment was a device to feed his personal vanity rather than the disinterested sacrifice it really was.

That he was an Englishman, who had considerably modified his national characteristics by extensive and sagacious travel, is almost certain. His followers were believed to have been recruited from amongst the hardy seafaring population of the coasts of Bohemia, though more recent conjecture points to the fact that London was the real parent of the colony, and it is suggested that by "Bohemia" the "Alsatia" of Whitefriars is really intended. However, as the whole of the evidence on the subject is contained in the following pages, it will be an advantage to allow the reader to judge for himself upon the whole case, and so avoid a tedious and possibly unfruitful discussion.

The fact in the early history of the colony most interesting for us is fortunately beyond dispute. Oneiria was, without a shadow of doubt, founded on the ruins of the kingdom of that Kophetua whose romantic love-story, probably a good deal perverted, is so familiar to us from the beautiful ballads of the "King and the Beggar-Maid." It was this which must have suggested to the founder his first steps towards oblivion when he ascended his new throne under the style of Kophetua II.

Were this fact not established from other sources, beyond all question there is ample evidence in the present story to support it. The ancient kingdom must have been dying, and not dead, at the time. We shall meet with constant traces of an older, ruder, and more Oriental civilisation underlying the scientific superstructure of the English knight.

The results were extremely curious, but perhaps the most interesting phenomenon to which this peculiar fact gave rise, was the extraordinary organisation and privileges of the beggar class, though it is possible that some of their wilder laws and customs were a direct importation from "Whitefriars."

It is a pity that no more is known on these points, but further inquiry is almost hopeless. The colony was entirely destroyed soon after the happy reign of Kophetua XIII. and his beloved Queen came peacefully to an end. There was but a day between their deaths, and so prostrated were the people by the sudden loss of both their idolised sovereigns, that they seem to have been able to offer no adequate resistance to a Jehad which, for some unknown cause, was preached against them amongst the neighbouring Mussulman tribes. It is probable that they had made some attempts to intervene for the protection of the last of the Berber Christians. A few of these highly interesting survivals are believed to have been still in existence at the end of the last century, in the remoter parts of the Atlas, and some may possibly have continued even later.

All, however, which we know for certain is that in one of those strange restless upheavals, so characteristic of the north of Africa, the Mussulman Berbers rose and flowed like a flood over what was once Oneiria. As suddenly as the colony had appeared, it disappeared from history; the country is now impenetrable to Europeans, and has not been visited since the destruction of the colony. Rohlfs, indeed, tells us that somewhere in the basin of the Drâa he saw amongst the distant hills what looked like the nave and tower of a church, and he further noticed that in this region the people had a much higher style of architecture, and otherwise seemed distinctly more civilised, than the tribes he was already familiar with. But no other traces of the colony have been met with, and its destruction must have been as complete as it was sudden.

Beyond what has already been related, all that is known or likely to be known of Oneiria is contained in the following pages, which deal with a romantic episode in the life of King Kophetua XIII. We must congratulate ourselves that even so much was preserved by the taste of a gentleman who visited the colony at the beginning of this century, and brought back with him the notes from which the present romance is taken. For romance it certainly is, and there seems no reason why we should deprive it of that title simply because it is also a record of historical occurrences.

CHAPTER II. HIS MAJESTY.

"From nature's lawes he did decline,

For sure he was not of my mind:

He cared not for women-kinde,

But did them all disdaine."

Kophetua was undoubtedly the handsomest man in his kingdom. The slightest suspicion of Moorish blood, incurred from a Spanish ancestress, had only added, as it were, a tropical richness to the beauty which he had inherited from the founder, and that was no small inheritance. It was part of the constitution that every king of Oneiria should be known by the name of Kophetua, but a grateful and imaginative people had been dissatisfied with the bald arithmetical distinctions which this law entailed. In the old fashion they had begun to speak of their sovereigns by surnames, till an unforeseen difficulty arose. After the death of the founder, his splendid sons succeeded him one after another with an alarming rapidity, due to the reckless exposure of their persons to the early Berber enemies of the State. Every brother was handsomer than the last, and obviously demanded a surname expressive of personal beauty. It was a characteristic so dazzling that the popular mind could not fix itself on any other of the family qualities, brilliant as they were. To a humorous people the monotony soon became ridiculous, and every one was relieved when, before two generations had passed away, it was found that every word in the Oneirian vocabulary in any way synonymous with "handsome" was already exhausted, and by tacit agreement the country fell back restfully upon the limitless resources of the ordinal numbers.

So our Kophetua was simply known as "Thirteenth." Yet it made a pretty name when you got used to it. It is a soft-sounding one as it stands, and was still prettier in the popular dialect. As the trade of the country was almost entirely with the Canaries, the common people counted in Spanish, and so by a diminutive of affection their King was known to them as "Trecenito."

Yet of all the line of Kophetuas he most deserved a more distinctive surname. Any one must have so agreed who could have seen him as he sat to-day in his library with a copy of Rousseau's Origin of Inequality dropped listlessly on his knees. It was an ideal book-room, in the style of the early French Renaissance. The whole palace indeed was designed in the same manner. It was the most eclectic style the founder could light upon, and everything in Oneiria was eclectic.

Ten panels opposite the ten windows were occupied by fine portraits of the ten successors of the founder. Trecenito's own had to hang on a screen. At either end of the long chamber was a magnificent fireplace reaching to the panelled ceiling. Not that a fireplace was ever necessary in the balmy air of Oneiria, but still, where the capital was situated, amongst the hills facing the Atlantic, it enjoyed a temperate climate, and with considerable discomfort fires could be endured on the coldest days. This discomfort every one was glad to undergo for the sake of the European atmosphere generated by the blazing logs. It was hot but refined, and that was everything to a well-bred Oneirian.

In a smaller panel above one of these sacred hearths was a picture of the first King Kophetua placing with love-lorn gesture the wondering beggar-maid upon his jewelled throne. It was a beautiful work, obviously by a dreamy and backward pupil of Perugino. By his childish colour, naïve composition, and vague expression of sentiment, the painter had unconsciously given a charm to the subject which the greatest of his contemporaries could never have achieved.

You turned from it with a sympathetic smile to look in vain down the long vista of books for the founder's portrait over the other hearth. Picture there was none. Even his features were forgotten, but where the painting should have been hung a splendid suit of armour of the later sixteenth century fashion. Morion, corselet, tassets, all were richly chased. Below hung a great pair of Cordovan boots armed with heavy gilded spurs. One gauntlet seemed to grasp a five-foot rapier with a great cup-guard and hilt-points of extravagant length, while in the other was placed a shell-dagger of the same design.

It was the very suit in which the heroic founder had stepped from his pinnace upon the burning sand, and claimed that land for his company "by right divine of inheritance from Adam," and somehow that trophy of arms always gave to Trecenito a vivid sense of the old knight's presence in the room, which no dead portrait could have conveyed. Indeed, it was not hard to fancy a grim face beneath the shadow of the peaked morion, as the gloom of evening fell and the firelight flickered. It was on this the king was gazing with his Rousseau on his knees. Surfeited with philosophy, he fell to musing on his ancestor till he saw beneath the morion the stern, burnt features, as he pictured them, with grey pointed beard and bristling moustache. He could not help contrasting the fancy with his own smooth, shaven face, and the old adventurous life with his own colourless existence.

"Turbo!" he cried, as, stung with the unhappy contrast, he started up and half unconsciously tore off a black patch which, after the custom of the time, adorned his cheek—"Turbo! I am a miserable man."

"So your majesty is continually hinting. May I die if I know why!"

With an air of well-feigned interest in his monarch's state of mind, the speaker rose from an elegant buhl writing-table, which would have been covered with official papers had there been any business for the King to transact with his Chancellor; but as usual there was none, and the table bore nothing weightier than a half-finished copy of Latin verses, perhaps quite heavy enough for its slender proportions, for the Chancellor was a poet by conviction rather than birth.

Indeed poetry could hardly have dwelt in a form so revolting. His face was distorted by two livid scars. One stretched across the lower part of his nose up to his right eye, which in healing it had drawn down so that it looked like a bloodhound's. The other ran across his mouth in such a way that it exposed his teeth on one side and gave to his face a snarling expression that was acutely unprepossessing. His shoulders, too, seemed in some way ill-matched, and he joined Kophetua at the founder's hearth with an ungainly limp which completed the picture of deformity he presented.

"No! may I die if I know why," repeated Turbo.

"Ah, you will not understand," said the King. "How can I be happy, how can I live according to nature, leading the life I do, without an annoyance, literally without an annoyance? How can I ever rival the knight," he went on, "with nothing to overcome, with nothing to stand in my way? I tell you I am a miserable man."

"If your majesty will have it so," answered Turbo, "I must of course agree."

"And why should you not in any case?" asked Kophetua a little testily. "Look at me. Here before you is practically the only sovereign in the civilised world who at this moment has not a revolution more or less developed in his dominions, while my disgracefully contented subjects will not—why, they will not even read the Jacobin paper we have been at the pains surreptitiously to start for them."

"No," said the Chancellor gravely, "I believe that only six copies were sold this week. There were two copies for you and me, one for the Queen-mother, and one for General Dolabella, who I am sure only lights his pipe with it. There was one went to the beggars for decorative purposes, it is said; and the sixth—let me see," he continued as he limped to his desk and took out a small memorandum on large official paper. "The sixth—ah! yes, that was a presentation copy to the Museum which I paid for myself."

"It is heart-breaking, absolutely heart-breaking," cried the King. "To what end have I spent all these years in the study of politics? To what end have you lavished your inestimable instruction on me, and sacrificed what should have been the most brilliant career in Europe in order to educate me for a throne? Is there a single writer on statecraft, from Plato to More, from Machiavelli to Voltaire, that I have not mastered from end to end, to say nothing of the knight's manuscript?"

"Indeed, sire," answered the Chancellor, "you have made yourself a most consummate statesman."

"No, Turbo," said the King, "be just. It is you that have made me so. Without you these books would have said not a word to me for all their wisdom. But to what end is it all, I say? Here I stand disgraced before the knight's armour, not because I will not or cannot do anything, but because there is nothing to do. I tell you, Turbo, I shrink with shame when I see his grave face look out at me from under the morion, and yet,"—he went on, pacing the room, with a noble look on his handsome face,—"he has no right to scorn me. I know that were there wrongs to right, I have will and power to right them, or at least the courage to die fighting for the same end to which his heroic life was sacrificed."

"Well, be comforted," said Turbo; "to-morrow you will have an annoyance. For to-morrow, I would remind you, comes your mother's last choice for you; at least, I imagine that is the intention. It will be very serious this time. Remember you have entered your thirtieth year, and if at the end of it you are not married——"

"By the constitution," broke in the King, "I shall cease to reign. I know it, and then they will elect you. I cannot help it. I shall dislike and despise this woman, as I do every other. Thank God, I have learnt your lesson well. How I should have been deceived had it not been for the wise misogyny which you, my dear instructor, were at such pains to teach me!"

As he spoke he stretched out his hand as though to lay it affectionately on his old governor's shoulder, when there was a sudden clash of steel overhead. With a start he looked up in time to catch the founder's long rapier as it fell, and in a moment he was standing with its great hilt in his outstretched hand and its point straight at the heart of Turbo, who started back in alarm.

Kophetua turned deadly pale, hardly daring to think what this ghostly warning might mean. As he felt the dusty hilt between his fingers it was as though the dead, war-worn hand of his ancestor were stretched up out of the grave to grasp his own: he stood almost expecting to hear a hollow voice from under the morion, and Turbo watched him with restless eyes.

Even as he held it the King knew the heavy weapon was tiring his arm. It was the last touch to his misery, and he dropped the point with a little nervous laugh.

"One would think," he said, in a voice that sounded very strange in the dead silence which followed the clash of steel,—"One would think the old knight discerned in you an enemy instead of my best and only friend."

The Chancellor laughed loud and hoarsely at the King's humour, but did not touch the weapon which his monarch laid down sorrowfully.

"The wire must have rusted away till it broke," said he.

"Exactly," said the King. "Yet it is a most remarkable occurrence." A short but awkward silence followed, till fortunately the chamberlain entered the room to inquire if the King desired to prepare for supper. So the colloquy of the two friends ended, and Turbo was left alone, gazing absently out of the window at the beggars before the palace gate, as one by one they rose from their crouching postures, stretched their cramped limbs, and wandered slowly away to their dens with the air of men conscientiously satisfied with a long day's work.

CHAPTER III. THE MARRIAGE QUESTION.

"The Lords they tooke it grievously,

The Commons cryed pitiously."

It has already been mentioned that there was one recurrent subject of discussion which saved Oneirian politics from entire extinction. This was the great marriage question.

The wise founder, anxious no doubt to perpetuate his race to the ends for which he had lived, and fully aware of the jeopardy to which his descendants would be exposed in the midst of savage Berber tribes, had made it an intrinsic part of the constitution that every king of Oneiria, before he reached the age of thirty, must marry the woman chosen for him by his people.

Formerly the Parliament had taken the greatest interest in its legislative work. Each proposal was debated at length, and with considerable intelligence. In process of time, however, all this changed. The founder had elaborated a system of taxation, something on the lines of that afterwards described by Harrington in his Oceana, whereby it was made by a natural development self-extinguishing. An unhappy result of the contrivance was perhaps unforeseen by the founder, but it soon appeared that as the central fund increased and the annual taxes dwindled, it was more and more difficult to get members to attend the sessions.

Before the colony was a hundred years old taxes were declared unnecessary, and at an end for ever. By an inherent elasticity the central fund grew with the growth of the people, and even began to afford a surplus to be distributed amongst the beggars. There was no need any longer to vote money. No reform of the perfected laws was possible. Parliament became an agreeable club, to which the members when once elected belonged by tacit consent for life. Sessions were, however, still held, where the more imaginative deputies debated the sublime and eternal principles of government, and pointed out to each other, with never fading satisfaction, how divinely the Oneirian statute-book embodied that quintessential spirit of justice which their heated rhapsodies had distilled.

As for their business, it was almost entirely formal, consisting chiefly in the periodical endorsement of the King's choice from among their own number of the great state officers. It will then be easily understood how jealously they valued their last live prerogative of choosing the King's bride. As a matter of fact, of course, she was always selected by the high officers of state, and the Parliament ratified the choice; but this ratification could not be said to be a mere form, for as late as the beginning of the century the House had absolutely refused to endorse the ministers' choice, because the lady presented to them was not sufficiently beautiful.

Since then greater care had been exercised in the preliminary selection, and the attendant ceremonial considerably elaborated. The bride-elect was now presented to the full House, dressed with every care and splendour which was in any way calculated to enhance her attractions, and after question put and carried, the decision of the House was sealed by the Speaker imprinting a kiss upon the lips of the chosen beauty as she knelt before the chair. Thereupon he raised her up, and pronounced her election in this poetic form, "Reign, beautiful princess, crowned with a people's kiss."

Since the introduction of the new coronation ceremony the office of Speaker had become extremely popular. He was elected annually by virtue of the original constitution and party feeling on the marriage question, began once more to run very high, as the election was always decided on strictly party lines in relation to this single topic.

It will be easy, then, to picture the condition of political circles at the time of which we are now speaking. For some eight years the King had been seen to reject beauty after beauty without reason given, to the acute disappointment of successive Speakers. But now the period had arrived when he must absolutely marry within the year and the excitement over the approaching election to the chair had reached an almost alarming intensity.

The body politic was divided into two main parties, the Kallists, who professed that beauty should be the sole ground on which the queen should be chosen, and the Agathists, who would have the selection determined by moral worth alone. Such at least was said to be the distinction when intelligent foreigners asked for information. Possibly it was actually so once, but now the principles of the two parties so overlapped that the only real question between them was who should elect the Speaker.

It should perhaps be mentioned that there was a third party styling themselves the Kallikagathists. They were a well-meaning offshoot of the Agathists, who, fondly believing that two distinct policies still existed, thought to produce unity by adopting both. So far it had been a failure, and though the party had the names of many superior persons upon it, it was little regarded.

The Court was divided into corresponding groups, and what further complicated political relations was that the heads of the separate palace circles were regarded as the leaders of the Parliamentary parties, although of course their aims were widely different. In the House the occupation of the chair filled the whole political horizon. In the palace that was a matter of complete indifference, and the whole struggle was to see whose introduction would eventually be made acceptable to the King. Thus between the leaders and their followers there existed no more real connection than there did between the professed opinions of the respective parties and their actual aims, and it may be doubted whether any country in Europe had been so entirely successful in elaborating a party system by which it was impossible for any question to be decided on its merits.

The system can only be described as chaotic. Every trace of the original landmarks had disappeared, and yet a good Kallist would rather be called anything than an Agathist, unless perhaps it were a Kallikagathist. An Agathist regarded a Kallist as a frivolous person of low moral tone, while, in the eyes of a Kallist, an Agathist was a detestable outcome of the Puritan taint in the old settlers, a shallow pretender to an impossible standard of virtue. A Kallist who could invent a new way of saying an Agathist was a prig became a marked personality in the House, while a young Agathist who succeeded in inventing a fresh figure to express his contempt for a cynic might at once pose as a coming man.

Cynicism was certainly the prevailing tone of the Kallist salons. There you might hear of a young girl who had hurried for an hour's relaxation from the sickbed of a brother, or a genial old gentleman who had spent his day in extricating a poor relation from a debtor's prison, giving it as their perfected conviction that no excellence could be credited with existence which you could not see. On the other hand, the atmosphere of Agathist gatherings was decidedly one of moral platitude, where elaborately dressed men and daintily rouged women prattled in polished phrase of the nothingness of exteriors, and the all-sufficiency of truth and goodness. It is certainly remarkable that a similar condition of society has appeared nowhere else, and it is these unique politico-social phenomena which constitute Oneiria's chief claim to find an adequate historian.

At present the Kallists were in the ascendant. With Turbo at their head they were naturally more than a match for the opposition, whose fortunes at court were intrusted to the Queen-mother. The Chancellor was certainly the strongest statesman who had appeared in the colony since its foundation, while the Queen Margaret was fitted for her position rather by disposition than political ability. She was the daughter of a German officer of noble birth who, having entered the service of Spain, rose to be Governor of the Canaries. From him she inherited all the homely simplicity so characteristic of the family relations of his nation. Otherwise she was not without shrewdness and a certain power of resistance, which enabled her to oppose the splendid abilities of the Chancellor as well, perhaps, as any one in the kingdom. It was whispered that there were other reasons why these two naturally found themselves in opposite camps, reasons that were known to none but themselves.

There would have been little doubt that the report was well founded in the mind of any one who could have seen the Chancellor as he stood at the window watching the beggars. Ten minutes after the King had left there was a sound on his ear of a woman's tread in the ante-chamber, and a gentle rustle of a silk dress upon the polished boards. Turbo started and looked towards the door. It began to open, and as quickly he turned to the window again.

"That will do," said a soft voice full of quiet dignity. "You need not stay. I wish to be alone, and shall remain here till suppertime. Attend me then."

The heavy door closed, and the Chancellor looked round to see the Queen-mother advancing into the room. She was a handsome woman of not more than fifty, with a spare, stately figure. In her powder and rouge and the modish gown she had just assumed for the evening she looked little more than half her age. At least so thought the Chancellor; and, as the fitful firelight lit up her queenly form, she looked to him almost as beautiful as though a quarter of a century had not passed since first they met.

"If your majesty would be alone," said Turbo, with a profound bow, "I pray your leave to retire."

"I would be alone with you, Chancellor," the Queen answered. "I wish to speak with you."

"And your majesty denied me the pleasure of waiting on you?" said the Chancellor, with a smile that made his snarl more hideously apparent.

"Yes," the Queen replied; "because I have that to say which I would have no one hear; and, besides, there are other reasons why none should know of our interview."

"Your majesty interests me strangely," said the Chancellor.

"I wish to speak to you about my son," said the Queen, with a slight tremor in her voice. She drew towards the founder's hearth, and sat down in a great chair that was almost a throne, and, at the same time, motioned the Chancellor to a seat opposite to her.

"Be seated," she said, with the same hesitation as before; "I want to converse with you as an old friend."

She looked at Turbo wistfully, as though to see some softening of his snarl, but he avoided her glance with another profound bow in acknowledgment of her condescension; and the Queen's heart sank as she felt her mission was almost hopeless.

CHAPTER IV. THE QUEEN-MOTHER.

"Disdaine no whit, O lady deere,

But pity now thy servant here."

For a while they sat in silence looking into the fire. Indeed it was hard for the Queen-mother to know how to begin. Let it be said at once frankly, she and Turbo had loved each other. It was long ago now, and far away—in fair Castile,—when he was the brilliant and accomplished young secretary of her father. He was no mere clerk, but a youth of noble family, an aspirant to the great offices of the state, who had taken the post to learn the business of administration.

Thus there was no reason why he should not openly show his adoration for his chief's beautiful daughter, or why she should seek to hide her love for him. Daily they met, and daily his passion grew. He loved her with all the ardour of which his hot Spanish blood was capable, so that it maddened him to see how cold and calm was her northern heart, loving as it was, beside the fever that consumed him.

Yet he was happy in the knowledge of her love, and all went well till one night her father entertained an officer to whom he had taken a liking. He was a man of brilliant wit, but known as a greedy duellist. Yet Margaret was amused, and laughed and talked gaily with him till he departed. Turbo accompanied him to a tavern hard by for a parting cup. The place was full of gentlemen, many of whom the officer knew. They fell to talking, then to boasting, till in an evil hour the man vaunted his new conquest, and let fall a little light word with Margaret's name. In a moment he had the lie and a stinging blow on the mouth from Turbo's glove.

All efforts of the young secretary's friends to save him from his quixotic folly were in vain. He would listen to no explanation. He would receive no apology. The least he could do, it seemed to him, to show himself worthy of his treasured love, was to chastise the man who had breathed ever so faintly on his mistress's name.

They fought on horseback, with pistols and swords. It was all the youth's friends could do in order to equalise the chances. Yet the affair was little better than murder. The first shot hit Turbo in the knee, the second tore across his lips. Half choking with blood he fell on with his sword; but no sooner were they engaged than a fearful gash across the face blinded him. In the agony of the moment he checked his rearing horse sharply, and the frantic animal fell over on the top of him.

For months he lay in the hospital almost between life and death. Every day came flowers and a little loving note from Margaret, overflowing with pity and gratitude. It made him bear his terrible suffering with a gay heart to see how much his courage had won him. His chief came constantly to his bedside, and spoke to him as a son-in-law; but ere he was fully recovered, and clear of the pestilential air of the hospital, he was taken with the small-pox. Another terrible period of waiting and suffering ensued, and by the time he was able to leave the hospital, Margaret and her father had sailed for the Canaries.

Without a moment's delay he followed them, and at length the longed-for moment was to come, when he should hold his love in his arms once more. She burst into the room with a glad cry when they told her he was come, but no sooner did she set eyes on his mangled form than she stopped transfixed with horror, and with a terrible scream fell to the ground.

The shock threw her into a dangerous illness, and when she recovered nothing more was said of a marriage. Turbo accepted his fate, but with a bitterness that poisoned his whole nature. His love was no less than before, and it was only by the nursing of a bitter contempt for its object, and all the daughters of Eve, that he could make his life endurable.

And yet he could not tear himself from her side. The months went by, and still he remained at his old post, and when Margaret left to become Queen of Oneiria, he accepted the place which Kophetua XII.—the present king's father—offered him out of admiration for his abilities, and pity for his miserable story.

When the young prince was born, so great was the esteem in which Turbo was held, that he was appointed his governor; and as soon as the boy was old enough to be out of the nurse's hands, Turbo began to win a surprising influence over him. So great was the affection that grew up between the ill-assorted pair, that when the king died it was found that Turbo was named guardian in the will, and it was from this post that he had been elevated to the chancellorship as soon as the boy came of age.

With such a pricking memory in her mind it is not to be wondered at that the poor Queen sat looking long into the fire before she spoke; especially as all her own, and, what was more, all her son's happiness seemed to hang on the result of the interview.

"Do you mean to thwart me again, Chancellor?" she said at last abruptly.

"I trust I have never willingly thwarted your majesty in anything," he answered.

"Nay, I cry a truce on courtly fictions," said the Queen, a little impatiently. "Let us be frank for once."

"As your majesty pleases," answered the Chancellor, without the least unbending.

"To-morrow the Marquis de Tricotrin will arrive with his daughter. You know?" began the unhappy Queen.

"I have heard so unofficially."

"And you know why she is coming?"

"I have permitted myself to hazard a guess."

"Then what do you mean to do?"

"Like your majesty, my duty, modified by circumstances."

"What do you mean?"

"Merely that as heretofore I shall advise his majesty on the whole circumstances of the case, if and when I am consulted."

"Chancellor," cried the Queen impatiently, "I have urged you to be frank. To what end is all this? I have come a long way to you, will you not make one step to meet me? Well," she continued, as the Chancellor made no reply, "I at least can be open. I ask you, do you mean to make my son refuse again?"

"Really your majesty flatters me. The King will use his own discretion."

"No, he will use yours. Do you think I do not know why it is that girl after girl has come hither in vain. In every way they were fitted to be his queen, and he refused even to be kind to one. It was you that made him do it. He gives not a thought to me. It is you that are all in all to him. His whole soul is but a little bit of yours. You have absorbed him, you have taken him all from me."

"I assure your majesty," said the Chancellor imperturbably, "we do not ever discuss the subject together. It is entirely his own inclination that guides him."

"You say that," said the Queen, with increasing agitation. "You say that, and if it is true it is worse than I thought. You have taught him, like yourself, to hate women. That is why he speaks of them as he does. But still you can undo your work. If not for my sake or for his, at least for the country's you should administer the antidote. If you have poisoned, it is you alone who can cure. See the pass we have come to. What will happen if he is not married this year? He will lose his kingdom; but that is a little thing to what I am losing. Cannot you understand what it is for me to see the ruin of my one son's life, to see his soul starving for want of a woman's love, to long unsatisfied to see his great nature ripened with a husband's and a father's joys, to hold his children on my knee, and know once more the holiest love a woman ever feels? Think, think what you do, and hold your hand before it is too late. You cannot be all stone. If you have one tender spot left give him back to me. Turbo, in the name of our old love, give him back to me!"

She leaned forward towards him, her hands outstretched with a pleading gesture that was inexpressibly touching and tender. But Turbo remained immovable, save that his snarl grew more cruel. It was more than she could bear. She felt her eyes filling with tears, and she bowed her head in her hands. There was a silence between them for a minute, and then Turbo's cold voice spoke unchanged.

"By what right," said he, "do you conjure me by our old love? You, who threw me away like a soiled glove."

"I have no right," she murmured, without looking up. "It was a great sin, and none can know how I have suffered for it. But the crime was not his. At least you may have mercy on him."

"And what right have you," he continued as coldly as ever, "to crave mercy for him? Did you show any to me? What is he to you that I was not a thousandfold? When did he ever love you more than his dogs? and I have burned for you like a fire! What devotion has he ever shown you? and I crawled to you like a slave! What has he ever sacrificed for you? and I gave more than my life for a little piece of your honour. How will you find reward for me, if to him you would give so much?"

"You know not," she answered piteously, "you cannot know, what he is to me. All you say is true, yet God has made him more to me than all the world. Turbo, he is my son, my only child, and you will not understand."

"Nor will you understand what I have felt," answered Turbo. "Yet I will tell you, Gretchen; try and conceive it. Think what I was when I crawled hither in your train to be a thing of loathing to every woman in the Court, and all because I had been too jealous of your honour. Think what a sweet reward of chivalry it was to lick up the crumbs you threw me to ease your tormenting conscience. I know what it cost you to invite me here. I know how you detested the sight of me. You did it as a penance, and I saw you saying, as you shuddered by me, 'God will forgive my sin, because I cast my broken meats to this Lazarus, and suffer my dogs to lick his sores.'"

He paused a little, looking down on the crouching form without pity, while she shrank and sobbed with her hands before her face.

"And whose silent voice was this?" he pursued. "It was my love that spoke. It was she who once had met me with a blush of mantling delight; it was she whose soft form I had clasped unresisting in my arms; it was her heart that had beaten warm and fast against mine; it was her lips that had drunk my kisses like sweet wine. You—you, who knew best how my heart could feel, what think you was in it then? But I bore it all uncomplaining, because I could not conceive of life away from you. I bore it and waited for some solace to come."

"But why do you say all this?" the Queen broke in as he stopped again. "What good can it do to gall your wounds and mine like this?"

"Listen, Gretchen. I will tell you all now you have driven me to begin. I say I waited for a solace to come. It was weary, hopeless work, but the solace came at last. I had won your husband's esteem. He believed the fine sentiments I always had ready for his ear. I believed them once myself. He did not see I was changed, and gave me his boy to make a man of. Then I saw in my grasp a thing to sweeten the bitterness of my life. I used to look at my charge, and see him beautiful as the daylight. I knew he would grow up a man that women would look on and love helplessly; and it was I—I, who was to make him worthy of their love! Can you not see what sweet solace there was for me there? 'They shall love him,' I said, 'they shall love him, but he shall never return their love. I will show him what they are. He shall know from his childhood what I learnt too late.' I swore they should never rejoice in the love of such a man as I would make him. I pictured them longing for him and eating their hearts. Was it not a gentle solace?"

"It was revenge!" she cried bitterly; "it was unmanly revenge!"

"Call it what you will," he continued; "perhaps you are right, I do not pretend to be anything but what I am. Yet I had another motive for what I did, and perhaps I am not wholly bad."

"No, no, Turbo," she said eagerly, as though his words gave her a hope to clutch at. "God knows you are not that."

"And yet," he went on, without interruption, "I think I am as bad as a man can be; perhaps a woman might be worse. You try to think as well of me as you can. It is only natural. I owe you no thanks for it; for it was you alone that made me what I am. It has been wisely said that no one can act from a wholly bad motive. That is all I mean. I loved the boy a little—as much indeed as I can love anything again—and perhaps I thought to save him from what I had suffered. To love a woman was my curse. Perhaps I strove a little to bless him with such a wisdom as would save him from that. That is what I have done for your son, Gretchen; and now, when I turn over the pages of my miserable life, there is at least one pleasant chapter where I may linger."

She saw it was hopeless now, and rose to her feet. The one ray of light was gone again, but before she dismissed him she longed to know one thing. So she drew up her stately figure and faced him with the courage of a woman who felt she was being punished beyond her crime. He was a coward to her now.

"Is that all you have to say to me, Chancellor?" she said, looking straight in his face.

"It was your majesty who sought the interview," he replied. "It can end when you wish."

"Is there nothing you have kept back? Have you not one blow in reserve?" He did not answer, so she went on, "I ask because you tell me that you have taught my son to look on women as the basest creatures of God. I, his mother, am the type in your eyes. Have you told him this too?"

"Does your majesty insist on an answer?"

"I insist on nothing. I am powerless to do so. I only thought you would not be coward enough to add this new torment to my punishment."

"I am only what your majesty has made me."

"Then God help us both," she said, checking an angry outburst that was on her lips. "You may retire."

Her attempt had failed. It was her first thought when he was gone, as she sank into her chair again. She had failed, and only added to her load the terrible uncertainty whether her son had been told of her crime. Yet she knew she had gained something which she least expected to find. Till now she had pitied her old lover, and that had prevented her giving way to open hostility. She had stood in awe of him, too, but now it seemed different. He was a pitiless and craven bully. Why should she feel for him, who had no spark of sympathy for her? He was a thing to despise and not to fear. So when they entered to announce the supper-hour, she rose up calmly, knowing she had found a new courage for the struggle before her.

CHAPTER V. MADEMOISELLE DE TRICOTRIN.

"The ladies took it heavily."

The excitement produced by the arrival of the Marquis de Tricotrin and his daughter at the Court of Oneiria was only to be expected. It was perfectly understood that the King must marry within the year, and it would hardly describe the situation to say that the chances of Mademoiselle de Tricotrin were discussed with greater animation than those of any previous candidate for the "crown of kisses." For her case was regarded as a certainty. But that only made the excitement to see her more intense, and, perhaps, no royal ball in Oneiria was ever so brilliantly attended as that at which the lady was to make her début the day following her arrival at the capital.

It was a scene that it is difficult for us even to imagine. Costume in Oneiria was as yet entirely untainted by revolutionary ideas. Rumours of the new fashions had indeed reached the country, but they had been ignored as the ridiculous affectations of low-bred fanatics. The fantastic modes of the century were in the heyday of their glory, and indeed had reached a degree of extravagance which it was natural to look for in so advanced and elegant a court as that of Kophetua XIII. In no other spot on earth perhaps could you have seen the vulgar handiwork of Nature so completely effaced as in his ballroom to-night.

Under mountains of powdered curls, and forests of ribbons, in which crouched large tropical birds, the women limped on tiny, high-heeled shoes, as though their exquisite refinement could not endure the comparatively crude ideas of their Creator; every characteristic of their humanity was distorted or obliterated past all recognition with yard-long stomachers, high-peaked stays, and hoops that mocked at Heaven; and the men pursued them in every extravagance, with patch and powder and paint, with stiff full skirts and grotesque headgear, as though refinement were only to be found in effeminacy. It was a living garden of artificial flowers, where the natural blossoms on figured satins seemed to deride the unnatural bloom on disfigured faces.

Still it was a brilliant kaleidoscopic scene as the rooms filled up, and coteries fell into groups to chat till the King appeared. For there was an immense deal of gossip to be got through. On the question of the hour nobody knew anything, and every one had something to tell. General Dolabella was completely invested the moment he entered the rooms, and a lisping fire was at once opened on him to compel him to surrender his authoritative information.

For of course the General knew all about it. He was a minister, uniting in his own person the offices of Commander-in-chief and Director of Public Worship. It was said to have been the last act of the founder to bring together these two portfolios. He looked upon the standing army and the Church as the two great enemies of personal liberty, and it is supposed his idea was that no one man would ever be able to develop both to a dangerous degree of efficiency; or, as others conjectured, he hoped by drawing the two departments into close proximity to increase the chance of friction between them. In this the arrangement was very successful, though it certainly led to some extraordinary results.

General Dolabella had held his place for many years, and was regarded successful administrator. He was a man of two sides, as he often said himself, and perhaps his success was due to that. It was undoubtedly this gift which had won him the confidence of the Kallikagathist party and placed him at its head. It had procured him, besides, advantages such as few enjoy. Though a married man, with a growing family, he was a professed misogynist. It was the tone which the King gave to the Court, and the General was nothing if not fashionable. He spoke of his marriage as an imprudence of his youth. But it did not stand in his way. His wife, of whom it must be said he stood a little in awe, was so entirely deceived by the tone of his conversation, that she never interfered with his little flirtations, and it must be confessed he had not a few. There was hardly a woman at Court whom he had not loved in his time. To an ordinary man it would have been difficult to reconcile such tastes with the character of a professed misogynist, but the dually constituted General was not an ordinary man. He from the first made it his mission to convert the women of the Court to the creed professed by the men, beginning with the prettiest as being probably the most dangerous heretics. If he had not as yet made many converts, he had succeeded in vastly amusing himself and his little friends, and it was with the satisfied smile of a popular cavalier that the General received the broadside of questions his fair besiegers delivered.

"I protest, you should have declared war in proper form," said the gallant warrior, as he balanced himself on his tight satin shoes, with his elbows squeezed closely in to his pinched waist, and his white hands, half hidden in lace, toying mincingly before him with his cane. "This procedure is extremely uncanonical. Had you sent me a trumpet to blow a formal citation I should have been prepared for you. But where was ever a woman," he added, with the sweetest smile, "who would not take a mean advantage if she could?"

"You are a vastly provoking man, General," said one of his oldest experiments. "You know all about them, and could tell us if you chose."

"May I die," answered the Minister, "if I know more than yourselves."

"But we know nothing," they cried, in excited chorus.

"Well, then," said Dolabella, with an air of pity, "I suppose I must tell you what I have heard, or your poor little hearts will ache with curiosity."

"Dear General!" they responded, like a choir.

"You must know then, to begin with," he said, "the Marquis is an émigré. Some two or three years past, having imbibed the principles without the practice of the Revolution, he was obliged to leave his country. At first, it is said, he went to England, and then, on the advice of the doctors, he came to the Canaries."

"But what about the daughter?" asked the ladies. "Is she a Girondist or a Jacobin, or whatever they are?"

"I know no more," answered the General; "except that a long correspondence between the Queen-mother and the Spanish Governor has resulted in an invitation."

"Then it is an Agathist nomination," said the ladies, prepared to make up their minds accordingly.

"I really cannot say," replied the Minister, "without breach of confidence. But see, here comes his majesty. How well he looks!"

Everybody turned to see the King enter the ballroom with his mother. As they passed down the room people remarked that she seemed pale and weary, but that the King never looked better. It was always an excitement to both girls and mothers to try and get a bow all to themselves on these occasions. There was a saying amongst them in Oneiria that where there is a bachelor there is hope. And, besides, whatever may have been his motives, Turbo had been entirely successful in his education of the Prince. He had grown to have a manner with women which, combined with his personal beauty and the additional advantage of a crown, was irresistible. In public it was one of extreme deference and courtesy, which, as he was never tired of hinting in the most delicately chosen phrases, arose from the duty he owed to himself, and not because the objects of his attentions in any way deserved them. But it was when alone with a woman that he shone the brightest. Then his deferential manner was spiced with a charming effrontery. It never went as far as disrespect, and yet it was so unlike his ordinary demeanour, that each delighted victim thought he reserved it for herself alone. So it came about as Turbo had promised himself, and many a girl looked eagerly that night for one kind glance before her new rival should appear.

It was the subject of considerable remark that the guests of the evening had not yet arrived. The women put it down to an elaborate toilet, and consoled themselves with the prospect of something really fine, and possibly new; though there was very little chance of that, seeing how advanced and instructed the Court of Oneiria considered itself. The men said it was a mere woman's trick to make a sensation.

It was not till the King had taken his seat on the daïs, and the Chamberlain had cleared before him a wide space in the rustling throng for the opening dance, that a loud voice from the top of the broad oak steps, which descended to the ballroom, announced: "The Marquis and Mademoiselle de Tricotrin."

Every eye was turned to them in a moment as they came down the steps, and in another the whole assembly, oblivious of etiquette, was frankly staring at them. Such a sensation had never been known at Court before within the memory of the oldest Chamberlain. They had looked for a woman like themselves, with hoops wider, waist longer, and head-dress more extravagant, perhaps, than their own. That would not have surprised them considering that she was fresh from Europe, although they seriously doubted whether even a Frenchwoman could go further than themselves. But for this they were quite unprepared. It took away their breath. Above a beautiful face, unrouged, and without a single patch, they saw, instead of a powdered and feathered mountain, a soft mass of flowing, almost dishevelled, warm brown hair. But her dress! That was stranger still. Whatever they might have thought of the rest, this was intolerable. It was nothing but a simple robe of the softest primrose silk, which clung about her perfect figure voluptuously, and frankly expressed every graceful movement of her limbs. Close beneath her breast it was girdled by a golden cord, leaving her arms and shoulders bare. Otherwise it was unconfined, and yet so fashioned as to drape her closely in simple, natural folds. It was, in a word, the beautiful but extravagantly classic costume of the Revolution.

When she saw the ordeal before her, her colour heightened, and she shrank closer to her father's arm, but she recovered directly, and advanced down the lane they instinctively made for her, with the easy complacency of one who knows she is the best dressed woman in the room. Her father looked as proud as his daughter to see their wonder. He was a tall, spare man, with an affectation of Spartan austerity in his face and dress, and he smiled contemptuously on the rouged and bepatched men about him, as with his lovely daughter on his arm he advanced towards the King.

There was certainly a titter as they passed, for the wits were not to be easily cowed, and whispered smart things to their fair neighbours. The ladies, who had no wits to whisper to them, passed judgment for themselves, without, of course, forgetting that they were in the presence of a political event.

"La! what a ridiculous object," said a Kallist lady, with a golden pheasant perching on her wig.

"I protest it is not decent," sniffed a widow of Agathist views and a damaged reputation.

"It is vastly too pronounced to be either elegant or seemly," was the opinion of a superior person's lady, with a turn for aphorism, and a Kallikagathist salon.

But the only question after all was, What would the King think? On tiptoe they watched her reach the daïs, and with a perfect grace salute his hand. A few words passed between them; the King smiled as though thoroughly amused; then, to the utter confusion of the cavillers, they saw him give her his hand to open the ball, and many a sinking heart was compelled to confess to itself that Mademoiselle de Tricotrin, in her first stride, had come nearer the throne than any previous candidate in her whole course.

The King was certainly delighted, and he still wore a smile of complete amusement as he took his place with her for the minuet. As the dance proceeded his delight only became more obvious. And no wonder. There are many beautiful sights under heaven, but none more beautiful than the vision which filled the eyes of the enchanted King. He had never seen a thing like that before. It was as though the very spirit of Nature had taken shape before him. In her the formal bric-à-brac postures, to which he had been accustomed, became transformed with the grace of a poising bird. From one bewitching attitude to another she seemed to float like a soft bright feather playing in a summer wind. Every movement was living with the freedom which her yielding costume allowed. With the grace of the wind-bent reeds her white arms moved in ever-flowing harmony. Now it was to draw the soft silken folds across her daintily, as with one tiny foot advanced she paused in the fitful measures of the dance; and now to raise her little hand to meet the King's with a magic motion, which seemed to waft her towards him. With each new figure the enchantment increased. In the voluptuous movement and the throb of the tinkling music she grew excited, and seemed to forget herself like a child at play. Her ripe lips were parted, her cheeks softly flushed, and her wide blue eyes were filled with an artless look of baby delight.

The whole patched and powdered throng crowded round to see, as close as the hoops would allow. Soon each man and woman was as fascinated as the King. Even the voice of envy was hushed, and some one said afterwards that more than one gentleman who was regarded as a likely nomination for the Parliamentary chair was distinctly seen to smack his lips, a report perhaps which was quite unfounded, and arose merely out of the undisguised admiration depicted on every face.

Yes, on every face, both of man and woman, except the one which the Marquis de Tricotrin alone in all the room was scanning narrowly. Behind the King's empty chair Turbo supported himself, watching the scene uneasily. The Marquis marked with concern and quiet determination the horrible snarl he wore.

"She is dancing, step by step, step by step, right into his heart," said Turbo to himself, his words falling unconsciously in time with the fiddlers, "and the fools made a lane for her to come to the throne—like a queen. It was ominous, but I hardly thought him so unstable. The simpleton is actually taking pains with his dancing."

His lips moved. M. de Tricotrin could hear nothing, but somehow he smiled quietly to himself. It was at that moment that Turbo looked up to see what the Marquis thought of it. Their eyes met, and with the readiness of old diplomatists they advanced frankly to each other.

"Permit me, Marquis," said Turbo, smiling as nearly as he could, "to trespass so far on really sacred grounds as to observe that your daughter is charming."

"You must positively allow me, Chancellor," said the Marquis, "to tell her what you say, at the risk of turning her head. It will be of inestimable help to her. She really knows nothing, and is quite afraid of her gaucheries."

"Indeed," answered Turbo, "and she seemed so instructed! It only shows how rich an inheritance it is of itself to be the child of a man like you, who knows everything."

"Nay, Chancellor," said the Marquis, with a bow, "you flatter me monstrously. My knowledge is not what you think, but since you so frankly declare yourself my friend, I will confess to a pretty trick of guessing many things I have no means of knowing."

The dance ended, and with it their conversation. It had not been long, but for those two it was enough to bring about a mutual understanding. Each took it as a declaration of war, and began at once to look for vantage-points.

Before the end of the evening the King had danced another minuet with Mademoiselle de Tricotrin. She performed with even greater grace and abandon than before, and her success was complete. The ball of course was a failure. It had promised exceedingly well, but then a great misfortune had befallen it. There had been one woman present who far outshone the rest. Nothing can be much more disastrous to a ball than that. The nice women could not help feeling humbled, the others were full of envy. As for the men, they were inattentive, preoccupied, and discontented. For them it was an evening of disillusionment. Mademoiselle de Tricotrin's radiance killed the prettiest face in the room. It was impossible for them to disguise, even by the most desperate attempts at gallantry, that the whole time they were thinking of the new beauty. The women were pardonably resentful. Under these circumstances gallantry is apt to lose much of its flavour, and the number of silent couples was phenomenal.

Mademoiselle de Tricotrin left early, pleading fatigue. The King followed almost immediately, and then the ball collapsed. Every one was glad to get away. For the women life was a blank till they had a gown like Mademoiselle de Tricotrin's. They had no interest in anything but how to procure one with the utmost speed. No one seemed to doubt for a moment that a complete change was to come over the Court, and the De Tricotrins were to lead the fashion. Every man with any pretensions to style went away registering a determination to suborn the Marquis's valet; and as the two strangers were carried to their lodging in the neighbourhood of the palace, perhaps there was no Oneirian so happy as the Queen-mother.

"Well, my child?" said the Marquis interrogatively to his daughter, as soon as they were alone.

"He is just the kind of man I expected to find," answered Mademoiselle de Tricotrin dreamily, as she leant back in her chair and clasped her hands behind her head.

"Then you will manage it?"

"I cannot tell, sir."

"But why not? Let me tell you, my child, I am pleased with you. You never looked prettier. I am certain we shall succeed. Why, the King was simply fascinated."

"Yes," she answered, a little wearily, "I know he was, but that goes a very little way with a man like him."

CHAPTER VI. THE KING'S COUNCILLORS.

"And now he seeks which way to proove,

How he his fancie might remoove."

Monsieur de Tricotrin was right. The King had been fascinated. That was clear. It was the talk of every breakfast-table in Oneiria. And Mlle de Tricotrin was right too. It made very little difference to the King, except to amuse him; but this was not so clear to the breakfast-tables.

Amused Kophetua certainly was. It was highly entertaining to see how clever the little woman was. He quite laughed to himself to think how great an impression she had made on him, and he looked forward with a fresh pleasure to playing with a toy of such exquisite ingenuity, without giving a thought to the danger of the pastime. The mere fact that he was charmed he considered quite a sufficient safeguard. It was only a proof that she was a deeper cheat than the rest, and therefore more contemptible. And yet, somehow, this morning the wiles of women did not appear quite so detestable; he found himself wondering if there were not something to be said for them, when they could produce so delightful a result. He was sitting in the library pretending to transact business with Turbo and Dolabella, when his train of thought brought him for the twentieth time that morning to this same point, and with a half-unconscious desire for protection against what he knew to be a dangerous heresy, he addressed himself to his friends.

"What a charming woman Mlle de Tricotrin would be," he said, "to any one who could not see through her!"

The general started. He happened to have a piece of business that morning, but he was absent, and had made little progress: and now Kophetua's voice suddenly awoke him to the mortifying fact that, with a view of ascertaining the value of a living which was under his consideration, he was unconsciously looking out "Tricotrin" in the army list. Turbo did not start at all. He had been watching the King, and expecting the remark for the last hour.

"Yes, she is certainly very pretty," said the General, with a confusion which was not bettered by his feeling immediately that he ought to have said something else.

"That is assuredly the case, sire," said Turbo, looking hard at the disconcerted General. "It is very fortunate we can all see through women so easily."

"But she is clever, isn't she, General?" said the King, with a smile of amusement.

"Well, your majesty," replied the General, regaining his composure, "she might deceive more than a tiro, but to us it was evident from the first."

"Ah!" said Turbo, with more than his ordinary sneer, "I knew what the General would be thinking when she shrank on her father's arm. It was very clumsy."

"Positively disgusting," cried the General, with great relief.

At this moment a chamberlain announced that the Marquis de Tricotrin was at the palace, and awaited General Dolabella's leisure.

"I ventured last night," explained Dolabella hurriedly, "to ask him to see the gardens; we were discussing a little question of tactics which I thought we might elucidate there at our leisure."

"And was his daughter coming with him?" asked the King, with affected unconcern.

"That is what is so annoying," the General answered. "You see he asked if he might bring her, and what could I say? It will be hopeless to settle the point this morning."

"Not at all, General," said Turbo maliciously; "you could not have a better master in tactics than Mlle de Tricotrin."

"Yes," laughed the King, "you had better go at once. I excuse your further attendance."

"What a child our General is!" said the King when he was gone. "Now tell me what you thought of her, Turbo. It always amuses me."

So Turbo told the King what he wanted the King to think. He was never more trenchant or merciless; but the more he reviled, the more clearly there came before the King's eyes the beautiful face and the baby look it wore when she seemed to forget herself in the dance. Whether it was this, or whether it was that Turbo was more brutal than usual, it matters little, but the King was not amused. The Chancellor's coarse satire seemed particularly distasteful. He began to wish he had not started the subject. At last as he listened he noticed the founder's rapier was still lying on the table between them. That increased his discomfort. He looked up into the shadows under the morion, and then at his watch. It was time for his morning walk, and he descended by his private stair into the gardens.

There was a long and trim grass alley where he was accustomed to take the air, and, plunged as he was in thought, he turned into it mechanically almost before he knew. The sound of women's voices aroused him, and he looked up to see a sight which convinced him that General Dolabella's point in tactics was likely to be thoroughly discussed that morning after all. For from the end of the alley he saw his mother and Mlle de Tricotrin approaching. They were talking, but were too far for him to hear what they said, yet not so far but that he could see that the beauty looked if possible more beautiful than last night.

She was dressed in the same kind of soft high-girdled gown, in strange contrast with the Queen-mother's stiff brocades. Her face glowed with freshness like a flower, and she seemed in the King's eyes more natural than Nature itself, or at least than it was permitted to be in the gardens of the Palace. For there Nature was generously assisted, not merely with the trim clipping and rectilinear planting of our old English gardens. In Oneiria they had advanced a long way beyond the ideas which the old knight brought with him: the inorganic kingdoms had been called in to supply the poverty of the organic, and vases and statues were there without number. As though to show Nature what a mistake she had committed, the vases were made to look like shrubs and the shrubs like vases, and the long-legged statues seemed always in a gale of wind, while the trees looked as though a hurricane could not stir their rigidity. It is then little to be wondered at that Mlle de Tricotrin, in the midst of such surroundings, sustained the impression she had originally produced in the King's mind.

She greeted him charmingly, so charmingly indeed, that he a little lost his presence of mind, and in trying to recover his composure he found himself kissing the Queen-mother affectionately. It was difficult to say how it happened, unless it was that she looked so happy and motherly that morning. When it was over he was sufficiently himself again to notice that Mlle de Tricotrin was gazing at him with a look of admiration he had not noticed before; and it disturbed his balance once more that she did not lower her blue eyes when he caught her looking at him, but continued to watch him from under her long dark lashes while he made her his compliments.

"It is fortunate we met," said the Queen-mother, when the first few words were over. "I wanted to go in. It is too hot for me here. We were trying to find Monsieur de Tricotrin; but you can take my place now, Kophetua."

Kophetua did not think it at all fortunate. In fact he was getting a little afraid of Mlle de Tricotrin. She had a disturbing effect upon him, but he could hardly refuse, especially since the Queen-mother withdrew as she spoke and left them in the alley alone.

They were some time in finding the Marquis. In fact the Marquis had seen everything from a terrace behind the trees, and had no intention of allowing himself to be found too soon. So the poor General, with rueful countenance, had to listen at painful length to certain invaluable military opinions which the Marquis had acquired at second-hand. The King's conversation was certainly more pleasant. He soon regained his composure as they strolled along, and began to talk.

"I am sure, sire," she said, after they had admired the garden a little, "you must be the one perfectly happy man in the world. Till yesterday," she added, with something like a sigh, "I thought there was not even one."

"And why do you think I am that one, mademoiselle?" asked the King.

"Because you have everything, sire."

"But you forget I am a King."

"No, sire. I remember it. I know kings should be the unhappiest men in the world while those they govern are so unhappy. In France a prince like you would be miserable, but it is different here where every one is so happy and none are oppressed, or poor, or wicked."

"And do you think that should make me happy, mademoiselle?"

"Yes, sire, I know it must. Had my ancestors handed me down a kingdom like yours, which they had purged of every evil, I should worship them every day."

"And do you think that nothing more is needed—that it is enough to contemplate the happiness of my subjects?"

"Yes, sire, it is the highest happiness."

"Can you not think there may be something else a man may crave for, something still higher?"

"Is there something else?" she said looking up at him sympathetically.

He paused before he answered. He did not like the way she was drawing him immediately to tell her his inmost thoughts; yet it was so pleasant—this strange, sympathetic power of the beautiful woman at his side, who was so frank and unaffected. It was somehow like talking to a man, and yet so widely different. He knew his next reply would place them on closer terms than he had ever been with a woman before. He hesitated, and then took the plunge.

"I will tell you," he said, speaking with an earnestness which surprised him, and which he could not prevent. "That something else which is highest of all is to contemplate happiness, which you have wrought yourself. What is it to me that my people are contented, rich, and unoppressed? It is not my work. I could not even make them otherwise if I tried. It is my ancestors who have done it all. Without a thought for those who were to come after they laid law to law, and ordinance to ordinance, till the whole was perfect. They tore up every weed, they smoothed down every roughness in their unthinking greed of well-doing. They strove unceasing to perfect their own nobility and gave no heed to me. See in what fetters they have bound my soul. All my life I have striven and denied myself that I might grow up a statesman in fact as well as name; that I might be a physician to my people, to detect and cure the most secret maladies that seize on nations, and stretch out my arm in such wide-reaching strokes as men see wondering, and say, 'There is a king of men.' But you are a woman," he said, suddenly dropping his inspired tone to one of no little bitterness, "and cannot understand what it is for a man to feel thus."

"Indeed, indeed, I understand," she cried, "and from my heart I pity you. I know what you would say. You who rise up and feel your strength to make a garden of the wilderness and see the work is done. I know all you mean. It was what the great voice of the wind said to me, when it had borne our galleon into port so bravely and roared out through the naked spars as we lay at anchor: 'See what a power is in me, but my work is done. You give no heed to the might that is going by, and I must pass on and consume my strength without an end.'"

The King looked at her in wonder. It was a woman that spoke, but they were the words of more than a man. She understood all that he meant; nay, much that he had hardly grasped before. He was more disturbed than ever, and it was with difficulty he steadied his voice to speak.

"Then you can understand, mademoiselle," he said quite softly, "that I am perfectly miserable rather than perfectly happy?"

"Yes, sire," she said; "but such sorrow as yours is a better thing than other men's happiness."

"Yet it is none the less hard to bear."

"True; but it is also the easier to change to gladness."

"I do not understand; what do you mean?"

"There is a remedy so simple that I hardly dare to tell your majesty. I have presumed too far in all this—yet forgive me, sire, if when I heard such words as yours, I forgot that I spoke with a king."

"Nay, tell me all. I desire to know."

"It is then, sire," she said, looking down almost shyly, and speaking with some hesitation,—"it is, when the great things are done, to do the little things that are left undone. It is not given to all to do deeds that sound to the ends of the earth, but there are little things that a great man may do greatly so that they shall ring in the furthest heights of heaven."

"What things are those? I do not understand."

"Perhaps I speak foolishly, yet I feel so strongly, that a man like you would be sure to find them if you sought."

"But where—where am I to seek?"

"Amongst your people. If you were to go down to them so that they might not know you, you would find wrongs to right, wrongs that are little in the eyes of man but great before Heaven. Then you would know in your heart that the greatest acts are those which are done with the loftiest purpose and by the greatest soul."

"You would have me a very Haroun-al-Raschid," he said, with a laugh, for he felt that their talk was getting dangerously elevated, and he was ashamed of his weakness in letting it go so far.

"And why not?" she answered, smiling, as though her mood had changed with his. "What monarch had a happier life or left a happier memory behind him? and it is for the little things that he is remembered. But I see my father," she added, "I need detain your majesty no longer."

With the prettiest curtsey in the world she left him, and Kophetua returned to his apartments with his peace of mind considerably disturbed. The whole day he was the prey of the most conflicting thoughts, but above all to the humiliating conviction that he had been saying to this bewitching Frenchwoman things which he had never breathed in his life to any one but Turbo, his bosom friend. The idea she had suggested was fascinating enough. It would be very pleasant to try, and to tell her of his success afterwards; and at all events an excitement of any kind would be good for him, and serve to get her out of his mind a little.

Which of these considerations weighed most with him perhaps he hardly knew himself. He made and unmade his mind fifty times before nightfall; but still it is certain that as the moon rose Trecenito found himself stealing out of the private entrance of his gardens with his hair dishevelled and unpowdered, and his person concealed with a wide slouch hat, and a voluminous cloak or burnouse which he used on his hunting expeditions.

CHAPTER VII. THE LIBERTIES OF ST. LAZARUS.

"He saw a beggar all in gray."

It has been said already that the beggar class in Oneiria enjoyed peculiar and extensive privileges. It was a factor in the Oneirian polity, that one would hardly have expected to find, and its existence would be hard to explain were it not for a passage in a memoir, which the founder left behind him, as an exposition of the motives which led him to adopt some of the more unusual provisions of the constitution. The style is no less crabbed and tortuous than it is usual to find at the time, but it is none the less interesting as giving us a glimpse into the old knight's habit of thought.

"Forasmuch," it runs, "as the riches of this world have been bestowed on us, not for each man's ease and delight, which is the seedbed of sloth and gluttony, but rather for the perfecting of our natures by charity and almsgiving, whereby we are made partakers of all Christian virtue; so at the first I was shrewdly exercised how this medicine should be furnished for men's souls in a state where none should want. The [missing word] which fears at last brought me to draw into one body all the useless and most outlandish of my people, to whom all manner of work should be forbidden, that a guild of beggars might be made, to be a receptacle for all that was imperfectable in the community, whereby, as it appeared to me, I could make such men, as were otherwise useless and noxious to the state, useful citizens in respect that they would serve as a whetstone to the virtue of the rest, and, as it were, lay up for my garden a dung-heap or midden, which though itself is stinking and full of corruption, yet being dug in in season, bringeth up a plenteous growth of most sweet flowers and wholesome herbs."

The dung-heap commenced on these philosophical lines grew amazingly, and on the whole to the general health and cleanliness. Everything that had gone bad in the state drained into it by a natural process, and the resulting mass of human garbage which had collected at the time of which we are speaking thoroughly deserved the evil reputation it had earned. Yet no one thought of interfering with it. A quarter of the city and a secluded valley into which it sloped away had been assigned to the guild by the founder, and as long as it did not exceed its boundaries it was allowed to go on gathering, festering and growing. A certain number of the beggars were permitted to exercise their profession at the palace gates, otherwise it was all kept out of sight. Private people congratulated themselves on the excellent social drainage it afforded, and lived as if they did not know of its existence. They avoided the subject, gave their annual alms, and enjoyed the virtue so purchased till the time came round for laying in another stock. As for the government, it behaved in much the same way as the citizens. Every year it handed its donation from the central fund to the "Emperor" of the guild, as he was called, and suffered him to make and administer his own laws within the liberties without any inquiry or interference. It was whispered that some of these laws were of the most barbarous kind, and when people remembered what a conglomeration of nationalities, both savage and civilised, the guild represented, they, as a rule, changed the conversation, as if they were afraid to think what loathsome poisons might have been produced by the fermenting together of so much heterogeneous matter.

It was only natural then that Kophetua should wend his way to the beggars' quarter. It had been instituted by the founder for the increase of virtue, and he determined to seek in the reeking dung-heap for the elements to make fertile the soul he felt so barren within him. Moreover, as soon as the idea suggested itself, he began to see very clearly that the dung-heap had grown to a great wrong that was worthy of his best efforts to put right. He even confessed to himself that he had been aware of this for a long time, but either from cowardice or indolence he had refused to allow his dreaming to stiffen into a purpose. He always dismissed the idea almost before it was conceived, and fell back again into his old colourless life with its never-changing round of banalities and affectation. With each relapse his selfishness and cynicism grew more hard. It only wanted one great effort to stir his barren soul, and one brave grapple with sin and hideousness, to make all his heroism spring up in a harvest of golden grain. He knew that well enough in his better moments, yet he dreamed the dream and awoke, and was selfish and cynical and indolent still.

But now he was aroused at last. He was ashamed to think whose voice it was that had awakened him. He wished it had been any other. Still, he strode on under the shadow of the houses with a lighter heart than he had known for many years. And yet it was not without misgiving that he plunged into the liberties of St. Lazarus, as the beggars' quarter was called. It had an evil name, and his life had been so smooth that except in the chase he had never known what danger was. Strange tales were told of what had befallen men who had unwarily entered the quarter, and it was with a beating heart that he passed the great "Beggars' Gate."

He was no sooner past the barrier, however, than he saw before him a sight which drove everything else from his mind. Hurrying up the street in front of him was an ungainly, limping figure, which it was impossible to mistake. That gait could be none but Turbo's. What could it mean? Where could he be going? Kophetua drew closer under the shadow of the houses and followed.

Turn after turn the Chancellor took till he seemed to be seeking the very bowels of the liberty, and Kophetua began to feel it would be hard to find his way out again. Every now and then they passed a beggar, but the King only drew his hat more closely down and hurried on. At last Turbo stopped at a little door in what seemed the wall of a court or garden, and after looking round stealthily to see if he were followed he entered. Kophetua walked quickly to the door, which the Chancellor had carefully closed after him. Once there, he knew he had made no mistake, and understood at last the strange interest his Chancellor always took in the beggars at the palace gate.

"Nay, my pretty lump of foulness, do not avoid me," he heard Turbo's mocking voice say; "I have found you alone this time, and you must come perforce."

"Stand back! stand back!" gasped a woman's voice; "I will cry out and alarm them."

"You dare not, foul sweetheart," said Turbo; "you know too well the penalty when one of you is found with one of us. Nay, do not struggle so. There's no escape to-night."

There was a low choking cry of horror, and Kophetua burst open the door. At first he saw no one. He found himself in a little court behind a dilapidated house. Across the end where he stood ran a verandah in deep shadow. The noise of his entrance had hushed every sound. He could see nothing nor hear anything but his beating heart, when suddenly he was aware that a dark shadow had glided out of the verandah and had slipped by him through the door. Then in the far end he heard a low moan, and saw as he approached what seemed a heap of dirty rags lying in a corner, but he knew directly it was the lifeless form of a woman.

She did not move when he touched her, so he carried her out and laid her down in the bright moonlight to see what ailed her. Very tenderly he rested her head on his knee and bent over the motionless form to feel for life in it.

It was not without disgust that he did so, for it was only a beggar-girl he could see now, and she was no cleaner than her kind. Her face and hands were covered with dirt, her thick dark hair was matted and unkempt, and the rags that covered her were filthy beyond description. Yet her face looked so pale and careworn and delicate that he forgot all her foulness in his pity, and tried his best to revive her.

At last she sighed deeply, and opened her eyes. They were large and dark and trustful, and they looked straight up into his with a strange wonder; so long and earnestly did she gaze at him with her far-off look, that he felt a sort of fascination coming over him, and began to think how every one said the beggars were half of them witches. It was a great relief to see a dreamy smile lighting up her wan face. She stretched up her hands to him, and then dropped them as though she was too weak or too happy for anything but to lie as she was.

"Are you the great God?" she whispered, "or only an angel?"

"Lie still, child, a little," he said tenderly; "I am only human like yourself."

"Only a man!" she whispered with increasing wonder in her great dark eyes. "I thought I was dead and lay in God's lap. They say I shall, some day when my misery is done; but if you are a man, He will be too beautiful for me. Let me lie here a little where I am and dream again."

She closed her eyes, but they seemed still to look at him. He could not forget them. It was like a spell. He could not think of anything but them, and he let her lie while he gathered his straying thoughts.

"Are you better?" he asked, when she moved again. "Try and sit up. I cannot stay here long."

"Ah! I remember," she said, with a shudder. "It was you who came in when he seized me, and I prayed for help, and then,—then I forget. Yes, you must go away and leave me."

"But I must see you in the house first."

"No, no; I cannot go in to-night. Father was angry and beat me when I came in, and said I must stay on the stones all night because I had brought nothing home. I could not help it. They pushed me when Trecenito scattered the alms at the gate, and I could get none. And yet if I stay here, perhaps the man will come back."

"Do you know who it was?"

"Yes, the ugly man that I saw at the palace window. He followed me here once before and tried to make me go with him. But father came out, and he ran away. Oh, he is very wicked," she said, with another shudder. "He is not like you." She lay back again peacefully on Kophetua's knee, and closed her eyes as if she would swoon again, but a noise in the house disturbed her almost directly. "It is father. Fly, fly for your life!" she cried, starting up.

As she spoke, a tall beggar rushed out from the verandah with a long knife in his hand and made straight at Kophetua. The girl with a wild cry threw herself before the man and clasped his knees, crying again, "Fly, fly for your life!" and ere he well knew what he was doing, Kophetua had availed himself of the respite and was running down the street. He had not gone far, however, before he began to think what a bad beginning he was making to run away just as the danger commenced. Then those trusting eyes seemed to be looking at him again and calling him back. So he stopped, determined to return and rescue her from her father's fury. But now he was aware he had entirely lost his way. Still he would not give up his purpose, and cursing himself for his cowardice, wandered through street after street, it seemed for hours, and was then as far as ever from finding what he sought. Exhausted with his efforts, from time to time he sat down to rest and think which direction could be right. Many beggars passed him, but he dared not speak to one. Again and again he started up and walked on once more. His blood was up, and he was determined not to leave the girl to her fate. He knew life would be unendurable if he returned without redeeming his cowardice.

At last, at the end of a narrow lane, he emerged into a square where was a building larger than any he had seen before, and all ablaze with light. Many beggars were going into it, and, hardly knowing why, he joined himself to one of the tattered groups and went in too.

He found himself directly in a great hall surrounded by a filthy crowd. At first he could see nothing but the smoke-blackened roof and the torches that flared all round. But presently in an eddy of the throng he was carried beside a rough wooden table on which men were standing. One of them looked down, and holding out a grimy hand invited him to get up beside him. Once there, he could see all over the great chamber. All round the walls was a mass of beggars packed close on floor and forms and tables, and dressed in every tattered costume under heaven, from east to west. Arab and Jew, Frank and Berber, all were there and every hybrid between, and the lurid torchlight lit up a pile of faces as evil as sin itself.

At the further end was a raised platform, supporting a great high-backed chair which was ablaze with gilding and colour lately renewed. It formed the strangest contrast to the dirt and gloom and rottenness with which it was surrounded, but even stranger was the incongruity of its occupant. For upon it sat a little brown wizened man, so old that he hardly seemed alive, except in his restless eyes. His long white hair and beard straggled thinly over him and formed his only covering, except for a filthy waist-cloth, and a chaplet of gold-pieces which served for a crown. He was not sitting in the European manner, but had drawn up his skinny brown legs on to the gilded seat, and was squatting like an Oriental. Indeed, the whole scene savoured rather of the East than the West. The architecture was Moorish, and the tawdry throne was framed in a horseshoe arch. Turbans were more numerous than any other head-dress, and the front rows of the throng squatted on the dirty floor watching unmoved the scene that was being enacted before them.

Yet it was moving enough. In the midst before the throne was an open grave, newly dug in the mud floor. Beside it two men were stripping as though for a fight. As soon as they were ready they stood up knife in hand and salaamed to the Emperor, for such Kophetua knew he must be. Then came a shrill sound from the throne, like the voice of a heron, and every murmur was hushed.

"Know all men," it cried, "why the High Court of St. Lazarus sits to-night. It sits for treason to the ancient guild; it sits on one who is unchaste with the Gentiles. It sits on Penelophon, daughter of Ramlak. To-night she was found in the arms of her lover who came from the city. It is sin worthy of death. It is worthy the worst of deaths. Yet Dannok her brother maintains the charge is false, and will do battle for his sister with him on whom the lot of blood has fallen, the champion of St. Lazarus."

Kophetua's heart sank within him as the monotonous words fell slowly on his ear. Something told him that Penelophon must be the girl he had come to rescue; but how to do it now! With terrible anxiety he watched the combatants take their places opposite each other. Behind each of them were two others, each armed, like the champions, with long knives. It was an awful scene to one who had lived the life of Kophetua, where all that was ugly or painful had long been refined away. The heat and stench made him feel sick and weak, so that the open grave and the knives, and the brown old Emperor crouching in the gilded throne, seemed to weigh him down like a horrible dream.

"Let Penelophon be brought forth to stand her trial!"

The shrill voice died away again. A door opened by the daïs, there was a movement in the throng, and breathless with dread Kophetua watched to see what would come. The crowd opened, and his life seemed to freeze up with horror. He tried to cry out, but no sound came. He shut his eyes to keep out the sight; but it was useless, he could not choose but look. There, between two hideous hags, walked what seemed the corpse of the girl he had tried to save. He knew her again though she was so changed. They had washed her clean as the body that is laid out for burial; they had wrapped her in grave-clothes, and her luxuriant dark hair hung down, combed and silky, over the white shroud like a pall. Yet he knew her. That wan face, the dark, trusting eyes he could never forget. It was she whom he had tried to befriend. It was she whom he had deserted. This was the end of his first attempt. She was to die the worst of deaths. She was to be buried alive!

And all depended on the skill of the stripling who was already sparring before the champion of St. Lazarus. They were long before they closed, and Kophetua watched breathlessly. Suddenly they were together and there was a flash and clink of steel, and the lad sprang back. On his shoulder was a streak of blood; but before the King had well seen it, the two men behind leaped upon the wounded boy and plunged their knives into his back. Such was the fierce law of combat in the liberties of St. Lazarus. The first blood showed the right, and death was the portion of him who fought for the wrong.

It was over, and Penelophon must die. Without ceremony the seconds seized her brother's naked body and threw it into the open grave. Then the two hags began to drag their charge to it in her turn. She looked round wildly, her eyes staring with terror. Kophetua, in his intense anxiety, had worked himself to the front; and their eyes met. She started, and her horror changed to the look of wonder he had seen when first her eyes opened and gazed into his. He knew she was thinking her guardian angel was come again. It was more than he could bear. Forgetting everything, he leaped down into the open space, tore her from the hags, and stood with the shroud-clad figure in his arms, bidding her fear nothing.

"It is the Gentile lover," proclaimed the same monotonous cry of the shrivelled Emperor. "He has come to lie in the same grave with his shameless love. Seize him, and make ready!"

"You dare not!" cried Kophetua, as he threw back his cloak and hat. "Stand back! See! It is I, Kophetua the King."

There was a murmur of "Trecenito" through the throng, and the men who were come to obey the Emperor's orders fell back.

"We know no king in the liberties but the Emperor," droned the old man, quite undisturbed. "Seize him, and prepare him for the grave!"

"Stand back!" cried poor Kophetua, "you dare not lay hands on me. Think what your fates will be when my people hear of it."

"They will never hear of it," chanted the Emperor. "No one saw you come hither."

"Yes, Turbo, my Chancellor, saw me," cried the King, growing alarmed.

"And he wishes your death, that he may reign in your stead," the voice droned on without a change of note. "Seize them, and put them together in Limbo for a foretaste of the narrower chamber that is to come, while the grave-clothes are prepared and another grave is dug; for now the dead shall lie alone. Away with them now, and fear not. The Emperor is greater than the King, and Sultan Death than both."

He ended in a shrill scream of mocking laughter, while Kophetua was seized and hurried along, powerless to resist. While the devilish merriment still rang out they thrust him in at the door whence the beggar-maid had been brought. Her they pushed in after him, and the door closed with a hollow clang.

As soon as Kophetua could collect his thoughts sufficiently to look about him, he found himself shut in a narrow chamber, in every way adapted for a prison. One small window, about his own height from the ground, was the only outlet to the open air, and it was heavily barred. The moonlight streamed through it and poured a flood of silvery light about a stone bench in a recess on the opposite side. There his eyes rested at last immovably; for there sat the beggar-maid swathed in her shroud, and shining so white and ghostly in the moonbeams that she seemed no living thing. She sat upright, gazing before her with her wondering eyes as though she only half understood what had happened.

And Kophetua wondered too—wondered to see how beautiful she was now her foulness was washed away. He knew the face well; where had he seen it? It must have been in his dreams. So he stood in the deep shadow watching and wondering and listening to the click of the spade and mattock, as the beggars dug the grave he was to share with the living corpse before him. It was indeed, as the Emperor had said, a foretaste of the tomb.

Presently she turned her dark gaze on him. It was terrible to see the death-like thing looking at him, and he shuddered, but her soft voice reassured him.

"I knew my angel would come down and save me again," she murmured. "When will you take me away? I am ready to go now; Dannok is dead, and I have no one left."

Poor child! he dared not speak and break her dream. He only watched her still, and then it flashed on him what face it was. It was in the old picture in his library he had seen it, the same wan delicate features, the same black hair waving so smooth and even over the snowy forehead. He had often wondered how a painter could have chosen such a face to fascinate a king. Now he saw it in the flesh he wondered no longer, but gazed his fill, and listened to the click of the grave-diggers.

"Must we wait very long?" murmured the beggar-maid again. "I am very weary, and crave for rest."

"My child, my child!" cried Kophetua, unable any longer to restrain himself, "I cannot save you. It is I that have ruined you, and we are going to lie side by side in the same dark grave."

As he spoke he went to her, and in spite of his half-superstitious awe of the ghostly figure he took her in his arms, as though he would kiss away the new horror from her face; but he started back immediately, pale as herself. The click of spade and mattock had ceased, heavy footsteps sounded at the door, and the key rattled in the lock.

CHAPTER VIII. ESCAPE, BUT NOT LIBERTY.

"The which did cause his paine."

The door did not open at once, and Kophetua stood with his arm about his ghostly companion listening to the muttered curses of the men without. There seemed to be something amiss with the lock. Fiercely they rattled the key, and every moment the prisoners expected to hear the bolt fly back.

"See, see," whispered Penelophon, suddenly pointing to the window, "I knew you would save me; why did you frighten me so?"

Kophetua looked up, and saw a stout pole had been thrust in between the bars of the window-grating, and that some one was using it as a lever to try and tear them out.

"Leap out both," cried a low disguised voice outside, "the moment it gives."

The pole strained again and the key grated; and now the shrill voice of the shrivelled Emperor could be heard screaming from his gilded throne and bidding his men make haste. The bars groaned and bent, but they were still tough, and would not give. The lock rattled each moment more savagely; the scream of the Emperor grew more angry; the suspense was becoming almost unendurable, when, with a sudden crash, the whole window-grating fell outwards. There was a sound of feet hurrying away, and then all was silent without.

But now a heavy hammer was clanging with deafening noise upon the broken lock, and between each stroke rose the scream of the frenzied monarch, so piercing that it seemed to Kophetua to half paralyse him, as he grasped the window-sill and strove to draw himself up. It was a desperate struggle, for he was unused to such exercise; but it was done at last, and he sat astride the stone sill, and held out his hands to Penelophon. She seemed quite calm, and looked up in his face trustfully, as he in a fever of excitement began to pull her up. Two hammers were now banging rhythmically on the door, and the din of their ponderous blows was almost incessant, and yet the awful scream of anger was not drowned. But the tough old lock still held; and it was not till Kophetua, more dead than alive, had dropped to the ground, and had caught the beggar-maid in his arms, that the clangour ceased in a deafening crash, and they knew that the door was burst.

They did not stop to hear more. As soon as the gaolers dare tell their frantic monarch of the escape the pursuit would begin. No sooner indeed did her feet touch the ground than Penelophon seized the King's hand, and began running down a labyrinth of tortuous passages as fast as the clinging grave-clothes would allow. The King was hardly less agitated than before. They could hear the shout of the beggars as the pursuit began; but in five minutes all was over, and the King and the beggar-maid ran out hand-in-hand through the great gate by which he had entered.

Still they did not stop. Kophetua could not feel sure after what he had seen of their power and numbers that the beggars would not carry the pursuit beyond the limits of the liberty. So he hurried on still without resting till he had let himself in at the private entrance to the palace gardens. Once inside he threw himself on a bench, exhausted with fatigue and excitement, and the beggar-maid sank at his feet. The adventure was over, and he would think quietly what was next to be done.

The thought seemed hardly framed when Kophetua awoke to the consciousness that he had been asleep. How long he knew not. The dawn was just beginning to glimmer as he opened his eyes, and he started up terror-stricken to see a corpse stretched at his feet. Then he remembered it all, and began to realise his position. It was certainly sufficiently embarrassing. He, the King of Oneiria, was sitting in his own garden with a beggar-maid, dressed like a corpse, in his charge. What was he to do with her? She too had fallen asleep, and was lying outstretched upon her back like an effigy on a tomb. Her arms lay listlessly, with palms upturned, just as they had dropped on either side of her. Her head was resting on the roots of a tree, and was turned gently towards him. Out of the dark masses of her hair, which lay littered over the white grave-clothes, her face glimmered wan and pale in the ashen light. So still and peaceful and deathlike was the picture that, save for the gentle breathing, it might indeed have been the sleep that knows no waking.

He sat with his chin in his hand looking at her. Yes, she was very beautiful. Those features were cast in the same exquisite mould which in the picture had seemed to him to tell of nothing but inanity, but now he saw it in the flesh it spoke of that divine purity, strength, and tenderness which the angels are given. It was a beauty of holiness that seemed to sanctify him as he gazed. He felt himself ennobled that he could distinguish it. But where could he take her? Assuredly most men would call that face from which all sensuality and the earthly parts of beauty had been refined away inane. They were too gross to see what real beauty was. General Dolabella would certainly call it inane.

General Dolabella! that was an idea. General Dolabella was certainly the only person of his acquaintance to whom he felt it was possible for him to bring a young girl dressed in grave-clothes, the first thing in the morning, and ask him to take care of her. In the reaction which his rest had brought about he began to feel ashamed of his quixotic enterprise, and to see his position in the ridiculous light. He fancied what the wits would say if they heard of it, what smart things would be current at his expense; and he laughed cynically at himself that he of all men should have been deluded into an attempt to resuscitate so dead and false a thing as chivalry. Just then Penelophon cried out in her sleep, and awoke with a restless start. Her eyes opened, she seized the shroud convulsively in her hands to look closely at it, and then, with a choking cry of horror, covered her face and fell back. Kophetua was on his knees at her side in a moment. He took her hands from her eyes, and tried to comfort her.

"Look up, Penelophon," said he, very tenderly. "It was only a dream."

"Where am I?" she cried wildly. "It was so dark and cold in the grave when they covered me up. Ah!" she went on, with the same trusting look coming back as at first, "I remember, they did not bury me. You saved me. Shall I go with you now?"

She stretched her arms to him, and he lifted her up. She was very cold, and so was he; but he took off his cloak and tried to repress a shiver as he wrapped it about her and drew the hood over her head.

"Yes, if you can," he said; "I want to put you where kind people will keep you safe."

She staggered when she tried to walk, being still weak with the shock she had had, and stiff with cold; so he put his arm about her, and supported her towards the gate which led from the opposite side of the gardens into General Dolabella's official residence. The servants were just astir, and there was little difficulty in getting in, when Kophetua explained that he must see the Minister at once on urgent business of state. It is true they hardly knew what to make of the King's sudden appearance, with his haggard face and dishevelled and unpowdered hair; but his manner was so sharp and peremptory that they were too glad to show him and his charge to the Minister's private room with all possible speed, and it was not many minutes more before the General himself hurried in in his nightcap and flowered dressing-gown.

"God preserve us, sire!" said he, starting back to see the haggard spectacle the King presented after the horrors he had gone through, "what has happened? It is most alarming. Let me send at once for the Adjutant-General or the Archbishop! Which department is it?"

"Calm yourself, my dear General," said the King a little nervously; "it is nothing of any consequence—at least, that is, not at present. Later in the day I will see you with the Adjutant-General. Now I merely wish you to take charge of a person, whom I have saved—it matters not how—from a very awkward position. I wished for secrecy and fidelity, and, above all, no idle curiosity, so I came to you."

"Your majesty does me a great honour," said the General, with a profound bow. "I presume this is the gentleman beside you. I need hardly say I shall be proud to offer him an asylum as long as it can be of any service to him or your majesty."

Penelophon was still wrapped in the burnouse, and in the dim morning light it was impossible to see her plainly. The mistake only made the King more nervous still. He had hoped the explanation was over, and now he had to begin again.

"That is like your kind heart," he answered, with some hesitation. "But it is only right to tell you, you are mistaken in thinking this is a gentleman."

"Oh!" said the General, with a very wise nodding of his head, "it is a lady we have rescued. Now I understand the case."

"Pardon me, General," said the King testily, "but you understand nothing of the kind. It is not a lady at all. It is a beggar-maid."

"Forgive me, sire," answered the General, with some dignity. "I could hardly have been expected to have grasped the situation. It is a delicate office for a married man; but your majesty knows my devotion, and of course I will conceal her, as well as I can, till you can otherwise bestow her."

"But that is not what I want," said the King, growing more and more vexed. "Don't you see? It is an unfortunate girl I have rescued from the most atrocious cruelty. She needs protection, and I desire that your wife shall take her into her service."

"Really, your majesty," cried the General, in great perturbation, "it is—well, not impossible; that is a word I will not allow myself to use in a question of serving your majesty. But consider what my wife—I mean, consider what it is to request the Director of Public Worship to introduce such a person into the bosom of his family."

"General Dolabella," replied the King coldly, "you do not believe me. You permit yourself to doubt the word of your sovereign. Very well, I will convince you that what I say is true, and that this poor girl is without reproach."

With a vague idea that he would at once make the General grasp the whole case, he stepped to Penelophon and drew off the burnouse that covered her, leaving her standing motionless and deathlike in her clinging grave-clothes and dark pall of hair, a pale and ghastly figure in the sickly morning light. The effect upon the Minister was startling. He sank back thunderstruck into the chair behind him. His jaw dropped, his eyes stared wildly, and beads of perspiration came out on his forehead.

"Excuse me, sire," he said faintly, when he was a little recovered. "You see I am a little shocked. I was not prepared to see the lady in fancy dress. It is very pretty; but I confess I was not quite prepared for it. I shall be better directly."

"I am sorry to alarm you," said the King, "but pray oblige me by not referring to this poor girl as a lady again. You see the story I have told you is obviously true. It is strange, but I cannot just now go into details of how she came to be in this costume, which I admit is unusual. At present all I ask from you is very simple. Procure her a suitable dress from one of your own women servants, introduce her to your wife as a young person who has been highly recommended to you as a desirable maid for her, of course without mentioning my name. She cannot refuse, and all I ask is done."

"But, your majesty," pleaded the poor General, "you hardly appreciate—my wife—I mean our domestic relations, particularly at this moment,—I assure your majesty it is a most delicate application you ask me to make, and one capable of painful misinterpretation."

"Very well," said the King sharply; "I understand you to refuse my request. I regret my confidence was so misplaced. Hitherto I had not doubted your devotion."

"But, your majesty——" began Dolabella.

"Silence, sir," said Kophetua sharply. "Enough has been said. With pain—with considerable pain I must put you to the trouble of receiving my orders as High Constable of the kingdom."

It was a sinecure office the General enjoyed as Commander-in-chief. He stood up at once and saluted, trying to look in his night-cap and flowered dressing-gown as constable-like as under the circumstances was attainable.

"I place this woman under arrest to you," continued the King. "You will keep her in solitary confinement, so far as is consistent with her kind treatment. Above all, you will let no one see her, and you will produce her person when called upon. Kindly draft a warrant, and I will sign it at once. I believe my orders are plain?" he added, as the High Constable hesitated.

"Perfectly," moaned Dolabella lugubriously, and sat down to write. Meanwhile Penelophon, who at last was beginning dimly to grasp that her angel was really Trecenito himself, was gazing from one to the other in hopeless wonder without speaking. The warrant was done. Kophetua signed it, drew his burnouse about him, and left the room without another word. Penelophon looked after him wistfully, and then sat down and began to cry.

"I am very sorry, sir," she said, "to be here, if you do not want me."

"There, there! my dear," said the soft-hearted General petulantly. "There is no need to cry. It is no fault of yours. Only you place me in a very painful position. You cannot understand, because you do not know Madame Dolabella. She is a most charming motherly person, but unhappily a woman to whom it will be an extremely delicate task to explain why I, a father of a family, am holding a tête-à-tête in my study the first thing in the morning with a corpse—or what is a corpse to all intents and purposes, only worse. She is not so used to that kind of thing as some people. I must get you a more decent dress at once, and some breakfast. You look very hungry." And therewith the General gathered the skirts of his flowered dressing-gown around him and shuffled off in his slippers, carefully locking the door behind him.

Kophetua reached his apartments in no enviable frame of mind. He was angry with the General and angry with himself. He felt it was a piece of cowardice to compel his Minister to undertake a duty he was afraid of himself. He was determined to provide for Penelophon elsewhere as soon as possible. But how was it to be done? If General Dolabella would not accept his assurance of the girl's innocence and danger, who would? It was impossible to explain the case to any one. To begin with, he was heartily ashamed of the whole adventure, and then such heavy considerations of state were involved in it. It must entail, in the first place, the unpleasant confession that he was not King in his own dominions. The beggars had been suffered to grow into an uncontrollable power; and, until he could concert measures with the general staff for the concentration of a considerable force in the capital, it was clear that the subject must not be mentioned, especially as there was the further complication of Turbo, and the extraordinary part he had played in the matter. It was absolutely necessary to know what position the Chancellor would take before any move could be made; and how he was to arrive at that Kophetua could not for the life of him think.

It was certainly a situation, and one which would require all his statesmanship to deal with. At last, he admitted, he was face to face with a difficulty of the kind he had longed for all his life. He was aware of a great danger, a great wrong in the state which must be remedied; yet, so he argued to himself, it was impossible to enjoy the position because it was so mixed up with ridiculous personal considerations. Had it only been a plain question of politics, he felt he would have been equal to it, and would have rejoiced in grappling with its difficulties. As it was, he would have given anything if he had only stayed at home that night; and as he cast himself exhausted on his bed for a little rest, there was no one he hated so much as beautiful Mlle de Tricotrin, who had been clever enough to wheedle him into making such a fool of himself for the mere pleasure of winning her good opinion. Whatever happened, he determined she should not know he had been weak enough to act on the advice he had allowed her to give, and so afford her a still better hold on him than she had already obtained by his stupid confidences.

CHAPTER IX. IN THE QUEEN'S GARDEN.

"What sudden chance is this? quoth he,

That I to love must subject be,

* * * *

But still did it defie."

In the afternoon following the morning of Kophetua's adventure the Queen-mother was sitting in her little garden pavilion, and at her feet was curled Mlle de Tricotrin reading to her in the prettiest of soft white gowns, and the prettiest of natural attitudes. It was a strange little building, which the Queen had christened the Temple of Sensibility. It was perhaps more like a Greek temple than most things, but more strictly speaking it belonged to that style of architecture which reached its culmination in the valentines and burial cards of fifty years ago. The Queen was very fond of it. It stood in a quiet corner of that part of the palace gardens which was set apart for her private use, and she had lavished considerable thought and taste in the interior decoration. The walls were covered with vast architectural perspectives produced almost to infinity, so that the little place seemed to be the focus on which all the draughts of a vast and airy hall were concentrated, and at various points fat little Cupids were apparently trying to anchor themselves to the columns by wreaths of roses, as though in fear of being blown out of the composition. The effect was cool, but not cosy; yet the Queen was very fond of it, and had brought Mlle de Tricotrin thither with the air of one who has a great favour to bestow.

They were already fast friends. The Queen-mother was of an affectionate nature, and was starving for an object on which her affection could feed. As has been said, she was thoroughly German, and shared the characteristics of the educated and refined German lady of her time. It was a mixture we seldom see nowadays. On one side she was homely and practical, on the other highly imaginative and dreamy. She cannot perhaps be better expressed than in terms of her tastes. The Queen-mother had a passion for needlework and transcendental philosophy. Oddly enough, Mlle de Tricotrin had quite a pretty taste in them too.

At her new friend's first entry into the ballroom the Queen had certainly been a little shocked. It was impossible not to regard her costume as a little immodest; but when she began to dance, and Margaret saw how pretty and childish and unaffected she was, and how, above all, she seemed to charm the stony heart of the King, she began to recognise in Mlle de Tricotrin the simple, well-brought-up, and beautiful girl of whom she had heard so hopefully from the Governor of the Canaries. A very few words which passed between the two women the night of the ball and on the following morning had been enough to bring the heart-sick woman under the spell as much as anybody else. The result was an invitation and the present visit to the Temple of Sensibility. Mlle de Tricotrin admired the embroidery, and asked if she could help. Beside the Queen-mother's chair stood a large grinning monster from China, blue and hideous. He was a great pet of Margaret's, and she showed her affection by using him as a book-rest. Mlle de Tricotrin saw a volume of German philosophy resting on his paws, and began to express her admiration of the author in terms that would be for our ears a little high-flown and sentimental. Thus in a very few minutes the impression she had already created was more than confirmed. With new-born happiness the Queen accepted her offer to read, and now as she worked and listened to the musical voice, she was entranced as much by the sound as the sense that filled her ears.

"Ah," said the Queen, as the reader paused after a passage of great beauty, "why must material bodies so clog our spirit that it cannot rise to the places which these great men point out to us?"

"But indeed it can, madam," said the beauty. "I do not remember my soul's prison when I read such words as these. I forget all that is tainted with matter, and seem to float up and down in the highest empyrean, with the bright spirits that are wafted by on the breath of the song the angels sing."

"Then indeed you are blessed," the Queen answered; "but such freedom can never be mine. I am chained by a sin to the body of death, and may not melt into the eternal till my fetters are broken. But you have never lost the freedom which purity alone can give. And yet," she continued, smiling sadly, and laying her hand on the girl's soft heap of hair, "I wonder your soul likes to leave the dwelling-place which God has made so fair for it. You are very, very pretty, my child!"

Mlle de Tricotrin looked up in the Queen's face. The sad eyes were moist with tears, and were looking down at her so lovingly that she could not help taking in hers the thin hand that had been caressing her, and kissing it reverently.

"Ah! madam," she said, so earnestly and sadly that the Queen was quite surprised at the change of her tones, "what might I have been if I had had a mother like you to guide me! but my mother died before I can remember."

"That is a hard thing for a girl," answered the Queen, "and you have fought your way alone bravely. Yes, it is hard, but is not my lot harder still? What might my lonely life have been with a daughter like you to warm and brighten it? But I have no child—I have no child."

"But you have the King!"

"No, he is not mine. He is hard and cold, and thinks of nothing but himself."

"Indeed your majesty does him wrong," cried Mlle de Tricotrin eagerly. "He is not what you say. He spoke so differently to me when—when we were alone in the garden."

The last words she said with some hesitation and in a low sweet voice, and, looking down, pretended to arrange the folds of her soft gown with the prettiest embarrassment as she went on, "He told me of his lofty aspirations, how he longed to do some great thing for his people, how miserable he was at the hollow life he led—O madam! believe me, he has a noble heart."

"And he told all this to you?" said the Queen, between surprise and delight.

"Yes, and much more," answered her companion, looking up with a frank, innocent look which seemed ignorant of how much her words meant. So frank and innocent indeed were her eyes, that for a moment Margaret doubted. She put her hands on the soft hair once more, and gazed steadfastly upon the lovely face that was upturned to her; it was a look which searched deep, it was a look hard to be borne, till the sad eyes of the widow grew dim with tears. Then the Queen-mother bent down and kissed Mlle de Tricotrin very, very tenderly.

Their further conversation was interrupted by an attendant announcing that the King was without, and desired to know whether the Queen could receive him. It was a very long time since the poor mother had had such a request made to her by her son. So great a coldness had gradually grown up between them that they hardly ever met except on public occasions. They had come so entirely to misunderstand each other that private interviews between them at last became so constrained as to be quite painful to both. It was then with a flush of surprise and pleasure that she ordered him to be admitted at once, and some impulse or other which she did not stop to analyse prompted her to press Mlle de Tricotrin's hand affectionately as they rose to receive the visitor.

"Good day, madam," said Kophetua, with a shade of annoyance passing over his handsome face at the sight of Mlle de Tricotrin. "I had thought to find you alone!"

"Shall Mlle de Tricotrin retire?" asked the Queen. It was impossible to hesitate. He would have liked to say "Yes," but that would seem to give a mystery to his errand, which was exactly what he wanted to avoid. Besides, it would seem rude, and then she really looked very sweet in her soft white gown and tangled brown hair. So he bowed profoundly, and begged that Mlle de Tricotrin would do him the honour of remaining.

"Are you not well, Kophetua?" asked the Queen anxiously. "You look pale and tired; have you not slept?"

"I thank you, madam, I am in perfect health," answered the King shortly. It was always the poor Queen's fate to say the very thing that of all others was calculated to irritate him, and, anxious as he was to hide all traces of his last night's exploit, he on this occasion had great difficulty in not showing his annoyance. In order to succeed, he found himself making a more elaborate compliment to Mlle de Tricotrin than was necessary, and the bright look of pleasure she gave him in return only increased his vexation.

"Mlle de Tricotrin has been reading some beautiful things to me," said the Queen, with a well-meant attempt to turn the conversation into a channel which she believed was agreeable to both. "I find her quite a profound philosopher."

"Indeed," answered the King in no better humour, as the conviction forced itself upon him that Mlle de Tricotrin was besieging his mother as an outwork of the throne. "Ladies so arm themselves with wisdom nowadays that men are driven to the end of their wits to know how to resist them, and you make me fear, madam, that I come in a very high-flown hour to prefer a humble request I have."

"Nay, Kophetua," replied the Queen, "you know I consider no hour ill-timed for a mother to help her son. What is it I shall do for you?"

"It is a very little matter, madam," the King began, with some nervousness. "It is only that I wish you to take into your household an unfortunate girl who has been highly commended to my care. It matters not how low the office."

He could not help glancing at Mlle de Tricotrin to see how she took the words. He found her looking at him with a look of entranced admiration, which at that moment was peculiarly annoying. For an instant he thought she had taken in the whole situation at once.

"That is very easily done," said the Queen. "What can she do? Where did she come from?"

"That I cannot tell you," answered the King.

"But do you not know?"

"Yes, madam; but there are reasons why I cannot tell you," said the King, for he was now more determined than ever that Mlle de Tricotrin should not know how he had been influenced by her conversation.

"It is a strange request to make," said the Queen, a little coldly. "May I know nothing before I grant it?"

"She is a beggar-maid, madam, whom I have undertaken to protect; I beg you to ask no more."

"It is well, sir, perhaps, that I should not," returned the Queen, drawing herself up with all the pride of her ancient family. "It is a long time since a daughter of our house was served by beggars."

"But why not, madam, why not?" said the King warmly. "Where will you find truer nature, and, therefore, truer nobility, than there? It is they whom the noonday burns and who shiver in the night; it is they who hunger and thirst and want; it is they who know the only true joys, the joys that have risen out of misery; it is they who alone are pure, who have touched pitch and are not defiled. What are we beside them, with our empty, easy, untried lives? How can nobility grow out of such pettinesses as are our highest employments? No! there, out of doors, where men and women that groan and suffer, and shout for joy when it is done, that hate and love like the strong beasts of the desert, that curse when they are angered and smile only when they are pleased, there where these are ground together in the roaring mill of good and evil, there you shall seek and find the little nobleness that is left in our effete humanity."

"And is it the white flour you bring me from your dusty mill?" said the Queen haughtily. "How am I to tell it is not the husk that is only fit for swine?"

"Madam," cried the King loftily, "I swear to you—is that not enough?—I swear to you she is pure as snow; I swear that of all women——"

"Stay, sir," said the Queen, with suppressed anger. "'Tis only as I thought; but I beg you to remember where you are and to whom you speak. A mighty fine thing, sir, a vastly fine thing for a son to ask of the mother he hardly deigns to own. You have reasons, have you, why you may not say who this lady is? There is no need. I know them well enough. It is vastly fine, sir. Kophetua the King, Kophetua, the thirteenth of his name, shall go and rake in any filthy hole for his toys, and bring them to his father's wife to hide in her bosom. It is vastly fine, sir, but you know not my father's daughter, and have forgotten yourself."

"Madam, you do me wrong!" cried Kophetua passionately. "Before Heaven, you do me wrong!"

"Peace! peace!" cried the Queen, "lest Heaven blast you. I know you well. It is useless to speak so fine. I know you for the son you are. See what it is you do, and pray forgiveness of Heaven. That were the best. You, my son, my one son, who have been my only thought, while I grew grey with thinking; you who have cast me off to be the puppet of a man your father raised from the very ground; it is you who sat and took your pleasure while I grew grey and grieved for the love you had denied me! But I waited through the long years alone, saying, 'Surely when my punishment is ended, God will send him back, and in his arms the sweet fruits of love and repentance!' and now, to-day, you came at last, and I thought the days of my mourning were over. I held out my hands for the rich gift of your love that should sweeten the last bitter drops in my cup—weary and sick with longing I hold them out, and you would put into them your—your——" she sank in her chair, unable to say the word, and, burying her head in her arms upon the grinning monster, sobbed out hysterically, "'Tis vastly fine, 'tis vastly fine!"

But Kophetua neither heard nor saw. At the climax of her speech he had turned on his heel and left the room, lest he should be tempted to return her anger with anger. His pride was as high as his mother's, and it came to his aid, just as it had come to hers in her interview with Turbo. So he drew himself up and slowly left the pavilion, proud that with all his temptations his life was yet without the reproach his mother had flung at him, and proud that, deep as the insult was, he was too chivalrous even to resent it, seeing that it came from a woman. But he was cut to the heart nevertheless. With a great effort he had resolved to come to his mother for sympathy and help in his trouble. It was she, he felt, who alone would understand, or if she would not, then it was hopeless, and he knew not which way to turn. It had cost him much to make up his mind to try and fill the gulf that was between them, but he had humbled himself at last. He had come to her feet, and she had cast him off with insults. She had utterly misunderstood him. The breach, instead of being mended, was widened tenfold, and for ever he must be alone.

With such thoughts he strode from the pavilion, and took his way out of the garden, with the noble and resolute look which came over him in his better moments, and which became him so well. As he turned from the main alley into a sidewalk thickly edged with grotesque cactus, the soft sound of a voice stopped his measured stride. He looked to see Mlle de Tricotrin before him in the way, kneeling in her soft white dress.

"Pardon!" she said very softly, "I crave your majesty's pardon." At that moment, of all others, he would have avoided her if it had been possible, but she was straight in his path, and then as she rested on one knee and looked imploringly upon his face, her beauty was such that in any case he could hardly have passed her by.

"It was not my fault," she continued, "that I heard what I did. You desired me to remain, and I left as soon as I saw the mistake her majesty made."

"It is a little fault," answered he, "to crave pardon for on your knees."

"But it is not all I ask," she cried; "I am here to beg a greater favour. O sire! I cannot but say it, my heart bleeds for you. I understand it all. It is a terrible thing to be judged so falsely by those we have striven hardest to please. It is a poor reward for what you have done. I understand it all, and beg you will let me take care of her."

"But, mademoiselle, how can I claim such a service at your hands? It is impossible."

"It is not a service I do you," she answered. "I have no chamber-woman. She feared to follow me here. So let me have this girl whom you have saved, and I will treat her as a sister."

It was perhaps the last escape that he would have wished from his difficulty. It was really too vexatious that he should be forced to let this woman add an obligation to the other snares she was weaving round him. Yet it was the only way he could see, and he could not deny he was touched by her kindness. So he gave her his hand and raised her from where she kneeled.

"You have a kind heart, mademoiselle," he said. "She shall come to you to-night."

It was impossible not to put to his lips the little hand he held. Mere courtesy demanded it. He was conscious of a strange thrill as he did so, and passed on to his apartments in the perilous state of an injured man who recognises that a certain beautiful woman is the only person in the world who understands him.

CHAPTER X. THE FALL OF TURBO.

"The blinded boy, that shootes so trim,

From heaven downe did hie;

He drew a dart and shot at him,

In place where he did lye."

Kophetua may have been in many respects a weak man, but he was not a man to sit down tamely under the affront which the beggars had put upon him. As he told General Dolabella, it had been his intention to summon the head-quarter staff that very afternoon in order to concert measures for the forcible punishment of his treasonable subjects. In the course of the morning, however, his ardour had a little cooled. His sleep had removed his excitement, and the more he contemplated his adventure, the more ashamed he was of it, and he made up his mind to defer broaching the subject for a few days.

Not that he abandoned his determination to cleanse his Augean stables. It was only that he was resolved to let no one know of his adventure. He feared that the display of a sudden anxiety to consider the question could only lead to unpleasant inquiries and surmises. He did not therefore summon the staff. He made up his mind it would be better to approach the subject as an ordinary question of the interior, and give notice that the condition of the Liberties of St. Lazarus would be considered at the next monthly council, which would be held in about ten days' time in ordinary course.

But even this plain way was not without its embarrassment, and it was a particularly painful one for Kophetua. In a word, the obstacle was Turbo. Turbo was Chancellor, and, as Chancellor, was President of the Council. It was through him that all summonses and notices had to go. If the King wished to have the Liberties of St. Lazarus placed upon the orders of the day, it was Turbo whom he must tell to do it, and Turbo was the very last person in the world that he wanted to address on the subject. So acutely did he feel the difficulty of his position, and so carefully did Turbo avoid him, that two days had passed since Penelophon was installed in Mlle de Tricotrin's service before the question was mentioned between them. When the dreaded interview did take place, it was in no way due to Kophetua's resolution.

It was now the third day since his adventure, and the last on which notices of business were usually sent to the Council. Kophetua was in no pleasant frame of mind, for he knew that Turbo would come that very morning for instructions as to the orders of the day. In vain he tried to forget his trouble. In vain he adopted his usual expedient, which, till recently, had been so successful with him. He deliberately sat and tried to conjure up the prettiest face he knew. Of course it was Mlle de Tricotrin's. It was a pleasant amusement to picture before his eyes her lovely form and face, with its ripe beauty, the glowing carnation that mantled so soft and pure in her rounded cheeks like life made visible, the rich purple that gleamed like a gem under the long dark eyelashes, the tempting lips that seemed made as a playground for kisses, and the tangled setting of gold and bronze that softened and enriched the whole.

Yes, it was a sport pleasant enough to make a man forget the ugliest things. Many times in the last two days had Kophetua set himself to it, but it brought him little comfort. The pretty phantom would no longer come at his light call. It wanted a serious effort of will to conjure it, and then when he knew it had risen, and he set himself to enjoy a quiet contemplation of it, lo! it was changed, and in its place stood a spectre, wan and pale and of delicate mould, with a robe of thick dark hair, and eyes darker still. Sometimes it was foul and ragged, and sometimes it was like a corpse, but always it had the same trusting dog-like look he knew so well, and always with a sense of strange distress he exorcised it. It was the spirit of the woman who had risked her life for his, of the woman whom he had saved from a horrible death. It was the ghost of his better self that was haunting him in the shape of that lowly child of nature. It would never do to think of it so. It must be crushed and smothered and forgotten. So each time it rose he cried his Apagé against it, and fell to his trouble again. It was thus he was sitting now, when Turbo was announced for his usual audience.

"I am merely here with the Council summonses," said Turbo carelessly, after he had been admitted and had made his formal civilities. "I presume your majesty has nothing to put on the orders of the day?"

"Yes, Chancellor, I have," answered the King, as carelessly as he could. "There is a matter of importance which I have for some time wished to consider, and which cannot be deferred much longer with safety to the state."

"Indeed!" said the Chancellor, with affected surprise. "I was not aware of anything so serious and sudden."

"It is not sudden," replied the King, with some sharpness, "I have told you that. It is a matter that has been long in my mind, and in every one else's, but no one has had the courage to speak the first word. Sit down, and be at the pains of writing, while I dictate the form of my notice."

"Shall I bring my papers to this end of the room?" asked the Chancellor maliciously.

"No," cried the King in great vexation, "I will go to my usual place." He had hardly been aware of it, but now he was highly annoyed to find that instead of taking his chair before the founder's hearth, he had been sitting at the other end of the library under the picture of the King and the Beggar-Maid, and all he could do to conceal his annoyance was to dictate his notice with unusual severity as follows:—

"His Majesty.—To call attention to the growing power and lawlessness of the beggars within the Liberties of St. Lazarus, and to lay certain considerations before the Council for the necessity of immediate steps being taken in regard thereto."

The Chancellor wrote as he was told, placed the order in his portfolio without a word, and then stood up waiting to be dismissed. Kophetua looked at his snarling face for a moment, as though to detect what was passing there, and then, turning on his heel with a shrug, waved dismissal to his Minister. Turbo went straight to the door in silence, but before he reached it the King's voice stopped him.

"Turbo!" said he frankly, "stay! What ridiculous farce is this we are playing?"

It was always an understood signal between them, that when the King called the Chancellor by his name they were to be on their old footing of governor and pupil. It was no longer a monarch who spoke to his Minister, but two old friends who chatted together. So Turbo limped back and sat down carelessly by the hearth.

"I really cannot tell," he answered coolly; "I was taking my cue from you."

"Let us understand one another," said Kophetua. "Do you mean to allow a silly freak, in which we were both engaged, to sever our lifelong friendship?"

"That depends upon what you intend to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you intend to give me back the girl you stole from me?"

"Certainly not," replied the King, with great decision.

"Then," said the Chancellor calmly, as he rose from his seat, "I am afraid the silly freak will have the effect you were contemplating."

"Sit down, Turbo. This is absurd. What can you want with the child?"

"No matter. I want her."

"It is impossible. I have passed my word to protect her; and, besides, I do not believe you want her."

"I am in love with her," said Turbo, as coldly as though he were made of stone.

"My dear Turbo," answered the King, "pray be serious while we discuss this matter."

"I am serious. I tell you I love her."

"But don't you see it is impossible for me to believe you after all you have taught me of your philosophy of women!"

"It is because you have not learned your lesson that you cannot believe I may love. You have not understood what I taught you. You can chatter the words finely enough, but you have never conceived the spirit."

"And may it not be the teacher who was at fault?"

"No! I have told you plainly enough, but you are too soft and weak to hold the truth. Still I will tell you again what my woman-philosophy is. It is simply this: they have no resistance, no solid principles. Their natural understanding is as a pool of water lying in a shallow bed, beyond which no conviction can sink. A woman's moral ideas are but bubbles that float on the surface of her unstable soul, and burst into impalpable spray whenever they come in contact with the little they meet that is firm and fixed. For women are all and utterly unstable, except where they have shut in their souls with the stony rocks of self-love and personal interest. These are things which are solid enough in the daughters of Eve; it is against these that the empty bubbles of their morality are burst and dissipated."

"But you have told me this many times," interrupted the King. "I cannot see how it explains the paradox you want me to believe: it is only the conceit of Diderot you quote again."

"I know," pursued the Chancellor, "it is the conceit of Diderot; and Diderot was right, except that he pitied where he should only have despised. And he was right when he said that, though outwardly more civilised than ourselves, women have yet remained the true savages. It is they who have kept the passions and instincts of the beasts. We have changed them. They have only covered them over with civilisation. That is why Diderot called the deceivers 'fair as the seraphin of Klopstock, terrible as the fiends of Milton.' It was a wise saying, yet he could not see it was the poison of civilisation that transformed the seraphin into fiends. When did I ever say a word against the material part of women? It was their minds I bade you know and shun. Find me a woman where the seraphic matter is unpoisoned with the spirit of Eve, and why should I not love her? Such a one, I tell you, is the girl you stole. She is the pure clay, fresh from the hand of the potter. She is not smeared with the smooth and glittering glaze; she is not stained with the enticing colours; Art the arch-liar has not found her out to make her as fair and false as the rest. She is foul and ragged and ignorant. She knows no art to entice. She has no skill to deceive, and I love her for her foulness and her rags and her stupidity, and know her for a lump of the pure seraphic clay."

"I hear what you say," said the King thoughtfully; "but I cannot understand. It is all wild talk, empty philosophy. This cannot make a man love."

"You will not understand!" cried Turbo, with sudden warmth. "That is it; you will not listen, because you know it is this that makes a man love. You know it, because you love her yourself!"

"Turbo," answered Kophetua hotly, "what folly is this? You forget yourself."

"Perhaps," cried Turbo, rising from his chair and speaking with ever-increasing vehemence. "But it is better to understand each other now. I say you love her. You and I have talked for years like fools on all this. We thought as one man, and thought we were wise and strong in our unity. But now we have both seen this girl—curse the fate that brought you to her—we have seen her, and we know we have been blind fools that could not tell the gold from the dross. She has come to us, and we both love her. You and I, I say, we both love her, but it is I that will have her! Do you hear? It is I, I that will have our love, though you stole her. Were you twice a king I will have her, though I tear her from your very arms."

His ghastly scars grew more livid in his anger, and his pitted face turned pale with rage. He seemed as one possessed, and sank in helpless fury at the end of his insane outburst, as though exhausted with the prolonged struggle to control himself. Kophetua turned from him and began to pace the room. Turbo had gone too far. He had been insolent, and the King's pride was kindled into anger. Yet Kophetua would not speak till he was cool enough to control his words.

For, strange as it may seem, he loved this man—in the same way, perhaps, as a man will love his cross-grained ugly cur that snarls and snaps at every one but his master. So he paced the long room to cool his anger and try and understand what his old governor's madness meant. Had he known his whole story, the task might have been easier. Had he known how that passionate nature had been chained down in long imprisonment, he might have wondered less to see it burst its bonds. But he knew not what passion could be in a man like Turbo. Its durance had been long and hard, and now the time was at hand when it must die, worn out with age and suffering. Yet even as the death throes were upon it, it had blazed up in one last ungovernable fit, and Kophetua, to his wonder, saw the man of ice burning like a furnace. At the last moment, when the struggle was so near its end, the strong man's strength had failed him. He was overwhelmed, as it were, and swept resistlessly onward by the gathering flood he had so long dammed up.

But Kophetua could understand nothing of this as he paced the dark oak floor, and the more he thought of the Chancellor's threats and insolence, the less able he felt to continue the conversation. It was impossible to forgive his insinuations about Penelophon. So at last all Kophetua could do was to control himself sufficiently to inform the Chancellor in his coldest official tone that he should not require his further attendance that day.

For Kophetua the Chancellor's departure did little to clear the air. The storm within him continued to growl and mutter. He felt himself a martyr, or if he ceased for a moment to think that, it was only to call himself a fool, and that was worse. The other view of the case was preferable. He certainly was a martyr. He had made one honest effort to escape from the banalities that were freezing his soul, and do something worthy of his name. The only result so far was that he had dangerously entangled himself with a siren who had been thrust in his way for that very purpose; he had allowed his name to be connected with a beggar-girl in a way that would have been still more annoying were it not so ridiculous; and, finally, on the eve of a fierce political struggle to which the same siren was sure to give rise, he had managed to quarrel with all three of the party leaders, including his best friend, and the only relation he had in the world. It is hardly to be wondered at under the circumstances that he found himself constantly recurring to thoughts which had often framed themselves before in the course of his reading in political philosophy. They were to the effect that kings were a mistake, and even a crime, and that his plain duty after all was to form a republic and abdicate.

CHAPTER XI. OPENING THE CAMPAIGN.

"And, as he musing thus did lye,

He thought for to devise

How he might have her companye,

That so did 'maze his eyes."

The next morning Turbo appeared at his usual hour. He was quite calm. So was the King. They greeted each other with cold civility, and Kophetua at once put his formal question, as to what business there was to be done.

"There is business," said Turbo, "which perhaps will not be so painful to your majesty as it is to me!"

"Yes?" replied the King unfeelingly.

"Yesterday," the Chancellor continued, "a scene took place between your majesty and myself which cannot but interrupt the cordial relations that have hitherto existed between us. I regret and am heartily ashamed of the part I permitted to myself, and after what has occurred I feel my only course is to tender to your majesty my resignation."

"Permit me to say, Chancellor," the King replied, for he was touched by this strong man's dignified humility and self-control, "permit me to say that your conduct appears to me entirely worthy of the high place you have won in your sovereign's estimation. You will understand that I desire no unwilling service, but, at the same time, I feel it is impossible to meet your magnanimity otherwise than by a request that you will reconsider your determination."

"Sire, I fear it is useless," answered Turbo. "Your majesty can hardly appreciate the extent of the breach between us."

"I appreciate it," said the King, "but I do not exaggerate it. We have differed on a private matter of absurd triviality. I recall nothing which an apology cannot heal, and that you have already amply given. Of course," he added, with some nervousness, "it is unnecessary to observe that I am assuming the abandonment of the intentions you expressed yesterday."

"Perfectly unnecessary," said the Chancellor gravely.

"You will see," went on Kophetua, almost apologetically, "I am compelled to insist on this. My royal word is passed. It is impossible not to feel a strong interest in a person whom one has saved from a horrible death."

"I understand perfectly, sire," replied Turbo, interrupting the King, who was about to explain the circumstances which compelled him to take Penelophon under his care. "It is precisely that feeling which carried me into such excesses yesterday when this person was referred to, and which now prompts me to embrace cordially the offer of forgiveness and reconciliation which your majesty so magnanimously offers."

"I hardly comprehend," said the King. "You have not saved my life or Pen—— or that of this young person."

"I would crave your majesty's permission to pursue this subject no further," said Turbo.

"Nay, I insist on knowing what you mean," answered the King.

"Then I am forced to tell your majesty," said the Chancellor, with slow and distinct utterance, "that I was present at the Court of St. Lazarus during the whole of the ghastly tragedy at which your majesty assisted. I went thither in order to rescue, if possible, this unhappy young person from what I knew must be the result of the mistaken generosity with which your majesty had treated her. I found, with my crippled frame, I could do nothing. I witnessed your majesty's heroic intervention at the last moment, and saw at once a possibility of escape. Unseen by any one I forced pebbles into the lock which had turned upon you, and having thus secured the necessary delay, I was able to fetch two of my own servants with the simple means of effecting your majesty's escape through the prison window."

"But why did you not tell me this?" asked the King, overwhelmed with surprise. "Why did you run away?"

"I thought it would be only consistent with your majesty's wishes," said Turbo, "that no one should be, or even appear to be, cognisant of your adventure."

For a moment Kophetua was overcome with annoyance and humiliation to think how, all through the piece of knight-errantry on which he had prided himself so much, Turbo had been watching over and humouring him as though he were a child. But his better feelings took possession of him directly.

"Turbo, my dear Turbo," he said with effusion, as he advanced to the Chancellor and took his hand, "why could you not have told me this before, and saved me the injustice I have done you? How shall I ever be able to return your devotion?"

"I beg your majesty will forget the whole affair," answered Turbo. "No one can know better than yourself how unpleasant is the exposure of the good we do by stealth."

"My dear Turbo," said the King, "I can never forget it."

So King and Chancellor were at one again, and Penelophon remained in peace under the protection of Mlle de Tricotrin, happy in the occasional glimpses she had of Trecenito, and happy in the affection which her mistress lavished upon her. For Mlle de Tricotrin had taken a real liking to her gentle handmaid. She had gone through life with hardly a single friend of her own sex, and Penelophon's simple devotion touched her not a little. For, to the beggar-maid, her delivery from the squalor, misery, and cruelty in which she had been brought up was like being lifted out of hell into heaven; and she adored her beautiful mistress almost as much as she did her deliverer. So the days went by in supreme happiness for those two women, and their serenity was in strange contrast to the storm which was brewing around them. The political barometer was beginning to show signs of considerable agitation, and it was clear to the experienced observer that these two women were forming the centre of an important disturbance, which bade fair to develop a dangerous energy.

As has been previously explained, a storm in the troubled waters of politics was a normal event in Oneiria during crises like the present; but never before had there been one which seemed to promise such violence. The cause was not far to seek. The Marquis de Tricotrin had been to England. His stay had not been a short one, and he was not a man to throw away his opportunities. He liked the country and appreciated its peculiar blessings. It was not long before his sagacity detected the secret of our amazing political success, and he determined to lose no time in studying the palladium he had discovered. Fortunately, during the period of his observations the palladium exhibited itself in violent action; it therefore seems almost superfluous to add that the Marquis left the country with quite an uncommon mastery of party tactics and something approaching to genius in the manufacture and manipulation of majorities.

All he required was a field. It is said he attempted something during his sojourn in the Canaries, but his praiseworthy endeavours were disliked and at once suppressed by the Spanish governor. It was then, thirsting for an opportunity for the display of his talents, that the Marquis arrived in Oneiria. Not a day had passed before he recognised the excellence of his fortune. He found himself in the midst of three strongly divided parties, practically without experience of modern methods, and himself and his daughter the bone of contention between them. It was a moment of pardonable enthusiasm. With a hastiness excusable in a foreigner he hurried to the conclusion that as there were three parties there must be three policies, and, what is more, in three days he was persuaded that he clearly understood what they were. Neither conviction was entirely justified, but of this the Marquis was naturally unaware.

To a man of his experience the whole matter was comparatively simple, and, with a decision which would not have disgraced the oldest parliamentary hand, he adopted a plan of campaign. There were three parties, each requiring a policy. All he had to do, then, was to make each party adopt his daughter as its particular programme. That was the obvious objective, and the lines of strategy towards it were no less plain to his penetration. One of the first things he had learned in England was that simple rule which reiterated success has hallowed into a dogma: "When it is impossible to find fault with your adversaries' policy, it is lawful to steal it."

As a policy his daughter was irreproachable. He felt therefore that little more than a mere suggestion of the stratagem to the party leaders was necessary in order to ensure its adoption. The conquest which Mlle de Tricotrin had already made of the Queen was enough to secure the Agathist party, even had it not been that they had already accepted the nomination. As for the Kallikagathists, he felt they were at least half won by the impression his daughter's beauty had made on the soft heart of their gallant leader. In fact, it is not too much to say that General Dolabella was quite unhinged. It was a long time since his admiration for a woman had got so beyond his control as to lead him into melancholy. But this was certainly his case now, and the Marquis saw it. As we have said, he was a man of decisive action who did not lose opportunities, and he determined to occupy the position which the General's weakness exposed to him before that gallant officer could recover himself.

The Marquis found it a more difficult task than he had expected. The General, he confessed, was very stupid, and offered all kinds of objections. He even went so far as to say that he doubted whether the suggested stratagem was quite soldierly, but he was at once pooh-poohed into recantation by the Marquis's English precedents. Still he held out with confused obstinacy, which the Marquis put down to the General's denseness, but which was, in fact, due to his own mistaken estimate of the situation. His hasty and erroneous conclusions as to the real relations between the respective parties had caused him, as has been already hinted, to entirely misunderstand Dolabella's position, and he was adopting a false method of attack.

"But pardon me for saying," said the General, retreating to this point for the tenth time, "that I cannot see what I or my party is to gain by adopting the course you propose." The General always distinguished between himself and his party. It was no doubt entirely due to that unique and complex condition of Oneirian politics, which was the precise element in the question, that the Marquis in his haste had failed to grasp. The shrewd Frenchman began to perceive he was at fault somewhere, and determined to fathom the mystery.

"I perceive," said he, "that you have more than once spoken of yourself as something distinct from the party you lead. May I venture to ask whether the usual procedure in this country is to deal with the two things separately?"

"God forbid!" cried the General in alarm. "To hint of such a thing would smell of disloyalty in any but a foreigner who does not understand us."

"Forgive my ignorance, General," said the Marquis, "and show your pity for it so far as to explain your unintelligible position."

"With great pleasure, my dear Marquis," answered the General, with a look of painful worry at the almost impossible feat demanded of him. "It is a little complicated, but I think I can show you how things lie. You see, although I lead the Kallikagathist party, it does not follow me."

"That is a little difficult," answered the Marquis gravely. "You mean that I should arrange with your party which way it means to go, that you may be in a position to know how to lead it?"

"Not at all," said the General. "We are entirely at one. Our lines of thought are identical. It is only in our lines of action that we differ."

"Which is, of course," replied the Marquis, "a mere detail."

"Precisely," said Dolabella, in a somewhat relieved tone. "You see, my practical policy is to elect the Queen, theirs to elect the Speaker, but both elections are governed by the same principles."

"Your explanation is really masterly," said the Marquis. "I wonder I was so stupid; I see your point now quite clearly. You mean that you cannot make your party responsible for a policy which will not tend to improve the chances of their candidate for the chair."

"Yes," said the General, a little doubtfully, "that does seem to be what I mean."

"Very well," continued De Tricotrin; "then if I could ensure them the support of the Agathist party for their candidate, they would be prepared to accept my daughter at your nomination?"

"But, unfortunately," objected the General, "we have no candidate of sufficient weight to bring about such a coalition."

"Then why don't you stand yourself?" said the Marquis.

"My dear Marquis!" cried the General, completely taken aback. "Such a thing was never heard of."

"So much the better," replied the tempter. "The more unexpected our moves, the better chance we have of success. The idea seems to me to meet every difficulty. What you yourself gain it would not become me to point out. I need only remark that your election would be highly pleasing to my daughter. It is no breach of confidence to say that the poor girl has been more than touched by the chivalrous admiration of a distinguished officer and statesman like yourself. The speakership in this country is an office which bears a peculiar and delicate relation to the Queen. It would be a source of greater pleasure to my daughter than perhaps I ought to reveal, to know that you were to occupy the chair at her coronation, and I am sure that her influence with the Queen-mother and the leaders of the Agathist party is sufficient to ensure their adhesion to her favoured candidate. At the last moment the nominal candidate of their party shall be withdrawn and the coast left clear for your certain return. Say now, my dear General, will you give my daughter this one last satisfaction before her marriage?"

During the beginning of this speech the General had been staring at the Frenchman, with eyes wide with amazement, but as he proceeded, the blissful picture which was artfully called up before him was too much for his susceptible nature. To kiss those lovely lips, and embrace that bewitching form! It was a rapture of which he had not dared to dream. He closed his eyes as he listened, and a foolish smile of complacent and inexpressible satisfaction overspread his rouged and powdered face. When the Marquis ceased he collected himself with a sudden effort to a more dignified expression. He rose with the air of a statesman who is resolved to pursue a policy worthy of his magnanimity, and took the Marquis solemnly by the hand.

"Marquis!" said he, "you are a great man. Your generalship will ensure the election of this lady, whose beauty, virtue, and intelligence make it the duty of every loyal subject of the King's to espouse her cause. Your admirably conceived plan demands of me and my party a sacrifice. Monsieur le Marquis, we will make that sacrifice!"

Thereupon Monsieur de Tricotrin embraced the gallant martyr, told him he had a noble heart, and assured him with effusion that courage, devotion, intelligence, and sensibility would be carved in highest relief upon the imperishable fabric of his memory. And so he took his departure, leaving the General to wonder whether Madame Dolabella would view his conduct in the same light.

The Agathist and Kallikagathist parties were practically won. There remained still the most difficult task. The Marquis was perfectly aware of the King's antipathy to matrimony, and was fully convinced that there was still a great chance of failure, unless Turbo's support could be gained. To achieve this he felt was a task of the greatest delicacy and difficulty, and one worthy of his skill as a politician. There was clearly but one way in which it could be done. To approach the Chancellor directly was out of the question. Pressure must be put on him through his party.

With a light heart, which confidence in his abilities can alone give a man, the Marquis set about his task, little imagining the extraordinary result his ingenious manœuvres were to have.

CHAPTER XII. A DECISIVE ACTION.

"But Cupid had him so in snare,

That this poor beggar must prepare

A salve to cure him of his care."

The activity of M. de Tricotrin soon began to make itself felt. There was something so delightfully cynical about the political maxim upon which he was working, that most of the prominent Kallists, whom he sounded, embraced his idea with enthusiasm. The result was a marked and sudden acrimony in the conduct of the campaign.

The situation was entirely new, and was discussed with all the fire and recklessness which is the attribute of new situations everywhere. Before, the question had always lain between the claims of the ladies whom the respective parties supported; now it was between the claims of the respective parties upon a lady whom they all supported. There was something particularly invigorating in the freshness of the political atmosphere.

As each party gradually recognised the discreditable tactics of its opponents, feeling began to run very high. For of course the Speaker was not chosen on his merits. It has been explained how, in this unique country, nothing was ever done or omitted on its merits. The Speaker was chosen on the merits of the candidate for the "Crown of Kisses." Hence the interest which politicians of every grade displayed in her and her relation to the principles which were supposed to guide the different parties.

The progress of the discussion, which each day grew more heated, only serves to show us what unprincipled politicians the Oneirians were. Instead of attacking the real views of their opponents, as we always do, no matter how great the danger of defeat, they were accustomed to attribute to them views which they knew, or might easily have known, they did not possess, and emptied their artillery furiously at the monsters they had thus themselves created. It was a method that had something to commend it. It was often successful. The débris of these paper giants not unfrequently smothered the hosts which were the real object of attack, and gave the victors an ill-gotten peace till the enemy could repeat the manœuvre to their own advantage.

All parties were now busy on the old lines. As soon as the Agathists recovered from the shock which the attempt on their candidate gave them, they raised an angry scream that the whole thing was immoral, shameful, and ridiculous. That the Kallists, who objected to virtue and only admired beauty, should pretend to support an angel like Mlle de Tricotrin was a piece of duplicity and presumption which no words would adequately characterise. The Kallists replied with equal warmth, declaring that absolute falsehood was the last thing to stand in the way of a hypocritical Agathist when he wanted to gain his selfish ends; they knew perfectly well that the Kallists did not object to virtue; they admired beauty, which was a very different thing. Above all things Mlle de Tricotrin was beautiful, the most beautiful woman that had ever appeared in Oneiria, and it was therefore sheer nonsense to pretend that she ought to be an Agathist candidate. It was well known that Agathists hated beauty, and cared for nothing but virtue; and therefore for them to set up a claim to Mlle de Tricotrin was nothing less than unconstitutional.

The Kallikagathists as usual held a little aloof. They did not hurl themselves into the thick of the fight. The party, it has been said, consisted chiefly of superior persons, and was nothing if not dignified. They listened to the clangour of the fray with lofty contempt, assuring each other the while, with well-bred reserve, that whatever lies idiotic politicians might tell, the true state of the case must be clear to all plain, sensible people. At last a lady had appeared who was at once divinely beautiful and sublimely virtuous. No amount of clamour therefore could disguise the simple fact—and facts were strong things—that Mlle de Tricotrin could not by any possibility be the candidate of any party but their own.

So furiously did the battle rage that Kophetua could hardly get the Council to pay any attention to the state of the Liberties of St. Lazarus. Objections and insuperable difficulties they had in plenty, but that was all. Turbo, however, fortunately adopted a different view, and he was a host in himself. He seemed to be taking no interest whatever in what was going on about him. To all appearances he might have been entirely ignorant of the whole discussion, and of how serious was the pressure which was likely to be put upon the King to induce him to accept the hand of Mlle de Tricotrin. Perhaps, however, he had the matter more deeply in his mind than was suspected. It was, possibly, nothing but this which induced him to give his unqualified support to his majesty's suggestion that, as a preliminary measure, details of the frontier gendarmerie should be gradually concentrated in the neighbourhood of the capital. Whatever may have been his real motive, this policy was certainly calculated to distract the King's attention from matrimony and Mlle de Tricotrin.

The indifference of their chief, however, in no way lessened the ardour of the Kallist party. By the time the day came round for the usual monthly reception at the palace, the quarrel was in full swing. The occasion was expected with considerable excitement, for it was an open secret that each party was going to make it the scene of a demonstration, by which each thought to gain a march upon its adversaries.

The Agathists especially were in a high state of elation, and not without cause. The stroke they had prepared displayed real political ability. The Queen-mother was of course surrounded by Agathist ladies. Every day they had an opportunity of seeing and speaking to Mlle de Tricotrin, for Margaret seemed unable to pass a single day without the society of her new friend during some portion of it. Thus there was plenty of opportunity of examining Mlle de Tricotrin's costumes minutely, and by dint of intense application the ladies of the Queen's circle were able to prepare for the reception a number of gowns whose resemblance to the original model was very creditable, considering the impediment of unsuitable materials and the difficulty which the rococo tastes of the designers naturally had in grasping the spirit of Mlle de Tricotrin's neo-classic style.

All was ready the day before the momentous occasion. A great strategical advantage seemed assured to the Agathist party, when, unfortunately, the vigilance of the Kallist intelligence department discovered the secret by means of a corrupt maid. In the utmost consternation they flew to the Marquis with the news. His Parisian experience of the influence of women in politics told him at once that it was a crisis of the highest gravity—a crisis of that transcendent nature which serves to mark out the great from the moderate men—a crisis to which intellects like M. de Tricotrin's are alone equal. He gravely heard the whole case, considered for a few moments, and then it was plain that he had taken his decision.

"I presume," he said, with an air of calm resolution, "that Lady Kora and the Count will be there." The Count was the Kallist candidate for the chair, and Lady Kora, his daughter, was the beauty of the party. Of course they would be there. "Very well," continued the Marquis; "request them to be so kind as to come to my house to-morrow afternoon, and beg them not to be at the trouble of dressing for the reception."

The deputation was satisfied. They were coming to have entire confidence in the Marquis's generalship, and they retired with expressions of mutual esteem. M. de Tricotrin at once went to his daughter's apartment. As it happened, he found Penelophon laying out a beautiful gown for her mistress's inspection.

"See, sir," cried Mlle de Tricotrin, as he entered. "There is the gown I wear to-morrow. Is it not lovely?"

The Marquis looked at it critically. "Is that the handsomest one you have?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," she answered. "It is the loveliest one I ever had. I have kept it back on purpose for a time like this. I am so happy that I did."

"I am happy too, my child, for I want it."

"But it won't suit you, sir?"

"My child," said the Marquis, with Spartan severity, "this is no time for levity. We are on the brink of a desperate crisis. It is a moment of gravest peril, and that gown alone can save us." And then he explained to her the whole situation, and how he had resolved that Lady Kora should wear her most beautiful dress. Poor Mlle de Tricotrin! Like most pretty women, and many others, she was very fond of her pretty frocks. She had an exquisite taste in them, and had been preparing this present one for a triumph which should outdo all her previous successes. She and Penelophon had been thinking of little else for some days past, and her beautiful eyes filled with tears at her bitter disappointment.

"O sir," she said, "you are always asking sacrifices of me."

"But I ask none," he answered, "that I do not make myself. I shall lend the Count the very last suit of clothes which I had from Paris."

"But that is so different," she answered.

"I really cannot see how," said he; "but that is a matter of detail. You have some intelligence, my child, and you must see that as long as we can hold the balance true between the parties, they will all struggle which is to support us most vigorously. If we once let one of them get the upper hand, we shall immediately have an opposition. No! be brave, be my own daughter, and fling your gown into the rising scale as I do my plum-coloured suit. It is a sacrifice, I know, but to win a crown you must expect greater sacrifices than this. Many have to sacrifice honour, and even lives, to their ambition; be thankful that this is all I demand of you—as yet."

"Take it away, Penelophon," said Mlle de Tricotrin desperately, "I cannot bear to see it now; and yet how pretty it is! Had you told me yesterday I would give this up, I should have said, 'No, that is impossible; as impossible as that I should sacrifice you, child.'"

It was miserable work for both mistress and maid dressing Lady Kora on the following afternoon. But Mlle de Tricotrin had made the sacrifice, and had sense and determination enough to be loyal to it, and make the most of it. She draped Lady Kora herself, and Penelophon dressed her hair as she had been taught by her mistress. Lady Kora had pretty hair and a pretty complexion, so she was well enough without her rouge and powder. It made poor Mlle de Tricotrin almost break down to see how charming she had made her look in her own best-loved gown.

But the effect on the Agathist ladies was something very much more severe. When they assembled in the throne-room, they were in the highest spirits. Nothing was heard but mutual congratulations on the success of their manœuvre, and the sour looks of the opposition. True, the costumes were not all that they had intended. The rich satins and flowered brocades upon which they had worked did not lend themselves particularly well to the neo-classic treatment. The general effect was decidedly bunchy. There was a want of softness and grace about the folds, and some of the coiffures gave evidence of a serious want of feeling for the style. The harmonious disorder of Mlle de Tricotrin it was found very hard to attain. Most of the heads presented a shock of ugly tangle, such as the Sleeping Beauty must have suffered from when she first awoke; others had frankly given up the attempt, and, merely abandoning their powder, had kept to their old-world design, with a somewhat painfully incongruous effect. Still, whatever might be the artistic verdict, politically it was an immense success, and Agathist spirits ran high.

The Kallikagathist ladies displayed their characteristic moderation with an increase of self-respect which, as usual, was in direct proportion to the contempt with which it inspired their opponents. With sagacious self-control they had given up powder, clung to their rouge, and shortened their waists without lessening the girth of their hoop. The compromise served well to mark their principles, but sadly spoilt their figures.

We can imagine, then, the terrible shock which the entrance of Lady Kora and her father created. That the Kallist candidate should outshine the Marquis was bad enough, but that his daughter, the recognised beauty and leader of fashion in Kallist circles, should put Mlle de Tricotrin into the shade with her gown was simply a disaster. The more the Agathist ladies looked at her, the more absurd and bunchy did they feel. With the appalling conviction that they had made themselves ridiculous they tried to hide themselves in the throng. More than one poor girl was found in tears as she thought of her shock head, and the hateful costume she had been compelled to wear. How could they ever recover their reputation?

The cup of the vanquished was full when the King danced a second minuet with Lady Kora. The Marquis even began to be alarmed lest his manœuvre was being too successful. Still there was in any case one point gained. In spite of Turbo, the Kallist party was openly committed to the support of Mlle de Tricotrin. Turbo saw it plainly, and saw it without dismay. With perfect unconcern, he had been watching while De Tricotrin laboriously constructed his matrimonial engine. The ingenuity which the Frenchman displayed only served to amuse him while he was waiting for the moment to deliver the blow, which he calculated would smash the elaborate machine to pieces. He well knew how Kophetua would see through the whole conspiracy, and resent the pressure that was being prepared for him. He was fully alive to the fact that the least thing would now be enough to turn his pupil against Mlle de Tricotrin, and he laughed to himself to think how, when the hour was come, at one stroke he would gain all he wanted, and prevent all he did not want. It was now that the hour had come.

"Permit me, Marquis, to make you a compliment," said Turbo, as with engaging freedom he drew the Frenchman on to a balcony in a secluded part of the state apartments. "Your generalship is simply consummate; I am completely out-manœuvred."

"My dear Chancellor," replied the Marquis in some suspicion at this sudden surrender, "I trust you will not interpret any move that I have made as an offensive operation against yourself."

"M. le Marquis," said Turbo, looking frankly at his rival, "let us be perfectly open. We are each of us too old to be deceived by the other. Each knows the other's game perfectly well. You are quite aware that as regards your daughter's marriage with the King I am in opposition, and I know equally well that this splendid combination—for so you must permit me to call it—this splendid combination, which has cut my party from under my feet, is the product of your genius and nothing else."

"Your frankness, Chancellor," replied the Marquis, with pardonable pride, "is as charming as your compliment. I meant to thwart you, and I think I have pretty well succeeded."

"Precisely," said Turbo, "and, while I still have a chance, I wish to make terms with you."

"I am prepared to consider anything in reason," replied the Marquis magnanimously.

"I am glad you take that tone," said the Chancellor, "for you see I have a reserve which I should be very loth to use, but which I should be compelled to use, if we failed to agree."

"Well," said the Marquis, smiling with lofty incredulity, "let me hear your terms."

"It is merely that you should hand over to me, without reserve, your daughter's new maid."

"My dear Chancellor, nothing would give me greater pleasure, but my daughter would never consent to such a thing." The Marquis was an old schemer, and at once winded a very cunning attempt to blacken his daughter's character irrevocably in the eyes of the King.

"Are you sure?"

"Perfectly."

"Then I must take my own course."

"By all means; I am quite prepared with mine."

"Ah! you think I am so silly as to boast of forces that I do not possess. Wait! I will be franker with you still. I will draw my weapon and show you how bright and sharp it is."

"Really, Chancellor, you are very kind."

"Listen," hissed Turbo in his ear. "The King does not love your daughter. He loves her maid. None but I know it. Why do you think he used to watch the beggar-maid continually from his windows? Why did he fetch her at the risk of his life and in disguise out of the Liberties? Why did he place her with the most accomplished woman he knew, to be refined and sweetened for him? Why does he sit continually before the old picture in the library? Ha! he thought he was so cunning when he put her with your daughter. He thought no one would guess, if she were under the wing of the woman whom every one thinks is going to be his bride. But I know him. I was not blinded. He means to marry the beggar-maid to spite you all, and because he loves her. Think what his principles are! How he would rejoice to share his throne with one of the lowest of the people! He is a dreamer. You do not know him. He is a dreamer, and it is a thing that has happened here before."

Turbo's infatuation for Penelophon made him believe every word he said, and his intense earnestness was not without its effect upon the Marquis. After his long career of intrigue, De Tricotrin was a man difficult to deceive, and he was also a man to know when another was speaking what he thought to be the truth.

"This is a very serious view to take of the situation, Chancellor," he said, after a short silence. "Pardon me if I cannot adopt it at once. There are difficulties. He did not ask my daughter to receive this girl; it was she that chanced to offer."

"Chanced!" said Turbo scornfully. "Are you deceived by such a trick as that? Why do you think he chose the very hour when your daughter was with the Queen? Why, only because he knew the Queen would refuse, and that your daughter would offer."

"True!" answered the Marquis thoughtfully, "I remember she told me the King asked her to remain while he made his request. Are you sure you are right in your story of this romantic abduction? Is there evidence of it?"

"See," said Turbo, coolly bringing a paper from his pocket, "here is the very warrant under which General Dolabella detained her till she could be otherwise disposed of."

"But how do you come by it?"

"After execution all warrants are brought to me to file in the archives."

"And all you ask," said the Marquis, after carefully examining the warrant, "is the surrender of this girl? It seems a small price to pay for your adhesion."

"Possibly, but it is not so," replied Turbo. "To begin with: I cannot prevent the King marrying either your daughter or the beggar. I must lose my game now, in any case. Then I have a strong fancy for this girl myself, and ask her as the price of my not prolonging the struggle. Of course I could manage that the King should marry her, but I should gain nothing by it. By the present arrangement I do."

"Your position is quite clear to me now," said the Marquis.

"Then you accept my terms?"

"I do."

CHAPTER XIII. MISTRESS AND MAID.

"She had forgot her gowne of gray

Which she did weare of late."

It would be hard to imagine a prettier picture than there was to be seen in the apartments of Mlle de Tricotrin on the afternoon of the day following the eventful reception. The cold season was drawing to a close. The day had been very sultry; and clad in the rich déshabillé of the zenana, the beauty was lying listlessly on a luxurious divan, pretending to finish her siesta. A loose white robe of softest cotton was wrapped about her negligently, and her bare feet peeped shyly out of it. Her rounded arms, her littered brown hair, the tumbled heap of gaily striped pillows, in which her flushed face was half buried, all told of the languorous unrest of the East; and the soft, rose-coloured light glimmered in from the domed ceiling upon a scene in which Europe seemed quite forgotten.

Indeed, it was in its only half-concealed Orientalism that Oneiria had the greatest charm for her. That was easy to see in all the decoration and appointments of the room, in the harmonious shimmer of the arabesques, with which the plastered walls were painted, and the dwarf tables, and scattered cushions and softly glowing mats, which almost hid the cool, polished floor. No less was it visible in her own dress, and that of Penelophon, who stood fanning her mistress with a large and gaudy palm-leaf fan. It has been said that Mlle de Tricotrin had a pretty taste in costume, and it was her delight to devise modifications of the Eastern attires, which surrounded her amongst the lower orders, and dress her pretty maid in them. To-day Penelophon wore in the Moorish fashion, to which she was accustomed, a long robe that reached loosely from her shoulders to her feet, of a soft yellow hue. Low about her waist it was girt by a band of scarlet cloth, richly embroidered with gold, and of almost extravagant breadth. Yet there is no other cincture which will so beautifully express the grace of a lithe young figure. It confined without restraint, and allowed the robe to fall open naturally at the breast, so as to show beneath it a glimpse of a scarlet bodice. A silken scarf, knotted about her head, almost concealed her dark hair. Her arms and feet were bare, and looked almost as white as the silver anklets and armlets with which they were clasped, and which jingled with a soft and pleasant sound as she gently moved the fan. All other noise was hushed, and Penelophon stood quiet and content to look down with deepest admiration at the lovely face resting in the pillows, while she waited patiently till her mistress should be tired of pretending to sleep.

"'Tis useless," said Mlle de Tricotrin at last, rousing herself with a lazy toss of her arms; "I can sleep no more."

"Is it thinking of Trecenito that keeps you awake?" asked Penelophon, as her mistress sat up on the divan, and she kneeled at her feet to put on her dainty slippers.

"Hush! hush! my girl; a maid must not speak of such things to her mistress."

"Forgive me, madam, for indeed I meant no harm," said Penelophon, pausing in her work and looking up wistfully.

"And you did no harm," replied her mistress. "Yes, you may speak of this to me. I like to hear you, for you are maid and friend in one. Yes, child," she went on, taking the sweet upturned face in her hand caressingly, "you are the only woman I ever loved; the only friend I ever had."

She sank back wearily upon the divan, and Penelophon stooped and kissed in deep devotion the little white foot she held in her hand before she hid it in the slipper.

"Why do you do that, child?" asked her mistress.

"I don't know," answered Penelophon; "but you are so kind, and I am so happy, and you love Trecenito so."

The girls great dark eyes were brimming with tears as she looked up, and her mistress saw them. "Why, child," she said, "you love him too!"

"No, no," said Penelophon eagerly, a faint blush tinting her pale face. "I do not love him. He is high above where my love can reach. I adore him and worship him, and it is you I love because you love him. There is no one but you in the wide world whom such a man as he could love. It is only such a one as you who can know how to love him, and that is why you are so dear to me. You are the sweet saint that helps me to reach the throne of my heaven. It is like worship to tire your hair, and dress you, and send you away in all your beauty to make him glad. You are the prayers I say to him, and the hymns I sing, and the sweet incense I offer to my god."

"My child, my child," said her mistress in a hushed voice, as of one who speaks in some vast, solemn cathedral, "whence and what are you? It is only the angels who love like that. Surely it was one of them who whispered in my ear that I should ask him to give you to me."

"Yes," answered the maid, "and it was surely one that brought you to him, because they knew how good he would be to me. 'He must not wait for paradise,' they said. 'We will bring him a wife as bright and pure and beautiful as the heavens, and he shall have a paradise on earth.' So they brought you to him, and they will show him the sunshine in your face, and the blue sky that slumbers in your eyes; he shall feel the warm glow of your lips, and know it is the spirit of life; he shall hear the murmur of your voice, and know it is the echo of the prayers which the saints have prayed."

"Hush! hush!" said her mistress, almost beneath her breath. "You must not speak so. You frighten me. I am not what you think. God help me! I am not what you think. And yet, child, yet I believe you would almost make me what you say. Ah me! if I had had a sister such as you! Sing to me, child, while I lie and think what I am and what I might have been."

Penelophon rose, and took a kind of lute, which was the instrument of the people, and began to sing to it some half Moorish love-song, full of those slurs and weird modulations which sound so strange to European ears. But Penelophon's plaintive voice had a fascination for her mistress, and she lay quite still listening till the end. As the song finished, the door opened, and Monsieur de Tricotrin came in.

"My child," said he, "I want to speak to you."

"Alone?"

"Yes, alone."

"Go then, Penelophon," said Mlle de Tricotrin; "but come back and talk to me before I dress."

"It is a pretty wench the King gave you," said the Marquis, as the beggar-maid left the room. "I doubt if she helps much when he sees you together."

"But I am very fond of her, sir!"

"That is what I fancy is the case with him."

"No, that is impossible. A man could never be taken with a child like her."

"You must remember, my dear," said the Marquis, "they have been playing hero and heroine together in a very romantic drama? You know?"

"Perfectly, sir; Penelophon has told me."

"And yet you do not believe a man may be infatuated with her?"

"No, sir. She has nothing to charm a man."

"Well, I have reasons for what I say."

"Indeed, sir."

"Yes. To begin with, Turbo, the Chancellor, is crazy about her."

"That was but the passing fancy of a brutal nature."

"My dear, you are quite mistaken. He is crazy still."

"You surely must be joking, sir."

"Not at all. In fact, it is on this very subject I came to speak. He wants you to give her up to him."

"I would rather give up the throne!" cried she warmly.

"Softly, my child," said the Marquis. "Do not decide this matter too hastily. A throne is not a thing to be lightly cast on one side for the sake of a miserable little beggar-girl."

"Yes; but that is not the question now."

"My dear, it is the question."

"You do not mean——"

"I mean simply that the Chancellor asks your maid as the price of his adhesion, and without his adhesion we cannot succeed. That is all. I call it really handsome."

"And I—I call it infamous!" cried Mlle de Tricotrin hotly. "It is a villainy, and I will never consent to it!"

"My dear," said the Marquis soothingly, "what a fuss to make about this miserable creature. It is a mere matter of business; for you can hardly call a beggar a human being. Equality and fraternity are all very well, but that would be going too far."

"I know your principles of equality well enough, sir, and I do not call this poor girl human. She is an angel, and he—he is a fiend that Penelophon dreams of and wakes screaming. She shudders when she even thinks of him, and the sight of him is a horror that paralyses her. No, no; I will not part with her. You have my answer, sir."

"My child," said the Marquis calmly, in spite of his vexation, "I am not pleased with you. You are talking very foolishly. I did not ask you for an answer now, and I will not take one. This evening, ere you retire for the night, I will hear your decision. Turbo will be in waiting, and you can send the girl to him to be got out of the way, or else you can let her stay for the King to marry, whichever you like. Remember what has happened in this country before, and remember the character of the present sovereign. That is all I ask at present. I will leave you to consider the matter."

With these words M. de Tricotrin went abruptly from the room. He saw he had made an impression upon his daughter by what he had said, and he was an old enough hand at the game of persuading women to know the value of allowing impressions so made to ferment by themselves. He knew that further discussion would only disturb her and arrest the process, till perhaps what he considered a mere girlish fantastic mood would become solidified into a wholly illogical and obstinate determination which might afterwards prove quite insoluble.

"Women," he used to say, "have no opinions. They have merely contradictory states of mind, which serve them indifferently instead. They are states of mind which live upon contradictions. Failing this they perish, and, consequently, as a state of mind of some kind is a moral necessity, to women no less than to men, in the absence of external contradiction, they will soon contradict themselves."

Whether the Marquis's theory has any real scientific value is a matter of doubt. It is merely interesting here as the one upon which he acted with his daughter. She was not always easy to manage. She was naturally a woman of spirit, and, moreover, quite understood the high pecuniary value her father placed upon her. She had known all her life that she was the best card he had to play, and that now she was the only one. It is not to be wondered at then, that, being human, she from time to time showed a strong disposition to have a say in the game. The Marquis saw she was in one of her antagonistic moods now; so, as we have said, he left the poisonous barm he had dexterously planted to ferment and produce the metamorphosis he desired.

Mlle de Tricotrin did not talk much to Penelophon when she returned. She was occupied in trying to convince herself that no man of the world could possibly admire the girl. She had always liked the pale, delicate face herself for its purity and dreamy simplicity. She could imagine, perhaps, a painter, or a sculptor, or a poet—yes, but was not Kophetua a poet after all? Were not all the high-flown democratic opinions which he was constantly expressing nothing but the love of a poet for nature, and the base multitude whom he idealised as the children of nature?

She was conscious of feeling distinctly colder to her maid, as she was being dressed for Count Kora's rout, to which she was going that evening. But Penelophon saw no difference, and she fondled her idol's lustrous hair, and caressed the soft folds of her gown as lovingly as ever; and when all was done rejoiced as unaffectedly in the surpassing beauty she was sending forth as her offering to the hero she worshipped.

The Marquis did not refer again to the subject at his heart; but as he ascended the stairs of the Kora Palace, he gently stirred the fermentation he had set up.

"You know, my child," he said blandly, "that your presence here to-night finally marks you as the accepted candidate of the Kallists."

"You have told me so, sir."

"And you know that there remain now only two persons to gain."

"You mean, sir, I presume——"

"The Chancellor and the King. To-night you will either win or lose the former. You have to play a stroke which will count more than everything we have done. You understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then, as you are determined to refuse the price Turbo asks for his alliance, you had better try and win him by the other way in which you are so clever, my dear."

"He is invulnerable to those weapons, sir. I might as well try to charm the wind."

"Then I suppose we must call him lost."

Mlle de Tricotrin did not answer. It was a good sign. The Marquis felt hopeful, and determined to assure the Chancellor that if he would be present at the time and place appointed he would not be disappointed.

CHAPTER XIV. "MORIBUNDUS AMOR."

"What is thy name, faire maid? quoth he.

Penelophon, O king, quoth she."

Count Kora's rout did little to restore Mlle de Tricotrin's peace of mind. To be sure Kophetua was there. He was fond of society, and went freely amongst his rout-giving subjects. Kophetua talked with Mlle de Tricotrin, but somehow he did not seem so animated as usual. It is true they spoke in the same familiar tone as before, but for the first time the spice of growing intimacy was wanting.

It is the most intoxicating flavour that conversation can have, and nothing is more banal than the sense of staleness when it ceases. To-night was one of these occasions for these two. Their words seemed dead, and every effort which Mlle de Tricotrin made to restore their life was unavailing. In vain did she pose in her privileged rôle as his gentle philosopher. In vain did she tempt him to further confessions, and raise the deep questions which before had always made him speak so low and earnestly.

A damp and chilly pall seemed to overhang them, and she felt the familiar path which was once so gay and sweet with flowers was now worn bare, and had no longer any power to charm. All her noble sentiments and pretty fancies, for which he had been so greedy, were now like empty husks she was offering him. The grain was gone.

She knew that the King felt it too, and was not amused or even interested. She knew he was loyally making efforts not to fall back from the point they had reached together, but soon he changed the conversation to the lightest banter. He even began to pay her compliments. Then the bitter truth against which she was struggling seemed to gain a sudden strength. It framed itself in words upon her lips, and she said to herself, "He is getting tired of me."

Her sad conviction was only strengthened when at last, as with a forlorn hope of keeping up the tone of their talk to the pitch of confidential friendliness which it had previously attained, Kophetua broached a subject which was peculiar to themselves. Their secret, as he fondly thought it, was his last resource to recall the delight which he had been accustomed to find in her society. For in spite of all his certainty that she was playing a deep game with him, and using against his heart a whole battery of carefully prepared weapons, yet he was obliged to confess that her society had been irresistibly delightful, and he was resolved not to let the sweet cup pass away from him without at least another draught.

"How is our Penelophon, mademoiselle?" he asked.

"In the best of health, sire," she answered, perhaps a little coldly.

"I can never thank you enough," he went on, "for being so kind to her."

"I do nothing for her, sire," she replied, with that little laugh that means everything but enjoyment. "At least, nothing that a mistress will not do for a faithful maid, and one whom she has so much reason to make a favourite."

"Oh, but you do," he answered; "I have seen, for instance, how you try to please the poor child with those gowns in which she looks so pretty."

"Had I known your majesty observed her so closely," she said, "I should hardly have dared to show my interest in her so plainly; but I ought to have guessed that you would feel a more than passing interest in a girl whom you had rescued so romantically."

"Then she has told you the whole story?" asked the King, with a shade of annoyance in his voice.

"Yes."

"Then you can understand the interest I must feel in her future."

"Perfectly," answered Mlle de Tricotrin. "It must have such a charming flavour of the old ballad for you."

"I am not very fond of ballads," said the King, a little distantly.

"I am sorry, sire," she answered simply, "because they have for me such a delicious savour of nature. I was going to ask you to tell me the name of the beggar in the story. I had a fancy for calling my maid by it."

"Do you not know?" asked the King, looking at her fixedly.

"No," she answered, meeting his look with perfect frankness, for she was speaking the truth; "I have never heard or seen the ballad."

"She was called Penelophon," said the King, with an embarrassed laugh.

Mlle de Tricotrin gave a genuine start of surprise. "Is your majesty serious?" she said.

"Perfectly."

"What a strange coincidence!"

Their conversation had been getting colder and colder. By some evil influence Kophetua seemed to be choosing the worst things he could say, and Mlle de Tricotrin replying with everything that was best calculated to annoy the King. It had reached at last to a painful iciness, and the embarrassment which now fell upon them both froze it altogether. They sat in silence, each knowing perfectly that the other was thinking something it would be a wide breach of manners to say, and that is almost worse than saying it.

Yet they need not have been so embarrassed, for, as it happened, it was no coincidence at all. The old tradition still grew green within the Liberties of St. Lazarus, and there were few families in which one of the women was not named Penelophon. Still the beggars kept so much to themselves that this very natural custom was not generally known, and certainly it had never come to the ears of the King or Mlle de Tricotrin. Hence their embarrassment was as great as if it had been well-founded, and was most happily relieved by the Count desiring to know if his majesty would take a dish of tea.

It was perhaps more than a coincidence which later in the evening caused Kophetua to ask M. de Tricotrin what he thought of the new American Republic. His interview with Mlle de Tricotrin seemed to put matrimony further from him than ever, and his abdication was staring him in the face. He began to see it was unavoidable, and his innate moral courage and conscientiousness made him cast about for a light in which the inevitable should appear a duty that he chose for himself to perform. More than ever he began to wonder whether his position were not a crime, and whether plain morality did not bid him resign and form a republic. The Marquis, with his revolutionary ideas, was naturally the man to help him along the road by which alone his moral escape could be made. He determined to lose no time in getting the help he expected, seeing that M. de Tricotrin, like all Frenchmen of fashion, was ready to express a passionate admiration of the American Constitution.

"As a republic," said the Marquis, in answer to the King, "if I may so far express myself in your majesty's presence,—as a republic, I look upon it as one of the sublimest emanations of the human brain."

"Pray do not apologise for your opinions," replied the King; "they are entirely in accord with my own. I myself regard a republic as an institution so divine that I am tempted to look upon a king as amongst the worst of criminals."

"There," said the Marquis, with deferential positiveness, "your majesty, and I differ entirely. I look upon a king as the greatest of human benefactors."

"But, my dear Marquis," said the King, "your two positions are flatly contradictory."

"With submission," answered the Marquis, "it seems to me that one is the corollary of the other. It is because I so admire a republic that I also venerate the institution of hereditary monarchy."

"I must positively congratulate you, Marquis," said the King, "on your inimitable genius for paradox. It is most wittily conceived; but, seriously, I want your opinion."

"And seriously I give it you, sire," said the Marquis, in whose political programme the resignation of Kophetua found no place.

"Then permit me to say," answered the King, "that I entirely fail to understand your opinion."

"And yet," said the Marquis, "it is not so obscure. Your majesty will admit that the most perfect republic is that in which the greatest amount of power remains actually in the hands of the sovereign people in their corporate capacity."

"Certainly," answered the King. "The less a constitution necessitates the delegation of authority to officers, and especially to a chief officer, the more perfectly republican it is."

"Very well," pursued the Frenchman. "Then as a chief officer of some kind is necessary, the first question to solve is the manner of his appointment. Now if you elect him, it is certain that some real power will slip into his hands. It is even necessary that it should, in order to give dignity to the office. For since he is unadorned with the panoply of heredity, a lack of dignity will always be a difficulty about your elected chief officer. For the same reason the elective machinery must be such as to ensure, as far as is humanly possible, that the cleverest man in the state shall be chosen; otherwise your majesty sees that the government of which he is head will not receive the respect that is necessary to stability."

"So far I perceive your meaning," answered the King. "It is that there is no instinctive reverence felt by the vulgar for an elected president. He is, as it were, a mere chip carved by the elective machine from the mass of the community. Therefore for sentimental reasons—that is, in order that he may be endowed with that weight of authority which is the mainspring of cheerful obedience to the law—it is necessary that he should be an extraordinary man, with extraordinary powers."

"Exactly," said the Marquis; "and it is precisely there that you find the weak point of the non-monarchical republic, if your majesty will allow me the expression. It is a form of government which involves an almost fatal inconsistency. It gives you as a leading idea the election of one man in whom the ultimate legislative and administrative powers must be vested to a greater or less extent, and this very man is also, by the fundamental theory of the system, the most dangerous person to whom those powers can be committed, seeing that, as he is the citizen of the highest political ability, he is also the man best able to abuse them to his own advantage. I would submit then, sire, that this paradox, which is inherent in all constitutions like the American—although theoretically that is the best that was ever devised—is beyond expression more remarkable than that of which your majesty accuses me. It is a paradox which shows us how a kingless commonwealth is like an arch: apparently it is perfectly stable, and yet from the first day of its erection it is exerting a force which tends to its own destruction."

"Well, I must admit," answered the King, "the existence of this paradox. You make it quite clear to me that it is a real objection to what you call a non-monarchical republic; but, at the same time, the vice is obviously far greater in an hereditary monarchy."

"If your majesty will pardon me," replied the Marquis, who felt his blood getting up as his hobby pranced beneath him, "I think I can show you that this is not so."

"If you can," answered the King, with some irritation at the disappointment he felt in his expected ally, "may I die if you could not show anything!"

"And yet it is not so difficult," continued the Marquis. "Your majesty will observe, if I may so far presume in the cause of truth, that the real merit of hereditary monarchy in the eyes of all enlightened publicists is this: It involves the assumption that the chief officer of the state should always be a man of ordinary capacity, and, as far as possible, without political aspirations or abilities. That is the very essence of the hereditary principle."

"Really, Marquis," said Kophetua, a little nettled, "it is a charming doctrine to address to a King."

"Your majesty will pardon me," pursued the Marquis hastily, "in the cause of truth. We have arrived then at this position: A chief officer appointed on the hereditary principle is the best, as assuring the lowest possible intellect which we can reach without bringing the office into contempt; and thus we see that a limited monarchy, such as England or your majesty's own state, is the only true form of republic, in that it distinctly repudiates the idea that the head of the community is in any way its ruler, or fit to be its ruler."

"In fact," said Kophetua bitterly, "we kings are only perfect in our imperfection, and useful in so far as we are useless."

"God forbid that your majesty should put such a cynical paradox on me," cried the Marquis. "Your usefulness is extreme. The necessity for your perfection cannot be exaggerated. I have said that you represent the lowest point of capacity which is consistent with the safety of the state. It is there that you have the advantage over a president. In you the minimum of capacity may be extremely low without danger, seeing that there is a divinity clinging about the kingly office which is entirely absent from any elective magistrate. You are the visible emblem of law and order. You are instituted as the personification of loyalty. Without such a personification the feeling cannot exist amongst the vulgar. Precisely in the same way and on the same grounds wise men long ago invented God as a personification of morality. There is no visible reason why you should be head of the state more than any one else—an advantage which an elected officer of course cannot enjoy. In default of a visible reason, the people's instinctive faith in the existing institution invents for them one that is supernatural and mystic. You are to politics what the deity is to ethics, with the additional advantage that you really exist. No position could possibly be more respectable."

"Or more degrading," Kophetua broke in. "It is a noble and inspiring conviction for a man that he is an idol to sit and wag his head when some one pulls the string."

"Your majesty is unjustly severe upon the office," said the Marquis. "To me it is the most ennobling a man can hold; for it involves the duty of fostering a love of law and order by attaching the people to your own person by ties of affection. With action forbidden you, you have to make yourself popular and respected. It is a task of the utmost difficulty, and only to be accomplished by the highest nobility of character. It is a task," continued the Frenchman, with a profound bow, "in which your majesty has entirely succeeded. In you, at least, to resign would be criminal."

"Marquis," said Kophetua, after a pause, with that expression of lofty sentiment which sometimes illumined his handsome face, "you give me the richest of gifts. You give me a new point of view, and from it I see a prospect of surpassing beauty."

M. de Tricotrin's conversation with the King made him more eager than ever to win the assistance of Turbo. He had made another impression, he was sure. He had found the King quite content not to marry in the prospect of forming a republic. He had left him with the seed of a desire for a wife that he might continue to be a king. But Kophetua must not be left alone. He was a man, and had opinions. It was absolutely necessary to ensure that Turbo would cultivate instead of rooting out the good impression. Then, with Penelophon secretly removed out of the way—and the King need never know how it was done—the course would be clear for his own daughter.

CHAPTER XV. TWO VICTIMS.

"I doe rejoyce

That you wil take me for your choyce,

And my degree's so base."

Considerable as was the anxiety which Count Kora's rout caused the Marquis de Tricotrin, his state of mind as he was carried home was enviable compared to that of his daughter. He at least had the relief of active scheming to console him, but she could only lean back in her chair and confess herself utterly miserable.

So deep was her melancholy that she found herself wondering if she were not really in love with the handsome, high-souled Prince. But the thought had no sooner framed itself than a bitter smile crossed her beautiful face, and she mocked away the only consolation that could lighten her sorrow.

"How I befool myself," she murmured, "to think I grieve for his love! It is for his power and his throne that I sigh. I know that well enough. It is all I care for."

Poor Mlle de Tricotrin! She had long ceased to credit herself with one good thought, with one womanly motive. Her education had been such that it would have been strange if she had had any self-respect left. Deprived in babyhood of a mother's love and care, she had been left entirely in the hands of her selfish and ambitious father. He was a man no better, and perhaps not much worse, than his fellows—a self-seeking courtier, who clung with the rest to the sickly heart of France, and sucked its blood till the Revolution came and swept them all away, like the noxious parasites they were. Till then their one idea was to get a better place, where they could suck a fuller draught, and to that end they pushed and schemed and struggled, and thought no sacrifice too great.

It was the "Court of Petticoats" where M. de Tricotrin strove with the rest. Women ruled supreme. Hitherto the Marquis had not been successful. He had learnt by bitter experience that the only path to wealth and fame lay in the track of a fascinating woman. But each of them had her crowd of jostling followers; and time after time, as he had tried to grasp the flying skirts, he had been thrust out and left behind.

He was almost in despair when, after a long period of neglect, he chanced to visit his little motherless daughter at the convent where she was placed. She had grown from babyhood to be a lovely child since he had seen her last, and he at once recognised the promise of extraordinary beauty that she showed. A few hours spent with her assured him of the brightness of her wit and the fascination of her manners, and he saw that a new career and a new interest was before him.

His determination was taken at once. She was removed from the convent and taken to Paris; for the Marquis had resolved to fit her for a position which was thoroughly understood in Paris alone. It was the position to which nothing was denied, to which all things were open. It was the throne before which the greatest, the most sagacious, the most upright, statesmen had to bow—before which even the proudest ecclesiastics would cringe like hounds. Who can wonder that when the brilliancy of the career was so dazzling, that the shame on which it rested could hardly be seen?

For this, then, was Mlle de Tricotrin brought up. For this she was taught to struggle, heedless of all but the end. The only duty which she learned was to be beautiful; her only books were the philosophic chatter which was the fashion of the hour; her only friends were the creatures which that rotten society engendered, and which it seems profanity to call women.

We have seen how the system succeeded. As the child came to womanhood, the Marquis knew his triumph had been greater than he had ever hoped. He saw his daughter courted and petted, and he laughed to see the skill and delight with which she played her part. For no one can blame the poor child that her head was turned. The extravagant admiration with which she was everywhere greeted told her that the most honoured and powerful position in France was almost within her grasp.

Then came the crash. The long-nursed hopes were shattered to the ground, and father and daughter had to fly the country before the rising storms of the Revolution. In England M. de Tricotrin hoped to find a new arena for his child; but poor émigrés were too plentiful, and English ideas so unintelligible, and he could nowhere find even a beginning. Broken in hopes and health, he was forced at last to the South, as we have seen.

It could hardly be that, to a girl of Mlle de Tricotrin's natural refinement, moments of regret and repentance did not sometimes come; but they had always been stifled with the excitement of her personal triumphs. To win the power that belongs by nature to men, she had been trained to fling away the most precious treasures of women, and she did it with a light heart in the intoxication of the game. But when the lull came her self-reproach grew so constant as to be almost a pain, and so infected her as to become something she could not entirely throw off again.

The pure presence and innocent talk of Penelophon had only served to make her trouble more distinct. The beggar-maid was the first real woman she had ever known, and for the first time her own womanliness was really aroused in sympathy. She could see clearly what she was, and felt she could never be otherwise now. She despised herself, and knew the only solace was to brazen out her base career bravely. So she rejoiced cynically over the influence she was winning with Kophetua, and despised herself in secret too much to allow there was anything good in her joy. In marrying him she would gain the queenly power for which she had struggled so hard, and for which everything had been sacrificed; and in marrying him she would also escape the path of shame, by which alone she thought the goal was to be reached.

Which thought was it that made her heart ache so as she reached her room that night, and saw how she was losing him? Who shall tell? Who can read aright the thoughts that vexed that lovely figure which had thrown itself in weary grace upon the soft divan? How can a thing so beautiful know the ugliness of sorrow? Yet it is there, and tells her that Kophetua is slipping from her hands, that life will be unendurable without him, and worst of all—worst of all, the only voice to which she has ever been taught to listen is whispering the old things in her ears.

It is whispering what it is that has come between her and her end. She looks down at herself where she sits and thinks; she sees the gleaming beauty of her restless breasts, and the soft white arms and the obedient folds that wrap so closely the voluptuous figure; but the voice only whispers it is all of no avail. There is something between her and him; something which draws his eyes from her; something she has in her power to sweep away at a word.

Even as she wondered what childish scruples or silly affection it was that made her hesitate, the door opened and her father broke into the midst of her temptation. For a while he held the door in his hand, and stood admiring her as she lay curled upon the divan. At last she looked up at him with a deep-drawn breath, as though to brace herself for the crisis she saw was at hand.

"My child," said the Marquis, as he caught her glance, "you did not look well to-night. Are you ill?"

"No, sir."

"Was not the King pleased with you, then?"

"No, sir."

"That is most unfortunate," said the Marquis, in a feigned tone of extreme anxiety. "He was in a very strange humour to-night."

"Yes, sir?" said Mlle de Tricotrin, assuming an air of complete indifference.

"He spoke to me in a very extraordinary manner," continued her father. "It causes me no inconsiderable anxiety."

"What did he say, sir?" said she, apparently as little concerned as ever.

M. de Tricotrin told his daughter all the opinions which the King had expressed to him, and which led him to believe that he had determined to remain a bachelor, and let things take their course; but he omitted all the arguments by which he considered he had so successfully opposed the King's intention. "So you see, my dear," he concluded, "that our Quixotic Kophetua is bent on abdication and a republic."

Mlle de Tricotrin had listened attentively as her father unfolded to her the King's indifference as to whether he reigned or not. It was the last blow on her already shattered resolution. She saw one more guarantee of her ultimate success disappearing. Though she could not own it to herself, the very loftiness and unselfishness of the King's ideas made her desire him more. It was more than she could bear, added to the load of temptation under which she already struggled. Suddenly laying aside her indifference, she started up in her seat, and, with a violent gesture, cried out, "He shall not abdicate!"

"How will you prevent it?" asked the Marquis, unmoved.

"I cannot prevent it; but Turbo can, and he shall!"

"But you forget there is a price to pay first, my child."

"No, I do not, sir. I remember it very well. It is not a thing to forget so soon. Bad as you have made me, I have not yet been guilty of so many sins that this one should be lost in the throng."

"Well, well, my child, we need not go into ethics now. Do I understand that you mean to pay the Chancellor his price."

"I do."

"I congratulate you on your good sense."

"I want no congratulations. I only want a throne; and for that I am ready to disgrace myself, as you have taught me, sir. So if you will tell me how this business is to be arranged, it shall be done."

"Turbo will be in the street on which the little garden door opens. You can send her to him with a note, and he will manage the rest. See, here is a letter that I have already prepared."

"What is in it, sir?"

"Nothing; it is a mere pretence."

"Does he really mean to come in person?"

"Yes; it is more than he can afford to intrust his secret to another."

"When will he be here?"

"In a quarter of an hour."

"Then pray leave me, sir, and I will see that she is there too."

"My child," said the Marquis, laying his hand with awkward affection on the warm brown hair, "I am very pleased with you. I have never seen you more sensible."

She shook his hand off with a gesture of disgust, and with a shrug he left the room. It was some time before she could gather her cruelty sufficiently to summon Penelophon. She knew well enough that the indignation with which she had at first repudiated her father's suggestion was due to the beneficent influence which the purity and innocence of her handmaid had upon her. She had been talking to her then, and the charming sweetness of her presence had expelled the devil she had taken to herself. That influence away, the sight of what she longed for still receding, had brought the evil spirit back, and she had resolved that this thing should cease. Whether Penelophon appeared to her as an actual obstacle in the path of her ambition, or as a siren who beckoned her away from the worldly road in which alone she had faith, it was clear that the girl must be cast away.

And, after all, where was the crime? Penelophon would only go to a lot which she herself had lived for. It was only the child's silly prudery that frightened her. But that would soon pass. Yet, how the poor thing loathed the man to whom she was sold, and how she adored him who had saved her from his embraces! And no wonder, when he had dared so much to make the rescue. That was it. He, her own King, had dared too much for the girl. She could not forgive her for that; and, resolved at last, she clapped her hands.

Penelophon answered to the call immediately; and the sight of her delicate form in the doorway disturbed her mistress strangely. She looked so tender and fragile a thing to be flung out, as it were, to the beasts; and the iniquity of Mlle de Tricotrin's resolve grew very distinct to her. To add to her mistress's distress, the girl came forward with the same glad smile with which she always greeted the summons of her idolised protector; and Mlle de Tricotrin's heart beat faster at the sight of her devotion.

"Will you undress now?" asked Penelophon, as her mistress only looked at her and did not speak.

"Not yet, Penelophon," was the answer. "I have something I want you to do. It is a little thing, and yet my happiness depends upon it."

"Will it bring Trecenito nearer to you, then?" asked Penelophon.

"Yes, it will bring him nearer—very near indeed, Penelophon."

"And you will let me do this little thing?" said the maid.

"Yes," answered Mlle de Tricotrin; "it is you I ask to do it, because I know how you love me."

"Ah!" cried Penelophon, clasping her hands before her mistress, in an attitude of glad devotion; "but I wish it were a great thing you asked of me, and then I could show you indeed how I love you and him."

"Nay, there is no need," said Mlle de Tricotrin, feeling that a choking sensation was coming in her throat. "I know how you love us, and long to see us one; and now I have but a little thing for you to do."

"What must it be, then?"

"Only to take a note to a man who is waiting in the street by the little garden door."

"What, now? to-night? in the dark?" exclaimed Penelophon, her great dark eyes dilating with sudden fear.

"Yes, now. You are not afraid of the dark?"

"No; but I dread what is in the dark," the girl answered, shuddering.

"Why, what is it you fear?"

"It is a terrible thing. You cannot know how terrible. It is wrapped in a cloak, and it limps as it goes, and it glares at me. Even in my own soft bed at your feet it glares at me, so that I have to creep close to you before it will go away."

"Why, child, that is only a baby's fancy. You will not meet it," answered Mlle de Tricotrin, steadying her voice with difficulty; for her breath was coming thick, and her heart was beating fast, to see the poor girl's terror.

"Yes, I know," answered Penelophon, in an awe-hushed voice; "but as I looked at the stars just now, and wondered which was yours, and which was Trecenito's, and which was my little one, I saw it pass under the window. It limped and glared, and was wrapped in its cloak. Oh, I saw it!" she cried, again covering her face in terror,—"I saw it, and it will be there to glare at me when I open the gate. Oh, I dare not go! Can you not send another?"

"No, Penelophon," said her mistress, after a pause; for she was hardly able to speak in her growing agitation. "It is only you that will do. I promised you should take the letter, as a token that it came indeed from me. So be brave, child. On you it all depends. Be brave this once, and then Trecenito will be mine, and we shall both be always with him."

The iniquitous deceit of her words seemed to stab her like a knife, and for shame she dared not so much as look at her humble maid. She felt that one more of those devoted, trusting looks from the girl's dog-like eyes would overcome her. So she did not see how Penelophon drew herself up and set her lips, and she was surprised to hear her speak quite calmly and cheerfully again.

"And will it really bring you and Trecenito together if I go?" she said.

"Yes," answered her mistress; "and it is the only thing that will."

"Then I will go," said Penelophon. "Where is the note I shall take?"

"I will write it," said her mistress. The sight of the maid she loved so well—and yet, as she thought, had such cause to hate—and the devotion with which she overcame her terror, had softened Mlle de Tricotrin out of her former hard mood, although she knew it was only the girl's deep love for Kophetua that gave her the strength she showed. Still she was softened, and determined not to let her go without one little attempt to lighten the terrible lot to which she was condemning her. So she reached to the dwarf table beside the divan, and wrote on the blank paper which her father had given her this short note:—

"Here is the price you ask for your adhesion. Use her kindly, as you value the love of

"Héloise de Tricotrin."

She folded the note and addressed it; but her heart beat so hard and her breath came so thick that she could not speak as she handed it to Penelophon. The girl took it, kissed the white hand that gave it, and then turned to go. It was well-nigh more than Mlle de Tricotrin could endure to see such simple faith and love in her victim, and a tear had fallen on the hand the maid had kissed. There came to her a sudden sense that she was looking for the last time on the child in whom she had found the only pure delight she could ever remember, who had shown her how holy is the unstained soul of a woman, who had made her almost feel worthy to be a true wife to Kophetua. She could not let her part so to the sacrifice, where the poor lamb was to lose all that she might win her little end; and suddenly she started to her feet.

"Penelophon!" she cried, in a strange, unnatural voice, in spite of a great effort to control herself. The girl came back directly, looking anxiously into her mistress's troubled face. Then Mlle de Tricotrin saw how the dark eyes were brimming with tears, and in an uncontrollable impulse she threw her arms about the beggar-maid's neck, and kissed her passionately on either cheek.

"Now begone quickly," she said to the wondering girl; and Penelophon, in a transport of delight at her mistress's affection, tripped lightly away to the garden. For a moment Mlle de Tricotrin stood with hard-clenched hands, and stared at the door that had closed on her victim. Then a convulsive sob shook her lovely form, and she cast herself prostrate upon the divan in an agony of tears.

CHAPTER XVI. A NIGHT MARCH.

"The beggar blusheth scarlet red,

And straight againe as pale as lead,

She was in such amaze."

With her terror almost forgotten in the memory of her mistress's caress, Penelophon ran down into the garden, and kept on bravely till she came to the little door which led out into the street. Here she paused; for so great was the horror she felt for the world outside ever since the terrible night on which the King had rescued her, that it was all she could do to find courage enough to open it.

She could not persuade herself that the eyes were not waiting to glare at her on the other side; but at last she hardened her poor fluttering heart to lift the latch and look out. It was very dark. There was no light but what the stars gave, and a dim old oil lamp that swung groaning on a chain across the road. She could see nothing of what she dreaded, and this gave her heart to step out into the street to find the man who was to receive the note. In her anxiety to get her painful duty over, she went as far as where the street turned round the corner of the garden to see if he were coming. Not a trace of any one could she detect; so, putting the note into her bosom, she flitted back, to wait a little within the shelter of the door.

She had hardly reached it when she stopped, frozen with horror. The door was shut, and out of the dark recess where it was the thing she dreaded was looking at her. That was all she could see. If the glaring presence had any form, it was hidden in the black shadow of the doorway. Only the two eyes burned, with a dim and terrible glow which paralysed her. She knew not what to do. She dared not approach the thing for fear it would take hold of her, and her limbs refused to fly.

At last there was a low hoarse chuckle of satisfied greed, which made the blood fly to her face, as it recalled a memory of her day of terror. She found the light of the lamp was falling full on her, so that the eyes could see her well, and that suddenly gave her strength to turn and run.

The thing sprang out after her with another coarse chuckle; but she ran on bravely. Soon she heard the deep-drawn breath of her pursuer sounding hoarsely behind. Closer and closer it drew, and made her feet feel like lead. She was like one in a fevered dream, when at the critical moment the limbs refused their office. With the blank dread we only know in distempered slumber, she fancied she was falling, when the hoarse breath all at once was at her ear, and the thing seized her. She tried to scream; but her despairing cry was choked by a hood that was drawn tightly over her face. The monster's arms clasped her about roughly, and she felt herself hurried along in spite of her frantic struggles to escape.

Turbo had her safely at last. He laughed to himself, and cracked coarse jokes to his burden as he limped hastily along. He was a strong man in spite of his deformity, and Penelophon soon desisted from her hopeless resistance, so that it was not long before he reached the street in which his own house stood. His fiendish glee increased as he saw himself so near his end; but suddenly he stopped, and a low curse hissed on his snarling lips. For even as he entered the street the cheerful clatter of horses' feet at the other end of it fell on his ear.

What could they be? There were many together, and that was a sound that was never heard in the capital at night. Still they were coming towards him, whatever they were; and he hurried on, hoping to reach his own door before they would see him. There was plenty of time if he made haste; but all at once it seemed that the same sounds had reached his burden's ear, for she began struggling again desperately.

He could hold her no longer, and was obliged to put her down. Now he could hear the clink of steel as well as the tramp of hoofs; and, uttering furious threats beneath his breath, he tried to drag Penelophon along; but his anger and frantic efforts were useless. All he could do was to get with his charge against the wall of his garden, when he was surrounded by some dozen horsemen.

Then he cursed himself again; for he knew he had encountered the first detachment of the frontier gendarmerie, whom, by his own encouragement, Kophetua had ordered to be concentrated on the capital. It had been arranged that they were to enter the city by night as quietly as possible, in order that the beggars might take no alarm. That had been his own suggestion; and here was the end of it. Still he determined to brave it through, and cried out to them to know what they did hustling an honest man and his child at that time of night.

"Soho! my night-hawk," cried the officer of the party, in a round laughing voice; "is that your note? 'Sblood! then we'll sing a chorus, for 'tis ours too."

The troopers all laughed together at their leader's wit, and Turbo eyed his man to see what stuff was in him. It was too dark to make out his face under the high-plumed helmet which he seemed to wear so jauntily, but the Chancellor could see he was a tall fellow, who sat his horse with a defiant air. His toes were stretched out impudently in the stirrups, and his right arm was well bowed, and rested knuckles down on his thigh, with quite a splendid swagger. Altogether he looked formidable enough as he sat laughing on his tall horse, with the brilliant uniforms and glittering accoutrements of his men faintly discernible in a semicircle at his back.

"My note is low enough," said the Chancellor, with affected humility, when his inspection and the laughter were done. "I only ask to pass on quietly with my daughter."

"So you shall, my bully, when we know why you tie up pretty faces in hoods, and why pretty figures struggle in your arms. So come, my bully night-hawk, unhood, unhood!"

"I tell you it is but my daughter!" cried Turbo angrily. "Let me pass, or the King shall hear of it!"

"Ho-ho!" cried the officer, as merrily as ever. "Will a beggar out of bounds try to frighten the King's own Gendarmerie of the Guard with the King's own name. No, no, my joker; come, give her up."

Penelophon gave a start as she heard the officer's words, and tried to tear the hood from her head. Turbo dragged her roughly behind him, and stood confronting the officer, who spurred his horse forward.

"Stand back!" cried Turbo; "stand back, at your peril! I am the Chancellor. Can you not see? Stand back! I command you."

"And I, sink me!" cried the officer, drawing his sabre, "am the king, and the general, and the beggar emperor all in one; so let her go, and take that for your insolent lie."

As he uttered the word, he gave the Chancellor a wringing blow across the shoulders with the flat of his sabre. Turbo drew back; but the officer spurred on to repeat the chastisement. "Let her go, you scurvy hound! Let her go, I say! or, 'sblood! you shall have the edge."

Turbo saw but one way to escape the now infuriated soldier. In a frenzy of passion to be so balked again, he brutally thrust the blinded girl before the restive horse, so that to avoid trampling on her the officer had to curb it on to its haunches. With ungainly activity the Chancellor took advantage of the delay to spring along the wall towards the spot where, as in all the houses in the city, a door gave him admission into his own garden.

"Stop the cur! stop him!" cried the officer. "Cut him down, or anything. Zounds! will you let him laugh at our noses like this?"

Two men wheeled like hawks at the hurrying Chancellor with uplifted sabres. In another instant it seemed he must be slashed with the gleaming blade that was nearest him, when suddenly he stopped and turned. There was a flash, a sharp report, a cloud of smoke, and the gendarme threw up his hands with a choking cry. The officer dashed to his side to seize the assassin; but as he cleared the smoke he found the man he sought had vanished.

At the door which he fancied he had heard shut he drew rein. It was there he suspected the man had escaped him, and leaping from his saddle, he applied his head to the keyhole and listened intently. The sound of halting footsteps within fell faintly on his ear, and he shifted his attitude to hear better. Presently he drew back into the middle of the street, carefully surveyed the premises, and after giving a long low whistle to himself, he returned to the wounded man with a very serious air. Three or four saddles were empty, and a sergeant who was kneeling by a motionless body looked up as his commander drew near.

"Is he hurt?" asked the officer.

The sergeant did not answer, but slowly removed his helmet. The officer and all the men did the same, and stood round in silence, till the dying man gave a shudder and then lay quite still.

"Right lung, sir," said the sergeant laconically.

"Well, get him across his saddle," said the officer, "while I look to the girl."

She was still lying motionless where she had fallen, as though she had been struck with the horse's feet, or else was stifled with the hood that muffled her face. First he felt her pulse, and having ascertained that she was still alive, uncovered her head to let her breathe freely. She opened her eyes almost directly, and the officer gazed at her pale face with great interest. As he examined her attentively by the light of a lantern which the sergeant now brought, his eye fell upon the note which still remained where Penelophon had placed it. He took it quietly, and read the address by the lantern light.

"To his Excellency the High Chancellor." With no more show of interest than another low whistle betokened, he put it deliberately into his sabretache, and proceeded to revive his patient. She seemed to come round very slowly; so he gave the word to fall in, mounted his horse, and ordered Penelophon to be lifted up in front of him. He had excellent reasons for taking charge of her himself.

As soon as they were started again, the motion of the horse seemed to revive the fainting girl; but still she sat quite quiet, nestling with complete confidence in the officer's arms, and leaning her head upon his breast. Presently she gave a long sigh of contentment, and looked up in his face with her big dark eyes.

"Did you not say you were Trecenito's soldier?" she asked.

"Yes, pretty one. What of that?" answered the soldier.

"Ah! I thought I remembered that," she replied dreamily. "I knew you would come!"

"The devil you did, child!" exclaimed the soldier.

"Yes; I knew Trecenito would send you to take me away from that thing."

"He is always kind, and loves his people," said the officer vaguely, to humour her.

"Is he? I don't know. But he is always kind to me, and loves me. So I knew he would send you if he could not come himself, as he did before."

"Did he come himself before?" asked the officer, in incredulous astonishment.

"Yes; and he will be so pleased with you when he knows you have saved me."

The soldier could only give another long whistle, which seemed a habit with him. He began to find himself the possessor of a very mysterious case, which might turn out to his immense credit, or the reverse, and he felt the necessity of care and his utmost detective ability.

"Are you taking me back to my mistress," asked Penelophon, after a pause.

"Who is your mistress?"

"Mlle de Tricotrin. She who will be 'Trecenita.'"

"No; I cannot take you to her," answered the officer, for whom this new complication was almost overwhelming; "but I will take you to a safe place till Trecenito tells me what to do."

"Very well," said Penelophon contentedly, and she laid her head down on his broad breast again. He was sorely tempted to kiss the delicate face just once. It was so quiet and peaceful and childlike; but somehow she was so trusting and mysterious that he took a better view and refrained. Yet it must be said that he was not sorry when, after a half-hour's ride, they reached an old hunting lodge in a remote part of the royal park, which was to be their quarters. Here he put temptation out of his way by locking her in a little room which had been prepared for his own use, and giving the key to the sergeant to keep. Nor did he regret his cautious action, when shortly afterwards he took an opportunity of opening the note of which he had taken possession. It seemed entirely to confirm the girl's words and his own impression—that somewhere there was some foul play to the advantage of the Chancellor, whom he did not like, and to the detriment of Kophetua, to whom he was devoted.

Then a serious crime had been committed, which must inevitably become public. One of the gendarmes of the guard had been assassinated. He had noticed windows opening after the pistol-shot. The whole affair was almost sure to leak out. To hush the matter up until he could receive personal instructions from the King was probably impossible. But then, on the other hand, there were circumstances which told him that a discreet secrecy was the line of conduct which would be most likely to commend him to all the parties implicated, and to lead to promotion. At a loss what course to take, he finally, like the sensible fellow he was, determined to do his plain duty, and report the whole affair to the commander-in-chief the first thing on the following morning.

CHAPTER XVII. "CHECK!"

"O base Assyrian knight, what is thy news?

Let King Cophetua know the truth thereof."

The King next morning was pacing his library with unquiet step. He was disgusted with every one and all the world, and with nothing so much as himself. To begin with, the Marquis de Tricotrin's disquisition on the kingly office had made a deep and unpleasant impression upon him. He felt the Frenchman was perfectly right in all he had said, and that a king, to do his duty, must be practically a nonentity. It was like a crown to his old trouble. Long he had grieved over his enforced inaction, and now, just when he hoped to find an escape, and spread his wings as wide as King Stork, he found himself crowned King Log by the very hand, by the very facts, by the cogency of the very philosophy in which he had put his trust.

It was true that the Marquis had suggested to him a path by which he might still climb to the far-off heights on which his eyes were always fixed; but yet he knew it was only done to amuse him, to get him, as it were, out of the way. He was man of the world enough to know that M. de Tricotrin could not have meant what he said. And yet, was it not the truth? Was not the sublime life, after all, the life of moral influence rather than the life of action? Was it not a grander thing to implant a living spirit of nobility into his people than to try and amend them by what were only little bits of tinkering after all?

Yes; no doubt the Marquis was right unconsciously; but how to live the life he praised? Alone, without sympathy, without encouragement, he could not do it, and there was no one to whom he could go and say, "Help me!" There was no one who would even understand what he meant. At least only one, and since last night she was cut off as far as the rest. Ah! if she had only been what he had almost thought her, how all his troubles would have been ended? At last he might have ceased to resist the snares and cunning of the heartless daughters of Eve; he might have taken the lovely woman in his arms, to find in her beauty and refinement, in her spiritual influence and tender sympathy, the divine secret of the noble life. All that was wanting in him she would have supplied; and when those soft eyes lit up with the light of love, as they watched the efforts which she inspired, and which she alone could understand, it would be reward and encouragement enough to lead him ever onward, upward, hand in hand with her.

But there were no such women now. It was only a boyish dream to think of it; and it only made him angrier with himself to recognise how much her sympathy must have been to him, since now that he had lost it he could muse so childishly. He laughed bitterly to think of himself like a baby crying for the moon, or at least for something as pure and gentle and serenely bright, and as far off and as impossible to attain.

He strode to the window to watch those that came and went at the palace gates, and so dissolve his thoughts. The beggars were crouching there as usual in the blazing sunlight, making deep-blue shadows under their broad hats and voluminous turbans and tattered cloaks. Here and there a leg or an arm, or a shaggy breast, baked to a ruddy brown, gave a glowing bit of colour amidst the grey of filth; and here and there in the blue shadows a forbidding face could be dimly seen distorted and screwed into deep-marked wrinkles, to keep out the fierce glare which beat on them from the parched roadway and the dusty walls.

Like all who pretended to any taste at that time, the King was an authority on chiaroscuro, and was never tired of studying the picture at his gates. But to-day it brought no sense of art. It only raised again the memory of Penelophon, and then all at once perfect purity and gentleness and the serenity of an unsullied soul seemed close within his grasp. It almost alarmed him to find how that which had been a mere fancy was growing in his mind to be a possibility. He began to think his senses must be strangely unhinged if for one moment he could harbour the preposterous thought that perhaps here after all was what he sought. The painting above the hearth seemed to be gaining over him the mystic influence which he had always permitted to the old knight's armour. In vain he recalled the beggar-maid in her dirt and ignorance; in vain he told himself it could never be as long as reason remained to him. Still the prospect would always be returning to him, and at each return it gained new strength.

He was turning away from the window that he might not see the beggars any longer, when a commotion amongst them attracted his attention. The bright lights and blue shadows and bits of warm colour broke up and intermingled into new combinations as they lazily scrambled together to pick up some coins that had been flung to them; and then he saw hurry by them the beautiful figure of Mlle de Tricotrin. She was coming for her morning walk, which she always took now, at his invitation, in the shady alleys of the palace gardens. He marked her downcast looks, the graceful folds of her clinging gown, gathered daintily at her breast with a flowing knot of ribbon, and the gentle refinement which her every movement told of. He watched her as she passed beneath his window, and felt his eyes dim at the sight of the marvellous beauty that could never be his.

Suddenly she raised her head to look up where he was, and ere he could withdraw their eyes had met. He had seen the sad, pleading look beneath the dark lashes; he had seen the soft flush that spread over the matchless face; he had seen the shapely head bowed again in deepest resignation down upon the troubled breast as she passed on from the cold, unanswering look he gave her; and now he was pacing the room again in strange agitation.

Could such beauty be the outward sign of the baseness which he had been taught to believe in? If one woman could be as good and pure and gentle as Penelophon, why should not another? Why should not this one? If she had jarred upon him so last night, did it not show that she was not the perfect schemer he had thought her? A knock at the door came to his relief. It was the Chancellor's hour of audience, and Turbo entered as calm and snarling and business-like as ever.

"Good morning, Chancellor," said the King, as usual. "Is there any business?"

"None, sire," answered Turbo—"at least, none of mine; but I believe General Dolabella has something to report."

"Why, what is that?" exclaimed the King.

"Oh, nothing, I fancy," said the Chancellor. "Some blunder of the officer in command of the party of gendarmes who arrived last night. There was a stupid brawl with the townsfolk, or something of that kind."

"But that seems to me serious," said the King, "considering how necessary secrecy is to my purpose. Let him be admitted at once."

General Dolabella was ushered in, wearing a look of tremendous mystery and importance, and with official brevity reported that a party of gendarmes arriving in the city during the previous night had encountered a man maltreating a girl, and that in endeavouring to arrest him and prevent further violence, one of the privates had been shot dead by the miscreant; "and if your majesty pleases," concluded the General, with an even greater air of mystery than before, "the officer is in attendance to give further details."

"I will question him immediately," said the King.

"Would your majesty wish to make the examination in private?" said Turbo. "If so, I will retire."

"I see no occasion," answered the King, before the commander-in-chief could interpose. "Besides, I shall probably need your assistance. Let the officer enter."

The hero of the last night's adventure was at once introduced. He saluted the King with spirit, and then stood rigidly at attention, without in the least noticing the Chancellor.

"This is a most grave affair, sir," began the King. "Have you any light to throw on the parties concerned?"

"I believe, sire, I have identified the girl," replied the gendarme.

"And who do you suppose she is?"

"She is a servant of Mlle de Tricotrin.

"In what capacity?"

"I do not know, sire; but it may elucidate the point if I inform your majesty of a curious statement she made to me."

"Well, sir, proceed," said the King, as the officer hesitated.

"She spoke very strangely," replied the gendarme, "of having been rescued from some danger by your majesty."

"And what of the man?" asked the King, endeavouring to conceal his interest.

"As to that, I cannot speak with such certainty," answered the officer.

"But of what kind was he?"

"He was dressed, sire, like a beggar."

"Hear, Chancellor! hear, General! to what a pitch of insolence these wretches are coming!" said the King hotly. "It is growing past bearing. We have not acted a moment too soon."

"Not a moment," said the General.

"Not a moment, I quite agree," said the Chancellor.

"If you could recognise the man," pursued the King. "I would have him arrested at once."

"It is possible, sire, that I might," said the officer, as rigid as ever. "He was a beggar with a limp, deformed shoulders, and a peculiarly educated voice for one of his class. And, further, I think I can tell your majesty where to inquire for him."

"What do you mean, sir?" said the King. "Proceed as shortly as possible."

"He took refuge in the High Chancellor's garden," said the officer.

"Are you sure of this?" asked the King, growing suddenly calm.

"I took particular pains not to be mistaken, sire," answered the gendarme, "because the fellow had the impudence to say he was the Chancellor himself."

"What is the meaning of this?" said the King, turning on the Chancellor.

"A lie to cover a lamentable piece of incompetency, I should say," said Turbo coolly.

"That, sire, is a very natural solution for his excellency to offer," said the General, coming with subdued excitement to the aid of his subordinate; "but it hardly explains the fact that this note, directed in Mlle de Tricotrin's hand to his excellency, was found upon this unfortunate girl."

With all his self-control Turbo could not suppress an uneasy movement as the General produced the little note and handed it to the King. In the excitement of having the girl in his power he had quite forgotten this part of the arrangement, and so had omitted to possess himself of the evidence of Mlle de Tricotrin's treachery.

"It appears to be meant for you, Chancellor," said the King quietly, passing on the note to him. "You see?"

Turbo took it and read it through with deliberation. "It was intended for me, sire," he said imperturbably.

"Then the beggar who was guilty of this crime," said the King, with affected calm, "is no other than the High Chancellor of Oneiria."

"Your majesty's conjecture is perfectly correct," replied Turbo, who saw that all hope of concealment was now at an end.

"Before Heaven, this is too much!" exclaimed Kophetua, still in a well-controlled voice, but growing white with anger. "General Dolabella, you will arrest his excellency."

The General came forward with an uneasy air to receive the Chancellor's sword. Turbo drew it quietly from its sheath, and presented it with elaborate politeness.

"Shall I take his excellency's parole?" asked the General, "or will your majesty?"

"Neither, sir," answered the King. "You will call a guard, and remove him to the Tower immediately."

The General, after looking at the King for a moment in blank amazement, bowed, and despatched the officer for some files of the Palace Watch. A distressing silence followed his departure, which Turbo seemed to enjoy immensely, till at last he broke it himself.

"I do not wish," said he, with affected humility, "to complain of your majesty's vigour. In my old pupil I can only warmly admire it. But as your majesty has adopted this spirited course, I would beg the privilege of the meanest prisoner, and demand on what charge I am arrested."

"You may inform the prisoner," said the King, addressing Dolabella, "that he is arrested on confession of murder and abduction."

"Your majesty is extremely kind," answered Turbo, "and it is only right that I should show my sense of your clemency by letting you know that you are acting in error both of law and fact."

"I must beg," said Kophetua, "that all further communication between us shall be made through the proper channel."

"As your majesty pleases," replied the Chancellor. "But as your experience in these matters is not extensive, I thought I could save your majesty from an undignified position, and from the publication of matters which you would prefer to have concealed. If you would read this note, sire, you would see at once what I mean."

Kophetua was, in spite of himself, impressed by the calmness of the Chancellor, and, moreover, was sensible of considerable curiosity to see what Mlle de Tricotrin could have written to him. So he took the note, and read it with a shock that he was not fully sensible of till some time after.

"You see, sire," said the Chancellor, "this girl had been lawfully assigned to me in writing. Your majesty is too well aware of the paternal nature of the laws regulating domestic service in this country to be ignorant that I was within my rights in using reasonable violence to compel a servant so assigned to assume her duties. The interference of the gendarmerie was, therefore, quite illegal, and the homicide which I unfortunately committed a justifiable act of self-defence."

Poor Kophetua! He saw in a moment how precipitate he had been. He saw that the Chancellor was perfectly right. Technically no offence whatever had been committed, and even had there been one, he confessed it would have been impossible to charge the Chancellor with it. For if he were to put Turbo on his trial, the whole circumstances of his own connection with Penelophon must inevitably come to light. And what was worse, Mlle de Tricotrin's conduct could not be concealed. Abominable as it was in Kophetua's eyes, still his perhaps fantastic sense of chivalry forbade him to expose her. After all, it was only for him another example of what must be expected from the levity and weakness of women; it was a thing to shield, and not to resent.

As the bitter truth flashed through his mind, and he recognised the full meaning of the infamous plot, a sense of despair possessed him—a sense of incompetency, of powerlessness, of utter disappointment, which told him his struggle was hopeless, that it was wisdom to yield.

"General Dolabella," he said at last, after some moments of silence, "this document reveals to me circumstances which render it necessary to proceed in this matter with extreme caution."

"Yes, sire?" replied the General, in a tone of innocent inquiry, as if he were quite unaware of the contents of the compromising document.

"They are circumstances," continued the King, "opening up a prospect the painfulness of which can only be increased by any precipitate action."

"What steps then," asked the General, "would your majesty desire me to take?"

"I desire you to take none," answered Kophetua. "I desire you to retrace those you have already taken."

This the King said with the air of having given his instructions; and the commander-in-chief, after a moment's hesitation, as though not quite sure of his sovereign's meaning, advanced to Turbo, and with a profound bow handed him back his sword; but the Chancellor stood with his hands behind him, without making the slightest motion of accepting the proffered weapon.

"His majesty," he said, with a malicious look at Kophetua, "is making another mistake. It is not such a little matter for a king to arrest his chief minister. So bold a stride is not so easily retraced. There is danger even for a monarch in playing with edged tools. I, the High Chancellor of Oneiria, have suffered the disgrace of a public arrest. By this time our zealous gendarme may have spread the news all over the palace. His majesty must see that the affront I have suffered is not to be expiated by an offhand return of my sword, and I refuse to accept it."

The poor General stood holding out the slender weapon, and feeling very foolish, which indeed was no more than he looked. It was a situation of extreme sweetness to Turbo, and the King tried hastily to end it.

"Chancellor," said he peremptorily, "take your sword. It is I, the King, who command you."

"With great submission to your majesty," answered Turbo, without moving, "you have no power to command this."

"Why, what folly is this?" cried the King. "It is I who took away your liberty, and it is I who have power to give it back."

"Your majesty will pardon me," said Turbo. "You had power to arrest me. You have exercised that power, and there your prerogative ends. I am now in the bosom of the law, which is above your majesty, nor can you take me from it without its consent or mine. If I have contravened any term of the Social Contract, by my arrest you have invoked the jurisdiction by which alone such breaches may be considered. We are King and subject no longer. We are parties to a suit. The tribunal of eternal justice stands between us, and to that I appeal."

"General Dolabella!" exclaimed the King abruptly, "have the kindness to leave us for a few minutes."

The General retired, and master and pupil were left confronting each other, like gladiators seeking for a favourable moment to close.

"What do you mean by all this?" asked the King, in a low, calm voice. "Just now you wished to save us all from having this miserable business brought to light."

"And I am still willing to do so," answered Turbo.

"Then why refuse to receive your sword?" asked Kophetua. "Why all this nonsense about demanding a trial?"

"Sire," said the Chancellor, "upon this affair we have thrown off all disguise. I will continue, then, to be frank. You want this beggar-maid, so do I. I do not seek to deny it. I am in a position to demand terms of you, and I ask for her."

"Do I understand you to say," said the King, "that it is only on the surrender of this unhappy girl that you will forego your right to an inquiry."

"Your majesty takes my meaning accurately," answered Turbo.

Kophetua did not answer. The two paths opened before him, and he knew not which to take. Upon neither could he go without irreparable injury to a woman. By the one he must condemn Penelophon to the hateful lot from which he had rescued her; by the other he must expose the iniquitous conduct of Mlle de Tricotrin, to say nothing of the Quixotic part he himself had played in the drama, which every one would misunderstand, and of which he felt heartily ashamed. Still, that was but a little thing. Had he had himself alone to consider, he would not have hesitated, painful as the ridicule would have been which the exposure of his boyish knight-errantry must have entailed. It was for Mlle de Tricotrin that he felt. He held the secret of her shameless perfidy, and his whole nature revolted from making it known. It was well enough to chatter lightly of women's worthlessness, but when it came to laying bare before the world the infamy of a tender, gentle thing like this, one whom he had deemed his friend, it seemed an action so unmanly, so unchivalrous, so cowardly, that he could not bring himself to do it. She deserved it all, and more; he knew that well enough. Nothing could have been more detestable in his eyes than what she had done. Yet who would befriend her or pity her if he gave her up. The more he thought of her crime the greater it seemed; but that only brought a stronger reason for shielding her from its consequences, and he resolved to shield her.

But then the alternative—to betray the very incarnation of his ideal of womanhood to what for her was worse than hell itself; to shake off the delicate despairing suppliant who had clung to him so trustingly. No, that was impossible too. He was at his wits' end, and Turbo knew it well as he watched his sovereign's silence with his snarling smile.

"Chancellor," said Kophetua at last, "I will consider your terms. Meanwhile, I would request you to receive your sword, and confine yourself to your house till I come to a determination."

"Your majesty must pardon me," replied Turbo, "if I insist on my rights, unless you pass your word to me at this moment to accept my condition."

Kophetua's face changed to an expression which Turbo had never seen there. There was within his pupil a smouldering fire. The soft gales which had hitherto stirred his soul had never fanned it into a blaze. It was the sacred fire which had been kindled in the hour of his birth; it was the immortal spark which had been handed on from descendant to descendant, down from the very flame that had burned in the heart of the old knight.

As Kophetua sank deeper and deeper in desperation, and struggled to find an escape, he looked ever into the shadow beneath the ancient morion. The grim face grew very distinct there, and as Turbo spoke his last word it seemed to look down at the King with an expression where sorrow struggled with contempt, and Kophetua started up, desperate indeed, with the fire of his fathers' soul glittering in his eyes.

"By the splendour of God!" he cried, springing from his seat with the oath that had been the founder's favourite, "you shall not use me so! You shall have neither terms nor trial, except that which is the birthright of every man!"

"Does your majesty threaten me?" said Turbo, trying to keep up the insolent tone he had adopted, though in truth feeling he was faced by a force that was beyond his control.

"That is what I do!" cried the King, drawing the glittering rapier on which his hand was laid. "You have outraged the woman I have sworn to protect, and, by the soul of the knight! here and now we will see whose she shall be. Take your sword, you double cur and coward! take it, or receive my point where you stand!"

With that he fell en garde, with his blade straight at the Chancellors throat. Turbo saw the time for words was gone by. They had often fenced together, and he knew, in spite of his lameness, he was the better man. Yet so fiercely did the King's eye fix his, that it was with no sense of ease that he took up his sword from the table at his side, where Dolabella had laid it.

With such fury did Kophetua attack when they were once engaged that Turbo had to give ground fast. Already he was forced against a table, and was barely defending himself with his utmost skill, when the door burst open, and Dolabella, alarmed by the quick clink of steel, rushed in, followed by the gendarme and two files of the Palace Watch. Kophetua retreated immediately, and dropped his point.

"You come most inopportunely," said the King angrily.

"Nay, your majesty," said the General. "Permit me to say most opportunely."

"Yes, most opportunely, with your majesty's pardon," echoed the officer, to whom Dolabella had confided the King's difficulty about the Chancellor's arrest. "I can take his excellency red-handed, and no trial will be necessary now."

It was true. The officer of gendarmes knew his work well, and valued at its true worth his favourite and most dreaded weapon—red-handed justice. He was quick enough to see that here was a solution of the difficulty which his commander had confided to him.

For a moment the King hesitated before the temptation, but it was a meanness of which he was incapable.

"No, General," he said, as he sheathed his sword; "the Chancellor will retire to his house, and doubtless give us his word to remain there till we are resolved how to deal with his case. I fancy," he continued, with a defiant look at Turbo, "that we have found a method of settling our differences amicably."

The Chancellor recognised that he had aroused a spirit in the King which it would be well to let cool. There came vividly before him the ominous scene when the long rapier had fallen into his pupil's hands, and the kind of awe he had experienced then was upon him now. So he too sheathed his sword, and, having passed his word as the King suggested, left the room.

"Has your majesty any further orders for me," said the officer, saluting.

"What is your name?" asked the King.

"Pertinax," answered the officer. "Captain Pertinax, at your majesty's service."

"Then, Captain Pertinax," answered the King, "I commend your conduct, and shall not forget it. You may retire."

"And what, sire," he asked diffidently, "shall I do with the girl?"

"I confide her to your custody," replied Kophetua, after a little hesitation, during which he eyed the gendarme with careful scrutiny. "You will keep her where she is, with liberty of the park, till further orders."