A Son of the Immortals Part 7

"The throne is yours by right. Theodore has fallen almost precisely as your grandfather fell. Ferdinand was shot, and escaped with his life only because there was a struggle and a few faithful followers carried him into safety."

"If I depended on the fealty of the Seventh Regiment, I should not expect to find even the faithful few. Poor Theodore may have looked for them; but they did not exist."

"Then we had better leave the train at Chalons and return to Paris."

"Certainly, if the butchers of the Schwarzburg are to form my cohort."

"G.o.d's bones! never have I been so mistaken in a man! Your father, now,--one feared he might have lost his nerve,--but you, Alec! The devil take it! I thought better of you. I suppose then, it will have to be Marulitch."

"Julius! Is he a candidate--or a rival?"

Stampoff paused, irresolute. He was deeply troubled, and his fierce eyes searched Delgrado's face. "I had real hope of you," he muttered. "You would appeal to the women, and they are ever half the battle. Why are you so squeamish? You needn't embrace the men of the Seventh. You can use them, and kick them aside. That is the fate of ladders that lead to thrones. I know it. I am old enough not to care."

"I am not thinking of ladders as yet, Paul. Sufficient for the day is the foundation thereof, and I refuse to build my Kingdom on the broken vows of traitors."

"Ha! Stupid words! The ravings of cheap philosophers! By your own showing, I am a traitor."

"Yes, but an honest one. You fought fairly and were beaten. Were it otherwise, Theodore would never have tried so often to tempt you to his service."

The General flung himself back in the carriage and folded his arms. The steel spring was relaxed. He was baffled, and the weariness of life had suddenly enveloped him in its chilling fog. "Very well, then. We descend at Chalons," he said, with a sigh that was a tribute to adverse fate.

"Having paid for your ticket, you may as well come on to Vienna," said Alec with irritating composure.

"Curse Vienna! Why should I take that long journey for nothing?"

"To oblige me."

"You'll drive me crazy. How will it oblige you?"

"Because I am going to Delgratz, General, and there is a whole lot of things I want to ask you."

Stampoff bounced up again. "Will you be so kind as to explain what you mean?" he cried indignantly.

"Oh, yes. We are going to talk far into the night, and it is only fair that you should know my intentions. Otherwise, the valuable counsel you will give me might be misdirected, as it is, for instance, at the present moment, when you are heatedly advising me to throw in my lot with a set of rascals who, when I fail to satisfy their demands, would turn and rend me just as they have rended Theodore. Be sure that their object was selfish, Stampoff. Not one of these men has ever seen Prince Michael or myself. Even their leaders must have been mere boys when Ferdinand VII. was attacked--probably by their fathers. Well, I shall have none of them. They and their like are the curse of Kosnovia. Who will pay taxes to keep me in the state that becomes a King? Not they.

Who will benefit by good government and honest administration of the laws? a.s.suredly not they, for they batten on corruption; they are the maggots not the bees of industry. Over whom, then, shall I reign?

"I am young, Paul; but I have read and thought,--not very deeply, perhaps, but I have looked at things in that strong, clear light of Paris, which is heady at times, like its good wine, but which enables men to view art and politics and social needs in their nakedness. And I am half an American, too, which accounts for certain elements in my composition that detract from French ideals. A Frenchman cannot understand, Paul, why some of my excellent kith and kin across the Atlantic should condemn studies of the nude. But somehow I have a glimmering sense of the moral purpose that teaches us to avoid that which is not wholly decent. So I am a blend of French realism and American level headedness, and both sides of my nature warn me that a King should trust his people. Sometimes the people are slow to learn that vital fact. Well, they must be taught, and the first lesson in a State like Kosnovia might well be given by trying those felons of the Schwarzburg before a duly const.i.tuted court of law."

"Fine talk, Alec. Fine talk! You do not know our Serbs," yet Stampoff was moved, and his Slavonic sympathies were touched.

"Well, 'A King should die standing,' said one poor monarch, who thought he did know Frenchmen. I ask only for a few hours in my boots once I reach Delgratz. I shall say things that will not be forgotten for a day or two. Come, now, my old war-horse, join me in this new campaign! It may well prove your last as it is my first; but we shall fall honorably, you and I."

There were tears in Stampoff's eyes when Alec made an end. "Perhaps you are right," he said. "I have always given my mind to the military element. It seemed to me that the common folk require to be driven, not led, into the path they should tread. I am growing old, Alec; yours is a new creed to me. I never thought to hear it from a Delgrado, and it will make a rare stir in more places than Kosnovia; but by Heaven it is worth a trial!"

So Alec had won a convert, and that is the first essential of a reformer. Long and earnestly did they discuss the men and manners of Kosnovia and its chief city, and ever the Danube drew nearer; but not a word did Alec say of his telegram to Beaumanoir until a man met him in the Western Station at Vienna, wrung his hand, and rushed away again with the words:

"Beaumanoir leaves Paris to-night. He understands. So do I. Good luck, old chap! If you have to hit, hit hard and quickly."

Stampoff did not speak English. He was greatly distressed that Alec should have been recognized the instant he alighted from the train, though Paris was then twenty-two hours distant. "Who is that?" he asked anxiously.

"A friend from the British Emba.s.sy."

"From an Emba.s.sy! Then we are lost."

"It seemed to me that I was found, rather."

"But if the Emba.s.sies know----"

"They are invariably the worst informed centers in any country. The facts of which they profess total ignorance would fill many interesting volumes. Have no fear, General. I said 'a friend.' He gave me a pleasant message."

"Ah, from a woman, of course?"

"No. But----"

Delgrado wheeled round to face a tall burly man standing stiffly at his side as though awaiting orders. Stampoff, who had been following the vanishing figure of Beaumanoir's emissary with suspicious eyes, turned and looked at the newcomer.

"Oh, that is Bosko," he said, "my servant--yours, too, for that matter.

You can trust Bosko with your life. Can't he, you dog?"

"_Oui, m'sieur!_" said Bosko.

CHAPTER IV

THE WHITE CITY

Alec was sound asleep when the Orient Express rumbled over the Danube for the last time during its slow run to the Near East. He was aroused by an official examining pa.s.sports, which he was informed would be restored in the railway station at Delgratz. He disliked the implied subterfuge; but it could not be helped. Austria, gracious to travelers within her bounds, excepts those who mean to cross her southeastern frontier. There she frowns and inquires. If it was known that a Delgrado was in the train, he would have been stopped for days, pestered by officialdom; and possibly deported.

A curious element of safety was, however, revealed by newspapers purchased at Budapest. The various factions in Delgratz had declared a truce. The Delgrado partizans had telegraphed an invitation to Prince Michael to come and occupy the throne, and the Prince, or some wiser person, had sent a gracious reply stating that his matured decision would reach Kosnovia in due course. The National a.s.sembly was still coquetting with the republican idea; but, in the same breath, avowed its patriotic impartiality. In a word, Delgratz wanted peace. Toward that end, the Seventh Regiment continued to occupy the Black Castle, the remainder of the troops stood fast, and the citizens pulled down their barricades.

Oddly enough, the Paris correspondent of "The Budapest Gazette" pointed out that Prince Michael's son was playing polo in the Bois during the afternoon of Tuesday. The journalist little dreamed that Alec was reading his sarcastic comments on the Delgrado lack of initiative at Budapest at midnight on Wednesday.

The train was about to cross the River Tave (Delgratz stands on the junction of that stream and the Danube) when Stampoff appeared. The Albanian servant accompanied him.

"Leave everything to Bosko," said the General. "We must display no haste, and he will smooth the way through the customs."

"I suppose you don't want me to ask any questions?" laughed Alec.

"Better not. Do you still adhere to your program of last night?"

"Absolutely."

Stampoff took off his hat, pointed through the window, and said quietly, "There, then, G.o.d willing, is your Majesty's future capital. I wish to congratulate your Majesty on your first sight of it."

Beyond a level stretch of meadowland rose the spires and domes and minarets of a white city. The sun, not long risen, gilded its graceful contours and threw the rest of a wondrous picture into shadow so sharp that the whole exquisite vista might have been an intaglio cut in the sapphire of the sky. The Danube, a broad streak of silver, blended with the blue Tave to frame a glimpse of fairyland. For one thrilling moment Alec forgot its bloodstained history and looked only on the fair domain spread before his eyes. Then the black girders and crude latticework of a bridge shut out the entrancing spectacle, and he was conscious that Stampoff had caught his hand and was pressing it to his lips.