A Son of the Immortals Part 9

So it came to pa.s.s that when the hundred and fifty members of the National a.s.sembly gathered in the great hall of the convention, none there knew why a tall, pleasant faced young man should be sitting in the President's private room, and apparently not caring a jot who came or went during the half-hour's lobbying and retailing of political gossip that preceded the formal opening of the sitting.

But there was an awkward moment when Nesimir, pale and shaken, entered the chamber through the folding doors at the back of the presidential dais.

"Silence for his Excellency the President!" shouted a loud voiced usher, and all men looked up in wonder when they discovered that the youthful stranger was standing by the President's side. The session was to be a secret one. Press and public were excluded. Who, then--

"Gentleman," said Sergius Nesimir, and he spoke with the slowness of ill repressed agitation, "I have a momentous announcement to make. This honorable house has almost committed itself to the republican form of Government----"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Gentlemen, here stands Alexis Delgrado"

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"Definitely!" cried a voice.

"No, no!" this from a Senator.

The President lifted a hand. In other circ.u.mstances, the interruptions would have provoked rival storms of agreement and dissent from the many groups into which the a.s.sembly was split up; but now there was an electric feeling in the air that their trusted chief would not broach this grave question so suddenly without good cause. And--who was his companion? Why did he occupy the dais?

"I ask for silence," said Nesimir. "The fortunes of Kosnovia tremble in the balance. You will be given ample time for discussion; but hear me first. I have said that the republican idea has been mooted in all seriousness. We, in common with the rest of humanity, have been horror stricken by recent events in our beloved land. Our reigning dynasty has been blotted out of existence. There is no heir of the Obrenovitch line. Were we, the representatives of the people, to declare in favor of a King, we should naturally turn to the other royal house of our own blood. We should send for a Delgrado. Gentlemen, here stands Alexis Delgrado----"

He could go no further. A yell of sheer amazement came from all parts of the crowded chamber. Ministers, Senators, Representatives, joined in that bewildered roar. Those who were sitting rose; those in the back benches stood on the seats in order to gaze over the heads in front.

Men shouted and glared and turned to shout again at one another; but through all the turmoil Alec faced them, smiling and imperturbable, and, at what he judged to be the right moment--for that volcanic outburst must be given time to exhaust itself--he placed his one hand on the President's shoulder and with the other signaled his desire to be heard.

Again he placed implicit confidence in the all powerful element of curiosity. He knew full well that these emotional Serbs could not hear his name unmoved, while the extraordinary racial difference between himself and every other man in the a.s.sembly must have made a strong appeal to their dramatic instincts. And again was he justified; for the mere expression of his wish to address them was obeyed by an instant hushing of the storm.

"My fellow countrymen," he began, "you whom I expect to count among my friends ere this day is out----"

Another wave of sound ran through the hall. Men still wondered; but their hearts were beating high, and a new note had come into their voices. He was speaking their own language, speaking it as one to the manner born, speaking it as no Austrian could ever speak it, since harsh, dominant German can never reproduce the full Slavonic resonance.

Alec, but yesterday Joan's typical idler, had fathomed some uncharted deep in the mysterious art of swaying his fellow men. He realized at once that this rumble of astonishment was the very best thing that could have happened. He waited just long enough for the sympathetic murmur to merge into nods and whisperings, then he continued:

"It is true that I am here as a Delgrado. I come as a candidate, not a claimant. It rests with you whether I shall remain among you as Alexis III., King of Kosnovia, or go back to my father and tell him that our people are anxious to try a new form of Government. Of course," and here Alec beamed on them most affably, "there are other alternatives. You may elect to put me in jail, or throw me into the Danube, or swing me from a gibbet as a warning to all would-be monarchs and other malefactors. But there is one thing you cannot do. You can never persuade me to wade to a throne through the blood of innocent people! And that is why I am here, and not in the company of the wretched conspirators now skulking behind the walls of the Schwarzburg."

Then a hurricane of cheers made the windows rattle, and a deputy from the Shumadia, "the heart of Kosnovia," a bigchested, deep voiced forester, sent forth a trumpet shout that reached every ear:

"Hola! That's a King! Look at him!"

From that instant Alec was as surely King of Kosnovia as the German Emperor is King of Prussia. Of course, he had to talk till he was hoa.r.s.e, and wring strong hands till he was weary, and Stampoff had to make more than one gruff speech, and eloquent Senators and Deputies had to proclaim the inviolate nature of the new const.i.tution, and Alec had to sign it amid a scene of riotous enthusiasm. But these things were the aftermath of a harvest reaped by half a dozen sentences. The Shumadia man's simple phrases became a formula. Men laughed and said:

"Hola! That's a King! Look at him!"

In time it reached the streets. The people took it up as a popular catchword. It whirled through all Kosnovia. Those who had never seen Alec, nor heard of him before they were told he was King, adopted it as a token of their belief that the nation had at last obtained a ruler who surpa.s.sed all other Kings.

But that was to come later. While Alec was listening to the plaudits that proclaimed his triumph, Stampoff growled at him from behind the half-closed door:

"G.o.ds! You've done it! And without a blow! Never was Kingdom won so easily. G.o.d bless your Majesty! May you live long and reign worthily!"

Good wishes these; but in them was the germ of an abiding canker. What would Joan say? He had taken a sleeping car ticket from Paris and had stepped into his patrimony with as little anxiety or delay as would herald a royal succession in the oldest and most firmly established monarchy in Europe. What of the G.o.ddess with the great gray eyes, clear and piercing, who knew all the thoughts of men's hearts and the secrets of their souls? What of her warning that she would drive her chosen ones by strange paths through doubt and need and danger and battle? Which of these had he encountered, beyond the vanished phantoms of idle hours pa.s.sed in the cozy comfort of the Orient Express? "Never was kingdom won so easily!"

Well meant; but it rankled. That ominous line of Vergil's came to his mind. _Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_ (I fear the Greeks even bringing gifts). Truly the Greeks were come speedily, carrying in full measure the gifts of loyalty and dominion. Yet he feared them. A whiff of peril, pitfalls to be leaped, some days or weeks of dire uncertainty, men to be won, and factions placated, any or all of these might have appeased the jealous G.o.ds. But this instant success would shock Olympus. It cried for contrast by its very flight to the pinnacle.

None suspected this mood in the chosen King. He charmed these volatile and romantic Serbs by his naturalness. He seemed to take it so thoroughly for granted that he was the one man living who could rule them according to their aspirations, that they adopted the notion without reserve. The morning pa.s.sed in a blaze of enthusiasm. Alec, outwardly calm and hale fellow with all who came in contact with him, was really in a state of waking trance. His brain throbbed with ideas, words that he had never conned flowed from his lips. Thus, when asked to sign the const.i.tution, he wrote "Alexis, Rex," with a firm hand, and then looked round on the circle of intent faces.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I hereby pledge myself to our land. When I am dead, if my successor shows signs of faltering, make my skin into a drumhead for the cause of Kosnovia!"

At the moment he really did not know that this was borrowed thunder, and a.s.suredly the Kosnovians did not care. Already his utterances were being retailed with gusto. Before night, every adult inhabitant of Delgratz was likening their marvelous King, fallen from the skies, to a drum that should summon the Serbs to found the Empire of their dreams.

He was asked if he would not order the Seventh Regiment to evacuate the Black Castle so that he might take up his quarters there.

"There is no hurry," he said. "The place needs cleaning."

A review of the troops stationed in other parts of the capital was arranged for the afternoon in the beautiful park that crowns the promontory formed by the two rivers, and it was suggested that he should drive thither in the President's carriage.

"I would prefer to ride," said he. "Then the people and I can see one another."

A number of horses were brought from the late King's stables and Alec selected a white Arab stallion that seemed to have mettle and be up to weight. Soldiers and civilians exchanged underlooks at the choice.

Selim was the last horse ridden by the ill fated Theodore, and, after the manner of Arabs, he had stumbled on the level roadway and the royal equestrian was thrown.

During the procession, while pa.s.sing through the densely packed Wa.s.sina-st., Selim stumbled again and was promptly pulled back almost on his haunches. At that very instant a revolver was fired from the crowd and a bullet flattened itself on the opposite wall. The would-be a.s.sa.s.sin was seized instantly, a hundred hands were ready to tear him to shreds, when the King's white horse suddenly pranced into the midst of the press. Grasping the man by the neck, Alec drew him free by main force.

"Kill him!" yelled the mob.

"No," cried Alec, "we will put him in the recruits' squad and teach him how to shoot!"

Throughout a long day he displayed a whole hearted abandonment to the joy of finding himself accepted by the people as their ruler that did more than a year's session of the a.s.sembly to endear him to them; but the seal of national approval was conferred by his action next day, when news came that Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir was a prisoner at Semlin!

Naturally, the telegraph wires had thrilled Europe during every hour after ten o'clock on Thursday morning, but the thrills felt in Germany, Russia, and Turkey were supplemented by agonized squirming on the part of official Austria. That an upstart, a masquerader, a mountebank of a King, should actually have traversed Austria from west to east, without ever a soul cased in uniform knowing anything about him, was ill to endure, and the minions of Kosnovia's truculent neighbor swore mighty oaths that no bottle holder from Paris or elsewhere should be allowed to follow. So Lord Adalbert Beaumanoir was watched from Pa.s.sau to Maria Theresiopel, and telegrams flew over the face of the land, and Alec's British ally was hauled from the train at Semlin soon after dawn Friday.

Captain Drakovitch, anxious to atone for his prying of the previous day, brought circ.u.mstantial details to his Majesty Alexis III., who was breakfasting with Nesimir, Stampoff, and Ministers of State. There could be no doubting Beaumanoir's ident.i.ty, since his baggage was on the train, and Drakovitch had made sure of his facts before hurrying to the President's house.

"Has Austria any right to arrest a British subject merely because he wishes to enter Kosnovia?" asked Alec, looking round at the a.s.sembled gray-heads.

"None whatever," said Nesimir.

"It is an outrage," puffed the War Minister.

"She would not dare act in that way on any other frontier!" cried he of the Interior.

"What, then, is to be done?" demanded the King.

"Make the most emphatic protest to Vienna," came the chorus.

"Through the usual diplomatic channels?"

"Yes--of course."

"But that means leaving my friend in prison for an indefinite period."

Eloquent shrugs expressed complete agreement.

"Has it been the habit of Kosnovia to accept tamely such treatment at the hands of Austria?" inquired Alec, looking at the President.