Every Girl's Library Part 24

"I'll run you through."

"I'll cut your throat."

"I'll blow your brains out."

"I'll knock your head off."

"I'll send a friend to you in the morning."

"I'll send a bullet into you in the afternoon."

"We'll meet again," says Giglio, shaking his fist in Bulbo's face; and seizing up the warming-pan, he kissed it, because, forsooth, Betsinda had carried it, and rushed down-stairs. What should he see on the landing but his Majesty talking to Betsinda, whom he called by all sorts of fond names. His Majesty had heard the row in the building, so he stated, and smelling something burning, had come out to see what the matter was.

"It's the young gentlemen smoking perhaps, sir," says Betsinda.

"Charming chambermaid," says the King (like all the rest of them), "never mind the young men! Turn thy eyes on a middle-aged autocrat, who has been considered not ill-looking in his time."

"Oh, sir! what will her Majesty say?" cries Betsinda.

"Her Majesty!" laughs the monarch. "Her Majesty be hanged! Am I not Autocrat of Paflagonia? Have I not blocks, ropes, axes, hangmen--ha?

Runs not a river by my palace wall? Have I not sacks to sew up wives withal? Say but the word, that thou wilt be mine own,--your mistress straightway in a sack is sewn, and thou the sharer of my heart and throne."

When Giglio heard these atrocious sentiments he forgot the respect usually paid to Royalty, lifted up the warming-pan, and knocked down the King as flat as a pancake; after which, Master Giglio took to his heels and ran away, and Betsinda went off screaming, and the Queen, Gruffanuff, and the Princess, all came out of their rooms. Fancy their feelings on beholding husband, father, sovereign, in this posture.

As soon as the coals began to burn him, the King came to himself and stood up. "Ho! my Captain of the Guards!" his Majesty exclaimed, stamping his royal foot with rage. O piteous spectacle! the King's nose was bent quite crooked by the blow of Prince Giglio! His Majesty ground his teeth with rage. "Hedzoff," he said, taking a death-warrant out of his dressing-gown pocket,--"Hedzoff, good Hedzoff, seize upon the Prince. Thou'lt find him in his chamber two pair up. But now he dared, with sacrilegious hand, to strike the sacred night-cap of a king--Hedzoff, and floor me with a warming-pan! Away, no more demur, the villain dies! See it be done, or else--h'm!--h'm--h'm! mind thine own eyes!" And followed by the ladies, and lifting up the tails of his dressing-gown, the King entered his own apartment.

Captain Hedzoff was very much affected, having a sincere love for Giglio. "Poor, poor Giglio!" he said, the tears rolling over his manly face, and dripping down his moustaches. "My n.o.ble young Prince, is it my hand must lead thee to death?"

"Lead him to fiddlestick, Hedzoff," said a female voice. It was Gruffanuff, who had come out in her dressing-gown when she heard the noise. "The King said you were to hang the Prince. Well, hang the Prince."

"I don't understand you," said Hedzoff, who was not a very clever man.

"You Gaby! he didn't say _which_ Prince," said Gruffanuff.

"No; he didn't say which, certainly," says Hedzoff.

"Well, then, take Bulbo, and hang _him_!"

When Captain Hedzoff heard this, he began to dance about for joy.

"Obedience is a soldier's honour," says he. "Prince Bulbo's head will do capitally;" and he went to arrest the Prince the very first thing, next morning.

He knocked at the door. "Who's there?" says Bulbo. "Captain Hedzoff?

Step in, pray, my good Captain; I'm delighted to see you; I have been expecting you."

"Have you?" says Hedzoff.

"Sleibootz, my Chamberlain, will act for me," says the Prince.

"I beg your Royal Highness' pardon, but you will have to act for yourself, and it's a pity to wake Baron Sleibootz."

The Prince Bulbo still seemed to take the matter very coolly. "Of course, Captain," says he, "you are come about that affair with Prince Giglio?"

"Precisely," says Hedzoff, "that affair of Prince Giglio."

"Is it to be pistols, or swords, Captain?" asks Bulbo. "I'm a pretty good hand with both, and I'll do for Prince Giglio as sure as my name is my Royal Highness Prince Bulbo."

"There's some mistake, my lord," says the Captain. "The business is done with _axes_ among us."

"Axes? That's sharp work," says Bulbo. "Call my Chamberlain, he'll be my second, and in ten minutes I flatter myself you'll see Master Giglio's head off his impertinent shoulders. I'm hungry for his blood.

Hoo-oo-aw!" and he looked as savage as an ogre.

"I beg your pardon, sir, but by this warrant I am to take you prisoner, and hand you over to--to the executioner."

"Pooh, pooh, my good man!--Stop, I say,--ho!--hulloa!" was all that this luckless Prince was enabled to say: for Hedzoff's guards seizing him tied a handkerchief over his mouth and face, and carried him to the place of execution.

The King, who happened to be talking to Glumboso, saw him pa.s.s, and took a pinch of snuff, and said, "So much for Giglio. Now let's go to breakfast."

The Captain of the Guard handed over his prisoner to the Sheriff, with the fatal order,

"AT SIGHT CUT OFF THE BEARER'S HEAD.

"VALOROSO XXIV."

"It's a mistake," says Bulbo, who did not seem to understand the business in the least.

"Poo--poo--pooh," says the Sheriff. "Fetch Jack Ketch instantly. Jack Ketch!"

And poor Bulbo was led to the scaffold, where an executioner with a block and a tremendous axe was always ready in case he should be wanted.

But we must now revert to Giglio and Betsinda.

Gruffanuff, who had seen what had happened with the King, and knew that Giglio must come to grief, got up very early the next morning, and went to devise some plans for rescuing her darling husband, as the silly old thing insisted on calling him. She found him walking up and down the garden, thinking of a rhyme for Betsinda (_tinder_ and _winda_ were all he could find), and indeed having forgotten all about the past evening, except that Betsinda was the most lovely of beings.

"Well, dear Giglio?" says Gruff.

"Well, dear Gruffy?" says Giglio, only _he_ was quite satirical.

"I have been thinking, darling, what you must do in this sc.r.a.pe. You must fly the country for awhile."

"What sc.r.a.pe?--fly the country? Never without her I love, Countess,"

says Giglio.

"No, she will accompany you, dear Prince," she says in her most coaxing accents. "First, we must get the jewels belonging to our royal parents, and those of her and his present Majesty. Here is the key, duck; they are all yours, you know, by right, for you are the rightful King of Paflagonia, and your wife will be the rightful Queen of Paflagonia."

"Will she?" says Giglio.

"Yes, and having got the jewels, go to Glumboso's apartment, where, under his bed, you will find sacks containing money to the amount of 217,000,000,987,439 13_s._ 6-1/2_d._, all belonging to you, for he took it out of your royal father's room on the day of his death. With this we will fly."

"_We_ will fly?" says Giglio.