King John of Jingalo Part 47

There was a hint of discretion in the man's tone.

"Ah, yes," said the King, "to be sure--yes. Tell him to stop at the park gates."

The inspector, saluting, gave the required direction, and the cab drove off. Arriving a few minutes later at his destination, the King got out, and pa.s.sed in through the gates.

The palace was now shrouded in gloom; only in the guard-room, within the high-railed quadrangle, a light still burned. Dimly through the night a sentry could be seen pacing up and down.

By a subconscious instinct the King was returning along the same route that he had come. Only as he approached the postern in the wall did it occur to him that it would almost certainly be locked; and yet for no other door had he a key. Attended constantly by servants, and leading a scrupulously regular life, requiring neither secret pa.s.sages nor late hours, he had never possessed a latch-key of his own.

How, then, was he to get in now without attracting attention?

Having come so far, however, he went forward on chance and tested the door. The attendant policeman was no longer there, the road-lamp had been turned low, giving only a glimmer.

He tried the handle, but found that it would not respond. A figure glided forward and inserted a key. "Allow me, sir," came the inspector's voice.

"You?" exclaimed the King, surprised.

"It was my duty to see your Majesty safe home."

"Very kind of you, I'm sure." He pa.s.sed in, and the inspector followed.

"Pardon me for asking, sir. Was this the way your Majesty came out?"

"Yes."

"Ah, that accounts for it! We never thought of your Majesty coming this way, and the man put here was only on beat, not on point duty."

"He was here when I came out," said the King.

"He did not report, sir."

"Are they all bound to?"

"Oh, yes, sir, of course we have to know."

The King smiled. "I suppose he did not recognize me. Remember, I was not quite myself."

"All the same, sir, he should have known. It's what he is trained for."

The King's surprise grew. "I never guessed that I had to be guarded like this."

"Of course, sir, we try to keep it out of sight as much as possible. It isn't pleasant always to feel yourself watched."

"I make you my compliments," said the King; "I had not the remotest idea. Whereabouts are we now?"

The walls of the palace loomed black above them; the night was dark.

"Small stair entrance on the north side, sir. If your Majesty is without a key----"

"I have no key at all."

"Then kindly allow me, sir." And again to the inspector's pa.s.s-key a door opened.

The King entered, and the inspector still accompanied him. "There may be others locked inside," he said, by way of explanation.

They pa.s.sed through a short corridor and ascended stairs; a small electric pocket-lamp of the inspector's showing them the way. Three doors he unfastened in turn. Having opened the last he switched on the light, then respectfully drew back, presuming to come no further. "This is where your Majesty's private apartments begin," said he; an indication that his task as conductor was over.

"Ah, yes," replied the King, "now at last I know where I am. Till this moment I felt myself a stranger. I have to thank you, Mr. Inspector, for the kind way in which you have done me the honors of my own house; and,"

he added, "of the police-station."

"I am very sorry, sir, that any such thing should have happened. I can promise it won't occur again."

"No," said the King, smiling, "I suppose not. But pray do not be sorry!

I have seldom spent a more interesting time; or--thanks to you and others--had more things given me to think about."

The inspector did not reply; he stood looking down, pensive and resigned--tired, perhaps, now that the anxieties of the last few hours were over.

"Good-night," said the King.

"Good-night, sir," replied the inspector. He withdrew and the King heard him locking the door after him.

II

The King went into his study, turned on a light, and sat down. He had, as he had told his guide, many things to think about. It was no use going to bed, for he knew that he could not sleep.

These last few hours had been the most wonderful, and the most crowded--yes, quite literally the most crowded--that he had ever experienced. At last he had really taken part in the life of his people, and had come into direct contact with things very diverse and contradictory, representing the popular will. He had talked with street urchins, and visionaries, had rubbed shoulders with men of brutal habit and vile character,--with knaves, cowards, fools; he had been shut up with drunkards and pickpockets, policemen's thumbs had left bruises upon his arms, and all his mind was one great bruise from the bureaucratic police system which had him fast within its grip.

Now at last he knew that he knew nothing; for only now did he realize it. To what was going on outside his ears had been stopped with official lies; morally, intellectually, and physically he was a prisoner, just as much as when, to the cry of "Old Goggles," from a jeering crowd, he had marched captive to the police-station. He knew now that even his private life was watched and spied on--always, of course, with the most benevolent intentions. This was the price he paid for modern kingship; and what was it all worth?

Out of his pocket he drew a small sheet of crumpled paper. In order to get this to him, a poor, timid woman had gone out into a raging crowd, had borne its brutality for hours, and then, a piteous bundle of broken nerves, had by sheer accident accomplished that which hundreds of others, braver, abler, more confident, and more deserving, had tried to do and failed. Morally this small slip of paper had upon it the blood, and the tears, the sweat, the agony, and the despair of all the rest; and only by accident had he ever come to know of it!

Here, almost within a stone's throw of his palace, he had seen something taking place which to-morrow the papers would deride, and of which the official world would deny him all cognizance. Whether these women had truly a grievance, any just and reasonable cause for complaint, he did not know. But he knew now that, with the most desperate earnestness and conviction, that was their belief, and that in getting their pet.i.tion to his hands they saw the beginning of a remedy.

He spread out the paper before him, and for the first time read the words--

"Humbly showeth that by your Majesty's Ministers law and justice are delayed, and prayeth that your Gracious Majesty will so order and govern that your faithful subjects' grievances may forthwith be sought and inquired into, and remedy granted thereto by Act of Parliament. And your pet.i.tioners will ever pray."

That was all. What the grievances might be was not stated. He knew that to hear argument for or against a given case was outside the functions of the Crown; but he knew equally well that to order inquiry to be made lay still within his right, though every minister in the Cabinet except one would seek to deny it to him. And so he sat looking at the crumpled sheet which meant so much to so many thousands of lives; and slowly the night went by.

Long before the first chitter of awakening birds, and before the first hint of light had crept into the east, he heard outside the slow stir of the city's life breaking back from short uneasy slumber. With stiffened limbs he got up from his chair, for the room had grown cold and his body ached with all the strain and exertion it had so recently undergone.

Slowly he moved off towards his own sleeping apartment, in case the Queen, when she awoke, should send to inquire after him. And on his way, as a short cut, he crossed the minstrel gallery, which divided one from the other the two state drawing-rooms,--a broad half-story colonnade, with central opening and corners draped into shade.

Halfway across this elevation he paused to look down into the vast chamber below. At some point among its chandeliers burned a small pinhole of light that revealed in a strange dimness various forms of furniture, showing monstrous and uncouth in their night attire.

Night-gowns rather than pajamas seemed the general wear; only a few legs were to be seen. In this, its sleeping aspect, the place was certainly more harmonious and more chaste than by day; mirrors and pictures loomed from the white walls with a mystery that would disappear when the l.u.s.ters contained their light; and the King lingered to take in the pleasant strangeness of it all, and to wonder what was this new quality which so attracted him.

As he did so his ear caught from without a faint reverberation of m.u.f.fled sound; even and regular in its beat, it drew near.