The Illustrious Prince Part 52

"Don't you understand?" she continued breathlessly. "Don't you see how horrible it is? They mean to arrest you for the murder of Hamilton Fynes and d.i.c.ky Vanderpole!"

"If this must be so," the Prince answered, "why do they not come? I am here."

"But you must not stay here!" she exclaimed. "You must escape! It is too terrible to think that you should--oh, I can't say it!--that you should have to face these charges. If you are guilty, well, Heaven help you!--If you are guilty, I want you to escape all the same!"

He looked at her with the puzzled air of one who tries to reason with a child.

"Dear Miss Penelope," he said, "this is kind of you, but, after all, remember that I am a man, and I must not run away."

"But you cannot meet these charges!" she interrupted. "You cannot meet them! You know it! Oh, don't think I can't appreciate your point of view! If you killed those men, you killed them to obtain papers which you believed were necessary for the welfare of your country. Oh, it is not I who judge you! You did not do it, I know, for your own gain. You did it because you are, heart and soul, a patriot. But here, alas! they do not understand. Their whole standpoint is different. They will judge you as they would a common criminal. You must fly,--you must, indeed!"

"Dear Miss Penelope," he said, "I cannot do that! I cannot run away like a thief in the dark. If this thing is to come, it must come."

"But you don't understand!" she continued, wringing her hands. "You think because you are a great prince and a prince of a friendly nation that the law will treat you differently. It will not! They have talked of it downstairs. You are not formally attached to any one in this country. You are not even upon the staff of the Emba.s.sy. You are here on a private mission as a private person, and there is no way in which the Government can intervene, even if it would. You are subject to its laws and you have broken them. For Heaven's sake, fly! You have your motor car here. Let your man drive you to Southampton and get on board the j.a.panese cruiser. You mustn't wait a single moment. I believe that tomorrow morning will be too late!"

He took her hands in his very tenderly and yet with something of reverence in his gesture. He looked into her eyes and he spoke very earnestly. Every word seemed to come from his heart.

"Dear Miss Penelope," he said, "it is very, very kind of you to have come here and warned me. Only you cannot quite understand what this thing means to me. Remember what I told you once. Life and death to your people in this country seem to be the greatest things which the mind of man can hold. It is not so with us. We are brought up differently. In a worthy cause a true j.a.panese is ready to take death by the hand at any moment. So it is with me now. I have no regret. Even if I had, even if life were a garden of roses for me, what is ordained must come. A little sooner or a little later, it makes no matter."

She sank on her knees before him.

"Can't you understand why I am here?" she cried pa.s.sionately. "It was I who told of the silken cord and knife!"

He was wholly unmoved. He even smiled, as though the thing were of no moment.

"It was right that you should do so," he declared. "You must not reproach yourself with that."

"But I do! I do!" she cried again. "I always shall! Don't you understand that if you stay here they will treat you--"

He interrupted, laying his hand gently upon her shoulder.

"Dear young lady," he said, "you need never fear that I shall wait for the touch of your men of law. Death is too easily won for that. If the end which you have spoken of comes, there is another way--another house of rest which I can reach."

She rose slowly to her feet. The absolute serenity of his manner bespoke an impregnability of purpose before which the words died away on her lips. She realized that she might as well plead with the dead!

"You do not mind," he whispered, "if I tell you that you must not stay here any longer?"

He led her toward the door. Upon the threshold he took her cold fingers into his hand and kissed them reverently.

"Do not be too despondent," he said. "I have a star somewhere which burns for me. Tonight I have been looking for it. It is there still," he added, pointing to the wide open window. "It is there, undimmed, clearer and brighter than ever. I have no fear."

She pa.s.sed away without looking up again. The Prince listened to her footsteps dying away in the corridor. Then he closed the door, and, entering his bedroom, undressed himself and slept...

When Prince Maiyo awoke on the following morning, the sunshine was streaming into the room, and his grave-faced valet was standing over his bed.

"His Highness' bath is ready," he announced.

The Prince dressed quickly and was first in the pleasant morning room, with its open windows leading on to the terrace. He strolled outside and wandered amongst the flower beds. Here he was found, soon afterwards, by the Duke's valet.

"Your Highness," the latter said, "His Grace has sent me to look for you. He would be glad if you could spare him a moment or two in the library."

The Prince followed the man to the room where his host was waiting for him. The Duke, with his hands behind his back, was pacing restlessly up and down the apartment.

"Good morning, Duke," the Prince said cheerfully. "Another of your wonderful spring mornings. Upon the terrace the sun is almost hot. Soon I shall begin to fancy that the perfume of your spring flowers is the perfume of almond and cherry blossom."

"Prince," the Duke said quietly, "I have sent for you as your host. I speak to you now unofficially, as an Englishman to his guest. I have been besieged through the night, and even this morning, with incomprehensible messages which come to me from those who administer the law in this country. Prince, I want you to remember that however effete you may find us as a nation from your somewhat romantic point of view, we have at least realized the highest ideals any nation has ever conceived in the administration of the law. n.o.bleman and pauper here are judged alike. If their crime is the same, their punishment is the same.

There is no man in this country who is strong enough to arrest the hand of justice."

The Prince bowed.

"My dear Duke," he said, "it has given me very much pleasure, in the course of my investigations, to realize the truth of what you have just said. I agree with you entirely. You could teach us in j.a.pan a great lesson on the fearless administration of the law. Now in some other countries--"

"Never mind those other countries," the Duke interrupted gravely. "I did not send for you to enter into an academic discussion. I want you clearly to understand how I am placed, supposing a distinguished member of my household--supposing even you, Prince Maiyo--were to come within the arm of the law. Even the great claims of hospitality would leave me powerless."

"This," the Prince admitted, "I fully apprehend. It is surely reasonable that the stranger in your country should be subject to your laws."

"Very well, then," the Duke continued. "Listen to me, Prince. This morning a London magistrate will grant what is called a search warrant which will enable the police to search, from attic to cellar, your house in St. James' Square. An Inspector from Scotland Yard will be there this afternoon awaiting your return, and he believes that he has witnesses who will be able to identify you as one who has broken the laws of this country. I ask you no questions. There is the telephone on the table.

My eighty-horse-power Daimler is at the door and at your service. I understand that your cruiser in Southampton Harbor is always under steam. If there is anything more, in reason, that I can do, you have only to speak." The Prince shook his head slowly.

"Duke," he said, "please send away your car, unless it will take me to London quicker than my own. What I have done I have done, and for what I have done I will pay."

The Duke laid his hands upon the young man's shoulders and looked down into his face. The Duke was over six feet high, and broad in proportion.

Before him the Prince seemed almost like a boy.

"Maiyo," he said, "we have grown fond of you,--my wife, my daughter, all of us. We don't want harm to come to you, but there is the American Amba.s.sador watching all the time. Already he more than half suspects.

For our sakes, Prince,--come, I will say for the sake of those who are grateful to you for your candor and truthfulness, for the lessons you have tried to teach us,--make use of my car. You will reach Southampton in half an hour."

The Prince shook his head. His lips had parted in what was certainly a smile. At the corners they quivered, a little tremulous.

"My dear friend," he said, and his voice had softened almost to affection, "you do not quite understand. You look upon the things which may come from your point of view and not from mine. Remember that, to your philosophy, life itself is the greatest thing born into the world.

To us it is the least. If you would do me a service, please see that I am able to start for London in half an hour."

CHAPTER x.x.xIV. BANZAI!

It was curious how the Prince's sudden departure seemed to affect almost every member of the little house party. At first it had been arranged that the Duke, Mr. Haviland, Sir Edward Bransome, and the Prince should leave in the former's car, the Prince's following later with the luggage. Then the d.u.c.h.ess, whose eyes had filled with tears more than once after her whispered conversation with her husband, announced that she, too, must go to town. Lady Grace insisted upon accompanying her, and Penelope reminded them that she was already dressed for travelling and that, in any case, she meant to be one of the party. Before ten o'clock they were all on their way to London.

The Prince sat side by side with Lady Grace, the other two occupants of the car being the Duke himself and Mr. Haviland. No one seemed in the least inclined for conversation. The Duke and Mr. Haviland exchanged a few remarks, but Lady Grace, leaning back in her seat, her features completely obscured by a thick veil, declined to talk to any one. The Prince seemed to be the only one who made any pretence at enjoying the beauty of the spring morning, who seemed even to be aware of the warm west wind, the occasional perfume of the hedgeside violets, and the bluebells which stretched like a carpet in and out of the belts of wood.

Lady Grace's eyes, from beneath her veil, scarcely once left his face.

Perhaps, she thought, these things were merely allegorical to him.

Perhaps his eyes, fixed so steadfastly upon the distant horizon, were not, as it seemed, following the graceful outline of that grove of dark green pine trees, but were indeed searching back into the corners of his life, measuring up the good and evil of it, asking the eternal question--was it worth while?

In the other car, too, silence reigned. Somerfield was the only one who struggled against the general air of depression.

"After all," he remarked to Bransome, "I don't see what we're all so blue about. If Scotland Yard are right, and the Prince is really the guilty person they imagine him, I cannot see what sympathy he deserves.

Of course, they look upon this sort of thing more lightly in his own country, but, after all, he was no fool. He knew his risks."

Penelope spoke for the first time since they had left Devenham.