The King of Alsander Part 29

"Why did you shoot at him?" said the King, looking again out of his window, dimly comprehending what had happened. "Leave him, my Queen: he is surely my faithful knight who delivered me from the dragon."

But the sound of the shot had its effect. The square was full of eyes and ears. Hundreds saw from their hiding-places how the false King with only four men about him, had come out intending, as they thought, to kill the true King, and they surmised that the great heroine, the divine Peronella, for whom they were ready to die a thousand deaths, was in danger. And they also observed, in quick whispers, one to another, that if the Englishman were in the square the cannon could not be fired at them for fear of killing him too. Also they were beginning to realize that no one had been hurt by the last firing of the said cannon, and one voluble fellow swore that to his personal knowledge the cannons were only what he called salute cannons, and there was no ammunition in the Castle. These several considerations ran in whispers from mouth to mouth and fanned the flickering courage of the Legitimists, and, a thousand to eight, they rushed back into the square they had so speedily deserted ten minutes ago with a shout of triumph. Seeing the deadly peril of their master and the impossibility of using their cannon effectively, the Palace Guards instantly made a sortie under the command of the old Captain, and in a few seconds a savage fight was raging all round the statue of Kradenda.

Peronella, s.n.a.t.c.hed away from the guardsman who had disarmed her by the rude hands of pa.s.sionate rescuers, was born aloft, waving in her hand, in place of the ravished revolver, a frantic, b.l.o.o.d.y sword wherewith the gallant Cesano, with a mighty sweep, had just slashed off the arm of one of the guards. The odds for the moment were tremendous against the Palace. There were only ten men left to guard the door, which could not be shut for fear of barring the escape of the others; and fifty other guards were pushing their way towards Norman and his supporters--an all but hopeless task--for even their discipline and superior weapons were useless against a mad mob of a thousand men.

But a diversion came from an unexpected quarter. The tumult had strangely affected Andrea and strange phantoms were dancing down the crooked corridors of his mind. For him the noise of the sorry tumult became the noise of his battle, and the pushing, shuffling throng behind him were his trampling warriors serried in their thousands. He remembered his ancestry and heard the voice of him who was called Iron.

Brave words from old and musty books fanned the sleeping fires of his manhood; lovely forms of long dead women, memories of tattered tapestries and dim old paintings sailed before his dazzled, visionary eyes. But clearest and fairest he saw, as it were, amongst all those phantoms one figure--pa.s.sionately real--the figure of Peronella waving her bloodstained sword. Why had they taken her away? The enemy had taken her, and she was calling to him for aid. He could not but obey the summons of her distressed beauty, perfect knight of chivalry that he was.

"At them, my men!" he cried. "Save the Queen! Follow me!"

And he leapt out of his couch, tugging at the sword wherewith the conspirators had adorned him, lest he should be too pitiable a sight, even for loyalists. It had been fastened into its scabbard for security, but wrenching scabbard and all from his belt he dealt such a shattering blow on the head of the nearest bystander that the scabbard flew off along a jet of blood, and in an instant the King was dealing round him madly with his naked sword. Three of his loyal subjects became martyrs to their cause by mistake before anyone could realize danger: others fled before him; In another second he would have clasped Peronella in his arms, but her attendant swains bore her to safety behind the great statue of Kradenda, which stood proudly in the centre of the square, above all the turmoil.

The King saw an old helmeted warrior thrice the size of life, standing between him and his beloved. He knew not it was his ancestor, suspected not that it was stone. He dealt the statue a furious blow with his sword, and his sword fell shattered at his feet. He leapt on to the statue and clutched it round the neck. It fell over him. In one ma.s.s on the ground, all crushed and broken, lay together the statue of Kradenda and the body of Andrea.

Thus, in the temporary realization of the chivalrous ideal, his shattered sword stained with foolish blood, was Andrea the Mad, for nine years King of Alsander, killed by the statue of his celebrated ancestor.

And as to what madness is, and whether we are mad and they are sane, that is a long discussion, but it is certain that it is an ill thing for the sane to rule the mad, or the mad the sane. And it is known that there was a light of glory and happiness shining in Andrea's eyes at the moment of his death such as none of us will ever show when we look into the mouth of the pit: and it may be his life was well worth while, to attain that moment.

However, this strange incident and the very detonation of the statue's fall, seemed only to incite the fury of the mob. With a blind rush they surrounded Norman's little company, thereby cutting them off hopelessly from the thirty or forty Palace Guards who were pa.s.sionately struggling to the rescue. Had the crowd been properly armed, Norman and his friends would have been annihilated at once: but fortunately only a few of the populace had revolvers and the rest, equipped only with mattocks and stones, took good care to keep out of range of the swords of the guardsmen, and dreaded still more than those circling swords the unpleasantly quick and accurate automatic pistols with which the Palace fought. Moreover, Norman's band had gained great heart from the gallant behaviour of the little wizened Ca.s.solis and four other members of the Advancement a.s.sociation who, not being known partic.i.p.ants of the conspiracy, pushed their way through the seething ma.s.ses to the King's side, and on their arrival suddenly whipped out their revolvers and fired point plank at the a.s.sailants.[1]

But the respite was a short one; the mult.i.tude seemed to swell above them like a monstrous wave. Stones wrenched from the cobbled ground hailed round the devoted band, stray bullets pinged and splashed on the pedestal of the fallen statue against which, above the very body of Andrea, they had set their backs for a last stand. At all events they were, in the old phrase, selling their lives dearly. Of the bodies that lay around them they constructed a bleeding and quivering rampart, on the summit of which one of the guards, wounded to death, heroically laid himself to die.

It was now that Vorza, with that popular heroine Peronella at his side, rallied his forces for a vigorous onset, and the reactionary statesman, espying the swarthy head of Sforelli towering over the fight, screamed out in a pa.s.sion, "Cut down that cowardly Jew!"

"I'll give you cowardly Jew!" roared Sforelli in answer, and rushing out from behind that crimson fleshy fortification of theirs he flung through the crowd straight at their startled leader. All fell back in terror from his mad attack. Sforelli reached his goal in a flash and seized Vorza lightly as it seemed by the shoulders. The next instant all that statesmanship went hurtling over the heads of the crowd; and the next, that brain, which had furnished so much valuable counsel to the citizens of Alsander, was spilt over the stony floor. Norman, for all his astonishment, realized in a flash at the same moment what master of the art had taught the frail Princess the trick that had once laid him low on the floor of the curiosity shop, a woman's victim.

But the wrestler's skill could no further avail Sforelli; he paid for his vengeance with his life. He fell, literally bashed to death, and his excellent soul, released from the unprepossessing body, descended to whatever dark abode is destined for the disciples of Voltaire, at the very moment that Vorza's (for Vorza never stirred again) was carried off by angels.

Death, shame to tell, did not rescue the doctor's battered body from the insults of the populace, and among that evil populace conspicuous was Peronella, delirious at the sight of pain and blood, like other fighting women of history of whom record tells. Cesano saw with horror her dripping arms and the vile glitter in her eyes. Good honest fellow that he was, beneath all his extravagances, he feared for her reason and was ashamed for her womanhood. Little did that lover care at that moment for foolish Conspiracy, or the leaderless crowd that gaped around him: he seized Peronella, swung her roughly from the ground and bore her out of the fray.

Short enough was the relief which the spectacular death of the opposing leader afforded to the Palace, but a relief it was. For a full minute's s.p.a.ce the shepherdless rabble recoiled, and the now decimated party of the Palace Guards, fighting their way towards the centre of the square, took heart of grace. Heavily they laid on around them, with much hacking and hewing at hands and heads and frequent hamstringing of their terrified adversaries. Blood rained down from their swords like heavy snow melting from the trees in early spring. But before they had made twenty yards of headway the courage and fanatic zeal of Father Algio had rendered even this great effort vain. Raising a silver cross on high he called "Vengeance for the King" with such fury that the whole crowd took up the shout and a deafening "Vengeance" boomed over the square like a blast of the North wind. Those who surrounded the fiery-eyed old priest made a dash at the ghastly barricade and began tearing it down. Then indeed Norman, thrice wounded, gasping, slipping on blood and tattered flesh, expected the sudden darkness; and in his extremity, as though to reply to, the crowd's yell for vengeance, he could not but cry aloud the name that for him evoked all the joy of living. Fiercely enough his followers took up the cry, shouting, with uplifted swords, "Ianthe and for Ianthe!" making the name of their Lady ring and ring out again with all the pa.s.sion of men about to die.

Suddenly, at that very minute, with such weird effect that some of the little band dreamt they had died already, there pealed through the Castle square what seemed the enchanted answer of their shouting, not that savage cry of vengeance, but a yet stranger, a yet wilder tumult,--the blowing of a hundred horns with rattling hoof-beats to mark the measure. And forthwith from the great North Road poured into the square at full gallop, their horses foaming and steaming, a troop of cavalry in the radiant panoply of the Royal Alsandrian Frontier Guard.

In the hush caused by their astounding entry their burly colonel put up a megaphone and bawled, "Cease fire in the name of the Princess! All fighting to cease!" However, without waiting for this command to take effect the troopers laid on with their long whips and drove back the rabble to one corner of the square, at the same time forming guard round Norman and their fellow soldiers of the Palace.

The Englishman and his followers leant back half dead against the blood-stained marble, stunned by this deliverance, too weak to ask one question of their rescuers. And then down into the midst of the square towards them, escorted by one whom many knew to be the old Count Arnolfo, on a great glistening black horse, rode the Princess Ianthe.

"And where," she cried, "is the King of Alsander?" and at the very moment of her asking her eyes lighted full on Norman.

She was bronze helmeted, a very Athena, and dressed in the gold and green uniform of the Alsandrian Riders, but it was Ianthe the woman who commanded the square, calling for her King. Her face indeed still looked boyish enough, with her hair half hidden by the flashing helmet; and her young body looked so slim in the handsome uniform that it might well have been a lad's. The large dark eyes, aglow with intelligence, had dominated the face of the boy; but as she caught sight of Norman she smiled gently: and it was the strange smiling of her perfect mouth that revealed Ianthe an enchantress among women. That smile, which da Vinci caught years ago and fixed in a picture whose destiny has proved as restless as its charm--the smile of the boy-like Renaissance women--of the women who knew art and history and secrets beautiful and tragic which have perished with their smiles--such a smile played over the face of Ianthe as she bent her eyes down to her wounded lover, leaning wearily on his dripping sword. And he, looking up, saw in amaze the new apparition of her splendour--that special and rare beauty of a woman whose life is ruled by pa.s.sionate intelligence: and he cried out, "O Queen of Alsander!" and as she dismounted flung his sword on the ground before her.

Seeing this parley of the Princess and the Impostor some of the bewildered crowd murmured, and one man shouted, "The King of Alsander is lying dead at your feet!"

"Ah!" muttered Ianthe, shuddering as she looked at the staring head beneath her, "is that Andrea? That my kinsman?"

"He fought with the statue till it fell on him and slew him," explained Ca.s.solis briefly. "Sforelli killed Vorza and himself perished, and your Majesty is now by undisputed t.i.tle Queen of Alsander."

"If Vorza is dead who leads this mob?" inquired the grey old Count Arnolfo.

"A fanatic priest," some one replied.

"Bring him before us," the Count commanded.

He came before them, cross in hand, a black cowled, black frocked, frost bearded old monk with mad blue eyes, and before anyone had spoken, he flung himself on his knees before Ianthe.

"Queen of Alsander," he cried, pointing to Norman, "if this man was known to you, was crowned with your connivance, has been fighting in your name, why did you not tell your faithful people of Alsander?"

"And why," rejoined the Princess in clear tones that could be heard all over the square, "when you and your friends discovered that the King was not Andrea, did you send no word to me, but, without the authority of the Royal Family of Alsander, plotted by yourselves like anarchists?"

"And why," said Norman, "did you, again like anarchists, send no summons to the Palace, but, without formally demanding my abdication, set your rabble on me and my followers like a pack of starving curs? It had been arranged that on an emergency you should have been told the truth. But you gave us no chance, and the blood of my brave men and of those poor fools and of your King himself is on the heads of your conspirators."

"There is but one answer to your question and you know it," said old Count Arnolfo, "and that is that Vorza your dead leader was a traitor, an ambitious traitor, and a vile traitor!"

But the Princess cut them short. "Set me on the pedestal where stood the statue of my ancestor," she cried, "and the King beside me. Thence I will address Alsander!" And on to the pedestal she sprang with easy grace, but the King, for all that an old soldier had roughly staunched his wounds, had to be lifted, weak and fainting, to her side. "Courage, my lover," she whispered, as she bent to raise him. "Do I forget that you are wounded, that you are weary? But stand up now for the sake of Alsander, and for a moment face these simple folk with me."

Straight and stiff he stood and deadly pale, leaning on her arm while she in ringing tones spake to her people.

"I," she said, "since the King Andrea is dead, am by divine right and undisputed t.i.tle Queen of Alsander. From you who, without deigning to consult me, have fought for the divine right of my house, utter obedience and submission I expect. I do as I choose, I say as I choose, I dispose of Alsander as I choose, and I make King thereof the man I choose, and that King is at my side. If he is a foreigner so was the great Kradenda: if he is of lowly birth, so, too, was that founder of all Alsander's fortune, in the place of whose monument, destroyed by and destroyer of my unhappy kinsmen, we now stand together. May the omen which was disastrous for him be propitious for us! Now you may know that this very night will be celebrated in the Castle privately, out of respect for my dead kinsman, my union with the already consecrated King whom you have tried so savagely to kill. And expect no further excuse or explanation from me; for you have behaved like fools, O people of Alsander, and had I not been warned just in time of what was brewing by the only loyal man in your conspiracy, irreparable disaster would have befallen the State. And now my soldiers will guard and prepare for interment with all honour the remains of King Andrea, of that good patriot Sforelli, and of those brave soldiers who have perished in this miserable tumult. Those of you who have your own dead on this square may remain to attend them unmolested; but the rest of you must disperse at once and quietly to your several homes."

The half understanding populace listened in sullen silence to these bitter and uncompromising words. But an old shoemaker who stood in the front rank of the crowd, his dim eyes enchanted and his aged heart fired by the beauty and fearlessness of the young Queen, cried out: "Treat us as you will, Queen Ianthe of Alsander, but do not be angry with your people: for we have been mightily deceived."

The Princess was moved. "You were led by an evil shepherd," she replied, "who forced me to deceive you. But love for the people of Alsander is branded on my heart--and on the King's."

"Then let us cheer," shouted the old shoemaker, shaking his grizzled locks toward the crowd, "for the Queen--and for the King of Alsander!"

We leave them there, the Mistress and the Captain of a little ship of State, and only ask, before we turn to the Epilogue in Blaindon--But what of Peronella? Did Cesano thrash the nonsense out of her in good Alsandrian fashion, wed her, and live happily ever after, peopling with troops of swarthy children some mountain cottage in a foreign land? Or did he quail before her flashing eyes, dismissed for ever, and is that darker fancy true that it is she whom men call the Blood-red Rose from the cabins of Moscow to the cabarets of Montmartre, she for whom many have died, she who they say has ordered the death of legions in her fierce hatred of Kings and the minions of Kings? Only this is certain, that neither she nor her lover were ever seen again in that fantastic town, Alsander.

[1] I much regret my inability to bring in at this juncture our old friend the British Consul at Alsander. Unfortunately he was not in town, but had taken advantage of a well-earned holiday to go shooting in the mountains. Had he been in Alsander there is little doubt but that he would have pushed through the crowd in his uniform to claim and protect Norman as a British subject.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE POET VISITS BLAINDON ONCE MORE, AND TAKES JOHN GAFFEKIN TO THE SEASh.o.r.e WHERE A MIRACLE OCCURS

... les hommes aux yeux verts ... ceux-la qui aiment la mer, la mer immense, tumultueuse et verte, l'eau informe et multiforme.

_Baudelaire._

Vives autem beautus, vives in mea tutela gloriosus, et c.u.m spatium saeculi tui permensus ad inferos demearis ibi quoque in ipso subterraneo semirutundo me ... videbis Acherontis tenebris interlucentum, Stygiisque penetralibus regnantem.

_Isis to Lucius in the "Golden a.s.s."_

John Gaffekin, weary of this world, left his invalid mother asleep, in charge of the nurse, and walked down into Blaindon after a miserable meal. His mother's health was worse, his prospects gloomy; his life had become very friendless since Norman went abroad. From the latter, moreover, he had had no news for months.