The Panchronicon Part 57

Hopeless of explaining, Droop bowed and touched the starting-b.u.t.ton. The announcement came at once.

"Liberty Bells March--Edison Record," and after a few preliminary flourishes, a large bra.s.s band could be heard in full career.

This proved far more pleasing to the Queen and her suite.

"So G.o.d mend us, a merry tune and full of harmony!" said the Queen.

"But that ain't all, your Majesty," said Droop. "Here's a blank cylinder, now." He adjusted it as he spoke and unceremoniously pushed the instrument close to the Queen. "Here," he said, "jest you talk anythin' you want to in there and you'll see suthin' funny, I'll bet ye!" He was thoroughly warmed to his work now, and the little court etiquette which he had acquired dropped from him entirely.

The Queen's eager interest had been so aroused that she was unconscious of his too familiar manner. Leaning over the phonograph as Droop started the motor, she looked about her and said, with a t.i.tter: "What shall we say? Weighty words should grace so great an occasion, my lords."

"Oh, say the Declaration of Independence or the 'Charge of the Light Brigade'!" Droop exclaimed. "Any o' them things in the school-books!"

Elizabeth saw that the empty cylinder was pa.s.sing uselessly and wasted no time in discussion, but began to declaim some verses of Horace.

"M--m--m--" exclaimed Droop, doubtfully. "I don't know as this phonograph will work on Latin an' Greek!"

The Queen completed her quotation and, sitting back again in her chair:

"Now, Master Droop, we have done our part," she said.

Droop readjusted the repeating diaphragm and started the motor once more. There were two or three squeaks and then an affected little chuckle.

"What shall we say?" it began. "Weighty words should grace so great an occasion, my lords."

Elizabeth laughed a little hysterically to hear her unstudied phrase repeated, and then, with a look of awe, listened to the repet.i.tion of the verses she had recited.

"Can any voice be so repeated?" she asked, seriously, when this record was completed.

"Anyone ye please--any ye please!" said the delighted promoter, visions of uncounted wealth dancing in his head. "Now, here's a few words was spoken on a cylinder jest two or three weeks ago by Miss Wise," he continued, hunting through his stock of records. "Ah, here it is! It's all 'bout Mister Bacon--I daresay you know him." The Queen looked a little stern at this. "Tells all 'bout him, I believe. I ferget jest what it said, but we can soon see."

The cylinder was that before which Phoebe had read an extract from the volume on Bacon's supposed parentage and his writings while she was at the North Pole. Little did Droop conceive what a train he was unconsciously lighting as he adjusted the cylinder in place. As he said, he had forgotten the exact purport of the extract in question, but, even had he recollected it, he would probably have so little understood its terrific import that his course would have been the same. Ignorant of his danger, he pushed the starting-b.u.t.ton and looked pleasantly at the Queen, whose dislike of anything having to do with Francis Bacon had already brought a frown to her face.

All too exactly the fateful mechanism ground out the very words and voice of Phoebe:

"It is thus made clear from the indubitable evidence of the plays themselves, that Francis Bacon wrote the immortal works falsely ascribed to William Shakespeare, and that the gigantic genius of this man was the result of the possession of royal blood. In this unacknowledged son of Elizabeth Tudor, Queen of England, was made manifest to all countries and for all centuries the glorious powers inherent in the regal blood of England."

As the fearful meaning of these words was developed by the machine, amazement gave place to consternation in those present and consternation to abject terror. Each fear-palsied courtier looked with pale face to right and left as though to seek escape. The fat knight, hitherto all complacency, listening to this brazen traducer of the Queen's virgin honor, seemed to shrink within himself, and his very clothing hung loose upon him.

Droop and Rebecca, ignorant of the true bearing of the spoken words, gazed in amazement from one to another until, glancing at the Queen, their eyes remained fixed and fascinated.

The unthinkable insult implied in the words repeated was trebled in force by being spoken thus publicly and in calm accents to her very face. She--the daughter of Henry the Eighth; she--Elizabeth of England--the Virgin Queen--to be thus coolly proclaimed the mother of this upstart barrister!

As a cyclone approaches, silent and terrific, visible only in the swift swirling changes of a livid and blackened sky, so the fatal pa.s.sion in that imperial bosom was known at first only in the gleaming of her black eyes beneath contorted brows and the spasmodic changes that swept over the pale red-painted face.

The danger thus portended was clear even to the bewildered Droop, and, before the instrument had said its say, he began to slip very quietly toward the door.

As the speech ended, Elizabeth emitted a growl that grew into a shriek of fury, and, with her hair actually rising on her head, she threw herself bodily upon the offending phonograph.

In her two hands she raised the instrument above her, and with a maniac's force hurled it full at the head of Copernicus Droop.

Instinctively he dodged, and the ma.s.s of wood and steel crashed against the door of the chamber, bursting it open and causing the two guards without to fall back.

Droop saw his chance and took it. Turning, with a yell he dashed past the guards and across the antechamber to the main entrance-hall. The Queen, choked with pa.s.sion, could only gasp and point her hand frantically after the fleeing man, but at once her gentlemen, drawing their swords, rushed in a body from the room with cries of "Treason--treason! Stop him! Catch him!"

Down the main hallway and out into the silent court-yard Droop fled on the wings of fear, pursued by a shouting throng, growing every moment larger.

As he emerged into the yard a sentry tried to stop him, but, with a single side spring, the Yankee eluded this danger and flung himself upon his bicycle, which he found leaning against the palace wall.

"Close the gates! Trap him!" was the cry, and the ponderous iron gates swung together with a clang. But just one second before they closed, the narrow bicycle, with its terror-stricken burden, slipped through into the street beyond and turned sharply to the west, gaining speed every instant. Droop had escaped for the moment, and now bent every effort upon reaching the Panchronicon in safety.

Then, as the tumult of futile chase faded into silence behind the straining fugitive, there might have been seen whirling through the ancient streets of London a weird and wondrous vision.

Perched on a whirl of spokes gleaming in the moonlight, a lean black figure in rumpled hose, with flying cloak, slipped ghostlike through the narrow streets at incredible speed. Many a footpad or belated townsman, warned by the mystic tinkle of a spectral bell, had turned with a start, to faint or run at sight of this uncanny traveller.

His hat was gone and his close-cropped head bent low over the handle-bars. The skin-tight stockings had split from thigh to heel, mud flew from the tires, beplastering the luckless figure from nape to waist, and still, without pause, he pushed onward, ever onward, for London Bridge, for Southwark, and for safety. The way was tortuous, dark and unfamiliar, but it was for life or death, and Copernicus Droop was game.

CHAPTER XV

HOW REBECCA RETURNED TO NEWINGTON

Within the palace all was confusion and dismay. Only a very few knew the cause of this riot which had burst so suddenly upon the wonted peace of the place, and those few never in all their lives gave utterance to what they had learned.

Within the presence chamber Elizabeth lay on the floor in a swoon, surrounded by her women only. Among these was Rebecca, whose one thought was now to devise some plan for overtaking Droop. From the window she had witnessed his flight, and she had guessed his destination. She felt sure that if Droop reached the Panchronicon alone, he would depart alone, and then what was to become of Phoebe and herself?

Just as the Queen's eyes were opening and her face began to show a return of her pa.s.sion with recollection of its cause, Rebecca had an inspiration, and with the prompt.i.tude of a desperate resolution, she acted upon it.

"Look a-here, your Majesty!" she said, vigorously, "let me speak alone with you a minute and I'll save you a lot of trouble. I know where that man keeps more of them machines."

This was a new idea to Elizabeth, who had destroyed, as she supposed, the only existing specimen of the malignant instrument.

With a gesture she sent her attendants to the opposite end of the room.

"Now speak, woman! What would you counsel?" she said.

"Why, this," said Rebecca, hurriedly. "You don't want any more o' them things talkin' all over London, I'm sure."

A groan that was half a growl broke from the sorely tried sovereign.

"Of course you don't. Well--I told you him and I come from America together. I know where he keeps all his phonograph things, and I know how to get there. But you must be quick or else he'll get there fust and take 'em away."

"You speak truly, Lady Rebecca," said the Queen. "How would you go--by what conveyance? Will you have horses--men-at-arms?"