King John of Jingalo Part 39

Except for that one moment when he had impulsively put his head through gla.s.s, the King had kept his wits and remained calm; and now his royal instinct told him the right thing to be done.

"If you want to manage that crowd," he said, "we had much better drive on. Until we do they may think that anything has happened. Tell them to start, and not to drive fast."

The officer went forward bearing the royal order.

"Alicia," said the King, "there really is nothing to cry about; the most important thing is to show the people that we are not hurt. Pull yourself together, my dear. There! now we are starting again. And if you think you can manage it, stand right up at your window and I will stand at mine; then n.o.body can have any doubt at all."

He removed some shattered gla.s.s from her lap as he spoke, and gave an encouraging squeeze to her hand; and as the coach moved forward they stood up and confidently presented themselves to the public gaze.

Sure enough that sight had a magical effect equal to the controlling force of a thousand police. The crowd recovered its wits and allowed itself to be shoved back into place. Out through the gates sallied the piebald ponies; and from end to end all Regency Row broke into a roar.

Ahead went the troops and the police, pressing back the once more amenable crowd; men and women were weeping, moist handkerchiefs were ecstatically waved, quite new and reputable hats were thrown up into air, and allowed to fall unreclaimed and unregarded. And truly it was a sight well calculated to stir the blood, for there, emerging unhurt from dust and smoke, from rumor and sound of terror, came the monarch and his Queen standing upon their feet and bowing undaunted to a furore of cries.

Through all that vast mult.i.tude word of the outrage had sped, like a black raven flapping its wings, charged ominously with tidings of death; and as confusion had spread wide nothing more could be heard, till once more a resumption of the processional movement was seen. Then came white-faced footmen quaking at the knees; after them eight piebald ponies rather badly behaved and requiring a good deal of holding in; and then Royalty, itself smiling and quite unharmed. And straightway the ordinary loyalty of a sightseeing Jingalese crowd was merged in a pa.s.sionate and tumultuous cry of jubilant humanity; and the royal procession became a triumphal progress.

II

The Queen was still crying a little when they reached their destination; but she was very happy all the same, for she felt that between them they had risen to the occasion and had pa.s.sed exceedingly well through an ordeal that falls only to few.

And now at the House of Legislature itself a strangely informal reception awaited them. Word of what had happened had gone in to the two Chambers, and human nature proving too strong, rules and regulations of ceremony had been dispensed with, and out had streamed judges, prelates, and laity in full force, to attend upon their own front door-step the belated arrival of their mercifully preserved Sovereign and his Queen.

And when they did arrive, the whole House of Laity there a.s.sembled broke into cheers; and not to be behindhand in demonstrations of loyalty, the Judges and the Bishops cheered too--a thing that none of them had done individually for years; and in their official and corporate capacity, judicial and ecclesiastical, never in their lives before.

Then as spokesmen for their respective parties, for Ministerialists and for Opposition, came the Prime Minister and the Archbishop, giving voice to the thankfulness that was felt by all.

The Archbishop performed his part the better of the two; for between him and his sovereign there were no strained relations; he was also on closer terms of reference to the Powers above; and so, while giving earthly circ.u.mstances their due, he rendered grateful thanks to a Beneficence which had guided and directed all. The Prime Minister did not.

The King, in recalling afterwards the happy impromptus of that scene when Prelates and Laity were vying with each other in the expression of their relief, remembered how once or twice the Prime Minister had halted and gone back to the repet.i.tion of a former phrase, like one who having learned a lesson had momentarily lost the hang of it.

The circ.u.mstance did not greatly impress him at the time, he was ready to make allowances, for between him and his minister the situation was somewhat embarra.s.sing. They had parted with unreconciled views, and by no stretch of terms could their relations.h.i.+p any longer be regarded as friendly. All the same, on such an occasion it was inc.u.mbent upon the Prime Minister to say the correct thing, and he had said it: he had described the outrage as "a dastardly attempt," and the immunity of his sovereign as "a happy and almost miraculous escape" for which none had more reason to be thankful than himself and his colleagues; he had also said that the pa.s.sionate attachment of the people of Jingalo to the person of their ruler had now been made abundantly evident, and he trusted might ever so continue.

Later in the day, when the short ceremony of Parliament's closing was over (for it was impossible under the circ.u.mstances to return to stiff formality, no one being in the mood for it), later in the day, he again presented himself, and besought a private audience. And then--while once more repeating what he had said previously, almost in the same words,--he showed that he had something very serious of which to deliver himself.

He began with a great parade of leaving the matter to the King's decision only; his duty was merely to state the case as it would strike the world.

"We are in your Majesty's hands," he said, "and I have no wish to revive a discussion in which your Majesty has by right the last word. I have only to ask whether the circ.u.mstances of the last few hours have in any way affected your Majesty's decision."

As usual this formal insistence upon his "majesty" aroused the King's distrust; with his ministers in privacy he always disliked it. But all he said was: "Why should it?"

The Prime Minister pursed his lips and elaborately paused, as though finding it difficult to express himself. Then he said--

"After an attempted a.s.sa.s.sination so nearly successful, abdication would have a different effect to what your Majesty presumably intended."

"How?" inquired the King. But though he asked he already knew; and mentally his jaw dropped, as a new apparition of failure rose up and confronted him.

"It might seem to reflect upon your Majesty's personal courage: about which, I need hardly say, I myself have no doubt whatever."

"I see," said the King. His voice sounded the depression which had again begun to overwhelm him.

"I have no wish to press your Majesty," the Premier went on; "but at the present moment we are still under orders that to-morrow the definite and irrevocable announcement is to be made public."

Again he paused; and the King did not answer him.

"I wish to ask, therefore, whether it is your Majesty's wish that the announcement of the abdication shall be postponed?"

"Yes," said the King, and his words came slow, "I suppose that it must be--as you say--postponed."

"Does your Majesty wish to suggest any later date?"

The King thought for a while before answering.

"Is there any reason that I should?" But though he thus spoke to temporize over the position in which he now found himself, he knew that his opportunity was gone never to recur.

"Merely for our own guidance," explained the Prime Minister. "There is to be a special Cabinet meeting to-night."

"What are you going to discuss?"

"Should your Majesty remain, it will be our duty to present an address of loyal congratulation immediately on the rea.s.sembling of Parliament; and that, under the new circ.u.mstances, must take place almost at once.

In any event some address will, of course, have to be moved; but if what has happened to-day is followed by an abdication, then regrets and deep grat.i.tude for all the gracious benefits of the past would have to be added, and the whole form of it most carefully weighed and considered. I may say, therefore, that we are even now awaiting your Majesty's instructions."

"And you can do nothing till I decide?"

"Nothing practical, sir."

Their eyes met with a lurking watchfulness; and it was not difficult for each to read something of the other's thought. The King knew that behind all that aspect of deference and humility lay a sense of triumph, almost malignant in its intensity. He knew that circ.u.mstances had beaten him; and that the bomb of some wretched a.s.sa.s.sin had made his abdication impossible. The Prime Minister had said that he had no wish to press him; but what a pretense and hypocrisy that was, when that very night the Cabinet would have to meet and register its decision in one of two alternative forms totally distinct. Yes; the Ministry had him now in a cleft stick; and no pressure was to be put upon him only because there was no possibility for his decision to be delayed.

Defeat, following upon the terrific events of the day, filled his brain with weariness. At the moment when he had hoped to be free of his persecutors he had come once again to a blank wall. Further progress was barred, further thinking had become useless, events must take their course; once more he felt himself the sport of fate--a mere chip floating with the stream.

"Very well, Mr. Prime Minister," he said with resignation, "the Abdication is withdrawn."

He sighed deeply; and then (when left alone to his cogitations), for such weak comfort as the mere saving of his face could lend, this thought occurred to him,--"What a good thing that I told n.o.body about it." Even Max did not know.

And so in the year of his Jubilee, and the plenitude of his popularity, John of Jingalo continued to reign; and was, in consequence, the most saddened and humiliated monarch who ever bowed his head under a crown and resigned his freedom to a mixed sense of duty and a fear of what people might say.

CHAPTER XVI

CONCEALMENT AND DISCOVERY

I

There was plenty of hue and cry to discover the perpetrator of the outrage, but nothing came of it. From somewhere in that labyrinth of unfinished building and scaffolding fenced in by high h.o.a.rdings a bomb had been thrown of insufficient power to do much damage to anybody. The Prefect of Police, riding in close attendance on the royal carriage, had himself vaulted the barrier, on the side whence it had seemed to come, and reported that he had found no trace of any one. Pieces of the sh.e.l.l had been collected upon the spot, they had not flown very far, nor were they much broken; and experts of the detective department had been busy putting together the bits.