The King of Alsander Part 20

"Curses!" said Vorza to himself, as he watched their departure from the window. "Ten million curses. Is this a surprise return? Is it the King?

It's about the age. But he looks too British, too British altogether.

But, then, so did his grandfather. There's not much madness in his eyes or talk. It cannot be. He might be cured, but he could not be intelligent. And that physique--it's impossible. But there's something up. Why did I trust Sforelli? In the old days I would have burnt him, gaberdine and all! Curses on him, at all events, and on me! How am I to know whether he is the King or no? If it's a plot--it may succeed--it is so simple. Perbacco! how simple it is! Well, we shall see!"

CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH THE BEETLES CRAWL

But solid beetles crawled about The chilly hearth and naked floor.

_James Thompson, author of the "City of Dreadful Night," popularly ascribed to Mr Kipling._

All preparations for this most surprising conspiracy were to be ready, so Arnolfo gave Norman to understand, on the following afternoon, and Norman, doubting his senses and still doubting the seriousness of Arnolfo, rose early and came to the appointed place, which was again the British Consulate, before the appointed time. After a few minutes there came to greet him, not Arnolfo, but Sforelli, a gentleman who would have looked heroic in a burnoose beside the ruins of Palmyra, but seemed merely intellectual and rather repulsive in a morning coat. He handed Norman a letter sealed with what Norman knew to be Arnolfo's seal. It ran as follows:

"DEAR NORMAN,--

"Everything is going well. Please put yourself entirely in the hands of Dr Sforelli, the bearer of this, who has full instructions from the Society. I am so busy, I may not see you again till you are crowned.

"ARNOLFO."

Norman, looking at the Palestinian profile before him, felt that the spring had left the year. The gay youth, with his wit and plots and disguises, would make anyone believe or even do anything. While this worthy? The transition from Greece eastwards was overpowering.

Yet one could see this swarthy, powerful person was to be trusted, more to be trusted than Arnolfo. Norman burst into a flood of practical questions.

"We shall just walk there," came the answer to Norman's first batch of inquiries. "I often go to the palace, as I live quite near, in the square: I have a dissecting room there: my wife objects to having corpses in the house."

"Dissecting? In Alsander?"

"Yes," replied the doctor, in hollow tones. "It was expensive getting corpses in pickle from Paris. So I advertised in the _Centjaro,_ the little local paper you may have seen, the one that hints so broadly that the King of Alsander is already in the town incognito."

"But with success? Surely, in such a religious country...."

"There was money offered," continued Sforelli, dryly. "My door was besieged. I am not sure I was not responsible for murder, even for parricide. Some of those whose near relations were rejected went away in tears."

"Well, Doctor Sforelli, to the point. This mad central idea you are sure of--that no one has seen the King; but what about the guards?"

"The guards are with us."

"But why should they be with us?"

"They are sensible men, for one thing. They are very old servants of Arnolfo's, for another."

"Then Vorza?"

"He has never seen the King, you know that already."

"And the other notables?"

"All the members of the Town Council, which is the progressive element in Alsander, are with us. For all that, none of them have seen Andrea."

"But has there been no ceremony? For instance, was Andrea never crowned?"

"Yes, but with little pomp. There was only the Bishop there and myself.

He was crowned in the empty room."

"And the Bishop?"

"Is fortunately dead. No one lives but myself who saw that mock coronation and a small acolyte who is now one of the most able young men of our party. The people were kept outside, but I remember they applauded, none the less. But the only person who was really impressed was the King himself. It meant a great deal to him, that shabby ceremonial!"

"What has given the King that antique form of speech?" pursued Norman.

"Before his mind left him, he had as a boy read one book--that of Makso."

"A! a great book!" cried Norman. "There is real fire in his tales of chivalry."

"And poetry, too," added Sforelli, "of no inconsiderable merit. Well, you know how the greatness of Kradenda is ever being sung therein. And ever since the boy, as he has heard but little human speech about him, has had faint echoes of the immortal language of Makso trickling through his brain."

"One hardly realized he was so young," said Norman, with a sudden pity.

"He is your age," replied Sforelli.

"Is there no hope of cure?"

"None," said the doctor, decisively. "None--on my professional honour.

His delusions come from mental weakness, not from aberration. I might cure a man who had wandered from the road of reason, but not one who has never taken it."

So saying they started for the palace, on foot as Sforelli advised, to attract less attention.

"You are still determined not to have Andrea killed?" inquired Sforelli.

"That I prohibit absolutely," said Norman, speaking with authority for the first time.

Sforelli bowed with some irony.

"Fortunately," he said, "there is a small asylum outside the town under my supervision."

"How are we to get him there?" pursued Norman.

"I think of drugging him, and then driving him there myself to-night. It will not be difficult."

"I have your word, you intend to do this, and to do no more than drug him?"

"Although I consider that this humanitarian project of yours is fraught with great danger to our plans, you may trust me," said Sforelli, quietly, and Norman believed the man could be trusted for all his antipathetic ugliness. He inquired:

"And what am I to do while you do this?"