The King of Alsander Part 27

The guards who had been ordered by Sforelli to catch and imprison Makzelo had never been able to carry out their orders, and that subterranean person had sold Vorza some very decent information at a very decent price.

"Ill, couldn't come," briefly replied the man to whom the question was put: and the others smiled.

"He is not a desperately brave man," said Vorza "But we owe much to his connivance. Ah! his Majesty is opening his eyes!"

And Vorza, who was in general a fairly courageous person, but had not lost that uncanny fear of lunatics to which was due the possibility of the amazing subst.i.tution, edged away rapidly.

Royalty opened its eyes, blinked, shut them again, then opened them, stared at Peronella, sat up on his litter, and in a stridently audible voice declared to the a.s.sembled company:

"I want her: she must be my Queen!"

His eyes glowed with antic.i.p.ation. All kept silent, half wondering, half horrified, half amused.

"Come here," continued Andrea, "do come here!"

"The devil take you!" muttered the girl, retreating to the end of the room.

"Do not speak like that to the King," said the priest.

"Come here. I command you. This time I must be obeyed," pursued the old maniac, and a dread sight he was with his stubbly beard and unholy light in his eyes. "They are always taking me away from you! I have waited such a long time--I want to kiss you! Will no one bring her here? This world is all full of traitors and liars."

"Go to him," said Vorza to Peronella. "Cesano, persuade her!"

Peronella's face flushed hot with disgust. The King rose right up and tottered towards her. She instantly put her hand to her girdle and levelled her pistol at him.

"Put him back!" she said, with a quietness almost hysterical.

They had to obey her, well knowing her determined spirit; and fearing the King would become violent the guards strapped him down upon his litter, but fortunately the jolting of the carriage had tired him thoroughly and he slept once more.

"It seems almost a pity," said Cuvas, softly, "to dethrone so active and enterprising an usurper merely to put that driv-- that unfortunate King in his place."

He spoke half to himself, but the others heard him. They all began to talk at once with the angry remonstrance of men who feel that they may be in the wrong.

"What is progress?" said Vorza. "We have been happy for a thousand years and will be for another thousand if we are left alone."

"Nothing can come of lies but failure," said Father Algio.

"We are in it to the death now," said Cesano.

"Oh! that is true: so am I. And we have not the slightest prospect of failure. I only said it had a regrettable aspect," said the editor. "And I wondered if any of the people might think so, too, and not be over-anxious to join us when the moment comes!"

"Oh, Cuvas!" said Vorza, in what he took for a light, bantering tone.

"You always were a d.a.m.ned old Liberal at heart. But the people of Alsander are staunch and true, and love the old principles, the beauty of their religion, the glories of their city. They do not want their churches desecrated by an unbeliever, their city made boisterous by ugly trains, their pure torrents debased to turn buzzing ma-chines, their river bed all churned up into mud by dredgers, their virgin mountains defiled by smoke and steam."

"But they have shown no discontent," objected the editor, not daring to taunt Vorza for declaring his hatred of the reforms of which he had a few minutes ago delicately suggested himself as the real author.

"You spend all your day on a stool, Cuvas. What do you know about the hearts of our people? You have no time to do anything but transcribe telegrams. The people do not mind, because they are so pleased to have their King returned to sanity. What did I hear an old man say but a few hours ago? He said that no one could become sane straight at once, after all those years; that one might forgive all this reforming nonsense at first, and that he wished anyone might have cured the Sovereign but that h.e.l.lish Jew of a doctor!"

"Curses on him!" said Father Algio.

"Are you content now, Count Cuvas?" said Vorza.

The t.i.tle was only in part in jest: enn.o.blement was the understood reward of complicity.

"You are right: I am well contented," said Cuvas. "I have, of course, some ideas which I do not share with you, but in this business command me. I have joined your conspiracy because I cannot stand immorality and imposture," he added, with dignity. "Still, I can but think it only right to remark once in public--now that it cannot affect our action--what I have so often remarked to you in private--that it would have been no imposture but sound policy to ask old Count Arnolfo whether the rightful heir to the throne, the Princess Ianthe, were not fit to conduct a regency."

Considerable stir was caused by these words of Cuvas, which reflected thoughts which many a conspirator had been waiting for some one else to utter.

"And I have answered you as many times," cried Vorza, turning on him in a veritable fury, "that I have clear evidence that Count Arnolfo's own son was implicated in this dastardly plot. A fine person to ask for information or advice, your Arnolfo! Let us first of all get Andrea safely restored, and then we can talk about a Regency!"

"Well, well," said Cuvas, "you are our leader!" He said it in a tone of resignation which was entirely false, for Cuvas was by no means the simple-souled Conservative-Liberal he seemed. His little speeches, as well as his actions, were a cunning preparation for all eventualities.

Two days ago he had sent a trusty messenger to Count Arnolfo to inform him truly not only that the King of Alsander had proved a grocer, but also that the said grocer was in imminent peril of his life and throne.

"Is it nearly time?" called one of the guards. "I hear a noise outside."

Vorza, the only man of the party who possessed a watch (for in Alsander you go by the cathedral bells), looked at it, and cried, "So it is!"

The little company hesitated and each of them turned cold for a moment with the terror of excitement. Outside there was a clattering and shouting in the streets, the curious persistent sound of people running all in the same direction.

"Come!" said Vorza. "Where is the wine?"

The wine, or rather spirit, was produced from a bottle in the corner, and poured out into a great bowl, from which each drank in turn, pledging the sleeper in their midst. Then with a shout of "The King! The King!" and with revolvers pointing carelessly aloft and an Alsandrian banner borne by Peronella in the van, the little party streamed out into the alley, and hardly were they in the street when their shout seemed to re-echo all round them and a tremendous cry rose up, thunderous, to heaven, "The King! The King!"

CHAPTER XVII

BATTLE

When you paint a battle-scene let every inch of the foreground be dabbled with blood.

_Leonardo da Vinci._

On this very day the King was inspecting the throne-room in the company of Dr Sforelli, who was a person endowed, like most of his race, with a sound artistic instinct. They were gazing on the broken plaster cupids, the faded chinoiseries and singeries, and the immortal lion throne of the Kradenda.

"You must have this renewed," observed Sforelli, stroking his swarthy beard. "It will make a splendid and royal hall."

"Some day," said the King. "Not while there remains a road unpaved or a street lamp unlit in the city of Alsander. Not till my harbour is deep enough for all the navies of the world. And then it shall not be renewed, it shall be cleaned of all the plaster and paint, and left to stand with the ornament of its proportion and no other, save the lion chair of the first Kradenda."

"It rings false, sir. You think you will attain the high ideal of artistic restraint by taking away all the art like your Galsworthy.

These little monkeys running up the vine leaves are so well done that I doubt if you would find out of France a painter fit to repair them.

Those engaging Chinamen have an idiotic expression which fills the heart with delight. If you do not want them here, where I admit they are out of keeping, you must not destroy them but have them transferred to form a lady's bower, for which some day there will be room in the palace. And when your Majesty has stripped the walls of these pretty things it would be, not merely inaesthetic, but mean-spirited, unroyal, to leave the vast walls white. The great Kradenda would not have left them white, he who himself, the story tells, planned the rose pattern mosaic beneath the cathedral dome. If you say these Chinamen, these monkeys, are vilely out of place, you must find a design that will be in place and keeping."

"Allegorical figures," said the King, sardonically. "Justice with her eyes bandaged, Plenty with a cornucopia, War scowling, Peace smiling, Charity giving away a loaf of bread, Labour with a very red body and big calf muscles smiting at a forge, Commerce watching her s.h.i.+ps, Wool Industry watching her sheep, and similar genial devices, such as I believe you see in the offices of banks."

"Do you really think a conventional subject hinders a painter's inspiration?" replied the doctor. "The Italians painted twenty thousand Madonnas and more than half are worth a glance. And if the figure of Peace was tiring in the bank, have you seen the figure of Peace in the Town Hall of Siena? I know of a poor painter starving in Paris who would wreathe your allegory in blazing suns.h.i.+ne by frescoing the walls in little squares; and I know of another, who is starving at Munich, who, by a cunning exaggeration of hollows and curves, would make your figures supernatural and sublime as Michael Angelo's apostles."

"You have made me think, Sforelli," said the King, "that there is just a chance that we may discover a better method even than that. It may be you spoke more truly than you knew when you said that King Kradenda would not have left these walls bare. Who knows if we may not discover under the preserving whitewash of inappreciative fools marvels like those men say await the conquering Crusader who scratches off the Moslem paint from St Sophia? But d.a.m.n St Sophia! Tell me," continued the King, abruptly changing the subject, "what is the earliest possible date for the projected visit of the Princess Ianthe to my court?"