Far away in an interminable vista of rock and forest, which lay behind the King's hunting-tower, like the littered ruins of a world, stretched out the wilderness. Silent lay the piles of desolation, rank after rank, and voiceless save for the tales which none could understand of the ages that were gone. And wildest of all, and more silent and full of inarticulate eloquence, was the rift where the Cañon of the Hermits split the waste in two.
Deep into the bowels of the stony land a soft, little, laughing river had licked its way; and now in a cool channel, flanked with perpendicular walls, it ran on, hundreds of feet below the level of the wilderness, and seemed to rejoice to think how unenduring beside itself was the everlasting rock.
Once or twice in a century a man might find the spot as he followed a trail or sought the riches that lay hidden in the hills. And there, as he stood upon the brink of that Titanic trench, he could not but feel the overpowering presence of the ages which were young when the foundations of the world were laid. He could not but feel, when he listened to the river far below, singing over its never-ending task, what a paltry scratching was the greatest work a man could do between the cradle and the grave.
Perhaps it was this that made the hermits choose it for a resting-place, and its utter solitude as well. Whatever was the cause, here they had settled, where the perpendicular walls were grimmest and highest; and here, far up in the face of the gaunt cliffs, they had hewn out caves to dwell in. Visibly there was no approach to them; but he who found his way to the little meadows at the foot, and pierced the luxuriant shrubs, that from which the mighty ramparts sprung, would have discovered on either hand a larger cave, which served at once as entrance-hall and corral to the monastery. From the inmost recess of these a rude spiral stair, cut in the solid rock, led upwards to a maze of crooked and inclined galleries communicating with the cells.
Strange as was the hermitage, the hermits were stranger still. Their order was probably without parallel in the history of Christian monasticism. For here in each cell lived monk and nun as man and wife.
The origin of the order was lost in obscurity and unknown. The literature on the subject was consequently prodigious. It is hardly too much to say that Oneirian archæology lived on it. The accessible data were, however, confined to two rubbings of symbols, said to be carved on the walls of all the cells. The younger members of the Royal Society were prepared to prove from these that the order was Pagan in its origin, and, further, that it was the original unreformed Oriental predecessor of the Eleusinian mysteries. Smart scientific and literary society took this view to a man; but plain people, such as local antiquaries, believed it to be a very ancient heresy of the Carthaginian Church. Both, perhaps, were right. The gloomy pessimism of African Christianity took many fantastic forms; and this, the most fantastic of all, may well have been a Montanist modification of some pre-existing Pagan brotherhood.
At any rate, it is certain that the order was in existence when Kophetua's ancestor founded his colony. At that time it was an isolated print of the Cross in a waste of heathendom; and, as soon as it was discovered, the old knight took it under his protection. He found a place for it in his absorptive community, along with all the other ruins of peoples and social systems with which the country was littered. He affiliated it to his beggar-guild. The order was thereafter regularly subsidised; the hermits were registered; and, though amongst themselves they were all equal, they were placed under an abbot, who represented them in their relation to the state.
In those days the community had been numerous, but now its numbers had greatly fallen off. All children that were born to the hermits were taken away in infancy, to be brought up at a hospital of the order in a neighbouring town; and, though formerly many re-entered the hermitage, most of them now preferred the licence of the beggars' guild, of which they were free. Penelophon herself had been born in the monastery; but her father, on the death of his wife, had claimed his children in a fit of insane anger at Heaven, and taken to the Liberties of St. Lazarus.
The abbot had now scarce half a score of brethren and sisters to be responsible for; but he regularly made his report, and went to receive his subsidy. It was during one of these expeditions that Kophetua had encountered him out hunting. He was a pale man, with a red, ragged beard, and grey eyes, which glistened under their white lashes with an unhealthy restlessness. His spare figure, too, stooped forward with an air half feeble, half eager, so that his whole aspect was one of aimless intensity. The eagerness of the man had so struck Kophetua that he had accosted him; and, interested in his wild talk, had accompanied him, without revealing his identity, as far as his cell.
Besides the hermits, Kophetua was probably the only man who knew where the rocky monastery was; and it was his first thought, after he had left Penelophon, that it was there he would be able to find a safe refuge for her. So, with the first glimmer of dawn, he had summoned her from her prison, and silently stolen out to the stables. Here he had saddled his horse, and, strapping a cushion across its withers, had ridden away, with Penelophon before him.
They spoke little as they went; she was too happy, and he half afraid. For, in the soiled and shabby gown she wore, and with her hair knotted loosely up as best she could, she seemed once more the same strange thing that first had fascinated him in its rags and filth. Presently she grew tired, and her head gradually fell upon his breast. Then, as she nestled close to him, a sense of peace came into his heart. Even as he had gone to fetch her from the turret he knew the desire of finding her a refuge was not the only reason for what he did. Another lay whispering deep down in the bottom of his thoughts. At first he would not own it; but now, as he neared the monastery, and the beggar-maid nestled still closer in her weariness, the little voice spoke louder, the fancy seemed less wild, and throne and crown and people grew faint and far away.
The abbot was getting water from the stream as, having descended the difficult bridle-way by which the hermitage was reached, they approached it along the meadows. He looked up in great surprise to see riding towards him a young man in a plain hunting dress, with a girl in a grey gown, old and patched, on the saddle before him. It was many years now since a pair had come to join the hermit community, and they were younger than any novices he himself could remember. So he set down his gourd, and came forward eagerly to meet them.
"Welcome! welcome, my children!" he cried. "Even so should ye come to the holy place, riding upon one horse, even as one thought shall henceforth bear you both through life till the end. Come, my son, trust thy wife a moment to me, that I may lift her down. Then take her to thy breast for ever."
A faint flush overspread Penelophon's wan face as the hermit held up his arms to take her. And as for Kophetua, he felt his heart leap in a kind of reckless ecstasy; the blood rushed tingling through his veins, and the whispering thought that had lain so quiet seemed to spring up and speak aloud.
The moments flew by, and Kophetua let them go with never a word. Penelophon gazed with wide eyes upon him, in shy wonder that he still held back the truth. But Kophetua could not speak. The long romantic ride, the almost unearthly scene about him, and the abbot's unexpected welcome had strangely affected him. That plain little word "wife" was full of magic. It seemed to have transformed his life into an old tale and himself into its unreal hero. An excitement of a delicacy he had never known took possession of him. It was like playing in a masquerade, where the audience believed what they saw was real. It was play with all the spice of earnest, and he could not bring himself to break the spell. It would be time enough to explain to-morrow, he thought. To-night, at any rate, the hermit's mistake would assure them of shelter, which it was possible he might deny if he knew the truth.
So Kophetua put his horse in the great cave on the abbot's side of the stream, and then they all went together up to his cell, where his wife prepared a frugal meal. Long they sat together, listening to the anchorites as they talked of the blessedness of the married state; and each time they spoke of them as man and wife Kophetua's heart beat with fresh delight, and the beggar-maid blushed anew.
Night fell at last, and the hermit led them further up the long winding stair, all dark and slippery with the dripping moisture, to the cell that was to be theirs. There he placed a flickering lamp in a little recess, and then, with his blessing, left them alone in the heart of the living rock.
For a little while they occupied themselves examining the gloomy abode. But the feeling of oppression, from the vast masses of rock that encompassed them, grew insupportable to the King, and he led the beggar-maid to the mouth of the cave. There they stood in silence, side by side, looking out upon the night. Before them was the giant wall of grey rock, pierced here and there with dark holes, that were caves like their own. In one glimmered a feeble light, and from it crept a weird, low sound, as of a man and a woman monotonously chanting a weary prayer. Then it ceased; the light died out with the chant, and, save for the voice of the heedless river, as it hurried on far below them, all was hushed in the majesty of the night.
The sense of perfect solitude that fell upon Kophetua then was strangely sweet. Far beyond the dark fringe of jungle that crowned the cliff rolled the solemn stars, but even they seemed nearer than the world he had left. As the last sign of life disappeared, he turned instinctively to the companion of his place. He saw her dimly in the faint starlight gazing wistfully at him. As their eyes met she leaned earnestly towards him, and half put out her hand in an unfinished gesture of supplication.
"Trecenito!" she said, and then stopped abruptly; but into the one word was gathered such intense emotion, such a world of inarticulate entreaty, that it made him start, and his breath came fast. For some moments they stood looking at each other, each deeply moved, and it was Penelophon who braved the evil silence and spoke first.
"Trecenito," she said again, "why did you let them call us man and wife? Tell me, am I—am I indeed your wife?"
Once more her voice seemed to shed around the dim figure an inviolable holiness, and make him suddenly calm. Without a word he quietly stepped towards her, and deliberately put his signet ring upon her finger. Then, taking the grey form in his arms, he gently kissed the pure, pale face. In another moment she heard his firm step on the rocky stairs, and he was gone.
In the morning, when the abbot came to milk his cow, he found Kophetua fast asleep on a heap of rushes beside his horse. Immediately he roused him.
"My son, my son," he cried, "what do you here? Why are you not beside your wife?"
The King sprang up, and rubbed his eyes. Then he stared a while hard at the hermit's eager face, till he could remember where he was.
"I have no wife," he said abruptly; and, striding past the hermit, he walked rapidly to the river, and, casting off his clothes, he leaped into the cool and sparkling water.
But even the heedless river could not bring back to him the cynical calm he had lost. The ancient mystery of the place hung on him still like a spell, and the river ran by behind him, laughing in lofty contempt, as he took his way back. No longer could he think as was his wont. The grim cliffs seemed to bar him from his old philosophy; and out of the dark holes in their face, which marked the deserted cells, seemed to come whisperings of thoughts long dead. The ghosts of all the sharp griefs and insane dreaming that had wafted men and women hither, age after age, in search of peace, streamed out like some unseen miasma, and compassed him about. How many had been whirled into this silent eddy in the great river of time before him to find or wait for the telling of the great secret that vexed their soul! It was all he could bring his thoughts to rest on. He felt about him, like a living presence, the spirit of a mysticism long since dead, and he could reason no more.
Suddenly he started to find himself face to face with the red-bearded hermit.
"What is this sin, my son? What is this lie?" cried the man, with unsteady anger in his eye and voice.
"It is no sin. It is no lie," answered Kophetua sharply. "She is not my wife. Last night she was, if ever man had wife. You yourself called her so, and I was sure you spoke a sudden truth; but to-day it is changed. You lied. She is not my wife. She shall not be my wife!"
He was conscious of speaking like a madman, but it was all he could find to say. The hermit was in no way troubled at his wild speech. It seemed the language he best understood.
"And why not, my son?" he answered quietly, though his eyes glittered restlessly still.
"Because it was not for that I brought her here," said the King, trying to bring back clearly the events and thoughts of yesterday. "I brought her hither for refuge. She is wronged, foully wronged and persecuted, and you must give her sanctuary."
"'Tis not my office," said the hermit. "You should take her to the King."
"Nay," cried Kophetua, "her wrongs are more than a King can redress. It is you who must give her shelter."
"It is impossible," said the abbot. "By the eternal laws, which no one can break, none but man and wife may abide with us. Stay thou with her, and all will be well."
"It cannot be," answered the King. "The voice of duty calls too loud elsewhere."
"What duty is it speaks so big?" said the hermit, smiling, as though he spoke with a child, to humour it from its wilfulness.
"I am one in high place," answered Kophetua. "I am master of wide lands, and the well-being of the people calls me back."
"Ah, thou art like them all, my son," said the hermit sadly; "and yet there is better than that in thee. I was even so myself long years ago. Far away to the northward, by the blue waters of the Mediterranean, I had authority over men. I had struggled for it from boyhood, for I knew there was no peace save in breeding happiness for the world; so I sought and won high place that I might teach men virtue and wisdom, and make laws to force them to it."
"And that is my life too," cried Kophetua. "It is the life it is cowardice to leave."
"Nay, hear me," continued the hermit. "There are worse sins than cowardice; and those are they which men commit in the life I led. For, mark me, however thou shalt ponder and prune and assay, yet every law thou shalt make to uproot an abuse shall sow the seed of twenty more. What law was ever proclaimed that did not bring evil in its train? I saw my choicest measures, that had cost me all the wisdom and strength that was in me, imperfect, always imperfect. As I passed by the ruins of the evil I had smitten, lo! I saw on all hands new crimes for men to commit. Look forward, I tell thee, as far as thou wilt, and look again and again in thy diligence to foresee the results for good or evil of what thou art about to do; strain thine eyes each time further into the unborn time, till men shall wonder at thy foresight; yet never, never shalt thou see the end. Even close in front of where thy vision reached at furthest may slumber an evil tenfold more pestilent than that thou wouldst destroy, and the forces thou hast started shall waken it at last. If man will meddle with God's work, evil will come in the end. If he shall try to drive the chariot of the sun, he will only scorch the earth. God planted His laws in the beginning of the world that they might grow in His strength. It is only because men, in the vanity of their false wisdom, have cut and pruned and forced them to unnatural growth that there is evil in the world. Leave them alone, I say, and sin not."
"Nay, rather," cried Kophetua, "leave them and sin perforce. For how shall a man find the path of virtue if he cease to try and better his neighbours' lot."
"God has shown us the way," exclaimed the abbot, as one inspired; "join us, and thou shalt see it too. To this end woman was given to man, and man to woman. Take thou a woman to thyself, and find in her food to feed thy yearning. Take one soul, and live for it. To desire more is but vanity and ambition. Men will think themselves so great that one is not enough for their devotion; but God meant otherwise. Man and woman He made to be together, one perfect being. To cement this unity He gave us the noble yearning of unselfishness, which has gone so wide astray. In their pride men let it dissipate itself in ambitious philanthropy. Love for the race is a dream. It is love of man and wife that is the only truth."
Kophetua could not but be moved by the man's earnestness, so strangely unhinged as he was by his surroundings and his troubles. The evils that the old knight's grandest fancy had bred came vividly before him. Did this hermit give the key of the mystery why his own life had been as great a failure as the beggar-guild? The hermit's solution of the great problem was easy; and sweet as it was easy.
"But I have no wife," objected the King, as he felt himself yielding.
"Ay, but there is one within thy reach," said the abbot. "Take her whom thou broughtest hither last night."
"But there is none to wed us here," answered Kophetua, still seeking an escape from the influence around him; "we will depart, and come again as man and wife."
"There is no need," said the hermit. "It is not ceremonies that unite two half-souls into one. Stay here the period of probation. Consecrate thy life to her; sacrifice thine every hour to her greater comfort; offer to her thine every thought and every action till the months of thy noviciate be expired. By such ennobling service shalt thou find thyself more truly wed to her than by the grandest and most solemn rites that ever priests devised. Why, thou knowest it is true! Didst thou not feel it last night, when thou couldst not deny she was thy wife?"
Then the King could answer nothing; he wandered away without a word, and talked with other hermits. All had the same doctrine to preach, and each time its truth sank deeper into Kophetua's heart. Day after day went by, and still he did not depart. All day long the King and the beggar-maid wandered by the side of the busy river like lovers, and never were parted, save when the night fell and the abbess came to call Penelophon to the cell beside her own, or when Kophetua climbed up into the hanging woods to trap a deer and snare her a bird.
Hours they spent fishing, and took but little; for the King had no eye for his float, let it bob how it would. The most part of the time he would lie upon the flowery meadow, gazing like one bewitched at that for which he lived; and that was Penelophon, sitting before him and wreathing flowers and singing a low song, that mingled harmoniously with the happy hum of the little lives of which the air was full. Ever and again she ceased, and the King crept to her to put his arm about her lovingly, and gently kiss the delicate face, as though he sipped honey from a flower. Between each kiss she looked at him, still in shy wonder, not able to believe such happiness was real. So they would sit a little space, till the King was minded of his fishing, and rose to cast his line anew. That business done, he stretched himself upon the grass again to watch his float, and never watched it. For the maid began another garland and another song, as one that dreamed, and the King must feed his eyes again till his lips grew envious once more.
So the two worshipped one the other, and with idyllic ritual dallied through the long marriage service which the hermits had enjoined.
CHAPTER XXIII. AN OFFICIAL REPORT.
Kophetua's disappearance did little to allay the storm that was brewing in the political world. For, of course, it was very soon known that he had disappeared. News was scarce in Oneiria, and greedily sought for. To keep such a savoury morsel from the maw of the quidnuncs was even beyond Captain Pertinax's powers.
The simultaneous escape of the beggar-maid was naturally mentioned. Not that the informers wished to suggest any scandalous inferences, but merely in the interests of justice. Those who were not in the secret of her connection with the King had inexhaustible information on the point of a most authentic type. The few who knew carefully held their peace.
The Queen-mother, labouring under her unhappy misconception of the case, was heart-broken. The move she had been so proud of had brought about the very catastrophe she dreaded. She was inconsolable, and in a few days retired to her country house, and refused to see any one.
As for Turbo, he was not a little anxious. His respect for the King was considerably increased by recent events, and he had a suspicion that Kophetua meant to spring a bride on him after all. He consulted his fellow-conspirator, and found that the Marquis had received the matter with his usual light-hearted confidence.
"It is merely a question of hastening the revolution a little," said M. de Tricotrin airily. "We must resolve the Council into a Committee of Safety, call a Convention Parliament, declare the throne vacant, and pass our Provisional Constitution. Nothing is simpler. On the whole, this new situation improves our prospects."
M. de Tricotrin ran off his programme as glibly as though a revolution were no more difficult than the arrangement of so many pleasant little parties, for which it was merely necessary to send out notes of invitation. Turbo was not so confident. General Dolabella was sounded. He had joined the triumvirate on the express understanding that nothing violent or precipitate or vulgar was to be done. He had been assured that the revolution should not so much as break the skin of the constitution; and he adhered. Now, to the Marquis's proposition, he offered an unqualified dissent.
"Create your committee," he said, "if you like. I have no objection; but I cannot answer for my party, nor for the army nor the Church, if the Convention Parliament meets a day sooner than the natural end of his majesty's reign; and I must insist that, before taking any steps whatever, some official effort be made to discover the fate of the King."
Being commander-in-chief the General had to be humoured. As a conspirator, he was not a success. He was full of vanity and nervousness; and every one knows that is a union which breeds nothing so much as obstruction. He himself pardonably mistook the two qualities which he brought to the revolutionary councils for self-reliance and vigilance. He was always making a fuss; and, in order to remove the obstacles which he raised with prodigal fertility, Turbo and the Marquis found it more and more necessary to let him into their confidence.
The idea of the conspirators was naturally enough a republic on the Roman lines. The classics were popular at the time, and the Dual Consulate seemed peculiarly adapted for tiding over the real question which was nearest their hearts. For, of course, both Turbo and the Marquis merely regarded a republic as the foundation for a tyranny which each of them intended for himself; and had not the General's vanity been fathomless, he would have been overwhelmed with the caresses which each of his colleagues showered upon him, with a view to obtaining an ally when the final struggle began.
Meanwhile everything went on as smoothly as could be expected. The conspirators and their immediate partisans anticipated no difficulty in inducing the House to accept the new constitution. The consular form seemed to remove every difficulty. Turbo would represent the Kallist party; de Tricotrin, who had quite stepped into the shoes of the Queen-mother since her retirement, the Agathist. It was agreed that they were to be the first two consuls; while the General was to be flattered and his party consoled with the Presidency of the Senate. Dolabella was also to retain his present offices, with an enlarged salary, in view of his past services and increasing family.
So very attractive, indeed, was the prospect which the Chancellor and the Marquis had sketched out, that they were both desperately anxious to see it put in with permanent colours. They lost no time in fulfilling the General's preliminary condition—a commission was appointed to report on the disappearance of the King and the chances of his return. Voluminous evidence was taken; but the only fragment of it all that was of any value was the testimony of Captain Pertinax, and he protested that he neither knew nor could guess anything of his master's movements.
The commission promptly reported itself a failure. Theoretically, the King's person no longer existed. He was a factor that could now be eliminated from the problem. It was done without delay; the Committee of Safety began to sit, and the General's nervousness was redoubled.
Yet he was not without his consolation, and he availed himself of it almost intemperately. To every new cajolery which Turbo could invent to win over the Commander-in-chief, M. de Tricotrin had one overwhelming answer, and that was his daughter. Mlle de Tricotrin, having been initiated into the whole plot, consented to obey her father's instructions, and make desperate love to the soft-hearted General, or rather to allow him to make love to her.
Could anything have added to the unhappy girl's misery, it would have been this. The old beau's gallantries were insufferable after the splendid homage of Kophetua; and the abasement under which she groaned at having to endure them with a smile was proportional to the self-respect which the King's chivalrous admiration had revived. She hated and despised herself more than ever. The memory of Penelophon's betrayal pricked and scourged her into a deep melancholy. By it she had lost not only the new-born faith in herself, but her earthly paradise as well. For as such she knew it now—the life that might have been hers. She knew that at last she loved the man whom at first she only desired. She felt she could give the whole world to have his love in return. Throneless and penniless she would take him now, and give more to win him than an empire. And this was the man she had driven to suicide or madness—she knew not what. By her crime she had poisoned herself in his eyes, and her handmaid too; and he she loved so well had fled the world in despair. She knew him well, and understood it all. It was a torment almost past endurance, and yet day by day she must smile beneath it, and push her father's scheme to try and drive the memory from her head.
So she lay one afternoon upon her divan, little more than a week before the King's reign would come to an end, feeling, as the catastrophe drew near, there was nothing she would not do to repair the wrong of which she was guilty. She was awaiting the General's now daily visit, dressed voluptuously in one of those wonderful demi-toilettes, which drove the foolish old officer to the verge of distraction, and made him feel that one hour of her society, even at the tantalising distance she preserved, was compensation enough for all the little ease at home with which Madame Dolabella's jealousy made itself evident.
In due course he made his appearance; but it was not with the gallant air that usually distinguished him. He was evidently excited.
"Mademoiselle!" he cried, seating himself beside her without ceremony or greeting, and spreading out a paper. "See here. What shall I do? I must do something, and there is no one I may safely consult but yourself."
"My dear General," said Mlle de Tricotrin, "calm yourself, and tell me all about it."
"Calm myself!" said the General, sinking his voice to an agitated whisper. "How can I? The King is alive, and I know where he is!"
Mlle de Tricotrin started up, and, seizing the paper from the General's hand, began to read it eagerly. Her beautiful lips parted, and her breath came quick and fast, as her eye ran down the lines. It was a report addressed to the Minister of Public Worship by the Abbot of the Cañon Hermits, giving him official intimation of the arrival of two novices, and furnishing him with particulars of their personal appearance for purposes of preliminary registration.
"There is no doubt who the novices are," she said.
"Not the slightest," answered the General; and then stopped, as he saw the eyes he adored dim with tears. In a moment she understood it all, and knew that another had won the love for which she could never cease to hunger. It was a bitter morsel between her lips; yet the desire to repair the injury she had done, and regain a little of the good opinion she had forfeited, prevailed over all. She had lost him, she knew, and her only consolation was to make him regret her. Could she but find some means to release him from his enchantment it would be done. His eyes would be open, and he would see what a mistake he had made.
"What do you propose to do?" she asked abruptly, as she rose from her couch to hide her tears.
"To get the Committee of Safety summoned at once," he said, "and inform them of what I have discovered, that they may immediately dissolve themselves and send a deputation to the King, imploring his return."
"And you will explain to my father and the Chancellor," said Héloise, "that the revolution must go no further."
"Precisely."
"And find yourself in the Tower before the day is over."
"My dear mademoiselle!" cried the General in alarm, "what do you mean?"
"Why, my poor friend," she answered, "do you think they will go back now, with their hands on the prize? No! you have gone so far; you must go to the end. You are committed to a republic and the King's deposition."
"But this is terrible. I never intended——"
"I dare say not, General; but they intended all this for you, and it is I that have been told off to make a fool of you. Don't you see that?"
"It is a little difficult at first," said the unhappy warrior lugubriously.
"So much the better," said Mlle de Tricotrin. "Pretend it is impossible. They must not think you see through them. Let no one get a sight of this report. Go on just as before; keep their eyes shut a few days longer, and leave the rest to me."
"But, my dear mademoiselle," objected Dolabella, "you cannot appreciate what it is you ask. You, no doubt, being a Frenchwoman, are used to revolutions. But to me they are unusual occurrences, and I cannot help them making me a little anxious and nervous. How can you ask me to further this desperate plot now I am aware of its enormity, on the mere chance that you, a woman——"
"Hush, my General!" she said, putting her little soft hand over his mouth, with the prettiest gesture in the world, and looking with all her art into his dazzled eyes. "Is it possible you distrust your déesse?"
"If I distrust, mademoiselle," said the soft-hearted soldier, utterly overcome, "at least it is impossible to resist. I will act implicitly by your directions. Deign to tell me what they are at this moment."
For a little while she paced up and down the room, not regarding her foolish adorer. Her face was flushed and agitated, as thoughts, good and evil, battled once more for supremacy. Love whispered revenge, and love whispered devotion. To which voice would she give ear at last? She felt it in her power to lift up the man who had discarded her to his throne again, or to condemn him for ever to the life which she knew would soon become intolerable to his refinement. Suddenly she paused before the General.
"Place Captain Pertinax under my orders, and send him to me at once."
Like a queen she gave him her command, held her hand for him to kiss, and waved his dismissal without another word.
CHAPTER XXIV. THE SACRIFICE OF LOVE.
It is not to be denied that in the course of a few weeks Kophetua began to find the hermits' marriage ceremony not a little irksome. It was not that the idea was any the less attractive to his imagination. Their notion of the real meaning of the period of affiance commended itself entirely to his lofty sentiments. He felt it was a reproach to civilisation that a few prayers and ritualistic forms should have been suffered to supplant the long vigil of the betrothal. The matrimonial state of his ideal was one long sacrament of transcendent sanctity, and he had come to believe that only by months of mutual worship and sacrifice could two lives be consecrated together. He grappled the situation with all the fanatical ardour of which a poet alone is capable; but from Penelophon he could get no response.
For hours he talked melodious mysticism to her in the homeliest phrases he could find, but she only looked at him in ever-increasing wonder, till her face grew so troubled that he was compelled to cease and take her soothingly in his arms to pet her like a child. Then she could understand; and, when his lips gently touched her cheek, she crept close to him, and often began to cry quite quietly, to think how far they were apart, though they sat so close. The old stained dress she wore was always tearing on the rocks and brakes, and hung in rags about her. Each new rent seemed to widen the gap; and, though she nestled never so near when his arms closed about her, she felt him growing each day more godlike, and herself sinking deeper back to beggardom.
He strove to make her set him tasks to do for her, and she never could think of anything but a flower for him to fetch or a deer to kill, and always she cried when he was gone, for very shame that such a man should do such work for her.
One day, when he had tried his hardest to make her see with his eyes, and she seemed still more troubled than ever, she had asked for a flower that grew on the cliffs above, knowing it was the best way to please him. So he hastened away with studied devotion, and quickly reached the summit. There he picked the blossom, and hurried down again, keeping steadfastly in his mind the while the wan, ragged figure, with the unkempt hair, that was awaiting him below. Leaping from rock to rock, he soon reached the zigzag path by which he himself had at first descended. As he sprang down into it out of the bushes, he was startled by a little cry, and the sound of a horse's feet.
He looked up to see a vision that made his brain reel. For there before him, upon a splendid Arab, whose alarm she was controlling with matchless grace and skill, sat, more lovely in his eyes than ever, Mlle de Tricotrin. She was dressed in a riding costume of bewitching fashion, and her face was flushed and her eyes glittering in her efforts to quiet the startled horse. Everything about her was in perfect taste, and of the latest mode, and the air seemed redolent with the freshest breath of modern grace and refinement. He was painfully conscious of the impression this sudden meeting had made on him. He felt ashamed to be so caught, then angry at the intrusion, and turned on his heel to go. But another little cry, and a plunge of the horse, arrested him. His new movement had alarmed the frightened animal again. It was backing to the edge of the narrow path, where the precipice sank away to a depth of a hundred feet or more. Setting her lips, Mlle de Tricotrin was courageously trying to check the perilous movement, but in vain. Already her feet overhung the precipice. It was impossible for her to dismount, and Kophetua saw that any attempt to grasp the bridle could only be fatal. In a moment he was at her side. Seizing her by the waist, he dragged her from the saddle, and then, with one frantic plunge, the Arab crashed into the abyss below.
For a little while he was obliged to support her as they stood, fearing she would faint. But she quickly recovered her strength. Then she quietly disengaged herself from his arm, and stood a little aloof.
"Your majesty has saved my life," she said simply, and then stopped, as though too moved to say more; but her words seemed to mean a thousand things.
"And how can I serve you further?" he asked, unable to take his eyes from her matchless beauty, as she stood before him trembling and agitated, with downcast eyes.
"I only ask," she answered gently, "that you should pardon this intrusion and hear my errand." He bent his head in royal assent, and she continued. "I came not idly," she said; "I came to save your people from the terrible calamity my wickedness has brought upon them. I come, King," she burst out, looking full in his face, with a little tragic air that well became the situation, "to summon you back to the duty you have deserted, to call you to the throne you have abandoned, to bid you turn your flight and face the fight once more. I come to charge you remember the name you bear, and the memory of your ancestors. Full of the spirit of the old knight I come, and with the voice of the mighty dead I charge you rise from your enchantment. Traitors are creeping to your royal hearth. Rise up and strangle them. It was never so shamed before."
Then, with glowing words, and form transfigured, as it were, by inspiration, she told him of the plot which was on foot to wrest the sceptre from him. As the rich voice rang in his ears, he began to catch her enthusiasm, till anger filled his heart, and his eyes were open.
"By the splendour of God!" he cried, "they shall know a Kophetua is yet alive and reigns. I will return and crush them. If I leave the throne, it shall be of my own free will, and in favour of whom I will. I will return and teach them what it is to rouse the soul of the knight. Come! I will return, I say; I—and my Queen."
His voice fell nervously as he uttered the last words, and she dropped her eyes and bowed her head in touching resignation that was almost more than he could bear.
"You must descend with me," he said, with an embarrassed air, "to eat and rest before we start."
So they went down together, he helping her past the difficult places; and each time he touched her hand he felt a thrill pass through him, as though some subtle poison was passing upon his life.
"It is difficult to know how to thank you, mademoiselle," he said, after a long silence.
"It is not thanks I desire," she answered. "It is forgiveness."
"But how did you find my retreat," he asked quickly, to change the key.
"Devotion to your majesty is a cunning guide," she replied. "It was that which showed me the way."
"May I not know who were your allies?" he asked.
"Your majesty may know anything that I have to tell. You have only to command."
"Then I command; for, thanks to you, mademoiselle, I am still a King."
"It was Captain Pertinax," she said, looking up with a bright, happy glance at his words. "He consented to bring me hither, when I told him what my errand was. He followed your trail the day after you fled, but never opened his lips till I begged him for your sake. He is waiting above till I return."
"He shall not wait long," said the King, not a little touched by his new follower's fidelity, and feeling there was much in the world he had never known before. But he said no more; for now they emerged from the bushes, and came suddenly upon a beggar-girl standing in the meadow, a homely figure in shabby rags, with fingers stained with berry juice, and hair matted and unkempt, and a wan, vacant face. What had happened? Was this indeed the idol he had been gilding so long? Was she so suddenly changed, or were his eyes dazzled by the vision on which he had been gazing too long?
Penelophon it was, indeed, and quite unchanged. Mlle de Tricotrin knew her at once; and, while Kophetua stood stricken with a sickening sense of disillusionment, she went towards the wondering girl. On her finger was the King's signet ring, and Héloise recognised it immediately. So, with the air of resigned humility that was so telling in that queen of women, she knelt upon the grass and loyally kissed the beggar-maid's hand.
"I crave your majesty's pardon," she said, as she bent over the berry-stained fingers.
Kophetua could endure no more. "She is not my wife!" he cried hastily. "We are not married yet. Rise, and reserve your homage till our wedding day."
Mlle de Tricotrin rose as he spoke. Their eyes met; the same thought flashed across them both, bringing a flush on the face of each. As it were in lines of fire, he saw the mistake he had made. He saw there was nothing about his idol but the mystic robes in which he had clothed it. It was his own dreaming he had been trying to love. Bright and resistless as the morning Héloise had burst upon him, and he knew the day from the night. Bitter indeed was the awakening; for, come what would, he could never betray the woman to whom his troth was plighted.
"Here is your flower, Penelophon," he said, and kissed her as he gave it. But the beggar-maid had no eyes but for her mistress, and she blushed like a guilty thing to see the look of anguish that came over the face she loved so well. Then suddenly she sprang from Kophetua's embrace, and, flinging herself at Héloise's feet, she sobbed and sobbed again.
It was long before Penelophon's agitation could be calmed; but Mlle de Tricotrin coaxed away her tears at last, and then they sat beside the stream maturing their plan of action. Long Kophetua and Héloise talked. She was full of expedients, and he hung on her lips while she eagerly poured out to him her schemes for saving the throne. And Penelophon sat listening, but not to what their words were saying. Forgotten and unnoticed, she sat gazing upon them with unspeakable sadness. Their voices said things to her that were more than she could bear. They told her plainly that in the pursuit of her own happiness no lasting joy was to be found. How could she ever delight in her own poor ballad if it stood in the way of so full a poem being sung. And, as she listened to the harmony of the souls she loved, there came to her fragile face a weary smile, sadder than all her tears. Still, unperceived, she quietly rose and wandered away across the meadow. From time to time she looked back to where they sat absorbed in each other. She marked Héloise's animated talk, and she saw the noble look of resolution that illumined her hero's face. Still smiling, as might some martyr as rude hands bound her to the stake, she wandered on, nor ever stopped, except where she could get a glimpse of the lessening figures beside the stream. At last she came to where the gendarme's horse was cropping the turf, and Captain Pertinax was snoring loudly on the sward. She looked at the handsome, soldierly figure for a while with a strange expression, and then awoke him.
"Rise, Captain," she cried; "I bring you orders from the King."
He was on his feet in a moment, rigidly saluting her. "To-morrow at dawn his majesty will set out for the capital to do the work you know of. To you he commits me. You saved me once, and it is to you he trusts me again. Mount and away. For you are to go before and see me to a place of safety. See, here is your warrant," and with that she held out to him her hand, on which was the King's signet ring.
"But how are we to travel?" said the Captain uneasily, saluting the ring.
"You must take me on the saddle before you," she answered, with a pretty smile, that redoubled the gendarme's uneasiness. "You do not mind that?"
"Mind it, mistress!" said he. "No, but——"
"Then, I pray you lose no time," she replied, "but this instant strap your cloak upon the saddle to make a seat for me."
She went to him as she spoke, and laid her hand coaxingly on his arm. Poor Penelophon! she could be woman enough with this rough soldier, and she did not scruple to turn against him the honourable weapons with which her weakness was armed. Where is the true woman who would not do the same, and do it well in a good cause?
Never in her life had Penelophon so armed herself before. But the skill to wield the gentle weapons is born in every woman that is worth the name, and she knew her part as though she had practised it all her life, and she saw she was gaining ground by strides. Men's fullest might may appear when they are struggling for themselves, but a woman is strongest for those she loves. She saw he could not hold out long, and grew more winsome every moment, as the bitter end for which she fought drew near.
While Captain Pertinax was getting ready her seat, she prattled such gentle nothings, and helped him with such pretty confusion, that the big soldier was almost undone; and, as soon as they were on their way, an ominous silence fell upon them.
Penelophon was holding on by the Captain's belt, and he, with a troubled air, sitting far back away from her, as though she were a noxious thing. Presently she looked up at him shyly, as though she were about to say something. He was looking resolutely in front of him. Still it could not be but that their eyes met. He quickly stared ahead again, and twisted his moustache fiercely. In a few minutes it happened again, and this time he desperately struck his spurs into the horse to relieve his feelings. The animal started forward, Penelophon reeled in the saddle, and he had to put his arm about her to prevent her falling.
"Thank you," she said, looking up at him again with pretty diffidence; "I feel much safer now. There is no one takes care of me like you."
Then once more her prattle flowed; and, beating down the shame she felt as his arm closed more and more fondly about her, she stabbed him with tongue and eye and dimpled smiles till flesh and blood could endure no more.
The pretty little form was now nestling close to him in frank confidence. Once more he struggled to be loyal to his master's charge, and then he bent down and kissed the delicate face. She winced just a little—he could feel that—and the blood rushed to her face; and somehow he felt, in a moment, thoroughly ashamed of himself.
"Do you love me then so much?" she asked, looking up at him frankly once more.
"'Sblood! lass," he burst out, "could iron and stone help loving such a little flower? I love you more than my sword, and more than my horse—ay, and more than the King himself."
"Ah! then," she said, "I can give you all the King's orders. I did not like to before."
He could feel her trembling in his embrace, and his voice was very gentle as he answered, "Why, pretty one," he said, "what were they?"
"He said," she answered, bravely meeting his passionate gaze, "that I should never be safe from my persecutors till I was some brave fellow's wife."
"And he said that I was to be the man?" cried Pertinax eagerly.
"But I could not give you his order," she answered shyly.
"Heaven bless him! Heaven bless you!" he said, with feeling, and kissed her again, and pressed her to him so fondly that she began to feel very peaceful and reconciled. She continued to beguile him with such pretty talk as she never could find for the King, and the big soldier was beside himself with love and tenderness. He begged her to tell him when she would marry him. Once more he thought she shuddered in his embrace, but it might have been fancy; for directly afterwards she put her hand in his, and looked up at him tenderly as she answered. "When we reach the castle," she said. "There is no need to wait. The priest shall do it in the little chapel at the foot of the hills. It is better so; for then all will be safe, and we can wait till the King comes, and journey onward all in one company."
Vainly Kophetua and Héloise sought for Penelophon when the time came to set out. Not a trace of her could they find, and the Titanic walls of the cañon flung back their cries unanswered. They looked one at the other guiltily, and made their search far apart and in different directions. At last the abbot told them he had seen her climbing the bridle-path that led out of the cañon. There was no time to lose. The journey could not be delayed. So the King lifted Héloise on to his horse, and himself going on foot, led it up the ravine in pursuit.
Not a word he spoke, but looked resolutely onward, trying to catch a glimpse of the grey rags. Nor did she seek to break the silence or attract his attention. She saw well his agitation at being thus alone with her, and she sat upon the horse with downcast eyes, as though she too were ashamed. She was resolved to do no treason to the girl she had wronged. The self-respect for which she longed told her it was best, and love told her that resignation was the only means to turn to her the heart for which she pined.
In this way they reached the spot where Pertinax had waited. He was gone too. Again the King searched and shouted, and the echoes seemed to laugh and mock at him, as though they knew he did not hope to find, but only dreaded to begin the journey anew. But it could not be put off for long. Time was flying, and if the throne were to be saved they must hasten on their way. He returned nervous and agitated to where the beauty lay, resting amongst the flowers in an attitude of enchanting grace. Her loveliness was like a pain to him; but fate had fastened them together, and the ordeal to which he felt his manhood unequal must begin at last.
"Mademoiselle," said he abruptly, "it is useless to seek further. We must ride away fast in pursuit."
Their eyes met a moment. A flush overspread her face, and Kophetua turned away, to throw himself fiercely into the saddle. No sooner was he mounted than she came to his side, with a little air of embarrassment. At his curt request she put her dainty foot on his, and he lifted her up in front of him on to Penelophon's cushion. A glade of turf stretched away before them, and it was necessary to make the most of it before the difficult desert was reached, in order to recover the time they had lost. For one moment the King sat irresolute; in another he had desperately put his arm about the bewitching shape, drawn the soft burden to his breast, and with heart aflame, and head in a delirious whirl, was spurring on at a rapid pace between the rustling trees.
So, like Pertinax and Penelophon, upon one horse, and with hearts that beat as one, Kophetua and Héloise came to the King's hunting-tower.
The shades of night had closed the day that followed. The moonlight was glimmering in through the narrow windows of the chamber where Mlle de Tricotrin lay. Not a sign of Penelophon had been found, nor had Captain Pertinax returned. Oppressed with the silence of the night in the lonely castle, Héloise was haunted by a terrible idea. She began to be certain that her handmaid had destroyed herself. The awful stillness seemed to whisper "murderess" to her uneasy conscience, and an appalling sense of guilt tormented her. Long she lay in fevered unrest; but at last, wearied with her arduous journey, and exhausted with the sweet excitement of the ride, she fell into a restless slumber.
But still she tossed uneasily upon her couch. The arm of him she had tried to steal from her victim seemed still about her. The last passionate kiss, in which he had said "Good night," still tingled on her lips. With a distinctness that terrified her, she felt his hand was once more pressing hers, and she started up wide awake.
Still the pressure was there. Something was holding the hand which, in her restlessness, she had tossed outside the coverlet. With a low cry of terror she snatched it away; for there, crouching by her bedside in the ghostly moonlight, was the dim grey figure of her whose blood was on her head. In an agony she looked to find some brand upon her flesh where the spectre had touched it. She could see, in the white beams which fell upon it, there was none; but, with even greater terror, she knew her hand was wet with tears, and on it glistened the signet ring of the King.
Then into the midst of her terror broke a stifled sob, and the spell began to dissolve.
"Child," said Héloise, in a hoarse whisper, "is it you?"
No answer came, but another sob, and Héloise stretched out her hand to touch what seemed her handmaid's tangled hair. Slowly she moved it, with bated breath, in an agony lest she should feel nothing. But it was flesh and blood indeed, and Penelophon seized the hand that touched her, and covered it with kisses. In a few broken words she told her tale, and Héloise listened and blushed like a culprit who receives the reprimand of some august and stainless court.
"But where have you been?" was all she could think of to say when the tale was done.
"We hid in the town down there away from you," Penelophon answered. "For after we were married he was afraid of the King's anger, and bid me let no one know till he had set Trecenito on the throne again, and then he would be forgiven. But I could not wait. So at dusk I stole up to the castle, and lay in the outhouses till all was still; then I crept up here, where I heard them say you were lodged, for I could not bear to think you were mourning for Trecenito; so I thought to come and put his ring on your finger that you might know he was yours and you were his at last. I would have done it secretly, and then departed; but you awoke, and I could not but tell you all, and hear your voice. For God knows," she continued, breaking down again, "I want comfort. He is kind and good, but it is a terrible thing I have done. I have given myself to buy the happiness of him we both love—you and I. It is done, and I would not have it undone; but, indeed, it is a terrible thing, and hard to bear when I am not near you or him."
"Stay, stay, Penelophon!" cried Mlle de Tricotrin; "I cannot bear to hear you speak like this. You are a saint, an angel, and I am worse than the fiends. You shall always be near me, and make me like yourself. You shall never leave me again. Come now to me; come and lie in my arms, and try to make me like yourself."
As she spoke she clasped the slight grey figure to her breast, and soon the two loves of Kophetua were sleeping peacefully in each other's arms.