And meanwhile the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser had arrived; and Max, instead of pursuing his own love-affair, ought to have been busy entertaining him.
The first meeting between Charlotte and her suitor had been tactfully arranged; they had met riding to a review of troops in the great Field of Mars which occupied a central space in the largest of the royal parks. The Princess had a healthy taste for riding in thoroughly cold weather; she also particularly disliked to be in a carriage when those round her were on horseback; and so, by following her own taste, when the Prince met her she was looking her very best. Down a white-frosted avenue of lindens she and her escort came trotting to the saluting-point; and there, once more in his sky-blue with its sable and silver trimmings, the Prince was presented, and opening upon her mild blue eyes that looked curiously light in his bronzed and ruddy countenance, with dutiful promptness he fell in love with her.
By a little quiet maneuvering and attendance to other matters the King left them side by side for a while. Troops stood massed in the distance waiting the signal to advance.
"Do you like soldiers?" inquired the Prince.
"It rather depends upon the uniform," replied Charlotte.
"Oh! Do you like mine?"
She looked at it, and smiled; for there were no sky-blue tunics in Jingalo; and such cerulean tones on a man were to her eyes a little incongruous.
"It would be rather trying to some complexions," she observed. "But you look very well in it."
"Ah! I have been abroad," he explained. "That has given me the colors of a Red Indian."
"You look just as if you had dropped from the sky," she said, smiling still at him.
"Oh, no, not this sky!" and he cast up a grudging glance at the opaque grayness overhead. "Here you seem to have a sun that looks only the other way."
She threw back a light remark, while her eye strayed over the field. Presently he returned to the subject.
"So you only like soldiers because of their uniforms?"
"And when they ride well. I like drums too," she added.
"Ah! good! I can play on the drum. It is my one instrument."
"Does it require much practice?"
"Oh, yes; it is very difficult—to play well. But it has been very useful to me. I took a drum with me to South America. That is music that the natives can understand, it can make them afraid; and when one is all by oneself in the forest, then it helps that one shall not feel lonely. One night when I had no fire left, I was saved my life from wild beasts just by beating at them with my drum. It is funny that you should like drums."
"I like something with them as well," said Charlotte.
"Ah," grunted the Prince, "that depends. There is some music in the world that ought never to be allowed."
"Well, there is some of ours," said the Princess, as the massed bands of three regiments sent forth their blast. "How does that strike you?"
The Prince listened with the ear of a connoisseur. "For you here, that is good," he said judicially; "but you are not a musical nation. And there is a man there that is playing his drum as it ought not to be played."
And then his formal duties called him away. This was their first exchange of compliments. Old Uncle Nostrum, who had kept within ear-shot, reported to the King that things had gone sufficiently well. There was no secrecy about the intended affair in the royal circle now; everybody knew of it.
And that evening, at a State ball given in the Prince's honor, the destined pair met again.
Nothing very much happened at the ball. The Prince danced once with Charlotte and once with the Queen, and with nobody else; while Charlotte danced nearly the whole evening; and Max, moving about with a pensive and preoccupied air, danced with nobody. But the only reason why this ball has to be mentioned is because of something that happened immediately after, quite unconnected either with the about-to-be-linked or the about-to-be-separated lovers—something which takes us back to those underground workings of the body politic which his Majesty was only now beginning fully to apprehend.
State balls end punctually, and as it were upon the stroke; as soon as the royal countenance is withdrawn they come to an end. And so within half-an-hour of the retirement of the royal party all the great suite of chambers was empty, and in less than an hour light and movement had ceased in all that part of the palace wherein the royal family resided.
But the King, hindered during the day by constant attendance upon his guest, had some papers to look through before his next meeting with the Prime Minister. He went into his study, switched on the light, and for an hour sat at work. Outside traffic died away; the sense of silence grew deep; the whole palace became permeated by it. Wearying for bed, having got through his last batch of papers, the King looked at the clock; it was half-past one.
Just as he was getting up from his seat the mere ghost of a sound caught his ear. The door, silent on its hinges, had softly opened; and within its frame stood a figure in dark civil uniform who gave the military salute.
"Mr. Inspector!" cried the King in surprise, recognizing the face.
"I beg your Majesty's pardon."
"Ah! You came to see that everything was safe? This time you were a little too early. Still, as you are here, I should rather like to know how far those keys do allow you to penetrate?"
"Everywhere, your Majesty."
"You mean, even to the private apartments?"
Apparently he did.
"Do you often have occasion to use them?"
"Not after to-night, your Majesty—never again."
"Oh, do not suppose that I am objecting, if it is really necessary."
"I give these keys up to-morrow, sir," said the man. "I ought to have given them up to-day; but I wanted to see your Majesty."
The King drew himself up; this seemed an intrusion.
"You could have asked for an interview," he said.
"I could have asked to the day of my death, sir; you would never have heard of it."
"You could have written."
"Does your Majesty think that all letters personally addressed are even reported to your Majesty?"
"I suppose not all of them," said the King after considering the matter.
"Not one in a hundred, sir."
"Still, any that are important I hear of."
"Mine, sir, would not have been reckoned important," said the man bitterly.
The King looked hard at him, not with any real suspicion, for his straightforward bearing inspired liking as well as confidence. But here was a man whose measure must be carefully taken, for he was certainly doing a very extraordinary thing.
"And have you something really important to tell me?"
Their eyes met on a pause that spoke better than words.
"Yes," said the man. Quietly he shut the door.
"Won't you come nearer?" said the King, for the depth of a large chamber divided them. But the disciplined figure kept its place. Slowly but without hesitation he gave what he had to say.
"I am dismissed the force," he began; "but that's not important—at least only to me—though I suppose that's partly why I'm here, for a man must fight when his living is taken from him. I am dismissed because your Majesty got out of the palace the other night without my hearing of it."
The King breathed his astonishment, but said nothing.
"I admit I ought to have known, but the man we had on duty at that door didn't know your Majesty—at least not so as to be sure. I asked him yesterday who it was went out, and he said—well, sir, he thought it was one of the palace stewards. They use that door a good deal at night, so I'm told."
"That he did not recognize me was, of course, my own doing," said the King.
"I know that, sir," replied the man, "but in the detective force we can't afford to make those sort of allowances. The consequence is—I'm out of it."
"I'm sorry, Inspector. What do you want me to do?"
"Well, sir, I'm here because I know something that I can't tell to another soul on earth. If I could have gone to them with it, I needn't have troubled your Majesty. But, so happens, I haven't got the proof."
"Are you going to ask me to believe you without proof?"
"Your Majesty can get the proof—or see it anyway. It's there at Dean's Court."
"Dean's Court? What is that?"
"Where the police museum is, sir. The proof of what I'm going to tell your Majesty lies there."
This was getting interesting. "Pray go on," said the King.
"That bomb," said the man, "the one that was thrown at your Majesty the other day—all the pieces of it are in the museum now."
He paused, then added—
"They have gone back to the place they came from."
It was evident then, from the man's tone, that to his own mind he had stated the essential part of his case.
But the King, his brain working on unfamiliar ground, missed the connection.
"I do not quite understand," he said.
"No, sir? Well, then, it's like this. After the bomb was thrown, we were put on to the ground, and the public were kept off. All the pieces picked up were brought to me. It must have been a very mild sort of charge, sir, nothing much besides gunpowder I should say; no slugs nor anything. Most of the shell I was able to put together again. It was blackened all over, partly by fire, partly new painted I think, but, under the black, I found lettering and numbers, all quite faint. I've got them here." (He drew out a pocket-book as he spoke.) "D.C.M. 5537."
He closed the book with a snap as though clinching an argument.
"The bomb that had that number on it," said he, "came from Dean's Court Museum; it's been there fifteen years. I've been in to look; that number is missing now. You'd have thought, sir, they might have been more careful than that!" He spoke with professional contempt for a job that had been bungled.
The solemnity of the man's manner, and the queer mystery of it all sent a cold sensation through the King's blood; he felt now that he was up against something dangerous and sinister.
"What do you mean me to understand from all this?" he asked?
"Well, sir," said the man, "it doesn't need me to tell your Majesty that when anarchists or any of that sort want to do a bit of bomb-throwing they don't go to our police museum for their materials. But that's not all. They found out, down at head office—after it was over, only then—that the local authorities had given permit for a cinematograph record to be taken from a stand just opposite, overlooking the new buildings, so as to get the procession as it came along under the arch. And so, as it happened, those films had got the whole thing recorded. We only heard of it when they were announced to be shown at the theater that night. I was sent down to get hold of them, and I brought them back with me.
"I've been through every one; most people wouldn't see anything. The point where the bomb went off was about fifty yards away; and those films give a view that just takes in a bit of the palisade. At number 139 you see an arm come up, and a face just behind it, very small, under the scaffolding; you'd hardly know it was there. But if that were put under a good microscope I shouldn't be surprised but what it could be recognized."
By this time the King's understanding had become clear; he saw where the argument was leading.
"Before I could do that," the man went on, "they were locked away. I didn't say anything about it—didn't point it out to them, I mean—for I'd begun to have a feeling that things weren't all right; and I daresay they haven't noticed what I noticed. If they have, number 139 and the ten plates following will be gone. Whether they have or not—that's my proof."
The King was now following the man's narrative with tense interest; every moment its import grew more clear; yes, clearer than day, sharp and bright as a rocket shot up against the blackness of a midnight sky.
The inspector paused for a moment and wiped his hand over dry lips; in the telling of that tale his face had grown white.
"Whom do you mean by 'they'?" inquired the King.
The man hesitated. "Well, your Majesty, I'd rather not say."
"I ought to know."
"Oh, yes, sir, I can't deny that! But, there, I've got no proof—so it's not the same thing. But I do say this, your Majesty, that to be able to lay hands on those things in the first place, and now to keep them locked away, needs somebody higher up in the department than I'd like to name. If I may leave it at that?"
"That will do," said the King.
"Your Majesty sees I couldn't safely go to anybody else with that proof; either it would be somebody who couldn't get at it before it was destroyed, or it would be those who had the whole thing in their own hands."
"I quite see that," said the King.
"That's all I had to say, then, sir."
"I am very much in your debt; I shall not forget what I owe you. There is one question I want to ask—you say that the charge must have been a very feeble one?"
"Yes, sir, much less than an ordinary shell."
"What do you deduce from that fact?"
"Well, your Majesty, I should say that killing had never been intended."
"That it was only done to frighten some one?"
"That is about it, your Majesty."
"Thank you; that is what I wanted to know. And if you will leave me your name, I think I can promise that you shall be at no disadvantage after I have gone into the matter."
"I am much obliged, your Majesty." The inspector came forward, drew out a card, and respectfully presenting it, retired again.
"Then, for the present, that is all," said the King. "It is now nearly two o'clock. You can, I believe, let yourself out?"
And in the light of a gentle, half-quizzical smile from the royal countenance, the inspector withdrew.
"What an amazing thing!" said the King to himself. "And oh! if it is true!"
III
He knew that it was true; for in a flash he had seen the meaning of it. And instead of angering him, it filled him with an almost intoxicating sense of power. For it meant that the Prime Minister, or the Government, could not do without him, he had been necessary to their plans.
He could not distinctly see why, whether it were a fear of Max succeeding to the throne at such a juncture or of popular resentment at the sovereign being driven to so desperate a remedy for his griefs, or fear merely of the damage that might be done to the monarchical system while bureaucracy was still depending upon it as a cloak for constitutional encroachments—whether one or all of these fears impelled his minister, the King did not know; but he saw clearly enough that to force him into withdrawal of his abdication the Prime Minister had adopted a desperate and almost heroical remedy.
He bore the man no grudge; the more he envisaged the risks, the more he admired and respected him. Feebly though the bomb had been charged, carefully though directed by slow underhand bowling only at the legs of horses, at a moment when the royal carriage had actually passed, still a bomb is an incalculable weapon—pieces of it fly in the most unexpected directions; and it was evident that for the execution of this ministerial veto on the Crown's action it had been necessary to risk the lives not merely of a picked body of troops, but of several high court officials and staff-officers riding in close attendance upon the royal coach. And a child in politics could see that if all this risk had been run to make abdication impossible, then abdication had been the right card to play.
And now that game was over, and another had begun, and if, in a certain sense, the leading cards had reverted to the ministerial hand, the King had the advantage of knowing what they were; and by leading off in another suit he might prevent the Ministry from playing them till too late for effect.
It was necessary, however, first to get his proofs. They lay at Dean's Court under official lock and key; and the hand which held that key was, for all he knew, the same which had thrown the bomb in order to frighten him. How, then, was he to get at it?
A brilliant idea occurred to him; so simple and easy that without worrying himself further he went to bed and slept upon it. And next morning, at their first meeting, he said to the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser, "Would you not like to come and see our police museum? Just now it contains some rather interesting exhibits—especially for us personally—that bomb, you know." And he proceeded to give details. "The actual pieces are all there, and a whole set of photographs, showing how the explosion took place."
Her Majesty, hearing of the project, backed it warmly.
"You will find it quite an intellectual treat," said she, "our police are such intelligent creatures. I went all over the museum myself once; and it felt exactly like being in a kaleidoscope—everything so wonderfully arranged."
"Ah, yes," said the Prince, "that should be very interesting."
And so, though it was not in the day's program, quite at an early hour the King and his guest drove down together to the Prefecture.
The Prefect himself had not arrived, but they saw one of the high permanent officials; and stating the purpose of their visit were formally handed over to the Superintendent of detectives. The department was his.
"Mr. Superintendent," said the King, "we come upon you by surprise; are you sufficiently prepared for us?"
The Superintendent declared that his department was ready at all hours.
"I wanted to show the Prince some of your relics," his Majesty went on, "particularly those connected with the recent outrage."
Of course the Superintendent was delighted; he led the way into the museum; and before long the Prince of Schnapps-Wasser became very much interested in all the things that were shown him.
Case after case was opened; and the King, seeing how smoothly matters were shaping, made no hurry toward the attainment of his goal.
Presently, pointing toward a case that stood in a window recess, the official remarked with a smile, "There lies your Majesty's death-warrant—what is left of it."
The case was opened; the King took up the fragments.
"Very interesting," he said. "There are also some photographs showing the actual event, are there not?"
"They are here, your Majesty." The Superintendent produced a small box with numbered slides.
"Very interesting," murmured the King again as he continued to handle the shards.
Presently he detected in one of these a faint trace of figures and lettering; he laid it to one side, took up the films, and began to examine them. Film after film he held up to the light; the scale was very small. Unable to decipher them in detail he sought only for the identifying numbers under which they stood catalogued.
After a while he came to the one he was in search of; that and the other two or three which immediately followed it he selected for closer scrutiny. Two of them he handed to the Prince. "This is just before," he said by way of explanation. "It was from behind those palisades that the bomb was thrown after our coach had passed."
"Here your Highness can see the actual explosion taking place," said their guide.
"Ah, very good! Very interesting!" murmured the Prince, with cordial appreciation. "That seems to have gone off quite well."
The King meanwhile had re-collected the four innocuous-looking films and set them apart from the rest. "And have you been quite unable," he inquired, "to trace the bomb to its origin, or to discover anything as to who threw it?"
"No trace at all, sir. The whole thing is a perfect mystery."
"Remarkable!" said the King.
And then with the leisurely air of a collector of curios he took up again the four films and the shard bearing the faint trace of figures, and before the astonished eyes of the Superintendent put them into his breast-pocket.
"I will keep these as a souvenir," he observed. "They will always be of great interest to me."
"I ask pardon, your Majesty," replied the official a little stiffly, "but it is against all regulations for anything to go out of this museum when it has once been catalogued."
"Ah, yes," retorted the King, smiling pleasantly, "but then it is against all regulations for bombs to be thrown at the royal coach when I am in it; so you must allow, for once, this small breach that I make in your chain of evidence. There is plenty of material for conviction still left, should you ever discover the criminal."
"I am afraid, sir," said the Superintendent, speaking gravely, "that this will get me into trouble with the Prefect. May I express a hope that your Majesty will reconsider the matter?"
"Oh, no, not at all!" said the King. "Tell the Prefect that the responsibility rests with me. The Prince here is witness that I robbed you and that you were helpless. Lay all the blame upon me without any scruple! And if it is a very grave breach of the regulations—well—you can inform the Prime Minister; and then, no doubt I shall hear of it."
The Superintendent stood mute; he had made his protest, and he could not pretend that he was satisfied.
"By the way," went on the King, "I have a very particular request to make which I think concerns your department. In connection with a certain incident that took place the other night—and which shall be nameless—one of your special inspectors has been dismissed, I hear?"
"That is so, your Majesty."
"Well, I do not wish to interfere in anything that makes for efficiency; but I have to request—will you please to make a particular note of it—that he shall be retired on a full pension."
For a moment the official hesitated. "May I ask why, sir?"
"Because practically I have promised it. It is either that or I re-engage him for my own personal service. He is a man whom I have trusted in matters of an exceedingly confidential character. Pray see to it."
The head of the department could hold out no longer. "It shall be as your Majesty wishes," said he.
"Very well," said the King. "Please report when you have seen the matter through. And now, Prince, I think that we have exhausted everything—including, I fear, your patience, Mr. Superintendent. What a very criminal part of society you have to deal with! I hope that the influences of the place are not catching."
"As to that, sir, I can hardly say," replied the other with a wry smile. "Your Majesty has just committed a robbery which I shall have to report; the first that has ever taken place in this department."
"Oh, surely not quite the first!" protested the King.
Then he checked himself. "Well, if that is so, you can but take out an order for my arrest. And you will find," he added slyly, "that I am already well known to the police."
And so saying, he and the Prince took their departure.
But if the King was satisfied with his morning's exploit—a raid so successfully conducted—he had harassment to face before the day was over. His message to Council, on the matter of the Women Chartists and their grievances, was received by the Prime Minister not only with disfavor but with a clear though respectful intimation that it would not be allowed to effect the ministerial program.
"I must remind you, Mr. Prime Minister," said his Majesty, "that the Constitution gives me this right."
"That, sir, I do not question. But it gives to us also a discretion as to when time can be found for attending to it."
"Well," said the King, "you may fix your own date within reason."
"I can fix no date, your Majesty."
That was flat, and the monarch could not help showing his annoyance.
"If you think that that answer satisfies me," he said, "you are mistaken."
"I fear," replied the Prime Minister, "that it is often my duty to give your Majesty dissatisfaction."
"Well, well," said the King, "we shall see!"
He had drawn out of his pocket a small shard and was toying with it as he spoke.
"By the way," he said, considerately changing the subject, "I was at the Prefecture this morning; I took the Prince to see the museum."
"So I was informed, sir."
The Prime Minister showed no discomposure; his demeanor was wholly urbane and conciliatory.
"I brought away with me a small memento," went on the King.
"I was told of that too, sir," replied the Premier, smiling. "It was a little irregular; but if your Majesty wishes for it I do not think there can be any real objection."
"Really," thought the King to himself, "is he going to pretend that he knows nothing about it?" Yet the good face which his minister put upon the matter did not fail to win the King's admiration; he respected the man's courage and ability to brazen the thing out. The Superintendent, he judged, was not actually in the secret; but of the Premier he was now quite sure. That air of calm was just a little bit overdone. "I suppose he thinks that I can't do anything," mused the King. "Well, well, we shall see."
And then he inquired whether the Prime Minister had interviewed Prince Max.
"I have not, sir; but I have seen the Archbishop."
"You have been talking to the Archbishop about it?" cried the King sharply.
"At great length, sir," replied the Prime Minister.
"Then I must say that you have taken a most unwarranted liberty! You have gone entirely beyond and behind my authority. No, it is no use for you to protest, Mr. Premier; I did consent that you should speak to the Prince; but beyond that—until it had been thoroughly discussed with him—what I communicated to you was entirely confidential and private."
"An affair of such importance, sir, cannot possibly be private."
"It can have its private preliminaries—otherwise where would be diplomacy?"
"The Prince might any day have taken overt action—he might even have announced the engagement."
"He might, but he did not! And without even seeing him you have been behind his back and discussed it with the Archbishop! And pray, with what result?"
"At present, sir, I am not in a position to say, but I have good hopes. We are still in correspondence. I assure your Majesty that my conscience is clear in the matter."
"Your conscience, Mr. Prime Minister, has an easy way of clearing itself; you lay the burden of it on me! Yes, this is the second bomb that has been dropped upon me from Government back premises, and I am tired of it; I am not going to stand it any longer! In this matter of the Prince's engagement you and I were in entire agreement; but now you have so acted that you have endangered the relations—the very friendly and affectionate relations—between the Prince and myself. I hardly know how I shall be able to look him in the face. I give him my consent; and then I suddenly turn round and I work against him; I go behind his back, yes, I steal a march upon him—that is how it will appear. And if he so accuses me, what am I to say?"
"I appreciate your Majesty's feelings; but I say, sir, that any sacrifice was necessary to prevent so dangerous a proposal from going further."
"No!" cried the King, "no! not of straightforward dealing and of honor! That is what comes of being mixed up in politics. People forget what honor means, their sense of it becomes blunted. Unfortunately mine does not! Mr. Premier, you have profoundly distressed me; you have made my position extremely difficult. And I do not think that you had any excuse for it."
The Prime Minister had never seen the King so disturbed and agitated. He moved quickly up and down the room beating the air with his hands; and when his minister endeavored to put in a word he threw him off impatiently, almost refusing to hear him.
"No," he said, "no, you had better leave me! With the Prince I must make my peace as best I can. With you I no longer intend peace; it has become impossible! I have my material; and now my mind is made up, and I mean to use it! Yes, Mr. Prime Minister, you can go!"
And thereupon they parted.
Max was far gentler to his father than the King could have hoped. They did not meet till the next day; and for the first time in his life the King found him utterly cast down and dejected.
"Oh, do not blame yourself," he said in answer to his parent's explanations and apologies; "I do not suppose that what you have done makes any real difference. I have spent my life despising convention, occasionally defying it, and now it has overthrown me. Yes, sir, that is the true solvent of the situation; my morals have been weighed in the balance and found wanting."
"Dear me," said his father, "is that so? Well, well!" and he sighed.
"Of course, sir, I cannot expect you to be sorry about it."
"I am sorry, my dear boy—very sorry. Don't think because I have still to be King that I have not the feelings of a father. Ah, if you only knew how hard I have tried to get out of it all, you would believe what I say."
"Out of what?"
"Being King at all. Yes, Max, I have yet another confession to make; I meant to conceal it from you, but now I would rather that you knew. Perhaps you will think it wasn't quite fair; I intended to leave the responsibility of all this to you; and—well, it so happens that when you asked me I had determined to abdicate."
Max opened his eyes.
"I actually did abdicate. And then the bomb came, and that made it impossible. And so—here I still am; and that is how you got my consent!"
"You abdicated?"
"Yes, my boy, I really did. And if that bomb had not happened I should have been off the throne and you would have been on it. So now, Max, I am going to tell you everything." And he did, from beginning to end.
And when it came to giving Max the actual proof, he got up and unlocked a drawer, and handed out of it the shard and the four films for him to look at.
"Take a magnifying-glass," said the King. "The face and the raised arm are behind the palisade to the right."
"I can't see them," said Max.
"Very small," said the King; "a man with a dark beard."
Max continued to look without result. "I can't find it," he said.
"Well, look at the figures and lettering on the shard; you can see those."
"No," said Max, "I can't."
The King came impatiently across and took them off him. Then, as he examined them, he saw that the shard and the four films had been changed.
He had his souvenir; but the incriminating evidence was gone.
While these events of political moment were going on, Prince Hans Fritz Otto of Schnapps-Wasser had been busy planting himself in the good graces of the Princess Charlotte. They rode, they skated, they lunched, they played billiards together; and so easy did their relations to each other become that the Queen ceased to have any anxiety as to the future, and left the entire conduct of the affair to Providence.
Charlotte all her life had been quick and impulsive in her decisions; her hatreds and her affections had always been precipitately bestowed, and while her conduct was seldom reasonable, her instincts were generally right. So now—when a most crucial question was coming to her for decision—for she no longer needed to be informed of the Prince's mind in the matter—she did not allow its serious character to weigh upon her spirits or make her less ready and spontaneous in the bestowal of her liking. On the contrary, if anything, it hastened her verdict of approval. "I do believe that I am going to fall in love with him!" she said to herself after an acquaintance of only twenty-four hours; and having so determined, she set forth with all speed to study "philosophically," as she phrased it, this huge healthy natural specimen which fortune had thrown in her way. "For if I don't take a philosophical view of him now," she said to herself, "I shall never be able to do it afterwards."
The effort to do so rather amused her; she was not in love with him but she liked him more than a little. She had not yet, however, put him to the test by revealing the awful fact that she had been in prison as a common criminal; and before doing so (a little nervous as to the result) she took such opportunity of survey as was left to her, studied him up and down, noticed his ways, demeanor, habits, and wondered to herself whether in three weeks' time she would be so infatuated with this great creature as not to know where divinity ended and mere earthly clay began.
She had plenty of material to go upon: he was as naïve in the revelations of his own character as in his half-bewildered admiration for the swift mercurial motions of her livelier temperament.
For a while, at the beginning of their acquaintance, some question as to the degree of her sincerity seemed to trouble him.
"How much of what you say do you really mean?" he inquired.
"Oh, it varies!" she answered. "I talk so as to find out what I think. Don't you? Some things one can't judge of till one hears them spoken."
"That seems funny to me."
"Why? You are fond of music: don't you find that sound is very important? Can you think music without ever hearing it?"
"Sometimes," he said.
"But only the airs."
"Oh, no; sometimes I can think like an orchestra, when I know all what is in it."
"You must be very musical."
"Yes; that is my misfortune sometimes. The world has so much ugly sound already; and then some people go out of their ways to make more."
"Ah, yes," she smiled, "I remember you were a musical critic once."
He let that go; and turning the conversation abruptly, as was his wont, to more personal ends, said—
"Tell me, do you like my name?"
"Schnapps-Wasser?" Shaping the word elaborately, she made a wry face over it.
"No—not that; my own name."
"But you have three."
"Yes; Hans, Fritz, Otto. Which of them you like best?"
"Fritz suits you best."
"Then will you always call me it?"
"Prince Fritz, Prince Fritz?—sounds like a robin," she said, trying it in musical tones.
"No, just Fritz; no more, only that."
"Wait till I have known you a few more days; then we will see."
"But I shall already be nearly gone by then," he protested. "I am only here such a short time."
"Perhaps some day you will come again."
"Ah! Again!" He sounded unutterable things, as though upon that word hung his whole fate. Anything might happen to him before they met again.
"I have a secret," he said; "I want to tell it you."
"Are you sure you can trust me?"
"When I have told you it, you can tell anybody."
"Then it can't be much of a secret."
"Oh! You think?" He opened his big childish eyes at her and nodded his head solemnly. "This secret has been with me thousands and thousands of miles. Every time I shot off my gun, every day I went 'tramp, tramp' through the forest walking on snakes, every time I fought for my life I had this secret of mine to live with."
"You had better not tell it then; it may lose its interest."
"I want it to interest you."
"It does," said Charlotte, "very much."
"Huh! You do not know what it is."
"That is why; it is much more interesting not to know."
"Ah, you are playing at me! But what I go to tell you is no joke."
"I was not laughing," she said.
"No; only 'chatter, chatter'!"
"You know where I have been?" he continued.
"I know the continent."
"Yes;—you are right; that is all anybody knows about it. Well, inside of it there is a country as big as this Jingalo of yours; and it belongs really to nobody. I have been all over it."
"The people are very savage, are they not?"
"Savage?—oh, no. They are very fierce and proud, and strong; they are also the most wonderful artists. You call that to be a savage?"
"Artists?"
"Yes; look at that."
As he spoke he drew up his sleeve almost to the elbow, exposing a sunburnt arm, smooth, fine of texture, and enormously muscular. Over its brawny mold, with scaly convolutions elaborately tattooed, writhed a dragon in bright indigo.
"Oh, how beautiful!" exclaimed the Princess. Marveling at the clear intricacy of its detail, she stooped to examine it more closely.
Prince Fritz turned his arm this way and that, displaying it. He snapped his fingers: flick went each separate muscle, the dragon became alive.
"What do you think?" he inquired, smiling with childish vanity and the delight of feeling upon his skin the warmth of her breath.
"It is very beautiful," she murmured again, her admiration divided between the scaly dragon's wings and the splendidly molded limb.
"I have them far more beautiful upon my legs," said the Prince.
"Dragons?"
"Yes; but oh! quite different; more—how do you say?—'bloodthirsty' you call it? Here and here"—he went on, indicating the locality—"I have two. One of them is climbing up and the other is climbing down; and they are both biting on my knee-cap with their teeth—like mad."
"They must be quite wonderful."
"They are all that! When I look at them I am lost with admiration of myself." Then he gazed speculatively into her eyes and speaking in dull, soft tones of Teutonic sentiment, said confidentially, "If you will marry me, you shall see them some day."
Charlotte's laughter rang loud. "Do you think I should marry you for that?"
A wistful, rather nonplussed expression came into the Prince's face.
"I do not know," said he, "why women marry at all; they are so wonderful, so beautiful, so good all by themselves; we men are not beautiful at all—not our bodies nor our hearts. And I—oh, well!"—he drew down his sleeve as he spoke,—"I have nothing more beautiful to offer you than those—my dragons. If you do not want them, why should you want me?"
"But women don't marry dragons!" objected Charlotte, scarcely less puzzled than amused.
"Oh! Do they not? I think you are wrong. Many of them marry only because the man they marry makes them afraid. I have seen it done in the country where I come from;—Germany I mean—and everywhere here it is the same. I am not a dragon myself; but if you are that sort of woman, these might help you to pretend. Do you not think you could be afraid of me enough to marry me?"
This was strange wooing.
"I am not afraid of you at all," said Charlotte; "but I like you—very much."
"Ah, then you want me to be quite another person? Very well, that make it so much easier. Then now I will tell you what I am really like; and you will try not to laugh, will you not?"
Charlotte composed her countenance to as near gravity as was possible, and the Prince went on.
"I am just one little child that has lost its way through having grown so big and strong. And I want some nice, kind woman, that is more sensible than I, to be a mother to me—to take me in her arms and let me cry to her when I am afraid. Herr Gott! I am so frightened sometimes—how I have cried! Of the dark night, of loneliness, of the stillness when there is no noise near, but only that, something far, far away, that comes! Everything frightens me when I am alone. Fighting? No, I am not afraid of that; it is this wait, wait, wait—for what? And I want to have one woman just at my heart, and her voice at my ear, and children—yes, plenty of them; and when I have plenty children, then I shall not be afraid of loneliness any more."
"But if you so dislike it, why did you go away into the wilds?"
"Ah! I had to run away from the music. That was awful! And then—have you lived in a German town?—that is awful too. Do not think that I am asking you to live in a German town? No: I could not be so cruel. So now I tell you my secret."
"You mean the dragons?"
"The dragons? No, no! They go with me,—they are part of me, they are 'in the know': but they themselves are not the secret. That is much, much bigger thing still!"
He paused, and she saw his blue eyes looking far away, as though he had forgotten her presence.
"Well?" she said encouragingly, "you are going to tell me, are you not?"
"Oh, yes! That is what I am come for." His tone was quite business-like now.
"That big country I told you of—it belongs to nobody. You know that those North Americans say that nobody from Europe is to have it, though they do not use it themselves. Well, I am going to have it."
"You?"
"Schnapps-Wasser,—me, with my water-bottles. I have turned them into a company; and they are going to give for it—well, never mind how much. But with what my bottles bring me I can make that country so that no power in the world can prevent it from being a great country to itself."
"But you say it has no coast?"
"No—just like Jingalo; that is what makes it strong. If I were foolish, if I were only going there to make money, I should try to get some treaty, some concession, some sort of trade-monopoly—rubber, or gum, or niggers' blood, it is all the same thing—I should try to get that from the Brazils or the Bolivias or whoever thinks that it is theirs to sell. I am not such a fool: I do not want to trade, if I have got the people. They are strong, they can run, they live clean lives—nobody has spoiled them; they do not want to be rich; they are still a wonderful people; they know a leader when they have found him. And when they gave me these dragons that I have on me, then I became their King. That is my secret. Now!"
"But if I were to tell people that——"
"Pooh! They would not believe you. 'Mad,' that is what they would say. 'Don't marry that man, he is mad!' And besides I am not King as we talk of kings here in Europe; they would not pay taxes to me or anybody, but I can show them what to do. That country on the map may 'belong' to anybody—the United States may write 'Monroe'—one of their big 'bow-wows' that was—they may write 'Monroe' all round the coasts of South America and at every port that they like to stick in their noses; but they cannot get there to say that the people living on that land shall not become great and strong in their own way, without any one else to say about it. To those men outside I shall only look like a trader what is too stupid to trade with them; but all my trade will be among my own people. That country can live on itself; there, that is my secret! It wants nothing, nothing from outside at all; and the people want nothing either. They have great high plateaux where they can live cool; and they have all the brains and the blood that they want to make themselves a great nation. I have drilled them; ah, but not German fashion, no! They are much too splendid for that. Every man is an army to himself. They do not fear, for in their religion it is forbidden them. But if you can think of Bersaglieri—which are the best troops in Europe—able to climb like monkeys, to swim like fish, to go along the ground like snakes, and to get all by different ways to the same place in the dark with their eyes shut, though they have never been there before—for that is how it seems—well, that is what my army is going to be like. I have ten thousand of them drilled already; in a year I shall have them armed; and I tell you that at six hundred miles from the nearest coast nobody will be able to beat them."
"No, perhaps not with armies," said Charlotte; "but what about civilization itself—all the evil part of it, I mean? How are you going to keep that out?"
"Civilization will find us a bad bargain," said the Prince, "we shall not trade: that is to be our law. I have told them how dreadful civilization has become, and they are afraid of it; they will not touch it with a pair of tongs. Traders may come to us; they shall get nothing, and we shall get nothing from them. Only the King, with those that he has for his Council, shall choose what is to bring in from outside; and that will not be for trade at all.
"Well, now you know! And it is to be Queen of that country, but never to wear any crown, that I ask if you are going to marry me?"
"It would be rather a big adventure, would it not?" said Charlotte.
"Of course! I thought that is what you like."
"Yes, so it is. But what about papa? I don't know what he would say if he knew."
"Do you always tell him what you do, beforehand, to see if he shall approve?"
"I've not done lately," said Charlotte. And then she saw that a suitable moment for her own confession had arrived. She had very small hope of shocking him now; but she did her best.
"Do you know that I have been in prison?" she said.
"No. Who was it that put you there—your papa?"
"I put myself."
"Did you get the keys?"
"I made them arrest me."
"How?"
"I took a policeman's helmet from him, and ran away with it. At least that is what he said afterwards: I don't know whether it was true."
"Beautiful!" exclaimed the Prince in ravished tone. He did not turn a hair; it was merely as though he were listening to some fairy tale.
"But very likely it was!" persisted Charlotte, anxious for the worst to be believed; and then she gave him a full account of the whole thing.
"And what for did you do it?" he inquired when she had finished.
"Because they had told me that you were coming, and I had promised not to run away."
"I do not understand?"
"Well, I didn't know what you were like; and I didn't want you to think I was a bit anxious to meet you.—That was all!"
"That was all, was it?" Enlightenment dawned on him; he beamed at her benevolently.
"And I wanted to see," she continued, "whether you would be shocked: at least, I wanted to give you the chance of being."
"Well, you have given it me, and I am not; I am delighted. The more women can do that sort of thing the better—pull men's heads off, I mean."
"Goodness me!" exclaimed Charlotte, "but I'm not going on doing it."
"Why not? A good thing done twice is better."
The simplicity of his approval left her without words.
"In that country where you and I are going to," went on the Prince, imperturbably, "the women can fight just as well as the men. They are trained to wrestle; and before they allow to marry they must have wrestled off on to his back a man as old as themselves."
"But the men?" cried Charlotte, astonished. "How can they stand being beaten by women?"
"Pooh, that is nonsense!" said Fritz; "men do not mind being beaten by women unless it is that they despise them. In that country the woman that has thrown most men is the one that they are most anxious to marry."
"I have never thrown any one yet," said Charlotte reflectively.
"You!" Peaceful of look he eyed her wonderingly. "You have thrown something much stronger than a man," he said—"you, a princess, that has gone to prison!—and for that silly notion of yours that you could shock me. Ha!"
"I did it for other reasons, too."
"Quite like; people may have a lot of reasons they can make up afterwards for doing wise, brave, foolish things like that!"
"But I did think," insisted Charlotte, "that those Women Chartists were right."
"I do not care whether they are right or wrong;—that is not my concern. They may be just as foolish as you, or just as wise—what difference to me? But when I go to think of you sitting there in that common prison all those ten days with everybody looking for you—looking, looking, and not daring to say one word—so afraid at what you had done—oh, that is marvelous! That is to be a King! That is power!"
Charlotte had become very attentive to her lover's praise. "You think they were really afraid, then?" she inquired, "afraid that it should be known."
"You ask them!" replied Fritz, "and see if they do not all cry 'Hush'!"
And then in his usual abrupt way he returned to matters more personal to himself.
"Well, what are you going to say to me? For the last hour I have been asking you to marry me, and you have said nothing; only just 'wriggle, wriggle,' talking off on to something else."
"Wriggling is one way of wrestling," said Charlotte. Her eye played mischief as she spoke.
"Just waggling the tongue!" retorted Fritz with genial scorn. "Throw a man with that?—you cannot throw me!"
"But I must throw somebody, or else I shall not be qualified. The women of that wonderful country of yours would look down on me."
"Throw me!" The Prince opened his arms, smiling. "I will let you!" he said.
"And despise me afterwards! No, Mr. Schnapp-dragon, I shall choose my own man, and throw him in my own way."
"And if you succeed?"
"Then—yes, then I will marry you."
"And if you fail?"
"Then I won't."
"H'm!" observed the Prince in easy-going tones, "you must have been very sure of him before you would say that!"
Charlotte opened her mouth to rebuke that brazen remark; and then shut it again.
"When do you do it?" went on Fritz, equable as ever. "Before I go?"
Charlotte pretended to temporize. "Well, perhaps to-morrow," said she.
And sure enough, to-morrow it was.
Nobody in Jingalo knows to this day what finally induced the Prime Minister to concede so unexpectedly that preliminary point of vantage—a mere foothold among the interstices of the ministerial program—which the Women Chartists had so long and vainly striven for. What use they made of the opportunity thus accorded has now become a matter of history: we need not go into it here.
No royal message to ministers in Council assembled worked that miracle; for, as we shall see in another chapter, the King's mind was destined at this point to be suddenly distracted in quite other ways; and when he was again able to turn his attention anywhere but to himself he found that and other matters which had disturbed his conscience tending with comparative smoothness toward a solution in which he personally had had little share.
But though Jingalo knows nothing of these inner workings of history, we peering behind the scenes may note how, when bureaucracy is bent on keeping up appearances, fear of scandal can become more potent to constitutional ends than love of justice.
Never in his long career had the Prime Minister known so flagrant an instance of blackmail unpunishable by law as that which the Princess Charlotte sprung on him when, in brief interview, she dictated the terms on which alone the Ann Juggins episode was to be allowed to sink into oblivion. And perhaps one can hardly wonder, under the circumstances, that even then he did not feel secure, and was anxious to see so incalculable a "sport" or variant of the royal breed removed to a safe distance. For even though he might rely on her word as to the past, where was his guarantee that she might not do the same thing again?
"That Prime Minister is very anxious to get rid of you," said Prince Fritz when at a later date he and the Princess began once more to compare notes as to future plans, when in fact the joyful news of their engagement was about to be publicly announced in a general uproar of thanksgiving.
"Oh, yes," went on Fritz, enjoying the retrospect, "one could see that quite well. He was putting on my boots for me all the time, and was willing to pay a good deal more for the accommodation than he had expected me to ask."
"Pay?"
"Yes, dearest; but it all goes into your pocket, not mine. It is the price he pays for your character; that is all."
"But what has my character to do with him?"
"Your character, beloved," said the Prince, turning upon her an adoring gaze, "leaves him with no moment in which he can feel safe. He thinks that you have 'a great vitality,' but here not enough scope. And he seems that he cannot govern this country so long as you stay in it. I think him very wise. Shall I tell you what I did?"
"Well?"
"I made a bargain."
"About me?"
"Of course about you, beloved—for you; who else except would I bargain for? Besides was it about anything but your business that he and I were having to seek each other? Well, because you so frighten him now he pays rather more to get rid of you; and you, oh my dear heart's beloved, you will get more. That is all that your Fritz had to do yesterday—and he has done it. So now!"
And then, well pleased with himself, the practical Fritz let his romantic side appear again, and for two minutes or so he lived up to the sky-like blueness of his eyes and the childlike gentleness of his face, and because his heart was very full of love he talked his own native German, and not Jingalese any more.
And these two sides of him are here given so that the reader, if kindly anxious about Charlotte's future, may trouble about her no more; for when your idealist is also a very practical man of business he can, up to the capacity of his brain-power, go anywhere and do anything, and even in a land that is outside Baedeker will assuredly find his feet. Not for nothing had Prince Hans Fritz Otto of Schnapps-Wasser turned his bottled industry of home-waters into a company.
In tentative motherings of her gigantic babe, Charlotte had forgotten all about money and business affairs when once more the practical man in him came out of childish disguise to make an inquiry.
"Beloved," said he, "tell me—was he that man?"
"Which man?" inquired Charlotte innocently.
"The one that you wrestled with?"
Charlotte nodded; a smile flickered over her face.
"And you got him down?"
"Yes."
"Quite down?"
"As flat as he could go."
"And that is why you marry me?"
The two lovers exchanged sweet looks of candor and honesty.
"Yes," said Charlotte, smiling, "that is why."
"O Beloved," murmured the infatuated Fritz, "how beautifully you do tell lies."
It was noticed when the King came down to the first Council of the new session that his face was flushed and his manner strangely discomposed. He barely returned the respectful greetings of his ministers, and by postponement of the customary invitation to be seated, kept them out of their chairs for quite an appreciable time. Standing awkwardly about the board they looked like a group of carrion crows awaiting the symptoms of death before descending to their meal. To none did he accord any word of personal recognition.
Even when proceedings had commenced it was evident that his attention constantly wandered, only returning by fits and starts at the call of some chance phrase on which now and again he would seize, remarking in a tone of irritation, "And what does this mean, please?" And thereafter he would require to be instructed at some length, as though he had forgotten all current or preceding events.
In consequence of this the formal reports of the various departments became a lengthy business; and the really important matters, to discuss which the Council had been specially called, were proportionally delayed.
Presently the word "strikes" caught his ear.
"Ah, yes, what about those strikes?" he inquired.
"They are still going on, your Majesty."
"Yes, I know that! Why are they going on—that's what I want to know? The strike you are talking about was practically over more than a month ago; why has it begun again?"
"They have secured fresh funds, sir, and other trades have joined in."
"Is it the other trades that are finding the funds?"
"Not entirely, sir; large contributions are now coming in from abroad."
"From abroad?" interjected the King irritably, "where are they getting funds from abroad?"
"From England, sir."
"From the Government, do you mean?"
"Of course not from the Government, sir."
"Well, explain yourself, then! Don't call it England if it isn't England."
"I might almost say that it is England, sir, since a judicial decision is the immediate cause of it. Labor in that country has just won a very important action for damages arising out of a Crown prosecution. It has now been decided that the Crown is responsible for the torts of its civil and military agents. The unions in consequence are flush with funds, and a portion of the Court's award, amounting to £50,000, has been handed over to the strike fund in this country."
"And this subsidy from a foreign and a so-called friendly Power is having the effect of prolonging our industrial conflicts, and is doing damage to our trade?"
"Undoubtedly, sir, it has that effect."
"Well, and has nothing been said about it—to the English Government, I mean?"
"It is not a direct act of the Government, sir."
"I don't need to be told that," said the King. "Neither was it a direct act of the Government when a party of English undergraduates climbed to the top of our embassy and hauled down the national flag because Jingalese had been made a compulsory substitute for Greek at their universities. But for that the English Government apologized, publicly and privately, and all round. Do they apologize for this? Do they offer to compensate us for the loss it is to our trade and the corresponding gain to theirs? Have they been asked to apologize?"
"Certainly not, sir."
"And pray, why not?"
By this time, around the ministerial board, much open-eyed interrogation was going on. Where, they seemed to be asking, was this glut of foolish interrogations going to end? But still the minister under examination endeavored to answer as though the questions were reasonable.
"There would be no chance, sir, of obtaining any redress."
"Yet this is doing us infinitely more harm?"
"It is merely a development, sir, of that new thing called 'syndicalism.' It is cropping up everywhere now."
"It may be new as it likes," protested the King. "All I say is that as it stands it is a casus belli. You say it is cropping up; all the more reason why it should be put down! What else is government for? Take cattle disease; you put that down, you do not allow that to be imported. Why should you allow syndicalism to be imported either?"
The Council sought resignation of spirit in sighs and looked to its Chief in mute appeal.
"How would your Majesty propose to prevent the importation of ideas?" inquired the Prime Minister dryly, in a tone that tried to be patient.
"Don't tell me," said the King, "that a syndicalist subsidy to Labor of £50,000 is only an idea. But you are quite right, Mr. Prime Minister; in the past countries have gone to war largely over the importation of ideas, as you call them, either religious or social; that is why they failed. England went to war with France at the end of the eighteenth century merely because France was importing revolutionary ideas into England. Was she able to prevent it? No; she only got the disease in a much more virulent form herself, and has been running tandem to it ever since. It is no use going to war for sentimental reasons; you must do it for business reasons, and you must do it in a business-like way."
"Merely as a matter of business, sir," said the Prime Minister, his hopefulness now on a descending scale, "war with England would cost us considerably more than the loss of trade occasioned by this subsidy which you complain of."
"Not a bit of it!" retorted the King, "not if you went the right way to work. The Chancellor was saying just now that we should have to devise some fresh taxes. Well, put a tax on Englishmen; quite enough of them come here to make it worth while. Every summer the place is alive with them!"
"I am afraid, sir," said the Prime Minister, sighing wearily, "that the most favored nation clause stands in the way of your Majesty's brilliant suggestion."
"Not if we do it openly as an act of war," explained the King; "then it becomes a war tax. That's what I mean when I say conduct your wars on business lines. Don't tax yourself, tax your enemy! England is the one country we can fight on our own terms. She can't get at us. We are an inland power; there isn't a coast within three hundred miles of us; and Dreadnoughts can't walk on land, you know. They really can't!" he added, as though there might be some doubt among those who had not yet given the matter their consideration.
"I assure you, gentlemen, that war on England, if scientifically conducted, would be a profitable thing. I've been reading a book by a man named Norman Angell, who says that war doesn't pay. Well, the reason for that is we don't conduct our wars on the proper lines. Now if we made war on England——"
"Your Majesty," entreated the Prime Minister, "may we proceed to business?"
"If we made war on England," persisted the King, "we should not have to send out a single regiment, or impose any extra taxation on ourselves; in fact we should save. We should simply raise our railway and hotel tariffs fifteen or twenty per cent. to all Englishmen, except children in arms; children up to thirteen half price. There's the whole thing in a nutshell; no difficulty, no difficulty whatever."
At this point, to the Premier's annoyance, Professor Teller took up the question with a humorous appreciation of its possibilities.
"But, sir," he inquired, "how should we know that they were Englishmen? They might disguise themselves as Americans."
"They couldn't!" said the King. "An Englishman trying to talk American makes as poor an exhibition of himself as an American trying to talk English; and besides, you don't know the British character! Penalize them in the way I am suggesting and they would flaunt their nationality in our faces; they would wear Union-jack waistcoats and carry in their pockets gramophones which played 'God save the King' when you touched them. They would make a point of showing us that they didn't care twopence for our fifteen per cent.; in fact, their Tariff Reformers would applaud us—they would put it in large headlines in all their newspapers, and call it an object lesson and would demand a general election on the strength of it."
"But supposing, sir," inquired the Professor, "that they did not come at all? We have to remember that we live largely by our tourists; and if we eliminate the English tourist——"
"Better and better," said the King. "Think how popular we should be with the rest of Europe! No English? The Germans would simply flock to us; our hotels would be crammed; we should be turning away money at the door."
The Prime Minister tapped wearily upon the table; all this was such utter waste of time; and he began to think that the King was so intending it, and was bent upon making a royal Council a constitutional impossibility.
But in some curious magnetic way other members of the Cabinet were now beginning to be infected. The idea tickled their national vanity; and though it was all put in a very amateurish way, many of them saw well enough that for war to be retained as a solution of international problems something on these lines would have to be done for it. Syndicalism was merely a showing of the way.
"But, your Majesty," inquired the President of the Board of Ways and Means, "might not England retaliate by declaring a Tariff war on us?"
"She might," said the King; "but not with the Liberals still in power; they couldn't reduce themselves to absurdity in that way. Still, supposing our declaration of war threw the Liberals out, what could the others do? Our trade in English goods comes to us mainly through France or Germany; and our own return trade is chiefly limited to our native crockery, toys, wood-carving, and needlework, supposed survivals of our peasant industries, which, as a matter of fact, are nearly all of them manufactured for us in Birmingham, the home of Tariff Reform. In that matter, by the taxing of articles which are only nominally made in Jingalo, English trade would suffer more than ours; and there might, in consequence, come about a real revival of our native crafts (an advantage which I had not previously thought of)—lacking our usual supply of the bogus article we should at last become honest in our professions and truthful in our trademarks. Let the Minister for Home Industries make a note of it."