CHAPTER XIII.
A GROUND OF HOPE.
CYRIL’S troubles were by no means over when he had been carried across the plain to Jericho, with infinite difficulty, upon a litter made by tying branches together with handkerchiefs and turbans. His Jewish host listened with a terrified countenance to the story of the attack, and although he did not actually entreat his guests to quit his roof, he expressed dismal apprehensions as to its safety if they remained under its shelter. Finding that they did not take the hint, he withdrew to lament the state of affairs with his family, if the sounds of weeping and wailing that followed were to be accepted as evidence. Mansfield was disposed to ridicule his conduct as the result merely of constitutional cowardice, but Mr Hicks pointed out to him the strong probability that the man’s fears were well founded. A second band of pilgrims was expected that evening at the Scythian hospice, and it was not in human nature that the morning’s assailants, thus reinforced, should resist the temptation to wipe out their defeat. That motive would be sufficient, even without the hope of killing the man whom they regarded honestly and with full conviction as Antichrist. Clearly there was no time to be lost, and after a visit to the authorities, which resulted in their posting a ragged and half-armed guard about the house, Mansfield started on a hurried ride to Jerusalem to consult the Chevalier Goldberg’s agent. It was with no small reluctance that he consented to leave Cyril, even though Mr Hicks had sworn to fight in his defence until the house fell in ruins around them. Still, not only the lives of the party but the future of the Jewish cause hung upon this day’s doings, and since Cyril was unable to decide upon the steps to be taken, the Chevalier was the most suitable person to do so.
In the course of the night Mansfield returned, half-dead with fatigue, but accompanied by an escort of soldiers, and provided with full directions for the future. Cyril was to be carried in a mule-litter to an estate belonging to the Chevalier at Urtas, some miles to the south of Jerusalem, where he could remain in safety until he was well again. The agent would send out furniture and provisions, and see that the place was properly guarded, and neither the hostile pilgrims nor the Jerusalem concession-hunters were to be allowed to know where their victim had taken refuge. A rest of an hour or so was all that was granted to Mansfield and the soldiers, for Cyril’s host was on thorns to get him out of the house. Mr Hicks, who had tacitly invited himself to remain in medical charge of the patient, ordered a start soon after daybreak, and Mansfield and he heaved a sigh of relief as they left the house, only less fervent than that of the Hebrew who had succeeded in getting rid of them. The travellers took the road to Jerusalem, but turned southwards before reaching the city, and continued in that direction until they arrived at the boundary of the Chevalier’s estate. Here the steward, at the head of a well-armed body of gardeners and husbandmen, welcomed the visitors in his master’s name, and the escort, their duty performed, accepted a hearty meal and sundry presents, and returned to Jerusalem.
Life at Urtas was at once business-like and unconventional. The estate was practically a huge botanical garden, in which experiments were made in acclimatising foreign plants and improving by scientific cultivation the products of the country. The house was merely a large native dwelling, of no great pretensions, but the agent had sent out from Jerusalem a wealth of rich carpets, bright-hued draperies, and luxurious cushions, together with the irreducible minimum of European furniture, as represented by a shaky table and four assorted chairs. His care had even gone so far as to provide a Greek cook and a box of books, the latter principally French and Italian novels of an unimproving tendency. During the first few days Cyril was unable to do anything but recline upon the cushioned divans and enjoy the Oriental luxury of his surroundings, but before long the effect of the shock he had received passed away, together with certain feverish symptoms which had alarmed Mr Hicks at Jericho. Considerably before he could fairly be called convalescent he was as busy as ever, although his broken arm forbade him to write for himself. Every day the agent forwarded from Jerusalem a huge pile of letters and telegrams, dealing with all the complicated issues raised by the political situation, and Cyril dictated the answers from his divan while Mansfield and Paschics, who had joined the party from Jerusalem, took it in turns to write, and Mr Hicks lounged in the verandah, looking in at the workers now and then with a benevolent caution not to overdo things. When the letters were finished, Paschics, who was less likely to be recognised than either his colleague or the American, would ride with them to Jerusalem, often bringing back a second instalment of correspondence with him in the evening.
Nothing relating to the affairs of Zion could be settled without Cyril’s advice, for the political barometer showed one of the curious lulls which the wise in such matters consider to herald an approaching storm. The Powers, cajoled, bribed, or threatened one by one into submitting to the Jewish acquisition of Palestine, were waiting, all dissatisfied but each reluctant to be the first to move, to see what the Jews would do. At the New Year the control of the Holy Places was to be handed over to the consular body, as representing united Christendom, and the Roumi officials would give place to a Jewish provisional government, under the suzerainty of the Grand Seignior. The formation of this Cabinet, as it might be called, was one of the most delicate tasks before the leaders of the movement. In order to uphold the theory of representative institutions, dear to the hearts of Dr Koepfle and his school, it was necessary that the members should be formally elected by the Children of Zion throughout the world, voting according to their “tents” or lodges. Whether representative institutions stood or fell, however, it was obviously indispensable that the persons chosen should not be obnoxious to the Powers, and should be willing to maintain friendly, even respectful, relations with the United Nation Syndicate. Cyril’s Balkan experience had left him little to learn in the matter of conducting an election from above, and it was to him that harassed wire-pullers appealed in every difficulty. Frantic telegrams poured in upon him when a “tent” refused steadily to vote for the candidate recommended to it by headquarters, or when all the “tents” of one country plumped for Dr Texelius, who was not one of the official candidates, to the huge delight of the Anti-Semitic press, or when, as happened in England, those Jews who were opposed to political Zionism made a vigorous attempt to capture all the “tents” of the country, with the view of electing a reactionary Cabinet. The wire-pullers did not appeal in vain, and even Mr Hicks was moved to admiration by Cyril’s strategy, giving it as his opinion that Tammany could afford to learn a trick or two from Thracia.
The result of the election was to fill the prospective Cabinet with men holding moderate views and willing to be guided; and if they were virtually the nominees of Cyril and the Syndicate, this fact was not likely to make the task of government less easy, but rather the reverse. Cyril could not but be aware, although he gave no sign of having perceived the fact, that to the Jews who were now crowding into Palestine he was the Moses of this second Exodus. They were coming, not with a wild rush, but in orderly bands, each family or individual selected by the “tent” to which it or he belonged, and allowed to start only when the necessary land had been secured in Palestine. The genius of Dr Koepfle directed this migration with almost mathematical accuracy; but Cyril’s name bulked far more largely before the world than his, and there could be little doubt that when the immigrants were invited to designate by means of a plébiscite the man who should rule them, they would vote unanimously for Count Mortimer.
But this consummation, however devoutly to be wished, was at present merely in the clouds. The Constitution which was to be administered by the provisional government had been drawn up by the foremost Jewish jurists—which is almost equivalent to saying the principal Continental lawyers—and had gone the round of the Powers for approval and criticism. It guaranteed freedom of conscience, freedom of trade, and every political blessing that the human heart could in theory desire, to people of all creeds and all nationalities, and yet the Powers were not satisfied, although no one could suggest any improvement. The lowering state of the political sky carried Cyril’s mind back to the days when Caerleon and he had held the fort in Thracia, alone against Europe, and when the only thing that saved them from annihilation was the mutual jealousy of the Powers. “Nothing will succeed here but success,” he said to himself, as he had said then. “While each of them is waiting to see what the rest will do, we may pull the thing through.” And he chafed the more under the physical weakness which kept him tied at Urtas, when he might have been putting his fortune to the touch, and gaining not only the position which his Jewish friends desired for him, but also the happiness which up to this point he had contrived to miss in his life.
Mansfield was very happy during this sojourn at Urtas. His work was hard and the hours long, but he found time for a good deal of out-door recreation. The agent had provided horses for the party, of a very different type from the serviceable beasts which they had procured for their journeys, and Mansfield loved all horses; while in the estate and the model farm he found a whole world of delight. The steward, a shrewd and ponderous Dutch Jew, told him when he heard of his path in life that he was a good farmer spoilt, but Mansfield was quite content to regard farming as merely a holiday amusement. It would not bring him nearer to Philippa, which was what he hoped his secretaryship would do.
Sometimes Mr Hicks would join him in his rides, and generally on these occasions they went hunting, as the natives called it, dignifying with this lofty name a little quail- and partridge-shooting, for Mansfield drew the line at shooting a fox, much to the disappointment of his attendants. It was on their return from one of these rides that the American said casually—
“Say, Mr Mansfield, not come to any notion yet what your boss has got on his mind, have you?”
“On his mind?” repeated Mansfield, in astonishment. “Nothing more than the work and the political situation, I suppose.”
“I guess that would be about enough for most men,” said Mr Hicks grimly; “but there’s something else wrong with him, He’s just pining to make tracks from this place right now.”
“I haven’t noticed it,” said Mansfield, intending the remark as a snub.
“You bet your life you haven’t, Mr Mansfield. You weren’t meant to.”
“But what is it?” Mansfield turned to face his tormentor; “and how do you know anything about it?”
“Well, sir, if you saw a man fretting like a spirited horse to find himself held fast in one place, and working all he knew to keep himself from thinking, and all the time taking no proper pleasure in his work or anything, what would be your opinion of that man?”
“He might be in fear of his life,”—this was intended to be sarcastic; “or he might”—reluctantly—“be in love.”
“Sir, you have hit the very central point of the bull’s-eye. That’s what’s wrong with the boss.”
“I don’t see that it concerns you if it is.”
“There’s no lady in Palestine that he might have been on his way to interview?” continued Mr Hicks imperturbably.
“You mean that Queen—Queen Ernestine of Thracia?” asked Mansfield blankly. Could it be possible that the moral problem Cyril had propounded to him before leaving Ludwigsbad had been based upon Cyril’s own experience?
“That’s my notion,” was the cheerful reply.
“But why wait so long, and go so far round?”
“Because he’s half ashamed of coming back to her anyhow, and half of being so long about it,” said Mr Hicks concisely.
“I don’t see how you know that.”
“Sir, I was at Bellaviste when King Michael came of age. You bet I made things hum in New York with my reports of the festivities, and the other specials had to fly around to get even with me, but when it came to Count Mortimer’s dismissal the ‘Crier’ fairly took the cake. The hours I spent hanging around at that Palace, working up all the ins and outs of the affair from the servants and minor officials! But it paid, sir, it paid. I wrote up the incident for the paper in my most elegant style—real high-toned dramatic situations, heart-rending pathos, and all the rest. I tell you, Mr Mansfield, those sheets were wet with the scalding tears of the most beautiful women in America. The Four Hundred was divided; half the ladies took the Queen’s side, and half the Count’s—and where will you find a stronger testimony to the fairness with which I had done my work? There wasn’t a likeness of either of ’em left in a single store from one end of the Union to the other. And having gone into the case to that extent, you tell me I’m not even in the ring!”
“By the bye,” said Mansfield, still impenitent, “what miles of interviews you must be sending off to your paper every day now!”
“I am doing my duty to the ‘Crier,’ sir. I was sent out to keep an eye on all the proceedings in this transfer of Palestine, in which my country has as large an interest as yours, and I am informed that all the Churches in the States are subscribing to the paper since my descriptive articles on the crisis started to appear. There’s not a half-starved home missionary or a New Rush school-ma’am out West but cherishes the hope of seeing Palestine before sending in their checks at last, and they all calculate to have a share in the country. We are giving ’em what they want—not a move in this high political game but they hear of it, and if intelligent interest was allowed any weight, the territory would be ours. But since it’s not likely that your played-out old Powers will conclude to appoint America the guardian of Palestine, as they ought to do if they want the property developed to any extent, why, I am booming your boss all I know. When the pinch comes, the great American nation will hurl itself solid on the side of Cyril de B. Mortimer, and it would not surprise me if he took his stand under the fostering wings of the American eagle. He knows who are his friends, and would as lief do a deal with ’em in a friendly spirit as not. He gives me an item or two most every day for my paper, and is ready all the time to favour me with his opinions,—not like some of your fine old crusted diplomats, who wouldn’t open their mouths to save their lives. Now there was Sir Dugald Haigh, a real petrified old chunk of British oak, no less. I was in Ethiopia for the paper at the time of his Mission, close upon fifteen years ago now, and not a word to be got out of any of ’em. Kept me fooling around the servants’ quarters, trying to find out what they were doing, and wasting my valuable time. Well, there’s something mysterious about these things, any way——”
“Well?” asked Mansfield, for Mr Hicks had paused darkly.
“Well, sir, that Mission was next door to a failure.”
“Perhaps that was not altogether the fault of the Ethiopians, was it?”
“Mr Mansfield, I guess I’m a white man. You don’t find me taking sides with niggers against my own colour. No, sir. The fat was just saved by Mr Stratford, the second in command (he’s Sir Egerton now and your Ambassador at Czarigrad), who snatched it out of the fire when we were all making our wills, but Sir Dugald had no hand in it. And now, instead of prancing around in a coronet and ermine robes in the House of Lords, that old man is buried up in Scotland somewhere, cultivating oatmeal and a little literature—that is to say, he makes himself a general nuisance by writing to the ‘Times’ when there’s any question on hand connected with foreign politics.”
“Well?” asked Mansfield again.
“Well, sir, the boss is not that sort. He knows where the pay-dirt lies, as I said, and things will pan out as he means ’em to. If he concludes that he didn’t treat the lady you mentioned handsomely, he may go back to her, but if he does, it’ll be because it suits his book.”
“Look here,” said Mansfield, “if you go on making these vile insinuations against him any more, you and I shall quarrel.”
“You bet!” was the unsympathetic reply. “No, sir, when a man finds himself able to hitch his conscience and his convenience to his waggon together, all that the public can do is to admire his team. Why it should turn ugly and make nasty remarks on the harness I don’t know, and you won’t find me doing it.”
Mr Hicks swung himself off his horse as he spoke, with the air of one who dismissed the subject, for they had ridden up to the house, but Mansfield had been too much disturbed by the new ideas suggested to him to be able to banish the conversation from his mind. When work was over that evening, instead of going out as usual for a second ride, he hung about the room in which he had been writing at Cyril’s dictation, alternately rearranging his papers and trying to place Cyril’s cushions more comfortably.
“Well, Mansfield, what is it?” asked his employer at last.
“I thought—I didn’t know—it occurred to me that you might want a message taken to—to some other part of the country, as you are tied here,” stammered Mansfield.
“You are very considerate. A message to whom?”
“To the—to some one you were particularly anxious to see.”
“Come, Mansfield, out with it! Who is this mysterious person? Has Hicks been pulling your leg?”
“I knew he had made it all up!” burst joyfully from Mansfield.
“All what? I am afraid not. Did he tell you that I was on my way to ask for an interview with Queen Ernestine, when the pilgrims interfered with my plans?”
“Yes, but I didn’t believe him.”
“Cultivate a more credulous spirit. What he told you was perfectly true, and so was his further information that this delay is almost intolerable to me.”
“I’ll start to-night,” said Mansfield, reproaching himself deeply.
“You can do nothing, unfortunately. I must see the Queen myself, and approach her in forma pauperis. You know that I treated her shamefully?”
“No. You can’t make me believe that.”
“But it is true, you see. King Michael behaved to her badly enough, but it was not that which drove her into exile in Syria. She would have gone with me cheerfully to poverty and obscurity in England, but I would not take her. She entreated me on her knees, but I refused to listen.”
Cyril spoke in a hard, even voice, and when he ceased there was silence in the room. Mansfield tried in vain to think of something to say, and each moment made the silence harder to interrupt. “I would never have believed it if any one else had told me,” he groaned at last, breaking the spell with a mighty effort.
“I knew that. You and I have taken a fancy to one another, Mansfield, and I was curious to see what you would say when you knew how I had treated the woman——”
“Who loved you,” supplied Mansfield, in a tone which was at once harsh and dull.
“And whom I loved.”
There was a further silence, then Mansfield came hesitatingly forward.
“I can’t help it,” he said. “I should never have thought I could speak civilly to a man who had done such a thing as that, but—it’s you.”
“My dear Mansfield!” The reaction from the strained feeling of the moment before forced a smile from Cyril. Mansfield sitting in judgment upon him, and allowing his just severity to be biassed by his affection for the culprit, was very funny. “You hate the sin, but you have a sneaking kindness left for the sinner, eh?”
Mansfield laughed uncomfortably, and Cyril shook his head.
“I am afraid I shall have to send you back to England, Mansfield. You must be deteriorating horribly, if you can condone such a departure from your creed, even in my case. I suppose I have corrupted you. What would Lady Phil say?”
“I shall never tell her. It would make her too miserable—about you, I mean. But, Count——”
“Go on. I will relieve your wounded feelings in any way I can.”
“You were intending to—to try and get the Queen to be reconciled?”
“Before there was any idea of its being to my advantage? Yes.”
“And you mean to do it still? You think she will forgive you?”
“The woman I used to know would forgive me. But suppose she is changed? I have no right to expect anything else, and I have only myself to thank. There is just one thing——”
“Yes?” said Mansfield eagerly.
“Some time ago I was shown a photograph of her, taken since she left Europe. The woman who showed it to me would have been the last person in the world to wish to give me any hope, but she did not see the significance of what I noticed. On the Queen’s arm there was a bracelet——”
“Which you had given her?”
“Not quite. Prince Mirkovics’s daughter, one of her Hofdamen, gave it to her once at Christmas. It had one very large diamond in it, and to the uninitiated that was all. But the diamond was so cut that by looking at it at a certain angle you could see a portrait in the setting behind it. The Queen was delighted.”
“And it was your portrait? and she was wearing it still?”
“She was wearing it still. That is my sole ground of hope. But why I should be pouring out my sorrows to you in this way, like young Werther or the celebrated Mr Rochester, I don’t know. It isn’t for a warning, because I can’t by any stretch of imagination conceive you to be in need of it, and it certainly isn’t because I was yearning for a confidant. It must have been simply your astonishing cheek in leading up to the subject. Well, now your idol is broken, and I hope you are pleased.”
“I can’t think what made me do it,” said Mansfield, awkwardly. “I know I must seem disgustingly inquisitive to you, but I only wanted to—to——”
“To annihilate time and space for my benefit, I know. Well, don’t distress yourself. I could have shut you up at any moment I chose. As I said, I wished to see whether you would quite turn your back upon me when you knew the whole truth.”
“I could never do that, whatever happened. Try me.”
“I believe you. And now, if you have probed into my past history sufficiently, perhaps you would not mind going round to the steward’s and seeing what he has to say about the mule-litter that Hicks mentioned this morning?”
Mr Hicks himself entered the room as Mansfield stumbled out of it, and cast a glance of quizzical reproof at Cyril as he sat down on the divan.
“I’d lay my last red cent, Count, that you’ve been tormenting that unhappy young man again. The way you work upon his finer feelings is the cruellest thing I ever saw. You play upon him like an organ.”
“Then why does he lend himself to it?” asked Cyril. “It’s not in human nature to neglect such an opportunity. The luckless youth is provokingly sane otherwise. My brother values his opinion, my nephew and niece look up to him devoutly; I believe he even fancies himself a little as a man of the world. Why should he take it into his head to conceive such an adoration for me that he becomes like a child in my hands? I can make him blush and stammer like a girl, and for no reason whatever.”
“He don’t get much show out of his adoration, sir, any way.”
“No, indeed; and yet he keeps it up. Why does a woman torment her lovers, Hicks? To show her power, I suppose—not necessarily because she delights in seeing them miserable. It gives me a kind of pleasure, no doubt, to know that I can raise the unfortunate Mansfield from despair to the seventh heaven by a word, and plunge him down into the depths again by another, and therefore I do it.”
“Guess you are keeping your hand in, Count, against the time they fix you up with a whole territory to practise your fascinations upon.”
“Don’t dabble in prophecy, Hicks, unless you want to postpone that desirable time until the Greek Kalends. So poor Mansfield is tortured to make a pastime for me, is he? Well, it will be all made up to him. I intend him to marry my niece, and she takes after her father, and could not hurt any one’s feelings in cold blood to save her life.”
“Is that so, Count? Well, Mr Mansfield will have earned his happiness,” said Mr Hicks drily. “But I guess you know some folks have figured it out that the young lady is to marry the King of Thracia? Old Prince Mirkovics is flying round putting the kingdom in order, and whispering the secret to most every one he meets. You are not in it, then?”
“Scarcely. For one thing, I don’t think my niece would come into the scheme, and I am not so foolish as to undertake to marry her to any one against her will. And then, you see, I am retained, as I said, in Mansfield’s behalf.”