CHAPTER XVIII.
THE PENALTY OF GREATNESS.
“WELL, gentlemen!” said Mr Hicks, as Cyril, holding tightly to Mansfield’s arm, stumbled painfully into the cave about sunset, “I’m glad to see you, any way, for I had a notion that the gateway lady might have fixed you both up with safer quarters than these, but I guess the distinguished patient is about played-out?”
“Never felt better in my life!” returned Cyril, collapsing on his bed. “Don’t plague me to-night, Hicks. I shall be as fit as possible after a good rest.”
“No, sir. I think I see myself allowing you to die of starvation. Joy may seem to answer every demand of a man’s nature, but it don’t serve him instead of his regular meals. Come, you don’t incline to give her Majesty the trouble of coming all this way down to see you again right now, do you?”
“Then you were awake after all?” said Cyril, accepting meekly the bowl of broth which Mr Hicks forced upon him. “I thought your sleep was suspiciously profound.”
“Well, Count, I don’t mind allowing that I wasn’t as fast asleep as I looked. But I was on my honour not to interfere with Mr Mansfield’s plan of campaign, and I didn’t. For the rest, you may be sure that the grave isn’t a circumstance to me in the matter of discreet silence.”
“I haven’t a doubt of it. Well, this soup of yours has waked me up pretty thoroughly, so I may as well explain things a little to the two of you, for I can see you are both palpitating with curiosity. It seems that when the Queen was obliged to leave Thracia, she chose Brutli as her place of refuge, for family reasons. The senior deaconess was once betrothed to one of the Schwarzwald-Molzau princes, but he died just when the family had given their consent to his marrying her. The sisters received the Queen most kindly, but she found that her steps were continually dogged by spies. The Princess of Dardania was anxious to have it thought she was mad, and seems to have left no means untried to make her so. It was partly this perpetual espionage that made her refuse to admit any man to her presence, and partly—well, that was my fault.”
“Very natural in the circumstances, Count.” Mr Hicks’s comment was diplomatically ambiguous.
“Of course such seclusion only gave colour to her cousin’s inventions, and the Queen and her ladies saw this. It was Mlle. Mirkovics who devised a plan of relief. She was in Damascus when the Vali arrested the Beni Ismail for non-payment of their tribute, and she told the Queen about it. Her Majesty was so much affected and distressed that Princess Anna, to please her, paid up the arrears of tribute through the sheikh. After such kindness as that, he could not refuse to answer the questions she asked him about the unknown desert in which his tribe were said to live, and he even offered to guide her to this place, Sitt Zeynab, thinking that all Europeans were interested in antiquities. The tribe had kept it in some sort of repair as a fortress for use in war-time, but they preferred sticking to their tents in the oasis whenever they could. It seems to have struck her that this might afford the Queen the refuge of which she felt the need, and when the sheikh came to her in his next trouble she made a bargain with him. The Queen induced the Empress of Pannonia to use her influence at Czarigrad, so saving the tribe from deportation, and they accepted her as their ruler. They have really made rather a good thing out of it, for they have been provided with food, and had their tribute paid, on condition that they robbed no more caravans. Of course the Vali and Mahmud Fadil know the truth about the mysterious Princess, but they have accepted a present to hold their tongues, and they are honourable men.”
“But General Banics and M. Stefanovics—don’t they know?” cried Mansfield. “To keep them there at Brutli eating their hearts out——”
“The Queen told me herself that she had entreated them to return to Thracia, but they refused to go. No, they do not know. It was impossible to confide the secret to them, for the Princess of Dardania’s emissaries are buzzing round them continually. Naturally Madame Stefanovics knows the truth, for she spends part of every day at the Institute, with the lady who is left there to delude the Queen’s visitors. Mlle. Mirkovics and Fräulein von Staubach spend alternate months here and at Brutli, and do their best to account for the fortnight which must pass before the Queen can be seen, or can give an answer to any question.”
“Guess it’s a queer life here for a set of lone women,” remarked Mr Hicks.
“The Queen seems to have found it rather peaceful than otherwise. They have plenty of servants—fugitive Armenians who were glad to find a refuge here with their wives and children—and the Arabs are wonderfully amenable. They have lost their old occupation of highway robbery, but they find it rather interesting, for a change, to mislead inquisitive travellers, and they appear to be taking kindly to the cultivation of their oasis. The Queen is much too devoted to the tribe to take leave of them altogether, but I think they will be able to get on with an occasional visit.”
“When her Majesty and you are reigning at Jerusalem?” There was a touch of awe in Mr Hicks’s voice. “Well, Count, I have always reckoned you the most almighty successful man of my acquaintance—with runs of bad luck now and then, of course, like the rest of us—but you bet I never thought of anything like this. You start right away into the desert on the maddest freak in creation, and it brings you out just where you calculated to be, and fixes you up with the finest future a man could desire. But then you started with getting round the twelve tribes of Israel, and the man that can do that has little to learn, even with regard to the female persuasion.”
“You see, once I had the clue, the whole mystery surrounding the Queen of the Desert vanished away,” said Cyril. “It is rather hard on Mlle. Mirkovics, for I am convinced that one of her reasons for bringing the Queen here was the desire to remove her beyond the reach of my baleful influence, but that is the way things happen in this world. By the bye, the Queen would like me to present you both to her to-morrow, so be prepared.”
“Count,” said Mr Hicks warningly, “I’m a plain American citizen, whose intercourse with kings and queens and courts has been strictly professional. Do you ask me to compromise my independence right now by figuring round as a member of your suite?”
“No, I don’t,” said Cyril, while Mansfield laughed, remembering the Baroness’s description of himself; “I want to introduce you both, as my friends, to the lady who is going to do me the honour of marrying me. She knows that I owe my life to you both several times over, and that I couldn’t have got here without you.”
“Shake, Count!” said Mr Hicks; “you’re a white man, sir. And if it would make you any happier, you may bet your last red cent I would go so far as to put on a Court suit for the occasion, if you had one here and offered it me.”
With this magnanimous surrender on Mr Hicks’s part, the conversation ended, and on the morrow it appeared that he was highly dissatisfied with the meagreness of the preparation it was possible to make for his visit to the Queen. His travel-worn clothes and the helmet in which he had ridden out of Damascus were the objects of much anxious care, and he went so far as to offer to part with his cherished beard, if Cyril thought well, but the sacrifice was gratefully declined. Little time was allowed for personal decoration, since the prisoners had scarcely finished breakfast when the sheikh made his appearance, his demeanour betokening a vast increase of respect, to the extent even of sending a messenger in advance, to ask whether the Prince of the Jews would receive him. On entering, he bowed to the ground before Cyril.
“O my lord, the Princess desires thee and thy servants to come to her. ‘Where are my friends?’ she says. ‘Bring them here, that I may make with them the treaty that they desire.’ O my lord, how is this? It has never been the pleasure of the Princess heretofore that any stranger should approach her.”
“What did I tell you?” asked Cyril, through Mr Hicks. “Didn’t I say that the Princess would receive me and enter into a treaty?”
“O my lord, thy words sounded in the ears of thy servant as foolishness, but they have indeed proved true. My lord will speak favourably of his servant before the Princess?”
“By all means,” said Cyril pleasantly, as the sheikh drew back to allow him to pass out of the cave. Once outside, the whole party mounted their horses, and rode up the hill-path in state, escorted by the tribesmen, who discharged their guns at intervals to do honour to the mighty stranger. Arrived at the gate, where the Armenian servants were drawn up in line to receive the visitors, the sheikh alone entered with his guests. Just as the gate was closing, Mansfield uttered an exclamation.
“There are two men on camels riding across the desert from the direction of Damascus!” he cried. “They are kicking up a tremendous cloud of dust, so they must be coming fast.”
“It is doubtless a post bringing letters for the Princess,” said the sheikh; “but I know not why there should be two men. See, the watchman has observed them,” as a shot rang out from the lofty tower on the wall. “Word will be brought at once if there is any ill news.”
They passed on through the portico into the great hall, and paused before the doorway of a room opening from it on the left. A servant drew aside the curtain, and revealed Queen Ernestine enthroned upon a marble seat, with Baroness von Hilfenstein and Mlle. Mirkovics standing behind her. All three ladies were swathed from head to foot in white isars, but the sheikh prostrated himself without venturing to steal a glance at them, and remained with his forehead touching the ground.
“Behold, O great Princess, the Prince of the Jews,” he said. “He is come to learn thy will concerning his nation.”
“It is well,” said the Queen, through Princess Anna. “My scribe shall declare to him my pleasure, and do thou wait without to conduct him back to his lodging when the audience is over.”
The sheikh retired, quitting the awful presence of his sovereign with unconcealed willingness, and when he was safely out of sight the ladies relieved the Queen of her veil. After a word or two with Cyril, she turned to Mr Hicks and Mansfield with a smile that won their hearts for ever.
“Count Mortimer’s friends are mine,” she said, stepping forward and holding out a hand to each; “and he has told me what good friends you have been to him. Please do not think I shall be jealous of his affection for you. I know that I owe this meeting to your fidelity to him.”
To Cyril’s intense delight, that sturdy republican, Mr Hicks, dropped on one knee to kiss the Queen’s hand, as though to the manner born, murmuring:
“If I were Count Mortimer’s deadliest enemy, madame, I guess the inducement you offer would make me friends with him right away.”
“I know your story,” said the Queen softly to Mansfield, as he kissed her hand in silence, unable to utter a word. “Consider me your friend, and let me assure you that Count Mortimer is also on your side. When one is happy oneself, one is always eager to make others so.”
Cyril smiled involuntarily, as he wondered in what light the Queen would regard Mansfield’s love-story when she heard of her son’s admiration for Philippa, and there was the faintest ghost of a bitter laugh from Mlle. Mirkovics. A pained look crossed the Queen’s face, but before she could speak, the sheikh’s voice was heard on the other side of the curtain, very close to the ground.
“Let the Princess pardon the presumption of her servant, but word is come for the Prince of the Jews, entreating him to return immediately to Es Sham. The messenger has travelled day and night.”
Mlle. Mirkovics interpreted the words, and the Queen’s eyes filled with tears as they met Cyril’s. He had made an involuntary movement towards the door, but her gaze of entreaty drew him back.
“I am at your commands, madame,” he said, with forced calmness.
“If I ask you, you will stay?” she said, too low for the rest to hear, and her eyes marked, almost with agony, the struggle in his face.
“I will stay, Ernestine—if you ask me,” he replied at last. He spoke without enthusiasm, but with the desperate resolution to atone by one tremendous sacrifice for his past sins against her.
“But I don’t ask you. You must go—at once, if it is necessary. But come to me before you start, and tell me what has happened. Messieurs,” she turned again to Mr Hicks and Mansfield, “I regret to have had so little conversation with you. We must meet again—at Brutli, I hope. There is much that I wish to ask you.”
Again the gleam of that dazzling smile, for which, as Mr Hicks confided afterwards to Mansfield, he would have walked round the world, and the visitors retired. The moment they were gone, the Queen turned to Anna Mirkovics.
“Anna, you have disappointed me—grieved me bitterly. You will not forget!”
“How can I forget, madame? He leaves you now—even now—in a moment, for his policy.”
“I told him to go. He would have stayed. Why will you not consent to be happy, since I am? It breaks my heart to see how you hate him.”
“Madame, I do rejoice to see you happy. There is nothing I desire more on earth. But I cannot forget. In my eyes, your happiness has no foundation. My blood boils when I remember how he treated you——”
“Anna, Anna, think. I love him. Can’t you understand? Don’t you know what love is?”
“Alas, madame, yes! I love you.”
“Then you do understand. You have borne with me, my despair, my fretfulness, my ill temper, because you love me. Your love has never failed for one moment. And that is the measure of my love for him.”
“Madame, I will not have you compare yourself with him. I love your changes of mood—even your coldness. How can they make any difference to me?”
“And I love him in the same way. Come, Anna, you would not make me miserable? How can I be happy if you persist in frowning upon my happiness?”
“Oh, you break my heart, madame! Well, then, I rejoice that you are happy, and if his Excellency continues to make you so, I shall rejoice all my life long that he has returned to you.”
“That is my dear good Anna!” cried the Queen, drawing her friend’s pale plain face down to hers, and kissing her on the forehead. “Hilfenstein, I must kiss you too, for you have been on my side the whole time.”
“Ah, madame, I have known you a good many years, and the Count also,” said the Baroness. “It would have been little use my opposing either of you. But I hear his Excellency returning. Your Majesty will receive him alone?”
The Queen’s smile was a sufficient answer to the question, and both ladies disappeared hastily into the garden as Cyril entered from the hall, looking rather irritated than perturbed.
“Dearest,” he said, “I think you understand that nothing but the very gravest necessity would drag me away from you at this moment, but I really must go. The blind man Yeshua has come all the way from Damascus to say that Paschics entreats me to return at once, if all that we have gained is not to be lost. Evidently something serious has happened, which I did not foresee, and which has thrown out all our calculations. Moreover, as far as I can make out, there was an unmistakable attempt made to kidnap Yeshua on his way to the spot where he always arranges to meet your scouts, and he insists that the Scythian Consulate was mixed up in it. However that may be, it seems that the Beni Ayub are out on the warpath as well, for they chased Yeshua and your tribesman who was bringing him here. They only shook them off when they got to the waterless desert. It may be a mere coincidence, but it looks uncommonly like an organised attempt to prevent any notice of the danger, whatever it may be, from reaching me. At any rate, it’s clear that I must go, or give up all hope of success in the great scheme.”
“Yes, yes, I quite see,” she replied quickly, “and I shall come back to Brutli at once. Then our engagement shall be made public, Cyril. You are going back to win success for me as well as for yourself, you know.”
“Do you know that every one will say I have sought your forgiveness for the sake of the added importance that marriage with you will give me? The world hasn’t very much confidence in me, Ernestine.”
“But I have. Do you know what I shall do when you are Prince of Palestine? I shall lay aside my crown for a coronet. The world shall see that your wife is prouder of being Princess of Palestine than Queen of Thracia.”
“My dearest, you have a way of making the world look foolish by doing lofty, Quixotic, useless things, that covers me with shame. I wish I had the knack, but no one would believe that I did them without an ulterior motive. But suppose I am not made Prince of Palestine?”
“Then we will return here together, and you shall be King of the Desert. You will unite the Arabs under one rule, and make a nation of them, and they will adore you. They are grateful to me because of what I have done for them, but they still feel a little ashamed of being ruled by a woman. They have the greatest possible respect for you already.”
“Will they still respect me when I rob them of their Queen? One, or at most two visits in the year, as a respite from the cares of State, will be very different from having a resident sovereign. But dearest, you won’t start for Brutli until the sheikh assures you that the way is safe? If the Beni Ayub got hold of you it would be very unpleasant personally, and absolutely distracting politically.”
“Yes; I suppose Michael would feel obliged to interfere. Oh, Cyril, I wanted to speak to you about him. You heard of that terribly sad business about Lida, of course? Well, since his engagement came to an end, Michael has written me such nice letters, so affectionate, so respectful. He says that he has turned over a new leaf, and this is because he has formed an attachment for a young lady who will be as acceptable to me as to Thracia. Do you know who she is?”
“I have an idea.”
“And is it all as suitable as he thinks?”
“So far as I know, the only opposition to their engagement will come from the lady herself.”
“But why? Is she as beautiful and altogether desirable as he says she is?”
“I feel some delicacy in answering that question. You see, she happens to be my niece.”
“What! your brother Carlino’s daughter? But, Cyril, the Thracians will go mad with joy. Is it the little girl with the beautiful golden hair whom I saw years ago at Tatarjé? She must be a good deal older than Michael, but she had such sweet ways that it is no wonder she has captivated him. He could not make a better choice. But why are you looking at me in that way, Cyril? Why should she raise any objection? It’s not—oh, don’t say that you have no other niece! This is not the young lady with whom that pleasant Mr Mansfield is in love?”
“Unfortunately it is.”
“But she couldn’t refuse Michael!”
“And yet I heard a lady propose a few minutes ago to resign a crown for the sake of her lover.”
“But that is different. Your niece would be the making of Michael. Cyril, promise me you will persuade her to accept him.”
“My dearest, I could not set myself a second time to interfere with the course of true love.”
“But she ought—oh, Cyril, how unkind of you to remind me of that! No, most certainly I won’t try to smooth Michael’s path for him. I did too much harm the last time, and it has come to nothing after all. But you do think it is her duty to marry him, don’t you?”
“I fancy Phil will decide for herself where her duty lies. And really, Ernestine, it will do your boy all the good in the world to want something very much, and not be able to get it. That will make a man of him, if you like. Is that some one outside?”
“I beg your pardon, Count”—Mansfield’s deprecating voice was heard from the hall—“but the horses are ready.”
“Those two good fellows have been doing my packing, that I might have a longer time with you. Good-bye, my dearest. Au revoir at Brutli!”
“Auf wiedersehen, my beloved! Take care of yourself for my sake.”
“By the bye, dearest, I suppose I may assure your sheikh that it’s all right about the treaty, and that you have decided to maintain friendly relations with the Jews?”
“Of course you may. But politics again, Cyril! I am jealous.”
The sheikh and a small band of picked men were in readiness in the desert below the fortress, all well armed, and mounted on the best horses that the tribe possessed. Yeshua and his guide were to be left behind, to give them time to recover from the fatigues of their hurried journey before undertaking another, for the sheikh had promised to conduct the travellers to Damascus by the shortest available route, involving as few halts as possible, and the hardship would be great. In spite, however, of long stages and little rest, with a meagre supply of food and water, the return from Sitt Zeynab proved much less disagreeable than the journey thither had been. The sheikh had banished from his mind the last traces of suspicion and enmity, and was above all things anxious to secure Cyril’s friendship for his tribe, and for his tribe alone. His anxiety lest the Prince of the Jews should admit the Beni Ayub also to a share in his favour found utterance again and again, and was as amusing as was his claim to the entire ownership of the desert between Damascus and Palmyra. He went so far as to invite Cyril to aid him in maintaining his supposed rights by force of arms, but this was merely a rhetorical flourish, not intended to be taken seriously.
The first part of the journey, including the crossing of the waterless desert which was the true patrimony of the Beni Ismail, was uneventful, but no sooner had the boundary, invisible as it was to the untrained eye, been crossed, than the party became aware that they were watched. A camel and its rider would suddenly appear on the horizon, only to vanish in a cloud of dust as quickly as they had come. Sometimes these scouts would appear in the direction of Damascus, sometimes to the right or left of the line of march, but for two days they kept the travellers almost constantly in sight, without offering to approach them more closely.
“The sons of Shaitan can see us much more readily than we can see them,” grumbled the sheikh, “and they are closing round us. Then they will lie in wait for us in the broken ground before reaching Es Sham.”
“How would you shake them off if we were not here?” asked Cyril.
“We would lead them astray, O my lord, with feigned pursuit of their scouts, and running fights, until we were either safe on our own land or could slip through them into Es Sham, but that would need many days, and if they contrived to separate us one from another, evil might come to my lord.”
“Evil might also come to some of them,” suggested Cyril.
“Doubtless, but if their object is rather to delay my lord than to hurt him, they might attain it with little danger to themselves.”
“Hullo! they seem to be coming to meet us,” said Mansfield, as a group of mounted men appeared from behind a sandhill some distance in front. The sheikh cast his eye over his own troop, and ordered a halt. Here on the open plain there was no possibility of an ambush, but his men unslung their long matchlocks, and the travellers locked to their rifles.
“They seem friendly,” said Cyril, as the sheikh of the opposite party, distinguished by his gold-embroidered crimson cloak, rode out from among his men, making signs that he had left his weapons behind, and desired an amicable conference.
“Stay thou here, O Prince of the Jews,” said the sheikh, “and let the father of a writing-book leave his gun and ride forward with me, that we may hear what this dog has to say. Never yet have I spoken in peace with a man of the Beni Ayub.”
Mr Hicks, who owed his name to the note-book which was his inseparable companion, handed his rifle to Mansfield, remarking that he supposed the surrender of his revolver was not necessarily included in the bond. If it was, he had, at any rate, a weapon at hand which would astonish the Arab who tried any foolishness with him, and as he spoke he patted a coil of thin rope which he had procured at Sitt Zeynab and insisted on looping to his saddle, to the mystification of his companions. Thus provided, he rode forward with the sheikh, who halted at a discreet distance from the representative of the other party, and asked what the Beni Ayub were doing in that portion of the desert. As the district in question was claimed by the Beni Ayub, their sheikh disregarded the enquiry.
“We come in peace, O sheikh of the Beni Ismail, hearing that the Prince of the Jews is a sojourner in the tents of thy people. Why does he pass by the Beni Ayub in his return to Es Sham? Does not the desert belong to us also? Let him turn aside and visit our tents, that we may make peace with his nation, and there be no ill blood between us.”
“The Prince of the Jews will return at another time and visit you,” said Mr Hicks, anticipating the angry reply which the sheikh had in preparation. “At present he is journeying to Es Sham in haste.”
“What is his haste to us?” was the retort. “Shall we allow the Beni Ismail, who obey a woman, to laugh at our beards because the Prince of the Jews has sojourned among them? Let the Prince visit our tents, or we will come and take him.”
“But where are your tents?” asked Mr Hicks, “and have you a sufficient number of horsemen to give fitting escort to the Prince?”
“My tents lie a day’s journey on the way to Es Sham, and as thou seest, I have with me three times the number of horsemen that ride now with the Prince.”
“Altogether you make out a good case for yourself,” said Mr Hicks, easily. “Suppose you and your men ride ahead and get ready for us?”
“Nay, we desire to show due honour to the Prince. My company shall ride side by side with his to the tents of my people.”
“Very good. But the Prince will have none but his own followers around him.”
“It is well. We will but be at hand, for the safety of the Prince.”