CHAPTER XX
OUT OF THE HALL OF KINGS
In Prince Tabnit's face there was a curious change, as if one weresuddenly to see hieroglyphics upon a star where before there hadbeen only shining. But his calm and his magnificent way of authoritydid not desert him, as so grotesque a star would still stand lonelyand high in the heavens. He spoke, and upon the multitude fellinstant silence, not the less absolute that it harboured foreboding.
"Whatever the people would say to me," said the prince simply, "Iwill hear. My right hand rests in the hand of the people. In returnI decree allegiance to the law. Your princess stands before you,crowned. This most fortunate return of his Majesty, the King, cannot set at naught the sacred oath which has just left her lips.Henceforth, in council and in audience, her place shall be at hisMajesty's right hand, as was the place of that Princess Athalme,daughter of King Kab, in the dynasty of the fall of Rome. Is it not,therefore, but the more incumbent upon your princess to own herallegiance to the law of the island by keeping her troth withme--that troth witnessed and sanctioned by you yourselves? Thisceremony concluded I will answer the demands of the loyal subjectswhose interests alone I serve. For we obey that which is higher thanauthority--the law, born in the Beginning--"
Prince Tabnit's voice might almost have taken his place in hisabsence, it was so soft, so fine of texture, no more consciouslymodulated than is the going of water or the way of a wing. It wasdifficult to say whether his words or, so to say, their fine fabricof voice, begot the silence that followed. But all eyes were turnedupon Olivia. And, Prince Tabnit noting this, before she might speakhe suddenly swept his flowing robes embroidered by a thousandneedles to a posture of humility before his sovereign.
"Your Majesty," he besought, "I pray your consent to the bestowalupon my most unworthy self of the hand of your daughter, thePrincess Olivia."
King Otho leaned upon the arm of his carven throne. Against itsstrange metal his hand was cameo-clear.
"For the king," he was remembering softly, "'the Pyrenees, or so hefancied, ceased to exist.' For another 'the mountains of Daphne areeverywhere.' Each of us has his impossible dream to prove that heis an impossible creature. Why not I? To be normal is the cry of allthe hobgoblins ... And what does the princess say?" he asked aloud.
"Her Highness has already given me the great happiness to plight meher troth," said Prince Tabnit.
King Otho's eyebrows flickered from their parallel of repose.
"In Yaque or in America," he murmured, "the Americans do as theAmericans do. None of us is mentioned in Deuteronomy, but what isthe will of the princess?" the American Sovereign asked.
Mrs. Hastings, seated near the dais, heard; and as she turned, arhinestone side-comb slipped from her hair, tinkled over the jewelsof her corsage and shot into the lap of a member of the HighCouncil. He, never having seen a side-comb, fancied that it might bean infernal machine which he had never seen either, and,palpitating, flashed it to the guardian hand of Mr. Frothingham. Atthe same moment:
"Ah, why, Otho," said Mrs. Hastings audibly, "we had two ancestorsat Bannockburn!"
"Bannockburn!" argued Mr. Augustus Frothingham, below the voice,"Bannockburn. But what, my dear Mrs. Hastings, is Bannockburn besidethe Midianites and the Moabites and the Hittites and the Ammonitesand the Levites?"
In this genealogical moment the prince leaned toward Olivia.
"Choose," he said significantly, but so softly that none might hear,"oh, my beloved, choose!"
The faces of the great assembly blurred and wavered before Olivia,and the low hum of the talk in the room was relative, like thevoices of passers-by. She looked up at the prince and away from himin mute appeal to something that ought to help her and would not.For Olivia was of those who, never having seen the face of Destinyvery near, are accustomed to look upon nothing as whollyirrevocable; and--for one of her graces--she had the feminineexpectation that, if only events can be sufficiently postponed,something will intervene; which is perhaps a heritage of thegentlest women descended from Homeric days. If the island was sohistoric, little Olivia may have said, where was the interferinggoddess? She looked unseeingly toward St. George and toward herfather, and the sense of the bitter actuality of the choice suddenlywounded her, as the Actual for ever wounds the woman and the dream.
Then suddenly, above the stir of expectation of the people, and theassociate bustling of the High Council there came a vague confusionand trampling from outside, and the far outer doors of the hall werethrown open with a jar and a breath, vibrant as a murmur. There wasa cry, the determined resistance of some of the Golden Guard, andshouts of expostulation and warning as they were flung aside by apowerful arm. In the disorder that followed, a miraculously-familiarfigure--that familiarity and strangeness are both miracles ought toexplain certain mysteries--was beside St. George and a thankfulvoice said in his ear:
"Mr. St. George, sir, for the mercy of Heaven, sir--come back to theyacht. No person can tell what may happen ten minutes ahead, sir!"
The oracle of this universal truth was Rollo, palpitating, hisimmaculate coat stained with earth, earth-stains on his cheeks, andhis breast labouring in an excitement which only anxiety for hismaster could effect. But St. George hardly saw him. His eyes werefixed on some one who stood towering before the dais, like the oldprints of the avenging goddesses. Clad in the hideous stripes whichboards of directors consider _de rigueur_ for the soul that is to bewon back to the normal, stood the woman Elissa, who, by all countsof Prince Tabnit, should have been singing a hymn with Mrs. Mannersand Miss Bella Bliss Utter in the Bitley Reformatory, in WestchesterCounty, New York.
"Stop!" she cried in that perfect English which is not only a rareexperience but a pleasant adventure, "what new horror is this?"
To Prince Tabnit's face, as he looked at her, came once more thatindefinable change--only this time nearer and more intimatelyexplainable, as if something ethereal, trained to delicate lines,like smoke, should suddenly shape itself to a menace. St. George sawthe woman step close to the dais, he saw Olivia's eyes questioninghim, and in the hurried rising of the peers and of the High Councilhe heard Rollo's voice in his ear:
"It's a gr'it go, sir," observed Rollo respectfully, "the woman hasthings to tell, sir, as people generally don't know. She's flew thecoop at the place she was in--it seems she's been shut up some'eresin America, sir; an' she got 'old of the capting of a tramp boat o'some kind--one o' them boats as smells intoxicating round the'atches--an' she give 'im an' the mate a 'andful o' jewelry thatshe'd on 'er when she was took in an' 'ad someways contrived to 'angon to, an' I'm blessed hif she wasn't able fer to steer fer theisland, sir--we took 'er aboard the yacht only this mornin' with 'er'air down her back, an' we've brought 'er on here. An' she says--mencan be gr'it beasts, sir, an' no manner o' mistake," concluded Rollofervently.
And a little hoarse voice said in St. George's ear:
"Mr. St. George, sir--we ain't late, are we? We been flirtin' deger-avel up dat ka-liff since de car-rack o' day."
And there was Bennietod, with an edge of an old horse pistolshowing beneath his cuff; and, round-eyed and alert as a bird newlyalighted on a stranger sill, Little Cawthorne stood; and the sightput strength into St. George, and so did Little Cawthorne's words:
"I didn't know whether they'd let us in or not," he said, "unless wehad on a plaited decollette, with biases down the back."
Clearly and confidently in the silent room rang the voice of thewoman confronting Prince Tabnit, and her eyes did not leave hisface. St. George was struck with the change in her since that day inthe Reformatory chapel. Then she had been like a wild, alien thingin dumb distress; now she was unchained and native. Her first wordsexplained why, in the extreme dilemma in which St. George had lastseen her, she had yet remained mute.
"I release myself," she cried, "from my oath of silence, thoughuntil to-day I have spoken only to those who helped me to come backto you--my master. Have you nothing to say to me? Has the timeseemed long? Is it a weary while since I lef
t you to do your willand murder the woman whom you were now about to make your wife?"
A cry of horror rose from the people, and then stillness came again.
"Take the woman away," said Prince Tabnit only, "she is speakingmadness."
"I am speaking the truth," said the woman clearly. "I was ofMelita--there are those here who will know my face. And it is not Ialone who have served the State. I challenge you, Tabnit--here,before them all! Where are Gerya and Ibera, Cabulla and Taura? Havenot their people, weeping, besought news of them in vain? And whatanswer have you given them?"
Murmurs and sobs rose from the assembly, stilled by the tranquilvoice of the prince.
"Where are they?" he repeated gently, his voice vibrant in its riseand fall, its giving of delicate values. "But the people know wherethey are. They have attained to the perfect life and died theperfect death. For I have raised them to the supreme estate."
Prince Tabnit, with uplifted face, sat motionless, looking out overthe throng from beneath lowered lids; then his eyes, confident and alittle mocking, returned to the woman. But they had for her noterror. She turned from him, confronting the pale, eager faces ofthe people; and in her beauty and distinction she was like Olivia'swomen, crowded beside the dais.
"Men and women of Yaque," cried Elissa, "I will tell you to what'supreme estate' these friends whom you seek have long been raised.For here in Med and in Melita you will find many of those whom youhave mourned as dead--you will find them as you yourselves have metand passed them, it may have been countless times, on your streetsof Yaque--not young and beautiful as when they left you, but men andwomen of incredible age. Withered, shaken by palsy, infirm, theycreep upon their lonely ways or go at will to drag themselvesunrecognized along your highways, as helpless as the deadthemselves. They number scores, and they are those who havedispleased your prince by some little word, some little wrong, or,more than these, by some thwarting of the way of his ambition: Oblo,who disappeared from his place as keeper at the door; Ithobal,satrap of Melita; young Prince Kaal--ay, and how many more? You donot understand my words? I say that your prince has knowledge ofsome secret, accursed drug that can call back youth or make actualage--_age_, do you understand--just as we of Yaque bring bothflowers and fruit to swift maturity!"
Olivia uttered a little cry, not at the grotesque horror of what thewoman had said but at the miracle of its unconscious support of thestory and theory of St. George. And St. George heard; and suddenly,because another had voiced his own fantastic message, itsincredibility and unreality became appalling, and yet he feltinfinitely reconciled to both because he interpreted aright thatlittle muffled exclamation from Olivia. What did it matter--oh, whatdid it matter whether or not the reality were grotesque? What seemsto be happening is always the reality, if only one understands itsufficiently. And at all events there had been that hour in theKing's Alcove. At last, as he weighed that hour against the fantasyof all the rest, St. George understood and lived the divine madnessof all great moments, the madness that realizes one star and iscontent that all the heavens shall march unintelligibly past so longas that single shining is not dimmed.
But King Otho was riding no such griffin with sun-gold wings. KingOtho was genuinely and personally interested in the woman's words.He turned to Prince Tabnit with animation.
"Really, Prince," he said, "is it so? Pray do not deny it unlessthere is no other way, for I am before all things interested. It isfar more important to me that you tell me as much as you can tell,than that you deny or even disprove it."
Prince Tabnit smiled in the eagerly interested face of hissovereign, and rose and came to the edge of the dais, his garmentsembroidered by a thousand needles touching and floating about him;and it was as if he reached those before him by a kind of spiritualmagnetism, not without sublimity.
"My people," he said--and his voice had all the tenderness that theyknew so well--"this is some conspiracy of those to whom we haveshown the utmost hospitality. I would have shielded your king, forhe was also my sovereign and I owed him allegiance. But now that isno longer possible, and the time is come. Know then, oh my people ofYaque, that which my loyalty has led me wrongfully to conceal: thatin the strange disappearance and return of your sovereign, KingOtho, he who will may trace the loss of that which the island hasmourned without ceasing. I accuse your king--he is no longermine--of being now in possession of the Hereditary Treasure ofYaque."
Then St. George came back with a thrill to actuality. In the pressof the events of this morning, after his awakening in the room ofthe tombs, he had completely forgotten the soft fire of gems thathad burned beneath the hands of old Malakh in that dark chamberunder King Abibaal's tomb. He and Amory and Jarvo had, with theking, left the chamber by the upper passages, and Amory and Jarvoknew nothing of the jewels. Yet St. George was certain that he couldnot have been mistaken, and he listened breathlessly for what theking would say.
King Otho, with a smile, nodded in perfect imperturbability.
"That is true," he said, "I had forgotten all about it."
They waited for him to speak, the people in amazed silence, Mrs.Medora Hastings saying unintelligible things in whispers, for whichshe had a genius.
"It is true," said King Otho, "that I am responsible for thedisappearance of the Hereditary Treasure. You will find it at thismoment in a basement dungeon of the palace on Mount Khalak. On thevery day, three months ago, that I dined with your prince I had madea discovery of considerable importance to me, namely, that thelittle island of Yaque is richer in most of the radio-activesubstances than all the rest of the world. The discovery gave mekeener pleasure than I had known in years--I had suspected it forsome time after I found the noctilucous stars on the ceiling of mysitting-room at the palace. And in the work-shop of the PrincessSimyra I came upon a quantity of metallic uranium, and a great manyother things which I question the taste of taking the time todescribe. But my experiments there with the very perfect gems ofyour admirable collection had evidently been antedated by some ofyour own people, for the apparatus was intact. I shall be glad toshow some charming effects to any one who cares to see them. I havesucceeded in causing the diamonds of Darius to phosphoresce mostwonderfully."
The phosphorescence of the diamonds of Darius was to the people farless important than the joyous fact which they were not slow tograsp, that the Hereditary Treasure was, if they might believe theking's words, restored to them, and the burden of the tax averted.They did not understand, nor did they seek to understand; becausethey knew the inefficiency of details and they also knew the valueof mere import.
But the king, child of a social order that wreaks itself onparticularizations, returned to his quest for a certain recounting.
"Prince Tabnit," he said, "the High Council and the people of Yaqueare impatient for your answer to this woman's words."
"I rejoice with them and with your Majesty," replied Prince Tabnitsoftly, "that the treasure is safe. My own explanation is far lesssimple. If what this woman says is true, yet it is true in such wiseas, strive as I may, I can not speak; nor, strive as you may, canyou fathom. Therefore I say that the claim which she has made isidle, and not within my power to answer."
At this St. George bounded to his feet. Amory looked up at him interror, and Little Cawthorne and Bennietod went a step or two afterhim as he sprang forward, and Rollo's lean shadowed face, obvious ashis way of speech, was wrinkled in terrified appeal.
"An idle claim!" St. George thundered as he strode before the dais."Is this woman's story and mine an idle claim, and one not withinyour power to answer? Then I will tell you how to answer, PrinceTabnit. I challenge you now, in the presence of your people--tastethis!"
Upon the carven arm of Prince Tabnit's throne St. George setsomething that he had taken from his pocket. It was the vase ofrock-crystal from which, the night before in the room of the tombs,the king had drunk.
What followed was the last thing that St. George had expected. Itwas as if his defiance had unlocked flood-gates. In an instant t
hevast assembly was in motion. With a sound of garments that was likefar wind they were upon their feet and pressing toward the throne.With all the passion of their "Yes! Yes! Yes!" in response toOlivia's appeal they came, resistlessly demanding the answer to somedreadful question long shrouded in their hearts. Their armour wastheir silence; they made no sound save that ominous sweep of theirrobes and the conspiracy of their sandaled feet upon the tiles.
St. George did not turn. Indeed, it did not once cross his mind thattheir hostility could possibly be toward him. Besides, his look wasfixed upon the prince's face, and what he read there was enough. Thepeers, the High Council and those nearest the throne wavered andswerved from the man, leaving him to face what was to come.
Whatever was to come he would have met nobly. He was of thoseinfrequent folk of some upper air who exhibit a certain purity evenin error, or in worse. He stood with his exquisite pale faceuplifted, his white hair in a glory about it, his white gownembroidered by a thousand needles falling in virginal lines againstthe warm, pure colour of that room with its wraiths of hue andlight. And he opened the heart of the green jewel that burned uponhis breast.
"Not for me the wine of youth," he said slowly, "but the poison ofage. The poison which, without me to unlock the secret, all mankindmust drink alone. May you drink it late, my friends!" he cried. "I,who hold in my soul the secret of the passing of time and youth,drink now to those among you and among all men who have won and keptthe one thing dearer than these."
He touched the green gem to his lips, and let it fall upon theembroidered laces on his breast. Then quietly and in another voicehe began to speak.
With the first words there came to St. George the thrill ofsomething that had possessed him--when? In that ecstatic moment on_The Aloha_ when he had seen the light in the king's palace; in theinstant when the Isle of Yaque had first lain subject before him, "aland which no one can define or remember--only desire;" in thedivine time of his triumph in having scaled the heights to thepalace, that sky-thing, with ramparts of air; above all, in the hourof his joy in the King's Alcove, when Olivia had looked in his eyesand touched his lips. Inexplicably as the way that eternity liesbarely unrevealed in some kin-thing of its own--a shell, a duty, avista--he suddenly felt it now in what the prince was saying. Helistened, and for one poignant stab of time he knew that he touchedhands with the elemental and saw the ancient kindliness of all thosepeople naked in their faces and knew himself for what he was.
He listened, and yet there was no making captive the words of theprince in understanding. Prince Tabnit was speaking the English, andevery word was clearly audible and, moreover, was probably dailyupon St. George's lips. But if it had been to ransom the rest of theworld from its night he could not have understood what the princewas saying. Every word was a word that belonged as much to St.George as to the prince; but in some unfathomable fashion the innersense of what he said for ever eluded, dissolving in the air ofwhich it was a part. And yet, past all doubting, St. George knewthat he was hearing the essence of that strange knowledge which theIsle of Yaque had won while all the rest of mankind struggled forit--he knew with the certainty with which we recognize strangeforces in a dozen of the every-day things of life, in electricity,in telepathy, in dreams. With the same certainty he realized thatwhat the prince was saying would, if he could understand, lift acertain veil. Here, put in words at last, was manifestly the secret,that catch of understanding without which men are groping in thedark, perhaps that mere pointing of relations which would makeclear, without blasphemy, time and the future, rebirth and oldexistence, it might be; and certainly the accident of personality.Here, crystallized, were the things that men almost know, the dreamthat has just escaped every one, the whisper in sleep that wouldhave explained if one could remember when one woke, the word thathas been thrillingly flashed to one in moments of absorption and hasfled before one might catch the sound, the far hope of science, theglimpse that comes to dying eyes and is voiced in fragments by dyinglips. Here without penetrating the great reserve or tracing anyprinciple to its beginning, was the truth about both. And St. Georgewas powerless to receive it.
He turned fearfully to Olivia. Ah--what if she did not guessanything of the meaning of what she was hearing? For one instant heknew all the misery of one whose friend stands on another star. Butwhen he saw her uplifted face, her eager eyes and quick breath andher look divinely questioning his, he was certain that though shemight not read the figures of the veil, yet she too knew how near,how near they Stood; and to be with her on this side wasdearer--nay, was nearer the Secret--than without her to pass theveil that they touched. Then he looked at Amory; wouldn't old Amoryknow, he wondered. Wouldn't his mere understanding of news teach himwhat was happening? But old Amory, the light flashing on hispince-nez, was keeping one eye on the prince and wondering if thechair that he had just placed for Antoinette was not in the draughtof the dome; and little Antoinette was looking about her like arosebud, new to the butterflies of June; and King Otho waslistening, languid, heavy-lidded, sensitive to little values,sophisticating the moment; and Little Cawthorne stood with eyesraised in simple, tolerant wonder; and the others, Bennietod, Mrs.Hastings and Mr. Augustus Frothingham, showed faces like the poolsin which pebbles might be dropped, making no ripples--one mustsuppose that there are such pools, since there are certainly suchfaces. St. George saw how it was. Here, spoken casually by theprince, just as the Banal would speak of the visible and invisibleworlds, here was the Sesame of understanding toward which thecenturies had striven, the secret of the link between two worlds;and here, of all mankind, were only they two to hear--they two andthat motionless company who knew what the prince knew and who keptit sealed within their eyes.
St. George looked at the multitude in swift understanding. Theywere like a Greek chorus, signifying what is. They knew what theprince was saying, they had the secret and yet--they were _nonearer, no nearer_ than he. With their ancient kindliness naked intheir faces, St. George knew that through his love he was as near tothe Source as were they. And it was suddenly as it had been thatfirst night when he had stridden buoyantly through the island; forhe could not tell which was the secret of the prince and of thesepeople and which was the blessedness of his love.
None the less he clung desperately to the last words of PrinceTabnit in a vain effort to hold, to make clear, to sophisticate onesingle phrase, as one waking in the night says over, in a vaineffort to fix it, some phantom sentence cried to him in dreams by ashadowy band destined to be dissolved when, in bright day, he wouldreclaim it. He even managed frantically to write down a jumble ofwords of which he could make nothing, save here and there a phraselike a touch of hands from the silence: "...the infinite moment thatis pending" ... "all is become a window where had been a wall" ..."the wintry vision" ... they were all words that beckon withoutreplying. And all the time it was curiously as if the SomethingSilent within St. George himself, that so long had striven to speak,were crying out at last in the prince's words--and he could notunderstand. Yet in spite of it all, in spite of this imminentsatisfying of the strange, dreadful curiosity which possesses allmankind, St. George, even now, was far less keen to comprehend thanhe was to burst through the throng with Olivia in his arms, gain thewaiting _Aloha_ and sail into the New York harbour with the prizethat he had won. "I drink now to those among you and among all menwho have won and kept that which is greater than these," the princehad said, and St. George perfectly understood. He had but to look atOlivia to be triumphantly willing that the gods should keep theirsecrets about time and the link between the two worlds so long asthey had given him love. What should he care about time? He had thishour.
When the prince ceased speaking the hall was hushed; but because ofthe tempest in the hearts of them all the silence was as if a strongwind, sweeping powerfully through a forest, were to sway no boughsand lift no leaves, only to strive noiselessly round one who walkedthere.
Prince Tabnit wrapped his white mantle about him and sat upon histhrone. Spell-stricken, they
watched him, that great multitude, andmight not turn away their eyes. Slowly, imperceptibly, as Timetouches the familiar, the face of the prince took on its change--andone could not have told wherein the change lay, but subtly as theencroachment of the dark, or the alchemy of the leaves, or thebetrayal of certain modes of death, the finger was upon him. Whilethey watched he became an effigy, the hideous face of a fantasy ofsmoke against the night sky, with a formless hand lifted from amongthe delicate laces in farewell. There was no death--the horror wasthat there was no death. Only this curse of age drying and witheringat the bones.
A long, whining cry came from Cassyrus, who covered his face withhis mantle and fled. The spell being broken, by common consent thegreat hall was once more in motion--St. George would never forgetthat tide toward all the great portals and the shuddering backwardglances at the white heap upon the beetling throne. They fled awayinto the reassuring sunlight, leaving the echoless hall deserted,save for that breathing one upon the throne.
There was one other. From somewhere beside the dais the woman Elissacrept and knelt, clasping the knees of the man.