George A. Birmingham

“ She was determined to reach the look-out post on the cliff. In the end she got there.
Kalliope lay at full length, face downwards, in the little hollow. The Queen sat beside her and looked out to sea. Her hair was blown backwards. Her blouse, its fastenings torn, was blown open at her neck. Her face was flecked with tiny crystals of salt. She breathed in quick short pants. She kept her eyelids open with an effort against the blast.
The welter of grey water, broken everywhere with splashes of lighter grey foam, merged into the misty grey of the low enveloping clouds. ”

“ The donkey engine on the Ida’s fore-deck clanked and snorted. Down in the hold the sweating sailors toiled. Packing-cases, great and small, huge bales and brass-studded trunks were hoisted high, swung clear of the ship’s bulwarks and lowered, with much rattling of chains and gear, into the waiting boats. The ship’s lifeboats and the five largest of the island boats plied to and fro between the steamer and the shore. On the palace steps, islanders—men, women and children—waited to take charge of the cargoes which the boats brought. Captain Wilson was in command on board the Ida. ”

“ They broke in a welter of soiled foam across the reef which lay opposite the mouth of the bay. Within the harbour little waves, like jagged steel blades, rose, hissed at each other spitefully, and perpetually stabbed at the rocky shore.
The close, suffocating heat oppressed men and beasts. The islanders retreated into their cottages and lay, patiently enduring, till the vile wind should pass away. Cattle cowered for shelter under the lee of walls or among the bent, swaying trees. Donovan sat alone in his room in the palace. He sweated continuously though he wore little clothing. ”

“ The copper spouts were so many exaggerated versions of his nose.
Her imagination flew to a vision of the men who had brought the tanks and cisterns there in a “mucky ship.” She seemed to see them, thin scarecrows of men, crawling over the rusty sides of some battered tramp steamer; mournful men with brown faces and skinny arms, singing their hymn with sharp cracked voices while they laboured at their utterly preposterous task. Laughter conquered the Queen. She lay back helpless in the merciless grip of uncontrollable merriment. Kalliope could not laugh so much. ”

“ Early in the day the Queen had come to him and demanded candies. She had come at a fortunate moment. He was in the act of opening a large case, sent out, so the label declared, by Fuller, and Kalliope had carried down to the boat a huge box of chocolates. It was the sight of that boat—perhaps, too, the thought of the chocolates—which spurred Mr. Phillips to tell his tale in spite of all discouragement. Is there anything which is more eloquent of innocent helplessness, anything which makes a stronger appeal to the protective instinct of a man, than the vision of two girls eating chocolates? ”

“ But the Queen, even when things in the palace were well ordered, did not find the island dull. She explored it all. With Kalliope as guide she climbed rocks, descended into lonely coves, walked through fields and vineyards, wandered over the pasture land of the upper plateau. She rowed, taking turns at the oars with Kalliope, into many caves and found fascinating landing-places among the rocks. One fine day she sailed all round her kingdom in the largest of the island boats, manned and steered by Kalliope’s lover. ”

“ I abase myself. I am a king. It is true. But I have no money, only a little, a very little left. He is not a king, but he has money. Gorman, I am not a Bourbon. I am able to learn and forget. He who can write a cheque is a greater man than he who can confer the Order of the Pink Vulture of Megalia. I have learned that. Also I can forget, forget that I am a king.”
We must do Konrad Karl justice. No king was ever more willing to forget his rank than he was. The real trouble with him was that he seldom remembered it.
“Come along then,” said Gorman, “but don’t get talking business to Donovan.” ”

“ He glanced once more at the bay before he returned to his work. The Queen’s boat was no longer in sight. The girls had landed perhaps in some quiet creek, or the Queen had taken a fancy to cross the bay and explore the village where her subjects lived.
Kalliope rowed easily and was well content to go on rowing all day. She was almost perfectly happy. Fuller’s sweets were a revelation of unimagined delight to her, and she could gaze without interruption at the Queen. There was little in the world left for her heart to desire. ”

“ They grew hot with laughter and bewilderment. Then they heard the steamer’s syren and grew hotter still with impatience. At last, breathless and flushed, they reached the steps at which they had landed.
Eight boats lay clustered round the steamer. One of them was her own, a heavy white boat, carvel built, with high freeboard. Four men sat in her, resting on their oars. The other seven were island boats, gaily painted red and green, high prowed, high sterned. The biggest of them had a mast stepped right forward, a mast which raked steeply aft, across which lay the yard of a lateen sail. ”

“ Oh, Sir Gorman, M.P., you would do it at once if you understood. Poor Konrad! He is having so much delight with me in Paris. This time only in our lives it has come to us to have enough money and to be in Paris. It is cruel—so cruel that the Emperor should say: ‘No. Give back the money. Go from Paris. Be starved. Have no pearls, no joy.’ But you will save us. Say you will save us.”
Gorman’s position was an exceedingly difficult one. Madame Ypsilante had firm hold on his hand. ”

“ Out of the welter of grey water to windward came another trawler, then a third appeared and a fourth.
Gorman edged up close to von Moll and caught him by the elbow.
“I say, von Moll,” he said, “it’s jolly lucky for you that you didn’t have time to shoot Smith. That ship of yours is a goner, you know. It’ll be a jolly sight pleasanter for you to be a prisoner of war than to be dangling about on the end of a rope in this beastly wind. And Donovan would have seen to it that you did swing if you’d shot Smith. There’s nobody so vindictive as your humanitarian pacifist, once you get him roused.” ”

“ King Konrad Karl waved his hand. Then he stood up, swallowed half a glass of brandy and laid down his cigar.
“I am Konrad Karl of Megalia,” he said. “I am a black sheep, very black. I am a blackguard. You say it, Donovan. You say it, Gorman, my friend.”
“I didn’t,” said Gorman.
“Cut that part,” said Donovan. “Nobody wants to start in abusing you.”
“I am,” said the King with an air of simple pride, “I am a blackguard, the blackest guard of all. Good. But I am a King and I am a gentleman. Good. I know that poor Corinne must go. She cannot stay here. That is what you would say, and you are right. ”

“ As for the father, if he were not a fool would he wish to buy Megalia? Megalia, my God! The world is full of things desirable to buy; and he asks for that.”
The King nodded. He knew Megalia. The man who wanted to buy it was certainly a fool. Gorman was forced to admit that Donovan showed less wisdom than might be expected in wishing to spend money on a kingdom of that kind.
“Then,” said Madame, “the affair is simple. He buys. You sell. He pays. You take. We skip. I love London—yes, very well. But after all there are other cities. We skip. The Emperor acts. The American curses. ”

“ CHAPTER XI I find it necessary to remind myself from time to time that the Queen of Salissa is a young girl, in mind and experience little more than a child. If I think of her as a woman or allow myself to credit her with any common sense, that blight which falls on the middle-aged, her actions become unintelligible.
She ought, no doubt, to have gone straight to her father and told him about the cisterns in the cave. That was the sane thing to do. Donovan was a man of clear understanding and wide knowledge. ”

“ It’s not only her being a queen and all that; but other things. She’s far too good for me in every way. I’m not clever or anything of that kind. And then there’s her father.”
“I shouldn’t worry about him, if I were you,” said Gorman. “What you’ve got to consider is not the father but the girl. If she’s as much in love with you as you are with her——”
“She couldn’t possibly be,” said Phillips.
“I don’t suppose she could,” said Gorman. “Let’s say half. If she’s half as much in love as you are she’ll manage the old man.” ”

“ Politicians are baffled and infuriated by men who, indifferent to the sacred etiquette of the profession, speak the truth in public. Engineers are angry when water persists in oozing out of the top of a hill—as it sometimes does to the confusion of all known laws—instead of trickling into the drains dug for it in the valley underneath. So Captain Wilson’s temper gave way because the German steamer lay as no steamer in the charge of sane men ought to lie; and Phillips was punished. Kings fly into a rage, said an ancient poet, and the common people suffer for it. ”

“ In spite of the pale light and the sinister mystery of the tanks in front of her the Queen laughed aloud. The pursuing echoes made Kalliope’s English irresistibly absurd. Then she pondered. Men—whether “blighters” in Kalliope’s mouth conveyed reproach or were simply a synonym for men she did not know—men in a ship—“mucky” described the ship as little probably as “damn boxes” described the packing-cases of furniture or “bloody” her trunks of clothes. Men in a ship had brought the tanks, had rowed them—“go row” was plain enough—ashore in boats. ”

“ Donovan took no part whatever in the unloading of the ship or the unpacking on the island. He said frankly that he disliked fuss intensely, and that the weather was far too hot for movement of any kind. He added to Captain Wilson—it seemed necessary to excuse himself to Captain Wilson—that the action of his heart always became more disordered if he mixed himself up with people who suffered from activity. The deck of the Ida was no place for him. The cabins were stuffy and the clamour of the donkey engine made him restless. ”

“ It’s business. Pay a big price to the man who can deliver the goods. If you pay a big enough price he’ll hand over.”
“That’s all right,” said Gorman, “when you’re dealing with business men. But there are other men, men who aren’t out for money, who want——”
Donovan yawned.
“There are lunatics,” he said, “but lunatics don’t run the world. They get shut up. Most men aren’t lunatics, and you’ll find that the pacifist idea works out. It’s the everlasting principle of all commerce.”
It is impossible to say whether Donovan’s pacifist principles would have been of any use in Europe in 1914. ”

“ CHAPTER IV It was Gorman’s misfortune that all through the Megalia negotiations he had to deal with women as well as men, indeed sometimes with women rather than men.
Donovan held it as an article of faith that anything in the world can be bought for money, if only there is money enough. But Donovan would not have insisted on justifying his faith by putting it to the test. No one does that. Not even a church, though firmly convinced of its own infallibility, will bludgeon the world into an acceptance of its claim by making decisions about matters which are susceptible of proof. ”

“ Nothing he said had the slightest influence on Konrad Karl.
“But,” the King used to reply, “you do not understand. I am a king.”
“Well,” said Donovan, “according to my notions that’s the same thing, only more so.”
“Ah, no,” said the King. “Ah, damn it, no. A king is not bourgeois, what you call citizen. That is the point. It is because I am a king that the Emperor interferes. If I were a citizen, but——”
He shrugged his shoulders helplessly.
Gorman tried him along a different line.
“Look here,” he said, “the Emperor has got himself into a nasty mess. He’s in for a big war. ”

“ I expect Sir Bartholomew thought this way of talking would impress Gorman. It impresses most people. Your story has a much better chance of being believed and repeated if you tell it on the authority of some one unnamed and vaguely described than it has if you merely say “young Smith, the cashier in my bank, told me to-day, that....”
“I am alluding,” said Sir Bartholomew, “to a report that has reached us of an escapade of Miss Donovan’s. That young lady—very charming I’m sure—and her father’s immensely rich, but—well, you know what young girls are.” ”

“ Scruples aren’t in my line, sir, and I am Swiss by birth. No particular feeling of loyalty to anybody. The fact is, sir, a man must keep his self-respect. I daresay you’ll understand. I had no objection to taking on a valet’s job, sir, in the way of business, as an agent of the Intelligence Department. But it’s rather a different thing, sir—if you catch my point—to enter domestic service as a profession. A man doesn’t like to lose caste, sir.”
“That’s a real difficulty,” said Donovan. “As an American citizen I understand your feeling and respect it. ”

“ Phillips bitterly regretted that he had blown his blasts of greeting on the syren. But, in fact, it was not for that he was punished. Captain Wilson was simply in a very bad temper. The sight of Salissa always annoyed him. The position of the German steamer irritated him vehemently. She lay dangerously near the cliffs in a position in which no seaman would willingly put his ship. She was absurdly moored with four anchors. She was occupied in a perfectly incomprehensible manner. No man likes to be puzzled by things which it is his business to understand. ”