Sydney C. Grier

“ Never!”
“Well, then, we will go back to Sitt Zeynab. You shall reign there in peace, and no one can come near you against your will. Wherever you are, there I shall be happy.”
“My poor Ernestine, I am not worth it. You had better let me die, dear.” His eyes sought the pistol longingly. “I am a miserable, broken wretch, with no hope and no contentment left, and I shall lead you a terrible life.”
“No life with you could be terrible to me. To be near you is joy enough. It was not your success I loved, it was you, and you are the same still. I love you, Cyril, I love you.” ”

“ The maid of honour shrank before the tone, and the gesture with which the Queen waved her aside, but she made another valiant effort.
“Oh, madame, listen to me for one moment! You know how I love you—that I would give everything I have in the world to provide a moment’s happiness for you. Don’t expose yourself again to this man’s cruelty. He returns to you merely that he may gratify his ambition. He cannot love. Trust me, madame; I love you better than my life.”
“I am in your hands, Ernestine,” said Cyril faintly. ”

“ Cyril met their overtures in the same spirit, and his sole piece of revenge was to tell his entertainers at breakfast all the news of the last three days, as though they had only just arrived—a piece of pleasantry which brought to Mansfield’s face a passing gleam of satisfaction. Cyril took him to task for his lowering brow as they returned to the hotel, and told him that when the Countess von Hohenthurm was so condescending as to show an interest in a young man, it behoved that young man to be grateful, and to look it. ”

“ Mansfield cried angrily to Cyril, who had rallied him on his sour looks. “These people have the romance of the ages behind them, and the fulfilment of the prophecies just ahead, and they think of nothing but cent per cent!”
“You have been disillusioned, and you speak severely,” said Cyril, with great sweetness. “I am thankful I never took the trouble to set up ideals, when I see how other people suffer in seeing theirs overthrown. But why don’t you blame the tyranny of centuries, which has reduced the Jews to this lamentable condition? ”

“ I want every one to recognise, as I do, how great you are. It hurts me when they show me all kinds of honour because I happen to wear a crown, and leave you in the background, when every man there ought to be on his knees before you. You pretend not to feel it, for my sake, but I know you do. It makes me tingle with shame. When we are married, I shall be only your wife and nothing else, and no one shall put me before you.”
“Then I hope for both our sakes that the Emperor Sigismund will not pay another visit to Palestine—during our reign, at any rate.” Cyril smiled rather unsteadily. ”

“ Cyril’s invitation to dinner he accepted with unfeigned pleasure, confessing that when he left London he had little expected ever to regard an opportunity of donning evening dress as an occasion of rejoicing. The momentary return to the old life, which he had so often contemned, after the manner of poets, as false and hollow, was a keen delight to him, and Mansfield found it hard to believe that the vague-eyed man of the world, who knew his London so thoroughly, could be one and the same with the industrious toiler of the morning. ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Madame must not come to Thracia unless she comes as queen. There are still old men who remember her father’s reign, and it goes without saying that all the young men would be ready to champion the cause of such a lady.”
“I’m so glad you think me like my father,” said Philippa, in her old impulsive way. “But even if he was still King of Thracia, I shouldn’t be of any importance, you know. Usk would be the great person, not I.”
Prince Mirkovics glanced at the slight dark-haired youth whose mirthful grey eyes met his across the bath-chair, and shook his head. ”

“ 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?” ”

“ As Rubenssohn grew accustomed to the company in which he found himself, the vagueness left his eyes. In Cyril he discovered one who appealed to a different side of his nature, and a mocking spirit took possession of him. Mansfield and the melancholy Paschics listened with bated breath while the guest embarked upon a career of destruction, sparing neither the beliefs common to mankind generally nor those of his own people. He ridiculed with the utmost impartiality the ideas of love and immortality, the tyranny of the Law, and the Messianic hopes of Rabbi Schaul. ”

“ It is not necessary for all Europe to oppose itself to the United Nation. Think of the other side of the picture. What a future would lie before the country which had the support of all the Jews in the world!”
Baron de la Mothe von Elterthal drew a long breath. “You dazzle me, Count! Am I to understand this as an offer?”
“As a conditional offer,” said Cyril, rising; “conditional on your supporting us at Czarigrad. I will leave you to think it over, for I must get back to my hotel, unless I am to lose the train for Charlottenbad.” ”

“ 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.” ”

“ Confession is good for the soul.”
“I like the look of the young man,” remarked the Princess confidentially. “Of course I have heard a great deal about him already from Usk, but I was anxious to see him. And he is your secretary, Lord Cyril? And you are engaged in bringing about the restoration of the Jews to their own land? What a wonderful age this is of ours, and what a privilege for you to be allowed to assist in such a work! I can’t tell you how thankful it makes me that I have been allowed to live long enough to witness this crowning fulfilment of prophecy.” ”

“ At Vindobona Mansfield made the acquaintance of Dr Koepfle, to whom the Chevalier Goldberg was fond of alluding as the brain of Zionism. It struck him as quaintly curious that the man who had been chiefly instrumental in arousing an enthusiasm unprecedented in modern times should himself be enthusiastic purely as a matter of business. Business-like from head to foot was Dr Koepfle, intent on giving practical form to the dreams of many generations, and crystallising the vague maxims of scattered visionaries into a workable constitution. ”

“ One glance at her troubled face showed Cyril that something serious was in the air; but, in his usual teasing fashion, he talked continuously on indifferent subjects. When they came in sight of the house Philippa stopped short, in agony lest the opportunity should be lost.
“Uncle Cyril, I want to ask you something. Is the Princess a friend of yours? Usk and I always thought she had done something to injure you.”
“So she did, Phil. But is it your creed that once an enemy always an enemy? No? Then you see I too can be virtuous and overlook my enemies’ faults—sometimes.” ”

“ Outside the gate was the camping-ground of the caravans from Baghdad, with its hundreds of knee-haltered camels, and its bronzed Arabs bargaining and quarrelling in a hopeless patois over the goods piled up round their rough tents. Then came the dismal ride through the native burying-ground, filled with the ruinous and half-open vaults of the Christians on the one hand and the fallen tombstones of the Jews on the other, and when this had been passed, the form of Yeshua could be distinguished, waiting faithfully under the walnut-trees overhanging the wall of the Protestant cemetery. ”

“ I will take counsel with babes, and be guided by the advice they give me. Mansfield,” he stepped into the anteroom, “I want your opinion on a point of morals.”
Mansfield glanced up quickly, suspecting a hidden irony in the request; but Cyril’s eyes met his gravely enough.
“Suppose you had behaved badly to the woman you loved—broken her heart in fact. Oh, for pity’s sake——” as Mansfield attempted a protest, “isolate your thoughts from my niece for the moment, and imagine it possible that you could treat a woman cruelly. What would you do when you repented and wished to undo the past?” ”

“ Lord Cyril, you should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting it. No, Philippa’s anxiety, and mine too, is all on your account.”
“Ought I to be more flattered by your interest, or grieved for your anxiety, Princess?”
“You are incorrigible, Lord Cyril. I assure you I am absolutely in earnest. Phil is making herself miserable with the notion that you are in love with the Princess of Dardania, although I have done my best to show her its absurdity. No man who had loved Queen Ernestine, however imperfectly, could transfer his affections to the woman who wrecked her happiness.” ”

“ Do you find yourself comfortably fixed now, Count?”
He stepped back again to look critically at his work, just as Mansfield, with blazing eyes and panting breath, charged down upon the ledge, revolver in hand.
“Thank God you’re safe, sir!” he cried, with something like a sob. “Where are the villains?”
“Hold him, Hicks!” cried Cyril feebly, as his secretary dashed past him in the direction taken by the fugitives. “He is suffering from the usual British malady, and yearns to go and kill something. He isn’t safe.” ”

“ You know that I should be miserable—perfectly miserable—but you don’t mind a bit.”
“On my honour as a king, I would do my best to make you happy.”
“But you couldn’t; how could you? You aren’t the right person. Besides,” Philippa rushed on hastily, “even if I cared for you I couldn’t bear to be a Queen. I want to be free, to be able to go about and do as I like. It would kill me to be cooped up and never able to get away from people.” ”

“ Is that the message I am to take back to Count Mortimer?”
“Do you call yourself sane?” demanded Fräulein von Staubach viciously; “because her Majesty is far saner than you are. You thought she was mad, did you? No; you may tell Count Mortimer that if his object was to drive her mad, he failed. Let me pass, sir!”
She swept out of the room in a whirlwind of righteous indignation. As for Mansfield, he took a sorrowful leave of Sister Chriemhild, walked down regretfully to the spot at which he had told Uncle Sam to meet him with the horses, and rode back to Damascus with a gloomy countenance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Leaving their horses with the grooms, they began to make the ascent of the mountain, finding the only path that offered itself alarmingly narrow and steep. It grew worse instead of better higher up, and when they were between three and four hundred feet above the plain, Cyril wiped his heated brow and sat down upon a large stone which lay temptingly in the shadow of the rock, on a ledge into which the path widened at this point.
“I draw the line here, Mansfield. I may be getting old, but my life is valuable to me, and I don’t feel justified in endangering it by any further breakneck feats. ”

“ A discredited traitor is no fit associate for your Royal Highness.”
“Stop, Count! You have carried on this farce long enough. Why pretend to take the man’s nonsense seriously? You know as well as I do that whoever may have been deceived, you were not.”
“What, madame! Are you trying to restore my lost self-esteem! to re-establish your empire over me, according to Dr Texelius?” Cyril was smiling.
“Pray, Count, be serious. What is the object of raising a new barrier between us at this moment, when this kind enemy of yours has unintentionally broken them all down? ”