"We shall meet again, my Lotys!" he whispered--"On the other side of Death!"
And so,--with the quiet air of one who knows a quick way out of difficulty, he departed.
Some five days later, a strange and solemn spectacle was witnessed by thousands of spectators from all the sh.o.r.es and quays of the sea-girt city. A ship set sail for the Land of the Infinite!--a silent pa.s.senger went forth on a voyage to the borders of the Unknown! Coffined in state,--with a purple velvet pall trailing its rich folds over the casket which enshrined her perished mortality,--and with flowers of every imaginable rareness, or wildness, scattered about it,--the body of Lotys was, with no religious or formal ceremony, placed on the deck of a sailing-brig, and sent out to the waves for burial. So Sergius Thord had willed it; so Sergius Thord had planned it. He had purchased the vessel for this one purpose, and with his own hands he had strewn the deck with blossoms, till it looked like a floating garden of fairyland. Garlands of roses trailed from the mast,--wreaths from every former member of the now extinct "Revolutionary Committee" were heaped in profusion about the coffin which lay in the centre of the deck,--the sails were white as snow, and one of them bore, the name "Lotys" upon it, in letters of gold. It was arranged that the brig should be towed from the harbour, and out to sea for about a couple of miles,--and when there, should be cut free and set loose to the wind and tide to meet its fate of certain wreckage in the tossing billows beyond. In strange contrast to this floating funeral were the brilliant flags and gay streamers which were already being put up along the streets and quays, as the first signs of the city"s welcome to the Crown Prince and his bride, who were expected to arrive home somewhere within the next ten days. Eager crowds watched the unique ceremony, unknown save in old Viking days, of sending forth a dead voyager to sail the pitiless seas; and countless numbers of small boats attended the funeral vessel in a long flotilla,--escorting it out to that verge where the ocean opened widely to the wider horizon, and spread its high road of silver waves invitingly out to the approaching silent adventurer. Comments ran freely from lip to lip,--Sergius Thord had been seen, pale as death, laying flowers on the deck to the last,--the King,--yes!--the King himself had sent a wreath, as a token of remembrance, to the obsequies of the woman who had saved his life,--the purple velvet pall, with its glittering fringes of gold, had been the gift of the city of which Thord was the lately-elected Deputy,--Louis Valdor had sent that garland of violets,--the great wreath of roses which lay at the head of the coffin, was the offering of the famous little dancer, Pequita, who, it was said, now lay sick of a fever brought on by grief and fretting for the loss of her best friend,--and rich and poor alike had vied with one another in a.s.sisting the weird beauty of this exceptional and strange burial, in which no s.e.xton was employed but the wild wind, which would in due time scoop a hollow in the sea, and whirl down into fathomless deeps all that remained of a loving woman, with the offerings of a People"s love around her!
From the Palace windows the Queen watched the weird pageant, with straining eyes, and a sense of relief at her heart. This unknown rival of hers,--this Lotys--was dead! Her body would soon be drifting out on the wild waste of waters, to be caught by the first storm and sunk in the depths of eternal silence. She was glad!--almost she could have sung for joy! The colour mantled on her fair cheeks,--she looked younger and more beautiful than ever. She had learned her long-neglected lesson,--the lesson of, "how to love." And to herself she humbly confessed the truth--that she loved no other than her husband! The King had now become the centre of her heart, as he had become the centre of his People"s trust. And she watched the vessel bearing the corpse of Lotys, gliding, gliding over the waves--she tracked the circling concourse of boats that went with it--and waited, with quickened breath and eager eyes, till she saw a sudden pause in the procession--when, riding lightly on a shining wave, the funeral-ship seemed to stop for an instant--and then, with a bird-like dip forward, scurried out with full, bulging sails to the open sea! The crowding spectators began to break up and disperse--the flotilla of attendant boats turned back to sh.o.r.e--the dead woman who had held such magnetic influence over the King, was gone!--gone for ever into the watery caverns of endless death!
It was with a light heart that the Queen at last rose from her watch at the window, and prepared to array herself for the return of her sovereign lord. Her eyes sparkled, her lips smiled; she looked the very incarnation of love and tenderness. The snow-peak had melted at last, and underneath the ice, love"s late violets had begun to bloom! She glanced once more out at the sea, where the vanishing death-ship now seemed but a speck on the far horizon, and saw a bank of solemn purple clouds darkening the golden sunset line,--clouds that rose up thickly and swiftly, like magic mountains conjured into sudden existence by some witch in a fairy tale. A gust of wind shook the lattice--and moaned faintly through the c.h.i.n.ks of the door.
"There will be a storm to-night!" she said musingly, her eyes following the dispersing crowds, as they poured along the terrace from the sh.o.r.e, or climbed up from the quays to the higher streets of the town:--"There will be a storm!--and the woman who was called Lotys, will know nothing of it! The vessel she sails in will be crushed like a sh.e.l.l in the teeth of the blast, and her body will sink like a stone in the angry sea! So will she sleep--so does her brief power over the King come to an end!"
Turning, she smiled at her lady-in-waiting, Teresa de Launay, who had also watched the sea funeral of Lotys with wondering and often tear-filled eyes.
"How the people must have loved her!" the girl murmured softly; "No poor person or child came to these strange obsequies without flowers!--many wept--and some swear there is no happiness at all for them now, without Lotys! She must have been a sweet, unselfish woman!"
The Queen was silent.
"Since she saved the life of our lord the King, I have often thought of her!" went on Teresa--"I have even hoped to see her! Dearest Madam, would you not have been glad to thank her once before she died?"
The Queen"s face hardened.
"She only did her duty!" was the cold answer--"Every subject in the realm would be proud to have the chance of being the King"s defender!"
At that moment the door opened, and Sir Roger de Launay entered,--then drew back in some surprise and hesitation.
"I crave your pardon, Madam!" he said, bowing low--"I thought the King was here!"
"Truly the King should be here by now,"--replied the Queen gently--"But he is doubtless detained among the people, who wait upon his footsteps, as though he were a demi-G.o.d!" She smiled happily. "He went out to see yonder strange funeral pageant--and left no word of the hour of his return."
Sir Roger looked perplexed. The Queen noticed his expression of anxiety.
"Stay but a moment, Sir Roger," she added--"Now I remember, he bade me at sunset, go to my own room and fetch a packet I would find from him there,--he may be waiting for me now!"
She retired, the radiant smile still upon her face, and Sir Roger looked at his sister with concern for her tearful eyes.
"Weeping, Teresa?" he said--"What is the trouble?"
"Nothing!" she answered quickly--"Only a presentiment of evil! That funeral-ship has made me sad!"
Sir Roger said nothing for the moment. He was too preoccupied with his own forebodings to give much heed to hers. He walked to the window.
"There will be a storm to-night!" he said. "Look at those great clouds!
They are big with thunder and with rain!"
"Yes!" murmured Teresa--"There will be a storm--Madam!"
She turned with a cry to feel the Queen"s grip on her shoulder--to see the Queen, white as marble, with blazing eyes, possessed by a very frenzy of grief and terror. A tragic picture of despairing Majesty, she confronted the startled De Launay with an open paper in her hand.
"Where is the King?" she demanded, in accents that quivered with fear and pa.s.sion. "From you, Sir Roger de Launay, must come the answer! To you, his friend and servant, I trusted his safety! And of you I ask again--Where is the King?"
Stupefied and stunned, Sir Roger stared helplessly at this enraged splendour of womanhood, this embodied wrath of royalty.
"Madam!" he stammered,--"I know nothing--save that the King has been sorely stricken by a great sorrow--"
She looked at him with flashing eyes.
"Sorrow for what?--for whom?"
De Launay gazed at her amazedly;--why did she ask of what she knew so well?
"Madam, to answer that is not within my province!"
She was silent, breathing quickly. Great tears gathered on her lashes, but did not fall.
"When saw you his Majesty last?"
"But three hours since, Madam! He bade me leave him alone, saying he would walk a while in the further grounds away from the sight of the sea. He had no mind, he said, to look upon the pa.s.sing away of Lotys!"
A strange grey pallor crept over the Queen"s face. She stood proudly erect, yet tottered as though about to fall. Teresa de Launay ran to her in terror.
"Dearest Madam!" cried the trembling girl--"Be comforted! Be patient!
The King will come!"
"He will never come!" said the Queen in a low choked voice;--"Never again--never, never again! I feel--I know--that I have lost him for ever! He has gone--but where?--O G.o.d!--where!"
"Madam!" said Sir Roger, shaken to the soul by the sight of her suppressed agony--"That paper in your hand--"
"This paper," she said, with a convulsive effort at calmness, "makes me Regent till the return of my son, the Crown Prince--and--at the same time--bids me farewell! Farewell!--and why farewell? Oh, faithless servant!" and she advanced a step, fixing her burning eyes on the stricken De Launay--"I thought you loved me!"
His face flushed--his lips quivered.
"As G.o.d lives, Madam, I yield to no one in my love and service of you!"
"Then find the King!" and she stretched out her arm with a gesture of authority--"Bring back to me my husband!--the one man of the world!--the one man I have learned to love! Follow the King!--whether on land or sea, whether alive or dead,--in heaven or h.e.l.l, follow him! Your place is not with me--but by your master"s side! If you know not whither he has fled, make it your business to learn!--and never let me see your face again till _his_ face shines beside yours, like sunshine against darkness!--till his eyes, his smile make gladness where your presence without him is a mocking misery! Out of my sight! And nevermore return again, save in your duty and attendance on the King!"
"Madam,--Madam!" exclaimed Teresa--"Would you condemn my brother to a lasting banishment? What if the King were dead?"
"Dead!" The word left the Queen"s lips in a sharp sob of pain--"The King cannot die!--he is too strong--too bold and brave! He has met death ere now and conquered it! Dead? No--that is not possible--that could not be!"
She turned again upon Sir Roger, standing mute and pale, a very statue of despair.
"I give you a high mission!" she said--"Fulfil it!"
He started from his unhappy reverie.
"Be sure that I will do so!" he said--"I will--as your Majesty bids me--follow the King! And--till the King returns with me--I also say farewell!"
Catching his sister in his arms, he kissed her with a murmured blessing--and profoundly saluting the woman for whose love"s sake his very life was now demanded, he left the room.