"Don"t be silly!" said the Lord High Chamberlain. "It"s for your good just as much as ours. He was asking only last night why he never got any music nowadays. He told me to find out whether you supposed he paid you simply to eat and sleep, because if so he knew what to do about it."
"Oh, in that case!" The leader of the minstrels started nervously.
Collecting his a.s.sistants and tip-toeing down the garden, he took up his stand a few feet in Merolchazzar"s rear, just as that much-enduring monarch, after twenty-five futile attempts, was once more addressing his stone.
Lyric writers in those days had not reached the supreme pitch of excellence which has been produced by modern musical comedy. The art was in its infancy then, and the best the minstrels could do was this--and they did it just as Merolchazzar, raising the hoe with painful care, reached the top of his swing and started down:
_"Oh, tune the string and let us sing Our G.o.dlike, great, and glorious King!
He"s a bear! He"s a bear! He"s a bear!"_
There were sixteen more verses, touching on their ruler"s prowess in the realms of sport and war, but they were not destined to be sung on that circuit. King Merolchazzar jumped like a stung bullock, lifted his head, and missed the globe for the twenty-sixth time. He spun round on the minstrels, who were working pluckily through their song of praise:
_"Oh, may his triumphs never cease!
He has the strength of ten!
First in war, first in peace, First in the hearts of his countrymen."_
"Get out!" roared the King.
"Your Majesty?" quavered the leader of the minstrels.
"Make a noise like an egg and beat it!" (Again one finds the chronicler"s idiom impossible to reproduce in modern speech, and must be content with a literal translation.) "By the bones of my ancestors, it"s a little hard! By the beard of the sacred goat, it"s tough! What in the name of Belus and Hec do you mean, you yowling misfits, by starting that sort of stuff when a man"s swinging? I was just shaping to hit it right that time when you b.u.t.ted in, you----"
The minstrels melted away. The bearded man patted the fermenting monarch paternally on the shoulder.
"Ma mannie," he said, "ye may no" be a gowfer yet, but hoots! ye"re learning the language fine!"
King Merolchazzar"s fury died away. He simpered modestly at these words of commendation, the first his bearded preceptor had uttered. With exemplary patience he turned to address the stone for the twenty-seventh time.
That night it was all over the city that the King had gone crazy over a new religion, and the orthodox shook their heads.
We of the present day, living in the midst of a million marvels of a complex civilization, have learned to adjust ourselves to conditions and to take for granted phenomena which in an earlier and less advanced age would have caused the profoundest excitement and even alarm. We accept without comment the telephone, the automobile, and the wireless telegraph, and we are unmoved by the spectacle of our fellow human beings in the grip of the first stages of golf fever. Far otherwise was it with the courtiers and officials about the Palace of Oom. The obsession of the King was the sole topic of conversation.
Every day now, starting forth at dawn and returning only with the falling of darkness, Merolchazzar was out on the Linx, as the outdoor temple of the new G.o.d was called. In a luxurious house adjoining this expanse the bearded Scotsman had been installed, and there he could be found at almost any hour of the day fashioning out of holy wood the weird implements indispensable to the new religion. As a recognition of his services, the King had bestowed upon him a large pension, innumerable _kaddiz_ or slaves, and the t.i.tle of Promoter of the King"s Happiness, which for the sake of convenience was generally shortened to The Pro.
At present, Oom being a conservative country, the worship of the new G.o.d had not attracted the public in great numbers. In fact, except for the Grand Vizier, who, always a faithful follower of his sovereign"s fortunes, had taken to Gowf from the start, the courtiers held aloof to a man. But the Vizier had thrown himself into the new worship with such vigour and earnestness that it was not long before he won from the King the t.i.tle of Supreme Splendiferous Maintainer of the Twenty-Four Handicap Except on Windy Days when It Goes Up to Thirty--a t.i.tle which in ordinary conversation was usually abbreviated to The Dub.
All these new t.i.tles, it should be said, were, so far as the courtiers were concerned, a fruitful source of discontent. There were black looks and mutinous whispers. The laws of precedence were being disturbed, and the courtiers did not like it. It jars a man who for years has had his social position all cut and dried--a man, to take an instance at random, who, as Second Deputy Shiner of the Royal Hunting Boots, knows that his place is just below the Keeper of the Eel-Hounds and just above the Second Tenor of the Corps of Minstrels--it jars him, we say, to find suddenly that he has got to go down a step in favour of the Hereditary Bearer of the King"s Baffy.
But it was from the priesthood that the real, serious opposition was to be expected. And the priests of the sixty-seven G.o.ds of Oom were up in arms. As the white-bearded High Priest of Hec, who by virtue of his office was generally regarded as leader of the guild, remarked in a glowing speech at an extraordinary meeting of the Priests" Equity a.s.sociation, he had always set his face against the principle of the Closed Shop hitherto, but there were moments when every thinking man had to admit that enough was sufficient, and it was his opinion that such a moment had now arrived. The cheers which greeted the words showed how correctly he had voiced popular sentiment.
Of all those who had listened to the High Priest"s speech, none had listened more intently than the King"s half-brother, Ascobaruch. A sinister, disappointed man, this Ascobaruch, with mean eyes and a crafty smile. All his life he had been consumed with ambition, and until now it had looked as though he must go to his grave with this ambition unfulfilled. All his life he had wanted to be King of Oom, and now he began to see daylight. He was sufficiently versed in Court intrigues to be aware that the priests were the party that really counted, the source from which all successful revolutions sprang. And of all the priests the one that mattered most was the venerable High Priest of Hec.
It was to this prelate, therefore, that Ascobaruch made his way at the close of the proceedings. The meeting had dispersed after pa.s.sing a unanimous vote of censure on King Merolchazzar, and the High Priest was refreshing himself in the vestry--for the meeting had taken place in the Temple of Hec--with a small milk and honey.
"Some speech!" began Ascobaruch in his unpleasant, crafty way. None knew better than he the art of appealing to human vanity.
The High Priest was plainly gratified.
"Oh, I don"t know," he said, modestly.
"Yessir!" said Ascobaruch. "Considerable oration! What I can never understand is how you think up all these things to say. I couldn"t do it if you paid me. The other night I had to propose the Visitors at the Old Alumni dinner of Oom University, and my mind seemed to go all blank. But you just stand up and the words come fluttering out of you like bees out of a barn. I simply cannot understand it. The thing gets past me."
"Oh, it"s just a knack."
"A divine gift, I should call it."
"Perhaps you"re right," said the High Priest, finishing his milk and honey. He was wondering why he had never realized before what a capital fellow Ascobaruch was.
"Of course," went on Ascobaruch, "you had an excellent subject. I mean to say, inspiring and all that. Why, by Hec, even I--though, of course, I couldn"t have approached your level--even I could have done something with a subject like that. I mean, going off and worshipping a new G.o.d no one has ever heard of. I tell you, my blood fairly boiled. n.o.body has a greater respect and esteem for Merolchazzar than I have, but I mean to say, what! Not right, I mean, going off worshipping G.o.ds no one has ever heard of! I"m a peaceable man, and I"ve made it a rule never to mix in politics, but if you happened to say to me as we were sitting here, just as one reasonable man to another--if you happened to say, "Ascobaruch, I think it"s time that definite steps were taken," I should reply frankly, "My dear old High Priest, I absolutely agree with you, and I"m with you all the way." You might even go so far as to suggest that the only way out of the muddle was to a.s.sa.s.sinate Merolchazzar and start with a clean slate."
The High Priest stroked his beard thoughtfully.
"I am bound to say I never thought of going quite so far as that."
"Merely a suggestion, of course," said Ascobaruch. "Take it or leave it. I shan"t be offended. If you know a superior excavation, go to it.
But as a sensible man--and I"ve always maintained that you are the most sensible man in the country--you must see that it would be a solution.
Merolchazzar has been a pretty good king, of course. No one denies that. A fair general, no doubt, and a plus-man at lion-hunting. But, after all--look at it fairly--is life all battles and lion-hunting?
Isn"t there a deeper side? Wouldn"t it be better for the country to have some good orthodox fellow who has worshipped Hec all his life, and could be relied on to maintain the old beliefs--wouldn"t the fact that a man like that was on the throne be likely to lead to more general prosperity? There are dozens of men of that kind simply waiting to be asked. Let us say, purely for purposes of argument, that you approached _me_. I should reply, "Unworthy though I know myself to be of such an honour, I can tell you this. If you put me on the throne, you can bet your bottom _pazaza_ that there"s one thing that won"t suffer, and that is the worship of Hec!" That"s the way I feel about it."
The High Priest pondered.
"O thou of unshuffled features but amiable disposition!" he said, "thy discourse soundeth good to me. Could it be done?"
"Could it!" Ascobaruch uttered a hideous laugh. "Could it! Arouse me in the night-watches and ask me! Question me on the matter, having stopped me for that purpose on the public highway! What I would suggest--I"m not dictating, mind you; merely trying to help you out--what I would suggest is that you took that long, sharp knife of yours, the one you use for the sacrifices, and toddled out to the Linx--you"re sure to find the King there; and just when he"s raising that sacrilegious stick of his over his shoulder----"
"O man of infinite wisdom," cried the High Priest, warmly, "verily hast them spoken a fullness of the mouth!"
"Is it a wager?" said Ascobaruch.
"It is a wager!" said the High Priest.
"That"s that, then," said Ascobaruch. "Now, I don"t want to be mixed up in any unpleasantness, so what I think I"ll do while what you might call the preliminaries are being arranged is to go and take a little trip abroad somewhere. The Middle Lakes are pleasant at this time of year. When I come back, it"s possible that all the formalities will have been completed, yes?"
"Rely on me, by Hec!" said the High Priest grimly, as he fingered his weapon.
The High Priest was as good as his word. Early on the morrow he made his way to the Linx, and found the King holing-out on the second green.
Merolchazzar was in high good humour.
"Greetings, O venerable one!" he cried, jovially. "Hadst thou come a moment sooner, them wouldst have seen me lay my ball dead--aye, dead as mutton, with the sweetest little half-mashie-niblick chip-shot ever seen outside the sacred domain of S"nandrew, on whom"--he bared his head reverently--"be peace! In one under bogey did I do the hole--yea, and that despite the fact that, slicing my drive, I became ensnared in yonder undergrowth."
The High Priest had not the advantage of understanding one word of what the King was talking about, but he gathered with satisfaction that Merolchazzar was pleased and wholly without suspicion. He clasped an unseen hand more firmly about the handle of his knife, and accompanied the monarch to the next altar. Merolchazzar stooped, and placed a small round white object on a little mound of sand. In spite of his austere views, the High Priest, always a keen student of ritual, became interested.
"Why does your Majesty do that?"