Father Algio was a strictly virtuous and honourable old man. He must, therefore, have had good reason for acting in this strictly dishonourable fashion, doing practically thereby what he had reprimanded Peronella for doing, exactly what he had given his word not to do, and exactly what Peronella had prophesied he would do. Was it that something the girl said had struck him, and he believed in her more than he pretended to do? Was it that he had a spiritual intuition? I fear no.
The envelope being open, and he equipped with a slight knowledge of the English tongue, he could not resist the temptation. Was he a fraud? No more than St Peter or King David. He was just that very common phenomenon which novelists refuse to admit--a good man doing a bad action, with no extenuating circ.u.mstances.
The letter ran in the original thus (which was not quite as Father Algio closeted in his library with a very old English dictionary rendered it into Alsandrian, but no matter):
MY DEAR SON
"Mr Gaffekin did give me your address which you never thought to send to me or write a line and I think you might have more affection for your old father with one foot in his grave than to leave him and go to foreign parts without a word not to mention robbing me of all my money which I will forgive if you will give back the money at once as I am very poor and the shop going badly, though it was a great sin and shame to rob your father and if you come back I will see you, your loving
"FATHER."
Having made out the rough sense of this the old priest tumbled his head on his beard. A quick psychologist, he knew he had before him a genuine human doc.u.ment, an able logician, he soon deduced the facts of the case from the given data. Then he arose, struck the table violently, swore that divine guidance had prompted him to read the letter (whereby he added the sin of hypocrisy to that of curiosity and misnamed the latter) Not only was the King an impostor, it seemed, but a vulgar thief as well. He sat in his armchair for some time, pondering on what plan he should pursue. At last he left the monastery and, taking the letter and his translation with him, he communicated them in a secret interview to Count Vorza that very night.
And this explains how it was that Count Vorza spent yet a second night pacing up and down his gorgeous courtyard.
CHAPTER XVI
THE COUNTER CONSPIRACY: AN EPISODE IN THE STYLE OF THE WORST WRITERS
Down in a deep dark hole the society plotted a horror.
It was some three weeks after the date of the last chapter that Count Vorza left the palace without giving the customary notification to his august master (who was taking his august siesta), at two o"clock in the afternoon. He pa.s.sed quickly along, avoiding observation and courting the most devious by-ways, till he came at last to an obscure and squalid doorway at the end of a filthy alley.
"Who is there?" inquired a girl"s treble.
"_Regnestro_."
"_Invenu_."
He followed into a bare and horrible cellar, damper than a subaqueous vault. This was the Temple of Conspiracy, or shall we say Counter-Conspiracy? correctly chosen, according to all traditions, an utterly unnecessary, even dangerous, choice, for the house of Peronella would have been a far safer resort than this most suspect vault. But no Alsandrian conspirator could have enjoyed himself or felt at ease in less mysterious, less uncomfortable surroundings. Truly the scene was picturesque enough to satisfy the most theatrical appet.i.te: and the motives of the conspirators themselves in plotting against the impostor were various enough to give psychological interest to the melodrama.
Dark girder beams projected low, so that the tallest had to stoop: and illumination was produced day and night from a sickly and evil-smelling lamp. Nor were the individuals here a.s.sembled less in keeping with the true spirit of second-rate tragedy that pervades the novels of the good old school of Harrison Ainsworth. Here was Cesano, his arms folded, his back to the wall, confident in his power of fascination, aglow with a foretaste of revenge. Peronella had avowed herself sick enough of her English Grocer-King, when Cesano, bursting with Father Algio"s tremulous confidences, flung himself at her feet. But there was a fine, large step between hating Norman and loving Cesano: and the girl had by now regained enough spirits to tease quite heartlessly her sombre suitor.
She also laughed a little at the conspiracy, but enjoyed being important. She tried at first to give herself the black air of a desolate Ariadne: but soon discarded it in the delights of plotting. She had grown up very swiftly--her beauty was a flourish of trumpets--but how the charm had fled! She was entrusted with the task of admitting the conspirators into the cellar upon the p.r.o.nouncement of the pa.s.sword. She had taken to practising with a very expensive revolver which she had made Cesano give her, and also to smoking cigarettes, to the distress of Father Algio, who was seated beside her on a packing case. Cesano, whose presence we have remarked, had chosen the darkest corner of the cellar to glower in. Other conspirators prowled round. The lamp was giving out more smoke than ever and the room was stifling. No one could have kept quite sane in such an atmosphere for half-an-hour.
The venerable form of Vorza was greeted with respect and enthusiasm.
"Has anything happened, Duke Vorza?" inquired Peronella, whose modesty was decreasing, before anyone else could get in a word.
"Nothing," said Vorza. "The notice will be round the town in an hour"s time: Cuvas has worked well: the whole town will be in the castle square and the usurper will meet his doom."
"What doom?" inquired Peronella, meekly.
"Oh, I doubt if we shall have to take formal proceedings against him.
The mob will tear him to pieces, I imagine. Lynch law--those d.a.m.ned republics have taught us something, after all. Ah! is that Cuvas?"
Peronella opened the door and Cuvas, the weary-looking editor of the _Alsandrian Gazette,_ stepped into the room, a stick of a man.
"You have managed splendidly," said Vorza to him.
"I am very tired. You do speak loudly, by the way. I could hear you right outside."
"What, talking about the probable end of our mock King?"
"Yes, and I did not like your talk entirely. Couldn"t you ensure his safety? It would be rather a stroke. You see, very luckily the usurper made no attempt against King Andrea but simply put him into an asylum, as we have discovered. Wouldn"t it look well in the eyes of Europe if we treated the usurper with the same leniency? Lynching doesn"t look well, you know: it doesn"t look well."
Cuvas was a man of peace, and not quite such a fool as the others, as will be seen.
"Why, what an absurd idea!" exclaimed the Duke. "You are a queer man, Cuvas, or I would have to call you a coward."
"It would give Alsander such a bad name in the world, brutally to destroy a man who, after all, has done little harm and some good, and we must remember we belong to a civilized State and are now engaged in making history. That is the way things are worked nowadays, you know.
Look at Portugal, and Turkey and China. I repeat, the grocer has set a good example."
"You dare praise him for not having killed your lawful King!" cried Father Algio.
"You dare compare the foul deposition of a legitimate monarch to the upsetting of a a low-born, vile, foreign impostor!" cried Vorza.
"Of course not," said Cuvas. "But I deprecate excitement. I deprecate bloodshed. It"s the style in which you write your article, not what you say in it, that draws the populace. It"s the way you conduct your revolution, not the justice of your cause, that appeals to the diplomats. You must remember that to some people there would be a good deal to be said for the impostor."
"Good things to be said of a grocer!" exclaimed Cesano.
"A Persian cobbler founded Persia"s best dynasty," said Cuvas. "And a grocer is not worse than a cobbler. And in England, all things are different: I have heard that in that country grocers may be the friends of Kings and have been enn.o.bled."
"Those English!" groaned Vorza, with contempt. "We are Alsandrians, not Persians, or English, and G.o.d be praised! But why to-day of all days do you trouble us with literary dissertations, Cuvas? What has this grocer done that you should defend him before he dies?"
"Well, he has worked already, and worked hard, in the interests of the country. He has begun to dredge the river and pave the streets, and light the town. He is already planning a new railway."
"He?" said Vorza. "Do you think he does anything? He spends half his time shut up with that scoundrelly Jew doctor, whom he would have made Prime Minister if I had let him."
Cuvas thought to himself that Vorza had had many years of power, and yet that more had been done for the country in the last three weeks than during all the years of his regency. However, he had no idea of angering the Count, and held his peace.
"Come, Cuvas," said Father Algio. "Remember what work we have in hand.
We have the honour of our country to avenge. We have the Right to fight for. Nothing but death awaits impiety like this. I knew the young man. I could even have loved him once. He may be lowly born, but he looks and acts like a King. I admit it. Truly he has played a fine game with this country with the fiend"s aid. But were he my own brother he could not be spared now. He has mocked at religion, fooled the Church, driven out the anointed King, blasphemed the holy oil. His sacrilege is heavy on him, and on this land, and only blood can wipe out our infamy. I am an old man, a feeble man, yet if he were now to come into this room I would tear him with my own hands, and the Queen of the Skies would give me strength to do it. Do not waver, do not flinch, for you are about a high and holy business."
"I wish they would come!" interrupted Peronella, with some impatience, quite irresponsive to this outburst of sacerdotal fervour.
"While we are waiting for the true ruler of this land let us betake ourselves to prayer," continued the priest, not heeding her.
"I hear them!" exclaimed the girl, starting up and leaping to the entrance. There was a sound of a carriage stopping outside and much commotion at the door.
"We have him!" came a rea.s.suring voice, and three guardsmen entered, weary, perspiring, bedraggled and unkempt, bearing with them on a litter none other than the real King Andrea.
"We had to fight our way through the asylum," said the excited guards, in answer to a wind of questions. "There was no other way to get at him.
The patients have all escaped and are gibbering in the open fields. Some must have perished: we have had a dreadful time."
They continued vivifying their experiences. Father Algio paid them no attention, but went to the bier and kissed the hand of Andrea, who heard not, felt not, cared not, for he was very sound asleep.
"Where is Makzelo?" asked Cuvas of the guardsmen, cutting short the tale of their heroism.