And Phadrig died. His eyes glazed and his flesh withered; his lips and his gums dried up and shrivelled away from his jaws. His clothes fell away from his body in rotting shreds, and before Nicol Hendry and Von Hamner had quite grasped the full meaning of the horror that was happening before their eyes, all that was left of him was a little heap of yellow bones with a few fragments of cloth clinging to them.
"Gentlemen," said Franklin Marmion, "there are some things which cannot be told. I think you will agree with me that this is one of them. Mr Amena has left the world for the present. Those bones will be dust in a few minutes. It will only be another mysterious disappearance, and I don"t think that any one except the Pentanas and Prince Oscarovitch will trouble much about him. The Pentanas are now deprived of all power for harm, and the Prince will probably be a harmless lunatic when he comes back into the world. I should sweep that dust up and put it into the fireplace, if I were you. In that desk you will find doc.u.ments giving the whole history of the Affaire Zastrow. They will be useful to you.
You will have to excuse me now. Europe is on the brink of war, and I must go and remove the cause. I rely upon your discretion as to the events of this afternoon. Au revoir. I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again shortly."
The door closed, and they were left to their somewhat gruesome task.
CHAPTER XXVI
CAPTAIN MERRILL"S COMMISSION
Franklin Marmion found a hansom in the Borough Road and drove to Waterloo. He had just time to wire to Merrill to meet him at the "Keppel"s Head" for dinner and catch the new 4.55 express for Portsmouth. Merrill was waiting for him in the smoking-room. As they shook hands, he said in the quiet tone which is characteristic of his profession:
"Your wire was rather sudden news, Professor. I thought you were somewhere in the Baltic. Your coming back like this seemed to mean something, and so I took the liberty of having a private room for our dinner."
"Perfectly right, my dear Merrill," he replied. "Let us go upstairs at once. I have a good deal to say to you, and what I am going to say will have to be done quickly."
"We have our sailing orders for the Baltic, and the Special Squadron leaves Spithead at midnight. Come upstairs, Professor, and we can talk."
Dinner was served a few minutes after they got into the room that Merrill had reserved on the first floor. The waiter was dismissed and the door locked, and then Franklin Marmion told Mark Merrill the most wonderful story he had ever heard. If it had come from any one else he would have put it down as a lie, but he remembered what had happened in the lecture theatre of the Royal Society, and so he held his peace. It was quite impossible for him to disbelieve anything the father of his Best Beloved told him. When the Professor had finished the story of Nitocris and the Prince, he leaned his elbows on the table, and said:
"Now, my dear Merrill, I am going to put it into your power to save Europe from the horrors of a universal war: but to that you must be prepared to take risks which may result in your being dismissed the Service. On the other hand, if you succeed, as you are almost certain to do if you act strictly on the instructions that I am going to give you, you will be a Captain in a month, and a Vice-Admiral in a year."
"But I"m a Captain now, Professor. I was keeping that little bit of news for you. I hoisted my pennant this morning on His Majesty"s ship _Nitocris_: new second-cla.s.s cruiser, eight thousand tons, and twenty-four knots: as pretty a ship as Elswick ever turned out. And the name: it came to me like a revelation."
"Possibly it was, in a sense that you may not quite understand now, but you will understand it when you and Niti are married. She will be better able to explain it then than I could now."
"And what are the orders--I mean, of course, the private ones? Ours are: sail at midnight, make Kronstadt in forty-eight hours: command the approaches to Riga and St Petersburg, and wait for the developments of this manifesto which seems to be setting what is left of Russia on fire.
Germany is in with us for the time being: France and Italy and our Mediterranean squadron will see to things in the Near East, and altogether there seem to be the prospects of a very handsome sort of row."
"Which you, my dear Merrill, will be the means of preventing," said Franklin Marmion, taking a piece of folded tracing paper out of the inside pocket of his coat. "I yield to circ.u.mstance. The name of your new ship convinces me that I was wrong in certain other circ.u.mstances.
You will give me a pa.s.sage to Viborg on the _Nitocris_. You will take French leave of the fleet as soon as you sight Kronstadt, get into Viborg Bay at your best speed, land your men, take the Castle, which is quite undefended, bring away Prince Zastrow and Oscarovitch, and, of course, Niti; put your two princes on board the flagship, bring them back to England, and dictate terms from London. It seems a good deal to do, but I will make it possible, if you are prepared to do as I advise you. There is the chart showing the approaches to Oscarburg."
"I"ll do it, sir," said Merrill, taking the tracing from his hand. "I"ll break every regulation of the Service into little pieces to get that done. Now, I ought to be getting on board. Are you ready?"
"Quite," said Franklin Marmion, rising from his chair. "I see now where the man of action comes in. I did not see that before, I must confess."
CHAPTER XXVII
THE BRIDAL OF OSCAROVITCH
The Special Service Squadron steamed out of Spithead as the clock of Portsmouth Town Hall chimed twelve that night. Thirty-six hours later a marriage ceremony took place in the chapel of the Castle of Oscarburg.
It was performed according to the rites of the Orthodox Church, and the witnesses were Prince Zastrow and his medical attendant, Doctor Hugo.
The retainers of the Castle, headed by the major-domo and the housekeeper, formed the congregation. Jenny was up in her mistress" room packing as though for an immediate departure. She was very frightened at the happenings of the past three or four days, but she contented herself with the thought that her mistress was going to be a princess, and that, therefore, her own lot in life would be brightened with reflected glory.
When the ceremony was over, the wedding feast was held in the great dining-hall of the Castle after the ancient Finnish style. When the loving-cup had been drunk, Nitocris took leave of her lord and went to her room. The bridal chamber was blazing with light, and the great silken-hung bed was a couch fit for a queen. She turned the draperies down, laid herself dressed on the thick, downy bed, and then got up and went back to her own.
"I shall sleep here to-night, Jenny, and I shall not undress. You mustn"t do, either. Lock the door, and put the sofa across it. You will find that something is going to happen to-night. Is everything ready for us to go away?"
"Yes, Your Highness," replied Jenny, wondering what was going to happen next.
"You must not call me Highness, Jenny," said her mistress, with a laugh.
"I did not marry the Prince to-day. It was some one else he knew a long time ago. I have put her to bed in that splendid bridal chamber of his.
She is waiting for him now."
"But I don"t understand, Miss--I----"
"There is no need for you to understand, Jenny. Just be a good girl, and do as you"re told. When we get back to England I will explain matters as far as I can."
Miss Jenny wisely decided to keep her thoughts to herself, and went on with her packing. Nitocris changed her bridal dress for her yachting costume, and lay down on the couch to await the progress of events.
Oscarovitch left the company in the dining-hall to their revel in about an hour"s time, and went up to his fate in the bridal chamber. He knocked and opened the door softly: locked it, and went toward the bed.
He leaned over it for a moment, and then a hoa.r.s.e shriek of mingled rage and terror rang through the room. He flung the clothes off the bed.
Where was the lovely bride he had wedded only a few hours before? What was this horrible thing lying where _she_ should have been? Not Nitocris--and yet, it _was_ Nitocris. Like a flash of lightning rending the darkness of the midnight heavens, the gap of oblivion between his lives was rent, and the light flamed into his soul. Phadrig had lied to him. The daughter of Rameses had not died that night in the banqueting chamber of the Palace of Pepi. She had lived and reigned virgin queen of the Sacred Land. Her body had been submitted to the hands of the paraschites and buried in the City of the Dead over against Memphis, on the eastward side of the river. And here was her mummy lying in his bridal bed, mocking him with its hideous, stony rigidity.
For a few terrible moments he stood staring at it, his clenched fists raised above his head. Then with another scream he cast himself upon it.
When they broke the door open, they found the man who in a few days would have been Emperor of the Russias and the East lying across the bed mowing and gibbering like a mad monkey, and sc.r.a.ping up handfuls of brown dust from the stained sheets.
Twenty-four hours later the Admiral in command of the British Special Squadron off Kronstadt saw the private signal flashed from the north-east. He was a very angry Admiral, for he had lost a brand-new cruiser and one of the smartest captains in the Service. But the signal spelt "_Nitocris_. All well. Coming alongside."
"All well, and be d.a.m.ned to you, Captain Merrill!" muttered the Admiral under his breath, when the signal was read to him. "This is a nice way to begin a new command. I"ve half a mind to put him under arrest: but he"s a good man. I"d better hear what he has to say for himself first. I wonder what the deuce he"s been doing with that cruiser since he took her away without leave? Well, here she is, I suppose."
But it was not H.M.S. _Nitocris_ that came out of the night glittering with electric lights and flying through the water at a speed that the fastest destroyer in the squadron could not have equalled. A whistle tooted softly, a white shape swung up out of the darkness and slowed down alongside the flagship. A boat dropped into the water, and three minutes later Captain Mark Merrill ran up the gangway ladder, saluted the quarter-deck, and handed his sword to the Admiral.
"I have done wrong, sir, but I hope that I have also, in another sense, done right. I have brought both princes with me."
"Both princes--Good Lord, sir, what do you mean?"
"May I come below with you, sir, and explain? It has been rather delicate work, but we"ve got it through all right, I think."
"Then keep your sword for the present, and come and tell me what you have to say."
Captain Merrill followed the Admiral to his room, and told the story of the taking of the Oscarburg--a very easy matter with a hundred bluejackets at his back--the capture of Oscarovitch, who was now in a straight waistcoat on board his own yacht, the rescue of Prince Zastrow and Nitocris, and----
"The other Nitocris is following, sir," he concluded. "I thought I had better take the yacht. She can make a good thirty-five knots, and that"s useful when you"re in a hurry. And now, sir, I am at your disposal."
"Rubbish!" said the Admiral, holding out his hand. "Captain Merrill, I don"t quite know how you"ve done it, but you"ve saved Europe, and perhaps the world, from war. If you hadn"t brought those two princes of yours to-night, we should have been fighting Germany for the possession of Kronstadt before mid-day to-morrow. Those were the orders. Now, of course, they can do nothing, as you have brought Prince Zastrow back from the dead. He"s their choice, and you had better get him and the other away to London as soon as I have seen them, and you can take my report with you on that thirty-five knotter after breakfast to-morrow morning. Now, it"s getting late. I"ll say good-night."