And he had staged the affair well. The Crown Prince, standing alone, so small, so appealing, against his magnificent background, was a picture to touch the hardest. Not for nothing had Mettlich studied the people, read their essential simplicity, their answer to any appeal to the heart. These men were men of family. Surely no father of a son could see that lonely child and not offer him loyalty.
With the same wisdom, he had given the boy small instruction, and no speech of thanks. "Let him say what comes into his head," Mettlich had reasoned. "It will at least be spontaneous and boyish."
The Crown Prince was somewhat nervous. He blinked rapidly as the delegation entered and proceeded up the room. However, happening at that moment to remember Nikky with the brass inkwell, he forgot himself in amusement. He took a good look at the gold casket, as it approached, reverently borne, and rather liked its appearance. It would have been, he reflected, extremely convenient to keep things in, pencils and erasers, on his desk. But, of course, he would not have it to keep. Quite a number of things passed into his possession and out again with the same lightning-like rapidity.
The first formalities over, and the Crown Prince having shaken hands nine times, the spokesman stepped forward. He had brought a long, written speech, which had already been given to the newspapers. But after a moment's hesitation he folded it up.
"Your Royal Highness," he said, looking down, "I have here a long speech, but all that it contains I can say briefly. It is your birthday, Highness. We come, representing many others, to present to you our congratulations, and—the love of your people. It is our hope"—He paused. Emotion and excitement were getting the better of him—"our hope, Highness, that you will have many happy years. To further that hope, we are here to-day to say that we, representing all classes, are your most loyal subjects. We have fought for His Majesty the King, and if necessary we will fight for you." He glanced beyond the child at the Council, and his tone was strong and impassioned: "But to-day we are here, not to speak of war, but to present to you our congratulations, our devotion, and our loyalty."
Also a casket. He had forgotten that. He stepped back, was nudged, and recollected.
"Also a gift," he said, and ruined a fine speech among smiles. But the presentation took place in due order, and Otto cleared his throat.
"Thank you all very much," he said. "It is a very beautiful gift. I admire it very much. I should like to keep it on my desk, but I suppose it is too valuable. Thank you very much."
The spokesman hoped that it might be arranged that he keep it on his desk, an ever-present reminder of the love of his city. To this the Chancellor observed that it would be arranged, and the affair was over. To obviate the difficulty of having the delegation back down the long room, it was the Crown Prince who departed first, with the Chancellor.
Altogether, it was comfortably over, and the Chancellor reflected grimly that the boy had done well. He had made friends of the delegation at a time when he needed friends. As they walked along the long corridors of the Palace together, the Chancellor was visualizing another scene, which must come soon, pray God with as good result: the time when, the old King dead and the solemn bell of the cathedral tolling, this boy would step out on to the balcony overlooking the Place, and show himself to the great throng below the windows.
To offset violence and anarchy itself, only that one small figure on the balcony!
Late in the afternoon the King sent for Prince Ferdinand William Otto. He had not left his bed since the day he had placed the matter of Hedwig's marriage before the Council, and now he knew he would never leave it. There were times between sleeping and waking when he fancied he had already gone, and that only his weary body on the bed remained. At such times he saw Hubert, only, strangely enough, not as a man grown, but as a small boy again; and his Queen, but as she had looked many years before, when he married her, and when at last, after months of married wooing, she had crept willing into his arms.
So, awakening from a doze, he saw the boy there, and called him Hubert. Prince Ferdinand William Otto, feeling rather worried, did the only thing he could think of. He thrust his warm hand into his grandfather's groping one, and the touch of his soft flesh roused the King.
The Sister left them together, and in her small room dropped on her knees before the holy image. There, until he left, she prayed for the King's soul, for the safety and heavenly guidance of the boy. The wind stirred her black habit and touched gently her white coif. She prayed, her pale lips moving silently.
In the King's bedchamber Prince Ferdinand William Otto sat on a high chair, and talked. He was extremely relieved that his exile was over, but he viewed his grandfather, with alarm. His aunt had certainly intimated that his running away had made the King worse. And he looked very ill.
"I'm awfully sorry, grandfather," he said.
"For what?"
"That I went away the other day, sir."
"It was, after all, a natural thing to do."
The Crown Prince could hardly believe his ears.
"If it could only be arranged safely—a little freedom—" The King lay still with closed eyes.
Prince Ferdinand William Otto felt uneasy. "But I am very comfortable, and—and happy," he hastened to say. "You are, please, not to worry about me, sir. And about the paper I threw at Monsieur Puaux the other day, I am sorry about that too. I don't know exactly why I did it."
The King still held his hand, but he said nothing. There were many things he wanted to say. He had gone crooked where this boy must go straight. He had erred, and the boy must avoid his errors. He had cherished enmities, and in his age they cherished him. And now— "May I ask you a question, sir?"
"What is it?"
"Will you tell me about Abraham Lincoln?"
"Why?" The King was awake enough now. He fixed the Crown Prince with keen eyes.
"Well, Miss Braithwaite does not care for him. She says he was not a great man, not as great as Mr. Gladstone, anyhow. But Bobby—that's the boy I met; I told you about him—he says he was the greatest man who ever lived."
"And who," asked the King, "do you regard as the greatest man?"
Prince Ferdinand William Otto fidgeted, but he answered bravely, "You, sir."
"Humph!" The King lay still, smiling slightly. "Well," he observed, "there are, of course, other opinions as to that. However—Abraham Lincoln was a very great man. A dreamer, a visionary, but a great man. You might ask Miss Braithwaite to teach you his 'Gettysburg Address.' It is rather a model as to speech-making, although it contains doctrines that—well, you'd better learn it."
He smiled again, to himself. It touched his ironic sense of humor that he, who had devoted his life to maintaining that all men are not free and equal, when on that very day that same doctrine of liberty was undermining his throne—that he should be discussing it with the small heir to that throne.
"Yes, sir," said Prince Ferdinand William Otto. He hoped it was not very long.
"Otto," said the King suddenly, "do you ever look at your father's picture?"
"Not always."
"You might—look at it now and then. I'd like you to do it."
"Yes, sir."
CHAPTER XXV. THE GATE OF THE MOON
A curious friendship had sprung up between old Adelbert and Bobby Thorpe. In off hours, after school, the boy hung about the ticket-taker's booth, swept now to a wonderful cleanliness and adorned within with pictures cut from the illustrated papers. The small charcoal fire was Bobby's particular care. He fed and watched it, and having heard of the baleful effects of charcoal fumes, insisted on more fresh air than old Adelbert had ever breathed before.
"You see," Bobby would say earnestly, as he brushed away at the floor beneath the burner, "you don't know that you are being asphyxiated. You just feel drowsy, and then, poof!—you're dead."
Adelbert, dozing between tickets, was liable to be roused by a vigorous shaking, to a pair of anxious eyes gazing at him, and to a draft of chill spring air from the open door.
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"I but dozed," he would explain, without anger. "All my life have I breathed the fumes and nothing untoward has happened."
Outwardly he was peaceful. The daughter now received his pension in full, and wrote comforting letters. But his resentment and bitterness at the loss of his position at the Opera continued, even grew.
For while he had now even a greater wage, and could eat three meals, besides second breakfast and afternoon coffee, down deep in his heart old Adelbert felt that he had lost caste. The Opera—that was a setting! Great staircases of marble, velvet hangings, the hush before the overture, and over all the magic and dignity of music. And before his stall had passed and repassed the world—royalties, the aristocracy, the army. Hoi polloi had used another entrance by which to climb to the upper galleries. He had been, then, of the elect. Aristocrats who had forgotten their own opera-glasses had requested him to give them of his best, had through long years learned to know him there, and had nodded to him as they swept by. The flash of jewels on beautiful necks, the glittering of decorations on uniformed chests, had been his life.
And now, to what had he fallen! To selling tickets for an American catch-penny scheme, patronized by butchers, by housemaids, by the common people a noisy, uproarious crowd, that nevertheless counted their change with suspicious eyes, and brought lunches in paper boxes, which they scattered about.
"Riff-raff!" he said to himself scornfully.
There was, however, a consolation. He had ordered a new uniform. Not for twenty years had he ventured the extravagance, and even now his cautious soul quailed at the price. For the last half-dozen years he had stumped through the streets, painfully aware of shabbiness, of a shiny back, of patches, when, on the anniversary of the great battle to which he had sacrificed a leg, the veterans marched between lines of cheering people.
Now, on this approaching anniversary, he could go peacefully, nay, even proudly. The uniform was of the best cloth, and on its second fitting showed already its marvel of tailoring. The news of it had gone around the neighborhood. The tailor reported visits from those who would feel of the cloth, and figure its expensiveness. In the evening—for he worked only until seven—he had his other preparations: polishing his sword, cleaning his accouterments.
On an evening a week before the parade would occur, he got out his boots. He bought always large boots with straight soles, the right not much different from the left in shape. Thus he managed thriftily to wear, on his one leg, first one of the pair, then the other. But they were both worn now, and because of the cost of the new uniform, he could not buy others.
Armed with the better of the two he visited the cobbler's shop, and there met with bitter news.
"A patch here, and a new heel, comrade," he said. "With that and a polishing, it will do well enough for marching."
The usual group was in the shop, mostly young men, a scattering of gray heads. The advocates of strange doctrines, most of them. Old Adelbert disapproved of them, regarded them with a sort of contempt.
Now he felt that they smiled behind his back. It was his clothing, he felt. He shrugged his shoulders disdainfully. He no longer felt ashamed before them. Already, although the tailor still pressed its seams and marked upon it with chalk, he was clad in the dignity of the new uniform.
He turned and nodded to them. "A fine evening," he said. "If this weather holds, we will have—a good day for the marching." He squinted a faded eye at the sky outside.
"What marching?"
Old Adelbert turned on the speaker sharply. "Probably you have forgotten," he said scornfully, "but in a week comes an anniversary there are many who will remember. The day of a great battle. Perhaps," he added, "if you do not know of what I speak, there are some here who will tell you."
Unexpectedly the crowd laughed.
Old Adelbert flushed a dusky red and drew himself up. "Since when," he demanded, "does such a speech bring laughter? It was no laughing matter then."
"It is the way of the old to live in the past," a student said. Then, imitating old Adelbert's majestic tone: "We, we live in the future. Eh, comrades?" He turned to the old soldier: "You have not seen the bulletins?"
"Bulletins?"
"There will be no marching, my friend. The uniform now—that is a pity. Perhaps the tailor—" His eyes mocked.
"No marching?"
"An order of the Council. It seems that the city is bored by these ancient-reminders. It is for peace, and would forget wars. And processions are costly. We grow thrifty. Bands and fireworks cost money, and money, my hero, is scarce—very scarce."
Again the group laughed.
After a time he grasped the truth. There was such an order. The cause was given as the King's illness.
"Since when," demanded old Adelbert angrily, "has the sound of his soldiers' marching disturbed the King?"
"The sound of wooden legs annoys him," observed the mocking student, lighting a cigarette. "He would hear only pleasant sounds, such as the noise of tax-money pouring into his vaults. Me—I can think of a pleasanter: the tolling of the cathedral bell, at a certain time, will be music to my ears!"
Old Adelbert stood, staring blindly ahead. At last he went out into the street, muttering. "They shame us before the people," he said thickly.
The order of the Council had indeed been issued, a painful business over which Mettlich and the Council had pondered long. For, in the state of things, it was deemed unwise to permit any gathering of the populace en masse. Mobs lead to riots, and riots again to mobs. Five thousand armed men, veterans, but many of them in their prime, were in themselves a danger. And on these days of anniversary it had been the custom of the University to march also, a guard of honor. Sedition was rife among the students.
The order was finally issued...
Old Adelbert was not keen, but he did not lack understanding. And one thing he knew, and knew well. The concierge, downstairs was no patriot. Time had been when, over coffee and bread, he had tried to instill in the old soldier his own discontent, his new theories of a land where all were equal and no man king. He had hinted of many who believed as he did. Only hints, because old Adelbert had raised a trembling hand and proclaimed treason.
But now?
Late in the evening he made his resolve, and visited the bureau of the concierge. He was away, however, and his niece spoke through the barred window.
"Two days, or perhaps three," she said. "He is inspecting a farm in the country, with a view to purchase."
The old soldier had walked by the Palace that night, and had again shaken his fist at its looming shadow. "You will see," he said, "there be other sounds more painful than the thump of a wooden leg."
He was ill that night. He tossed about in a fever. His body ached, even the leg which so long ago had mouldered in its shallow grave on a battle-field. For these things happen. By morning he was better, but he was a different man. His eyes glowed. His body twitched. He was stronger, too, for now he broke his sword across his knee, and flung the pieces out of the window. And with them went the last fragment of his old loyalty to his King.
Old Adelbert was now, potentially, a traitor.
The spring came early that year. The last of February saw the parks green. Snowdrops appeared in the borders of paths. The swans left their wooden houses and drifted about in water much colder than the air. Bobby abandoned the aeroplane for a kite and threw it aloft from Pike's Peak. At night, when he undressed, marbles spilled out of his pockets and rolled under the most difficult furniture. Although it was still cold at nights and in the early mornings, he abandoned the white sweater and took to looking for birds and nests in the trees of the park. It was, of course, much too early for nests, but nevertheless he searched, convinced that even if grown-ups talked wisely of more cold weather, he and the birds knew it was spring. And, of course, the snow-drops.
On the morning after old Adelbert had turned his back on his King, Bobby Thorpe rose early, so early, indeed, that even Pepy still slept in her narrow bed, and the mi
lk-sellers had not started on their rounds. The early rising was a mistake, owing to a watch which had strangely gained an hour.
Somewhat disconsolately, he wandered about. Heavy quiet reigned. From a window he watched the meat-seller hang out a freshly killed deer, just brought from the mountains He went downstairs and out on the street, past the niece of the concierge, who was scrubbing the stairs.
"I'm going for a walk," he told her. "If they send Pepy down you might tell her I'll be back for breakfast."
He stood for a time surveying the deer. Then he decided to go hunting himself. The meat-seller obligingly gave him the handle of a floor-brush, and with this improvised gun Bobby went deer-stalking. He turned into the Park, going stealthily, and searching the landscape with keen hunter's eyes. Once or twice he leveled his weapon, killed a deer, cut off the head, and went on. His dog trotted, at his heels. When a particularly good shot presented itself, Bobby said, "Down, Tucker," and Tucker, who played extremely well, would lie down, ears cocked, until the quarry was secured.
Around the old city gate, still standing although the wall of which it had been a part was gone, there was excellent hunting. Here they killed and skinned a bear, took fine ivory tusks from a dead elephant, and searched for the trail of a tiger.
The gate was an excellent place for a tiger. Around it was planted an almost impenetrable screen of evergreens, so thick that the ground beneath was quite bare of grass. Here the two hunters crawled on stomachs that began to feel a trifle empty, and here they happened on the trail.
Tucker found it first. His stumpy tail grew rigid. Nose to the ground, he crawled and wriggled through the undergrowth, Bobby at his heels. And now Bobby saw the trail, footprints. It is true that they resembled those of heavy boots with nails. But on the other hand, no one could say surely that the nail-marks were not those of claws.
Tucker circled about. The trail grew more exciting. Bobby had to crawl on hands and feet under and through thickets. Branches had been broken as by the passage of some large body. The sportsman clutched his weapon and went on.
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