Let us return to our friends. Night had fallen when the procession presented itself at the gates of Miko. They ran to the palace; there, five or six imposing individuals wanted to talk to the prince.
“Who are these men?” Farandoul asked, in a whisper.
“The prince’s ministers,” replied the interpreter.
“Damn! They mustn’t get close to me. Stop them—tell them that I accept their resignation. They were unable to foresee the troubles, so they’re handing in their portfolios! Go on—talk! Be severe! Sack all the officials and sent all the palace staff packing! I’ll clear the house!”
While Farandoul, having received the blessing of his father-in-law, went to his apartments—somewhat at hazard—with the young Yamida, the crowd of palace officials discussed the Prince’s severity towards his ministers. It was even worse when they saw all of Kaido’s own household staff leaving the palace, leaving their duties to 16 warriors, armored and helmeted as for combat.
The interpreter had followed Farandoul.
“Take all possible defensive measures,” the latter said to him. “Summon all the militias and nobility of the province for tomorrow; we need to be ready to repel any attack!”
Blushing with confusion, Yamida, the young bride of Kaido, Prince of Miko—or, rather, our friend Farandoul—had gone to sit down on a pile of sky-blue silk cushions. Her languid eyes remained fixed on the floor-mats or hidden behind her feebly-agitated fan. Farandoul, sitting beside her, said nothing more, absolutely dazzled by the smiles and graceful gestures of the young woman whom unexpected events had just precipitated into his life with the charming title of wife.
What an eventful day! And how far away from his thoughts was the King of Siam’s elephant!
Meanwhile, the pensive Yamida darted a covert glance at the silent Farandoul. She must be astonished by his prolonged silence; he had to talk to her—but how? Farandoul cursed his ignorance of the Japanese language.
The interpreter was still there; Farandoul spoke to him in a whisper.
“Powerful Princess, Pearl of the Empire!” cried the interpreter, after three deep bows. “The prince, your husband, has sworn by the dragon Tatsumaki not to speak a word of Japanese before having subjugated the rebels as completely as he has been subjugated himself by your eyes—and yet, he would like to tell you that his heart, like the volcano Fujiyama, burns with an inextinguishable fire. His oath forbids him to speak to you in Japanese, but he may do so in a foreign language. Do you know French, Princess?”
Yamida shook her head, desolately.
“English?”
“No better.”
“In that case,” the Siamese went on, “it will be necessary for him to speak through an interpreter until further notice. I beg you, gracious Princess, to be indulgent of my feeble voice, which can only repeat to you coldly what the prince has said to you with much more heart and passion. Now, the prince would like to know whether his face has the good fortune to please you?”
“How can I tell?” sighed Yamida. “The prince keeps his visor lowered.”
“Did you never see the prince before the ceremony?”
“You know full well,” Yamida replied, naively, “that I have always lived in seclusion in my father’s house in Osaka; I have only seen the portrait of the prince that he sent when he asked for my hand.
Hurrah! thought Farandoul. She doesn’t know the prince; I can take m helmet off when we’re together. Oof! I’ll be able to breathe! And he got up to say a few words to the interpreter.
“Gracious Princess,” the latter continued, “the prince has something to confess to you; the portrait did not much resemble him.”
Yamida uttered a little exclamation of annoyance, which changed its expression into one of surprise; Farandoul had just taken off his helmet.
“Ah!” cried Yamida. “No resemblance at all! The prince is better than his portrait! But why is his hair cut like a foreigner’s?”
“That, Princess, is for political reasons! The mysteries of diplomacy. You understand the difficulties of the situation; the prince is seeking to gain the confidence of the foreign diplomats by means of a few concessions.”
VII.
The city of Miko had an uneasy awakening the following day. News had arrived during the night; the rebels had proclaimed a new prince in Fatzouma, the city having fallen into their power, and also boasted, with extreme impudence, of having taken Prince Kaido prisoner. Already, numerous partisans had boldly set out on campaign along the road to Miko.
The situation was deteriorating. What reassured the inhabitants of Miko was that the prince, who was said to have fallen into the hands of the rebels, was among them organizing the defense. Thanks to the interpreter, a proclamation by the false Kaido had been pinned up. The militia was urgently mobilized, in order to cooperate with the troops in the defense of the city. The old general Faxiba, commander of the regular troops, called to the palace with his officers, had received written instructions from the prince.
The prince was known to be a man of iron; General Faxiba found him even more energetic than usual. He gave him three hours to assemble the militia, intending to lead them against the enemy immediately.
General Faxiba, galvanized, left at top speed for the esplanade where the troops were gathered. In a speech of classic conciseness, he communicated the energy of Prince Kaido to the hearts of his colonels; three colonels swore to disembowel themselves if the enemy was not defeated before sundown. As midday sounded, all the troops were under arms and ready to depart. They were only waiting for the prince.
At the appointed hour, tearing himself away from the lamentations of poor Yamida, who was mortally grieved to see him going into danger the day after their marriage, the prince left the palace at the head of his platoon of fearsome three-sword warriors.
The interpreter had needed some persuasion to put his armor on, but he knew that he would be more necessary than ever, in order to carry orders, so he had consented to do so with a sigh.
Farandoul, placing himself at the head of his troops, made a gesture; commands and signals burst forth, and the entire army moved off as one on the road to Fatzouma. The prince and his three-sword warriors galloped ahead, followed at a rapid pace by the breathless regiments. Old General Faxiba, a prudent man, had sent out a few light companies that morning to scout the route. After a three-hour march, the archers of this advance guard found themselves at grips with the foremost rebel troops.
Farandoul-Kaido gave his men an hour to breathe. The rebels were arriving rapidly and deploying in the plain; when he saw that they were considerably hampered in their movements, our hero suddenly gave the signal to attack. His troops launched themselves furiously upon the enemy. After the first volleys of arrows and gunfire from platoons armed with flintlock rifles, they surged forward, swords in hand. The three-sword warriors of the prince’ guard, having dismounted, wielded their two-handed swords with a skill that attracted general admiration; in the blink of an eye, the rebels on which they had hurled themselves had scattered into the plain.
The affair worked out well for the false Prince Kaido. A charge by Farandoul, at the head of one of General Faxiba’s reserve companies, completed the rout of the rebels, who were all driven back and dispersed. The burgers of Miko, proud of their prowess, took a large quantity of prisoners. Only the rebel general staff took flight in good order and disappeared into the mountains.
The army, drunk with joy, took the road back to the city with its trophies and its prisoners; it made a triumphant entrance that evening. The false prince had to pass beneath an improvised triumphal arch, submit to speeches of which he did not understand a word, and to respond to congratulations through the medium of the interpreter. At the great gate of the palace, illuminated by thousands of lanterns, Yamida was waiting for Farandoul impatiently; as soon as he appeared, she threw her lantern aside and fell into his arms.
That same evening, there was a conference between Farandoul, Mandibul and the interpreter. It
was a matter of deciding on a plan of action. The rebels had been beaten; it was now up to diplomacy to complete the work of Bellona. The only diplomat available to Farandoul was the Siamese interpreter, but he could not send him to Fatzouma, his presence being indispensable. It was agreed that they would send guarantees of safe conduct to the rebel leaders the following day, in order to open negotiations in Miko itself.
As the march and the battle had worn everyone out, the palace was soon plunged into a profound silence.
In the middle of the night, at the very hour when the most dazzling dreams were fluttering over the pillows of our profoundly sleeping friends, a dust-covered man, breathless and furious, presented himself at the city gate, thrust the sentinels violently aside, introduced himself to the bewildered duty-officer, gathered a few guards, and marched to the palace. The men on guard there nearly fell over backwards on seeing him; they made a sign and all the doors were opened.
This man, surrounded by soldiers, headed unhesitatingly for Farandoul’s apartments. Our friends the three-sword warriors, full of confidence, were asleep in the antechambers. They were bound and gagged within two minutes.
Then the mysterious man, followed by his hired assassins, exploded into to Farandoul’s bedroom like a bomb.
As you have doubtless guessed, this furious man was Prince Kaido himself: the true one, the one and only, avid for vengeance.
Farandoul had beaten the rebels too soundly; the latter, despairing of their enterprise, had set the prince free in order to obtain his forgiveness and, on releasing him, had acquainted him with all his simultaneous misfortunes—which is to say, the appearance of a false prince, the marriage of the false prince to the beautiful Yamida, and the appropriation of the palace of Miko by the usurper of the throne and the true prince’s fiancée.
A sad awakening for our friends! A general collapse of all their dreams! They were all there, laid out on the floor, the mariners on one side and Farandoul on the other. Not far away, Kaido was pacing back and forth in a gallery overlooking the still-illuminated city, giving orders in a thunderous voice to officers standing in front of him. The entire palace was in an uproar; the staff-officers, hastily summoned, were arguing, accusing one another of lacking perspicacity and furiously disemboweling themselves in the course of the debates.
Old General Faxiba, furious at having been deceived like all the rest, had disemboweled himself in front of his troops, and his example had been followed by several ministers.
At dawn, the fatal moment appeared to have arrived for our friends; a unit of fierce soldiers came to stand before them, swords drawn. On the command of an officer, the cords retaining our friends’ legs were cut and our friends, urged to get up by blows with the flat of a sword, filed out of the gallery. Instead of being taken down to the courtyard for the supreme ceremony, as they expected, they were taken into an immense room, which Farandoul recognized as the throne room. A dozen officers sitting on a podium were waiting for them. It was a court martial charged with their summary judgment.
In front of the judges were the exhibits in evidence—which is to say, the throne of Miko, on which Farandoul had sat for 36 hours, the arms and armor of the three-sword warriors, and, finally, Yamida herself, the prince’s fiancée, espoused by the usurper.
Farandoul and the princess exchanged a desolate glance. O joy! Farandoul did not read any reproach in Yamida’s eyes; on the contrary, a tear was running down that charming cheek—which consoled our hero in advance for all that might follow.
When the terrible Kaido arrived, the judges immediately set to work. There was only a brief interrogation, to which the accused disdained to respond for lack of having understood the questions; then Kaido, adopting the office of public prospector, simply showed off the exhibits. That eloquent indictment was sufficient for the judges. The deliberation commenced, while Prince Kaido manifested a feverish impatience. It was soon concluded; the president rapidly scribbled his verdict, the judges signed it, and it was read out to the condemned men.
By the frightful grimace the Siamese interpreter made on hearing the sentence, the mariners understood that the court martial had been severe.
“Come on,” said Mandibul. “Tell us—what is it? Hanging? Beheading? Disemboweling? Damn! This is worse than China.”
“Alas,” aid the interpreter.
“Don’t leave us in suspense. Tell us, right away.”
“We’ve been sentenced to be thrown into boiling fat and cooked until we’re dead.”
“Boiling fat—how horrid!” cried Mandibul, forcefully. “I’m appealing!”
The judges’ only response was to scribble a few lines that the president read out. It was a small postscript, added on the recommendation of Prince Kaido, which fixed the execution for the same day.
Yamida, who had fainted, had been taken back to her apartment. The mariners, furious at the severity of the sentence, made free with their recriminations. They heaped reproaches upon Prince Kaido. After all, had they not battled his enemies, the rebels, the day before and was it not to their bravery that the prince owed his liberty? Tournesol, especially, was beside himself; to perish in a frying pan seemed to him to be the ultimate ignominy. Perhaps, in his capacity as a native of Marseille, he would have preferred oil!
The surly Kaido, still grinding his teeth, gave orders for the funereal preparations. Soldiers were already dragging the condemned men to the palace gate, where the executioners were putting the final touches to the apparatus of their infernal work, when Prince Kaido suddenly started. An idea had just crossed his mind. He gave the order to take the condemned men back to the hall of judgment and ran to his general staff.
The officers immediately mounted up and disappeared in all directions. The astonished crowd wondered what had occasioned the prince’s change of mind. The astonishment was even greater when they saw the officers coming back, accompanied by aged bonzes and antique savants bowed down by study. Kaido waited for them, and immediately closeted himself with them.
What did it mean? It was quite simple. A scruple had occurred to Kaido. You will recall he prediction of the bonzes and the savants regarding the good fortune that the heavens would bestow upon the prince as soon as he was deceived by his wife. Had that prediction been fulfilled? Could the prince consider himself well and truly deceived? This was a potentially controversial issue; the prince had been deceived, that was certain, but casuists might raise objections.
Indeed, as soon as the assembly of the bonzes and scholars had been apprised of recent events, it declared with one voice that the prediction could not be considered as fulfilled. The beautiful Yamida had only been the prince’s fiancée; that was not sufficient for the oracle. The prince had no right to claim to have been deceived; everything must be done again.
Poor Kaido, absolutely desolate, plunged into somber reflection. What should he do? What course should he take?
An old bonze permitted himself to offer an item of advice which renewed hope in Kaido’s heart. After all, the condemned Farandoul had not been executed; all was not lost.
Kaido was about to race to the room serving as the mariners’ prison, but he paused for reflection, then ran to Yamida’s apartment, brought her before the bonzes and had a spousal saki-bowl brought to the palace chapel.
When the saki appeared, he presented himself to the surprised Yamida; when she hesitated, he whispered a few words to her that made up her mind. The charming Yamida, still very tearful, lifted the saki to her lips. This time, Kaido and Yamida were married.
“And now that destiny is satisfied, may the province of Miko be fortunate!”
Calm, proud and resolute, Prince Kaido headed for the room in which the prisoners were awaiting the march to the scaffold. He went straight to Farandoul, drew his sword and cut his bonds. “All is forgiven!” he said. “You’re a man after my own heart. I’ll make you my prime minister!”
The astonished Farandoul looked at the prince uncomprehendingly. “What did the prince say?” he as
ked the interpreter.
“The prince forgives you and appoints you as his minister,” stammered the interpreter. “Implore him for mercy on our behalf; it wouldn’t be just to make us perish in the boiling fat.”
Kaido had understood, and his orders had already been given. The same officers that had condemned our friends to such terrible torments hurried to cut the cords binding their wrists. The president of the tribunal, a susceptible man, considered himself offended by this unforeseen outcome, and demonstrated his ill-humor by brutally disemboweling himself with the sword of his fathers.
“No more boiling fat?” asked Tournesol.
“A free and complete pardon,” replied the prince, shaking hands with the sympathetic Mandibul, “and even friendship.”
The brave men who had fought under Farandoul’s orders the day before were delighted to learn that their young leader would not, after all, be subjected to the terrible torture of boiling fat on the day after his wondrous triumph over the rebels. Only a few courtiers, who had displayed particular hostility to our hero since the return of the true prince, judged that their dignity required them to disembowel themselves proudly by way of protest. Apart from these slight signs of dissent, the joy of the daimios and soldiers was shared by the whole population.
Without losing any time, Kaido had given orders to his former ministers to gather together so that they could be introduced to Farandoul. In the presence of all of them, and in spite of the grimaces of some, he confirmed Farandoul’s new titles and made him commander of the regular army, replacing General Faxiba, who had disemboweled himself that morning.
Complimented and pampered by everyone, Farandoul ought to have felt joy in his heart. Condemned to death in the morning, prime minister in the evening; the difference was great, not to mention the salary: 80,000 sacks of rice, the first quarter of which had just been paid in kind. But there was a shadow over the scene; Yamida was lost to him. His marriage, invalid in consequence of the error regarding his identity, had been annulled by the bonzes, and Yamida was now the wife of Prince Kaido!
The Adventures of Saturnin Farandoul Page 49
