by John Buchan
When Backus had gone, Bill sat himself down before the wood fire to warm his chilly hands and collect his wits. Life had been very exciting in the past few hours....
Suddenly he was visited by a great compunction.
Kuno was beyond doubt a villain, but St. Kilda was a pretty severe prison-house for the worst of malefactors. And then he remembered that he had left the wretched Kuno no means of subsistence. His fur-lined ulster was his only protection against the winter blasts. He had no chance of making a fire; he had no hope of food unless he ate shell-fish or was lucky enough to knock a gull on the head, and that would be pretty beastly fare. With a horrid start Bill realised that he had condemned the man to death. In a week the big black-backed gulls would be picking his bones on the shore.
He had been feeling rather pleased with himself, but now he understood that he had made an awful blunder. What was to be done? Nothing, except to go back to St. Kilda and move Kuno to some more habitable spot. The prospect set his heart beating. He was afraid of the man with the bright eyes and the hawk face. To move him he must lay hold of him somehow, but Kuno was just as likely to lay hold of him and strangle him before he could twirl the staff.
Bill went through a bad five minutes before his mind was made up, and it says a good deal for him that he did make it up in the end. His pride helped him. He felt that he was having a hand in great affairs and that he must on no account show the white feather.
The weather of St. Kilda had grown worse and Bill arrived in a stiff blizzard of sleet. That was all to the good, for it concealed him from the man, who was standing with one foot in a bog and one on a boulder, alternately calling down maledictions upon fortune and beating his breast with his mighty hands.
Bill had no notion what to do next. He was on higher ground, about two yards from Kuno, and his first idea was to steal behind him and grip his leg or his ulster-band before he could resist.
But suddenly Kuno turned round and caught sight of him.
There must have been something in his eyes, some quaver of fear, which gave Bill a plan. For he leapt on the top of a big stone, waved his stick, and uttered that eerie wailing which he had practised the day before at Mamizan. The big man seemed to shrink and cower.
Then Bill shouted against the wind in that French of his which was a disgrace to the public - school system. “Regard me!” he cried. “I am the Prince Anatole of Gracia.... I am the phantom of him you have murdered....You will remain here — here — for ever....”
Bill’s foot slipped and he fell off the stone; but fall also did Kuno. The big man dropped on his knees and bowed his head to the ground as if he feared a blow. His massive shoulders were shaking with some profound emotion.
Bill had no difficulty in getting hold of the band of his ulster. He wished himself in the fir wood on Glenmore, far up the slopes of Stob Ghabhar....
Next moment he was in a different kind of weather. The icy winds had gone and a soft drizzling Scots mist shrouded the familiar glen. Kuno was sprawling on a patch of wet moss, and Bill slipped behind a fir tree.
But with the change of scene the terrors of the Prime Minister seemed to have gone. He saw Bill, decided that he had to deal with flesh and blood, and having always been a man of action he was resolved to grapple with it. Before Bill understood what was happening Kuno, with marvellous agility, had sprung to his feet and had almost clutched his collar.
Bill ran for his life. In and out of the fir boles and the dead roots, among russet bracken and over patches of blaeberries the chase proceeded. Now a man of six foot three in the prime of life is faster than a small boy, and Bill realised with horror that he could not put enough distance between himself and his pursuer to be able to use his staff.
His one hope was his knowledge of the ground. Someone had once told him that if you were pursued by a bear you should run transversely along a hillside, for bears’ feet were uncertain on a slope; but that if a bull was after you you should run downhill, since bulls had a precarious balance. He thought that Kuno was liker a bull than a bear, so he catapulted himself down towards the ravine of the burn.
Nevertheless he was nearly caught. The pursuit was not a yard behind him when he reached the lip of the gorge. But the gorge saved him.
He reached it at a spot where Peter and he, the summer before, had prospected an ingenious road to the water’s edge. It was a road which a boy could take, but not a heavy man. Bill slithered through a patch of dead foxgloves, caught at the root of a birch, and swung himself on to a ledge of rock. Then he slipped down the channel of a tributary rivulet, and landed on a boulder from which he could traverse under an out-jutting crag. The misty weather helped him, and when he reached the edge of the big pool where Peter had caught his first trout he could hear his adversary cursing far above him on the edge of the ravine.
“That was a close shave,” thought Bill. “He’ll be right enough there. He can stay out all night — serve him jolly well right, too! And in the morning he will see Jock Rorison’s cottage.”
About twenty minutes later Bill, having changed his clothes, washed his face and hands, and brushed his unruly hair, sat quietly eating muffins in his grandmother’s sitting-room.
“What a lovely colour you have got, Bill dear,” she said. “You have been out walking since breakfast, I hear. Did you get far?”
“A good bit,” said Bill abstractedly. “Yes, I’ve covered a pretty fair amount of country to-day.”
CHAPTER XVIII. THE ADVENTURE OF GRACHOVO.
THAT evening Bill developed a heavy cold. He thought it was due to the heat of his grandmother’s sitting-room after the St. Kilda blizzards. But Backus put it down to his coming back in damp clothes. “I can’t think what you was up to, getting so wet, Master Bill,” he grumbled. “You comes home nice and dry, and goes out again and gets as wet as a spaniel-dog, and there hasn’t been a drop of rain here this blessed day.”
Bill snuffled and sneezed at dinner, which he ate in his grandmother’s company, and thereafter he was packed off to bed. Grimes, his grandmother’s formidable maid, proceeded to doctor him. He was given two extra blankets, had his head wrapped up in a shawl, and was made to drink a beaker of ammoniated quinine. He heard ominous mutterings about a temperature. The result was a troubled night’s rest, from which he woke with the snuffles gone but rather limp and miserable. It was his grandmother’s orders, conveyed through Grimes, that he should stay that day in bed.
Bill started the day in hope. They were bound to leave him a good deal alone; he had his stick beside him under the blankets; and between breakfast and luncheon, or between luncheon and tea, when he was assumed to be asleep, he might slip off to Grachovo. But he was never left alone. Even when he was bidden go to sleep after luncheon, Grimes, who had a mania for doctoring, would tiptoe in every ten minutes to have a look at him.
He had a miserable day. He felt perfectly well, but as restless as a hound tied up in a kennel within hearing of the hunting-horn. In the morning he tried to read old volumes of Punch, but in the afternoon, when he was tucked up to sleep, his mind revolved in an unhappy wheel. He felt himself the arbiter of the destinies of Gracia, and yet powerless. What was happening in Grachovo now that Kuno was out of action? How would Anatole contrive to explain his absence? He had left Anatole in the lurch — a thought which made him hurl the blankets from him. He liked that little chap better than any boy he had ever met, and he was now separated from him at the crisis of his fortunes.
He slept a bit after tea, and Grimes was so pleased with his recovery that, when she brought in his dinner of soup and minced chicken, she announced that he would be allowed to get up next day.
At half-past eight she put out the lights and left him for the night. Ten minutes later Bill arose and donned all the clothes he could find, including his winter dressing-gown, for his overcoat was downstairs in the cloak-room. Then, having made sure that the house was quiet and that no one was likely to visit him till the morning, he twirled the staff and desired to be taken
to the bedroom in Prince Zosimo’s palace.
The room was dark except for the lamp beside the beds, but the windows were lit brightly by a glare from without. One was open, and through it came the sound of a terrific clamour from the street below. Snow was no longer falling, but it lay on the roof-tops and reflected eerily the illumination which flickered and trembled on the winter sky. At the window, with his neck craned, stood Anatole. He almost fell out when Bill clapped him on the back.
“Beel, dear Beel! Where have you been?” he cried. “I have been all day sick with longing for you.”
“I was ill and they kept me in bed. I say, what’s the news?”
“The news!” cried the boy. “But of the most glorious! Yesterday Kuno disappeared.”
“I know,” said Bill. “I pinched him. Just at present he’s having a roughish time in the Highlands.”
Anatole called upon all the saints.
“It was the manner of his going,” he said. “He disappeared in a flash at the summons of my phantom. His attendants were mad with fright, and all of Mamizan fell on its knees. The tale spread, and presently it reached this city. Meantime the people were angry about my murder. The troops whom Kuno’s lieutenants called out mutinied and joined the loyal party.... This morning the regiments in the main barracks followed. Kuno’s ministry resigned, and all day the courts of my grandfather’s Palace have been filled with crowds crying evil on Kuno and good fortune to the house of Paleologue. The tale is that the Devil came for Kuno and carried him off, and the Grachs, who are a religious people, are afraid.... Prince Zosimo has become dictator by universal demand. He will be Prime Minister in Kuno’s place until the elections can be held, and of their result there is no doubt. Gracia has become loyal once more, and once more I am its Crown Prince with the people’s love to support me. And Beel, my darling Beel, to you I owe it all.”
A deeply embarrassed Bill found himself embraced and kissed on both cheeks. He realised that Anatole was wearing beautiful clothes.
“What about Prince Zosimo?” he asked. “Has he been asking questions about me.”
“Happily, no. My kinsman has had other things to think about. But soon he must be told all, and it will be a solemn secret in our family. This is not the first time that the good God has come to the succour of the Paleologues.... Listen. Prince Zosimo has decided that this night the people must be informed that I am alive and safe. Otherwise they will certainly seek out and crucify every Kunoite in the land. Presently it will be announced from the steps of the Parliament House. Then there will be a rush of people hither, and I must go out on the balcony to greet them. You, my friend and saviour, will stand beside me.... Hush! it begins.” Suddenly it seemed as if the whole air were filled with bells. Every kind of bell from the shrill treble of little churches to the deep bass of the great bell of the Cathedral. And as an accompaniment to this tremendous carillon there was a wilder sound — the babble of thousands of human voices, which rose now and then to a shout that drowned all else and seemed to shake the heavens.
Anatole was hopping about the room in his excitement.
“They come! they come!” he cried. “Prince Zosimo will warn us when they are here.... At the holy festival of St. Lampadas I will stand at my grandfather’s side, and Beel, dear Beel, you will stand beside me. I will have you made a Prince of Gracia. I will have you given the Golden Star of St. Lampadas, which is the highest honour in the land. My grandfather is old, and maybe I shall soon sit in his place, with Prince Zosimo as my regent. Then you will be my chief counsellor and the support of my house. You will not forsake me....”
The boy broke off, for from the street below came a clamour like the falling of great waves. At the same moment Prince Zosimo entered the room. He was white with excitement and very grave, and he wore a resplendent uniform. He smiled on Bill and took his hand. “I am glad to see you are recovered. I fear my duties to-day have not permitted me to enquire about your health.” Then to Anatole, “Come, my Prince. The moment has arrived to present you to your people.”
Bill’s head, what between the dregs of the cold and the excitement of the occasion, was humming like a top. He hardly heard Anatole whisper as he descended the stairs, “To-night I take up my quarters in the royal Palace. When you come again you will find me in the Crown Prince’s apartments.”
In a daze he entered a huge chamber where many men in uniform were congregated and the windows of which were bright as day from the glow without. He stumbled on to the balcony holding Anatole’s hand.
Then came a supreme moment of Bill’s life. The three stood behind a low stone parapet — Prince Zosimo superb in uniform, Anatole in a suit of dark velvet, and he himself in a shabby old dressing-gown with a scarf of his house colours round his neck. He looked down upon an ocean of faces, white in the glow of arc lights, and a myriad waving hands and banners. Soldiers lined the street, and, dense as the throng was, there was no disorder. Every soul there seemed to have a grave purpose.
Anatole stepped forward and held out his hands with a childlike pleading gesture. He, too, was very white, but he was smiling. There was a quiver of a new brightness, as every soldier drew his sword and raised it to the salute. And from the crowd came a cry of welcome which was so passionate and fierce that it seemed to beat like a mighty wind on their faces. Bill remembered a line of a poem which he had had to learn for repetition —
“Sounds, as if some great city were one voice
Around a king returning from the wars.”
It was more than he could endure. Another second and he would be howling like a dog and making a spectacle of himself before foreigners. He took a step backward into the shadow, twirled the staff and wished himself in bed.
CHAPTER XIX. THE RESTORATION OF PRINCE ANATOLE.
BILL had a fresh dose of cold next morning, which was perhaps not to be wondered at. Grimes was severe with him and kept him tight in bed, threatening to send for the doctor if he were not better in the evening.
For once Bill was content to lie still. The events of the night before had been so overwhelming that he wanted to think them over. Besides, he must get rid of his cold, for in three days fell the festival of St. Lampadas, which was to be the great occasion of his life.
So he lay very peaceful all day in bed, and did not even attempt to read the picture papers which Backus brought him. He lived again in memory through every detail of his adventures in Gracia. The pale little boy he had found on the roof of Mamizan had been very different from the composed young prince who had bowed to the people from Prince Zosimo’s balcony. And it had all been his doing. He, Bill, had become a king-maker. I am afraid that he almost forgot about the staff, and was inclined to think too much of his own cleverness.
The thought of Kuno wandering about Glenmore made him chuckle, so that Backus, entering the room with some hot milk, thought he had choked and beat him on the back. Whatever happened, Kuno was out of action. Even if he had time to get back to Gracia before the day of St. Lampadas, it would only be to find himself in imminent danger of lynching. For Kuno Bill cherished a hearty dislike, and he hoped that he would somehow come to fisticuffs with Angus, the river gillie, who was a good man of his hands.
In the evening he was so well that he wanted to get up for dinner, but this was sternly vetoed. It appeared that Grimes had telephoned to his mother and had strict orders to keep him in bed. There was other news from home. It was proposed that he should join Barbara and Peter in their visit to Aunt Alice in London before going back to school. That would mean leaving Farover next day, and his mother suggested fetching him in the car.
The future suddenly became rather complicated, but there was one comfort. Aunt Alice had always allowed him to go off on his own errands, since she believed in letting boys find their feet. Alone he had in the past sniffed around bird-fanciers’ shops in Soho, and spent hours in the Natural History Museum. He would find a chance of attending the ceremony of St. Lampadas. But first he must see Anatole and get to know the plans
for it.
Next morning even Grimes pronounced him wholly recovered. She brought the news that his mother would arrive at eleven o’clock and carry him home for luncheon. That meant that his visit to Grachovo must be postponed until the afternoon or evening; but there should be no difficulty about it, for home in the absence of Peter and Barbara would offer many opportunities of retirement. So he spent an hour in his grandmother’s room and conducted himself so admirably that he was presented with two pounds, just double his ordinary tip from that quarter.
His mother, when she arrived, made a searching inquisition into his state of health. She observed that he looked thin and a little tired, and was inclined to regret the London plan. But Bill was reassuring. He had never felt so well, he said, and he wanted to see Peter and Barbara and Aunt Alice, and there were many things he would like to do in town. His grandmother reported highly on his behaviour, and Bill left Farover with an aureole of virtue about his small head.
In the car, on the way back, his mother told him about Uncle Bob’s visit. She repeated the story of his miraculous rescue by the French soldiers, about which Bill tried to show an excitement which he could scarcely feel.
“He was very sorry to miss you, Bill dear,” she said. “He is tremendously interested in you and asked all kinds of questions. He seemed to be rather anxious about you — I don’t know why. He wanted to know if you were quite all right — he asked that again and again until I grew rather worried.” Then she told him the family news. Peter had got his long-promised camera, and Barbara had been to a ball and three plays.
“One afternoon I am going to take Peter and you to a conjuring show at the Albemarle Hall. Won’t that be fun? You always love conjurors.”
At luncheon his father had more exciting news. “I don’t know what has come over Glenmore these days,” he said. “First there was Mrs. Macrae’s delusion before Christmas about the boys. She hasn’t got over that yet. She keeps sending me postcards wanting to be reassured about them.... And now an extraordinary thing has happened. Three days ago Hector found a queer-looking fellow wandering about the foot of Stob Ghabhar when he went out in the morning to shoot hinds. He was a big chap, very well dressed, a foreigner who could not speak a word of English, and he was in a furious temper. Hector said that if he had not had his rifle he believed he would have attacked him. Apparently he had been out all night, and he badly wanted food, so Hector took him to breakfast at Angus’s cottage. He says he ate like a wolf and then made a long speech in an unknown language, and when no one understood him grew so violent that the two men had to lock him up and send for the police from Abercailly. He was taken off to the Abercailly gaol, and now this morning I have a wire from Stormont, the Chief Constable. It seems that the fellow talks French and says he is a great swell in some foreign country — a general or something — but he doesn’t appear to have any notion how he got to Glenmore. I told Stormont to consult Lanerick, who was in the Diplomatic Service and might be able to find out the truth about the man.... Fancy a foreign grandee wandering about Stob Ghabhar in mid-winter!”
