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 passed 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 appetite: 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 assembled 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 pronouncement of the password. 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 damned 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 ennobled."

"Those English!" groaned Vorza, with contempt. "We are Alsandrians, not Persians, or English, and God 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 reassuring 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.

The guards who had been ordered by Sforelli to catch and imprison Makzelo had never been able to carry out their orders, and that subterranean person had sold Vorza some very decent information at a very decent price.

"Ill, couldn't come," briefly replied the man to whom the question was put: and the others smiled.

"He is not a desperately brave man," said Vorza "But we owe much to his connivance. Ah! his Majesty is opening his eyes!"

And Vorza, who was in general a fairly courageous person, but had not lost that uncanny fear of lunatics to which was due the possibility of the amazing substitution, edged away rapidly.

Royalty opened its eyes, blinked, shut them again, then opened them, stared at Peronella, sat up on his litter, and in a stridently audible voice declared to the assembled company:

"I want her: she must be my Queen!"

His eyes glowed with anticipation. All kept silent, half wondering, half horrified, half amused.

"Come here," continued Andrea, "do come here!"

"The devil take you!" muttered the girl, retreating to the end of the room.

"Do not speak like that to the King," said the priest.

"Come here. I command you. This time I must be obeyed," pursued the old maniac, and a dread sight he was with his stubbly beard and unholy light in his eyes. "They are always taking me away from you! I have waited such a long time--I want to kiss you! Will no one bring her here? This world is all full of traitors and liars."

"Go to him," said Vorza to Peronella. "Cesano, persuade her!"

Peronella's face flushed hot with disgust. The King rose right up and tottered towards her. She instantly put her hand to her girdle and levelled her pistol at him.

"Put him back!" she said, with a quietness almost hysterical.

They had to obey her, well knowing her determined spirit; and fearing the King would become violent the guards strapped him down upon his litter, but fortunately the jolting of the carriage had tired him thoroughly and he slept once more.

"It seems almost a pity," said Cuvas, softly, "to dethrone so active and enterprising an usurper merely to put that driv-- that unfortunate King in his place."

He spoke half to himself, but the others heard him. They all began to talk at once with the angry remonstrance of men who feel that they may be in the wrong.

"What is progress?" said Vorza. "We have been happy for a thousand years and will be for another thousand if we are left alone."

"Nothing can come of lies but failure," said Father Algio.

"We are in it to the death now," said Cesano.

"Oh! that is true: so am I. And we have not the slightest prospect of failure. I only said it had a regrettable aspect," said the editor. "And I wondered if any of the people might think so, too, and not be over-anxious to join us when the moment comes!"

"Oh, Cuvas!" said Vorza, in what he took for a light, bantering tone. "You always were a damned old Liberal at heart. But the people of Alsander are staunch and true, and love the old principles, the beauty of their religion, the glories of their city. They do not want their churches desecrated by an unbeliever, their city made boisterous by ugly trains, their pure torrents debased to turn buzzing ma-chines, their river bed all churned up into mud by dredgers, their virgin mountains defiled by smoke and steam."

"But they have shown no discontent," objected the editor, not daring to taunt Vorza for declaring his hatred of the reforms of which he had a few minutes ago delicately suggested himself as the real author.

"You spend all your day on a stool, Cuvas. What do you know about the hearts of our people? You have no time to do anything but transcribe telegrams. The people do not mind, because they are so pleased to have their King returned to sanity. What did I hear an old man say but a few hours ago? He said that no one could become sane straight at once, after all those years; that one might forgive all this reforming nonsense at first, and that he wished anyone might have cured the Sovereign but that hellish Jew of a doctor!"

"Curses on him!" said Father Algio.

"Are you content now, Count Cuvas?" said Vorza.

The title was only in part in jest: ennoblement was the understood reward of complicity.

"You are right: I am well contented," said Cuvas. "I have, of course, some ideas which I do not share with you, but in this business command me. I have joined your conspiracy because I cannot stand immorality and imposture," he added, with dignity. "Still, I can but think it only right to remark once in public--now that it cannot affect our action--what I have so often remarked to you in private--that it would have been no imposture but sound policy to ask old Count Arnolfo whether the rightful heir to the throne, the Princess Ianthe, were not fit to conduct a regency."

Considerable stir was caused by these words of Cuvas, which reflected thoughts which many a conspirator had been waiting for some one else to utter.

"And I have answered you as many times," cried Vorza, turning on him in a veritable fury, "that I have clear evidence that Count Arnolfo's own son was implicated in this dastardly plot. A fine person to ask for information or advice, your Arnolfo! Let us first of all get Andrea safely restored, and then we can talk about a Regency!"

"Well, well," said Cuvas, "you are our leader!" He said it in a tone of resignation which was entirely false, for Cuvas was by no means the simple-souled Conservative-Liberal he seemed. His little speeches, as well as his actions, were a cunning preparation for all eventualities. Two days ago he had sent a trusty messenger to Count Arnolfo to inform him truly not only that the King of Alsander had proved a grocer, but also that the said grocer was in imminent peril of his life and throne.

"Is it nearly time?" called one of the guards. "I hear a noise outside."

Vorza, the only man of the party who possessed a watch (for in Alsander you go by the cathedral bells), looked at it, and cried, "So it is!" The little company hesitated and each of them turned cold for a moment with the terror of excitement. Outside there was a clattering and shouting in the streets, the curious persistent sound of people running all in the same direction.

"Come!" said Vorza. "Where is the wine?"

The wine, or rather spirit, was produced from a bottle in the corner, and poured out into a great bowl, from which each drank in turn, pledging the sleeper in their midst. Then with a shout of "The King! The King!" and with revolvers pointing carelessly aloft and an Alsandrian banner borne by Peronella in the van, the little party streamed out into the alley, and hardly were they in the street when their shout seemed to re-echo all round them and a tremendous cry rose up, thunderous, to heaven, "The King! The King!"