Part 7

"Palmora," said the Duke, affably, "belongs to the Old Party of Bharbazonia. In fact he and the Duke of Marbosa are its leaders. They believe that the safety and future of the Balkans lie in the aid which Russia can give. Of course they are not blind to the fact that their benefactor is acting from a selfish motive; that, year by year, Russia wrests principality after principality from the Turkish domain so that one day she may absorb the city of Constantinople and so gain control of the Bosphorus and a southern way to the sea. But they do not seem to understand that when that day comes Russia will also absorb the little kingdoms she has set up as her cats-paws to pull her chestnuts from the fire.

"That will be a sad day for Bharbazonia. I do not look to Russia for future peace and prosperity, but rather do I reach out toward a Germo-Austrian alliance. And there is where the Old Party and the New Party find their point of difference. In attempting to break down what little influence I had with the people they tell them I have 'Turkish tendencies,' but that is not true."

It flashed through my mind, as I compared the General's statements with the Duke's, that there were two sides to the shield. Perhaps there was something to admire in the Fox after all.

"But the rock upon which we split is the Church," continued the Duke. "Russia is of our religion--the Greek Church--while Germany and Hungary are Lutheran and Roman Catholic. I can assure you, Dr. Wharton, that the Church Patriarch of Bharbazonia does not look with favour upon the ascension of my son to the throne. Rest assured he would do anything in his power to prevent it. Hence you understand why I remain within my castle, seeing no one and being seen by few. But you, sir, are a foreigner, an American; it does me good to speak with you."

He led me on to talk of the United States, its wealth, resources and activities. Even the Prince showed signs of interest at my description of the Great American game of baseball. He said he was familiar with cricket, having seen it played in England when he was at school. Fox-hunting was not new; although boar-hunting was the Bharbazonian pastime. Would I care to go boar-hunting some time with him? I expressed my delight. He would be happy to have me and also my friend Fremsted join his party in the last hunt he would have before he was crowned.

I told him that I would broach the matter to Nicholas, but that I knew he would gladly accompany the expedition. Would the Princess be of the party?

"Oh, no," exclaimed the Prince, "women do not hunt the boar. It is much too dangerous."

During this conversation with the Duke and his son I had not forgotten the real purpose of my visit. If I did not permit myself to be put off with subterfuge, now was the time to have the laugh on the General. I remembered, too, that somewhere in the castle Solonika was waiting, expecting Therese to bring me to her. "Faint heart ne'er won fair lady," I thought and I boldly attacked the citadel.

"I should like very much to see your daughter, sir," I said as innocently as I could. I was watching them closely when I spoke. Not a movement escaped me. But, if I expected any hesitation or other evidence that I had trapped them, I was disappointed. There was no quick look between them; not even the lifting of an eyebrow. Had my request been the most ordinary in the world they could not have acted more naturally.

"Raoul, where is your sister now?" said the Duke.

"In her apartment, I think," he replied.

"Do not disturb her," I said, to see if they would accept a loophole of escape.

"Not at all," returned the Red Fox, "Dajerak will escort you. She would be disappointed at not seeing you."

In the Bharbazonian dialect he gave the butler the necessary orders and I arose to follow him.

"We will await your return here," said the Duke.

At the Prince's doorway we turned from the main entrance and continued into the heart of the castle through darkened corridors. We were going to the other side of the building, as far as I could judge. From the number of rooms and archways we passed I fancied that the Princess lived a long way from the Prince.

Why she wished to seclude herself from the family I could not imagine. Perhaps my conception of distance was lengthened by the lack of haste on the part of my guide. Old Dajerak plodded along at his top speed, which would not have caused a competing snail the least inconvenience, and at last knocked upon a panelled door. Therese's voice bade us enter.

"Mistress is expecting you," she said as she took my card, and disappeared through a far door to announce me. Dajerak bowed and retired, and I listened to his footsteps dragging over the velvet carpets.

Solonika's reception parlor was totally different from her den in the summer-house. It was strictly a French room of the Empire period. Red satin, hand-painted chairs and rococo furniture, heavy and shining with gilt, gave the prevailing note of elegance. The high walls were decorated with priceless gobelin tapestries and overhead hung two glass pendent chandeliers.

I found myself trembling with suppressed excitement. Here was I upon the eve of a discovery. If there were only one child, that one was now seated at the far end of the castle playing cards with his father. But perhaps, after a show of searching for the other, Therese would reluctantly bring back word that Solonika was out, or indisposed. If, on the other hand, there were two children Solonika would see me.

The maid was scarcely gone a minute when she returned with my card still in her hand. The Princess was out, then?

"Mademoiselle bids you enter, monsieur," she said with a bow and a smile.

My heart leaped as I made ready to follow. She led me into a cosy little dressing room. There, quietly sewing on some fancy needlework beside the window, sat Solonika.

In her pale blue, loose-fitting house gown, lazily dangling one fairy-like slipper from one tiny foot crossed above the other, she looked more beautiful than ever. It takes laces and loose things to bring out a woman's femininity. She was looking up at me laughingly, mockingly I thought. My feelings overcame me for the moment and I found no words to greet her.

"Ah, Dr. Wharton," she cried gaily, "welcome to my little boudoir. You must pardon the informality. But I found myself too lazy to dress when Therese brought your card."

Her pure, perfect English fell upon my ear in marked contrast with the heavy halting phrases of the Prince's. Could this be the girl, so light hearted and happy, whom I accused in my thoughts of contemplating a terrible sacrilege against her church? No, no, no! I was content; aye even happy to find that I was mistaken. But a moment ago I had seen the Prince on the other side of the Castle, and now I saw her here before me calmly sewing. General Palmora was a fool. I could only stare at her, my joy shining from my eyes.

"Come, come, Dr. Wharton," she laughed, "have you lost your tongue? Sit down and tell me what you have been doing since last we met."

"I am so glad," I said, "so happy at finding you here."

"Why," she laughed, "where did you expect to find me?"

"No, no," I said, "it's not that. I didn't expect to find you anywhere--" I paused fearing that I was making a bungle.

"Perhaps I should not have let you come here," she said, the smile fading. "But somehow I cannot make a stranger of you. I seem to have known you a long time. But if you prefer that I entertain you in the drawing room--"

"Please do not," I hastened to say. "I like it very well here."

"You were a long time coming," she pouted.

"Yes," I said, "the butler took me into the Prince's apartments instead of yours, and your father talked me to death."

Even while the Princess laughed at my expression I fancied I heard the sound of a cough. Could it be that the Duke himself was listening behind one of the many doors? I must be more guarded in my conversation. Then again, a man's imagination will play him many tricks in a strange castle.

"He apologized, did he not?" asked the girl.

"Handsomely," I said.

"What did the Prince have to say?"

"Nothing much. He is so different from you."

"Is that so? Most people find us very much alike."

"In appearance, yes. But not in dispositions. I think I should know you were you even in his clothes."

"Do you?" said she. "Some day I shall put them on and try you."

"I wish you would," I said. "You will see that you cannot fool me."

"Where is your Jonathan to-day, David?" she asked.

"Nicholas? He went off somewhere with General Palmora. Perhaps to Nischon to see Princess Teskla. The General is quite a match-maker. I verily believe he would like to see Nick married to that young woman."

"You interest me. But since when did Americans hope to mate with Princesses of the blood?"

"But Nick--" I began--and checked myself just in time. Then another thought struck me and perhaps came to the surface in the look which I gave her. "Americans never hope to mate with Princesses of the blood. They mate with the woman they love. If she happens to be a princess, that is her misfortune, not his fault."

"The woman they love," she echoed, turning the phrase over in her mind. Then she flew away on a new tack. "Have you ever met Princess Teskla?"

"No, but I expect to, shortly."

"The Prince will be interested to hear this," she said. "Do you know, the king, her father, is most anxious to marry his daughter to Raoul?"

"Why, they are first cousins!"

"True, but that makes no difference in marriages of state. His object is to unite the two houses and keep the throne in his own. When he made Raoul and me Prince and Princess he had that in his mind, I do believe, for he did nothing for his own brother, my father. Does Teskla favour this friend of yours?"

"I cannot say as to that, never having seen them. But Nick has known her for a number of years."

"Raoul will be pleased, for he detests her."

Therese brought the tea and we chatted away with our small talk until I remembered that the Duke and the Prince were awaiting my return. I arose to go.

"When will you be in the summer-house again?" I asked.

"I will be there to-morrow afternoon," she replied. "Will you come?"

"Yes," I almost whispered, and she dropped her gaze before mine.

Therese acted as guide on the return trip and the way did not seem so long, following her light steps. The Prince and the Duke were still seated at the table engaged in their game of cards. While I made my adieus the young man, who looked so much like Solonika that I could not forbear staring at him, lit his cigarette with his uninjured hand and returned my stare coldly, almost insolently. His face was wreathed in smoke as it curled gently upward and vanished in the air.

"Do not forget my invitation to the hunt," he said in his bad English. Once more I remarked the great contrast.

"We will be glad to see you soon again," said the Red Fox. His smile was positively warming. If he had been a victorious commander surveying the wreck his guns had wrought, he could not have appeared more genial.

I thanked them both and found my way to the open air with my illusions gone. How silently and swiftly had my house of cards come tumbling about my head. I thought of Solonika, and Nick's fingers coiling about an imaginary throat, and I was glad; oh, I was glad to find myself mistaken.

*CHAPTER IX*

*THE KISS IN THE KING'S GARDEN*

O, that a man might know The end of this day's business, ere it come! But it sufficeth that the day will end, And then the end is known. --_Shakespeare: Julius Caesar_.

Nick and the General were not returned when I reached Framkor Castle, but they came puffing in for dinner on schedule time. Where they had been they did not divulge, nor did I question them, feeling that their rapid comings and goings had to do with the politics of Bharbazonia with which I was not concerned.

"Sorry to have run away from you, Dale," said Nick, "but needs must when the Devil drives." He jerked his head in the General's direction.

"Humph," grunted the General.

"What did you do with yourself all day?" asked Nick.

"I have had an enjoyable time. I've been over to Dhalmatia."

"What?" exclaimed the General.

After his warning to me, I suppose the old fellow imagined I would not care to visit the Red Fox. Neither Nick nor I had told him of the result of our first visit. Had he known that, the storm clouds gathering upon his brow would have been twice as dark.

"Yes," I continued, "and I have seen both the Prince and the Princess, General. The Red Fox was not tricking you when he announced the birth of twins."

Then I told the story of my afternoon as rapidly as possible. But the General was not impressed. The aged, as the homely old expression has it, are frequently "sot in their ways" and I suppose the General had hugged this favourite delusion to his breast so long that he could not let it go. When I was through he remarked dryly:

"Then you did not see the Prince and the Princess together, after all?"

"I did not see them standing side by side," I admitted; "but it was practically the same thing."

"I always told you, General," chimed in Nicholas, "that you were wrong. I agree with Dale, and you might as well surrender as gracefully as possible."

But the General refused to surrender.

"'Tis some trick of the Red Fox," he stoutly maintained, and no amount of argument could move him. He met every advance and escaped every tight corner with the same reply. In his mind Ananias was a truth-teller compared with the Duke of Dhalmatia. We finally dropped the subject, and talked of other matters.

"We are going down to Nischon in the morning, Dale," said Nick. "Do you want to go along?"

"Indeed I do," I replied. I was anxious to see the capital of which I had heard so much and more especially the Cathedral in which the Prince was to be crowned.

Accordingly, when the General awakened us before daylight, I dressed with alacrity. The sun was just rising when we passed Solonika's summer-house, but, early as we were, others were abroad ahead of us. Drawn up on the side of the road, as if to permit us to pass, were six horsemen, muffled up to the eyes in long Spanish cloaks, their spirited horses backing, dancing and rearing as we passed. I could not be sure, but I received the impression that they were not riding forward upon the road, but waiting. One of their number recognized the General and saluted him with a familiar wave of the hand. But the General refused to return the salute. We passed swiftly on.

Although their action was military, the horsemen did not strike me as being soldiers; for one thing they were not dressed in uniform. Perhaps they were a party of young nobles out for a lark. They resembled Duke Marbosa's messenger who had inquired about Nicholas's return. But what could the gentry be doing on the road at such an unearthly hour in the morning?

It was a perfect automobiling day, one of those sunshiny mornings when one is glad to be alive. We passed many estates and small villages on the way, and the townsfolk had a smile and a hearty cheer for the General. As we whirled by a roadside tavern a bystander waved his hat in the air and shouted a greeting.

It sounded as if he said "Long live Palmora!" and the crowd joined in the general cheer that followed. But all was not love and good fellowship in this country. We received a rude shock on the outskirts of this very village.

There, beside a small chapel of the Greek Church, standing in the midst of a crowded graveyard, was a charred pyre of wood, from the center of which rose an iron post pointing to the sky. On the top of the post a gilded Greek cross glistened in the sunlight, unharmed by the smoke and flames which had raged below.

Tied to the post, blackened and burnt until the flesh had dropped off in places, exposing the bones beneath, was the naked body of a woman. Although the fire had been out for days, smoke still found its way upward, like a gentle blue vapor, fading quickly away. One or two villagers were leaning against the stone wall that surrounded the graveyard, but they were more interested in the automobile than in the terrible scene behind them.

"Look," I cried, pointing it out to Nick.

He touched Teju Okio on the shoulder and the machine was brought to a standstill as quickly as possible; but we had so far overrun the place that we had to back to bring it opposite. The General talked with the idlers and translated their story to me.

"It is the witch of Utrepect," he said. "The priests burnt her at the stake a week ago for blasphemy. She had considerable influence over the minds of the villagers, and was undermining their faith. The Patriarch at Nischon warned her to keep silent. The church excommunicated her and forbade her to come upon church property. She defied them and last Sunday cursed the priest of the chapel upon the spot where she now is. He seized her, aided by his congregation, raised the pyre and burnt her to death as an example for all men who refuse to listen to the church. No one is permitted to touch her on pain of death. So there she hangs until the dogs devour her."

Could it be possible that such barbarism existed in the name of religion in any European country in this the twentieth century? Had anyone told me this a few hours before, I would have laughed at him. But here was the concrete fact before my horrified eyes.

"Drive on, Okio," I cried, sick of the sight. The Jap obeyed.

"That must have been the witch Princess Solonika spoke of as having prophesied that Raoul would never be king," said Nick, smiling at my show of disgust. Neither he nor the General seemed to think the priest's action at all unusual. Cotton Mather had his following even among the Pilgrim Fathers.

Nischon was a matter of fifty miles from Castle Framkor, but Teju Okio manipulated his levers to such good purpose that, in spite of the stop at Utrepect, we came in sight of the ancient city before half past nine. Nischon in the sunlight was a beautiful city. It burst upon us as we reached the top of a high hill and we could thus look down upon its roof tops.

It lay in a valley on both sides of the river they call the Kneister, the only waterway of importance in Bharbazonia, which flows away to the south and empties into the Black Sea, at Bizzett, by means of a subterranean passage through the mountain wall.

The two hills which formed the valley sloped gently down on both sides to the water edge, leaving no level land anywhere. On the tableland, on top of these hills, we could see the numerous castles of the nobles, thrusting their proud stone turrets above the trees like self-appointed watchdogs of the city.

In all the myriad hives of houses below, one building caught my eye before the rest and I did not need to be told that it was the Cathedral. It was a huge structure, standing alone upon a terraced green square on our side of the river. Four minarets, one on each corner, piercing the sky, first riveted the attention. They bore aloft great gilded Greek crosses that flashed the blinding rays of the reflected sun in our eyes as we moved along the road.

Four great domes made up the main body of the structure, three huddling together in a single row in front and the fourth rearing its huge bulk high above the rest in the rear. Like the crosses, the tops of the domes were gilded and the whole effect was that of a building of gold.

"The Cathedral," Nick informed me, "is one of the oldest buildings in the country. It is similar in architectural design to the mosque of St. Sophia which we saw from the yacht as we passed Constantinople. St. Sophia, considered the oldest Christian church in the world, was converted by the Mohammedans into a mosque in the sixteenth century."

The palace of the King was also a noticeable building. Like the Cathedral it was surrounded by its green terrace gardens which held it aloof from the rest of the houses. It was on the other side of the river close to the bank. In fact a wall of ancient masonry enclosed the grounds and rose sheer from the water on the river side. Turrets were built in this wall at regular intervals, as a protection for the castle itself, which stood alone in the centre of the grounds, built more for warfare than for beauty.

The progress of the General in the machine through the streets of Nischon was like the approach of a conquering hero. Everywhere carters drew respectfully aside to let us pass. Men stood with uncovered heads, and women at the windows held their children up to see the great man. Thirty years had but enhanced the glory of the General's achievements as the conqueror of the Turks at the head of the Bharbazonian army. Old men, who had seen service with him during that campaign, cheered and blessed their leader as he passed; and to these the General kissed his hand and shouted friendly greeting.

"I would give all I possess," whispered Nick, "to have the love and respect of the people as the General has."

"Do not despair," I replied; "one day the opportunity may arrive when you will win their esteem. We are all children of chance."

Green uniformed soldiers guarded the drawbridge which spanned the river and led to the King's palace. They stood at attention as the heavy car rolled over the creaking planks. The iron doors in the castle wall swung back on their rusty hinges, and we passed over a driveway winding between green well-kept lawns until we came to the palace.

A lieutenant of the King's Guard opened the tonneau door and assisted us to alight, and a uniformed courier ushered us into the presence of the King, the mighty hero of the battle at the Turk's Head Inn. Gregory was seated at the council table with another old man who I learned was called Nokolovich, a prominent member of the king's official family and his chief advisor. I suppose in any other country he would have had the title of Prime Minister.

Both greeted General Palmora effusively and were gravely attentive to Nicholas. From their manner toward him it was clear that he was known as a Bharbazonian among them and that he had their respect. I was formally presented to the King, in whose eyes, curious to say, I found favour because I was a countryman of General Grant.

"I take great pleasure even now," said the King, "in reading the history of his battles. His example inspired me in our own wars."

In due time all four plunged into the mysterious business of state which brought them together, conversing in the Bharbazonian dialect and I had ample opportunity to observe the great warrior.

Gregory was indeed a commanding figure. Nature meant him to be a king, for she had given him a stature above his fellows and a lordly mien which even old age could not destroy. And he was very old. His great beard, long and white, fell almost to his waist; his snowy locks were brushed back from his forehead and curled in silvery ringlets upon his broad shoulders. Time had bent him but little, and had not taken from him that penetrating glance which suggested his shrewd brother, the Red Fox of Dhalmatia.

But the King looked like a man who ate and drank too well; in whose veins the red blood ran too full. And Mother Nature it seems had sent him her first warning, if one might judge from the lack of control existing along one side of the body, most plainly visible in the halting way he moved his left arm and leg. His determination to abdicate, and bring his life work to a happy conclusion after thirty years of ruling, showed that he intended to heed the warning and take a well-earned rest. It was just as well, for the hand that adjusted the glasses to his dim-visioned eyes shook with a great trembling; it was clear to my medical mind that he could not withstand a second stroke.