A CHEERING PROSPECT
“In Oriental cities, with rare exceptions, everything suggesting the thought of death is hidden out of view; no sculptor would venture to exhibit an assortment of gravestones; but people to whom life brings nothing but a roundabout of toil and tedium may find solace in contemplating mementoes of the hour that will witness the end of their doom.”
The philanthropic traveler left his native land with ideals presaging a universal brotherhood of nations—perhaps under the leadership of our great Republic—but admits that, under present circumstances, our popular policy of expansion is, at best, only an attempt to widen the ring-walls of our slave-pen, before its gates are closed by a syndicate of bloodsuckers and boodle legislators.
The King’s Image
BY WALTER E. GROGAN
Author of “The Dregs of Wrath,” “The King’s Sceptre,” “The Curse of the Fultons,” etc.
I KNEW him at once. He was grayer, he was grimmer, he was more than ever like a man of granite, hard and immobile, but I knew him. The sight of him gravely unfolding his table napkin and covering his thin knees at luncheon in the little hotel set my thoughts back over ten years. I was then a lad of sixteen. I had seen him constantly in the queer medieval streets of Tsalburg, the little capital of Ertaria in the Balkans. Gray and grim, he was then the General Commandant of the army, the iron right hand of the Wolf King Peter XII. He was grayer and grimmer now, but undoubtedly the man. For a while I racked my memory for his name. It came suddenly. General Hartzel! Undoubtedly the man.
The Times supplied me with many conjectures. The senile old King was dead; his heir, the Prince Paul, had lived his own life in Europe incognito, and the heir was not forthcoming. Rumor said he was in Paris.
For three days I watched the General. He knew no one at the hotel, he spoke to no one, but I saw him more than once in earnest conversation with a young man about my own age, about my own height, about my own color, but—for the sake of my own vanity—alike in no other particular. This was—the information was easily come by—the Comte de Troisétoilles, a young Frenchman of position, now considerably taken with the beautiful singer, Mlle. Aimée Bergeaux. That was the story noised about, and in proof thereof her little steam yacht rode in the harbor, he was constantly with her, and a rumor was essential to the place. A companion, large, fat, unmistakably German and delightfully placid, cast a broad, complacent smile of propriety over the romance.
My General, I noted, snarled at the soprano for whose smiles princes competed. He was thorough, was my General, dear man of stone. Venus herself would have been baffled by him. But he spoke earnestly and vehemently to the Count, he who was so taciturn.
On the evening of the third day I met my General on the south cliff by the absurd little fort. There was a streak of smoke on the horizon. He was shaking a fist at it, a violent, tempestuous fist.
I have been a prey to sudden impulses all my life. I had maintained an Englishman’s reserve for three days. I broke it suddenly on the cliff. I accosted the General in Ertarian.
“You are disturbed, General Hartzel,” I said.
He wheeled round surprisingly. His astonishment grew when he saw me, the silent companion of his luncheons.
“Monsieur speaks Ertarian,” he said.
“A little,” I answered modestly, yet with inward elation. To surprise a man of granite! Elation was surely pardonable.
“As a native,” he continued. I bowed. “It is wonderful! Are you Ertarian?”
“No,” I replied.
“No,” he echoed with regret. “You are English. I saw you smoke a pipe. But you know my real name? I am Captain Schneidlitz here.”
I laughed. “Pardon me, General, I have been amusing myself with your surprise. My father was British Minister at Tsalburg for many years. As a boy I spent my holidays there. Hence my accent.”
“Your name is—?” he demanded.
“Havensea,” I answered.
“Then your father is ——?”
“Exactly. I am now the head of my family. It is a large family, General. I have tens of aunts; my cousins are limitless. I pass an uneasy life trying to evade them and my unnecessary title. It is difficult—please respect my incognito as I respect yours, Captain Schneidlitz.”
“You dislike your title?” he asked eagerly.
“The coronet has given me a headache of the soul. You don’t know how terrible a British title is. It is a mere lever for opening bazaars, a free ticket to everybody’s dinners.”
“You object to yourself?” His question, the question of the man of granite, was tremulous with excitement.
“Pardon me,” I answered; “not to myself—but to the impossibility of being myself. I am an English peer. I have not even the picturesqueness of poverty. You do not understand. In Ertaria they do not hold flower shows. I do not object to myself—I object to Lord Havensea.”
The General looked round anxiously. A wide-breeched soldier was walking toward the fort; a white-stringed bonnet was going home. Seaward the streak of smoke blackened the eye of the sun. The sight of that caused the man of granite to swear solemnly in Ertarian—a language admitting a wide choice of expression to a man oppressed with a sense of wrong.
“I will reply to your first question,” he said. He spoke in a low voice. He was under some strong emotion. “I am disturbed. That little streak of smoke dissolving out there represents my hopes dissipated, evaporated. My hopes are the hopes of Ertaria. We are a small country, but we are proud.”
“A country’s pride invariably compensates for lack of acres.”
“It is a jest to you,” he said sadly. I had expected him to be angry at my flippant remark. The sadness of his voice slipped past my guard. Here at last I had found a man who could feel.
“Your pardon, General,” I said more soberly than I had previously spoken. “The pride of Ertaria I know rests upon an unstained national honor.”
“If you believed that!” he cried.
“I do,” I answered stoutly. “Frankly, you are all absurd, but it is a glorious absurdity. Small, hemmed in by enemies, you have kept an independence, noble and untainted, for seven hundred years.”
“You believe it! Why not?” he cried excitedly. “Your father, the dear Lord Havensea, loved us. He was our friend. His representations at St. James’s saved us once. You inherited his love. We are in peril now.”
“Ah,” said I, “the lost heir.”
“He is out there under that streak of smoke.”
“He was the Comte de Troisétoilles?”
“Yes. The French singer is Russian. You understand?”
“Kidnapped! Scratch a French soprano and you will find a Russian. My General!” I was indeed sorry for him. He was honest, was this man of granite. He loved his country. And Prince Paul—“Royal robes should cover men, not flattered fools.”
“You understand. The great game is lost. I love Ertaria as I love nothing else. I would pour out my blood willingly for her. That would be nothing. I have been the guardian of her honor. That was everything. And now the hand of the greedy Bear is stretched out for it. And it is lost. At least five minutes ago I said it was lost. But now you—you can save it—the great game, the honor of Ertaria, the independence, the life-blood!”
“I! My dear General, I am a tired English peer recovering from a surfeit of municipal and parochial addresses.”
“You—only you. You are an Englishman, you speak Ertarian, you resemble the Prince Paul somewhat; he is unknown in Ertaria. You are out of love with your own identity; you long for something else, for some other life——”
“My dear General, speak out the whole of your madness.”
“Come, Lord Havensea, and hold the throne!”
I was staggered, astounded. For a moment I watched the smoke becoming thinner and thinner. Suddenly it seemed to pop out. It was of course a trick of the imagination.
“You are an Englishman—therefore you have courage.”
It was transcendent flattery. A throne!
“It is madness, my General,” I said. His eyes sparkled.
“It is the madness we love,” he said softly. “And it is for the country, my country. The poor fool will come back. Don’t let it be too late. Keep the throne for him—and for us, for the Ertarian children unborn that they be not born the slaves of the Muscovite. You have read the history of Poland?”
“It is folly, but—” I commenced.
“The train starts tonight, my Prince, at eleven. The West Station. I will make all things ready.” The General looked out at the winking sun. The real Prince was kidnapped, but in his dire need Fate had tossed him a pseudo one.
It was the wildest of folly, of course, but once seriously embarked upon, it was remarkable how smoothly it ran. I returned to the hotel, paid my bill, sent my valet home to England, and met the General at the station. I entered the first-class compartment a private English gentleman—even my poor little title left in the custody of my lawyers in Ely Place—and across the Ertarian frontier I stepped out Paul V.
We alighted at a small station. There were three or four anxious-looking men on its slender platform. They were dressed in the frock coat of ceremony. One man only was conspicuous in a gorgeous uniform. It reminded me of my own Havensea livery. I was preparing to be royally gracious to him when Hartzel whispered he was the station-master. It was a brilliant morning; the sun lay on the white caps of the mountain pass and glistened; big butterflies painted the field; the air was clear, rarified. I was in excellent spirits.
The General watched the absurd little engine puff its way onward. Then he turned to me, took off his hat, knelt and kissed my hand. The spectacle of my man of granite kneeling, his honest, ugly face figured by emotion, struck me strangely.
“To my God, my Country and my King are my life and my honor dedicated,” he said, the quaint old formula of allegiance in Ertaria. The frock coats went through the same performance. It lacked the earnestness of the General and had a note of anxiety. They looked as though they were expecting a troop of Cossacks over the edge of the pass and were nervous. But the ceremony marked a step in the game. Until then I was in a transition state. I was no longer Lord Havensea, but I had not yet become King until I had stepped out of my uncomfortable compartment into a kingdom.
“Gentlemen,” I said in their own picturesque tongue, “you are the first of my subjects to welcome me. Not as King will I speak to you now, but as a fellow-worker, for my heart also is dedicated to God and Ertaria.”
That struck some spark into their dull faces.
“Seven centuries of liberty are in our hands,” said I. “The dead fathers of Ertaria have given us this heritage. It is that which I come to preserve—in peace if God wills, but if not, the history of Ertaria tells us how to act.”
Bombast if you will, but it brought life, valor, strength into their faces.
As for the man of granite, his eyes flashed. Ten minutes more and we were galloping up the white ribbon of a road toward Tsalburg, embarked upon as mad a mission as was ever enacted in this Balkan basin of mad missions. Our frock-coated friends remained behind. I kissed each on his scrubby cheek, and told him to guard our frontier. They swore to this with tears in their eyes.
“Well,” said I, “we have played the first act of the farce.”
“You have done well,” my mentor replied. “But this is no farce. It is a perilous game to play.”
“You did not tell me so before, General. A spice of danger gives it a zest.”
“You speak like a soldier.”
“I was a soldier—that was before I became a peer and was a personage. Shall I pass muster? Will they perceive I am no King? Will the people be with me?”
“Keep a brave heart and that will carry you through. The Russian Minister, of course, will know you are an impostor.”
“The deuce he will!”
“You must bluff him.”
“And four weeks ago I received the freedom of an English town from a successful grocer! Hartzel, my blood races! Here are romance, adventure! I am your debtor for life!”
“That debt may be liquidated at any moment,” he said grimly. For a minute his old face softened, and then it was as hard as ever. I knew that some touch of remorse had stabbed him. The game was nothing to me; he was staking my life for a cause in which I had no concern. Then came the thought of his country. No life mattered then.
That night we lay in a small town, and I was shown secretly to a few of the town’s chief men; and the next night we slept in the General’s house at Tsalburg. The rumor of my coming circulated furiously. At eleven o’clock, when I was preparing to rest, tired with my long journey, a mob assembled in the square outside and sang the national anthem for an hour or so. Hartzel harangued them from the balcony. I was fatigued. I could not be disturbed, but on the morrow their King would meet them. That was the purport of his speech. The national anthem broke out again, and presently, with the poetical inspiration of the nation, they sang a legendary serenade.
Hartzel came to my room and sat on the edge of my bed. I was nearly dead with fatigue, but he was inexorable.
“Tomorrow will see the crucial test of our scheme, so you must listen. There are two factions in Ertaria. In the late King’s reign I kept the Tertourgkis in abeyance.”
“The Tertourgkis!” I cried, memory stirring me. “They had some feud with the reigning family and—and there was a daughter.”
“You remember?” he said. “Prince Tertourgki is an old man. His wealth and his lands go to this daughter, his only child. She is very beautiful.”
“She was a beautiful child, dark and serene as night.”
“The Prince has claims to the throne. He is the descendant of the Tertourgkis, who reigned in the fifteenth century. They were despots, and a revolution set the Borros on the throne. The Prince has never abrogated his claim. There is a second cousin——”
“My General, the rest is easy to decipher. The second cousin has aspirations for the hand of the Princess Marie; he is the puppet of the Russians; the Tertourgkis’ influence is great; we fear the loyalty of the army; we must deal quickly with the second cousin.”
“You are quick at guessing,” the General answered slowly. “You know——”
“On my word, nothing—nothing but the name of the Princess Marie. When the world was younger, General, there was a large garden and a young schoolboy—he thought himself a man—and a little child and flowers. Together they made a happy time. The sun was always shining. The little child worshiped the big schoolboy—and he graciously permitted it.”
“Your father’s house! Ah, well, you know something, but not all. As the King lay dying I—I arranged a marriage between the Princess Marie and the absent Paul.”
I sat up in bed.
“The Prince Paul!” I exclaimed.
“The Prince Paul,” he assented stolidly. “He consented. The Prince looked kindly upon it; the Princess would not give a definite answer. When the Prince arrived, she said, she would give him her answer personally.”
“This is your arrangement?” I asked.
“It was a diplomatic stroke,” he said.
“You took an unwarrantable liberty,” I cried warmly. “Why was I not told of this before?”
“Because you would not have come.”
“And now?”
“Now it is different. You are caught in the toils.”
“It is an unwarrantable liberty! You have engaged me matrimonially without any reference to my feelings.”
“I have engaged Prince Paul.”
“Who am I?”
“Who you are for the present. My dear Havensea, you do not consider my position.”
“You have had precious little consideration for mine!”
“It is not yours. You are an actor playing a role. In a short while you will make a graceful bow and exit.”
“I am not at all sure that it will be graceful.”
“As you will. That does not matter at all. You play a part for a little while. They will not dare to keep the real Prince a prisoner for long.”
“I am to cheat this girl?”
“What does it matter? It is a royal alliance—there are no considerations but that of policy. I do not propose to marry you to her.”
“Thanks. That is considerate.”
“My dear Havensea, you are perturbed. The Princess is to marry the Crown. She is piqued at the long delay of the Prince. There is no question of sentiment.”
“Suppose there were?”
He looked at me curiously for a moment.
“That is a proposition I will not entertain,” he answered.
“I will not do it!” I cried angrily.
“You will,” he replied quietly. “You have already impersonated the King. Have you considered the consequences? I say nothing about you. You are a brave man. But you have already compromised many honest men—and one dishonest old man. We are only half civilized. That is part of our charm—at least to you. The people would be very angry. You would be killed!”
“By Jove, you are a pleasant philosopher!”
“To a brave man that may mean little—life is a mere stake. But the honest men and the dishonest old man would die also. You could not have my death upon your conscience!”
“You deserve it, my General; you deserve it, on my honor!”
“Possibly.” He waved it aside resolutely as a matter of small consequence. “There is also Ertaria. Shall we grant that the Princess may not be happy? Then there is one woman unhappy and a nation free. Havensea, you do not understand the stake for which we play. It is not a crown, nor a woman’s heart, but a nation’s freedom. The heel of Russia bruises the very souls of men. Russia knouts a man’s soul. Where is Poland today? It is a great game to save a nation from that curse.”
The man of granite spoke soberly. There was no impassioned appeal. He spoke of facts. As a boy I knew something of this terror of Russia. This rugged, hard man was a hero. He played his life not for advancement, but for the good of his country. My heart warmed to him. And, as he said, there was also Ertaria.
“I shall go through with it, General,” I said at length. Our hands closed on that; in the winking light of a candle I saw his eyes glitter. He did not speak for a full minute. Then he muttered in a low voice, “If you were only a Borro!”
“It would have been fatiguing,” I said. “I should have quarreled with you. There is not room on the throne for two men.”
He laughed abruptly at that.
The next morning General Hartzel aroused me at an unearthly hour. He made me dress in a steel-corseleted uniform. It was exceedingly gorgeous and stiff with gold lace.
“It is the uniform of the Colonel of the Royal Guards,” he told me.
“Promotion is rapid in Ertaria,” I said. “I was an unconsidered subaltern in our Blues.”
“The army is reviewed today on the Plain of Liberty,” he said, “by Prince Tertourgki. He is regent during your absence.”
“And the second cousin?”
“Is his aide-de-camp—Prince Otho. The Russian Minister will be there.”
“And his august name?” I demanded.
“Baron Ivaniski.”
“My dear General!” I cried. “There is a saying, ‘The luck of the Havenseas.’ The luck holds good. The Russian Bear shall dance, I promise you!”
“What does Your Majesty mean?”
“His Majesty knows a story, General, a pretty, ornate and most scandalous story. Ivaniski was an attaché at Berlin when my uncle was Ambassador. It will be the only good turn Uncle John has ever done me.”
For two mortal hours after a particularly disappointing breakfast—the General betrayed but an indifferent regard to cuisine—I was gracious to the peculiarly uninteresting big men of Tsalburg. I signed innumerable papers, and at a hint from the General kissed those worthy of the honor. It afforded them far more satisfaction than it did me.
At noon I mounted a black charger, and, accompanied only by the General, set out for the Plain of Liberty. Hartzel had misled—to use a euphemism—the populace as to my movements, so that it was merely at odd whiles that I was called upon to acknowledge shouts of greeting.
The Plain of Liberty is a tableland upon the hill that rises above the town. From it Tsalburg can be seen spread out in picturesque confusion. It is a big plain, and its name is derived from the presence in its centre of a huge column surmounted by a figure of Liberty. On the base of this column are inscribed the names of the more or less traditional heroes who are popularly supposed to have engineered the independence of the country. This column has become a subject of sentimental worship with the nation.
On this plain were assembled the populace of Tsalburg to witness the review of the major part of the troops of the country, some fifteen thousand. Prince Tertourgki had selected a place near the column as a saluting base, and the troops, when we arrived, were drawn up in review order. The column stood, as it were, a huge, gray sentinel between the Prince and the troops.
“Some of the officers I could trust expect you!” the General cried. “Spur on to the troops. Now is our crisis. The Baron has tampered with some of the regiments, but to what extent I cannot say. If the troops receive you Ertaria is saved.”
“Your true gambler risks all on a single throw!” I shouted, clapping spurs into my charger. It was a glorious gallop. My blood raced in my veins. My horse was maddened by the touch of the spur. I thundered on down the level turf. I saw the stir of surprise in the populace. I caught a waver of ranks as the troops craned forward to see me come. Then a flash of inspiration came to me. As I raced by the column I suddenly drew rein, flinging my horse back on his haunches. For a moment he lay crouched backward, and in that moment I had raised my sword in salute of the column. Then the charger leaped forward, and I rode to the front of the troops.
Such a shout greeted me as I have never heard before. It roared about my ears like thunder. “Long live the King!” they cried, and the populace took up the words, “Long live the King!”
I raised my hand and there was silence.
“Comrades,” I shouted, “we all alike serve under Liberty. The statue of our dead heroes watches over King and people.” Again the air was rent.
I turned. General Hartzel, following me, had just cantered up. On his grim, granite face was a smile like wintry sunshine.
“General Hartzel,” I cried, “you will march the troops past in review order!” Then I cantered over to the saluting base. I was King!
An old man in uniform was fidgeting about on a gray horse. At his side was a young officer, dark, almost swarthy, whispering eagerly. In a landau at the back sat a frock-coated gentleman with an order in his buttonhole. He had the broadness between the eyes of the Tartar. With him was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. Out of her big black eyes shone the light of admiration. In a mist I saw again the small child in the garden, her wondering worship and the big English schoolboy.
“Prince,” I cried, “will you do me the honor of taking the salute?” I spoke to him so as to force an answer. The unexpected compliment flustered him.
“Your Majesty,” he faltered, “my usefulness is over.”
“No,” I replied, engineering my restive charger to the discomfiture of the second cousin, “we will work together for Ertaria, Prince.” I held out my hand, and in a moment the white-haired old fellow was off his horse and kneeling, kissing my hand. How the populace roared aloud their pleasure! The bands crashed out the national anthem, ladies fluttered their scarfs, a whole forest of hats waved in the air. I was King, and apparently popular. It was an exhilarating feeling. I thought of the real Paul shut up in a satinwood cabin on board a kicking little steam yacht, and smiled.
The Prince and I took the salute; he reined in to a respectful distance. Afterward I was conducted to the landau. The Prince stayed a moment to speak to the second cousin. I rode up alone and dismounted.
“Have you no welcome for the King, Princess Marie?” I asked.
“You know me? My father told you?” Her voice was serene, low, like silver bells on a summer evening.
“No. The Prince has said nothing. But I knew that the Princess Marie was the most beautiful woman in Ertaria.” She smiled at me. I met her smiling eyes. It was then I regretted that I was merely playing a part. The small child had grown into a wondrously beautiful woman. I know that from the moment my eyes met hers in that long look I loved her. Hers were eloquent also, so eloquent that she veiled them quickly with long, thick, black, curling lashes, and the rich color mounted to her cheek.
“But Your Majesty,” the Russian’s lips curled in a sneer, “has seen the Princess’s photograph.”
“One has no conception of sunlight from observation of the moon, Baron,” I answered.
“And you are really the King, Paul V.” His voice was challenging, his eyes were gleaming with anger. The elaborate and desperate project of kidnapping the Prince had failed at the very moment of its success. In his pocket, I thought, were the particulars of Paul’s involuntary voyage, and yet here was a king to thwart all his plans.
“And you are really the Baron Ivaniski—of Berlin?” He grew white to the lips at the concealed threat in my voice.
“Of Berlin?” he faltered. “I have no connection with Berlin.”
“Your memory is short, Baron. In November of ’84 you were surely in Berlin. I believe, if I tried, I could persuade you of that. Lord Derwenthurst was a friend of mine.”
“Ah, yes, I had forgotten,” he muttered. I could have laughed at him, he had become so craven and so cringing. Uncle John had told me of the Baron and his gambling debts, and his attempt to sell a Russian secret to us. Uncle John was too honest for a diplomat. He refused, and extracted from the young attaché a signed declaration of his treason. The alternative was that of forwarding the proposal to the Russian Ambassador.
Riding to the palace with my granite General, he expressed approval of my day’s work.
“Ah, General,” said I, “the public enthusiasm is stimulating. Not all the school children of my native town, bribed by oranges and buns, can shout like your honest people.”
“And the Princess?” he asked anxiously.
“And the Princess is divine.”
A week passed in a whirl of popular excitement. No one guessed; the Russian dared not speak openly. In any case I hardly think Russia would have avowed her kidnapping of the Prince. As it was, the Baron had too great a fear of the document he believed I held. On the second day the Princess gave me her answer. We were betrothed. Public joy expressed itself in gala nights at the Opera, in fireworks, in torchlight processions. And for me all the zest of the game I was playing departed. As I listened to Marie, as I learned from her own lips that she loved me, I realized bitterly the part I was playing. Not all the General’s sophistries could disguise it from me. I was cheating her. And her trust was perfect. I writhed under her praise, I was tortured by the possession of her love, a possession which, come by honestly, I would have treasured beyond all else.
On the eighth day, the evening of the gala ball, my granite General came to my private chamber.
“The Coquette entered Trieste last night,” he said harshly. I started. Coquette was the name of the soprano’s yacht.
“Well?” I replied. We stared at each other. General Hartzel had been growing brusk and ill-humored with me. I think he guessed at the romance.
“The King will be here tomorrow night.”
“Suppose I answer that by saying the King is here?”
“You will not do that. Your honor is engaged.”
“You have been teaching me to do without honor.”
“I must tell her tonight.”
I rose. “You will not. I will tell her.”
“You will seek to dissuade her!”
“I will tell her. It is my right, Hartzel.”
“You promise——?”
“I promise nothing. Man, do you think I will slink out of this like a whipped cur? I have cheated. I will confess.”
After the first ceremonial reception I slipped into the dark garden. My brain was hot. I wanted to feel the soft coolness of the night. In an avenue I stumbled upon the Prince Otho and the Russian Baron. They barred my way.
“Impostor!” cried the Prince. The news had leaked out. The Russian knew and had told his friend.
I took off my glove and struck him in the face.
“After the fourth waltz,” I said. “There is a moon. In the walled garden. And, gentlemen, whatever you may know, keep silence. Berlin will speak if you do.”
I sought Hartzel. He was not difficult to find. He was dogging my steps like a spy. I told him of my meeting in the garden, and asked him to be my second.
“He is a good swordsman,” he said. I think he was sorry.
“Then I sincerely hope the real Paul won’t miss his train. To have the throne vacant again would be annoying.”
“And you?” he asked.
“My dear General,” I said, with a smile, “when a man is giving up a pearl of infinite value he does not care much for the tarnished gold of his own life.”
The fourth waltz I danced with the Princess Marie.
“I wish to speak to you soberly, seriously, sedately, Marie. May I? Come to the little conservatory and sit out the thirteenth.”
“It is an unlucky number.”
“No number is unlucky that gives me your presence,” I said lightly.
In the moonlight we stripped to our shirts. It was nearly as light as day.
“This is a mistake,” my granite General said. He was thinking of the risk to his scheme and the ease with which both men could have been arrested.
“No, General. This may be reparation,” I answered.
Prince Otho was an excellent swordsman. That I knew at once. His wrist was supple and strong as steel. We engaged and fought slowly, cautiously. He had a dangerous, wicked riposte which I guarded twice, more by luck than by skill. Undoubtedly he was my master. I smiled grimly at this. I was sorry, because I wished to speak to Marie. And yet, perhaps, this was a better way. Ah, a scratch! I had turned too late, and the sting in my shoulder told me I was hit.
“He is hit! It is enough!” cried General Hartzel.
“A mere scratch!” I answered hotly, and we engaged again. It was evident the Prince was waiting for an opening to kill. Two opportunities for serious wounds he passed. Then suddenly he made a quick lunge over my guard. I stepped back quickly; he could not recover his guard; he fell back. Hartzel leaned over him.
“That ends it,” he said complacently. “Four weeks, at least, in bed. This is an accident, Baron.”
The thirteenth dance. The lights were very low. There was the heavy, thick scent of gardenias. The Chinese lanterns swayed curiously. When I pulled myself together they were still. The wound pricked unpleasantly.
Marie came.
“This is most unorthodox, Your Majesty,” she said mockingly. “Everyone is asking for you.”
“Will you sit down, dear?” I spoke very slowly. In truth the pain in my arm was like a red-hot steel needle. She sobered quickly. I could not see very well. I think she went white. She sat down meekly. I could see her big eyes, only her eyes.
“Paul!” she breathed.
“I am not Paul,” I said. “I am not King. I am only the King’s image, a poor counterfeit.”
“Paul!” she said again. Then she checked herself.
“He will be here tomorrow. My period of usefulness will be over. He—he was kidnapped. I came—because I was bored, because there was some chance of adventure, because an old man pleaded for his country. Now it is all over—the King comes, the King’s image is wanted no longer.”
“Paul, I want you,” she said in a low voice.
“I am not Paul. And—and, Marie, there is duty! A nation may groan under the tyranny of Russia unless—You understand, Marie. Our lives cannot always be ministers to our desires. We—we are caught in the toils; we can only obey, we can only do our duty, trusting that somehow it will be found good.”
“For us?” she asked.
“For your people.”
“You say that that is my duty, Paul?”
“Yes.”
“And you love me?”
“And I love you,” I answered. The lanterns were swinging madly now. Over their light was a new mist growing, growing. I bit my lip—but the throb of the wound was agony.
“I believe you, dear,” she said simply. “It—it seems hard that—that so much should rest upon one poor girl. I think I know what—you mean. The people shall be happy though the Queen’s heart break.” She rose and came toward me. She caught me by my wounded shoulder and kissed me. And with all the agony of it that kiss I hold in my heart always as a dear memory.
When she went the lanterns whirled, the mist shut down on my eyes, and I fell. General Hartzel found me.
The next morning early, recovered of my swoon, I rode out of Tsalburg. General Hartzel rode with me a little way.
“If you had only been the real King,” he said, with more feeling than I thought possible, “and not——”
“And not the King’s image,” I filled in. “It is a pity when the clay image has a living heart.”
The Story of a Suppressed Populist Newspaper
BY THOMAS H. TIBBLES
People’s Party Candidate for Vice-President
AT one time there were fifteen hundred weekly papers advocating the principles of the Omaha platform. Some of them had large plants, some only a few cases of type and a Washington press, but all were actuated by one purpose—to make conditions easier for those who toiled on farms, in shops, factories, mines and mills. Among those still fighting up to the first of April of this year was the Nebraska Independent. Many such papers were crushed by various devices, chief among which was that the great advertisers of the land, all being allied with Wall Street, refused to give them any business. Numerous instances could be cited where Populist papers were refused advertisements given to plutocratic papers not having one-tenth the circulation, and paid for at a higher rate than the proprietors of the Populist papers would have taken. In the files of the Nebraska Independent may be found scores of letters from advertising agents, who had been solicited for business, saying: “If you will make your paper an exclusively agricultural journal we will be glad to give you a good line of business, but we cannot patronize it as long as it advocates Populism.” Every reform editor has had the same experience.
Thirteen years ago the agricultural papers everywhere were publishing articles defending Populist principles. Then all at once such articles were seen in their pages no more, and immediately the papers were flooded with high-priced advertising. The religious press was caught in the same trap. It is strange that the devout readers of those papers never once had their suspicions aroused when they saw so many display advertisements of trusts, banks and promotion schemes in their modest little religious journals. Notwithstanding all such schemes, the Nebraska Independent lived and its circulation gradually extended into every state and territory. It became evident that to get rid of it other tactics would have to be employed. To destroy the paper was not the objective. It was to destroy the People’s Party. With the Independent in hostile hands the political fortifications built up by it in Nebraska and other states would be deserted and the Bryan, Belmont, Sheehan and Tom Taggart Democratic Party could walk in and take possession.
The main battle was fought in the Populist state convention August 10, 1904. The proposition to force a fusion with the Democrats under the lead of the most disreputable end of Wall Street, fresh from its victory in St. Louis, on the face of it was most absurd. But the doing of absurd things never ruffles the placid countenance of Mr. Bryan. The idea that there could be any real opposition to his imperial will in Nebraska, aside from the Republican Party, never seemed to enter his mind. Heretofore when Mr. Bryan entered a Democratic or Populist convention, the Fusion Populists and Democrats immediately bowed and worshiped. The only thing that convention had to do was to find out what Mr. Bryan wished and then proceed to do it with all possible haste. It became evident that this convention would have to be handled differently. Mr. Bryan all the winter, spring and summer had been denouncing Judge Parker as a “dishonest candidate, running on a dishonest platform,” and then he had come home from St. Louis, sat down at his desk and the first words that he wrote were: “I shall vote for Parker and Davis.” The Populists remembered how for eight years he had been coming to their conventions, and in his sweet and winning way telling them how noble they were to put principle above party and vote for men of another party if they thought they could advance reform by so doing. Many of them, who had always supported Mr. Bryan since he first appeared on the battlefields of politics, thought that the time had come when he should practice what he preached. Mr. Bryan realized that there was trouble ahead, but it was thought if the Nebraska Independent would support the Bryan plan that a fusion legislature could be elected that would send Mr. Bryan to the United States Senate.
The editor of the Independent was obstreperous. He had had enough of fusion with a party half of which was more disreputably plutocratic than the Republican Party, and whose “irrevocable” rules were so rigid that they required a man, upon a vote of a convention, to come out boldly before the people and advocate a policy he had denounced by pen and voice for eight years. All sorts of schemes were devised to bring this obstreperous editor into subjection to the imperial will of Mr. Bryan. The first was to send all the leading men of the state, from the Chief Justice down, to use persuasion. That failed. Then Mr. Bryan’s personal daily organ in the state tried a new deal. It poured out on Mr. Tibbles the most fulsome flattery day after day. It said if he would only say “fusion” every Populist in the state would obey his command. When all that failed Mr. Bryan came himself. The proposition that he made was that a fusion electoral ticket be put in the field composed of four Populists and four Democrats, Mr. Bryan saying that, “in the event of their election, each party could count the full vote as its own.” The proposition was instantly rejected. Others followed. Mr. Bryan came to the Independent editorial-room four different times, using all his eloquence and persuasive powers to get the editor to consent to and advocate a fusion with a party that had nominated Parker, and whose campaign was put into the hands of the most disreputable gang that ever sought Wall Street favor.
Mr. Bryan gave orders that everything visible, clear to the political horizon, and other things invisible lying behind the floating clouds, should be offered to the Populist convention providing that the Populists would fuse. The battle was fought out on the convention floor. Many Democrats had secured seats as delegates. One Democrat came over from his own convention and answered to the call of Thurston County in the Populist convention which had no delegates present, and voted the fifteen votes that county was entitled to every time for fusion. Out of the hell-broth brewed in that all-night session there floated upon the fusion scum Bryan, Belmont, Sheehan, Tom Taggart and, remember this last name, George W. Berge.
Nearly the whole state ticket was given to the Populists—only three unimportant offices being conceded to the Democrats, and Berge—George Washington Berge—captured the prize infamy, the fusion nomination for Governor. Bryan would allow no other name to be mentioned in the Democratic convention, although there were two or three Democrats there who had spent time and much money during the previous eight years fighting Bryan’s battles for him, and who had expressed a desire to receive a complimentary vote for that office. When Bryan speaks the Nebraska Democrat turns pale.
The Independent was still a thorn in the side of these fusionists. The editor openly declared that he never would vote for or support a Belmont-Bryan-Parker Democrat. Then it was that fusion itch for office and Bryan diplomacy joined forces to destroy the Independent. The plutocratic Republican attacks upon it had been of no avail, and week after week it had proclaimed the doctrines of the People’s Party for ten years. In an open fight against awful odds it had fought battle after battle, sometimes victorious and sometimes defeated, but it fought on. It took fusion treason, it took the work of men who constantly proclaimed themselves Populists, who insisted upon attending Populist conventions while their sole aim was to destroy the People’s Party, to do what all the hosts of plutocracy had failed to do.
As soon as the vote for fusion had been announced in the convention as prevailing, more than half the delegates present—whole counties had been voted for fusion when only one or two delegates were in the city—rose and left. The next morning they hired a hall and discussed the proposition of putting a straight Populist ticket in the field, but when it was remembered that the fusionists had the legal organization and the ticket would have to go on the ballot under some other name than People’s Party the project was abandoned. The result was that 20,000 Populists voted the Republican ticket, 30,000 stayed at home and refused to vote, and a little over 20,000 voted the Populist national ticket. The Senate of the Nebraska Legislature was solidly Republican; the House had only nine fusionists in it. Mr. Bryan saw to it that they all cast their votes for a straight Democrat for United States Senator. All that was necessary to get the fusionists to do that, both those who called themselves Democrats and those who called themselves Populists, was for them to imagine that they heard a far-off rumble that sounded like the voice of Bryan saying: “Vote for a Democrat.”
When the conventions were over and the campaign committees appointed, the fusionists found that it was a difficult thing to make a campaign in Nebraska. Something must be done to get the Independent to fight the battle for them, but the Independent still declared that it would not support a Parker Democrat. Then, sad to relate, the editor of the Independent got taken in himself.
The chairman of the Democratic State Committee, a brother-in-law to Bryan, came to Mr. Tibbles declaring that he represented Mr. Bryan and was speaking in Bryan’s name, and made the following proposition:
If Mr. Tibbles would spend most of his time out of the state during the campaign, and let the Independent support the fusion ticket, all of whose nominees except three were Populists, Mr. Bryan on his part would agree to go to Arizona or Colorado and get sick. He would continue to keep sick until the close of the campaign, so sick that he would not be able to make any political speeches at all. An exception was made in regard to Indiana. It was said that Mr. Bryan had promised to make three speeches in Indiana in support of his old personal friend who was running for Governor in that state, but it was further stipulated that these three speeches should not be political speeches, but repetitions of Mr. Bryan’s lecture on “Ideals.”
Mr. Bryan went to Arizona and sent home a letter saying that he was worse and would not be able to deliver any political speeches during the campaign. That letter was printed in the Lincoln daily papers and was shown to Mr. Tibbles as proof that Mr. Bryan was keeping his contract.
The chairman of the Democratic State Committee went to New York, saw Parker, Sheehan, Belmont, Tom Taggart and the rest of the band of financial and political pirates. He came home with money for campaign expenses. Then Mr. Bryan hired a special train and started out speech-making in Nebraska and in other states. The surprising rapidity with which his lung healed has never been equaled in all the history of medicine. But when the votes were counted it was learned that wherever Mr. Bryan spoke, whether from the rear end of his car, on a platform by the railway side, or in theatre or hall, a tidal wave of Republican votes followed him, although he pleaded with his Democratic hearers to be “regular.” Hundreds of thousands of Democrats listened to this man, who for eight years had been denouncing Wall Street and all its ways, and was now consorting with the most disreputable part of Wall Street, urging them to vote to keep it in power. Humiliated, sad at heart, their idol carrying the banner of the enemy, in the enemy’s ranks, they turned their backs in scorn upon Mr. Bryan, went to the polls and voted the Republican ticket. If they were to have Wall Street and plutocracy, they wanted the old, genuine article, not “something just as good.” The fusionists declared that wherever Watson or Tibbles spoke they made votes for Roosevelt. They did not make one Roosevelt vote where Bryan made a thousand.
Mr. Berge—George Washington Berge—received a large vote for Governor. That was because Mickey, the Republican, who was running for re-election, was cordially hated by the whole Republican Party. Thirty thousand Republicans voted for Berge, and then he was defeated. But Berge is a fusionist. He wants office, and especially the office of Governor of Nebraska.
It seemed necessary, if Mr. Bryan was to prove his undying love for the Democratic Party, to convince all Eastern Democrats that he would forever prove “regular” no matter who was nominated or what the platform was, and it seemed to the fusionists, if they were to have any of the spoils of victory when the national Government was captured, that the People’s Party must be destroyed. It must never hold another state or national convention. They all agreed that the party had done a wonderful work for the nation, that its principles were being everywhere adopted, but it must be crucified, officially pronounced dead and buried, and the first step toward that object was the destruction of the Nebraska Independent.
Mr. Berge is a lawyer. He never has had a day’s experience in a newspaper office. He announced that he would start a paper in Lincoln in opposition to the Independent. Then a proposition was made to the proprietor of the Independent to sell out. A very large price was offered. When the proprietor faced these facts he began to get discouraged. He had grown up in Lincoln. He had associated with these fusionists for years. The fight which he saw in the near future with these men was an unpleasant thing to contemplate. The cost of running a great newspaper plant is large. When it was known that the home advertising would in part be lost, and also a large share of the job work, the moment the editor defied Bryan and the fusionists, the outlook was gloomy. To those whom the Independent had always fought in the city and state were to be added hundreds of others who had passed as friends. And the proprietor became discouraged.
It is somewhat discouraging to go to a convention ostensibly composed of men of your own party and see the most active members of it engaged in a scheme to destroy your party. These have been the conditions in every Populist convention in the state of Nebraska since 1890. The only thing that prevented the party from being destroyed sooner was the Nebraska Independent. The fusionists became more and more convinced of that fact, and the scheme was invented to publish a paper in opposition in the same city, which, while claiming to be Populistic, would work for the destruction of the party. Credit for the invention belongs to George Washington Berge. The hope was entertained that when the People’s Party was destroyed all the Populists would go into the Democratic Party, and George Washington Berge would be Governor and W. J. Bryan United States Senator.
The proprietor of the Independent was bound in the contract transferring to George Washington Berge the title to the paper, not to engage in the business of publishing a reform paper for five years, but the fusionists found that it would be impossible to put any shackles on the editor. He intends to fight on. Just as all the world is beginning to accept Populist principles he does not propose to sheathe his sword and stand by, a passive spectator. The greatest battle of the age is to be fought. He “is going up against” that crowd again.
The columns of the Independent have been an open forum for any man who thought he had something that would benefit humanity. In the columns of the paper he could always voice his sentiments. Besides that, it has been a journal of economics, sociology, philosophy, ethics, finance, single tax, land, Government and all the decent news. Now it has gone into the hands of an ordinary Western lawyer who never read a standard work of authority on any one of these subjects. It is to be a personal organ after the fashion of the one that W. J. Bryan publishes in the same town. W. J. Bryan is the most accomplished orator of the day. He has personal acquaintances in every state and territory. Millions have met and shaken hands with him. George W. Berge has some acquaintances outside of Lancaster County, Nebraska, and besides that, Berge is a Populist engaged in destroying the Populist Party. These are his elements of success.
The Populists of the different states and territories who have been readers of the Independent will in the near future have a place to express their views and read discussions of the great problems that are pressing for solution. We will be heard. For years not a great daily would print a line in defense of the fundamental principles of Populism. Now magazines are making fortunes for their proprietors who have admitted some of these principles to their pages. Some of these magazines have a greater circulation than was ever known before anywhere in the world for monthly periodical literature. The People’s Party is not dead. The Nebraska Independent will rise from its ashes stronger and better than ever before. The vilest, rottenest, worst smelling spot in all the preserves of plutocracy is that place where the fusionist roams, seeking to destroy the organization that gave him the only opportunities of his life.
Pole Baker
BY WILL N. HARBEN
Author of “The Georgians,” “Abner Daniel,” etc.