‘The case is surrounded with difficulties,’ answered Swami reflectively. ‘If thou withdraw the prosecution, the defenders would persist in its being gone through. Sadbag, and Mercia’s counsel would not miss giving the evidence they have in store, under any consideration. Her counsel has decidedly made up his mind that nothing shall induce him to let the case collapse. He will plead, if thou withdraw, that his client’s character is at stake, and must be cleared by suitable investigation of the charge. Besides, the charge is thine no longer: it is in the hands of the Public Prosecutor.’
‘I will be no witness for him,’ cried Felicitas, a new idea having crossed his mind. ‘This night urgent affairs of state shall summon me to Berlin. Good-bye, Swami, for the present. We shall see whether thy soul-reading crystal plate has discovered to us the false or the true.’
‘Will thy Majesty be absent from the Great Test Trial next Tuesday?’ inquired Swami, with a view of reminding him of the date of that event.
‘By all above us, no,’ emphatically ejaculated Felicitas, whose ideas and recollections were in a decided jumble. The Emperor, if he be alive, must without doubt, be present at the Tournament.
‘I do not see how it could legally take place without me; for the king, whose realms are in dispute, is ever deemed the chiefest witness of the contest.
‘I have ample time; for by to-morrow night Mercia’s cause will have been heard and fully disposed of; there are still a few days left for the scandal to blow over, before the 1st of May, when I will appear in my proper place, and fulfil the duties that belong to my royal state.’
‘How convenient to be a king, and know naught of the penalties of wrong-doing. A meaner mortal would be punished for perjury in such a case! But here ’twill be glossed over, and the Emperor’s clemency enlarged upon by his counsel,’ thought Swami, as he conducted the monarch to the great doors, outside which his carriage stood in readiness.
CHAPTER X
‘Whence all this strange attraction? ’Tis Nature’s law,
Which irresistibly impels and leads