We were highly indebted during our stay at Isola Rossa to the General, who, being detained there by the business of his new fortifications, exerted himself that we should not lack a single comfort, and seemed to inspire a like solicitude in his subjects. I call the Corsicans his subjects since (if the reflection may be permitted) I never met a man who carried a more authentic air of kingliness—and I am not forgetting my own dear brother-in-law. Alive, these two men met face to face but once; and Priske, who witnessed the meeting, yet understood but a bare word or two of what was said, will have it that for dignity of bearing the General would not compare with his master. The honest fellow may be right; for certainly no one could speak with John Constantine and doubt that here was one of a line of kings. Nevertheless to me (a matter-of-fact man), Paoli appeared scarcely less imposing in person, and withal bore himself with a businesslike calm which, in a subtle way I cannot describe, seemed to tolerate the others, yet suggest that, beside his own purpose, theirs were something unreal. As an Englishman I should say that he felt the weight of public opinion behind him all the while, without which in these days the kingliest nature must miss something of gravity. Yet he has proved more than once that no public man can be more quixotic, upon occasion.
It distressed me to find that the Queen Emilia would have none of his courtesies; as I think it distressed him, though he comported himself perfectly. She rejected, and not too graciously, his offer to restore her to her palace at Casalabriva and secure her there against all enemies. From the first she had determined, failing her son's return, to sail with us to England; and sail she did.
But from the first I doubted her reaching it alive. Her sufferings had worn her out, and it is a matter of dispute between Dom Basilio (who administered the last sacrament), and me whether or no her eyes ever saw the home to which we carried her. They were open, and she was certainly breathing, when we made the entrance of Helford river; for we had lifted her couch upon deck and propped her that she might catch the earliest glimpse of Constantine above the trees. They were open when we dropped anchor, but she was as certainly dead. She lies buried in the private chapel of the house, disused during my brother-in-law's lifetime, but since restored and elaborately decorated by our Trappist guests. A slab of rose-pink Corsican granite covers her, and is inscribed with the words, "Orate pro anima Emiliae, Corsicorum Reginae," the date of her death, and beneath it a verse which I took to be from the Vulgate until Parson Grylls quarrelled with Dom Basilio over it—
"CRAS AMET QVI NVNQVAM AMAVIT QVIQVE AMAVIT CRAS AMET."
As I have said, I had parted with all hope to see my nephew again: and it but confirmed my despair when I received a letter from General Paoli with news that the Prince Camillo had been assassinated; for neither his sister nor Prosper had said word to me of the young man's treachery, and I concluded that they had bound themselves to rescue him, an unwilling prisoner. In our last brief leave-taking on the island, Prosper had confided to me certain wishes of his concerning the house at Constantine, and the disposal of his estate; wishes of which I need only say here that they obliged me after a certain interval to get his death "presumed" (as the phrase is), and for that purpose to ride up to London and seek counsel with our lawyer, Mr. Knox.
I arrived in London early in the second week of November, 1760—a few days after the decease of our King George II.; and, my business with Mr. Knox drawing to a conclusion, it came into my head to procure a ticket and go visit the Prince's chamber, near the House of Peers, where his Majesty's body lay in state. This was on the very afternoon of the funeral, that would start for the Abbey after nightfall, and at Westminster I found a throng already gathered in the mud and murk. In the chambre ardente, which was hung with purple, a score of silver lamps depended from the roof around a tall purple canopy, under which the corpse reposed in its open coffin, flanked with six immense silver candelabra. Between the candelabra and at the head and foot of the coffin stood six gigantic soldiers of the guard, rigid as statues, with bowed heads and arms reversed. Only their eyes moved, and I dare say that I stared at them in something like terror. Certainly a religious awe held me as the pressure of the sightseers carried me forth from the doors again and into the street, where I wedged myself into the crowd, and waited for the procession. By this time a fog had rolled up from the river, and the foot-guards who lined the road had begun to light their torches. Behind them were drawn up the horse-guards, their officers erect in saddle, with naked sabres and heavy scarves of crape. There amid the sounds of minute guns, and of bells tolling I must have waited a full hour before the procession came by—the fifes, the muffled drums, the yeomen of the guard staggering with the great coffin, the pall-bearers and peers walking two and two, with pages bearing their heavy trains. All this I watched as it went by, and with a mind so shaken that a hand from behind had plucked twice or thrice at my elbow before I was aware that any one claimed my attention. Then, turning with a moisture in my eyes—for the organ had begun to sound within the abbey—I found myself staring past the torch of a foot-guard and into the face of my nephew, risen from the dead! He was haggard, unkempt in his hair and dress, and (I think) had been fasting for a long while without being aware of his hunger. He drew me back and away from the crowd; but when I had embraced him, it seemed that to all my eager questions he had nothing to answer.
"I was starting for Cornwall, to-morrow," he said. "Shall we travel together?" And then, as though painfully recollecting, he passed a hand over his forehead and added, "I have walked half-way across Europe. I am a good walker by this time."
"We will hire horses, to be sure," said I, finding nothing better to say.
The age, the lines in his young face cut me to the heart, and I longed to ask concerning the Princess, but dared not.
"Horses? Ah, yes, to be sure, I come back to riches. Nay, my dear uncle, you are going to tell me that the estates are mortgaged deep as ever—I know. But allow me to tell you there is all the world's difference between poverty that is behindhand with its interest, and poverty that has to trust God for its next meal."