CHAPTER XI.
At the moment at which Norman Benedict had come to the decision recorded at the close of the preceding chapter, a ceremony unprecedented in the history of the New World had reached a crisis in Westchester County. Rudolph, the lodge-keeper, who was more thoroughly Americanized than his fellow-Rexanians—perhaps because of his long association with the stray urchins who haunted the lodge gate—had characterized this function to his fellow-conspirators as the “putting of a disorderly king through the third degree.”
Rudolph’s phrase, however, was not quite accurate, for Prince Carlo of Rexania, far from being disorderly, had become convinced, after thoroughly investigating his environment and weighing the possibility of escape, that his only hope lay in a diplomatic concession, for the time being, to his captors’ wishes. It was not lack of courage and daring that had caused him to reach this conclusion. He possessed not only a bold heart but a clear head. But he fully realized that at the present stage of the game his opponents held all the trumps. Examining his belongings, after his luggage had reached his room, he found that all his money had been taken from him. Even the loose change that he had carried with him on the night of his capture had been removed from his pockets while he slept.
Just how far he had been carried from New York he did not know. He realized clearly enough, however, that, without money and unacquainted with the customs of the country, he would be in a most embarrassing position even if he could elude his vigilant guards and escape to the city. He had sworn to his father to preserve his incognito, and to keep from Rexanian consular and diplomatic agents the knowledge of his absence from his native land. Prince Carlo was at heart a loyal reactionist, and, having pledged his royal word to his royal father, it never occurred to him that circumstances might arise that would make the breaking of his promise justifiable. He possessed a kingly regard for truth that was absurdly quixotic, and which hampered him in dealing with men who had had considerable experience in American politics.
Shortly after three o’clock on the afternoon that found Ludovics too loquacious and a newspaper reporter quite worthy of his profession, the balcony jutting out from Prince Carlo’s sleeping apartments and overlooking the Sound served as a stage for a one-act melodrama that might find its place, perhaps as a curtain-raiser to a tragedy.
Kings there have been who sought the New World as an asylum from the dangers that surrounded them at home. Crowned heads in Europe have bowed in sorrow over events that have taken place on this side of the Atlantic. Wherever monarchs rule, the very name of America sends a shudder through the palace that shakes the throne itself. But never before, in the strange, weird history of human progress, had a captive king gazed at the blue waters of Long Island Sound and listened to the burning words of those who denied his divine right to rule.
“It is well,” said Posadowski, glancing kindly at Prince Carlo, who was seated in an old-fashioned easy-chair, around which the arch-conspirator and his colleagues, Posnovitch, Rukacs, and Rudolph, had grouped themselves, “it is well that we should come to an understanding as quickly as possible. And, before we go a step farther, let me reiterate and emphasize what I have told you once before, that there is not one of us here who does not feel kindly toward you as a man. We are determined that no harm shall befall your person. But we are bound, also, by another oath. You must know by this time what it is. We have sworn that you, Prince Carlo, shall never mount the throne of Rexania.”
The youth, whose clear-cut face was pale and drawn, gazed musingly at the blue waters that grew gloriously cerulean as the autumnal sun crept westward. Brushing the black curling locks back from his troubled brow, he seemed to invoke the God of his fathers to give him strength in his hour of trial.