'My royal master has a way of doing what he chooses without regard to the opinions of private individuals,' was Monck's answer; and it was given in a tone which effectually closed the conversation.
CHAPTER XIX.
A DARING PLOT.
In due course the travellers reached the country of Sedenia. They were met upon—or rather over—its borders by the ruler of the realm, King Agrando. He was accompanied by his chief councillor, Kazzaro—otherwise the Ogre—Gorondo his chief General, and his principal officers of State. He also had with him a number of war-airships of various sizes.
Under his conduct the travellers passed on to his capital, the city of Dyrania, a rambling town of considerable size, built upon the slopes of a high mountain and overlooking a large lake.
The visitors left their airships, and took up their abode for the time being in suites of apartments assigned to them for their use in the royal palace.
Here King Agrando dispensed his hospitality with a sort of semi-barbaric dignity. To Gerald, in particular, as may be imagined, it seemed a curious thing to find himself attending his Court as a guest. It cannot be said that it was a pleasant experience, and he entered into it with very mixed feelings.
So far as the outward conduct of his host went, however, he had nothing to complain of. He had come there with Prince Alondra and Monck, King Ivanta's special representative; and he, Mr Armeath, and Jack, were treated upon that footing with the strictest regard to everything that courtesy and etiquette required. At the same time, try as he would, he could not feel exactly comfortable. Every time he attended any function, and saw before him King Agrando and his chief officers, there came back to him the memory of that time when he had been brought before those same men as a helpless prisoner, and treated with contumely and insult. His cheeks would flush, and the hot blood rush through his veins even now, as he recalled how Kazzaro had prodded and pommelled him as a farmer might a bullock offered for sale, and remembered the sinister and forbidding aspect of the whole crowd as they gazed upon him.
Still, so far as they were concerned, all this might have been a mere dream. Nothing in their behaviour showed that they even recollected it. The king, indeed, in a certain fashion of his own, seemed to wish to convey to Gerald that he desired the whole 'regrettable incident' to be forgotten.
As King Agrando plays an important part in this history, some further particulars concerning him may be given here.