“I suppose so,” John said, “and we don’t understand the language enough to be in the fun. Let’s go on tomorrow to your Cousin Helena’s place and leave the Alarians to settle their difficulties without us.”
“Yes,” I agreed. I was afraid that he would want to stay. “She’ll be glad enough to see someone from home, at least she ought to be. She hasn’t for a long enough time. We can’t very well go on today. It’ll be too late by the time we’ve had dinner.”
The whole city seemed to be alive with the sound of the bells. And, then, quite suddenly, they stopped. Not quite all at once. The Palace bell stopped first, and then the Cathedral bell, and then all the others, one after another. In the odd silence that followed we looked at each other in something like alarm, for the populace was silent, too, and a silent populace may so easily be a dangerous one. In a moment, though, they all began shouting, in cumulative waves of noise, louder and more frantically. Little groups formed around leaders. Speakers began haranguing all who would listen, and if the silence had been ominous the din was enormously more so.
“Do not be alarmed,” our bearded giant counselled. “The knell has been tolled for King Bela. Now you will hear, they will ring again for the new King. Prince Conrad has become King Conrad the Fourth.”
As he spoke a carillon sounded from the Cathedral, playing a fine marching hymn. Voices took up the melody, the whole square swayed and sang, the men’s heads were uncovered, many people dropped to their knees, others shouted above the singing.
The King was dead. The city was singing a greeting to the new King, and praying that his reign might be a happy and a prosperous one. I remembered, as I sat listening to those bells, all the troubles of Alaria in the last years. Yolanda, the Queen Mother, was a German; an energetic, politically-minded woman who had ruled her husband and bettered the condition of the country relentlessly, without ever winning anything from her adopted people but dislike. Her husband, and her elder son, and a daughter, had been assassinated seven or eight years before. I counted back. It was after I had seen Helena in Paris. Someone, how or why I could not remember, had thrown a bomb. Bela, the younger son, had become King, with his mother as Regent until he was eighteen. Then he had ruled badly and erratically, partly dominated by his mother, whose unpopularity he shared and augmented by his cruelty and by refusing to marry. He was not more than twenty-five or six, but already he had become a figure of motley reputation, his name linked with that of a half dozen ladies of prominence in their chosen profession. He was an irresponsible and rather savage wastrel. I could just remember having seen a few mentions of a Prince Conrad, the heir to the throne, who was reputed to be on extremely bad terms with his cousin the King, and was consequently living more or less in retirement. Now the bells were calling him from obscurity to a throne. I wondered if he knew yet that he was a king.
The carillons ceased, one by one, as the tolling had ceased, and a new bell began sounding from the Cathedral. The ringing seemed to have been going on for hours. I felt deafened, tired. I glanced at my watch. It was quarter past four, an hour since the first bell had tolled.
The man beside us explained, “Now they will proclaim Conrad King, from the steps of the Cathedral. If he is in the city he will appear. Wait only, you will see it all.”
We waited, of course. We had to, since all the others apparently wanted to see it all, too. Such part of the crowd as could get near enough climbed on our car. We watched while more minutes went by.
The other bells were still, only the great bell of the Cathedral boomed on and on. Then through the windows of the bridge we saw the silhouettes of several figures pass. A murmur ran through the crowd.