So heartily did the whole population throw itself into the work of preparing to receive the distinguished visitor, that everything had been in readiness a full hour, when, in the early afternoon, the fishing-smack finally made her landing. During this long hour, the whole town watched the struggles of the little boat with the baffling wind and waves. Everybody was in a state of delighted expectancy. An Emperor’s Envoy does not call on one every day, and his coming offered an excuse for merry-making such as the prosperous and easy-going people of Ausserland were only too willing to seize.
So, when the boat made fast to the wharf, the signal guns boomed, and the people cheered again and again, and threw their caps in the air when the King’s Envoy appeared from the cabin and returned the salute of the Head Burgess.
And, indeed, the King’s Envoy was a most satisfactory and gratifying spectacle of grandeur. He was so grand and so gorgeous generally that he might have been taken for the hereditary Prince, himself, had it not been well known that the color of the hereditary Prince’s nose was unchangeable—being what the ladies call a fast red—whereas, this gentleman’s face was as white as the Head Burgess’s frilled shirtfront. But his clothes! So splendid a uniform was never seen before. Some of it was of cobalt blue and some of it of Prussian blue, and some of it of white; and, all over, in every possible place, it was decorated with a gold lace and gold buttons and silken frogs and tassels, and every other device of beauty that ingenuity could suggest, with complete disregard of cost.
And then His Serene Highness, Herr Graf Maximilian von Bummelberg, of Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, stepped on the wharf and graciously introduced himself to the representative of the people, who grasped him warmly by the hand with a cordiality untempered by awe; and the people shouted again as they saw the two great men together; and not one suspected the anguish hidden by that martial outside. For, of course, as such things will happen, the Envoy selected to carry the Emperor’s proclamation to this marine principality was a man who had never been to sea in his life, and who never would have made a sailor if he had been kept at sea until he was pickled. And for eighteen hours the unfortunate messenger of good tidings had been tossed about in the dark, close, malodorous little cabin of a fishing-smack on the breast of a chopping sea, beating up against a strong head wind. And, oh! had he not been sick? Sick, sick, sick, and then again sick—so sick, indeed, that he had had to hide his gorgeous clothes under a sailor’s dirty tarpaulin. This made him feel sicker yet; but, though in the course of the trip he lost his respect for mankind, including himself, for royalty, for religion, for life and for death, he still retained a vital spark of respect for his beautiful clothes. He stood motionless upon the wharf and returned the compliments of the Head Burgess in a husky voice that sounded in his own ears strange and far off. The Herr Graf Maximilian von Bummelberg, of Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, Envoy of his Imperial Majesty, was waiting for the ground to steady itself, for it was behaving as it had never behaved before, to his knowledge. It rolled and it heaved, it flew up and it nearly hit him in the face, then it slipped away from under him and rocked back again sidewise. Never having been on an island before, the King’s Envoy might have thought that the land was really afloat if he had not seen that the wine in the silver cup which the Burgess was presenting to him was swinging around like everything else without spilling a drop.
Things began to settle a little after the Envoy had drunk the wine, and when he had found that there was actually a carriage to take him to the Town Hall, he brightened up wonderfully. He was much pleased to see also that the Town Hall was solidly built of brick, and that it was to a stone balcony that he was led to read his proclamation to the people. Grasping the balustrade firmly with one hand, he read to the surging crowd before him—he had heard of surging crowds before, but now he saw one that really did surge—the message of his Imperial Master. The proclamation was exceedingly brief, except for the recital of the titles of the Emperor. The body of the document ran as follows:
“I announce to my faithful, loyal and devoted subjects of the honorable principality of Ausserland, that hereafter, by my favor and pleasure, the use of the Third Figure in the Cotillion is graciously granted to them without further restriction. Done, under my hand and seal, this first day of July, in the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and ninety-two.”
That was all. The people listened attentively and cheered enthusiastically. Then the Envoy handed the proclamation and his credentials to the Head Burgess, with a bow and a flourish, and signified his intention of returning at once by the way he had come. Nor could any entreaties prevail upon him even to stay to
the banquet already spread. He told the Burgesses, with many compliments and assurances of his lofty esteem, that he had another principality to notify before six o’clock the next morning, and that the business of his Imperial Master admitted of not so much as a moment’s delay. The truth of the matter, however, he kept to himself. For one thing, he could not have gazed upon food without disastrous results. For another, he was experiencing an emotion which in any other than a military breast would have been fear. He had but one wish in the world, and that was to get back to the mainland, the breeze being in his favor going back and promising a quicker passage. Indeed it was with difficulty that he repressed a mad desire to ask the Head Burgess whether the island ever fetched loose and floated further out, or sank to the bottom. However, he maintained his dignity to the last; and, a half an hour later, as the people watched the fishing-smack with the Imperial ensign sail forth upon the dancing sea, bearing the Herr Graf Maximilian von Bummelberg, of Schloss Bummelfels in the Schwarzwald, they all agreed that, for a short visit, he made a very satisfactory King’s Envoy.