Punctual to the minute, we came into the London terminus. As on the occasion of that former adventure, we posted off to Long's quiet family hotel, with the exception of Joseph Jocelyn De Vere Vane-Anstruther, who confided his kit-bag to the care of his man Kelly, and adjured him to see that a decent room was found for him, while he went "to rout out Alec at the Continental before they fired the beggar out."
"Tell him we leave Charing Cross at ten-forty in the morning," said Fitz. "That will give me time to see what can be done in the way of papers, although as far as Illyria is concerned, diplomatic relations are pretty sure to have been suspended."
Driving again to Long's Hotel, I was regaled with the remembrance of our former journey; of the incident of the cab which followed us through the November slush; of the weird sequel; of that long night of alarums and excursions, which yet was no more than a prelude to a chaotic vista of events.
I recalled the drive from Ward's with Coverdale; the slow-drawn tragi-comedy of suspense; the waiting-room at the Embassy, the plunge up the stairs, the charming player of Schumann, the presentation to her Royal Highness. I recalled the passages with the Ambassador and their terrible issue; the drive with the Princess to the Savoy; the episode of the pink satin at which I could now afford to laugh. Again I recalled our bizarre visit to Bryanston Square; our reception by my Uncle Theodore, his "Fear nothing" and his still more curious prevision of that which was to come to pass. I recalled our dash for this same Grand Central railway station and the merciful shattering of our hopes midway. I recalled the Scotland Yard inspector with the light moustache, the hand of the Princess guiding me through the traffic, the cool-fingered doctor, the bowl of crimson water at which I did not care to look. Finally, in this panoramic jumble of wild occurrences, the memory of which I should carry to the grave, I recalled that noble, complex, misguided emblem of our species, the Victor of Rodova, the clear-sighted, subtle yet great-hearted hero of an epoch in the destiny of nations; the father of his people, whom his children had slain even while the hand of death was already upon him.
I pictured him lying riddled with bullets on the steps of his palace at Blaenau, riddled with the bullets he had so often despised. Even from the brief account in the evening papers it was clear that the end of the Victor of Rodova had been heroic.
The smouldering volcano had burst into flame at last. A tax-gatherer had been slain in an outlying district. At the signal, a whole province, at the back of one half-patriot, half-brigand, rose up, marched armed to the Capital, and called upon the King at his palace to grant a charter to the people. The King met them alone, as was his custom, on the steps of his palace, and having listened with kindness and patience to their demands, made the reply "that he would take steps to procure the charter for his people if the peccant son who had slain a faithful servant treacherously was rendered to justice."
Whether the King deliberately misread the temper of his subjects, or whether he overestimated the personal power it was his custom to exert, was hard to determine, but in this reply which was so strangely deficient in that high political wisdom in which no man of his age excelled him, lay his doom. The leader of the armed mob, who himself had slain the tax-gatherer, laughed in the King's, face, and immediately riddled him with bullets. And as the King fell, the burghers of Blaenau poured in at the gates, the soldiers revolted because their wages were over-due, possession was taken of the Castle; and the long-deferred republic was proclaimed.
"And where were the aristocracy and the supporters of the monarchy while all this was happening?" I asked, as we sat in the lounge at the hotel having a final drink before turning in.
"Reading between the lines of the dispatch," said Fitz, "I should be inclined to say that they had conspired to throw Ferdinand over at the last and to let in the people. I can reconcile the facts on no other hypothesis."
"Why should they?"