Kophetua the Thirteenth

by Julian Stafford Corbett

So saying, he swept the white veil from the figure at his side, and a strange low murmur passed over the throng, as though some witchcraft had struck them dumb. However the more violent members had been tempted to resent the Kings threatening speech, the vision which was suddenly flashed upon them paralysed every other thought. Mlle de Tricotrin's education had not been such as to make her under-estimate the importance of the part she had to play at the supreme moment. It has been said it was the custom of the country for the would-be queen to be presented to the House armed with every device that could enhance her charms. Mlle de Tricotrin knew the custom well, and took advantage of the opportunity the King had afforded her of doing justice to his forethought. Kophetua had had every confidence in the personal impression she would make; but even he started and held his breath to look on the figure he had just unveiled. For a moment he was shocked that his wife should so have made herself an eye-feast for the gaping throng, but his pain gave place immediately to pleasure to see how her beauty triumphed.

Indeed, it was dazzling beyond expression. Everything about her voluptuous costumes to which the prudes had objected before was this day boldly exaggerated. The family diamonds, to which through all his troubles the Marquis had clung, shone upon her white arms and breast, and flashed out from her luxuriant hair. The soft thin robe that wrapped her seemed meant to display rather than to hide. As she raised her beautiful eyes, that they might see her loveliness to the full, a burning flush overspread her face, and seemed to redouble her beauty. It was more than the strength and boldness to which she had trusted could endure. A sudden shame to think how she stood there alone, exposed before that throng of men, overwhelmed her. Too late she learned how Kophetua's love had changed her. The devouring eyes of the ravished throng were piercing her like knives. She began to tremble violently, and Kophetua seized her hand.

"Kneel," he whispered, "and be brave a little while longer."

A renewed murmur of admiration arose, as with matchless grace she knelt on the cushion which Kophetua had pushed to her feet. The new pose, and the accomplished sweep she gave her drapery as she assumed it, inflamed the assembly anew. A confused murmur arose; and in the midst General Dolabella, unable any longer to control himself, sprang from his chair, clasped the kneeling beauty in his arms, and kissed her heartily on the lips.

"Rise!" he cried, beside himself with excitement at the prospect of an end to his political anxieties, and the intoxication of the salute. "Rise, my dear young lady, crowned with a people's kiss!"

She sprang from his embrace to her lover's arms, and, hiding her face on his breast, burst into tears. In a moment he had veiled his treasure again from further profanation, and even as he did so the assembly found voice. The Oneirians, it has been said, were an imaginative people, and the scene they had just witnessed took them by storm. With one accord they shouted, "Long live Kophetua and his Queen of Kisses!" nor did they cease till every man of them had filed by to claim his privilege of saluting the new Queen's hand. The ceremony was long, but Héloise endured it well. For, with Kophetua's arm about her, she soon recovered her courage; and, unveiling her blushing face, she looked so radiant with happiness, and smiled with such ravishing sweetness on each member as he came, that there was not one who would not there and then have died for her sake.

In a triumph of loyal enthusiasm, the King and Queen-elect rode back to the palace, and there were married in the chapel. The ceremony was necessarily a quiet one. It was attended only by the great officers of state and the personal adherents of the bride and bridegroom. Pertinax was there in his new capacity of Gentleman of the King's Bedchamber, and Penelophon radiant and happy to think she was chief Bower-lady to the Queen.

After the ceremony, when Pertinax attended the King to his privy chamber, he announced that he had a report to make. He had taken the liberty, he said, while the King was at the House, of leading his own troop of gendarmes into the precincts of St. Lazarus, to complete the work for which he had been originally summoned.

"I discovered the Beggar Emperor," he said, "on his throne in the Guildhall, and hanged him in front of it. I trust your majesty will forgive me. He behaved disgracefully to my wife."

Kophetua winced; he felt he had deserved hanging on the same charge, but consoled himself to think how devoted a substitute Penelophon had found, and smilingly commended his favourite's zeal.