Kophetua the Thirteenth

by Julian Stafford Corbett

At the further end was a raised platform, supporting a great high-backed chair which was ablaze with gilding and colour lately renewed. It formed the strangest contrast to the dirt and gloom and rottenness with which it was surrounded, but even stranger was the incongruity of its occupant. For upon it sat a little brown wizened man, so old that he hardly seemed alive, except in his restless eyes. His long white hair and beard straggled thinly over him and formed his only covering, except for a filthy waist-cloth, and a chaplet of gold-pieces which served for a crown. He was not sitting in the European manner, but had drawn up his skinny brown legs on to the gilded seat, and was squatting like an Oriental. Indeed, the whole scene savoured rather of the East than the West. The architecture was Moorish, and the tawdry throne was framed in a horseshoe arch. Turbans were more numerous than any other head-dress, and the front rows of the throng squatted on the dirty floor watching unmoved the scene that was being enacted before them.

Yet it was moving enough. In the midst before the throne was an open grave, newly dug in the mud floor. Beside it two men were stripping as though for a fight. As soon as they were ready they stood up knife in hand and salaamed to the Emperor, for such Kophetua knew he must be. Then came a shrill sound from the throne, like the voice of a heron, and every murmur was hushed.

"Know all men," it cried, "why the High Court of St. Lazarus sits to-night. It sits for treason to the ancient guild; it sits on one who is unchaste with the Gentiles. It sits on Penelophon, daughter of Ramlak. To-night she was found in the arms of her lover who came from the city. It is sin worthy of death. It is worthy the worst of deaths. Yet Dannok her brother maintains the charge is false, and will do battle for his sister with him on whom the lot of blood has fallen, the champion of St. Lazarus."

Kophetua's heart sank within him as the monotonous words fell slowly on his ear. Something told him that Penelophon must be the girl he had come to rescue; but how to do it now! With terrible anxiety he watched the combatants take their places opposite each other. Behind each of them were two others, each armed, like the champions, with long knives. It was an awful scene to one who had lived the life of Kophetua, where all that was ugly or painful had long been refined away. The heat and stench made him feel sick and weak, so that the open grave and the knives, and the brown old Emperor crouching in the gilded throne, seemed to weigh him down like a horrible dream.

"Let Penelophon be brought forth to stand her trial!"

The shrill voice died away again. A door opened by the daïs, there was a movement in the throng, and breathless with dread Kophetua watched to see what would come. The crowd opened, and his life seemed to freeze up with horror. He tried to cry out, but no sound came. He shut his eyes to keep out the sight; but it was useless, he could not choose but look. There, between two hideous hags, walked what seemed the corpse of the girl he had tried to save. He knew her again though she was so changed. They had washed her clean as the body that is laid out for burial; they had wrapped her in grave-clothes, and her luxuriant dark hair hung down, combed and silky, over the white shroud like a pall. Yet he knew her. That wan face, the dark, trusting eyes he could never forget. It was she whom he had tried to befriend. It was she whom he had deserted. This was the end of his first attempt. She was to die the worst of deaths. She was to be buried alive!

And all depended on the skill of the stripling who was already sparring before the champion of St. Lazarus. They were long before they closed, and Kophetua watched breathlessly. Suddenly they were together and there was a flash and clink of steel, and the lad sprang back. On his shoulder was a streak of blood; but before the King had well seen it, the two men behind leaped upon the wounded boy and plunged their knives into his back. Such was the fierce law of combat in the liberties of St. Lazarus. The first blood showed the right, and death was the portion of him who fought for the wrong.

It was over, and Penelophon must die. Without ceremony the seconds seized her brother's naked body and threw it into the open grave. Then the two hags began to drag their charge to it in her turn. She looked round wildly, her eyes staring with terror. Kophetua, in his intense anxiety, had worked himself to the front; and their eyes met. She started, and her horror changed to the look of wonder he had seen when first her eyes opened and gazed into his. He knew she was thinking her guardian angel was come again. It was more than he could bear. Forgetting everything, he leaped down into the open space, tore her from the hags, and stood with the shroud-clad figure in his arms, bidding her fear nothing.

"It is the Gentile lover," proclaimed the same monotonous cry of the shrivelled Emperor. "He has come to lie in the same grave with his shameless love. Seize him, and make ready!"