Kophetua the Thirteenth

by Julian Stafford Corbett

"The which did cause his paine."

The door did not open at once, and Kophetua stood with his arm about his ghostly companion listening to the muttered curses of the men without. There seemed to be something amiss with the lock. Fiercely they rattled the key, and every moment the prisoners expected to hear the bolt fly back.

"See, see," whispered Penelophon, suddenly pointing to the window, "I knew you would save me; why did you frighten me so?"

Kophetua looked up, and saw a stout pole had been thrust in between the bars of the window-grating, and that some one was using it as a lever to try and tear them out.

"Leap out both," cried a low disguised voice outside, "the moment it gives."

The pole strained again and the key grated; and now the shrill voice of the shrivelled Emperor could be heard screaming from his gilded throne and bidding his men make haste. The bars groaned and bent, but they were still tough, and would not give. The lock rattled each moment more savagely; the scream of the Emperor grew more angry; the suspense was becoming almost unendurable, when, with a sudden crash, the whole window-grating fell outwards. There was a sound of feet hurrying away, and then all was silent without.

But now a heavy hammer was clanging with deafening noise upon the broken lock, and between each stroke rose the scream of the frenzied monarch, so piercing that it seemed to Kophetua to half paralyse him, as he grasped the window-sill and strove to draw himself up. It was a desperate struggle, for he was unused to such exercise; but it was done at last, and he sat astride the stone sill, and held out his hands to Penelophon. She seemed quite calm, and looked up in his face trustfully, as he in a fever of excitement began to pull her up. Two hammers were now banging rhythmically on the door, and the din of their ponderous blows was almost incessant, and yet the awful scream of anger was not drowned. But the tough old lock still held; and it was not till Kophetua, more dead than alive, had dropped to the ground, and had caught the beggar-maid in his arms, that the clangour ceased in a deafening crash, and they knew that the door was burst.

They did not stop to hear more. As soon as the gaolers dare tell their frantic monarch of the escape the pursuit would begin. No sooner indeed did her feet touch the ground than Penelophon seized the King's hand, and began running down a labyrinth of tortuous passages as fast as the clinging grave-clothes would allow. The King was hardly less agitated than before. They could hear the shout of the beggars as the pursuit began; but in five minutes all was over, and the King and the beggar-maid ran out hand-in-hand through the great gate by which he had entered.

Still they did not stop. Kophetua could not feel sure after what he had seen of their power and numbers that the beggars would not carry the pursuit beyond the limits of the liberty. So he hurried on still without resting till he had let himself in at the private entrance to the palace gardens. Once inside he threw himself on a bench, exhausted with fatigue and excitement, and the beggar-maid sank at his feet. The adventure was over, and he would think quietly what was next to be done.

The thought seemed hardly framed when Kophetua awoke to the consciousness that he had been asleep. How long he knew not. The dawn was just beginning to glimmer as he opened his eyes, and he started up terror-stricken to see a corpse stretched at his feet. Then he remembered it all, and began to realise his position. It was certainly sufficiently embarrassing. He, the King of Oneiria, was sitting in his own garden with a beggar-maid, dressed like a corpse, in his charge. What was he to do with her? She too had fallen asleep, and was lying outstretched upon her back like an effigy on a tomb. Her arms lay listlessly, with palms upturned, just as they had dropped on either side of her. Her head was resting on the roots of a tree, and was turned gently towards him. Out of the dark masses of her hair, which lay littered over the white grave-clothes, her face glimmered wan and pale in the ashen light. So still and peaceful and deathlike was the picture that, save for the gentle breathing, it might indeed have been the sleep that knows no waking.