"I ask for silence," said Nesimir. "The fortunes of Kosnovia tremble in the balance. You will be given ample time for discussion; but hear me first. I have said that the republican idea has been mooted in all seriousness. We, in common with the rest of humanity, have been horror stricken by recent events in our beloved land. Our reigning dynasty has been blotted out of existence. There is no heir of the Obrenovitch line. Were we, the representatives of the people, to declare in favor of a King, we should naturally turn to the other royal house of our own blood. We should send for a Delgrado. Gentlemen, here stands Alexis Delgrado——"
He could go no further. A yell of sheer amazement came from all parts of the crowded chamber. Ministers, Senators, Representatives, joined in that bewildered roar. Those who were sitting rose; those in the back benches stood on the seats in order to gaze over the heads in front. Men shouted and glared and turned to shout again at one another; but through all the turmoil Alec faced them, smiling and imperturbable, and, at what he judged to be the right moment—for that volcanic outburst must be given time to exhaust itself—he placed his one hand on the President's shoulder and with the other signaled his desire to be heard.
Again he placed implicit confidence in the all powerful element of curiosity. He knew full well that these emotional Serbs could not hear his name unmoved, while the extraordinary racial difference between himself and every other man in the Assembly must have made a strong appeal to their dramatic instincts. And again was he justified; for the mere expression of his wish to address them was obeyed by an instant hushing of the storm.
"My fellow countrymen," he began, "you whom I expect to count among my friends ere this day is out——"
Another wave of sound ran through the hall. Men still wondered; but their hearts were beating high, and a new note had come into their voices. He was speaking their own language, speaking it as one to the manner born, speaking it as no Austrian could ever speak it, since harsh, dominant German can never reproduce the full Slavonic resonance. Alec, but yesterday Joan's typical idler, had fathomed some uncharted deep in the mysterious art of swaying his fellow men. He realized at once that this rumble of astonishment was the very best thing that could have happened. He waited just long enough for the sympathetic murmur to merge into nods and whisperings, then he continued:
"It is true that I am here as a Delgrado. I come as a candidate, not a claimant. It rests with you whether I shall remain among you as Alexis III., King of Kosnovia, or go back to my father and tell him that our people are anxious to try a new form of Government. Of course," and here Alec beamed on them most affably, "there are other alternatives. You may elect to put me in jail, or throw me into the Danube, or swing me from a gibbet as a warning to all would-be monarchs and other malefactors. But there is one thing you cannot do. You can never persuade me to wade to a throne through the blood of innocent people! And that is why I am here, and not in the company of the wretched conspirators now skulking behind the walls of the Schwarzburg."
Then a hurricane of cheers made the windows rattle, and a deputy from the Shumadia, "the heart of Kosnovia," a bigchested, deep voiced forester, sent forth a trumpet shout that reached every ear:
"Hola! That's a King! Look at him!"
From that instant Alec was as surely King of Kosnovia as the German Emperor is King of Prussia. Of course, he had to talk till he was hoarse, and wring strong hands till he was weary, and Stampoff had to make more than one gruff speech, and eloquent Senators and Deputies had to proclaim the inviolate nature of the new constitution, and Alec had to sign it amid a scene of riotous enthusiasm. But these things were the aftermath of a harvest reaped by half a dozen sentences. The Shumadia man's simple phrases became a formula. Men laughed and said:
"Hola! That's a King! Look at him!"