“You will be there, of course. I shall be there! What a voice she has! Whether we believe what she says or not, we must hear,—and hearing, we must follow. Where shall we drink in the sweet Oracle this time?”
“At the People’s Assembly Rooms,” responded Thord; “But remember, Zouche, she does not speak till nine o’clock. That means that you will be unfit to listen!”
“You think so?” responded Zouche airily, and leaning on Thord he stumbled onward, the two passing close in front of the doorway where Pasquin Leroy stood concealed. “But I am more ready to understand wisdom when drunk, than when sober, my Sergius! You do not understand. I am a human eccentricity—the result of an amour between a fiend and an angel! Believe me! I will listen to Lotys with all my devil-saintly soul,—you will listen to her with all your loving, longing heart—and with us two thus attentive, the opinions of the rest of the audience will scarcely matter! How the street reels! How the old moon dances! So did she whirl pallidly when Antony clasped his Egyptian Queen, and lost Actium! Remember the fate of Antony, Sergius! Kingdoms would have been seized and controlled by men such as you are, long before now—if there had not always been a woman in the case—a Cleopatra—or a Lotys!”
Still laughing foolishly, he reeled onwards, Sergius Thord half-supporting, half-leading him, with grave carefulness and brotherly compassion. They were soon out of sight; and Pasquin Leroy, leaving his dark hiding-place, crossed the bridge with an alert step, and mounted a steep street leading to the citadel. From gaps between the tall leaning houses a glimpse of the sea, silvered by the dying moonlight, flashed now and again; and in the silence of the night the low ripple of small waves against the breakwater could be distinctly heard. A sense of holy calm impressed him as he paused a moment; and the words of an old monkish verse came back to him from some far-off depth of memory:
Lord Christ, I would my soul were clear as air,
With only Thy pure radiance falling through!
He caught his breath hard—there was a smarting sense as of tears in his eyes.
“So proudly throned, and so unloved!” he muttered. “Yet,—has not the misprisal and miscomprehension been merited? Whose is the blame? Not with the People, who, despite the prophet’s warning, ‘still put their trust in princes’—but with the falsity and hollowness of the system! Sovereignty is like an old ship stuck fast in the docks, and unfit for sailing the wide seas—crusted with barnacles of custom and prejudice,—and in every gale of wind pulling and straining at a rusty chain anchor. But the spirit of Change is in the world; a hurrying movement that has wings of fire, and might possibly be called Revolution! It is better that the torch should be lighted from the Throne than from the slums!”
He went on his way quickly,—till reaching the outer wall of the citadel, he was challenged by a sentinel, to whom he gave the password in a low tone. The man drew back, satisfied, and Leroy went on, mounting from point to point of the cliff, till he reached a private gate leading into the wide park-lands which skirted the King’s palace. Here stood a muffled and cloaked figure evidently watching for him; for as soon as he appeared the gate was noiselessly opened for his admittance, and he passed in at once. Then he and the person who had awaited his coming, walked together through the scented woods of pine and rhododendrons, and talking in low and confidential voices, slowly disappeared.