Wilder grew the night, and more tempestuous the sea, while the sky became a mountainous landscape of black and white clouds fitfully illumined by the moon, which appeared to run over their fleecy pinnacles and sable plains like some scared white creature pursued by invisible foes: The vessel on which the corpse of Lotys lay, palled in purple, and decked with flowers, flew over the waves, to all seeming with the same hunted rapidity as the moon rushed through the heavens,—and so far, though her masts bent reed-like in the wind, and her sails strained at their cordage, she had come to no harm. Tossed about as she was, rudderless and solitary, there was something almost miraculous in the way she had weathered a storm in which many a well-guided ship must inevitably have gone down. The purple pall with its heavy fringe of gold, that shrouded the coffin she carried, was drenched through and through by the sea, and the flowers on the deck were beaten and drowned in the salt spray that dashed over them.
But amid all the ruined blossoms of earth, by the side of the dead, and full-fronted to the tempest, stood one living man, for whom life had no charm, and death no terror—the King! What had been reported of him was true—he had resigned his Throne and left his kingdom for the sake of adventuring forth on this great voyage of Discovery,—this swift and stormy sail with Lotys to the Land of the Unknown! Whether it was a madness, or a sick dream that fevered his blood, he knew not—but once the woman he loved was dead, every hope, every ambition in him died too—and he felt himself to be a mere corpse of clay, unwillingly dragged about by a passionate soul that longed, and strove, and fought in its shell for larger freedom. All his life, so to speak, save for the last few months, he had been a prisoner;—he had never, as he had himself declared, known the sweetness of liberty;—but for the sake of Lotys,—had she lived,—he would have been content to still wear the chains of monarchy, and would have endeavoured to accomplish such good as he might, and make such reforms as could possibly benefit his country. But, after all, it is only a ‘possibility ‘that any reforms will avail to satisfy any people long; and he was philosopher and student enough to know that whatsoever good one may endeavour to do for the wider happiness and satisfaction of the multitude, they are as likely as not to turn and cry out—“Thy good is our evil! Thy love to us is but thine own serving!”—and so turn and rend their best benefactors. With the loss of Lotys, he lost the one mainspring of faith and enthusiasm which would have helped him to match himself against his destiny and do battle with it. A great weariness seized upon him,—a longing for some wider scope of action than such futile work as that of governing, or attempting to govern, a handful of units whose momentary Order was bound, in a certain period of time to lapse into Disorder—then into Order again, and so on till the end of all.
Hence his resolve to sail the seas with Lotys to that ‘other side of Death’ of which she had spoken,—that ‘other side’ which an inward instinct told him was not Death, but Life! He could not of himself analyse the emotions which moved him. He could not take the measure of his grief; it was too wide and too painful. He might have said with Heine: “Go, prepare me a bier of strong wood, longer than the bridge at Mayence, and bring twelve giants stronger than the vigorous St. Christopher of Cologne Cathedral on the Rhine;—they will carry the coffin and fling it in the sea,—so large a coffin needs a large grave! Would you know why the bier must be so long and large? With myself, I lay there at the same time all my love and my sorrow!”
Sovereignty,—a throne,—a kingdom,—even an Empire—seemed poor without love to grace them. Had he never known the pure ideal passion, he would still have missed it;—but having known it—having felt its power environing him day and night with a holy and spiritual tenderness, he could not but follow it when it was withdrawn—follow it, ay, even into the realms of blackest night! Like the ‘Pilgrim of Love,’ delineated by one of the greatest painters in the world, he recked nothing of the darkness closing in,—of the pain and bewilderment of the road, which could only lead to interminable, inexplicable mystery;—he felt the hand of the great Angel upon him—the Angel of Love whom alone he cared to serve,—and if Love’s way led to Death, why then Death would be surely as sweet as Love! A great and almost divine calm had taken possession of him from the moment he had fulfilled his intention of boarding the ship which carried away from him all that was mortal of the woman he had secretly idolised. The wild turbulence of Nature around him had only intensified his perfect content. He had pleased himself by taking care of the sleeping Lotys—such tender care! He had tried to shield her coffin from the onslaughts of the fierce waves; he had protected many of the funeral flowers from destruction, and had lifted the gold fringe of the purple pall many and many a time out of the drenching spray cast over it. There was a strange delight in doing this. Lotys knew! That was his chief reflection. And ‘on the other side of Death,’ as she had said, they would meet—and to that ‘other side’ they were sailing together with all the speed Heaven’s own forces could give to their journey. Oh, that ‘other side’! What brightness, what peace, what glory, what mutual comprehension, what deep and perfect and undisturbed love would be found there! He smiled as he watched the swollen and angry sea,—the rising billows shouldering each other and bearing each other down;—how much grander, how much more spiritual and near to God, he thought, was this conflict of the elements, than the petty wars of men!—their desires of conquest, their greed of gold, their thirst for temporal power!
“My Lotys!” he said aloud; “You knew the world! You knew the littleness of worldly ambition! You knew that there is only one thing worth living and dying for, and that is Love! Your heart was all love, my Lotys! Deprived of love for yourself, you gave all you had to those who needed it, and when you found my love for you might do me harm in the People’s honour, you sacrificed your life! Alas, my Lotys! If you could but have realised that through you, and the love of you, I a King, who had long missed my vocation, could alone be truly worthy of sovereignty!”
He laid his hand on her coffin with a tender touch, as though to soothe its quiet occupant.
“My beloved!” he said, “We shall meet very soon!—very soon now! ‘on the other side of death’—and God will understand,—and be pitiful!”
The storm now seemed to be at its height. The monstrous waves, as they arose to combat the frail vessel in her swift career, made a bellowing clamour, and once or twice the ship reeled and staggered, as though about to lurch forward and go under. But the King felt no fear,—no horror of his approaching fate. He watched the wild scene with interest, even with appreciation,—as an artist or painter might watch the changes in a landscape which he purposes immortalising. His past life appeared to him like a picture in a magic crystal,—blurred and uncertain,—a mist of shapes without decided meaning or colour. He thought of the beautiful cold Queen, his wife,—and wondered whether she would weep for his loss.
“Not she!”—and he almost smiled at the idea—“Perhaps there will be a ballad written about it—and she will listen, unchanged, unmoved—as she listened that night when her minstrels sang:
‘We shall drift along till we both grow old
Looking back on the days that have passed us by,
When “what might have been,” can no longer be,
When I lost you and you lost me!’