“If thou could’st see a thousand fathoms down,
Thou would’st behold ‘mid rock and shingle brown—
The shapeless wreck of temple, tower and town,—
The bones of Empires sleeping their last sleep,
Their names as dead as if they never bore
Crown or dominion!”
With keen and watchful eyes he measured the swiftly lessening distance between him and the glittering, tumbling whirlpool of waves—he felt the weight of the wind bearing against the drifting vessel—the end was very near! Standing by the dead Lotys, he prayed silently—prayed strangely,—in words borrowed from no Church formula, but as they came, straight from his heart—prayed that God might not be a Dream—that Love might not be a Snare—and Death might not be an End! So do we all pray when the last dread moment of dissolution comes—when no priest’s can comfort us—and when the greatest King in the world is but a poor ordinary human soul, ignorant and forlorn, shuddering on the verge of eternal Judgment!
A mountainous billow broke over the deck, half stunning him with the shock of its cold onslaught, and sweeping the coffin of Lotys almost over the edge of the vessel. He threw himself beside that dreary casket, fastening his own body with strong rope knotted many times, to its heavy leaden mass, resolved to sink with it painlessly, and without a struggle. So,—in perfect passiveness,—he awaited his end. Suddenly,—as if a bell had chimed in the distance, or a voice had sung some old familiar song in his ears,—he saw, clearly visioned in all the flying spray of the tempest a face!—not the face of Lotys—but a soft, childish, piteous little countenance, framed in curling tendrils of hair, with trusting sweet eyes, raised to his own in holiest, simplest confidence! So pure, so fair a face!—so pathetically loving!—where had he seen it before? All at once he remembered,—and sprang up with a sharp cry of pain. Why, why had this frail ghost of the past flown out of the darkness of sea and storm to confront him now? The ghost of his first young love!—the clinging, fond, credulous creature who had gone to her death uncomplainingly for his sake—with only the one little cry of farewell—‘My love! Forgive me!’ Why should he think of her?—why should he see her before him at this supreme moment when Death stared him in the face, and his spirit hovered on the edge of Infinity? “Vengeance is mine!—I will repay, saith the Lord!” His first love!—so lightly won—so cruelly betrayed! Tears rushed to his eyes,—he thought of the wrong done to a perfectly pure and blameless life—a wrong he had forgotten in all these years—till now!
“Oh God!” he cried aloud—“Forgive me! Forgive my weakness, my selfishness, my many wasted years! Let not her face forever come between thy redeeming Angel, Lotys, and my soul!”
The tumultuous breakers rushing now with a great swoop at the vessel, snatched and tore at him. He nerved himself to look again,—once again, and for the last time, across the great wilderness of warring waters! The moon now shone brightly,—the clouds were parting on either side of her, rolling up in huge masses, white and glistening as Alpine peaks of snow—the wind had not lessened, and the fury of the sea was still unabated. But the fair childish face had vanished,—and only the clear salt spray dashed in his eyes and blinded them,—only the salt waves clambered round him, drawing him towards them in a cold embrace!
“‘On the other side,’ my Lotys!” he said—“God be merciful to us both!—‘on the other side’!”
For one moment the breaking vessel paused shudderingly on the edge of the seething whirlpool of waves, which, meeting in a centre of tidal commotion, leaped at her, and began steadily to suck her down. For one moment the moonbeams fell purely on the calm upturned face of the King, who like others allied to him in kingship throughout history, had esteemed mere sovereignty valueless at the cost of Love! For kings,—though surrounded with flatterers and sycophants who seek to make them imagine themselves somewhat more than human,—are but men, with all men’s vain sins and passions, mad weaknesses and wild dreams; and when they love, they love as foolishly as commoners,—and when they die, as die they must, there is no difference in the actual way of death than is known to a pauper. More gold and purple on the one side,—more straw and sackcloth on the other,—but the solemnity and equality of Death itself, is the same in both. And as this dying King well knew, the People care little who governs them, provided bread is cheap, and labour well paid. He is greatest who gives them most,—and he is the most applauded who allows them the most liberty of action! The personality, the complex nature, the character, the temptations, the mind-sufferings of a King, as man merely, are less than nothing to the multitude who run to follow and to cheer him. If he were once to complain, he would be condemned;—and if he asked from his crowding flatterers the bread of sympathy, they would give him but a stone!
The moon smiled—the stars flashed fitfully through the clouds,—and all through the length and breadth of ocean there seemed to come the sound of a great psalmody, rising and filling the air. It surged on the King’s ears, as with hands clasped on the drenched lilies strewn over the sleeping Lotys, he welcomed the coming Unveiling of the Beyond! And then—the waters rose up, and caught living and dead together, and dragged them down with a triumphal rush and roar,—down, down to that grand Unconsciousness,—that sublime Pause in the chain of existence,—that longer Sleep, from which we shall wake refreshed and strong again,—ready to learn Where we have failed, Why we have loved, and How we have lost. But of things temporal there shall be no duration,—neither Sovereignty nor Supremacy, nor Power; only Love, which makes weak the strongest, and governs the proudest;—and of things eternal we know naught save that Love, always Love, is still the centre of the Universe, and that even to redeem the sins of the world, God Himself could find no surer way than through Love, born of Woman into Life.
Days passed,—and angry Ocean gradually smoothed out its frowning furrows, spreading a surface darkly-blue and peaceful, under a cloudless arch of sky. And one night,—when the moon, like a golden cup in heaven, emptied her sparkling wine of radiance over the gently heaving waves, a fair ship speeding swiftly with all the force of steam and sail, with flags fluttering from every mast, and sounds of music echoing from her lighted saloons, came flying over the billows like a glorious white-winged bird soaring to its home on an errand of joy. On her deck stood Gloria,—happily ignorant of all calamity,—watching with dreamy, thoughtful eyes the lessening lengths of sea between her and the land she loved. The Crown Prince, her husband,—now King, though he knew it not,—stood beside her;—his handsome face brightened by a smile which expressed his heart’s elation, his soul’s deep peace and inward content. Naught knew these wedded lovers of the strange reception awaiting them; of the half-mourning, half-rejoicing people,—of national flags suddenly veiled in crape,—of black funeral-streamers set distractedly amidst gay bridal garlands;—of a widowed Queen, broken-hearted and despairing, weeping vainly for the love she had so long misprized, and had learned too late to value,—of a Crown resigned,—of the lost Majesty and hero of a nation’s idolatry;—of the death of Ronsard, and the inexplicable disappearance of the famous Socialist leader, Sergius Thord,—and of all the strange and tragic history of vanished lives, even to that of Sir Roger de Launay whom no man ever saw again,—which it fell to their faithful friend, Heinrich von Glauben to relate, with passionate grief and many tears. They knew nothing. They only saw home and the future before them, shining in bright hues of hope and promise; for Love was with them,—and through Love alone—love for the nation, love for the people, love for each other,—they purposed, God willing, to faithfully fulfil whatever destiny might be theirs, whether fortunate or disastrous! Thus minded, they could see no evil in the world,—no mischief,—no ominous crossings of Fate,—they had all earth and all heaven in each other! And the gay ship bearing them onward, danced over the smiling, singing, siren waves, as if she too had a human heart to feel and rejoice!—and in her swift course swept lightly over the very spot, now tranquil and radiant, where but a short while since, the body of Lotys had gone down, companioned by the King. Gloria leaning over the deck-rail looked dreamily into the sparkling water.