“You give us to understand that you murdered three unarmed men in cold blood?” said Prince Otto Georg. “This is inconceivable. Human nature is not capable of so horrible an atrocity, though why you should attempt to deceive us in such a matter I cannot imagine. You are not in earnest?”
“Am I likely to tell you anything but the truth at such a moment, and on such a subject?” retorted Louis. “Your Carlino is dead, and I killed him. I have not yet heard any of my comrades,” he glanced round at his fellow-prisoners, “deliver the dying message with which he charged them. I am the only honest one among them, after all. He wished it to be known that he chose death rather than abdication. Well, he had it.”
“You—a soldier,” said the Prince to General Sertchaieff, “and connived at the commission of this dastardly murder?”
“We did not expect to make our revolution with rose-water,” returned the ex-Minister. “Our intention was to surprise Carlino, and to force him to abdicate by means of threats, if possible; but Captain O’Malachy had strict orders to kill him if any resistance or rescue were attempted, and he did so.”
“I should wish to adjourn the court,” said Prince Otto George. “I do not feel that I can conduct business properly after receiving this terrible news.”
“Then the mountain men will break in and tear the prisoners to pieces,” said M. Drakovics, in a low voice, glancing at the crowd of excited peasants who stood with weapons in their hands, muttering imprecations and glaring at the self-accused murderers. “I entreat your Highness to bring the trial to a close, so that it may be evident that the murderers will meet the punishment demanded by their crimes, and then to come with me to break the news to the people.”
Prince Otto Georg turned impatiently to the papers on the table before him, and M. Drakovics succeeded in inducing his followers to leave the hall by assuring them that summary justice would be done by the court-martial. Indeed, the evidence was so clear that there could be no doubt of the result of the trial. Even leaving out of sight the added atrocity of the murder of the King, the prisoners had committed a sufficient number of crimes against both military and civil law to cause them to incur the death-penalty several times over. There was not a dissentient voice among the members of the court, and the President pronounced the sentence with a sensation not far removed from loathing.
“I never saw a man so bloodthirsty as that O’Malachy,” he said to himself as he left the chair after the prisoners had been removed. “I believe that the murder was his doing altogether, for Sertchaieff seemed at first as much surprised as I was. I wonder whether there could have been any truth in that story about a sister of his that got into the Scythian papers? It would account for his peculiar ferocity.”
It would have afforded Louis additional gratification had he known that the apparent purposelessness of his conduct had cast a slur upon Caerleon’s name, but he was very well content as things were. His was not the part of the informer, who is said to be present, by some strange fatality, whenever two Irishmen are plotting together, and through whom the best-laid schemes go wrong; on the contrary, he had carried out his share of the conspiracy with triumphant success, and even at the bitter end had turned defeat into victory. Of this character were his exultant musings as he was led away with his companions, but in indulging such hopeful anticipations he was reckoning without his host. M. Drakovics’s proverbial resourcefulness had not forsaken him at this crisis, and from the moment of hearing the fatal news of Caerleon’s death he had been preparing a coup d’état. When Prince Otto left the hall in which the court-martial had been held, he found that he was awaiting him, and the two men rode down the steep street with their escort to the Hôtel de Ville, in the square in front of which were assembled the loyal townspeople and the irregular troops. A momentary cheer saluted the Premier and his companion as they made their appearance on the balcony; but the news of the King’s murder had spread among the people, and the feeling of mourning was universal. The soldiers alone greeted Prince Otto Georg with shouts when M. Drakovics presented him to the crowd as the saviour of Thracia, and he retired into the background while his companion came forward again to speak. The crowning triumph of the great orator’s eloquence was to be obtained to-day, and the lack of responsiveness among his audience only served to stimulate him to surpass himself.
He began his speech by paying a well-deserved tribute to the troops, both regular and irregular, who had fought so bravely in crushing the revolt. Their courage and endurance had been beyond all praise; but they had been sustained by the hope of rescuing their beloved King from the hands of the dastardly conspirators who sought to deprive him of his throne. The struggle was successful, the victory was won, but, alas! success had come too late. Their young sovereign, who had given up the splendid prospects which belonged to him in his own country in order to lead the forlorn hope in Thracia, had chosen to die rather than forsake the trust he had received from the people. He was the last martyr on the glorious roll of Thracian independence. Let them look around them. There on the hill above them was the sacred shrine at which, that very day, Carlino was to have received the crown of Thracia, and there also was the palace in which he should have lived for many happy years, beloved and honoured. But beside them there flowed the river, accursed from that day forward, whose waters had rolled over his blood-stained corpse, and there remained yet in the land of the living the miscreants who had not scrupled to murder in cold blood a bound and defenceless man.