“Isn’t that pretty good, from you to me?” asked Cyril with slow scorn, and the Premier shrugged his shoulders and spread forth his hands deprecatingly as he bowed himself out.
If the interests of strict morality are to be considered, it would have been well that the several portions of Cyril’s scheme should not have met with the complete success which actually attended them. The appearance of the special Gazette with its enigmatical announcement created a great sensation in the city, which was heightened by the fact that the alarming foreign news of the morning had been eagerly noised abroad by Scythian sympathisers among the townspeople. Wright performed his business at the Hôtel Occidental with the most appropriate woodenness of manner, stoutly refusing to be drawn into any clear statement as to the intended destination of the travellers, but giving the necessary hints with an extensive facial contortion which he denominated a wink. Things had fallen out so well that Cyril felt a good deal of pleasurable excitement as he walked through the silent streets in the autumn twilight of the next morning but one, wondering whether Mr Hicks would be equal to the occasion. The King of Mœsia had replied with effusion, both to the first overtures made by M. Drakovics, and to the later telegram respecting the envoy, and the energetic sending of messages backwards and forwards, the news of which had in some way penetrated to the town, had heightened the popular excitement. The horses were waiting at the west gate, under charge of a mounted police official who was to escort the travellers during the first stage of their journey, and there was a little crowd of inquisitive citizens gathered at no great distance. A thrill of triumph ran through Cyril as he recognised among them the sallow face and scanty beard of the American, and he rejoiced that virtue should not be its own sole reward in the case of Mr Hicks’s early rising. He had muffled his throat and the lower part of his face in a silk scarf, and turned up his collar, and as he mounted his horse it was easy to let the scarf slip for a moment, which was all that the journalist required. He went back to the hotel with a sensation in his note-book, and Cyril rode away on his quest cheered by a pleasing consciousness of success.
Prior to this day’s experiences, Wright had always entertained a deep-rooted conviction that Lord Cyril’s horsemanship was far inferior to that of his brother, both as regarded skill and endurance; but now he was compelled to admit that he rode “like a Trojan,” whatever that vague but evidently expressive comparison might mean. With short halts for food and change of horses, they rode on hour after hour, being handed over by their first guide to a second, and so on at every stage, and arriving at Schloss Herzensruh late at night. Cyril found himself intrusted to the care of the master of the household, who treated him with breathless consideration, and intimated that he would be admitted in the morning to an intensely private and confidential interview with King Johann, and be allowed to depart early, so as to avoid comment. The King of Mœsia had not Cyril’s reasons for desiring an unauthorised publicity for the object of his errand, and the envoy congratulated himself that he had not trusted to the enterprise of Mœsian journalists.
Morning came, and Cyril was conducted with extreme precaution to the King’s private room, where there was a secretary on guard at the door, and a stalwart gamekeeper outside the window. Secrecy having been ensured by this means, King Johann greeted his guest with delight, and proceeded to lay bare to him his mind and the state of feeling in his kingdom far more thoroughly than he had any idea of doing. The impression that he produced on Cyril was that of a fussy, nervous man, half elated by the fact of his having emancipated himself from his wife’s control, and half afraid of the consequences. Throughout their married life it had always been his custom to follow her advice, and his kingdom had flourished exceedingly, until a few months before, when the little rift within the lute had originated in the double question of the marriage of Princess Ottilie, the only child of the royal couple, and the succession to the crown. The constitution of Mœsia did not allow a female to occupy the throne, and there was therefore no question of the Princess’s bringing that perilous dowry to her future husband; but while her mother wished her to marry the Prince of Dardania, a distant connection of her own, the King was prepared to allow her to marry any one else, but not the Prince. The reason for this difference of opinion was to be found in the fact that there was a strong party, both in the Mœsian Legislature and in the country, who desired the selection of Prince Alexis as their future ruler, anticipating that, when united with Dardania, the kingdom of Mœsia would be strong enough to strike awe even into her triumphant rival Thracia. The members of this party were most anxious for the marriage, and the Queen supported them with the calm determination which had always hitherto had its due weight with her more hasty husband; but some time after the affair had been considered as settled, its course was interrupted by an alien influence, wielded by the King’s uncle, the reigning Grand-Duke of Schwarzwald-Molzau. He had always regarded the kingdom of Mœsia as a snug preserve for one of the many cadets of his house, and it did not suit him at all that his plans should be crossed. Emissaries from Molzau were despatched to Mœsia, the King was invited to revisit the cradle of his race, and both there and in his own court he was cajoled, threatened, flattered, and bribed until he refused his consent to the projected marriage. The Queen was at first incredulous,—it seemed impossible that her power could have vanished with such suddenness; but the Schwarzwald-Molzaus had parted husband and wife only too effectually, and an armed neutrality now existed between them.
This was the state of affairs in Mœsia, when M. Drakovics replied to King Johann’s half-veiled hints as to the desirability of a closer alliance between the two kingdoms by the formal demand of Princess Ottilie’s hand for Caerleon—a demand which the monarch had hastened with somewhat unkingly eagerness to grant. With the Princess safely married to some one else, the Prince of Dardania would be deprived of one of the chief influences on which he relied for support in his candidature for the throne, while there was no fear that the Mœsians would ever elect Caerleon as their sovereign. The mutual hatred between Mœsia and Thracia was far too great for the two nations to consent to be united under any circumstances, and this left the way clear for the formal adoption by the reigning sovereign, and subsequent accession to the Mœsian throne, of one of the younger princes of the house of Schwarzwald-Molzau.
The first question of importance to be discussed between King Johann and his guest was that of the treaty, as to the provisions of which the King was nervously anxious. In fact, he was depending upon the acquisition of the disputed strip of country as a means of reconciling his subjects to the Thracian alliance, and preventing their mourning over the discomfiture of their favourite, Prince Alexis. Hence, although he heard it with wonder, he accepted with avidity the suggestion which Cyril had arranged with M. Drakovics should be made. In order to avoid the unpleasant savour of a bargain, in which the Princess would be handed over in return for the tract of land, the treaty respecting the disputed territory was to be drawn up and signed before any public announcement was made as to the marriage. The King did not appear to consider that it was less objectionable for his daughter to act as a seal upon the treaty than as an equivalent in it; but he grasped eagerly at the offer, and Cyril, who had been representing in the highest possible light the delicacy of his brother’s feelings, and the absolute certainty of his refusing to countenance anything in the nature of a bargain, heaved a sigh of unfeigned relief.
“This gives us a hold on the old fellow if the wedding doesn’t come off after all,” he thought, while the King was hugging himself in the idea that he had just achieved one of the most astute strokes of policy of modern times. It was agreed that the treaty should be signed as soon as it could be formally drawn up, and when King Johann suggested that this ratification might well take place at a personal meeting of the two sovereigns on the disputed territory, Cyril found the necessary opening for imparting the real object of his journey. The King listened in astonishment as he unfolded his story of Caerleon’s excessive humility, and his determination to consult the wishes of the Princess before he would consider himself engaged to her.
“But this is abs—romantic!” cried the King. “It is a piece of the Middle Ages. Naturally the girl will accept him when she has been instructed to do so. Why should she not? His fears are preposterous.”
“That is exactly my own view, sir,” said Cyril, in the tone of one whose endurance had been taxed to the utmost; “but I regret to say that I cannot enforce it upon my brother. However, after what your Majesty has just said of the docile disposition of her Royal Highness, I hope the matter will prove to be merely a form.”
“There is no doubt of that,” said the king, hastily. “If the King of Thracia is bent upon taking this course I must allow it, although he will find it a very bad precedent,—undermining his authority, admitting doubts as to his power, and so on. But I will give my daughter her orders, and the Queen and she both know by this time that it will be the worse for her if she does not obey.”