The Kings of the East: A Romance of the Near Future

by Sydney C. Grier

“You would never turn tail before a mob?” cried Cyril, roused at last.

“How should I answer to the Emperor if you were injured, Count?” was the reply. “Besides, it is not expedient to expose the Court vehicles to insult—and—and this brave young man’s wounds ought to be dressed. I will merely send to the barracks in the next street for an escort of cavalry, and we shall not be more than a few minutes.”

The station was gained in safety, and a surgeon summoned, who adorned Mansfield’s face most artistically with strips of sticking-plaster, much to the disgust of the victim, who persuaded himself that he could have stanched the wounds with his handkerchief in another minute, if that idiot had not poked his nose in. When the decoration was complete, a troop of lancers was ready to escort the carriage, and the progress through the streets to the Schloss was made in gallant wise, a fence of bristling points and fluttering pennons separating the endangered visitors from the sullen, baffled mob.

At the Schloss the elaborate rules of the ordinary etiquette were suspended in view of the importance of the crisis, and Cyril was conducted at once to the Emperor’s private cabinet, where he found the Chevalier Goldberg and the Minister of the Interior. There was no time to be lost if Pannonia was to be saved from such an outbreak of Anti-Semitic fury as might spread all over the continent, and result in the settlement of the Jewish question in a much more drastic manner than was contemplated by the United Nation. The Chevalier had already telegraphed orders, at his own risk, for large supplies of coal, which was to be converted into gas as fast as it arrived from the various mining districts, but this was only a temporary expedient. It did not take long to arrange a concordat, since those assembled in council were genuinely anxious to come to an agreement, and in less than an hour it had been decided that a fair purchase price should be paid to the gas company by means of a loan from the Chevalier. This was to be guaranteed by the Imperial Government, and repaid by the municipality, to which coercion was to be applied if necessary. Every effort was to be made by the company to ensure the full supply of gas to the city that night and afterwards, and any deficiency was to be supplemented by means of a free distribution of oil to the poorer citizens. In conclusion, pressure was to be brought to bear by the Chevalier on the militant Dr Texelius, and he was to be ordered to leave Vindobona within twenty-four hours. A special Imperial proclamation spread the news of the settlement through the city, the streets were patrolled by troops, who dispersed the mob, and before long the only crowds to be found were in the vicinity of the railways, where they were watching the heavily laden coal-trucks as they rolled past on their way to discharge their load at the gasworks.

The Chevalier and Cyril were personæ gratissimæ at Court that day, and the latter took advantage of the fact to accomplish another piece of business connected with the Palestine scheme which was destined to astonish the Princess of Dardania when she heard of it. Meanwhile, the Chevalier presented himself as an ambassador of authority and peace at a hastily convened meeting of the representatives of the gas company. The members of the committee were already alarmed by the success of their bold step, and he plunged them into a state of abject terror by hinting at an intention on the part of the government to confiscate the works and carry them on for the public benefit. When they had been reduced to a sufficiently pitiable condition, he raised them suddenly to the seventh heaven by disclosing the arrangement which had been made, and sent them home happy in the prospect of saving something from the wreck. Their defection cut the ground from under the feet of Dr Texelius, who was the next person visited by the financier, and whose only regret hitherto had been that he dared not venture into the streets to observe the working of his revenge. His short-lived satisfaction was ended by the peremptory order to quit Vindobona, and he almost wished that he had not indulged in his trip to the city when he found himself listening to the upbraidings of the Chevalier, who charged him roundly with doing his utmost to ruin the cause of Israel.

The crestfallen philosopher was making his way on foot to the station the next morning, shadowed at a distance by two police officers in plain clothes, when a carriage containing two men drove past him. Although Dr Texelius had prudently kept his name concealed, for fear of the attentions of the populace, the mere fact that he was a Jew had made it impossible for him to procure a cab to convey him to the railway, and his luggage was being carried by a hanger-on of the police. But if the inhabitants of Vindobona were unconscious of the identity of their illustrious guest, the second secretary of the Scythian Embassy, who was one of the occupants of the carriage, was more fortunate.

“Look there!” he said to his companion, to whom he had been recounting with great spirit the humours of the preceding day, “that is the redoubtable Texelius himself. I used to see him continually when I was in South Germany.”

“Would it be possible to express one’s sympathy with the eminent philosopher?”

“Scarcely, Prince—in public, at least. Look at those two fellows behind. They would have a fine story to tell if they saw you speak to him.”

“You are right; they must not see it. Yet it would be a thousand pities if I could not speak to him. Volodia, my dear boy, do you think we could drive back to the station for a moment? I have unfortunately forgotten to inquire about my train.”