“He may belong to any number of private offices, but he is employed by the Scythian Secret Police, and he is here to spy upon me.”
“And my father has given him free leave to go anywhere he likes on our land, and to fish, and so on, and he has taken up his quarters in the village!” cried Usk, aghast. “But we’ll soon kick him out.”
“I beg you won’t do anything of the kind. His presence here is a testimony to my former importance, which I find very soothing. Moreover, he is to be made useful. You saw those cipher telegrams I sent off just now? They all have to do with a Zionist scheme for making me Prince of Palestine, and while I am here I shall be continually having letters and telegrams and even visitors, all connected with the same thing.”
“But this fellow will be spying about and spoil everything.”
“He will see and report everything, for that is what he is meant to do, but he will spoil nothing. The whole thing is a blind, intended just to keep the spies busy, and the rank and file of the Children of Zion quiet, for fear of their doing something rash. The real plot is a very different matter. You may as well know the main idea. The United Nation Syndicate has been reconstituted, but its object is to be attained in a new way. So long as Scythia holds Jerusalem, the Jewish ideal is necessarily incapable of realisation. She cannot be dispossessed by force; can diplomacy do anything? Besides the Jews there is another very powerful body whose interest it is to get her out, and both these communities have fixed upon a certain person as able to do it if any one can. No; I am not the happy man. My part is merely to cover up his tracks.”
“But the risk!” cried Usk. “Why should you run into danger for the sake of this other man?”
“To do old friends a good turn, I suppose. Or perhaps, now that I can’t play the game myself, it’s the next best thing to see other people doing it well. Have you guessed who the man is? It’s Malasorte, the Neustrian Pretender. He is to be assisted to make himself emperor at last.”
“But I don’t see——How will that——?” Usk was unwontedly perturbed.
“The Jesuits will arrange things for him at home, the Jews abroad. Moral support and ready cash, the two indispensables again. In return for their help, he has promised the Jews to turn Scythia out of Palestine.”
“And what has he promised the Jesuits?”