“So be it, lady. But what if the two names still on the paper are yours and mine? And why should yours be written separately from mine and placed by itself?”
“I really have not the slightest idea,” said Danaë, her patience at an end. “You were never satisfied until the Lord Romanos took you back into his service, though he warned you not to return, and now I suppose you mean that he is trying to murder you. If he intended your death, would he leave himself in your power night and day?”
Petros retired muttering, and climbed to his seat on the box of the carriage. For the moment Danaë was fully occupied with kissing her hand to the forsaken Janni at his nursery window, but when he was out of sight the hints of Petros returned to her mind with unpleasant significance, fitting in as they did with her brother’s words of the night before. Had she earned her life, or not? and if she had not, what further service might Prince Romanos demand of her as its price in the future? But her carriage and escort swept gallantly into the great parade-ground, bright with colours and uniforms, and all dark forebodings were put to flight for the moment. Her station was just behind the saluting-point, at which her husband and brother had already taken their places, and to right and left of her extended a long crescent of other carriages, containing on the one side the foreign representatives, and on the other the Emathian Government officials and their wives. Nearest of the latter was an unpretentious victoria conveying Professor and Madame Panagiotis. Though the Professor held no office in the ministry, yet his long efforts to achieve the independence of Emathia, and the varied diplomatic experience they had entailed, made him unofficial adviser-in-chief to every Emathian government, and mainstay of the throne. On the other side Koralie Melchthal’s carriage was the nearest. It was clear that she interpreted the meaning of Danaë’s costume as Prince Romanos had done, for she bent forward with her eyebrows raised and her lips pursed in an expression of intensest sympathy with a fellow-sufferer under the tyranny of unreasonable man. It afforded her ungrateful friend considerable pleasure to repay her with the coolest bow at her command.
The review was a splendid sight to Danaë, though the representatives of the great military Powers regarded it as of little more importance than a battle of toy soldiers. Emathia was in process of educating her own officers, but at present she was obliged to rely on foreigners and on Emathians who had served in other armies. A body of Wylie’s police from Klaustra were received with much approval by the experts, and Danaë gathered that their workmanlike equipment was considered better value for the money spent than the more elaborate uniforms of the regular troops. But the latter made unquestionably the more showy figure on the parade-ground, and Prince Romanos himself was a gallant sight as he took the salute. Armitage, on horseback in his admiral’s uniform, afforded an unpremeditated touch of comedy that caused the foreign representatives the keenest pleasure, and everyone was asking why he had not mounted the yacht’s crew and brought them to add to the apparent strength of the Emathian forces.
Just recently Prince Romanos had devised an improvement in artillery transport, and the new method and the old were to be shown in juxtaposition, that the connoisseurs might give their opinion. Gun-carriages, limbers and waggons were careering about the parade-ground, apparently bent upon mutual destruction and evading it only by a series of miracles, when the Prince called up Petros, who was waiting close behind him, and entrusted him with a message to an officer at the opposite side of the ground. Petros measured the distance across with his eye, and hesitated.
“What!” cried his master loudly. “Afraid of being run over, most valiant Petros? Must I seek another messenger?”
The aides-de-camp pressed forward eagerly, but Prince Romanos waited, with his eyes fixed on Petros. “I really think you had better not take it, friend Petraki,” he said, in a tone of good-humoured raillery. “You will fall through sheer fright, and blame me for your misfortunes.” Petros gave him a glance of helpless hatred, like that of a savage animal in a trap, and fairly tore the paper from his hand, then started to run across the ground. The incident had attracted attention, and all eyes were fixed upon him as he ran. He held on until he was about halfway across, and then found himself the apparent goal of four separate teams, racing for him from as many different directions. He lost his head, turned, and ran back towards his master, pursued by one of the galloping guns, and welcomed by a shout of universal laughter. The sound seemed to madden him, and as, with eyes starting from his head, he reached the saluting-point and clutched the flagstaff for support, he flung defiance at Prince Romanos.
“That was your intention, then, my Prince—to kill me as you have killed those others! I know what orders you gave the drivers. There would have been an accident, and you would be rid of me. But if I go, you go too.”
Before anyone realised what was in his mind, while all were craning forward to catch the shouted words, he loosed his hold of the flagstaff and flung himself at the Prince, his long dagger gleaming in his hand. There was a moment’s wild confusion. Danaë, standing up in her carriage and gripping the rail convulsively, heard a pistol-shot, but did not realise that Petros had fired at her, and that Armitage had thrown himself between them, until she saw her husband fall. A fusillade from the revolvers of the aides-de-camp drowned the sound of a second shot, as the madman turned his pistol upon himself.
All was tumult, as people left their carriages and crowded to the spot where the aides-de-camp were keeping a space clear round the three fallen men. Professor Panagiotis was in the midst, and Danaë, seeing his fine white head towering above the throng, fairly fought her way through to him. He was giving orders rapidly, but paused to reassure her.