Her Imperial Majesty has been graciously pleased to sanction the
publication of this work, and to me is entrusted the preparing of a
brief epilogue.
I am the Trooper Hylton mentioned in the closing chapter, and first
knew the author in those far-away times sixty-five years ago--when we
were cadets together at the school of arms. I remember Browne as a
shy, awkward, dreamy lad, remarkable for his stature--he stood six
foot four--with rapidly maturing, already gigantic strength, and a
physical perfection marred by the almost grotesque uncouthness of his
face.
A swordsman, second perhaps only to Branscombe, a horseman not
rivalled in his time, Browne's career was marred by hopeless failure
in scholarship.
The "big boy," as he describes himself, was, on the surface, cold and
distant, yet desperately eager to win friendship; but there again his
life was marred by that shyness which seemed like icy reserve
repelling the kindly approaches of men who cared to know him. Behind
that barrier he suffered.
So he came to the Palace bringing with him the very atmosphere of
arctic Canada, great, lonely, remote, uncomely, savage. Because of
his training as a cowboy, the silence, the solitude of his early
life, he lacked the faculty of easy speech, but he had the deepest,
grandest qualities of manhood. And at the moment he joined her
Majesty's Bodyguard he made his first friendship with no less a man
than Sydney, the Magnificent. The two were friends inseparable, and
thus in this book we have our first real insight into the events
which led to the Terror.
It is supposed that before the great Marquess went to meet his death,
he commended Browne to her Majesty's special care. The whole corps
of the Guard was indignant at the promotion of this young recruit to
the securing of our Lady's safety during the night watches, but the
Canadian giant justified even that unusual honour. No less than four
times he saved the Queen's life, either from the attacks of
assassins, or in actual battle. In the fight on the alabaster
stairs, there is no doubt that his incomparable strength, address and
valour rescued, not only her Majesty, but her whole escort from
massacre, and his lone charge which cleared the upper stairway for
our retreat, will go down to history as one of the mightiest deeds in
human annals.
His book ends with the creation of the Viceroys of the Guard, and her
Majesty's betrothal to Lyonesse; and there is no mention of that
winter day when all the presidents and sovereign rulers of the world
assembled in St. George's Chapel at Windsor. Browne was then
sufficiently recovered from his wounds to attend the solemn service
of the Eucharist. He was then a Viceroy of the Guard, and Marquess
of Yukon, had been invested with the Garter and in response to a
petition of Parliament, granted the Victoria Cross for valour.
But her Imperial Majesty never set any limits to her gratitude
towards those who have served her well, and for this Canadian hero
she reserved even greater honours. In the celebration of the
Eucharist, Brand knelt at her right hand, the Marquess of Yukon on
her left, and he was made to stand beside her to receive the
surrendered swords of her triumphant Viceroys, all of which, with his
own, he laid down before the altar. The emperors, kings, presidents,
and reigning sovereigns then one by one broke their swords, and laid
the fragments upon the altar, just at the foot of the cross.
At the last came Margaret, attended by Brand, and by Yukon. Kneeling
before the table, she made humble presentation of an unbroken sword,
then rising, confronted the assembled sovereigns.
"In token," she said, "that I desire unbroken peace, I have dedicated
this unbroken sword to the solemn service of the King of kings. In
token that the nations need have no fear, I sheathe the sword for
ever; and give the sacred trust to this, my servant, Viceroy of the
Air."
The giant, kneeling at her feet, received the sheathed sword of the
Millennial Peace.
"And I do now deliver into his keeping the Etheric Fleet, charging
him never to shed human blood, except at the command of the Great
Council of Nations to vindicate the Divine Justice upon any people
who shall lift rebellious hands against mankind."
For twenty years this first of the Viceroys of the Air remained in
custody of the sheathed sword, a lonely man, and a silent, greatly
loved, and greatly suffering.
His wounds, which in one of lesser strength must have proved mortal,
bred in his shattered body malignant growths, of which, aged and
weary, he died in his forty-fifth year. To Branscombe he passed on
the Trust of the Sword; and it was in the bed from which he never
afterwards rose that he wrote his book, "The Chariot of the Sun,"
telling the story of his hopeless and unspoken love for the woman he
had so valiantly served.
After his death, in the year 2005, the manuscript was found under
seal, addressed to her Majesty, and has not been published until the
passions of that time were stilled, and the Terror remains only as a
memory seen through the mists of sixty-five fruitful years.
Last winter, our august and venerable sovereign caused the work to be
read aloud to her children and grandchildren, and it is on the plea
of the young princes that the story is now given to publication. To
the people of the golden age it will seem a very quaint, funny old
document, which is concerned with such obsolete virtues as unselfish
love, faith, honour, and manliness.
HYLTON,
_Viceroy of the Air._