Phil went away, and Ethel remained alone. Within her there was

something like a hurricane. What! those men, those man-monkeys who had

been harassing her ever since she came to Paris,—it was all to make her

buy their silence. How infamous! It humiliated her to see such obscure

names mixed up with her life. And one of them was under obligations to

her, living under her roof and sitting at her table! And it was he who

offered her a book which might have been written by a drunken ape! Ah!

if she had only known of his special talents, he would not be there

now—that public malefactor, that little round-shouldered wretch, who

dared to write her sonnets! What should she do with Caracal? Abandon

him on a desert island? Or simply throw him into the water? No, not

that. Hang him to the mast like a pirate? Come, now—she would not

trouble her brain hunting condign punishments for him. She left the

music-room, and walked on the deck; and at last, as if to wind up her

long monologue with herself, she concluded: “Caracal is crazy!”

This idea, which put anger to one side and left room for pity, restored

to Ethel her self-possession. “I will deal with him later on,” she

said.

The immense distance between herself and such a man appeared to

her all at once. Caracal seemed very little to her. And what moral

wretchedness! All his energy was aimed at obtaining money, and he did

not even succeed! And how punished he would be some day, when he should

see his bad actions taking root and growing, and their poison doing its

work.

Could she even understand the case? Who could ever know the extreme

need, the passions which urge on a man like Caracal? Perhaps his was

not consummate vice; perhaps he would repent some day. He was poor and

alone, and she was powerful and rich, and perhaps might be a reigning

duchess to-morrow—if she would only say yes with a nod. Yet here she

was allowing herself to be embittered by the snarling of a poor fool. A

queen, and she could not pardon! Phil had been more generous and humane

than she!

She made a great effort to conquer her remorseless attitude—and won.

CHAPTER III

A CASTLE OF THE ADRIATIC

When the yacht moored in front of the ducal castle of Morgania, Morgana

was surely absent, for no fantastic mirage welcomed their coming. Out

of courtesy to the duke, a salvo of cannon was fired from the yacht;

and the salute was returned, shot by shot, from the bastion.

“Poor duke!” said grandma. “We are making him waste his powder!”

The yachting-party witnessed, indeed, a grand spectacle. It was the

country itself, with the forests in its valleys and its uplands ragged

with wild rocks. You could imagine paths winding around precipices, and

rivulets falling down the crags like shining swords. High up and far

away, with its base lost in the mist and its summit lighted by the rays

of the sun, the Kutsch-kom Mountain closed in the horizon.

The port was at the end of a gulf, with two gigantic cliffs reaching

out at the sides. The yachting-party was still fresh from their view of

the white terraces of the Achilleion of Corfu, with its marble statues

and its orange-trees; and they looked with astonishment at this corner

full of shadows, with the thousand-year-old castle perched upon its

rock. It was seated on lofty and solid buttresses. A rampart flanked

by thick bastions defended it; and stunted box-trees stretched over it

their dark branches. Behind, wide, deep passages led up to battlemented

towers.

At its feet the little city interlaced its narrow streets. You felt

that it was builded in feudal times, and had been constructed under the

master’s eye, and by his orders. Later, it had pushed back its walls

and extended into the plain. A dike by the beach, strewn with fallen

boulders, sheltered it against the sea. A road up an embankment, broken

by intervals of steps, led up from the city to the castle. Everything

seemed weighted down with the years,—the Byzantine domes of churches,

Oriental minarets, Frankish towers; everywhere you felt the succession

of the ages.

“It is a romantic country,” said Ethel. “There is no need of a mirage

to believe one’s self in the heart of the Middle Ages. We have only to

look at the setting of the scene to be transported centuries back. All

these old things must reek with superstition. If you stayed here long,

Will, you, too, would end by believing in Morgana. See,” added Ethel,

as amused as a child, “see, she is smiling at us! That shining point up

there, above the Gothic portal—it is Morgana’s window,—the window the

duke was telling us about,—do you remember, grandma? Up there, in the

tower front!”

Everybody looked where she was pointing, but just then the reflection

of the sun’s rays disappeared, and the window was quenched in shadow.

The bells of the city, ringing the Angelus in the evening calm, sounded

like a salutation to Morgana. They had seen Loreto and its Casa Santa,

brought thither by angels; the cathedral church of San Ciriaco, in

Ancona, once a temple of Venus; Ravenna, where the heroine Amalberga

was deified; Venice, protected by its winged lions. So, after their

long cruise in this sea of legend, they came well prepared to study

the people’s superstitions and the folk-lore of Morgania. They tasted,

in anticipation, the pleasure of seeing the daily life of the castle,

wherein there had been no change for centuries.

Every one seemed to have important things to do. On the morrow Phil

was to put his Morgana picture in place, and retouch it on the spot.

Ethel and Will were to go on an excursion. Caracal would delve into

ducal archives. Grandma was already _blasé_ on these cities of pigmies,

wherein music takes the place of the noise of foundries, and where men

sleep with their heads in the shade and their feet in the sun while

they digest their garlic. Grandma would remain on deck and look at

Morgania over her glasses.

“I hope, M. Caracal, you will write a book on Morgania and its

folk-lore,” said Ethel. “You would find pathetic things into which this

people must have put their love and faith. It would be a rest after the

cruel studies which you devote, it seems, to modern society.”

In her manner of speaking to Caracal, it was perceptible that Ethel

wished to be merciful. That evening when she had discovered everything,

Phil hardly dared come up on deck; but the next day he was greatly

surprised to find Ethel as smiling as ever, and Caracal amiable

as usual. Ethel was even talking with interest to Caracal, asking

questions and seeming to study the man.

From the dining-room, through the port-holes, they could see the

gray mass of towers. A few lights were shining along the hills; and

beyond stretched away a great wall of rocks and the somber woods. The

yachting-party admired the grandeur of the landscape as they ate their

peach ice-cream.

“I want to see the sorceress,” said Ethel, “provided they don’t

accuse me of wishing to take her off to America like Richard the

Lion-hearted.”

“As for me,” said Helia, “I should dearly like to see the defile where

Morgana stopped the invasion.”

“We shall go together,” answered Ethel; “and I hope the gentlemen will

accompany us. For me, it is a place of pilgrimage; it will do us good

to compare our useless lives with that of the heroine. We shall gather

from it resolution to be brave and energetic, without prejudice, of

course, to our right to cry out for the least little ache. Never mind;

for a few hours we shall have understood what duty is.”

“But duty doesn’t always mean that one should fight,” said Phil. “It

takes other forms as well.”

“It always consists in fighting,” said Ethel; “but not always against

some one else—oftenest it is against ourselves.”

“There is no one slain in that case,” remarked Caracal. “The blows we

strike ourselves are never mortal—we are careful to strike with the

flat of the blade!”

“That’s the way they punish cowards,” said Ethel.

They were interrupted by a lackey announcing the coming of the Duke of

Morgania.

They had just finished dining, and they went up on deck to receive the

duke. Helia and Sœurette retired.

Without, everything was in shadow. A dense crowd thronged the jetty.

The searchlight of the yacht threw its rays upon the shore and brought

out here and there white minarets and roofs and domes. A swarm of

people—men, women, and children—half blinded by the light, stared at

the yacht. The shining of their eyes could be seen; here there was

the glitter of a poniard-handle, and there the glow of silver buckles.

There were men in great drugget cloaks over their white fustanelle, and

women clad in long red garments, which fell straight as on figures in

shrines. Anxious faces might be seen, with scared expressions; and from

the crowd, pressed together like a herd, mounted up a confused murmur.

The word of command was heard; and there was a sound of oars striking

the water. A small boat came alongside, a rope was thrown out, and the

ladder lowered; and Monseigneur, the Duke of Morgania, came up. The

light fell full upon him. The duke bowed respectfully to the ladies,

and shook the men by the hand, like a boon companion.

“I’m not putting you out too much, I hope?”

“We are delighted to see you,” said grandma. “Come into the music-room.”

“Don’t be alarmed, monseigneur; we shall not have music!” added Ethel.

“You are right,” said the duke; “no music is worth the sound of

friendly voices. How happy I am to see you again! I thank you for

coming,—I seem to be leaving my exile.”

The descendant of Morgana and of Rhodaïs offered his arm to grandma, to

enter the salon. As soon as they were seated, conversation began, as if

they had left each other but the day before; it was familiar and gay,

as among members of the same social world.

“What is the news in Paris?”

“We do not come from there. Talk to us about the sorceress,” said Ethel.

“On the contrary, let us not speak of her! The country is upside down;

every one is losing his head. I should not be astonished if, to-morrow,

when the people see you, they should all cry, ‘Morgana!’”

“Why, that would amuse me immensely!” said Ethel. “How is it possible

for you to be bored in such a country? It must be always interesting.”

“Oh, very, very interesting!” said the duke. “But I should prefer

something else.”

“And yet, to lead the people!—and then, what about your

heroines,—Morgana and Rhodaïs and Bertha,—all those valiant women?”

“Ah! that’s what we need nowadays,” said the duke. “Perhaps one valiant

woman like those ancestors of mine would save Morgania!”

“Is Morgania threatened to that degree?” asked Ethel. “We were counting

on long excursions into the interior.”

“You come at a bad time for that, Miss Rowrer!”

In a few words he gave an impressive description of the state of the

country. Everywhere was the expectation of war, with all its disquiet.

Fields were uncultivated, and the region of the Moratscha was already

all but emptied of its inhabitants. Bands of fugitives were coming in

every day, with a pitiful procession of Christians, chased from Albania

by the Turks. “You speak of excursions to the Castellum. I greatly

fear you’d not be able to do water-color sketches there. At most you

might take kodak shots at brutes always ready to fire on strangers and

pillage them. The state of things is insupportable. However, I will

have you accompanied by a squad of soldiers.”

“How will it all end?” Phil asked.

“I count on the aid of the Great Powers,” said the duke.

Will and Phil could not help smiling. The duke himself watched the

smoke of his cigar with an enigmatic air. Perhaps he saw in it the

image of the stability and fixity of design of the Great Powers.

“Don’t count too much on them,” said Will.

“Meanwhile,” the duke added, “you must consider yourselves quite

safe in my stronghold, where I shall be greatly honored to offer you

hospitality. Your rooms will be as large as churches, and you shall

have an immense stone staircase for yourselves alone.”

“You must be kind enough to excuse me, Monsieur le Duc,” said grandma.

“Well, Morgania is yours!” the duke answered, as he rose to take his

departure. “I shall be only too happy to be useful to you,—you must

dispose of me at your pleasure!”

As the duke crossed the threshold, he saw Sœurette running by.

“I know that child,” said the duke.

“And her sister also!” Ethel said, repressing a smile, for Parisian

gossip had informed her of the duke’s admiration for Helia. “She is on

board, traveling with us.”

“Let her, too, come to the castle,” said the duke. “The little girl

will be charming company for my son; his life is not any too gay, and

with these continual troubles the future is still darker for a ducal

heir.”

“Poor child!” said grandma.

The duke, before he left them, insisted again on the danger of

excursions. He was getting ready to go down when Helia appeared,

looking for Sœurette.

“Mlle. Helia,” said the duke, “I am happy to see you again,” and he

bowed to her with his perfect tact.

Helia had heard the end of the conversation. She came just as the duke

was speaking of a possible invasion.

“And you, Mlle. Helia,” he added, with a smiling air of protection,

“what would you do if you were attacked? You know there is going to be

fighting in our country.”

“That’s very easily settled, monseigneur,” Helia said, with a voice in

which there was a thrill as of self-sacrifice. “If there’s question of

fighting, I will do my part!”

“What an Amazon!” the duke said, looking at Helia with a smile. “So if

the occasion demanded you would do like my ancestresses: you’d sleep

on the mountainside, in the snow and rain night and day, to give an

example!”

“Yes, monseigneur,” said Helia.

The duke made his final bows, with a diplomatic sense of degrees

answering to the differences of rank between grandma and Ethel and

Helia, and then went down to his boat, which was rowed rapidly away.

There was not a cheer on the shore for the duke. A dull silence

reigned on the jetty, broken only by confused expressions of anxiety.

Fingers pointed to the yacht, as if to say, “What is it?” No doubt they

imagined it to be some powerful envoy of the great nations. Meanwhile

the duke disappeared in the night.

The searchlight wavered for a moment, and then fell on the castle. The

people on the jetty were no longer visible, lost in the shadow. But

the murmur of the crowd was still heard, and a dim reflected light gave

the city a phantasmal look, while beyond might be divined the deserted

country, the mountains and valleys.

“I don’t understand the duke,” said Ethel, in a low voice. “He should

be thrilled at the thought of recreating a people. The duke must be

wanting in resolution. I seem to see him in his castle regulating

questions of etiquette, brightening up a little the faded gilt of

his stage-setting, and regretting Paris—a stranger to his people’s

aspirations. Yet how many things are to be done here—wretchedness to

console, ignorance to enlighten! In his place I would never have waited

for them to come to fetch me back from Paris.”

[Illustration: The Searchlight on the Castle]

Ethel suddenly interrupted herself. “See!” she called to Will and

grandma, “see, Morgana smiles to us again! See the light yonder, behind

Helia!”

Just then the searchlight illumined the top of the Gothic portal. The

Morgana window glittered through the night.

“Do not stir, I entreat you!” Ethel said to Helia. “The window throws

a halo around you!”

Indeed, they could see the dark profile of Helia in relief against

the glittering background. She was superb, standing upright, with her

head raised proudly, and one hand grasping a ratline of the mast. She

looked as if she were wielding an immense lance, like a warrior-woman

of heroic days.

CHAPTER IV

THE LITTLE DUKE

The next day, as they entered the Hall of the Ancestors, grandma

dropped the duke’s arm to seat herself in a great chair. But the chair

was in carved wood and very hard. Decidedly, this was a feudal castle,

and much less comfortable than a Chicago home.

Ethel thanked the little Adalbert with a big kiss. The child,

accompanied by his father, had been the guide of Ethel and grandma. He

had climbed up and down steps too high for him; but Ethel gave him her

hand; and the child explained and mentioned names, as he showed mosaics

and statues in the crypt. “My grandfather, Amalfrid IX, my ancestor

Enguerrand, Lady Rhodaïs, Bertha, St. Morgana”;—one would have said he

was the familiar genius of the place, a little wandering soul of the

dead, doing to the living the honors of the past.

When they issued forth from these gloomy vaults, Adalbert hastened to

go off and play with Sœurette behind the pillars of the great hall.

For some days the place was the scene of constant festivity. The

noise of laughter was heard; there was talk and the movement of life,

and roses garnished the vases. Servants carried back and forth cakes

and fruits. At times, beneath the arches, there rolled an uncertain

harmony,—it was Ethel trying the old piano.

What a change for Adalbert, who was used to being alone with his aged

tutor. Until then his walks along the ramparts, amid the box-trees

twisted by the wind, had been his chief amusement. How often he had

wished to go down and untie the old boat moored at the foot of the

wall, and sail out into the bay!

But the duke, with all his frequent traveling, had the child whom

he adored looked after with the greatest care. It was the last of

his race,—their last hope. If the child should die, to which of his

powerful neighbors would the duchy fall as a prey? So the child grew up

in the old castle with the portraits of his forefathers looking down

at him; and his imagination awoke to the recital of ancient legends.

In his dreams by night he saw gentle visions bending over him. Now, all

had grown alive, and the visions were realities. There were big friends

to dance him on their knees; there was a kind old fairy speaking softly

to him in a foreign tongue. Two young maidens, more beautiful than

those of his dreams, took him in their arms; and for playmates he had a

delightful little girl who taught him games and called him Monseigneur.

Ethel looked at Adalbert playing with Sœurette; the child was bright

and gay, and she complimented the duke.

“It is because your visit gives him such pleasure,” said the duke,—“as

much as to me, were it possible! I don’t know what he will do when you

go away,—poor Adalbert! He will be very sorry.”

Ethel looked thoughtful. The duke leaned over the back of her chair,

and, so as to be heard by her alone, spoke slowly:

“It will be his apprenticeship in life. Separation from what one loves

most in the world—that is where everything ends; and yet, perhaps—”

Ethel did not answer, but remained with her head resting on her hand.

She understood quite well what the duke wished to say. She looked

aimlessly before her, thinking of all that she had seen, of all these

parade-rooms and _chambres d’honneur_, and the gloomy stairways. The

gallery, adorned with portraits and suits of heavy armor, haunted

her. The donjons and courtyards, the bastions and the moat and rusty

drawbridge,—she saw it all in her mind. In the old time, on festive

days, what a grand air it must all have had, with the heralds’

trumpets, with banqueting and tournaments, where fair duchesses crowned

those who vanquished! Or, again, at the home-coming from the wars, when

the Lady Knight of Malta, Queen of Antioch, saluted with her sword the

torn banners! What a magnificent opportunity there would be to bring

this all back to sight, if she should make Morgania live again with her

millions! The castle could be made the most princely abode in Europe.

But she wished to know more of Duke Conrad. She wished to judge of him

without being dazzled by his titles. She was not to marry ancestors,

but a husband whom she might love!

[Illustration: Visiting the Castle]

“Your castle is as big as a mountain,” she said to the duke; “you go up

and go down. I am now in full training for my excursion to the Roman

ruins, and to that not less venerable ruin, the sorceress. When shall

we go, monseigneur?”

“Presently,” said the duke, as he pointed to packages and luggage by

the door of the hall. “But if I were you, I would not go to Drina,” he

added earnestly.

“Do you fear for the escort which accompanies us?” said Ethel, with a

smile.

“No; but if harm should come to you, what grief for me!” replied the

duke.

“Nothing will happen to us!” said Ethel. “And then, can you imagine

me going back to Chicago without having had a single kodak-shot at

brigands from nature?”

“I am unable to accompany you, and I regret it,” said the duke. “I

have to make an inspection of the coast, and I ought also to receive a

delegation of the people.”

“We shall go alone,” said Ethel. “St. Morgana will protect us.”

Something happened which greatly amused Ethel and grandma; and the

duke himself could not help smiling. Adalbert broke off his play with

Sœurette, and came running to his father. He looked in turn at the

Morgana of the picture and at Helia, who was sitting near it. The great

canvas, illuminated by the stained-glass window, harmonized splendidly

with the hall. At the distance where Ethel and the duke were placed,

there was nothing to hide the view of the painting. They saw all its

details, even the crowd which Phil had depicted along the shore; it

might have been the same crowd which thronged the jetty the evening of

the yacht’s arrival, when the booming of the cannon drew the people to

the sea.

But the crowd in Phil’s picture was more animated and gay. Instead

of the gloom of discouragement, it seemed transfigured by hope. It

acclaimed the heroine; Rhodaïs and Bertha and Thilda, with swords in

their hands, appeared amid the clouds. Everything in the magnificent

picture was strange and supernatural.

The child had just been struck by the resemblance between the model and

the portrait of Morgana; his astonishment was touching, as he looked

from one to the other. He asked himself if the ancient legends were not

realized at last! if Morgana herself had not risen again from the past,

to be painted by Phil.

“My father,” said the child to the duke, “is it really Morgana? Tell

me!”

“What a child!” answered the duke, taking him in his arms to kiss him.

“He believes that Mlle. Helia is Morgana.” And he looked at Ethel as if

to say, “I know full well who Morgana is—it is you!”

CHAPTER V

VISITING THE SORCERESS

The conveyance and escort for Ethel, with Suzanne and Helia, were

awaiting them at the other side of the city. There were also horses

for Will and Phil. Sœurette was to remain behind, to keep company with

the little Monseigneur. Grandma returned to the yacht, quite out of

sympathy with living in old castles which have plenty of stairways but

no elevators.

Ethel had already seen the city; yet she had an ever new pleasure

in these comings and goings. Her inquisitiveness was satisfied to

the full. She was making studies of a population as ignorant as it

was unknown, anchored to its old-time customs, and closed in by its

mountains, like monks within their cloisters. Yet beneath all this

torpor one could feel unconquerable pride and love of vengeance and of

glory.

These motionless shopkeepers would sell you a pair of slippers or a

whole outfit of pistols and daggers for the belt. All these warlike

accoutrements were amusements to Ethel; she found them even on the

porter who peacefully brought her packages from the hall of the throne

to the carriage.

As soon as they had come down from the castle, after turning back a

last time to salute the duke, whom etiquette bound to the ramparts,

along with Caracal, the party entering the town seemed passing through

a haunt of brigands. Pieces of basket-work hung before the shops.

Suspended on nails in the shade were the bridles of horses, shining

with brass, and red leather saddles, and swords. Savage eyes looked out

to see them go by.

The season for heavy siestas had passed. All the day long the crowd

thronged the street. Shepherds, clad in hairy goatskins and shod with

leather sandals, mingled with soldiers, at whose side was slung long

Albanian rifles. They talked politics as they drank their coffee.

Others displayed the cylindric turban, the knit silken girdle, and

the dagger-sheath of brass. Women with knit boots, and dressed in

scarlet embroidered with arabesques, sang to the accompaniment of

the guzla—that lyre with its single string made of twisted hair. They

droned out a psalmody of mountaineers, recalling the ancient glories of

their country.

Adalbert’s tutor, who accompanied the party, translated and explained

the songs.

The blood sprang to the cheeks of the impetuous queen;

Then every soldier satisfied his vengeance;

None like Morgana!

Swift and daring she struck this one and pierced that one!

Ah, she poured out to her enemies a bitter drink!

Thus they all perished!

Everywhere the impassioned looks and voices of the crowd made them feel

that war was near. All these peasants, coming from different regions,

were stirred by a common desire—to see the return of the heroic days

when Morgana and Rhodaïs and the great ancestresses had led the people

to victory.

Every one in the street drew aside as the party passed. The rumor had

run that a queen was to visit the duke—a young maiden from unknown

lands beyond the sea, where the sun sets. Which one was it? Ethel or

Helia? Perhaps both? The people were in admiration at their noble air.

Women grown prematurely old in the harsh labor of the fields were in

ecstasy at their beauty. To them the two young girls seemed of a higher

race, like that of the saints and heroines in the stained-glass windows

of their churches; they followed them with their eyes, and took up

again their chants in honor of Morgana.

Morgana was the universal inspiration; she was everywhere. In the back

of gloomy shops icons were to be seen—St. Morgana, with the Virgin,

dimly lighted by a burning float. There was something touching in the

faith which this people had in their national legends.

Ethel appreciated the silence of the crowd on the jetty that evening

when the duke quitted the yacht. No; his people did not recognize

themselves in him. They still had a certain respect for him, for the

sake of his glorious ancestors; but the people were prepared to abandon

him, and to take shelter in their dreams.

One would have said that the power of the state was no longer in the

ducal castle, but far away by the spurs of the Kutsch-kom Mountain,

where lived the sorceress, the primitive oracle of her race. They paid

no attention to their effeminate master, and listened only to this

ancestral voice, that foretold national happiness.

“Phil,” said Ethel, “you know the proverb, ‘When you are in Rome, do

as the Romans do.’ It’s a useless recommendation, for we can’t help

doing it. But even if we don’t act like this people, we are rather

Morganian in our thoughts, are we not? And it is the women who interest

me chiefly,” Ethel continued. “It is their heroines whose remembrance

fills the people with a hope beyond realization. And yet—what if it

should be realized? We can never be certain.”

Phil was silent,—Helia was at his side.

“You look a little tired,” Ethel said to her.

Phil took Helia’s arm; and they walked together, talking little, making

indifferent remarks to each other, each alone with his own innermost

thoughts. They were leaving the weavers’ street for that of the

armorers.

“There is enough here to cut the throats of a nation!” Phil could not

help observing.

They were between the lines of shops. The sun’s rays fell straight

down, striking flashes from the niello work of the rifles, from the

ivory of the Albanese pistols, and from the clusters of daggers hanging

from their hooks. They were of every form and size: the Malay creese,

curved zigzag like a lightning-flash; Venetian stilettos, as pointed

as a bee’s sting; and others pierced with holes, for their amalgam of

arsenic and grease, looking like blotches. Besides the slender, elegant

blade to be worn at the garter, there were horn-handled knives, real

bandits’ weapons, made to stick into the back.

[Illustration: “‘Does the sight of so many weapons make you nervous?’”]

Phil thought of the landscape he had painted for Ethel when he had

come from the circus, and of the man who had sought for a knife in his

pocket, threatening Helia from a distance.

That very moment, as if some mysterious sympathy had been set up

between Helia and himself, he felt the young girl’s arm tremble in his

own. Helia pressed against him in a movement of unreasoned fear.

“What is the matter, Helia?” he asked. “Does the sight of so many

weapons make you nervous?”

“No, it is not that,” said Helia, looking at the market-place thronged

with people.

“What are you looking at?” Phil insisted. “Has any one frightened you?

Do me the honor to fear nothing when on my arm, Helia!”

“Oh! I am afraid of nothing,” answered Helia. “Forgive me! it was

surprise. I thought I saw some one, recognized some one; but no, I must

be crazy—”

“You have seen some one? Whom?”

Helia was on the point of answering, “Socrate!” but she did not

pronounce the name. Already he had been spoken of too much between

her and Phil. Besides, she no longer could see the man. Yet she would

have sworn that but now, there, behind that group, she had beheld

the flat face of Socrate looking at her stealthily. It must have been

an illusion. Was she now going to meet Socrate everywhere? Already,

on board the yacht, one evening when she was looking from the deck

into the boiler-room, she thought she had seen him in the red rays of

the fires with his eyes lifted toward her, shining from a face black

with coal-dust. Surely, it must have been because, when they left

Marseilles, Suzanne burst into laughter, saying: “See the stokers they

are taking on! There is one who looks like Socrate!”

“Do you wish me to find out?” Phil asked.

“No; remain here, Phil—here, at my side. It was just an idea I had—but

do not leave me,” she added, pressing against him once more.

“A woman’s idea!” thought Phil. “I can understand it, in this country

where they sell daggers in clusters as they sell bananas with us.”

The attention of both was drawn away by a change of scene. They

had left the city behind them and were already in the open country.

Peasants were driving their mules or pushing carts, with children

perched upon bundles of straw and packs of rags. They were coming to

augment the tumult of those who had taken to the city for refuge.

“It seems to me we are going the wrong way,” said Ethel, laughing;

“every one is turning his back to us.”

“Why, we’ve just started,” said Phil. “We must go on now to the end.”

“Of course,” Ethel said, in delight; “and it’s so exciting! I’d go

through fire and flames to see something really new. Come, here are our

horses waiting for us!”

“What luck!” cried Suzanne, “we are going to see a sorceress—b-r-r-r-r!

it sends a shiver down one’s back to think of it!”

This childish outburst put everybody in good humor. Will and Phil

mounted their horses. Ethel, Helia, and Suzanne seated themselves on

the benches or the luggage in the conveyance; and the escort started

off.

They went straight into the mountains. Except the guides and two

soldiers in the picturesque costumes of the klephts,—white gaiters and

short jacket, like that of a bull-fighter, with a fustanelle shirt,—no

one accompanied the tourists. The tutor had gone back to Adalbert.

There was no danger as far as the convent of Semavat Evi, or “House

of Heaven,” and there a larger escort was awaiting them and would

accompany them to the frontier. Ethel asked herself in what condition

she would reach the place, so shockingly rough was the road. Suzanne,

seated on a valise which she named her _strapontin_ (an aisle-seat in

a theater), was having immense fun.

“It’s just like a scene in the Chatelet Theater,” she said, pointing

to the landscape where the huge castle overlooked the old city huddled

together at its feet, with the yacht anchored out in the blue sea. She

shook with laughter as the wheel passed over a projecting rock and all

but overthrew the conveyance.

Ethel and Helia looked at the two soldiers marching ahead. The flapping

of their fustanelle skirts, when they leaped over the gutters, gave

them the air of two ballet-dancers. The contrast between their brigand

heads and the collection of weapons at their belts, and their long,

white, agile legs was so comic that Ethel and Helia did not perceive

they were going along beside a precipice. The cultivated land was

passed, and they could see only tufts of thorny shrubs. Suzanne alone

gave a note of gaiety to the bleak landscape. Ethel let her talk on,

without listening, and soon Suzanne was silent, conquered like the

others by the melancholy sight.

The horizon broadened around them, rising up on either side. Below,

the plains stretched out far as the eye could reach. The road was

like a thread lying along the ground. By this road, at their feet,

they would come back from the excursion. Ethel looked with interest

at this pathway of so many invasions. The rude mountaineers of Albania

had followed it to the sea, and more than once invaders had filled it

with the flashing of their swords. Who could know whether Morgania was

not to pass again through such a period of disaster? There was now no

living wall to stay the waves.

The wagon went up and up in endless turnings. Suddenly, as they crossed

a plateau where ragged grass was growing, a chant arose, monotonous and

solemn, and repeated by the echoes. On every side they seemed to hear

lamentations and groans issuing forth from the earth or falling from

the clouds.

“Where are we?” asked Ethel, stirred from her reverie. “I see no one.”

“It is the shepherds over there,” said Helia.

Ethel perceived, in the midst of a lean flock, beside a fire whose

smoke mounted straight upward, a group of shepherds singing. It was

one of the _prismés_ which they sing from one mountain to the other.

Ethel was greatly impressed by these spontaneous chants of the desert.

In them, hoarse cries alternated with sharp, high cadences and a

quickening measure. An impression of grandeur was left behind by this

singing in the solitude. Ethel thought with pity of the old untuned

piano in the castle, and of the sound of the banjo, thin as the humming

of flies among the massive pillars of the throne-room. The castle

itself,—what was it compared with these huge natural towers overlooking

the road, with their giant steps made of rocks that had slid down?—or

to these ravines, like somber courtyards,—to these measureless caverns

opening like vaults, in the depths of which the schist rock shone like

stained-glass windows? And still they mounted up, turning around these

strongholds of a country made for liberty. They were approaching the

grotto of the sorceress.

A joyful burst of laughter drew Ethel from her reverie. Behind her,

seated astride a package, Suzanne was in an ecstasy of delight.

“The ballet!—oh, Miss Rowrer, the ballet is beginning—look at the

_danseuses_!”

Suzanne was choking, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth not to

let herself be heard.

The two soldiers, won by the music’s enthusiasm, were leaping in

time with sharp cries, now squatting to earth and now brandishing

their rifles, swaying right and left, and twirling their legs while

their fustanella skirts stood out straight. Like monkeys drunk with

cocoa-milk, they gave inarticulate cries—“Yoo! yoo!”

“Encore!” cried Suzanne.

“My kodak!” said Ethel.

“I’m sitting on it!” said Suzanne; “I can hear it crack!”

All their gaiety had come back. Ethel felt the need of shaking off the

mysterious influence that had been depressing her since they set out.

“Really, I’m too simple,” she said; “I shall wind up by believing in

their sorceress. Poor old woman, who will sell us four-leaved clover

against thunder, coral horns against the evil eye, fetishes and

prayer-mills and garlic _pommade_.”

“How happy Poufaille would be here!” thought Suzanne.

“What a journey!” Ethel continued. “What roads! I am all shaken up! At

least they ought to build a narrow-gage railroad in such a country!”

she said to Will, who had come up with her.

“It wouldn’t pay,” said Will. “But if I owned these mountains I’d take

the ore out of them.”

“Mademoiselle would be very good if she would ask for me a toad’s-hair

chaplet,” Suzanne said, in a low tone.

“Ask? From whom? From my brother?”

“No! From the old sorceress!”

“But toads haven’t hair, Suzanne!”

“It was M. Caracal told me.”

“Oh, if you’re going to believe all that he says—”

“Poor old woman!” observed Will, “living in such a hole, stuck to her

rock like an oyster in its shell!”

“That doesn’t prevent her consulting the stars and occupying herself

with Jupiter, and knowing a hundred and ten ways of foretelling the

future.”

“A hundred and ten ways—that’s a great deal,” replied Will. “Which is

the best of them all?”

“Let’s count on our fingers,” said Ethel. “I’ll begin. Aëromancy, by

the air; aleuromancy, by flour; telomancy, by arrows—”

“—Dactylomancy, by the fingers; chiromancy, by the hand; podomancy, by

the feet!” continued Phil.

“Hydromancy, by water,” Ethel began again. “Rhabdomancy, by sticks—”

“That’s for Poufaille,” thought Suzanne. “_Vive la rhabdomancie!_”

Just then the horses stopped, and the driver turned to the tourists,

saying a few words in a low tone of voice and pointing with his finger

to a recess in the rock. They had reached their journey’s end. All was

silent. Ethel, Helia, and Suzanne descended from the vehicle, and Will

and Phil leaped from their horses.

The spot was a wild one. Before them the whole country lay

outstretched. Behind them mountains were heaped together. The wind

blew, tossing the horses’ manes; and the great passing clouds seemed to

issue forth from the mountain.

The visitors took a few steps forward and saw a black hole. It was the

cavern. A rough statue of Morgana, virgin and martyr, was carved in

the living rock. There were heaps of votive offerings around it—little

figures of children and birds, veils and women’s girdles, daggers and

flowers and fruits, and the red cake which betrothed ones break before

marriage. A peasant woman at her prayers, prostrate on the rock at the

saint’s feet, was praying with the energy of despair, and calling for

vengeance.

The visitors kept on advancing, half regretting that they had come.

What were they to say to the sorceress? Ethel, greatly moved, took

Phil’s arm. It seemed to her that her own lot was to be decided. She

felt her heart beating as they advanced to the grotto. Helia was at her

side. Will was behind with Suzanne. They came to the opening and leaned

forward, but saw nothing.

Little by little their eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. They

could distinguish, uncertainly, in the depths, eyes that shone—and

then a figure, huddled together on a bed of rushes, looking at them,

motionless, with her finger to her mouth, like a statue of silence! The

eyes, fixed in turn on each of them, suddenly rested upon Helia with a

strange glow.

“Oh, how she looks at me!” Helia said, seizing Ethel’s arm. “Oh, _mon

Dieu_, if she only will not speak! Let us go away; I entreat you, let

us go away! I am afraid!”

They started back, and felt relieved when they were out of sight of the

sinister eyes.

“Let us go,” said Ethel.

At the feet of St. Morgana, the suppliant one was now praying as in an

ecstasy.

CHAPTER VI

THE FIGHT

MISS ETHEL ROWRER TO MLLE. DE GROJEAN

“On board the _Columbia_.

“You’ll have to hang yourself, my valorous Yvonne, for we have had

our battle without you! The truth is, we have narrowly escaped being

spitted and roasted. That’s a promising beginning, isn’t it? Grand’mère

will be delighted that you were not there; but you will regret it if

you read my letter to the end. I say ‘if,’ for it’s a whole history.

Excuse my writing feverishly, on the gallop; I am in a hurry to

tell you. I promised you an adventure in Morgania—and here is one.

Only I am not its heroine, alas! For it is a story of heroism, and

that of the purest. As for me, I feel the need of crying aloud my

admiration for that noble young girl. Are you curious? It is Helia;

you understand—Helia! You remember her? She was one of those who ‘don’t

count’!

“I come to the facts.

“We have left Semavat Eli—a Heavenly House, wherein we were eaten up

by vermin, and served by good monks who amused themselves teaching

thrushes to whistle. The next day, from early morning, as soon as they

had let us down,—by the window, if you please, in great wicker baskets

(for in this country monasteries have no doors),—Suzanne seated herself

on my kodak, Helia and I on our valises, Will and Phil straddled their

horses, and—forward, march! over pointed rocks to Thermopylæ! that is,

to their Thermopylæ, which is the defile of the Moratscha. It was a

kind of pilgrimage we were doing—five in all, not counting our escort

of ballet-dancers, who were waiting for us at the monastery. By that,

I mean soldiers with fustanelle skirts, armed to the teeth, very white

teeth in black faces, quite like wolves!

“The evening before we’d climbed up all the way to see the sorceress—I

ought to say the prophetess, and you must not laugh, I entreat you, for

it would give me pain. I was never so affected in my life. From that

place to Semavat Eli the country is flat, except for the horrible road.

After that, we had to go down and down to the defile along the river

Drina. We crossed impetuous torrents where there was not enough water

for a water-color sketch, and forests dry as firewood, all bristling

with thorns, so that we could not go near without leaving bits of

our gowns. It was the abomination of desolation,—and down we came,

down and down toward the plain; and through the plain we came back.

For that matter there is nothing to see but ill-cultivated fields and

dilapidated houses.

“It is a country where there are no locks. The duke told me so, to give

me an idea of his people’s honesty. Suzanne, who is an amusing child,

says that doors without locks are the invention of poor countries; and

that there are no thieves where there is nothing to steal.

[Illustration: Helia facing the Assailants]

“At noon we stopped. We ate and rested, and our soldiers sang

and danced; and then we were off again. There were more impetuous

watercourses of gravel and pebble. There were shepherds watching

their goats, and red-haired women carrying burdens on their heads, and

looking at us with wide-open mouths. We were near the spot.

“Imagine a wild gorge. It was the meeting of two ways, from the

mountain and from the plain. Farther along was the river Drina, with

its old bridge. That is the end of Morgania, which is protected by its

mountains, with this defile, like Thermopylæ, as its only entrance.

But, you will ask me, what about Helia?

“Patience!

“We had all got down, leaving the horses and wagons in the shade of

the defile. I had a fixed idea that I would go to the middle of the

frontier bridge, which belongs half to Christ and half to Mohammed, and

that I would also visit the Roman ruin and the little Christian village

farther on, which has a little belfry like a minaret.

“But as we drew near there were loud cries, and a headlong flight of

peasants, their features distorted with fright as they ran past us.

Then there was the fire and smoke of a fusillade, the tocsin sounding,

and then more cries,—frightful cries,—the howling of hunted beasts,

piercing the ear like a knife.

“It was all so sudden that we didn’t know what to do. We all spoke at

once: ‘What is it?’ ‘What shall we do?’ ‘Shall we defend ourselves?’

‘The soldiers!’

“There were no soldiers—fled—out of sight! We could barely see their

white ballet-skirts leaping away in every direction. We were going

to have our throats cut like sheep! I remember how at that moment

the frightened crowd rushed upon the bridge, and bore us back with

it toward the defile. Phil grasped my arm and said to Helia and me:

‘Don’t be afraid; I’m with you!’ There was such fire in his eyes that

I felt reassured. We went back toward the wagon, and I shut my eyes

and stuffed my fingers in my ears, letting pass the waves of howling

creatures,—men, women, and children,—who climbed up on the wagon or

slipped beneath it, some leaping up only to fall back with convulsed

features, struck down by the bullets!

“I heard Will say to me, ‘Turks!’ I opened my eyes. Horsemen were

riding here and there through the plain, striking right and left with

their sabers. Men on foot were advancing, singing harshly. I heard a

general discharge, and then pitiful cries. The wagon turned crosswise

of the defile. One of our horses reared and the other fell heavily;

all the luggage tumbled—the way was blocked! We were sheltered by the

wagon as behind a barricade, pell-mell with the fugitives. Helia had

not followed us—she was not there!

“‘Helia is lost!’ Phil said to me. Pressed by the crowd as he was, he

could not disengage himself to go to her aid. Through an opening in the

wagon I saw her standing alone. She had not had time to take shelter

with us. Bullets were whistling on every side. I no longer knew what I

was doing. These were not comic-opera Turks, with gourds for helmets,

and dressed in gilded rags. They were men armed with rifles and

daggers. Everywhere there were the dead, everywhere there was blood. It

was frightful!

“The bullets became fewer—the enemy had taken to their swords, and

we were without arms, pressed upon by the crowd which clung to our

garments.

“Oh, never shall I forget what I then saw. Helia, as I have said, was

alone, facing our assailants. There she remained! She had snatched

from one of the fugitives an enormous club. The enemy drew near. A Turk

came upon her and was already stretching out his hand to seize her by

the hair, when Helia whirled the club, bringing it down on the man and

splitting his skull! He fell and Helia put her foot on him.

“As the man was falling Helia seized his rifle and put it quickly to

her shoulder. We heard two reports, and two more of the enemy went

down.

“All this passed in no time at all. Helia seemed like a supernatural

being. As she remained standing upright, the attack wavered. The

Turks were terror-stricken at this young maiden whose throat they had

expected to cut as they passed by, and who handled these heavy weapons

as if she were playing with them. I heard Helia call to us; but we

could not stir. I wept with rage. How I wished to be beside her! She

whirled the rifle by the end of its barrel; and with a terrific blow

brought down the breech on the head of one who seemed the leader.

They fell back for a moment. Meanwhile we did not remain idle; and

the peasants had pulled themselves together. Phil and I, as soon as we

had got ourselves loose, jumped on the wagon, after picking up rifles.

Will brought back the soldiers; and when the Turks, mad with rage, and

sword in hand, came rushing back upon Helia—who awaited them without

flinching—they were welcomed with a discharge of bullets which stopped

them short. Our fears were over. The Turks fled, our bullets striking

them in their backs, and the peasants pursuing them with sticks and

stones. In a moment the bridge was free. Phil had not quitted me for an

instant. He was always between me and the enemy, and superbly cool. I

asked him, ‘What is the matter with Helia? She seems to be looking for

death!’ It is certain there was something like despair in her terrible

intrepidity. Phil did not answer. He seemed more moved than herself.

Just then I had no time to go into the question; all of us were safe

and sound; that was the main thing. The Turks had fled away, and would

not soon return. We gathered up the wounded. Suzanne was everywhere

at once, with a bottle in her hand. ‘_Qui veut la goutte, les enfants?

Voilà la petite cantinière!_’ [‘Who wants a drink, children? Here’s the

cantinière!’] The bells of the Christian village rang joyously, and the

cry was taken up, and grew louder and louder: ‘Morgana! Morgana!’ Helia

was borne in triumph. Women knelt down as she passed. The brave girl

was bleeding a little; and they gathered the drops of blood on pieces

torn from her gown, like the relics of a saint. For me, I was happy

beyond expression. I kissed her cheeks and cried: ‘Morgana!’

“‘What! you, too, Miss Ethel! But I have done nothing!’ answered Helia.

‘I did my part, that was all.’

[Illustration: The Return to the City]

“Wagons came from the village, and we put the wounded into them. One

who spoke Italian told us the story. The Albanian Moslems for a long

time had been threatening the Christians. They demanded a thousand

Turkish pounds. They were refused, and raided the village on the day of

a marriage, when every one was at the feast. They were going to invade

the district of Morgania where the victims were taking refuge; but this

young girl had saved everything!

“Helia had her gown all torn, and so they threw over her shoulders the

mantle of the village bride. Upon her disheveled hair they placed the

red symbolic head-dress, with its golden tassels.

“Helia’s cart was at the head of the convoy, and the other wagons

followed, filled with the wounded. Phil galloped along on an Albanian

horse with red-and-white trappings. Will remained in the village,

to organize the resistance. I went back to the city with Suzanne, on

Helia’s cart.

“It was a triumphal march. All these poor people and ourselves, whom

she had saved from massacre, had eyes only for her. But she had no air

of happiness! She had a slight wound in the forehead. From time to time

a drop of blood fell on her gown and made a red stain. This streak of

blood marked her out to the crowd. The cheers redoubled, and little

children threw kisses toward her. She was indifferent to it all, and

looked only at the little red stain.

“‘Oh, my pretty gown,’ she said, ‘my pretty bridal gown is ruined!’

“The road through the valley is much shorter than that over the

mountain. We were to get to the city by night, just before day-dawn.

Oh, what a vision, never to be forgotten, was that night journey!

You cannot believe how quickly the tidings traveled, in this country

without telegraphs or railroad. Horsemen went galloping before us. When

we passed through a village there were cries of joy and men dancing by

the light of torches. Priests bearing golden crosses blessed us as we

passed. Helia’s exploits grew from mouth to mouth, and this explained

the ever-increasing enthusiasm. She had killed eight enemies with her

own hand, had stopped the invasion and saved the convoy from massacre!

At Gradiska she had killed twenty, and at Kolo more still.

“‘You will see,’ Helia said to me; ‘by the time we get to the city I

shall have killed the Grand Vizir and the Sultan!’

“Our escort kept on growing. It was grand when we entered the city.

Helia had been hoping to find every one asleep. You would have thought

you were going into a bee-hive! They wished to carry Helia in triumph

to the castle. But the duke was not there—he was off on the excursion

along the coast. The people will never pardon him for not having been

present to share their joy and cheer the heroine.

“To wind up: I don’t know how we did it, but we got back to the yacht

all the same, broken and bruised and delighted, deafened by the cries,

and blinded by the lights.

“Every one is resting except myself. I cannot stay quiet, and I profit

by my sleeplessness to write you. Well, what did I tell you? Are you

not sorry to have missed a thing like that? And I will have other

things to tell you when I have the pleasure to see you again, my dear

Yvonne....

“P.S. The heavens are mixing themselves up in the event. You have heard

of the Fata Morgana—that wonderful mirage effect along the coast of

the Adriatic (it comes from the evaporation of hot air in the lower

layers, changing refraction to reflection, and so forth, and so forth;

but people here simply attribute it to a fairy’s enchantments).

“However that may be, I am finishing this letter just as the sun is

rising, and the sky is marvelous. I am looking at great streaks of

blood and crumbling towers and golden crowns—all changing form every

moment. You can see in it what you wish; but, always, it is beautiful.”

CHAPTER VII

THE FATEFUL DAY BEGINS

Ethel finished her letter, and went up on deck to find grandma. A

splendid day was appearing, with its marvelous light flooding space.

Morgana was building her palaces in the heavenly azure. Golden darts

across battlemented clouds were driving away the birds of night. The

sun rose up, enormous in size. In front of the yacht the city, with

its minarets and domes, showed like a vision of the Orient. The castle,

scarcely outlined, seemed floating above the waters.

“Brave Helia! the heavens are celebrating her—how splendid the mirage

is, grandma!” said Ethel.

“You see, Ethel,” Mrs. Rowrer remarked, “mirages are not easily

appreciated with glasses. At my age I perceive rather the chill of the

mist.”

“My dear grandma!” said Ethel, as she kissed her, “don’t you think

that what Helia did was simply grand? Even with your glasses you can

distinguish heroism. Helia is what I call a woman! When I think that I

might have done it—what would I not give to be in her place, grandma!”

“Are you jealous, Ethel?”

“Oh, grandma!”

No; Ethel was not jealous. But for the last few days nothing had gone

well with her. She was not like Helia, who had so many reasons to

be joyful—and who yet was sad. Ethel had genuine cares. First, she

had not risen to the mark like Helia; next—and oh, what a grudge she

had against Will for it!—when she saw the poor refugees without food

or shelter, she remarked to her brother how much wretchedness there

was to comfort, that something ought to be done. It would even be an

acknowledgment of the duke’s hospitality.

“It’s already done!” was Will’s answer. “I cabled from the city

yesterday; one of our freight steamers will quit Odessa at once with

grain and food.”

“There I am!” Ethel said, in comic despair.

Ethel looked far off at the city and castle, for the yacht had taken to

the open on account of drifting currents. She was thinking of Morgania.

The manner in which the duke would understand his duty under the

present circumstances would be a standard by which to judge the man.

That the duke had stayed on in Paris when he ought to have been in

Morgania—that she could willingly forgive, since it was for her that

he stayed. But that now he should be brave, loyal to his people, with

a burning zeal for progress and all that is good—that would be more

pleasing to her than all his attentions.

“What is the matter, grandma? You have something on your mind,” said

Ethel to her grandmother, who was looking toward the mountains.

“It is nothing,” said grandma. “I was thinking of Will, who is over

there, and fearing some accident might happen to him.”

“Just now he risks nothing,” said Ethel. “It is all enthusiasm among

the people. Will is to take the most pressing measures. The enemy is

sure to return, but the duke will be ready—unless he wastes too much

time.”

They heard the stroke of oars, and a small boat came alongside.

“I’m sure it’s the duke coming to congratulate us,” said Ethel. “He

must have returned—and you’ll see, grandma, he will thank me for saving

Morgania, and will put his heart at my feet! He will say the people

wish me, that they are crying for me! Watch him, grandma, when I tell

him that it is not I, it is Helia! You’ll see his expression: ‘Helia!

hum—hum—charming, very charming, but, really—’”

“You judge the duke wrongly, Ethel.”

“She’s right, all the same!” thought Suzanne.

“The duke knows what he’s about, grandma! But it is not he,” she said,

looking over at the boat. “They are two—in long coats! That’s not local

color.”

“They are my two bears—Zrnitschka, Bjelopawlitji! _Sauve qui peut!_”

Suzanne muttered to herself.

It was, indeed, the two delegates. They had been chosen because they

were accustomed to diplomatic missions; and, moreover, they spoke

French.

They came up—bent themselves double.

They presented the duke’s excuses. “Monseigneur was unable to come—he

was presiding at the Assembly of Notables with Monseigneur Adalbert.”

[Illustration: The Delegates]

“Ah, by the way,” said grandma, “how is the little fellow? and

Sœurette?”

“Monseigneur Adalbert is well—and the little girl also. They’re playing

together on the terrace all the time.”

Then the delegates explained their mission. They had come to invite

the heroine to land in the evening. The people were preparing a monster

welcome for her. Immense crowds were coming in from all parts. Nothing

like it had been seen in the memory of man. Monseigneur, the duke,

would remain to give orders, that all might be worthy of the expected

guest. The duke begged Miss Rowrer to be present with him afterward at

the reception in the throne-room—and he laid his heart at her feet.

“There—just as I thought!” was Ethel’s reflection. “The duke believes

it was I!”

Ethel turned to Suzanne: “Ask Mlle. Helia—or, rather, no! it’s useless

to ask her; she would not come—I know her! But she will not refuse it

to me as a service,” she argued within herself, “we will go together,

with Helia at the head. She shall have her triumph this evening.”

Suzanne showed signs of trouble. The delegates had recognized her and

bowed low. The name “Helia” struck them. It came back with the memories

of their strange diplomatic soirée.

“What is the matter?” Ethel asked Suzanne, sharply. “Do you know them?”

“No—that is—yes!” answered Suzanne.

“Really, is it yes or no?”

“_Eh bien_, yes.”

“Where did you see them? At Paris?—at the duke’s place?”

“At the duke’s—yes—that is—no! It was one evening when Mademoiselle

Helia—”

“Do they know Helia?”

“No!—or, rather—”

“Or rather yes?” interrupted Ethel.

“I am trying to tell you—”

“Good—you’ll tell me later.”

The delegates thought they were talking of the evening reception.

“Messieurs,” Ethel said to them, “it is understood. Thank the duke—I

shall be there at the appointed hour.”

The delegates bowed, and Ethel accompanied them to the rail.

“Be careful not to fall, M. Zrnitschka, M. Bjelopawlitji! See,

messieurs,” she added, pointing to a tarpaulin which they were

arranging at the yacht’s side, “that is a bath-room—it’s a tropical

invention. The tarpaulin is held by bars stretched out on the top of

the water and making a rigid square. It’s a genuine bath-tub, five

meters long and wide, and four feet deep. That does not prevent me from

jumping over it when I wish, and I take a little turn in the open. That

is the real bath-tub for me!” And she pointed to the sea.

Ethel could not keep her face straight at the frightened look of the

delegates, who kept on bowing and bowing as they clambered down the

steps.

“What ought I to say?” Suzanne was thinking within herself. She would

have to tell all the stories about the duke and Helia, and perhaps

about Phil,—“and I who don’t know how to lie!”

Ethel quietly took her seat by grandma, without speaking to Suzanne of

anything at all.

“It’s Helia’s day,” she thought. “It would be bad taste to crush the

brave young girl with my dresses when she has only simple things.”

“Very well, Suzanne,” Ethel said aloud. “I do not need you for the

present. See that everything is ready for this evening—a simple

street-gown.”

Ethel’s curiosity, however, had been excited. What could there have

been in common between the duke and Helia and Suzanne? She now

remembered a few passing words. Caracal had finally told her his

story of the Louvre gardener, and Adam and Eve. She recalled his

expressions. Phil never spoke to her of Helia, although he recounted

willingly the adventures of his youth. Against this were his occasional

embarrassment, certain hidden allusions, and his salon portrait of the

young girl in the midst of flowers surrounded by a flight of doves;

and then, why should Phil, only yesterday, have dropped his eyes and

blushed at the mad bravery of Helia? Did he, then, know the secret of

it?

It was not pleasant to Ethel to go into such questions. Helia’s

melancholy, and her daring, her seeking for death when she was only

twenty—it was not natural! Miss Rowrer did not need to know more. She

understood all, so she believed.

CHAPTER VIII

FATA MORGANA TO THE RESCUE!

Later in the day Suzanne appeared, and timidly begged Miss Rowrer to

excuse her. “Mademoiselle Helia has gone from the tarpaulin—she is

swimming straight for the cliff. If Miss Rowrer would be good enough to

go on deck, perhaps Mademoiselle Helia—” As for her, Suzanne, she could

do nothing—she had called in vain.

Miss Rowrer followed Suzanne, but Helia was already far away.

“She would not listen to me,” said Suzanne. “I don’t know what came

over her.”

“But where is she going?”

“To the rocks off there, Miss Rowrer.”

Suzanne pointed to the shoals on which the sea was breaking.

“Well,” Ethel said, to quiet Suzanne, “Helia is not lost. If I had been

on the deck I would have asked her not to do it. But one who swims as

she does has nothing to fear. I only hope she won’t delay, so as to be

back in time for the evening’s reception.”

“If only she comes back!”

“Oh, now! it’s only child’s play for her,” said Miss Rowrer, following

with her glass Helia’s movements.

For any one else than Helia the undertaking would have been hazardous,

because of the eddies among the rocks. She might also hit against some

point just hidden beneath the water. There was a striking contrast

between the immense cliff and the almost imperceptible swimmer, who was

going farther and farther away.

The marvelous sky had become more magnificent still. The sea was

resplendent, and now and then a luminous wake showed behind Helia; and

then it would suddenly be quenched in the blackness of the shoal water.

“How little Helia seems in all that immensity!” Ethel said to Phil, who

had joined her.

“She has reached the rocks—she is going up them,” said Phil.

“Oh! never fear for her; I understand what urges her on: it is still

that love of danger which made her heroic yesterday. Have no fear for

Helia,” Ethel said to Suzanne, as she gave her the glass. “If I thought

there was the least danger, I would send out the boat; but I think

she—she wishes to be alone; we will respect her desire.”

That day Ethel had a thousand things to do: letters to write; her

preparations for the evening; to choose the music which was to be

played on board during the reception on land. Especially there was an

old-time melody which she had heard Helia singing in a low voice in

her cabin. Ethel had a muffled rehearsal of it in the forecastle. She

wished to keep it as a surprise for Helia in the evening, when she

should enter the throne-room. She counted greatly on the effect; the

music would come in waves mingled with the sea-breeze, filling the

night with harmony and encircling Helia with her favorite melody. There

were also flowers to bring and other orders to give.

While they were thus making ready her triumph, Helia, who was now

stretched out on the seaweed amid the rocks, dreamed, with her mind

far away. The effort she had made and the coolness of the water had

calmed her. The ardent light shone on her damp neck and arms as on

rose-colored marble. The wet bathing-dress clung to her round limbs,

and her heavy hair rolled over her shoulders. She was like a dreaming

Naiad clinging to the sharp rocks above a sunken Atlantis.

All around her the sky heaped up tumultuous splendor. Fata Morgana was

disporting herself in the burning mists.

Helia looked at the glowing apotheosis so far above her, as

inaccessible as her dream. Then her eyes fell to the craggy ruins so

much more in harmony with her thoughts. The green light upon the sea

was reflected in her clear eyes. Beneath the transparent waters she

could perceive a strange vegetation gently waving its leaves. Ah, how

well one might rest down there, lying on the golden sands amid flowers

which seemed alive!

Suddenly Helia blushed for herself—no! away with the ugly thought! All

her pride revolted against it. Really, she was going mad! This idle,

artificial life had been gnawing at her ever since she had come on the

yacht. What was she doing with these happy ones of the earth, in the

midst of their luxury? She saw clearly that Phil and Miss Rowrer were

made for each other. No, she would not go to America to be exposed

to such continual torture as the sight of their love would be—to see

Phil living serenely on, without remorse and without regret. She must

escape as soon as possible from him, and go back to her dressing-room,

smelling of patchouli, and adorned with its broken mirror. There, at

least, she would feel at home!

Helia, with her eyes fixed upon the sea, was building a hundred

schemes. First of all, one thing was certain. She would now dare to

attempt feats which she had never done before—which no one had ever

done before. She might break her neck—well, it would be dying on the

field of honor!

Her success should be dazzling. She would conquer New York, London,

and Berlin. They would cover her with flowers, which she would crush

beneath her feet as she retired behind the scenes. She would turn her

back on the hall thundering with bravos, and would answer to her calls

not by a flip-flap entrance like some peasant mountebank! No, she

would find some unheard-of feat to make the hall grow pale with fright.

Ah! she was not good for love; they would see what she was worth for

terror!

Her brain went on inventing exercises and seeing movements,

composing sensational numbers. She would have all the managers at

her feet—Barrasford, in England, and Krokowski, in St. Petersburg. At

Moscow the Boyards should offer her diamonds, and she would throw them

back into their faces! She would be an artiste, only an artiste, the

greatest artiste of all time! She would not be of those who are afraid

to spoil their beauty or tear their maillots at the trapeze. She would

have the number preceded by orchestral silences, suddenly breaking like

a thunder-storm. She alone would do more than all the others, more than

the Alexes and the Hanlons, more than fifty Leamy sisters. And on the

tight-rope she would do more than the Omers, on her hands more than

Bartholdi, on the carpet more than the Kremos or Scheffers! She could

see herself, to the roaring of the band, with the crowd beneath her

feet—the crowd of lying mouths, of soft and cowardly hearts; and she

would cast at them a look of scorn while taking her flight to the roof.

She would have posters on all the walls in the least village

town—a Gymnast, in England; a Gymnasiarque, in France; in

Germany, a Bravourturnerin,—great posters to dazzle the

Ochsenmaulsalatsfabrikanten! That would be fortune and glory! Oh, what

a dog’s life! How could a man like Phil live with falsehood in his

heart, and never a word of excuse? She would have given him up, she

would have understood! She was not made for him; so be it. Phil could

not give Miss Rowrer a rival like Helia—no! He had only to ask her

pardon to obtain it—a kind word, and a kiss, and good-by. But no! there

was not even that. Ah, Phil, Phil; he did not even take the trouble to

give her back her word!

[Illustration: “‘Help me!’ he cried”]

Helia’s fever had passed, and her dreams were calmed. She felt herself

very lowly and little, crushed at the foot of the cliff—herself like

a bit of jetsam amid the broken fragments of the rock. She dipped her

hand in the water and amused herself by letting it run out between her

fingers in a shining shower. Or, again, she plunged her arms to the

bottom, tearing up the sea-flowers, the dainty algæ, and placing them

in her hair, mingling them with the unbound tresses. Then she bent

over, to look at herself in the water, like a child.

“I am really like the Morgana in Phil’s picture,” she thought.

Meanwhile, even in the little creek where Helia was looking at herself,

the water had grown less calm, and a current was rushing out to the

open sea. Helia stood, stretched her limbs, and looked at the yacht.

“Come!” she said to herself, “_en route!_ It is time to go!”

She was just taking her spring when she stopped short, listening.

Uncertain cries were borne in to her on the breeze. They came from the

shore. All that part of the bay, and the castle itself, were hidden

from her by a wall of cliffs.

“What can be the matter?” she asked herself. “Are those cries of

distress?”

Just then, a little boat with a child for its sole passenger floated

out before her, amid the shoals, borne on by the ebbing current.

The child had let drop the oars. He was holding with both hands to the

boat’s gunwale and looking out to sea with his eyes dilated with fear.

“Help me!” he cried.

It was the little Duke Adalbert.

The boy had been kept awake the night before by the cries of “Morgana!”

Confounding reality with legend, he had resolved to go to the yacht

which was in the bay; and there he would see once more that beautiful

maiden whom Phil had painted. He came down to the foot of the castle,

and loosened the boat from the old ring in the wall to which it was

fastened. Alone he set out to the open sea. They had seen him too late;

the current had seized the boat, and the little duke was lost!

Just then a violent shock capsized the boat on a rock almost level

with the surface and threw the child into the water. As he disappeared

beneath the foam he lifted his arms to heaven with a supreme appeal:

“St. Morgana, save me!”

“Adalbert, Monseigneur Adalbert!” cried Helia, recognizing him, “fear

nothing, I am here!”

It was the affair of a moment, and with a daring dive, in which she

risked dashing herself against a rock, Helia grasped the boy beneath

the waves and brought him back, fainting, to the light of day.

“What anxiety they must be having on shore!” thought Helia. “What must

be the duke’s despair! They must think the child is drowned, that there

is no possible remedy; perhaps there is not a single boat in the port!

Now, then, Helia, courage! You’ve done harder things than this in your

life. Into the sea and take back monseigneur!”

Helia was standing on the rock, with the boy in her arms. At a

glance, she saw that the water of the different currents was colored

differently. That which came from the shore was muddy and yellow

with sand; that from the deep sea was dark green. Into this, without

hesitation, Helia threw herself, holding Adalbert on one arm, and

swimming with the other, in superb effort.

As soon as she had turned the cliff, she saw the crowd on the shore,

close to the water, very far away. They, too, now saw her, for a great

cry reached her ear. It strengthened and comforted her.

She was crossing an eddy full of seaweed torn away by the currents,

from which she could issue with difficulty. If the boy had come to

himself, they would both have been lost. Luckily, he remained inert,

with his head on Helia’s shoulder. Slowly she disengaged herself and

kept on her way toward the shore.

Now there was a deep silence. She could see the multitude nearer. She

could distinguish details—women praying on their knees, and groups

crowding toward the sea. They ought to come out to her, instead of

remaining there motionless! But everybody seemed struck powerless by

amazement. The setting sun behind her was doubtless dazzling their

eyes, for a strange glow, all red and gold, lighted up the city.

Weariness overwhelmed her,—could she ever reach the shore? The child’s

weight exhausted Helia. Truly, the people must be stupid not to come

out to her. Could no one see that she was tired—that all her strength

had been taken—that she could do no more?

Soon she felt the sand beneath her feet. She was still far from the

shore, but the beach sank away very slowly, and, half walking and half

swimming, she kept advancing. Now it was easier for her; the water was

only breast-high. She advanced steadily, lifting Adalbert in her arms

as if to say: “He is saved! Here he is! Come and take him!”

But while she kept on advancing, no one came toward her.

“What is the matter with them?” thought Helia. “They do not stir—they

are recoiling even, as I go toward them. What is it frightens them so?”

Instinctively, Helia turned her head. She saw only the waste sea

and the great marvelous sky, with its depths of purple and gold, and

immense crimson cloud forming an arch above her.

When Helia first appeared, the people had given a great cry, and then

there was silence. A thrill ran through the multitude. “Who is coming

thus from the open sea? What wonderful being have our cries of terror

awakened?”

They saw the superb maiden issuing from the waves and bringing back in

her arms the little Duke Adalbert, Morgania’s hope. What if it were

she—Morgana!—bringing back fortune and the future? Would it not be

the complete accomplishing of the prophecy at the date announced and

foretold?

Helia was moved at the terrified aspect of the people, with their mute

faces fixed upon her, with their ecstatic eyes. The crowd drew aside at

her approach, and a great empty circle opened wide around her.

Helia stopped. The water reached her knees. At this spot the sea was as

placid as a lake, and the beach was as smooth as a floor. Only two or

three moss-grown rocks lifted their heads above the water. Helia would

have shown herself in a maillot unhesitatingly before a million men,

but she was greatly embarrassed where she was, half naked, and with her

wet costume clinging to her body.

Seeing that no one came to her assistance, she placed the little duke

gently on the mossy rock and took her resolution. She would return

to the yacht by the current leading out to sea. She was again fit and

rested by her walk over the sands. Moreover, rid of the child’s weight,

it would be no more than play for her.

Helia, with her eyes fixed on the crowd, pointed to the child with her

hand, and retired slowly backward. When the water reached her waist she

swam out vigorously toward the yacht. The dazzling sun still kindled

the sea, flooding everything with its flames of crimson. They could

not see her from the shore in such a rush of splendor from heaven;

and while she went on and on, just as the sun was sinking below the

horizon, an immense clamor came out to her, magnified by the echoes,

like mysterious voices issuing from plains and mountains.

It was the people on the shore acclaiming Morgana!

CHAPTER IX

STRICKEN IN TRIUMPH

Helia was far away, swimming toward the yacht, before the duke came

down from the castle where he was presiding at the reception of the

notables. At the time when the child was carried away by the current

no one dared tell the duke the terrible news; but now the cries of

enthusiasm grew and grew. Adalbert was saved! When the father clasped

his child in his arms upon the beach, he all but fainted with joy.

Adalbert, coming out of his swoon, kissed his father, and looked around

him to find some one. The people cried: “Miracle!” As for the duke, he

did not see where the miracle was. Only Miss Rowrer, so he thought,

could have had the pluck to do yesterday’s deed at the Drina; and

she alone would be capable of taking the bay for her bath-tub, as the

delegates had told him. No doubt she had been on some rock near the

place where Adalbert’s boat had capsized.

What means had he for acknowledging the immense service she had now

rendered him? It was a unique occasion, and the duke resolved to

grasp it for expressing his gratitude to Miss Rowrer. Listening to his

heart, rather than to his reason, he bound himself by oaths to do so in

presence of his people.

“I know not who it is that yesterday saved hundreds of my subjects; I

know not who it is that but now has saved my son. Never has a duchess

done so much for our country. We might think it was Morgana herself,

whom our legends have announced. Please God she may be free and may

deign to accept my hand and share my throne. We have need of so valiant

a duchess!”

The notables took up the acclaim: “Long live the duchess! Long live

Morgana!”

The people continued thronging the beach, waiting for the coming of the

“duchess,” as they already called her, and talking over the words of

the duke, who in a moment’s time had won back his popularity.

When their first emotion had passed, this rude populace understood full

well that Morgana and the beautiful heroine of the Drina must be one

of the foreigners come lately from beyond the seas in the white ship.

They repeated over to each other how much the country already owed her.

Legends began to form about her. They spoke of a coming distribution of

food and clothing to the crowd of refugees. One might have thought she

had come expressly to fulfil the people’s desire and stir them with new

hope. The duke saw all this enthusiasm for the “foreign lady” running

onward like a flame; and his heart swelled with joy. A whole people

would express his love and speak for him, crying from the depths of

their hearts: “We love you! Be our duchess!”

And he, the duke, as he had sworn in presence of his assembled people,

would say to Miss Rowrer: “You have saved my country and my son: will

you not stay in Morgania, to be the pride and the happiness of my

house?”

The events upon the Drina, and that mysterious sympathy which grows

in popular crises, had shaken the whole country. The prophecies of

the sorceress had been realized point by point. Even in the remotest

mountains the shepherds spoke among themselves of this woman, so young

and beautiful, who was invulnerable, and whose heroism had repulsed the

enemy. The villages were excited; and men reached the city with their

rifles on their shoulders. Everywhere, it was one long acclamation for

Morgana. The peddlers of pious pictures went here and there with icons

in their mules’ harness and singing in her honor heroic _prismés_. As

if every one were waiting for coming events, the mountain tracks and

paths across the plain were filled on every side with an enthusiastic

crowd.

That very evening the duke was to receive the “duchess” amid

his people’s acclaim. Great bonfires were to be lighted on the

mountain-peaks at the moment of her disembarking, and from one mountain

to the other, by signal from the city, the flames should announce her

coming. The sorceress, in the depths of her grotto, should see at her

feet the night flaming up like the dawn.

[Illustration: “The peddler of pious pictures”]

On the beach, where Morgana had brought the fainting boy, they built up

hastily a rough landing-place. They wished her coming to be at the very

spot where she had appeared in her glory; and they strewed leaves and

flowers along the way which she should follow to the Hall of Ancestors.

Never had so violent and sudden a movement upset Morgania. The acclaim

which would salute the “Lady” would be irresistible. It would issue

from the whole people; and the duke, swept on by a current stronger

than himself, would only have to let events find a way for themselves.

Everybody was stirred, even Caracal, who was in the company of the

duke, when a cannon-shot, as had been agreed, announced from the castle

the arrival of the boat bringing the “duchess.” The crowd stood in rows

on each side of the way. The duke, at the head of the body of notables,

stood alone.

Behind him the voivodes, in their glittering costume, formed their

lines, belted for war and sword in hand.

After the duke’s words of welcome, the heroic maiden was to pass

beneath an archway of these swords crossed above her, like Maria

Theresa between her Magyars; and, as she issued from beneath their

deadly glitter, joyous hymns would break forth, and little children

strew flowers before her as a symbol of days of happiness after days

of battle. Then would begin the triumphal march toward the Hall of the

Throne.

All hearts were beating, for now they could perceive the boat coming

toward them. Caracal fixed his monocle, like the powerful and subtle

observer that he was, and made ready to note everything.

Religious silence took the place of the tumult of voices. They could

see distinctly in the boat two young women holding each other by the

hand. Each of them was dressed with great simplicity: it was Helia and

Ethel. The light of the torches flashed vividly upon them. They seemed

to rise out of the night; and when the sailors lifted their oars to

disembark them on the landing where the duke was waiting, there was not

a gesture, not a cry. The people heeded only them. No attention was

given to the two personages following them, a young girl and a young

man—Suzanne and Phil.

The duke bowed low before Ethel, taking her hand with an impassioned

and reverent gesture. Then he spoke. Those who were near him could hear

his voice tremble.

“How am I to thank you, Miss Rowrer, you who have saved my son!

Morgania also owes you everything; without you I know the villayets

of Albania would have arisen. Everything was ready to crush us! But

the defeat of the enemy, exaggerated from mouth to mouth, has taken

on proportions of a disaster! You have done what, before you, my

ancestresses, Thilda, Rhodaïs, and Bertha, did; and like Morgana

herself you have brought back in your arms the luck of Morgania, my son

Adalbert! Behold all this people: for them you are she whom our legends

of a thousand years announce! Miss Rowrer, I owe you everything;

my whole life will not be sufficient for the acknowledgment of your

services!”

“Monseigneur,” interrupted Ethel, in a grave voice, “the heroine, the

valiant woman, she who expected no recompense, who knew the danger and

coolly faced it, she whom your legends announce, and who has saved your

people and your child: it is not I—it is Helia!”

And taking Helia by the hand, Miss Rowrer made her pass in front of

her, while she herself stood modestly back.

“Ah!” gasped the duke.

There was a little of everything in his “Ah!” A man falling from a

balloon must utter such an “Ah!” when he crashes against the ground.

Meanwhile, twice the cheers burst forth. Hymns of welcome were intoned,

for silence had been kept till then. The duke had appeared to be

addressing himself to both the young girls. The people did not know

exactly which one might be the duchess; but their enthusiasm knew no

bounds all the same. A great eddy pushed the crowd in a mass along

the way to the castle, amid the blare of trumpets and rattling of

rifle-shots. The voivodes formed the archway of steel above the heads

of the duke and Helia, followed by Ethel. Endless cheering saluted

them: “Long live the duke! Long live the duchess! Long live Morgana!”

“Well!” thought Caracal, “this is getting to be amusing. I had thought

all my chances lost, but they are coming back. Miss Ethel is still

free! Helia a duchess! Well, stranger things have been seen; but all

the same it is funny. After my ‘House of Glass’ and ‘Worms from a

Dung-hill’ I shall study from nature a ducal marriage and make it a

_roman à clef_! I shall write up every class of society—bourgeois,

peasants, and princes! He certainly will marry her: you can’t trifle

with an oath among such a population of fools; there are currents you

can’t stem.”

And so Caracal shouted louder than the others: “Long live Morgana! Long

live the duchess!” Then he offered his arm to Miss Rowrer, who refused

it!

“What are they crying ‘Long live the duchess!’ for?” she asked Caracal,

as they issued from beneath the steel arch, surrounded by children

who wafted kisses toward them and bombarded them with flowers. Caracal

recounted the oath which had been taken in presence of the people, and

before God. The duke had sworn to offer the heroine his titles and his

throne.

“Poor duke!” thought Ethel; “he really believed it was I—otherwise he

would have sworn to nothing. Well, let it be so! We shall see if an

oath is a sacred thing, or if women are only dolls for amusement. We

shall see if the duke is a man!”

Ethel now knew the whole story. On the yacht, that very evening, she

had chanced to hear Helia talking with Suzanne. Their few words had

been a revelation to her. She had already imagined what now she knew.

The cow painting in the Luxembourg, the whole little combination

invented by Caracal, all the coarse horse-play—ah! if Phil thought she

was going to think less of him because of it, how mistaken he was! All

that was about as important to her as Mr. Charley’s hair, brushed like

a horse’s mane, and his velvet trousers—less than nothing at all! But

Phil had other reasons to blush for himself, indeed. She understood his

embarrassed air when he spoke of Helia. That he should promise marriage

with an oath, should give hopes of happiness to Helia and lift her

above her position, and then thrust her back into her hard life—that

Phil, a Christian and an American, should do a thing like that!

Ethel also knew the duke’s love-making to Helia. Poor Helia! simply a

plaything for those two men!

[Illustration: “The duke stood alone”]

She looked with admiration at the splendid couple before her,—the duke

and Helia,—without a glance at the two men beside her—Phil and Caracal.

Helia was superb. The red lights, shaken by the wind, illuminated

her. The popular enthusiasm was beyond description; the crowd pressed

forward behind the torch-bearers along the way. They touched her

garments like the relics of a saint. The women lifted up their children

to make them see Morgana. Young girls sang in chorus, while young men

twirled their sabers aloft in warlike rhythm.

All at once, above the crowd, far away in the mountains flames arose;

the bonfires blazed up on each side of the bay and over the cliffs. An

immense blaze, like a giant torch, threw great shadows and blinding

streaks of light over the city. Its glow appeared through the night,

leaping over space from peak to peak, to the far horizon, where it

mingled with the stars.

Helia and Ethel were amazed at the grandeur of the sight, and at

the loving ardor of the crowd, in whose eyes, too, the flame seemed

burning. Their own beauty struck everybody; surely the new duchess

would be the most popular that Morgania had ever known, to judge from

the delirious enthusiasm let loose by her presence.

“What has taken hold of them?” thought Helia. “One might say I had done

something extraordinary.”

Helia for a moment was separated from Ethel. Beyond them the way,

lonely and bare, mounted up to the castle. Guards watched over the

approach. High above them the stained-glass window of Morgana reflected

glitteringly the torches and bonfires. In a few steps more Helia,

on the duke’s arm, would leave the people behind her and mount up,

followed by the nobles, to the Hall of Ancestors.

But just then there was a great rush forward, and as Helia, in real

fright at this wild enthusiasm, pressed against the duke, she felt a

sharp pain between her shoulders. She gave a little cry, and struggled

toward the open space before her; but her breath failed and she fell.

“Oh, the coward!” she murmured. “He would never have dared strike me to

my face!”

“What is the matter?” the duke said, grasping her in his arms, “you are

bleeding!”

“Oh! what has happened?” asked Ethel, who came up at this moment,

followed by Suzanne. “Helia! what has happened to you?”

“He has killed me!” said Helia.

“It is he who has done it!” cried Suzanne, with a terrible look,

searching for some one in the crowd.

“He—who?”

“Socrate!”

It was indeed Socrate. But he was no longer there. He had already

disappeared into the shadow, seized by avenging hands, mangled by a

people’s fury, trampled under foot into blood and mud!

Helia had guessed rightly. Socrate had come on board the _Columbia_

at Marseilles, where they had hastily taken on firemen. Under the

exasperation of want, he took this occasion to follow Helia. He had

learned as he prowled around the circus that she was going to Morgania

on Miss Rowrer’s yacht, and he was not the man to let go his prey.

The events of the last day above all else had stirred him to fury.

Helia a duchess! Helia in grandeur, while he, the misunderstood genius,

should drag out his life in an attic! Ah! you will not be mine? Then

you shall be no one’s! He had seized the occasion and planted his knife

between Helia’s shoulders.

“Helia!” sobbed Suzanne. “Do you hear me? Answer!”

But Helia did not. The duke and Phil, terrified, bore her to the

throne-room. The torches cast a tragic light upon the group. Immense

shadows lengthened themselves out before them. The duke and Phil,

bearing Helia, slowly advanced. The hall opened high before them,

lighted dimly.

CHAPTER X

“ON YOUR KNEES!”

They laid Helia down at the foot of Phil’s picture, on the great

ancestral throne on which the duke had hoped to seat himself beside

Miss Rowrer. The iron candelabrum, hanging from the arch, lighted the

hall. But Morgana’s stained window, more than all the rest, blazed with

sanguinary flashes. This time it was not the sunset, as the duke had

described it to Miss Rowrer, when he showed her the engraving in Paris;

it was the light of torches and of the giant bonfire shining through it

from without. The heroic statues, Thilda, Rhodaïs the Slave, and Bertha

the Horsewoman, seemed to live again beneath the glow. The flashes of

light from the window seemed to make them palpitate. One would have

said that joy swelled their marble breasts when Helia, whose bodice

had been undone, and whose wounds were bandaged, opened her eyes and

breathed freely as she asked: “Where am I?”

“Oh, what a fright you’ve given us!” said Suzanne; “but now you’re

saved. Do you suffer?”

Helia was not suffering. To die was nothing,—but to fall, struck from

behind by such a man!

“If you had been there, Phil,” Helia said, speaking low, “you would

have protected me, would you not? Oh, with you I should fear nothing.

Give me your hand and stay with me!”

Phil, with downcast eyes full of tears, took her hand.

“Look me in the face; why do you lower your eyes, Phil?” she said, so

that he alone could hear her. She added, with an indescribable regret

in her voice: “Have I ever reproached you? Look me in the face, as in

the old days! I wish you to be happy. I do not wish you to be sad!”

From the city came a confused murmur, like the noise of the sea; and

then there were long moments of silence. The nobles had not dared

to enter the hall. The people’s deep anxiety was making itself felt.

Suzanne, meanwhile, was arranging the cushions under Helia’s head. The

duke had gone a little away.

“Yes,” he was saying to himself, “Miss Rowrer will understand the

sacrifice I am making for her. I fail in my word, it is true, but she

will be grateful to me for not having made Helia her rival. As to the

people, Miss Rowrer’s millions will make them forget my perjury.”

Ethel, with Caracal at her elbow, gave to a servant the basin of water

and bloody cloths. Impassive as the marble ancestresses, she turned her

clear eyes on Phil and the duke.

“Phil,” Helia continued, as she pressed his hand, “you promised me

once—do you remember?—when you loved me, in the old days? I understand,

many things have passed since; and you are no longer the same man. Come

here, Phil, nearer, nearer! I want to tell a secret in your ear. I have

loved only you, Phil; every day I have waited for you, and you never

came! I was mad, I know; it was impossible! But when one is young one

is ignorant—and I believed you! Now you love another. Phil, I forgive

you; but leave your hand in mine.”

Phil was silent and red with shame. Ah, indeed, he remembered! Helia

felt his heart beating in the hand which pressed her own. An intense

emotion overpowered him. He had the fearful calm which goes before

a storm. Neither the duke nor Phil spoke, motionless, by the side of

Helia, who was resting tranquilly, while they made a room ready for

her.

“You can get up and go to it by yourself,” said Suzanne. “You’re safe.

You haven’t lost much blood—Socrate’s blow missed!”

“What!” murmured Ethel. “Our heroic Helia is going to die in the

presence of these two men who loved her, without one of them asking her

pardon for their false oaths?”

“They accuse me of being cynical, but I should be more loyal than

that,” said Caracal, with his gaze fixed on Ethel.

“Look at your work, M. Caracal,” Ethel replied, in a low tone of

contempt. “Those two men are your pupils. The duke, who will not see

that the fortune of nations is courage and respect for promises—and

Phil, whom I thought more noble,—look at him, blushing with shame,

lowering his eyes,—these are the men according to your heart! They

are the men who consider woman a plaything, and abandon her when she

ceases to please! I forgive you your Richard the Lion-hearted, your

blackmailing, and your infamies, but look at the result of your bad

example and ignoble theories! When you threw Helia at Socrate that you

might study passion cheaply, without knowing it you put the dagger in

the assassin’s hand. Helia struck down from behind,—it is your work!

The duke, forgetful of duty and aiming at Helia for his mistress, it

is your work! Phil, with his false promises, is worthy of you! Two

men spoiled, one assassin, and a dying woman—look at your work, M.

Caracal!”

The “subtle observer,” a poor human rag blown down by a breath,

collapsed into a chair.

The great window still threw its burning glow upon the throne. The

marble ancestors, dimly lighted, seemed to lift their heads to curse

the feeble duke. They formed a circle round the hall and the throne

where Helia was resting—Helia, brave as Rhodaïs, intrepid as Thilda,

invulnerable as Bertha—Helia, the Morgana announced and foretold. The

duke was pale and grave. He looked at Helia, and then turned his head

toward Ethel.

All at once Ethel saw Helia rise upon her elbow, with one hand

convulsively grasping that of Phil, and the other signing to listen.

Through the half-open door floated a far-away melody, so weak, so far

away—Phil felt its thrill in his heart.

Le roi fait battre le tambour

Pour appeler ses dames,

Et la première qu’il a vue

Lui a ravi son âme.

The king had the drum beat

To call out his ladies—

And the first one he sees

Steals away his soul.

It seemed to come with the sea-breeze from beyond the murmurs of the

land. It was the music of the yacht playing the air chosen by Ethel,

that air which Helia hummed when she was alone. Ethel had foreseen the

hour when Helia would be entering the throne-room. The music from the

yacht was to greet her triumph. Now it seemed to be soothing her agony.

“Listen, Phil, listen!” said Helia; “do you remember?”

Phil remembered all and saw all once more—his first love, the little

Saint John, the Louvre paradise, all his promises! His youth blossomed

in his heart.

In his breast rose a flame which burned away every selfish thought.

Yes, he had promised! Helia had lived in that only hope; he had let her

fall from the height of her dream! He had shut off the future from her.

He had dug a pit with his selfishness, and pushed Helia into it when

she ceased to please! He had turned his back on her despair!

It seemed to him that a giant hand was bending him low before Helia and

a voice was saying: “Down on your knees!”

Quickly, quickly and low, as one might confess a crime, Phil spoke:

“Yes, I was wrong—yes, I promised. I ask pardon, Helia! How I shall

thank God if he will let you live, that I may blot out my fault!”

“Oh, Phil!” murmured Helia.

“I love you still,” said Phil; “and you shall be my wife. You will see

how happy we shall be—Helia, forgive me!”

[Illustration: “‘My people await their duchess’”]

“Let me kiss your lips!” said Helia.

Ethel had drawn near, followed by Caracal. There was a strange light in

her eyes.

“See,” she said to Caracal. “Glory to those who are struck down by the

light like St. Paul. There is joy in heaven for the repenting sinner!”

“Will you ever pardon me?” stammered Caracal.

“Perhaps; tears wash away many things,” added Ethel, remembering how

Phil had already pardoned Caracal because he had seen him weeping.

“That is a man worth loving, a rare thing,” Ethel thought as she looked

at Phil. Helia now was sitting up; the wound no longer bled.

“How happy I am!” said Helia.

She wept with joy. Phil was at her knees as in the old days. “Listen,”

she said, “it is our tune of the old times, Phil! I seem still to be

there!”

Phil kissed her hands to hide his tears.

“Phil,” said Helia, with a timid look at Ethel, and in a tone so low

that it could come only from the heart, “tell me, Phil, am I really fit

to be your wife?”

The door opened slowly, a bright light burst into the hall. It was the

voivodes coming for information. If a misfortune had happened to one

of the maidens, perhaps to their duchess, when they were on the spot,

sword in hand to form a sheltering arch above her—what a shame it would

be for them! If the duchess was dying, they would pray for her on their

knees. They approached in silence. The duke had drawn near Ethel.

“I love you!” he said, speaking low. “See what I have done for you! I

swore—but I thought it was you. There is still time. My people await

their duchess. Shall it be you, Miss Rowrer?”

The duke held out his hand in an attitude of deepest respect.

Miss Rowrer stopped him short with a gesture. She had judged the

two men. This ruler who would not keep his oath, sworn in the name

of his ancestors—he should never be husband of hers. To her titles

were nothing, character was all. Calm as Justice, with her eyes fixed

straight on the duke, she pointed with her hand to Phil, kneeling

beside Helia, and said:

“That is a Man!”