THE TRIAL.
The path along which she was now walking seemed very familiar, and,
presently she found herself again face to face with the Red King. This
time he was not asleep, but very much awake. He was dressed in shining
armour and steel gauntlets, and looked very fierce, and rather out of
breath.
“Did you see them?” he enquired excitedly.
“If you mean the soldiers,” said Alice, “of course I did. And a nice
mess they are making, too!”
“They are all mine,” said the Red King, proudly. “They would do
anything for me--_absolutely anything_! And what do you think I would
do for them?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Alice.
“Why,” said the Red King, delightedly, “I’d sacrifice the lot--yes, the
_whole_ lot--for my own good. That is to say, of course, for the good
of my people.”
“Does it do them good to be sacrificed?” Alice asked.
“Certainly, for such a noble object,” said the Red King, slapping
himself on the chest.
Alice thought he was quite right about being an object, but she was not
so sure if noble was the right word, so she said nothing.
“Yes,” the Red King went on, “and in case I lose them all, I’ve found a
lot of young Turks that I can sacrifice too. Wasn’t that clever of me?”
“Very,” said Alice, “and how did you manage it?”
“I’ll tell you,” said the Red King. “Sit down, and listen carefully,”
and he began:--
[Illustration: “_A youthful Ottoman, a-sitting on the fence._”]
“_I’ll tell you everything I can
In plain and common sense,
I saw a youthful Ottoman
A-sitting on the fence.
‘Come, tell me true, Young Turk!’ I said
‘Where did you get your fleet?’
His answer burbled through my head
Like flies around the meat._
_He said, ‘We profit by the tips
That people give to us,
And sit and wait for battleships
Beside the Bosphorus.
And these we buy from friends!’ he cried,
‘Who hate the stormy deep,
And that is how we get supplied
With navies on the cheap.’_
_But I was thinking of a way
To make cathedrals bright,
By filling them with oil and hay
And setting it alight,
And by the blaze to cook my goose,
And get it really hot,
And so I cried ‘Now what’s the use
Of all the men you’ve got?’_
_With soft demeanour he explained,
‘We do whate’er we can;
Our troops are scrupulously trained
Upon the German plan;
And all our sailors have to go
To sea from time to time,
But hate to sail, because, you know,
Our porte is so Sublime.’_
_But I was thinking of a plan
For spying on the docks,
By riding in a tradesman’s van
Beneath a biscuit box.
So, having no reply to make
To what he said to me,
I cried ‘What measures do you take
To keep your country free?’_
_His accents mild took up the tale,
He said ‘We have our fears,
So when dogs growl, we never fail
To set them by the ears.
And while they thrash the matter out,
And give each other fits,
We creep judiciously about,
And sneak the juicy bits.’_
_I heard him then, for I had quite
Completed my design,
For stealing into Rheims by night
And drinking all the wine.
I thanked him much for giving me
Such useful little tips;
Especially the way that he
Obtained his battleships._
_And now whene’er I chance to tell
An extra whopping lie,
Or scheme unusually well
To wipe my neighbour’s eye,
Or if I feel the painful toe
Of outraged providence,
I weep, for it reminds me so
Of that young Turk I used to know,
Whose aims were high, whose ways were low,
Who played such tricks on friend and foe,
Whose forts, before the Serb and Co.,
Went down like ninepins in a row;
Whose frontiers shifted to and fro,
And altered every year or so,
Who seldom faced an honest blow,
But dodged it with acute diplo-
Macy and often scored, although
He made a very moderate show
When into war he had to go,
Who muttered mumblingly and low,
But told me all I wished to know,
What summer evening long ago,
A-sitting on a fence._”
“Thank you very much,” said Alice, wishing to be polite, “that was
quite interesting.”
“Interesting indeed,” said the Red King angrily, “it’s not interesting,
it’s _marvellous_. Why, I wrote it myself.”
“But it doesn’t explain how you managed to get the young Turk off the
fence on your side,” Alice objected.
“Oh, that’s easy,” said the Red King. “You see, it was only a little
trick about the battleships. They weren’t really his, but people
thought they were. And so I got him into trouble with everyone else,
and he had to be friendly with _me_.”
“That was rather a nasty thing to do, wasn’t it?” Alice asked.
“Oh, well, you can’t be particular nowadays,” said the Red King.
“Perhaps _you_ can’t,” Alice began, “but you needn’t suppose that other
people----”
At this moment she was interrupted by the sound of a very loud trumpet
that seemed to be blowing right in her ear.
“It’s the trial,” cried the Red King, “come along quick, or we shall
be late.” And he started running. Alice tried to keep up, but he went
faster and faster, and she only just got round the corner in time to
see him disappear into a big palace, the door of which stood open.
Alice waited a little to get her breath, and then walked in after him.
She found herself in a huge law court. The Red King was sitting on a
throne at one end, and near him, but rather in the background, were
Francis and Joseph. On the other side was the News-Wolff, and a Young
Turk, well controlled by the Blonde Beast.
[Illustration: “_The Red King was sitting on a throne._”]
In the body of the court was the Dog-Sentry, arm-in-arm with the
French cock, and the Russian Bear, who looked very solid now, and not a
bit like a rumour.
“Who is being tried?” Alice whispered to one of the spectators.
“Europe,” he answered.
“Why?” Alice asked.
“For not being German,” he said.
“Silence in Court,” roared the Red King, “Read the charge.” The
News-Wolff unfolded a big sheet of paper and read--
“The Continent of Europe is indicted on the charge of not being
completely German. If the charge is proved, she is liable to be
devastated and cultured.”
“Guilty!” shouted the Red King at once, “Condemned to be----”
“Please, your Majesty,” said the News-Wolff, “there’s a lot to come
before that.”
“Call the witness,” said the Red King.
The Blonde Beast stepped forward.
“Where do you come from?” asked the Red King.
“From the military school,” said the Blonde Beast.
“And what did you learn there?” asked the King.
“Bleeding and biting,” said the Blonde Beast.
“That’s very important,” said the King, turning to the News-Wolff. “He
says he learnt Feeding and Fighting.”
The News-Wolff began to write hurriedly.
“I didn’t say that at all,” the Blonde Beast objected, “I said
‘bleeding and biting.’”
“It’s the same thing,” said the King, “and what else did you learn?”
“Nothing,” said the Blonde Beast.
“That’s _very_ important,” said the King. “And what do you know about
this case?”
“I picked _this_ up in the wood,” said the Blonde Beast, producing a
very dirty sheet of paper with writing on it.
“Read it,” said the King, and the Blonde Beast started at once----
“_They told me he was rude and wild,
And mentioned it to her;
She said she would not give the child
A spotless character._
_Though things ought never to have gone
So far ’twixt me and you,
He meant to push the matter on--
We know it to be true._
_I gave him time, they gave him powers,
You gave him good advice,
But still he turned on mine and ours
Though his were just as nice._
_His notion was that he had been
(Before he had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Heaven, himself, and it._
_If I or she should chance to be
Removed from bad to worse,
He takes the land, he grabs the sea,
He wants the Universe._”
“That _proves_ her guilty,” cried the Red King, delightedly.
“Rubbish!” growled the Dog-Sentry.
Alice looked round, and was surprised to see that the Dog and the Cock
were growing bigger and bigger every minute. As for the Bear, he was
big to start with, but now he was simply huge.
The Red King looked rather nervous, and dragged out a Big book, from
which he read----
“Rule 42. Dogs not admitted.
“Rule 43. All people bigger than myself are out of court.”
“We shan’t go!” remarked the Dog-Sentry, placidly.
“Turn them out!” cried the King to the Blonde Beast. “Annihilate them!
Culture them!!”
Then the struggle began. Everything got upset, and the people in the
court crowded for the exits. The Blonde Beast tried hard, but he made
very little impression, for the Bear and the Dog and the Cock kept
getting bigger and stronger.
The noise was terrific, and the whole building shook till Alice
was afraid it would come down with a run. Francis and Joseph soon
disappeared, and the Red King himself was just falling off his throne
when Alice suddenly woke.
She found herself lying in her own bed in her own room. She felt very
weak, and supposed she must have been delirious, but now she was much
better, and quite sensible again. Outside, in the street, a Boy was
calling “Spechul Edishun!--Latest news of the Great War!”
END.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
Underlined text is represented with +plus signs+ in this edition.
For readability reasons, some images have been moved from their
original positions.
Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been left unchanged.
Pages 21 and 81: missing quotation marks added.