This grave news created the utmost consternation and dismay among the
Elders and nobles of Bethalia; for they had, almost with one accord,
persisted in believing that at the last moment the savages had shrunk
from the contest. There was, however, one solitary crumb of comfort in
the news that now came almost hourly from the front, which was that,
severely as the Izreelites had suffered, the enemy had suffered ten
times more severely, having been kept completely at arm's length, so
long as the defenders' stock of arrows had lasted, and that it was only
when these had become exhausted that the savages had succeeded in
storming the blockhouses and driving out the defenders. This contained
a lesson that Grosvenor and Dick were quick to profit by, and no sooner
did the news come to hand than every available person was set to work
manufacturing arrows, thousands of which were daily dispatched to the
front.
Thus far the two Englishmen had remained at Bethalia, receiving news and
directing operations from there, at the urgent request of the Elders;
but as intelligence continued to arrive from the front reporting the
presence of the enemy in overwhelming numbers, and the retirement of
garrison after garrison, with details of terrific fighting in every
direction, it was not to be supposed that Dick and Grosvenor would
consent to remain tamely pent up in the city, while the chance of their
lives was beckoning them from a distance that could now be covered on
horseback in a couple of days' smart riding. They consequently induced
the armourers of the town to knock them out a couple of makeshift
sabres, which they intended to take with them in addition to their
revolvers and magazine rifles, and announced their intention of
proceeding forthwith to the front.
But had a bombshell exploded and blown to pieces the temple that formed
the top story of the House of Legislature, or unroofed the palace, it
could scarcely have produced a more tremendous effect, or created
greater consternation, than did this simple announcement. The Elders
were convinced that if the guiding spirits of the campaign were ever
permitted to take the field they would inevitably be slain and the end
of all things would come. The nobles were animated by pretty much the
same uncomfortable conviction; and as for the Queen, when, despite the
remonstrances and entreaties of the Elders and nobles, Dick and
Grosvenor presented themselves at the palace to bid Her Majesty
farewell, she promptly ordered the arrest of the pair, and gave them
their choice of being confined close prisoners, or pledging their word
of honour to abandon their intention! It was in vain that the culprits
pleaded, argued, and drew the most harrowing pictures of what must
inevitably happen if they were not allowed to proceed to the front and
personally supervise operations. The Queen turned a deaf ear to all
that they said; positively refused to give her consent; entreated and
upbraided in her turn; and, finally, bursting into a passion of tears,
declared that if anything were to happen to Phil she would die! At
which statement Grosvenor incontinently took the young lady in his arms,
kissed her, soothed her back into self-possession again, and vowed with
ardour that if that was how she felt about it he was more than content
to remain behind and look after her, provided that she would allow Dick
to go. To which compromise she at once smilingly assented. For such is
the selfishness of lovers!
The murder was out at last, and the precise thing had happened which
Dick had foreseen, and had vowed to prevent, if possible, because of the
terrible complications which, as he believed, must inevitably ensue.
These two had fallen in love with each other, and the chances were that,
as soon as the news reached the ears of the already jealous nobles,
Grosvenor and Dick would be "removed", either openly or privately, while
the Queen would at once be ruthlessly forced into the kind of marriage
that she had all along regarded with such utter dread and detestation.
Here was a pretty kettle of fish! and occurring, too, at such a terribly
inopportune moment. Yet, as Dick moodily reflected, while being ferried
across to the mainland in one of Grosvenor's new, fast-sailing cutters,
perhaps the moment might not be so very inopportune after all. It was a
fact that, under the able leadership of Mokatto, the savages were
pressing Izreel as it had never before been pressed within its recorded
history. Izreel was now literally fighting for its life, its very
existence; and if, through the help of the two Englishmen, the country
should by any chance win out and achieve a decisive victory over her
combined enemies, it was just possible that gratitude, that rarest of
human sentiments, might take the form of forgiveness, if nothing more;
in which case there was perhaps a bare possibility that Grosvenor and
Dick might be released from their oath and permitted to return to their
own country. But it was doubtful, Dick decided, very doubtful; and his
meditations assumed a distinctly gloomy tone as, having arrived on the
mainland, he hunted up Mafuta and explained to that jubilant savage that
they were about to proceed to the front and take part in the fighting.
To attempt anything even remotely resembling a detailed account of Dick
Maitland's adventures during the ensuing three weeks would be
impossible, for they were numerous and exciting enough to demand an
entire volume to do justice to them. It must suffice to say that during
that eventful period the youngster saw enough fighting to satisfy him
for the remainder of his life--desperate, ferocious, hand-to-hand
fighting, in which neither side ever dreamed of asking or giving
quarter, in which a disabling wound was immediately followed by death
upon the spear-points of the enemy, and the salient characteristics of
which were continuous ear-splitting yells, the shrill whistling of the
savages, the rumbling thunder of thousands of fiercely rushing feet,
blinding clouds of dust through which there appeared a phantasmagoria of
ferocious countenances, gnashing teeth, glaring eyeballs, the ruddy
flash of ensanguined spear-points, hurtling knobkerries and whirling
war-clubs, upthrown arms, clenched fists, reeling bodies, the shout of
triumph and the short, quick gasp that followed the home-thrust of the
stabbing spear. This was the kind of thing that marked the end of each
day's fight when, the stock of the Izreelites, arrows being exhausted,
it became necessary at last to evacuate a stubbornly held position and
to retire before the overwhelming hordes of savages that, despite the
frightful losses sustained by them in the course of each day's fighting,
seemed daily to increase in numbers as the encircling cloud of them
contracted with the daily retirement of the defenders towards the lake.
As for Dick, he seemed to bear a charmed life; for although he
fearlessly exposed himself, day after day, wherever the fighting
happened to be fiercest and most stubborn, he had thus far received no
hurt more serious than a mere scratch or two, and a rather severe
contusion from the blow of a knobkerrie that had all but unhorsed him;
but this immunity may have been due, at least in part, to the fact that
Mafuta was always unobtrusively close at hand, ready to guard his
beloved young master, ay, and even to lay down his life for him, if
necessary.
Those were strenuous days indeed for all concerned, and especially for
the defenders; for the fighting usually began with the dawn, and
continued all through the day as long as there was light enough to
distinguish friend from foe; while, so far as the Izreelites were
concerned, they were obliged to maintain a watch all through the hours
of darkness, in order to be prepared for the surprise night attacks
which the savages sprang upon them from time to time, with the obvious
purpose of exhausting the defenders' strength.
But while Mokatto and the other savage kings who had thrown in their lot
with him for the purpose of "eating up" the Izreelites, and partitioning
their country, were solacing themselves with the assurance that, despite
their frightful daily losses in men, they were winning all along the
line, Dick was artfully drawing them after him into the heart of the
chain of mountains that encircled the lake and the island city of
Bethalia. These mountains, or hills rather--for they were scarcely
lofty enough to be worthy of the more imposing appellation--were of an
exceptionally rugged and precipitous character, to such an extent,
indeed, that they were absolutely impassable except at four points,
where the natural features had been so far improved upon that passes of
a sort--narrow ledges for the most part, bounded on one side by a
vertical, unclimbable face of rock and upon the other by an appalling
chasm--had been painfully hewn out of the stubborn granite; and it was
in the direction of these four passes that young Maitland was now
retiring in excellent order, and enticing the enemy to follow him. For
it was in these passes that he expected to win the victory which he
intended to convert finally into a complete, disastrous, panic-stricken
rout of the enemy. To this end he had already made certain
preparations, for news of the completion of which he was anxiously
waiting. And at length the news came; whereupon, having dispatched to
the commanders at the other three points identical sets of instructions,
of a sufficiently elastic character to leave plenty of scope for
initiative on the part of the leaders, he summoned the commanders of his
own division to his tent as soon as the day's fighting was over, and,
having carefully and fully explained his plans to them, gave them
explicit instructions regarding their conduct upon the following day,
and dismissed them. Then, mounting his tired horse, Dick rode off up
the pass at a foot-pace, closely followed by the faithful Mafuta, who,
dog-tired though he was after many long days of strenuous fighting,
chuckled grimly as his young master unfolded his plan of campaign.
The fighting which began with dawn upon the following morning was of a
somewhat different character from that of the preceding days; for
hitherto the Izreelites had always begun the day behind the shelter of
stone walls of some sort, from which it had taken the best part of the
day to dislodge them, and from which, when dislodged, they had been wont
to retreat in more or less good order to the next stronghold in their
rear. But now the last of these fortified positions had been abandoned
and the Izreelite armies had retired--or been driven back, as the enemy
firmly believed--into the mouths of the four passes which led across the
hills to the lake and Bethalia. They had not only entered the mouths of
the passes, but had retired into them, until they had reached certain
spots where the natural configuration of the surrounding hills was of
such a character as to constitute the position a natural fortress
capable of being held and defended by a comparatively small body of men;
and here they halted and lighted their watch fires. The enemy also
halted, about half a mile lower down the pass, and, as soon as it was
dark, sent out a number of scouts with instructions to search for a way
by which the savages might slip past during the night, and get round to
the rear of the Izreelites. Some of those scouts never returned to
their camp; those who did reported that the task assigned to them had
proved an impossible one, for that, after climbing laboriously and at
the risk of their necks for varying distances, they had all, without
exception, arrived at a point where farther progress was impossible and
retreat scarcely less so. Meanwhile, the Izreelite watch fires, the
foremost line of which happened to be at a turn of the pass, just where
they were well within sight of the enemy, were kept brilliantly burning
all through the night, evidencing an untiring vigilance on the part of
the Izreelite outposts, who could be seen, by the light of the fires,
moving about from time to time.
But when at length the first rays of the morning sun smote the topmost
ridges of the hills and came stealing down their sides, arousing the
combatants to another day of sanguinary strife, behold! there were no
Izreelites to be seen in the neighbourhood of the still briskly blazing
fires, nor could the fresh scouts which were promptly sent out find any
trace of them. Then Mokatto, suspecting an ambush, sent forward other
scouts, in relays, with orders to advance up the pass--each relay
keeping the one next before it in sight--until the leading band should
regain touch with the enemy, when a single scout was to return with the
intelligence. But, strange to say, the single scout did not return; and
when at length the fiery chief, losing patience at the absence of all
news, gave orders for a general advance up the pass, the impi who led
the way soon discovered the reason, for they came upon the bodies of
those scouts, one after the other, lying in the narrowing roadway, each
with an arrow through his heart, evidently shot from some spot near at
hand, but quite inaccessible from the roadway itself.
Yet still no enemy was to be seen, no sign of his presence to be
discovered, until Mokatto, leading his contingent and advancing with the
utmost caution, reached the summit of the pass, when he found that the
narrow roadway, at a point where it turned sharply round an elbow, had
been broken down for a distance of some fifty feet, until only space
enough was left for men to pass in single file. And as the first man
essayed the passage of this perilous path and attempted to work his
precarious way round the perpendicular buttress of rock that formed the
elbow, a spear, wielded by an unseen hand, was observed to dart forward
and bury itself deep in his naked breast, and the next moment he went
hurtling downward off the narrow ledge into the ghastly abyss that
yawned beside him. And as it was with the first man so was it with
those who followed him in the desperate attempt to round that fatal
elbow, until even Mokatto himself, fearless and resolute warrior as he
was, was fain reluctantly to admit that farther progress, by that way at
least, was impossible.
There was nothing for it but to call a halt, and consider what was the
next thing to be done. To advance was impossible; to retreat was
equivalent to an acknowledgment of defeat, which, after the frightful
losses already sustained by the savages, would probably result in them
rising upon their leaders and slaying them in revenge for having
fomented so disastrous a war; while a very brief inspection of their
surroundings sufficed to convince them that nothing without wings could
possibly surmount that vertical rock on the one hand, or descend that
awful precipice on the other. Yet, as they looked, the savage warriors
became aware that somewhere there must be a path to the top of the rock,
for they caught sight first of one, then of another, and then of many
Izreelites peering down upon them from above. Then, suddenly, there
came hurtling down from the summit of the rock, some five hundred feet
above the heads of the savages, a shower of stones, not very big, yet
big enough, falling from that height, to dash a man's brains out, smash
an arm or a leg like a dried twig, or send him reeling off the narrow
pathway to the depths below.
The word was given to retire. There was no other course open to the
invaders, for obviously it was worse than useless to stand huddled
helplessly together upon that narrow pathway and suffer themselves to be
destroyed without the ability to strike a blow in self-defence--and the
retreat down the pass began. Then, with the first rearward movement,
the air, pent in between the rocky walls of that savage gorge, began to
vibrate with a most dreadful outcry of shrieks, shouts, and yells of
dismay and panic; for, as though at some preconcerted signal, a
devastating shower of great boulders came pouring over the crest of the
cliff above the pass, crushing men into unrecognisable fragments or
hurling them by hundreds over the edge of the narrow pathway. Moreover
this state of affairs prevailed not at one isolated spot only, but all
along the road, as far as it was occupied by the battalions of the
savages. There was a moment of helpless confusion, during which those
who were fortunate enough to have escaped the first effects of that
terrible shower stood, stricken motionless and dumb, gazing as in a
dream at the frightful, overwhelming destruction that had come upon them
in that awful gorge. Then blind, raging panic seized upon the
survivors, who turned and fled shrieking down the pass, intent only upon
escaping from the ceaseless pounding of that merciless hail of boulders,
madly fighting for precedence with their equally panic-stricken
comrades, savagely grappling with those who happened to be in front of
them impeding their passage, and either hurling them, or being
themselves hurled, into the ravine that gaped to receive them.
The scene was appalling beyond all possibility of description; it was
not a defeat only, it was not even merely a disastrous rout, it was
practically annihilation; for of the thousands of savages who entered
that pass--that awful death-trap--on that fatal day, only hundreds
emerged from it again; and they were so utterly demoralised and unnerved
with terror that no thought of rallying or making a stand ever entered
their minds; they simply ran blindly ahead until they fell exhausted,
and there lay, absolutely heedless of what might befall them. And as it
was with Mokatto and his legions in the one pass, so was it with the
chiefs and those who followed them in the other three passes; many of
the leaders--Mokatto himself among others--were numbered among the
slain; and there seemed to be nobody to take the lead or to assume
command. The invading armies had been practically wiped out, and the
few survivors had degenerated into a flying, panic-stricken mob
dominated only by the one idea of escape into the comparative safety of
their own land.
As for the Izreelites, infuriated at the wanton invasion of their
country, and fully realising what would have been their own fate had the
savages chanced to have been the victors, they relentlessly pursued the
flying enemy during the whole of their retreat down the passes, and
would doubtless have destroyed them to the very last man had not Dick
personally, and by means of imperative messages persistently reiterated,
stayed the slaughter, by pointing out that the victory was too decisive
and complete for further aggression to ever again become a possibility;
and that a too relentless pursuit of already desperate men could but
result in a further loss of life among the Izreelites themselves. Even
this representation, forcibly as it appealed to a people who regarded
the lives of their men-kind as the most precious possession of the
nation, scarcely sufficed to curb their lust for further slaughter, for
they had become, for the moment, human tigers who, having tasted blood,
abandoned their prey only with the utmost reluctance and with much
savage snarling of discontent and disappointment. But at length the
obvious soundness of Dick's reasoning gained recognition and acceptance
by the Izreelite chiefs, who finally persuaded their followers to
content themselves with the mere ejectment of the insignificant remnants
of the enemy beyond the frontier.
Meanwhile Dick, having paid a flying visit to Bethalia, to satisfy
himself that all was well in that quarter, made arrangements for the
immediate reconstruction of those portions of the roads through the
passes that had been broken down, in order to check the advance of the
invaders. This was temporarily accomplished by the building of rough
bridges across the gaps; but, fully recognising how important a part had
been played by those gaps, he sketched out a scheme whereby they should
be made permanent, spanned by substantial drawbridges, and defended at
the inner extremity by strongly fortified gateways. This scheme he laid
before the Elders, who immediately approved of it, and ultimately the
work was carried out.
But long before that many things had happened. In the first place the
victorious Izreelites, having shepherded the last of the fugitives over
the border, had returned in triumph, each to his own home, and had set
to work to repair the devastation wrought by the fighting on the lands
that lay outside the circle of the protecting hills. This was
considerably less than had been anticipated; for, so certain had Mokatto
and his colleagues been of victory that they had issued the most
stringent orders against any wanton destruction of property, the result
being that such damage as had accrued had only amounted to what was
inevitable in the course of a stubbornly contested fight; and that did
not amount to very much where neither of the combatants possessed guns
or other battering paraphernalia of any description.
The return of the triumphant army to Bethalia was a pageant exceeding in
gorgeousness of display and general enthusiasm anything that had ever
before occurred within the memory of any living inhabitant of the city.
The regular troops were comparatively few in number, every male
Izreelite being armed and liable to be called upon for active service,
should occasion for such service arise; but the paucity of numbers was
an altogether insignificant detail; the one thing that was of
importance, and counted, was that they had fought and signally defeated
a force of overwhelming numerical superiority, and inflicted upon their
immemorial enemy a blow of such crushing severity that a lasting peace
was now assured. Little wonder that the people so recently hag-ridden
with a perpetual fear, that often approached perilously close to panic,
scarcely knew how to give adequate expression to the feeling of joy and
relief that now possessed them, and were just a little inclined to
become extravagantly demonstrative.
The troops, conveyed across from the mainland in boats, and landed at
the one grand flight of steps which afforded the solitary means of
access to the island, were marched through the city to the palace and
the House of Legislature, where they received the thanks of the Queen
and the Elders for their gallantry; and at the last moment it was made
known to Dick--to his secret but profound annoyance and discomfiture--
that nothing would satisfy the populace but that he, as the one hero,
_par excellence_, of the brief but sanguinary war, must head the troops,
mounted on the horse that had carried him so gallantly and well in the
press of battle! He would willingly have avoided the distinction if it
had been possible, and had indeed fully intended to absent himself from
all active participation in the pageant; but a note from Grosvenor,
informing him that the idea had really originated with Queen Myra, and
that Her Majesty would be intensely disappointed if he refused, caused
him good-naturedly to set his own feelings on one side for the nonce and
consent to become a puppet for once in a way. Accordingly he was the
first warrior to pass through the gateway which gave access to the
interior of the town, and as he emerged from the shadow of the arch into
the dazzling sunshine that flooded the streets he was met by a choir of
some sixty young women arrayed in gala attire, crowned with roses, and
wearing garlands of flowers round their necks, who, forming up at the
head of the procession, led the way, some singing a hymn of triumph,
rejoicing, and glorification of the victors, while others accompanied
them on flutes, flageolets, and cymbals. But this was not all. As
Dick, blushing furiously and feeling more uncomfortable than he ever
before remembered, emerged from the gateway, two maidens stepped
forward, one from each side of the way, and while one deftly twined a
garland of roses round the horse's neck, the other, catching the lad's
hand, gently drew him down and caused him to bend in the saddle
sufficiently to permit her to cast a similar garland round his neck!
It was a distinctly embarrassing situation for a modest young Englishman
to find himself in, but as he heard the shouts of greeting and
acclamation that rang out from the throats of the jubilant crowd who
thronged the streets, and realised that all this was but the outward
expression of a very real and deep feeling of gratitude for important
services rendered, he put his embarrassment on one side, and bowed and
smiled his acknowledgments, to the frantic delight of the spectators.
In this fashion, then, the troops paraded the principal streets of the
city, while young girls and tiny children strewed flowers before them in
the roadway, and the populace cheered and applauded, until the spacious
park in which stood the palace and the House of Legislature was reached,
when a halt was called before the principal entrance of the palace,
where the Queen, once more in radiant health, came forth and, in a few
well-chosen words, expressed her fervent gratitude to all the brave men
who had borne themselves so nobly and gallantly in the defence of their
country, winding up with an expression of admiration and sorrow for the
fallen, and of sympathy for those whom the relentless cruelty of war had
bereaved of their nearest and dearest.
Then Malachi and his fellow Elders appeared and pronounced a long
oration of a very similar character, but going somewhat more into
detail. He dwelt particularly upon the fierce, undying animosity with
which the savages of the surrounding nations had regarded the presence
of the Izreelites in the country from time immemorial, reminded his
hearers of the state of almost perpetual warfare in which the nation had
lived through the ages, and described the recent attack as the most
virulent and determined that they had ever experienced, being nothing
less than a carefully elaborated and well-ordered plan for their
complete extermination. Then he touched upon the arrival of the two
young Englishmen in the country, spoke of the law prohibiting the
admission of strangers, and fully explained the reasons which had led to
an exception being made in their case, and congratulated himself and
everybody else upon the happy issue of that exception, going on to say
that but for the warlike knowledge and skill of the visitors, and the
superlative importance of the parts which they had played in planning
and carrying out the scheme of defence, that day of triumph and glory
for Izreel would never have dawned. And he wound up by saying that, in
acknowledgment and recognition of the enormously important and valuable
services which these young men had rendered to the nation, he and his
fellow Elders had felt it to be their duty to recommend the Queen to
confer upon both the honour and distinction accompanying the title of
Princes.
A roar of delighted approval greeted this peroration; and if perchance
there happened to be here and there a noble or two who regarded with
disapprobation the bestowal of this unique honour upon aliens, they were
too prudent to permit that disapprobation to be suspected, in view of
the apparently universal popularity of the act.
The Queen, acutely conscious of the fact that she contemplated a step,
the effect of the announcement of which it was utterly impossible to
foresee, and quick to recognise that the popularity of Grosvenor and
Dick would probably never be greater than it was at that moment,
determined to make the utmost of the opportunity; and, upon the occasion
of the public investiture of the newly created princes, electrified
everybody present by calmly announcing--in a manner which seemed to
suggest that she was doing something which she was certain would meet
with the full and unanimous approval of her people--that it was her
intention to espouse Prince Philip as soon as the necessary preparations
for the ceremony could be made!
The announcement was followed by silence so tense that, to make use of a
much hackneyed expression, one might have heard a pin drop, and it
lasted so long that the Queen grew white to the lips, and her eyes began
to glitter ominously. Was it possible that the nobles--who but for the
military genius of Phil and Dick would now in all probability have been,
with herself, captives in the hands of the savages--were going to show
themselves so selfishly ungrateful as to disapprove of her choice? An
impatient stamp of her little foot on the dais, and a defiant upward
toss of her head seemed to threaten an outburst that would probably have
caused the ears of those present to tingle, when somebody--whose
identity was never established--began to applaud vociferously. The
applause was almost instantly taken up by another, and another, and
others, until within a moment or two the vast chamber was ringing and
vibrant with the expressions of approval and rejoicing. The verdict,
though delayed, perhaps, a second or two too long for Her Majesty's
entire liking, was decisive, unmistakable, and not to be gainsaid; and
if there were any present who recognised that it meant the final
collapse of certain cherished ambitions of their own, they were wise
enough to say nothing about it.
But although the Queen's choice of a husband was thus ratified by the
only section of her subjects who might possibly have raised objections
to it, a great deal of exceedingly delicate negotiation and arrangement
was found to be necessary, and a number of quite unexpected difficulties
and hitches arose, before the path to the hymeneal altar was made
perfectly smooth for the royal lovers; while, on the other hand, as the
negotiations and arrangements progressed, it grew increasingly clear
that a man possessed of Grosvenor's outside knowledge and experience was
infinitely preferable, from the point of view of the national advantage,
as a ruler, to even the most powerful and influential of the Izreelite
nobles. By the time, therefore, that everything was settled, approval
had become intensified into delight, and there was every prospect that
Phil's reign would be a highly popular one. Then, in due time, came the
marriage, which may be dismissed with the mere mention of the fact,
since this makes no pretence to being a love story.
But although even a royal wedding may possess little or no interest for
those for whose entertainment this story is written, it had a most
important effect upon the fortunes of those whose adventures are here
set forth. For, by the Izreelite law, it not only made Philip Grosvenor
the Consort of the Queen, but it also put into his hands the actual
government of the nation; it made him, in fact, the King, an absolute
monarch, with power to shape and control the destinies of the nation as
seemed to him good; with nobody to say him nay, whatever the nature of
the decrees he might promulgate, and to whom even the Queen herself
became subject. Then, with regard to Dick Maitland, it will be
remembered that he, as well as Grosvenor, had been compelled to take an
oath that he would never seek to leave the country without the royal
assent. But, now that Phil was King, that assent was, of course, to be
obtained easily enough; and obtained it was, as soon as the wedding was
over and Grosvenor was securely installed in his new position. For,
whatever inducements there might be for Phil to pass the remainder of
his life in the strange, scarcely-heard-of land of the Izreelites, no
such inducements existed in the case of Dick Maitland, who was now all
impatience to return to England and provide for the welfare of his
mother--if, haply, she still survived.
Accordingly, having in due form sought and obtained the royal assent to
his departure from Izreel, Dick lost no time in completing his
preparations for the long and perilous journey that lay before him.
And, first of all, he presented Leo--now nearly full-grown and, thanks
to careful and judicious training, a most amiable, docile, and
affectionate beast--to Queen Myra, as the most cherished possession it
was in his power to offer her. Of the horses which they had brought
with them into the country he kept only the one which King Lobelalatutu
had given him, leaving the rest with Phil--there being no horses in
Izreel. Ramoo Samee, being given his choice, elected to remain in
Izreel, in the capacity of stud groom; but Mafuta, Jantje, and 'Nkuku
returned with Dick, as a matter of course. And, as a measure of
precaution, Grosvenor arranged for an escort of five hundred Izreelite
warriors to accompany the wagon through the country immediately on the
other side of the border; for although the savage inhabitants had
received such terrible chastisement that they were scarcely likely to
interfere with anyone coming from Izreel, it was deemed wisest to run no
risk of a possible hostile demonstration.
At length the day and hour of parting came, and Dick, fully equipped for
his journey, presented himself at the palace to say farewell. The
moment was not without its emotions, for although it had already been
planned that at no very distant date Maitland should revisit Izreel,
bringing with him certain matters which Grosvenor felt it would be
highly desirable for him to possess as monarch of a people of such great
potential possibilities as the Izreelites, both remembered that the
journey from Bethalia to the nearest confines of civilisation was a long
and arduous one, bristling with perils of every imaginable kind, and who
could say that it would be accomplished in safety, or, if accomplished,
could be repeated? For life is too full of chances for a man to make
plans for the future, with any certainty that he will be able to carry
them out. Therefore, when these two adventurous sons of the most
adventurous nation on earth finally clasped hands and said their last
words of farewell, though those words were entirely cheery and
optimistic, the voices which spoke them were a little husky with
feeling, and the firm, strong hand-grip was lingering, and relaxed with
much reluctance.
Dick's ride from the palace through the town to the point of embarkation
for the mainland was one long, unbroken ovation; for there had now been
time for the people to recognise, and also to appreciate, the many fine
qualities of the young Englishman's character; realisation of the
enormous debt which they owed to him and to his friend, their new king,
had come to them, and they were as unfeignedly sorry to witness his
departure from among them as a naturally unemotional people could well
be.
As he stepped into the swift-sailing cutter which was to convey him
across to the mainland, where the wagon, already inspanned, was awaiting
him, a letter was handed to him by one of two men who had just carefully
deposited in the boat a well-filled leather portmanteau bearing
Grosvenor's initials. The letter ran thus:
"Dear old Chap,--
"The portmanteau which accompanies this note contains Myra's and my
own parting gift to you, in the shape of the finest diamonds which a
gang of twenty men have been able to extract from the newly discovered
mine during the last month. They are quite valueless to us, it is
true, but in the dear old country to which you are bound they ought,
even apart from the rubies which you are taking back, to make you one
of the most wealthy men in the world. May God grant you health and
long life to enjoy that wealth, and to employ it--as we know you
will--in ameliorating the lot of those who are worse off than
yourself! We confidently look forward to your return to Izreel in the
course of the next year or two; but should unkind fortune forbid that
return, think of us occasionally, and remember that in the far
interior of Africa there are two hearts in which your memory will be
cherished so long as life shall last.
"Yours, in undying friendship,--
"Phil."
My story is told. It only remains to add that, some six months later,
Dick Maitland arrived safely in England, with all his treasure intact,
just in time to rescue his mother from the grip of destitution that was
on the point of closing relentlessly upon her, and to place her in a
position of such absolute safety and luxury that it was months before
the dear old lady could persuade herself it was not all a tantalising
dream, from which she would sooner or later awake to again find herself
face to face with the ever-recurring, harassing, heart-breaking problem
of ways and means, and the even more painful state of anxiety and
uncertainty concerning the whereabouts of her son that had so worried
and distressed her during the past year.
As for Doctor Julian Humphreys, Dick nearly drove the good man crazy
with delight by placing to his credit at the bank a sum so stupendous
that he might have spent the rest of his days in riotous luxury, had he
so chosen. But that was not Humphreys' way at all; his heart was set
upon the relief of those who suffered the keen pangs of poverty through
no fault of their own; and he thenceforth enjoyed the pleasure of doing
good to the top of his bent, retaining his modest establishment at 19
Paradise Street, but greatly enlarging his surgery, stocking it
abundantly with every drug, instrument, and appliance that could
possibly ameliorate pain or heal disease, and continuing
enthusiastically to practise medicine and surgery among the poor,
without fee or reward of any sort, save an occasional expression of
gratitude from some more than usually appreciative patient.